Nightmare Fuel / Destiny 2

Let me help you fill this world with teeth.

"Welcome to a world without Light."

Ghaul's not joking. Things in the Sol System have gotten much, much darker. Is your Light bright enough, Guardian?

For terrifying things in the first game, go here. Unmarked spoilers ahead!

Season 1 - The Red War

• You can shoot off a Psion's helmet to finally get a peek of how they look, and it's not pretty◊. Psions appear to be a cycloptic race and seem to have large bolts drilled into their skulls or perhaps even further; both of which further implicate that they're likely a slave race to the Cabal.
• The extent of Ghaul's power and the Red Legion's plan is fully shown in the opening mission; Not only do they have the power to steal the Traveler, they can cut off the access to its Light! For perspective, this would be like ripping the Force out of a Jedi or, more accurately, taking away a lich's magical energy. When Ghaul said he would reacquaint us with death, he meant it.
• In the cutscene at the end of the "Homecoming" mission (at least in the Beta), when Ghaul's device finally envelops the Traveller in that containment field to cut off its Light, a glowing, transparent, ghost-like image of your character emerges from him/her. Visually, it looks as though your Guardian's very soul has been pulled out.
  • And then your Ghost deactivates.
  Ghost: Guardian! Something's wrong... *collapses*
• During your journey through the mountains after losing your Light, you come across a camp full of slain Guardians. If you listen in on the nearby radio chatter you'll hear other Guardians screaming for help. It really goes to show that Guardians truly have forgotten the fear of death, just like Ghaul said.
• Ghaul's number-two Cabal, the Consul, wears what appears to be a string of large beads across his chest, as well as the ATS/8 Arachnid. Upon closer investigation, one realizes those are Ghost cores. We can determine the fewest number of Guardians that have been slain in the week since the Cabal's attack...
• The Hive aren't the only ones inhabiting Titan...
  • Adding to that, during the mission "Utopia", if you stay around the area where you need to pick a CPU to decrypt Red Legion transmissions long enough, you will see the shadow of... something swimming in the methane oceans of Titan. Whether this thing is a Hive Monster or not has yet to be determined.
• New Pacific Archaeology is meant to be a sleek cutting-edge Golden Age colony the likes of which you've never seen before. But what you see in the Solarium is nothing but... emptiness. Even though the Hive managed to invade the space there's still so little of them, which makes the place even scarier.
• The Almighty. This planet sized ship is used by the Red Legion to destroy stars by eating planets. We already see it destroy one planet, and Ghaul has it pointed at our sun, with the intent to do the same.
• Someone got to look at Nessus's skybox◊ from a different angle. What got revealed is a giant fish that's so huge, Nessus is the size of a mere orange to it. Oh, and based on the concept art of said fish, it's intending to eat Nessus in one big bite. It turns out to be the Leviathan, a massive ship commanded by the exiled Cabal Emperor, as well as where your first raid takes place.
  • One of the postcard images shows an image of the giant fish flying (swimming?) through space, and it appears to have a city on its forehead. The other has an 1800s-style illustration of a smaller (but still gigantic in its own right) creature with a similar mouth swallowing a city, bulldozer-style (but with whole city blocks at a time) while a group of Cabal look on from a cliffside, seemingly worshipping either the creature or the deity/cosmic force that sent it.
  • The booklet on Cabal Lore^note actually just an account from Emperor Calus of his overthrow and a list of his enemies has a mention by Calus about his usurpers exiling him upon what he calls "Grand Leviathan". A term which should be familiar to those who dug up the lore in the original Destiny.^note Specifically, The Taken King and the Books of Sorrow
• The Taken still being around is already bad enough, but then we get the hints that someone, somehow, has managed to gain control of them, with the danger of a second Taken War being a very real possibility. That someone? Savathûn the Witch-Queen, Oryx's sister and the Evil Genius of the Hive Gods. Recall that she was last seen directing her fleet to travel into a black hole, declaring that she and her Hive would return and become stronger from the experience. Looks like she made good on that promise...
  • On top of that, she appears to be using Quria, the Vex Mind that Oryx gave to her, as a means to further coordinate their forces.
  • With Forsaken, Savathûn isn't the only Hive God starting to have a presence in the system. One of the enemies in the opening mission is an Ogre that has the title of "Blood of Xivu". Yes, as in Xivu Arath. Not only is the Witch-Queen starting to amass the Taken, but the God of War herself now likely has her forces starting to trickle in.
• The "Arecibo" Adventure sends you chasing after various Warmind nodes that are somehow playing encoded messages disguised as music, which is also somehow screwing with the Vex. Each node points to a historical quote of some sort. Your Ghost notes that all signs are pointing to Rasputin, even though the Collapse fragmented the Warmind network and Ghaul's invasion effectively put another nail in that coffin, isolating him on Earth. The end of the Adventure, however, has a chance to be terrifying. Your Ghost scans one last node, which audibly hurts him as he strains to decipher the message, a quote from Russian novelist Mikhail Bulgakov warning you to never ask for anything from one more powerful than you. Under unknown conditions, your Ghost can suddenly start making distorted screams of pain, going on a seemingly random tangent, before returning to normal without even realizing what happened, opening the very horrifying possibility that your own Ghost can get hijacked.
  Ghost: 'Never ask for anything! Never for anything, and especially from those who are stronger than you. They'll make the offer themselves, and give everything themselves.' I don't understand. Wait. Something's happening... GAH! REd sAnd! mArS! IcE CaPS! AhHhHhH! Hey! Sorry, I spaced out for a second there. What were we doing? '
• Emperor Calus' plea in the Cabal Booklet to hunt down the traitors responsible for exiling him seems to be a genuine one and paints him as a good emperor that only wants what's best for the Cabal people. He even promises to reward you personally should Ghaul, the Consul, and all of the other traitors meet their end. However, a few choice wordings throughout the booklet casts Calus in a much more ominous light, such as claiming that if only he had his "bone", he would have stopped the coup against him. Doesn't that sound familiar, o champion mine?
• The closing cutscene after the credits: a wave of Light released when the Traveler killed Ghaul is seen spreading across the Solar system, hitting all the planets, the Dreadnaught, the Reef, even going outside of the Milky Way galaxy. Unfortunately, someone else saw it. A fleet of black, pyramidal ships registered the energy wave. And you know they're going to come and investigate.
  • If you pay close attention to the early cutscenes, you'll notice that the Darkness is represented by a triangular shadow, and that dark pyramidal shapes fall into the water and descend toward you during the vision the Traveler sends you. These things, whatever they are, may be the Darkness itself.
  • Hell, the cutscene just before the credits. Ghaul might be dead by your hand, but he stole the Traveler's Light first - and like the player, he reveals himself to be an undying entity of Light, only enormous, dwarfing his own capital ship. That alone would be bad enough, but there is something clearly, obviously wrong with him. Guardians' Light forms are their basic shape, in simple, clean, and empty lines. Ghaul's, however, is someTHING more solid that looks like a cross between thick smoke and oozing slime. He might be made of Light, but he looks like he's rotting.
• The lore in the Skull of Dire Ahamkara: ""O BEARER MINE." What kind of talking skull would address its host that way? A stiff, stuck-up old fossil, not me. Ahamkara: the illusion that one's ego depends on an object, or an idea, or a body. Some people say you should have no ahamkara. Some people say you need to have the right ahamkara. All I know is that YOU are not an illusion. Understand? This world around you, the people you meet—they're a little thin, right? Cardboard and drywall. Cheap theater. Come on, try it out! Say: "I am more real than this." Feels good, doesn't it? "I am the only real person here." Isn't it like their insults and their bullets just went a little... soft? I came to find you, only you, because you're special. You're from somewhere real. And together we can burn our way back there. Can't we, o player mine?"
• Completing the adventures on Io has Asher Mir note that yes, his arm was turned into a Vex construct, and that yes, it is slowly consuming him... and that it will eventually kill him. It's also consumed his Ghost, turning her into Vex tech as well. This means that the Vex can kill Guardians without removing their Light, simply through exposure to Vex technology.
• The ultimate fate of Exodus Black's human crew: crash-landed on hostile planet barely able to survive and subjected to Vex's 'tests', including suspended platforming puzzle that ordinary human have no hope to win unless they are Guardians. Oh Captain quest cranked this up further when a non-hostile Harpy invites you into a live-fire trial against a couple dozen Minotaur and their Vex horde... Worse, Failsafe is forced to witness this for possibly hundreds of years without being able to help.
• The premise of the Strike "Savathûn's Song". Several fireteams have gone missing, which leads you to track them down in Hive territory. Halfway through, you come across strange, purple crystals that shield several Shriekers. It is not until you destroy several of these crystals that your Ghost realizes they're actually the result of the Hive forcibly ripping out the Light from Guardians (as well as their life). You've been essentially mercy-killing unfortunate Guardians, though in that respect it's the least you can do. By the end of the Strike, you failed in rescuing any of the fireteams that went dark, with the last survivor sacrificing herself to bait the titular boss.
  • One of the really scary things about this strike is the Hive's goal: They're trying to summon Savathûn to the Solar System. As if just barely fighting off Ghaul wasn't hard enough, now the Hive are trying to call the Witch-Queen to finish what Oryx started.
• Imagine what's happening in Exodus Black Strike from Failsafe's perspective: someone ripping your brain out and weaponize it while you're alive. Failsafe not expressing any distress in her voice at all does not help.
• The Leviathan Raid. Taking place on the eponymous Goliath of a starship on steroids that are on meth described earlier. This abomination outsizes Nessus beyond imagination, with the purpose of consuming such planetoids.
  • What makes this raid stand out from every other raid from the first game? Whereas those took place in dark ruined fortresses, dimensions, and labyrinths, everything on the Leviathan is made of white and golden material of some sort that blinds the eyes. It's all so absolutely pristine and pure that everything feels that much more unnatural and just plain WRONG.
  • While the Final Boss Emperor Calus is revealed to be just a robot imitation, the soldiers your fireteam have to mow down by the trillions are not. They're all ordered to fight and die in gladiatorial game just to amuse the Emperor.
    • And then you go back to the Tower and promptly discover one of the sweeper bots has been Calus' agent the entire time, watching you with regal amusement. Worse, that sweeper was the one Cayde was talking to in the trailer.

Season 2- Curse of Osiris

• Like how The Dark Below did for the Hive, Curse of Osiris is looking to bring fear of the Vex back to many Guardians. Namely, a MASSIVE Vex force, including both the Precursors and Descendants, amassing on Mercury in order to reshape the universe. If the Vault of Glass taught us anything, they could very well succeed.
  • In the game proper, Osiris gives a glimpse at the future the Vex intend to bring about: Light and Darkness are both gone, and their dominion is so total that the SUN ITSELF has been converted to Vex matter! For added spice: the universe has taken on a final, perfect shape, like the Sword Logic and the Darkness itself demand.
  • Panoptes has a dramatic, unsettlingly wild appearance, like Vex that have been crippled or are in the throes of death. Moreover, he's completely immune to anything you throw at him at all times, not just during scripted events. If not for Osiris's timely intervention he would be completely unstoppable, and defeating him requires destroying the super-equipment that grants his invincibility. The Vex have learned from Atheon's failings... and yes, Panoptes created Mercury as it is now, and should predate Atheon, but what do the Vex care for linear time?
• Lore for Future War Cult weapons mention records of simulations for humanity's future (based on acquired Vex technology) that always ended with their eventual destruction... except for ones that the Guardians intervened. Given the reality-altering nature of the Vex, how can one be sure if we aren't seeing only what the Vex want us to see?
• Speaking of the Future War Cult, there's a snippet of dialogue from an NPC in the Tower which says just enough to make you wonder about what they do...
  Female Worker: Shh! Be quiet! War Cult is everywhere.
• Hang around Well of Flame on Nessus long enough and a massive Vex Frenzied Mind will spawn out of nowhere, shooting up any Cabal or Guardian in vicinity. This will likely ended up killing one or two newbies in the process.
• The lore for the Veist exotic grenade launcher, the Colony. It starts with the designer saying Veist was inspired by watching, horrified, a person die to a Bothrops Asper bite, which cause terribly painful necrosis in its victims. The weapons are literally designed with in-universe nightmare fuel in mind. The company then decided to kick with up a notch by creating implacable robots with a literal "thirst for blood." The lore ends with the designer admitting that it's by far the most messed up thing they've invented.

Season 3 - Warmind

• After spending the base game Out of Focus and confined to a single moon, the Hive are back with a vengeance in the Warmind expansion, with an entire cult called the Grasp of Nokris emerging from beneath the surface of Mars after the ice caps began to melt. What's more, this sect are followers of Xol, one of the Virtuous Worms themselves, and they're looking to bring the Worm God to the Solar System. Savathûn was one thing, this is on a whole different level...
  • Bring, nothing. It was here all along.
  • Yes, you read the name correctly. Nokris, the mysterious Hive entity that not even Eris Morn could find any information on, is connected to the cult and screenshots of a particularly large Hive that bears an UNCANNY resemblance to Oryx seems to confirm that Nokris does indeed still exist and is leading this force.
• Prior to the launch of Warmind, several "Narrative Preview" stories were uploaded on Bungie's site to set the stage for the DLC's events. One of them, "Apocrypha", details how Xol, knowing that Yul would one day abide by the Sword Logic and turn his fangs onto him, made a pact with a lone Hive child, one that was "cursed", discarded by their father, and had their name erased from the World's Grave, and left with them to find a new world that they would rule together. It is all but outright stated that the child was Nokris. This begs the question as to why Oryx, who deeply loved his family, from his sisters, to his daughters and Crota, and even Alak-Hul, would outright ABANDON Nokris and practically Un-person them by erasing all traces of them from Hive history?
  • Playing through the DLC explains why, all right. Nokris communed with the Worm God Xol and gained the power of Necromancy, a power heretical to the Hive as it can bring back that which is truly dead. Meaning he could, if he wanted to, bring back Oryx and Crota and anything else that You killed in the past that may want to return the favour. Sure you kill both him and Xol at the end of the DLC, but you have to wonder: are they actually gone? Are they really dead? Or are they merely biding their time in the Deep, waiting to come back?
  • Pay close attention to the descriptors used in Yul's proclamation, with him boasting of his "scales that shine with an oppressive gleam" and "wings, which create winds that sweep through the stars". Doesn't that sound less like a Worm and a lot more like a Wyrm?
• The lore for Claws of Ahamkara
  The mind is malleable, filled with transient and fleeting ideas. Let us shape it, so that you may see the infinite splendor of the universe.
  
  It's suffocating here, this prison. Do us a favor, o bearer ours. Still your mind; invite us to enter the realm of your capricious thoughts. Your mind is vociferous, addled with worry and doubt. We can extinguish these trifles. Would you like that?
  
  Yes, we are here. We are not the photons on your screen, or the voice in your head, or the words you read. Shut your eyes—tightly—and you may see us. At least a part of us. Make us real, and in turn we shall reify your thoughts, your dreams.
• A hidden quest, "The Whisper" was discovered, leading the players to find the Whispers of the Worm sniper rifle. As well as the more literal, menacing whispers of a different worm. Xol is still alive. In fact, you killing him, and so demonstrating the Sword-Logic, made him stronger.
  • The Whisper of the Worm's in-game description is as follows: "A Guardian's power makes a rich feeding ground. Do not be revolted. There are parasites that may benefit the host... teeth sharper than your own."

Season 4 - Forsaken / Season of the Outlaw

• With Forsaken, the return trip to the Reef is not going to be a pleasant one on account of a massive prison break occurring. Not only are some of the most vile individuals from the Prison of Elders now free, but a nihilisitc Fallen cult known as the Scorn are behind the disaster. Their leaders, the Scorned Barons, make Skolas look like a puppy in comparison.
  • The story trailer for Forsaken begins with a close up of Cayde's face, with a damaged cheek. Then the camera turns to the right, showing Cayde's ghost who then turns to face whatever Cayde's looking at, and gets shot by an off-screen assailant. Then the camera turns around again, and we see Fallen closing on Cayde, until the camera comes to a stop to a hooded figure leading the Fallen in front of Cayde. The hooded figure turns his head to face Cayde, who is revealed to be Prince Uldren, who proceeds to shoot Cayde in the head with his own gun, the Ace Of Spades. The trailer then ends with the Prince leading the Fallen to a portal. Holy shit.
  • The opening mission throws you right into the chaos of the prison break. The Prison of Elders is in shambles and the Fallen, Cabal, and Hive are warring with one another, though they are all too happy to turn their attention to you.
  • Hell, the Scorn, along with the Scorned Barons themselves, are scary enough. Undead Fallen who keep coming back from the dead repeatedly is bad enough, but their body starts to mutate with each resurrection. The Screebs and Abominations are by and far the worst cases of the mutations, the former reduced to feral kamikazes, and the latter are Ogre-like Fallen that shoot electrically charged Dark Ether.
• The Scorned Barons are each terrifying. To elaborate:
  • Fikrul, the Fanatic, is the first of the Barons and the Archon of the Scorn. A former Archon of the House of Wolves who rejected the Traveler, he is the one who made the Scorn into what they are now, and he intends to let all Eliksni share the same fate to "evolve" them. And it is unknown if he can truly die due to him discovering his power.
  • Elykris, the Machinist, is huge, and she has a missile battery strapped on her back which she uses to destroy any unlucky foe if they do not notice.
  • Kaniks, the Mad Bomber, is a total lunatic and textbook example of a Psychopathic Manchild. Only believing in destroying everything in his path, he will use any and all variety of explosives to do the job - all while taunting you like a bratty five-year-old.
  • Pirrha, the Rifleman, is a cold, calculating sniper who watches the back of the other Barons. And he has the knowledge to kill Guardians permanently by targeting their Ghosts, as Cayde found out the hard way. He can also use decoys of himself to distract opponents to get their heads shot off.
  • Araskes, the Trickster, isn't one for fighting, because she's afraid of it. What she does have, however, is a sharp tongue and excellent trapping skills. She is often the Barons' envoy, and their first strike, manipulating who she is dealing with into infighting because it amuses her.
  • Yaviks, the Rider, is the main offensive commander to the Scorn. She leads a pike gang to do the heavy fighting first, then leaving the Barons to do the rest. But she and her gang will return to finish the job in wiping their foes and leaving a burning wasteland behind.
  • Reksis Vahn, the Hangman, is a sadistic monster to the other Fallen. He painfully extracts Ether from them to give to the weaker Scorn and his Baron comrades. He also has a twisted interest in torturing Servitors, the very objects the Fallen worship. He was abandoned as a child, possibly because his parents saw what a monster he would become. Or he's a monster because he was abandoned.
  • However, the worst of them has to be Hiraks, the Mindbender. Once a Dreg who fell in the Hellmouth, he emerged driven mad by the Hive's knowledge. He studied the Hive so well he managed to forge his own Ascendant Realm and command his own Hive sect. How did he build said Ascendant Realm, you ask? From Cayde's death. Hiraks is also a master manipulator, using his powers to manipulate others' minds and turn them against their friends.
• Bungie released a new trailer that shows Cayde-6 and his encounter with the Scorned Barons, and how he is killed off. When Cayde is standing his ground against the Scorn, one of the Barons, Pirrha silently and stealthily climbs up to get a sniping position. After the minor Scorn were slain and Cayde talks to his Ghost, Pirrha instantly fires his rifle, destroying Cayde's Ghost. After the Baron has done that, they began to approach the now-mortal Cayde. Cayde weakly aims his Ace of Spades at another Scorned Baron, Reksis Vahn, who them smacks Cayde into a wall, likely finishing him off. After a cut to black, Reksis stares at the hole he made, Cayde's Ace of Spades falling on the ground as the sound muffles. If you don't hate the Barons now, you most likely would after viewing the trailer.
• "Shadow on a Wall" gives us a good look as to just how far gone the Shadows of Yor are. After spending a long time waiting for his target to show up, Shin Malphur overhears the man and his Ghost arguing heatedly, with her saying that he's gone too far in his actions. Shin notes that the fact that she kept using his real name, Callum, showed that she still cared about him and thought that there was still hope. Then she screams, because Callum just drove a dagger made from one of Thorn's rounds into her optics, killing her. Needless to say, there wasn't much left of the man after Shin was done with him.
  • This is also eerily reminiscent of the final conversation between Dredgen Yor and his own Ghost. While the Ghost insisted on using Yor's true name, Rezyl Azzir, and still believed that he was the good man and hero he once was, the fallen Guardian denied otherwise and threatened to kill his Ghost if he did not leave for his own good.
  • Thankfully, we later learn from a lore book that Shin Malphur and Callum faked the audio log, with Callum's Ghost still being alive, and that Callum is able to be brought back, his current death to act as a warning to Guardians who wield the Darkness from going too far or they will be put down like Callum, who was better known as Dredgen Cull, was.
• While Gambit is no doubt an entertaining gamemode, there's absolutely no denying the fact that the Drifter is a) a renegade Hunter who is wanted by the Vanguard, b) he's implied to be a Shadow of Yor, and c) lore-wise, Gambit basically consists of trafficking densely-packaged Darkness for the Drifter. While this is mitigated somewhat by the fact that he's bait to draw out and bring the rest of the Shadows to justice, it doesn't help any when you remember that under the smooth-talking persona is an outlaw who repeatedly tells you to "embrace the Darkness" and experience "what the Taken feel."^note As an aside, Taken are subjected to Mind Rape until they are in a state of constant ecstasy from their torture, their augmentations being An Offer You Can't Refuse of some sort. Yeah...
• Closely inspecting the name of one of the Ogres during the campaign of Forsaken will offer the terrifying possibility that Xivu Arath is returning, and has started to command Hive under her name as well.
  • Any ambiguity is violently removed in "Broken Courier": throughout the mission you face several Hive and Taken, culminating in a fight against a second Chimera: Xaras, The Greed of Xivu Arath.
• The final boss of Forsaken is nothing short of terrifying for fightable creatures in the Destiny universe. It's the Voice of Riven, the last of the Ahamkaras. It appears that being Taken enabled her to more aggressively corrupt people like Uldren, conjuring more convincing delusions like those of Mara Sov within Uldren's psyche and eventually summoning malevolent physical entities like the Voice to finish the job. As for the Voice itself, it's a huge writhing mass of Scorn flesh with a maw in the center, plated with Servitor armor and sprouting tons of Darkness-infused tentacles. This... thing tries to eat Uldren after he does everything according to Riven's plans, but is successfully shot down. Nonetheless, the fact still remains that the Guardians will now have to defeat an Ahamkara who has broken free of all of their flaws, if any are there to begin with, and is more likely to pull out all the stops to turn people to their side. And keep in mind that she can still grant wishes...
• In the Ascendant Realm, you can encounter and listen to Toland the Shattered at random locations. Pretty much all that he says is either horrifying or disturbing in their implications. He questions the Player's perception of certain things like comparing a Ghost to an Oversoul, along with revealing facts about our enemies such as Quria can now simulate the power to Take and that the Xol we killed on Mars wasn't Xol but a trick by the Worm God; he even mocks us for believing we could have so easily killed what the Hive call a god. However, it's clear some of these are mere tricks, especially as later Rhulk, Disciple of the Witness, who subjugated the Worm Gods and was far beyond them, was later killed.
• The entirety of Forsaken so far has been one giant gambit by Savathûn. After making her wish, by having us kill Riven in the Last Wish raid, then charge the Blind Well, and then travel into The Shattered Throne and kill Dûl Incaru, we have created a three-week long time loop that will feed Savathûn functionally (if not literally) infinite power. We can't break the loop without allowing Savathûn to Take the Dreaming City completely and all the power and technology hidden there, do the same with the Awoken home realm of the Distributary, ruin our alliance with the Reef and give her a base to attack the Solar System from. Likewise, continuing the loop is only going to provide her with more and more power until she succeeds Oryx in strength and keeps going. In short, this is the first move Savathûn has made against us and we are already in checkmate, showing how much of a horrifying genius she is. And what does Savathûn call this idea? The Murder Battery.
  • With the reset, we get a better look at the Loop details; specifically how other people react to it. Everyone remembers and realises that things are back to how they were three weeks ago, undoing all the progress made at defeating the corruption. So already we can begin to understand just how seemingly hopeless it is if all our progress gets undone every reset. But it gets worse. A dead Corsair come back to life, remembering her death. She tries to avoid it... but can't. When she tries to make a different decision, her body act on its own, repeating the same actions that got her killed. When a Techeun tries to warn her, her throat gets caught, "Like a clawed fist was constricting around my throat". Which means that not only do those who survive have to see their progress undone each loop, but those who die are forced to carry out their own death sequence each and every time, fully aware of it and unable to do anything but watch themselves die like some form of nightmare. Even if they completely give up, they would be compelled to go die again and again while those around them can do nothing to prevent it. An infinite cycle of not only death, but despair. With this causal Loop, Savathûn not only cements herself as an unparalleled genius, but also as a horrific sociopath.
• The lore book "Marasenna", detailing the origins of the Awoken, has a scene where one of the astronauts onboard one of Earth's colony ships gets shot through the head by a frozen rabbit embryo, implied to have come from a destroyed science facility. All because he was outside the ship when it was traveling at near-light speeds.

Season 6 - Joker's Wild / Season of the Drifter

• They seem benign, but with the Season of the Drifter lore, we finally understand just how alien the Nine are: they're dark matter based lifeforms that are already designing organic bodies to explore our universe. Or invade it.
• In the mission “Zero Hour”, you return to the old, now-abandoned Tower that was destroyed by Ghaul’s invasion. The mission is initially just a little eerie, as you progress through the ruins of the Tower hunting House of Devil loyalists, while probably wondering how many Guardians died in those halls during the Red War. The whole is creepily quiet, almost giving a haunted house vibe. Then you reach maze section in the lower Hangar and come face-to-face with TR3-VR, at which point things take a turn for the terrifying. It's this robotic thing that runs along the maze path, crushing and shredding any Guardians not quick enough to get into a safe spot while blaring some loud, indescribable noise and moving at lightning-fast speeds. It apparently used to part of the Tower’s automated security systems, but has now gone crazy and attacks anything that crosses its path. Even worse if your first encounter with TR3-VR is from behind, as you'll suddenly notice the sound of metallic stomps and a red light appearing behind you, and the dreadful realization that you're being chased to your doom rapidly sets in.
  • What’s even worse is the hints that this isn’t the first time TR3-VR’s gone wrong. You’ll sometimes hear ambient dialogue talking about how occasionally kids will foolishly sneak into the Tower and get lost in the sprawling, ancient walls and corridors, sometimes never being found. With the reveal of TR3-VR, the implication seems to be that those unlucky kids that were never found stumbled into places where this thing patrols and got killed by it.

Season 7 - Penumbra / Season of Opulence

• In the "Chronicon", one of Emperor Calus' feats of paracausal gluttony is eating a tiny bead of neutronium. This doesn't sound like much until you realize that, in real life, a pea-sized fragment of the substance (which neutron stars are said to be composed of), weighs 1 QUADRILLION TONS. One of his attendants remarks that it should have torn through him like fog. To top it all off, Calus claims that it tasted like the thickest fudge.

Season 8 - Shadowkeep / Season of the Undying

• Shadowkeep's reveal trailer has Eris Morn quietly lamenting about some dark and dangerous force that even she has no comprehension of, and we're treated to alternating images of barely-visible, but familiar entities advancing towards the screen while completely shrouded in darkness, making us wonder just what it is that Eris is talking about. As if that weren't enough, the title card the teaser ends on looks more like something from a horror movie.
  • Bungie expands a little in their reveal livestream as to what's happening on the Moon. Something in the Moon, in this new Scarlet Spire, is resurrecting old Nightmares of Guardians' past. They still don't tell you what, or who, is causing this, but they reveal the reasoning behind this idea; they thought about how to subvert their formula and what would be both terrifying for both Guardians and players for this expansion. The answer they decided: enemies you can't kill.
  • And its not limited to the Moon, either. Just like the Prison of Elders escapees back in Forsaken, the Nightmare has spread to the Lost Sectors throughout the system, empowering and infecting the champions therein while creating nightmarish visions just out of the corner of your eye...
• After weeks of anxiously wondering what caused the Nightmares to come into existence, the players finally found out at the end of the first mission: a Pyramid like ones seen in The Stinger of the main campaign. And everything about it is pure Nightmare Fuel
  • The sheer horrifying power of the Darkness' physical forms is revealed in Shadowkeep. The Hive managed to find a bit of it within the Moon and helped it unleash its full paracausual nature to create Nightmares, literal embodiments of the fear and regret the Guardians have regarding their previous foes. That physical form? A derelict, badly damaged, nonfunctioning advance scout drone of the Pyramids. If a dead scout can be used to summon immortal avatars of evil, what are the operating battleships able to do? And what can the mothership, which is strongly implied to be the Darkness Itself, do with this power?
  • Even worse, the level where you finally try to fight your way inside is structured so you see a platform path leading down to it. You get about halfway down and the damn thing gets impatient and drags you inside. You were never forcing your way in, the door was unlocked. The strongest Guardian ever known getting inside was the thing's plan all along.
  • In the end mission of the normal story content, you enter the Pyramid... and it does the same to your Ghost. You spend the entire last mission with the Darkness itself using your Ghost to tempt you away from the Light, in an eerie, distorted tone.
  • Throughout the pyramid you find pathways that look like you can go down them to avoid one of the Nightmare boss fights, only for the Darkness to violently throw you backwards into the hallway. You’re in its house now and you will play by its twisted rules. It really reinforces just how utterly at its mercy you are, that it could kill you whenever it felt like it.
  • When you finally reach the end, you're given a vision that finds you in the Black Garden, the skies above filled with Pyramid ships. The Darkness appears to you, wearing your face as it tells you it will soon answer your cries for help.
    Guardian: ...Who are you?
    Darkness Guardian: (sounding genuinely surprised) Don't you recognize us? We are not your friend. We are not your enemy. We are your... salvation.
  • Parts of the ship's interior have red lights that sometimes look like 2 beady, glowing red eyes staring at you from the abyss. It adds to the unsettling nature of where you are.
• After the puzzle that came from the Collector's Edition of Shadowkeep was solved, it revealed five lore entries. The implications of these entries are beyond disturbing. It appears as though the Hive are trying to resurrect Oryx using a method similar to the one used by Oryx himself to resurrect Savathûn and Xivu Arath.
• A month after Shadowkeep's release, players who had beaten the campaign were greeted by an additional cutscene upon logging in, which makes almost everything else on this list look like candy. Eris Morn is seen interacting with a statue inside the Pyramid, which clouds her green orb with Darkness. At first she is alarmed by this and backs away, but then goes back at it with full resolve. She then turns around to face the camera, and the scene ends with a shot of her smiling.
• The aptly-named "Revelations" lore book drops one of the most disturbing reveals of the entire game: the Clovis Bray K1 facility (the Lost Sectors you've been exploring to fill out the lore tabs) discovered during the Golden Age an identical artefact to the one you find in the Pyramid.
  • If you were paying attention to the Grimoire cards in the first game, you might recognize the name of the site. K1 is the same as the Crucible map Anomaly from the first game. The titular anomaly was sealed up by the expedition because it was driving everyone in the facility insane, and you've been fighting other Guardians there nonstop...
  • The Grimoire card for the Anomaly has a Warlock telling a Hunter how a Titan once punched the Anomaly. Nothing happened, but exactly twenty-four hours later, a Warsat landed on her head. The Titan was revived by her Ghost, but she never touched the Anomaly again. While it could be a coincidence, it's clear that this was a warning from Rasputin: DO! NOT! TAP! THE! GLASS!
• In the "Garden of Salvation" Raid, we're reminded once again of how freaky the general atmosphere of the impossible Black Garden is. But this time, the denizens of said Garden are just as disturbing. Upon entering, we're treated to the sight of a weird, fleshy looking Harpy devouring a Minotaur. Later on, we meet a similar creature as the final boss. The Consecrated and Sanctified Minds are utterly alone in their designs as huge, eldritch variations of existing Vex. And what's worse is that we never learn how or why they look like this or why they seem to be eating their fellows.
• However, the meaning of the twin Minds names and the presence of the pyramid scale does give credence to one popular theory: That they are Vex minds exposed and meant to utilize the potent paracausal power of the pyramid scale, to empower their fellow Vex.
  • Consecrated means having been made or declared sacred. Sanctified means to set apart to a sacred purpose or to religious use. As the only thing that the Vex consider "holy" is the Darkness, the theory looks more and more accurate, meaning that the minotaur you saw in the beginning? The Consecrated Mind wasn't trying to devour it, it was trying to change it, just like the Sanctified Mind.
  • Imagine if it had succeeded? An entire army of "sanctified" Vex against the Last City? Would we be up to it?

Season 9 - Season of the Dawn

• While the Fallen today are generally considered one of the less threatening enemy factions of the Guardians, the Season of Dawn reveals that this was very much not always the case. When they first arrived in the Sol system, their desperation to reclaim the Traveler's Light caused them to swarm over and massacre countless humans in horrifically brutal ways. Saint-14 reveals that even the lowly Dredges were killing machines back then, distinctly describing an instance of them slaughtering and eating children! Its hard to blame the guy for his Irrational Hatred of them.
• Throughout the Exploring the Corridors of Time quest that Osiris gives you during the Season of Dawn, you traverse the same twisting web of Vex time gates that let you reach the past and save Saint-14. After each successful traversal, you reach a Timelost Vault, in which you see a tomb. Every time you try to get close enough to read the inscription, you're zapped away. Finally, after completing the final path, you get right up to it and start hearing Saint-14's voice giving a eulogy. To you. The tomb is yours.

Season 10 - Season of the Worthy

• In Season of the Worthy, the Red Legion are completely done. They lost Ghaul and the Consul, they lost Ca'uor and the opportunity to seize the Leviathan, they lost their entire command structure over the course of nearly three years, and they lost their chance to undo all of their failures with the Sundial. Now, they have nothing left to lose and are resorting to one last act of spite: crashing the Almighty right on top of the Last City.
  Ana: It's almost like they want this thing to drift off into space forever.
  Zavala: (looking at a hologram of Earth) ...not forever.
• The "Remembrance" lore entry ends by retroactively making the "Lord Timur" entry from the first game terrifying. The latter entry was a quiet, seemingly heartwarming piece in which Timur and Felwinter discuss the nature of Warminds and Exos, with Timur affirming the friendship and trust he feels for Felwinter. The former entry retells that story from Felwinter's perspective, revealing that throughout the whole conversation, Felwinter was planning to murder Timur and frame the Fallen for his death. He briefly thought Timur knew too much about Felwinter's true nature, and the only reason he didn't go through with it was because Timur said something that made clear he knew nothing. The lore book The Liar that became available with the Felwinter's Lie weapon quest revealed why Felwinter was so cagey about his past. While Felwinter did not remember his past, he had found himself targeted for death by the Warmind Rasputing from the moment he was first risen. Imagine a life constantly on the run from a near-all-seeing intelligence that can drop satellites on you with pinpoint accuracy, never knowing why it wanted you dead. No wonder Felwinter worried about someone exposing him.
• Also in Season of the Worthy, after all the Seraph Bunkers are activated, Zavala decides demands Rasputin to convince him about whether the Warmind understands the stakes on the Almighty. Rasputin is silent for a moment. But then shows Zavala and us a hologram of the solar system. And just on the outer reach of it, a bit beyond Pluto... are the Pyramids, almost in the solar system.
  • What's more is that each week, a wall within each of Rasputin's bunkers detailing the Solar System updates and shows us how many of these ships are coming. More ships appear each week and by the end of the season, there are more than 50 ships heading towards Earth and they have already reached Saturn.

Season 11 - Season of Arrivals

The entire premise of the Season of Arrivals is the moment of horror that the story has been building up to since Day One of Destiny: the Darkness, in the form of the Pyramids of the Black Fleet, has finally returned. Then we get into the specific examples listed below:

• Remember how last season, we were told that the Pyramids are at Saturn? Well, guess what? They're here. On Io, on Titan, on Mercury, on Mars - everywhere. Hope you brought enough guns with you, Guardian!
  • Though as the Pyramids tell you through Ghost, it's unnecessary:
    Darkness: You bring weapons. You will not need them.
• The opening cutscene for the Season is a horrifically casual display of the power of the Darkness:
  • As Ana Bray watches a hologram of the Pyramid moving through the Solar System, she activates a console to direct Rasputin to fire the warsat array at the Pyramid. With the Destiny community having previously seen Rasputin blow the Almighty out of the sky a few days earlier, it's assumed this will be one hell of an opening shot. After the blast hits, the Pyramid disappears. Ana smiles in confidence...and then the Pyramid reappears, closer to the planet than it previously was. The opening shot from Rasputin didn't even phase the Pyramid.
  • As Ana tries to activate more warsats, Rasputin's core on Mars suddenly blinks out, then the lights in Mindlab: Rasputin shut off one by one. Given that we know Rasputin shut himself down to escape the Darkness during the Collapse, it's easy to assume he just did it again. But a briefing by Zavala reveals that wasn't the case: the Pyramids disabled Rasputin so that he wouldn't interfere again. Rasputin is the pinnacle of Golden Age technology, able to lock out Ghosts, pieces of the Traveler, contend with the Vex Hive Mind, was deemed a threat by the Gods of the Hive, and only days earlier blew the pinnacle of the Cabal war machine to smitherens. The Pyramids simply turned Rasputin off like a common computer, not because he was a threat, but because the Darkness viewed Rasputin as an annoyance.
• On every world that the Pyramids reach, the music in the patrol zones changes subtly. It's still predominately each planet's respective patrol music, but there are elements mixed into it of "Salvation" — the Darkness' theme from Shadowkeep.
• One of the possible conversations between the Drifter and Eris Morn after completing a Contact public event casts a far less humorous light on the conversation between Shaxx and Saint-14 from Season of Dawn. The "'lil ditty" that Shaxx sung, claiming he heard it from Eris Morn? ("I'm on the moon. / It's made of cheese.") Eris says it's "Savathûn's song. It's a viral chant. It can never be unheard." Eris implies that Shaxx picked it up from the Ahamkara skull he keeps by his spot in the Tower, noting also that since Savathûn revealed herself, artifacts of the Darkness have begun to awaken across the system. The implications of Lord Shaxx having been somehow "infected" by Savathûn are disturbing, to say the least.
  • The "viral chant" has also effectively spread into the game itself as well as outside it. Shaxx's 'lil ditty is sung to the tune of the Shadowkeep main theme, meaning players are hearing it every time they start up the game, and before the revelation of the song's sinister origins, players had been singing along to it.
  • The lore for the Exotic sidearm Traveler's Chosen makes it so much worse: the Ahamkara skull isn't just an artifact of the Darkness. It's a listening device Savathûn has been using to spy on the Tower since the Red War, if not longer. Specifically, she was ready to interfere with any messages the Traveler sent to Zavala. Shaxx was infected with Savathûn's song, and he was merely collateral damage.
• The Tree of Silver Wings is a beautiful thing... at least when the season opens. A few weeks later, however, the upper branches of the Tree are now covered in the same patterned dark matter that spreads on the ground beneath the Pyramid Scales in Contact public events, showing that the Pyramid above the Cradle has begun affecting the growth of the Tree, corrupting it with Darkness.
• After defeating Nokris in the final Interference mission, Ghost and Eris Morn chat about how they have achieved a victory for the Light in permanently killing Nokris. Eris prepares to open a portal to bring you out of the Ascendant Realm...and then you find yourself forcefully teleported inside the Pyramid floating above the Cradle! You're in a room filled with statues of Guardians, Hive, Fallen, and Cabal, all standing before a stone representation of a Pyramid floating in the air. Ghost is instantly taken over, without a chance to even protest. There are hallways leading out, but like the Pyramid on the Moon, clouds of black smoke prevent you from leaving. You are in the belly of the beast now, and you will listen to what the Darkness has to say.
  Darkness: Ancient power awaits you on Europa.
• The end of season event. All Guardians are notified by their Ghosts of a signal coming from the Traveler, akin to a Ghost. To the joy of everyone, they see the Traveler slowly, but surely, piecing itself back together. Then it cuts to the Director...and you see Io, Titan, Mercury and Mars all fade into the shadows. No scene of them being destroyed, no showy display of something happening to the planets, nothing. They're just... gone.
  Error Message: The Light cannot save you. Seek us out on Europa.

Season 12 - Beyond Light / Season of the Hunt

• The start of Beyond Light has Zavala speak to the populace of the city, specifically about their concerns with Io, Titan, Mercury and Mars. The last we saw of them was when they were faded into darkness when Season of Arrivals ended. They weren't destroyed, consumed or utterly dominated by the Darkness or any other hostile force the Vanguard has dealt with. It's worse. The planets disappeared. That includes everyone that stayed behind on those planets, including Asher Mir and Commander Sloane.
• The Deep Stone Crypt is positively dripping with Nightmare Fuel:
  • Once you get inside the Crypt, which is after getting past a harrowing blizzard, you enter the room Clarity Control and find out what it really is: a statue of the Darkness like the ones found in the Pyramids and the Black Garden. This alone would be horror inducing, given the Mysterious Logbook in Beyond Light states Clovis found it well into the Golden Age, meaning the Darkness had been in the Solar System before the Collapse, but when you go by the statue, the damned thing begins whispering to you.
  • During the story campaign, Eramis had dispatched her lieutenant Atraks to the Crypt to "prepare the body". When you finally find Atraks, you see she has converted herself into an Exo. It's easy to assume that this was the "body" Eramis was referring to, but it turns out she's doing the final touches on a pod holding the body. The cryopod vents gas, opens up...and out pops a resurrected Taniks the Scarred, roaring like some animal. When Atraks points out the Young Wolf, the Guardian who killed him twice, is on the other side of the glass, Taniks looks, lets out a roar of pure rage, and charges the glass, managing to crack it by repeated punches. Unable to get through, Taniks scuttles up the wall to find something to kill you with while Atraks teleports out. Good thing you brought your best weapons, Guardian. You're going to need them.
    • Atraks in particular is pretty disturbing. The lore tab of the exotic Hunter helmet Mask of Bakris reveals that when Atraks uploaded her consciousness into an Exo body, she rejected her new form so drastically that in order to help adjust to her new form, she tore and cut the face off of her own organic body.
  • By the time you go to face Taniks, the Crypt's AI, later revealed to be Clovis Bray I, decides he has had enough and tries to drop the Morning Star, the space station above the Crypt, down on Europa, which will destroy the moon in a nuclear firestorm. If you successfully manage to survive the first encounter with Taniks, the good news is that you disabled the nuclear cores in the Morning Star, saving Europa. The bad news? You're still on a space station whose orbit has decayed to the point that it's undergoing violent atmospheric reentry, and you have about a minute to get to a bunker in the station that will just barely protect you from the impact. Start running, Guardians.
  • Once you emerge from the rubble of the Morning Star, you discover that Taniks survived, and has bonded his upper body with a Heavy Shank to begin attacking you. To top it off, you still need to disable nuclear cores that he drops so you don't get blown up, all while he summons lackeys to attack you, calls down void meteors, and summons a whirling lightning field during his damage phase. And even when you finally defeat him and take his head, it's unclear if that's his actual final death or if he'll come back again later. What in the Traveler's name does it take to kill this thing?
• Clovis Bray's logbook is chock full of Nightmare Fuel:
  • One entry is Clovis theorizing about the reason why the Traveler avoided some planets in its terraforming spree, to quote, "Did the Traveler bypass Europa and Titan and Enceladus out of respect for their native life? Or was it afraid to touch the things pulsating below the ice?"
  • Some entries reveal Clovis' most twisted aspects. In them, it is revealed that Clovis' ego and desire for perfection extended towards his familial lineage as well as himself, as he genetically edited his own son in order to make him "flawless".
    • Later editing to remove the need for sleep would end up dooming Clovis II to an early grave brought on by "fatal prion insomnia", which would be untreatable through gene therapy as Clovis II's immune system was made "hypervigilant" by his father's tampering.
    • In an effort to save him however, Clovis I uploaded his son to Exomind, but due to unresolved problems that inevitably led to the degeneration of early-generation exominds, Clovis II's mind deteriorated to a point where his strenuous, involuntary movements tore his own chassis apart. A Vex-corrupted copy of Maya Sundaresh describes him in his final days as "just paramuscle and soft membrane, writhing in its cradle. When you were done with him, he looked like nothing more than a slug, Clovis. A twisted, limbless giblet."
    • Clovis II also describes the exact nature of the “Clovis Curse” in horrifying detail to his granddaughter Elisabeth, “ First: insomnia. Panic, hallucination, and fear. Extended hypnagogia and the loss of all dreams. You will sweat and your eyes will dwindle to points. You will go into menopause. You will try anti-prion treatments and gene therapy to correct the mutation, but your enhanced immunity will protect the very flaw that is killing you... Within two years, you will be entirely unable to sleep. Dementia and wasting will follow. You will be dead by then, but the husk you leave behind will continue to live, sustained by machines, unable even to dream of a time when it was Elisabeth Bray.”
  • Clovis I describe the first major obstacle in the production of exominds as the "loop/billboard/crash" cycle. While this sounds like harmless technobabble, bear in mind that these are human minds we are talking about here.
    • The "Loop" part of the cycle is exactly what it says it is. Prototype exominds would begin to repeat similar conversations and action schemes. Starting with high-level social behaviors, through cognitive programs like memory recall and task selection, and finally into basic motor functions. The mid-stage symptoms were pacing, chewing, rocking, grunting, striking limbs against walls or furniture, and facial tics. While this initially just seems like a nuisance, if not a troubling problem, Clovis I explains that this is a result of depressed activity in the higher brain. Without input from the prefrontal cortex, the basal ganglia stops selecting new motor programs. The eventual result is athetosis: a disorder characterized by slow, involuntary writhing motions of the limbs, digits, neck, and tongue. Early exobodies (like the one used by Clovis II) without governors on their paramuscle, could tear themselves apart due to these involuntary motions. Imagine slowing forgetting who you are, and then ripping your self apart out of habit.
    • The "Billboard" part of cycle is a bit different, if not equally terrifying. Clovis I describes it as the death of exoneurons in the neural correlates of consciousness in the midbrain. This causes the exomind to become a sort of philosophical zombie. As Clovis I states, "I have had the uncanny experience of holding a long, emotional conversation with an uploaded woman, only to discover that she was unconscious".
    • The “Crash” part of the cycle is also exactly what it says it is. It’s the eventual brain-death of the exomind, where it completely shuts down and becomes, essentially, a walking corpse; propelled by nothing more than muscle-memory and habit, the exomind, once a person mind you, has now suffered through something akin to a horrific brand of ALS and Alzheimer’s, which has stripped them of all that they are.
  • When Clovis I encountered "Clarity Control" (aka the Darkness), he attempted to move it like he did with the K1 Artifact. However, this led to some horrifying results as Clovis himself puts it, "Disaster at the worksite. Clearly we will not be moving Clarity Control like we did the K1 artifact. It reacted violently to the attempt. I have entered 19 casualties into the log, since 19 engineers from the Hannu team were caught in its reaction...though there were many more than 19 bodies when it was finished."
  • In order to obtain a Vex for his exomind project, Clovis I did… something, that activated certain “assets” within or near Venus and/or the Ishtar Collective. This resulted in the release of all their Vex specimens which immediately went into “expand-and-exploit” mode as Clovis calls it. That’s right folks, Clovis unleashed murderous time-warping murderbots on innocent people just for the sake of his own ego.
  • The first exominds were far from perfect; after initially suffering from the “loop/billboard/crash” problem, which was alike unto a very nefarious brain disease, they suffered from the secondary problem of Dissociative Exomind Rejection Disorder, or DER.
    • When Clovis finally managed to implant human intelligence into an exomind and stave off the “loop/billboard/crash” problem, he thought we would be free from the “weaknesses” of hunger, thirst, breathing, sleeping, and dreaming, as the exominds robotic body would have no “shortage or accumulation of poisons to trigger them”. However, this turned out to be the problem.
    • Turns out, no digestion, no breath, no heartbeat, and no sense of interoceptive health are all signs of death, which the exomind’s human brains interpreted as such. This created DER, a disorder similar to the Cotard Delusion, causing the early exos to believe that their new bodies were, as Clovis I puts it, “an alien or necrotic form that must be cut away. And if you believe that you are sewn into a corpse, it is only natural to go mad with fear.” Imagine all those prototype Exos, sitting in their little cells in the Braytech facilities, slowing going crazy from the belief that they are trapped in corpses, and cannot be freed.
  • It is greatly implied in certain lore sources and even suggested by other members of the Bray Clan that Clovis I used his own son as a prototype for the exomind project and faked Elisabeth Bray’s diagnosis in order to use her as a test case for his own upload.
    • Clovis himself even admits that he is afraid that when he is uploaded, a flawed copy of him will alter his legacy forever, even going so far as to out right state that this would be unacceptable and that, “Elisabeth will have to go first.” The aforementioned quote is delivered in as its own paragraph, punctuating the chilling implications of the previous implied evidence.
• Thorn is gone, but the Mark of the Devourer is still out there being used for evil. Why? Because Warlock Jana-14 was testing its effects with the original gun before Shin tossed it out for the Young Wolf to create Lumina with. At first, she was disgusted by the Mark's poison, but then it nicked a Lightless human. Suddenly, the slow and agonizing death by the Mark was now beautiful when going from animals to people, and Jana wanted more. Soon, she was rigging Thorn to "accidentally discharge" on other coworkers, collecting test results to satisfy her Dark-empowered ego. We learn about the mess through the Necrotic Grip gauntlets, which reflects poorly on what it was probably meant to be used for, especially since it also juices up Thorn copies.

Season 13 - Season of the Chosen

• Two words: Exo-Cabal. When explaining to the Guardians about how the Red Legion are attempting to gain Caiatl's favor, Saladin mentions that one of the Cabal is on Europa and wants to augment himself and his fellow Cabal with technology from one of the Exo facilities. We saw how terrifying an Exo-Fallen was with Atraks. No one wants to see what a bunch of warmongers like the Cabal can do if they went Exo.
• The quest Presage is a sudden dose of horror in the midst of a season focused on pure action. To elaborate:
  • You start the quest by picking up an innocent Guardian distress signal that's being broadcast to the Cabal in the EDZ. It isn't clear why it's traveled there until you meet with Zavala and follow the coordinates embedded in the signal; it turns out he's been exposed to Darkness aboard a Cabal craft associated with Emperor Calus, which mysteriously vanished a few months ago and has now re-appeared in deep space. Merely unsettling, but it only goes downhill from there.
  • Upon arriving, you find that the ship, named the Glykon Volatus, has been irreparably damaged, forcing you to go into space, crawl through maintenance tunnels, and short out electronics to progress forward in an already-dangerous environment. To make matters worse, the Darkness has infected some greenery transported from the Leviathan to the Glykon, creating a swarming mass of Alien Kudzu that has consumed at least some of the Legionaries who were once on board and which tries to burn you to death unless you cover yourself in spores to pass off as part of the infection. And despite the Leviathan's plants being beautiful alien-looking flowers, the Dark has made it more like cancerous flesh than serene greenery.
  • Speaking of "dark," almost all of the lights are out, and you're completely alone. Your only company is Osiris providing tactical, rattling and hissing noises that show you could be attacked at any time^note fortunately, all of the major scuffles occur in rather obvious (read: wide-open) places to throw down, although that doesn't account for the Screebs, and a recording of Calus promising great power to whoever died here.
  • Osiris's dialogue and the clues you can find throughout the ship don't help much, either. The former cracks open an Apocalyptic Log describing an experiment involving the missing Guardian, some Loyalists, Darkness, the Crown of Sorrow, and a huge pile of Scorn. Somehow, it unleashed a corruption that killed everyone onboard - except one Scorn, a Ravager that would be dubbed the Locus of Communion, that now spoke with the voice of dead people and is clearly driven insane by the whole ordeal. Your actual objective is to kill this thing, since everyone's been dead for about four months, so there's no one to rescue.
  • Meanwhile, the clues paint a disturbing narrative of how the Guardian (named Katabasis) and the Loyalists were particularly devoted to Calus, with Katabasis even having his own Emperor's Grace jumpship with special clearances. So what does the so-called good emperor do? He leaves them all to be absorbed by the fleshy growths, then abandons them and runs (possibly; given how the Locus can imitate his voice, it's entirely possible he was Killed Offscreen, which isn't an improvement). Katabasis in particular is hung above the Glykons console and left there until the growths begin oozing out of his flesh and armor. Makes you wonder if he actually loved you or even thought you were special as the Season of Opulence went to great lengths to describe, doesn't it?
  • Overall, this entire mission feels like we crossed over with Dead Space, with the Scorn in place of the Necromorphs. Even though we're playing as immortal god-killers, it still feels like there's always a new monster to immediately devour you at the next corner.
  • And just for good measure, there are random auditory hallucinations at certain checkpoints; these so far include Sagira, Uldren (not Crow), Calus, Ghaul, and Cayde-6. Except they aren't hallucinations, they're the Locus of Communion. Mocking you.
  • On repeat weeks, Caiatl invites herself to your support team, to figure out what happened to her father. As you go through the instance, and she understands what happened on the Glykon, the normally unflappable Empress starts getting unnerved herself. And then reveals the weird plants you see? Those are things Xivu Arath used to kill her homeworld. You are literally walking in the remnants of an aspect of the Darkness that is a Planet Killer.
  • After 12 weeks of opening the smuggling caches, the final one is opened to reveal the Crown of Sorrow in all of its horror, complete with a pile of dead Scorn surrounding the base. Not wanting to leave it alone an unattended, Osiris starts making plans to transport it to the City for study, but not before he notes that the Crown is listening. Even when in hiding, Savathun is always watching.

Season 14 - Season of the Splicer

• The trailer for this season has the Guardians once again dealing with the Vex, and guess what? They found a simulation that can render humanity extinct.
• The starting mission has a fairly standard sequence where you get surrounded by a massive horde of powerful enemies, only to be rescued at the last second. But this particular sequence has a rather mortifying Freeze-Frame Bonus: among the Hydras is a larger winged model. One that resembles the planetary cores, and which is very clearly Taken and mutated. Even if it isn't Quria, which all of those traits point to, something is clearly very, very wrong within the Vex network, a problem that now has to be dealt with on top of their plans to drive humanity extinct.
• The new lore for the reprised Deicide shotgun has Aunor intercept a binary message that's spreading to all of the Future War Cult, with her noting that some odd hash symbols seem to be randomly dotted throughout the message. Translating the binary reveals them to be letters... letters that, if read as tones with the hashes representing sharps, play Savathun's Song. The Witch Queen has now spread her influence to the citizens of the Last City, but with how absolutely batshit crazy the FWC has been this season with their Fantastic Racism, is it really any surprise?
  • In Week Four of Season of the Splicer, Lakshmi-2 sings a song the people of the Last City have been singing during the Endless Night: "Rise up as one, march toward the Sun." It's sung to the notes of Savathun's Song. What was once confined to Deicide's lore tab has now crept its way into the main story as a "song of hope" for the citizens.
• After Mithrax discovers the Eliksni's supplies and equipment have been vandalised and destroyed by Last City residents, he gets into an argument with Lakshmi and Saint. The latter tries to downplay what's happened by asking Mithrax if he expects everyone to live with the monsters that have hounded humanity for hundreds of years. Mithrax's rebuttal paints a picture of how Guardians, Saint in particular, look from the perspective of the Fallen. The cutscene certainly helps drive the point home.
  Mithrax: Once, in a city grander than yours, we prospered. But it did not last. Our Great Machine abandoned us. And when we pursued it...you sent something back. A creature fueled by hatred... It tore through our great houses like they were nothing. And then it came for the rest of us. Nowhere was safe from its insatiable rage. In its eyes, even the most innocent Eliksni were still Fallen. It could die, but it would not stay dead. It would shake off the rot and rise again. And if it caught you in its crushing embrace, impaled you on its ragged crest, dragged you screaming into its foul shell... none lived to speak of these horrors. It called itself...the Saint. My people must now see the creature every day. It sees us. If we wish to survive, we must all learn...to live alongside our monsters.
• How the Last City population is reacting to their Eliksni neighbors. Although the new lore entries show that most Tower residents are kind and cordial in their interactions with the House of Light, the response from the citizens of the Last City at large is not. Lore entries for the new Splicer weapons illustrate this with a story that combines this with Tear Jerker.
• In Week 6 of the season, it's finally revealed who is behind the Endless Night. Remember that Taken-looking winged planetary core Vex you encountered during your first foray into the Vex network, causing Mithrax to pull you out? It's none other than Quria, the Dreaming Mind. And it's acting on Savathun's orders.
  • While you're in the Corrupted Labyrinth, the normal Vex chatter about systems becomes... different.
    I see you. Crawling around my domain like insects. This realm answers to only one master. You are nothing. You know nothing of power. Thrashing around like a wounded animal. Unaware you are already dead. Your failure is written in time. I have seen your grave. I see you. Rent asunder. Broken... Taken.
• The seventh entry of the Endless Night lorebook reveals something that spells danger for everyone involved. A Hive God, all but stated to be Savathun, has infiltrated the Last City and is posing as a civilian. This is where Savathun has been since she fled her Throne World, by hiding in the one place the Darkness cannot follow her: among the very people the Guardians are sworn to protect.
• In week 7, Saint reveals to Osiris that he was approached by Lakshmi and Executor Hideo to "restructure" Vanguard leadership and replace Zavala. While Saint has no desire for such things, Osiris, who was approached as well, asks him to at least pretend to agree, lest they turn to Lord Saladin... except the corresponding eighth entry to the Endless Night lorebook reveals that Saladin had already rejected the idea. Not only that, but some of Lakshmi's words imply that Osiris wasn't approached as he claims, but instead came up with the plan.
• While the Vex simulation that causes the night had been intensifying for some time, it had always been limited to Vex holograms. Not so in week 7, where Taken Blights appear in the Tower. It's already unsettling, but it's also a harrowing reminder of what happened to the Dreaming City.
• The epilogue delivers a harrowing blow to the game's status quo. Lakshmi-2 decides enough is enough and takes matters into her own hands... by teaming up with New Monarchy and opening a Vex portal in the City that connects to outer space to throw House of Light into. The portal instead allows the Vex to enter the Last City and she is then unceremoniously shot dead by a Vex, and while it's pure unadulterated comeuppance, her agonized death rattles on her "emergency broadcast" only serve to illustrate just how much Evil Is Not a Toy when it comes to the Vex. And as if it weren't bad enough, attempting to launch the mission to shut the invasion down reveals through the modifiers that the Vex aren't the only foes ready to spread throughout the City, as Epitaph is now active... a modifier that affects Taken.
  • Even after the Vex are repelled and the dust has settled, one major loose end remains: Osiris. During her final broadcast, Lakshmi-2 claims that Osiris taught her how to open the portal, and while dialogue suggests that he was helping Saint and Mithrax when the fighting first began, he suddenly vanished in the middle of the fighting and went completely silent on the coms. Then, after the portal is destroyed, we see Osiris silently watching the Vanguard wipe out the remaining Vex before leaving without a word. Talking to Ikora reveals that Osiris has since vanished entirely, and no one knows where he is. Now, remember that at this point, we know that Savathun has been walking among the City in a human guise...
• The Vex attacked Earth, when it’s been explicitly stated that they’ve avoided doing so due to the presence of the Light. What changed?

Season 15 - Season of the Lost

• For the first time Savathûn reveals herself plainly. This is not a cause for relief. For the entirety of Year 4 so far, ever since Osiris almost died to Xivu Arath's Celebrant, she has been using his body as her own. In that time, she had been influencing almost every major Vanguard action. And now, she forces us to cooperate with her, using Osiris as a hostage.
  • Her reveal is also fairly terrifying by virtue of Nothing Is Scarier. Osiris speaks, his voice slowly transitioning to Savathûn's, before the camera changes to focus on you, Saint, Crow, and Mara watching as he grows and transforms into something horrific to look at. It's only when Mara uses some form of crystallization that she halts the Witch-Queen from going any further. The sounds are bone-chilling.
  • As the Wolftone Draw bow reveals, Osiris has not been unconscious for all of that. Imprisoned in a dreamlike state, bereft of his Ghost, he can only watch as everyone, including close friends and colleagues, are fooled by Savathûn's manipulations.
  • Standing near Savathûn's crystalline form lets you hear strange whispering noises... kind of like Clarity Control in the Deep Stone Crypt.
• Quria is dead, and the Taken just immediately fall under Xivu Arath's command. Our triumphs against the Dreaming Mind mean little on the larger scale.
  • Subsequent weeks reveal the situation is actually much worse. When Quria fell, control of the Taken reverted back to the Darkness. Unfortunately, the Darkness is so incensed with Savathun's defiance that it made an offer to Xivu Arath: permanently kill Savathun, and not only will Xivu Arath command all of the Hive, but the Taken and the Scorn as well. Xivu Arath now has the army that the Wrathborn failed to become, and then some. To further sweeten the pot, the Darkness gave some Taken and Scorn units Stasis to use against the Guardians.
  • By the time Mara is ready to exorcise Savathun's worm, the Darkness is completely done with Savathun's plans, compelling Xivu Arath to send the Hive, Taken, and Scorn to attack the spire holding Savathun. While Mara and the Techeuns remove the worm, the Guardians have to stop Kelgorath from powering up a Taken blight that will detonate, killing everyone in the spire. It's just as much as weapon as it is a message about "Bomb Logic" to Mara from the Darkness: "When you play the Ascendant game, you play by my rules".
• The Grasp of Avarice dungeon contains some horror within it, in a tale of Greed, mistrust, and madness.
  • The Loot Cave, if Wilhelm-7's bottled messages are to be believed, has huge amounts of loot and wealth in it, and everyone who goes inside eventually succumbs to Greed. The two bosses of the dungeon, Phry'zhia and Captain Avarokk, even have it as a mechanic, in that they cannot be damaged until they "succumb to temptation."
  • Several encounters in the dungeon, beginning with simply entering the Loot Cave, involve picking up false exotic engrams, which explode after a while if not picked up, triggering a debuff called "Burdened by Riches," which must be removed by standing near a crystal altar, the Icon of Excess. As you deposit your riches at the altar, the crystals will grow bigger.
  • Wilhelm's logs showcase how Sanity Slippage from their greed spelled the end of his crew, one by one. First Agadir shot Pershing for trying to take some of his share of their loot, but then later Wilhelm shot Agadir's Ghost, and eventually Agadir himself. Bismarck, Wilhelm's Ghost, kept arguing they should return to the surface, and eventually got shot as well. Wilhelm never made it out of the cave, his corpse being found at the end of the dungeon.
  • The cave is filled with strange white crystals, not unlike gypsum crystals like the Giant Crystal Cave in Mexico. These crystals make up the altars in the aforementioned encounters. But then when Wilhelm's body is found, he has crystals growing out of his eye socket. No explanation for this is given, but given how the Icon of Excess crystal altars get bigger with more riches...
• On the one hand, when Savathûn's worm is excised, Osiris is revealed to be alive but in a coma, and otherwise unharmed. On the other hand, the instant her worm is removed, Savathûn disappears before anyone can stop her. She got what she wanted - her worm gone and now having free reign to steal the Light in the upcoming expansion. The Witch Queen's reign has only just begun...

Season 16 - The Witch Queen / Season of the Risen

• The reveal trailer shows us something guaranteed to stay in your nightmares for a long time; Savathûn has found a way to imbue her followers with Light powers, creating Hive Guardians with their own Ghosts and abilities that can take out several player Guardians at once. Suddenly, crushing their Ghosts with extreme prejudice after defeating them seems less like the Guardians crossing the Moral Event Horizon and more like an act of desperate necessity...
  • Let's put this into perspective. The myriad of creatures, armies, and gods the Guardians have faced all fell in the end thanks to the power of their Light, given by the Traveler. And now, these Lucent Hive in the service of Savathûn are poised to use the very same powers Guardians have to fight them on even footing. We've already seen the Hive try to harness Guardians' Light on Titan. The Lucent Hive show what could have happened if we didn't stop them back then, where they've finally got a potential answer to our power - namely, using it against us. Guardians already are pretty deadly against themselves in the Crucible, where they conduct live-fire exercises under the premise of keeping each other at the top of their game. The Lucent Hive, on the other hand, are a genuine threat who are out to extinguish Guardians with their own powers.
  • The Lucent Hive prove to be even more of an Evil Counterpart to the Guardians than the Scorn were, purely with the Light they're using. Which begs the question - if the Light can be stolen and used to empower those the Traveler did not choose to be as its Guardians, is it really all that godlike to begin with?
  • Take a closer look at the individual Lucent Hive. Guardians have to train and construct or find specialized equipment to bolster the power of their abilities or even deviate from their standard formations and mechanisms. The Lucent Hive, on the other hand, seem almost as if they are purpose-bred for the sole purpose of being better than the rightful owners of the Light, fresh out of the grave and without the need for exotics. The Sentinel Knight dual-wields shields which also happen to be serrated. The Acolyte with Way of a Thousand Cuts launches their knives with telekinesis, rather than by throwing them. The Wizard with Stormtrance can direct Landfall into unfortunate passers-by. It's as if to say the genuine article is worthless in the face of the Hive facsimiles, and that they will always exceed them by default in the ways of what doesn't even belong to them.
  • The main story shows how Savathûn was able to get the Light - the Ghosts gave it to her, because a significant portion of the older ones hated humanity, viewing them as pathetic compared to how grand previous client species of the Traveler were. When the Witch Queen revealed her plan to save the Traveler, Immaru and his contemporaries jumped at the opportunity to attach themselves to a "more worthy" species. Realizing that the Benevolent A.I. drones have such resentment lurking in them is... a bit alarming.
    • Speaking of which, and in a similar spirit, our Ghost spends a great deal of the campaign far angrier than we've ever seen or heard of him before, with him frequently expressing vicious disdain over the Ghosts who sided with the Lucent Brood over humanity and even ruthlessly advocating that they be destroyed, frequently making vocal his belief that the Hive having Ghosts is a bastardization of both the Light and the bond shared between Risen and Ghost, including your own. All of this culminates in a truly furious rant against Savathûn during your final confrontation with her, expressing his rage and hatred of the Hive for the atrocities that they've committed. Considering how personable and passive our Ghost usually is, the fact that he expresses such outrage so explicitly speaks volumes regarding how much of a personal affront he views the Hive having the Light as being.
• Savathûn's Throne World is just as twisted as its creator, hosting a vast, gnarled swamp that stretches out into the horizon, a titanic, bone-white, fortress that towers over the landscape, and even a derelict Pyramid that has somehow fallen within her realm and is visibly damaged. This is topped off with the ever-present and surveying phantoms of Savathûn's figure, keeping tabs on every corner of her kingdom. No matter where you go, the Witch Queen will always see you.
  Savathûn: Tell me, oh honored guest. Don't you want to escape? This Throne World is indistinguishable from my own mind. Every step taken, every bullet fired, I keep and count them all.
  • Savathûn’s realm is also host to numerous other horrors, such as countless stained-glass window-esque… things, that shift and track the player just like eyes. The biggest offender is the Apothecary wing, which has a massive one on the main building. The fact that these things could be watching you throughout the entire campaign make it feel like not only Savathûn is watching you, but the entire Throne World is watching you. Like the entire landscape is aware of your presence, and the only reason you’re still here is because it wishes it.
• From a story standpoint: Bungie has specifically stated Savathûn, as of Witch Queen, has no further use for us, and has decided to “remove us from the board.”
• From the post-campaign Stinger, we are finally introduced to the true antagonist leading the Black Fleet: the Witness. Humanoid Abomination barely begins to describe their sinister appearance, what with its robes mechanically moving like the Pyramids, its Voice of the Legion, and the smoke coming off of their head in the shape of faces. Through their declaration that the Traveler has run out of pieces to play, and that this time "there is no escape", it's obvious that The Witness intends to destroy the Traveler, and they have what can only be described as a horde of Pyramid ships at their command.
  • This gets even worse on reflection. As the campaign revealed, the Witness is not a “hard truths” force of nature like the Darkness. They very much have their own agenda, are willing to lie to achieve it, and by all appearances are very good at the latter. Now reread Unveiling. How much of that was the truth?
  • Pay attention to the mannerisms of the Witness - notice how it engages in Finger-Tenting? Always speaks with a Royal "We"? Seems to be almost Affably Evil? Where have we seen that before? The final cinematic of Shadowkeep. That figure that was talking to you using your Guardian's face? That was the Witness.
• The Vow of the Disciple raid gives players the biggest look inside of a Pyramid yet and what awaits inside is nothing but a museum of nightmares:
  • The opening segment of the raid has Mara warning the fireteam about what awaits inside, but she doesn't get in much before a new voice booms over the landscape, cutting off the Queen's transmission and daring the fireteam to either rise above the Deep or drown in it. Rhulk, the First Disciple of the Witness, has noticed you, Guardian, and you now have his attention.
  • Everything in the Disciple’s Pyramid looks… wrong. The inside is a vast landscape that should be impossible to fit inside the Pyramid, the detailed yet simplistic murals are far too colorful for their pitch-black surroundings, and the catatonic body of a sixth Worm God is omni-present in the background.
  • Museum is not hyperbole either, as murals and frozen subjects are on display everywhere, like Rhulk has been amassing his own personal collection of curiosities, including that of the rib of the legendary Leviathan of Fundament, which he personally defeated once.
  • The first proper boss of the raid is the Caretaker, an unholy... thing that is somehow an even more monstrous Abomination than its kin, garbed in a tattered hood and cage covering its face. As Rhulk's Pyramid has been the primary production facility of new Worms, he apparently wished to see if it would be possible to bond the Worms and the Scorn together. The Caretaker is the first success.
  • The final boss is Rhulk himself, a humanoid alien that is far older than even the Hive, having been the one responsible for not only subjugating them to the will of the Witness, but also that of the Worm Gods themselves after having forced them into submission by taking their queen, Xita, and using her as the means of creating more Worms. The fight shows just what a true servant of the Darkness is capable of, utilizing the power and technology of the Pyramids to devastating effect. Once pushed back to his arena, Rhulk sets himself apart from previous raid bosses by being an actively mobile force that can and will decimate anyone that is within his reach, whether it be a simple kick to the skull or lighting fast dashes with his glaive.
    • His mannerisms throughout the raid and most of the fight paint Rhulk as a bloodthrirsty, but collected tyrant that clearly looks down on those he regards as lesser than himself, keeping his arms neatly tucked behind his back as he casually goes about murdering his enemies. This all goes flying out the window once the DPS phase begins, losing all pretense of attempted civility as the true savagery of the last Lubraen comes clawing out and switches to a more unhinged stance that makes it clear that he's no longer playing nice and is coming to collect his offering: your lives.
  • Throughout the whole raid, the UI's objectives are also replaced by Rhulk's taunting, showing just how powerful his influence even when he can't leave.
  [NEW OBJECTIVE: Approach Children...] Through mud and mire you trudge, seeking that which lies in the bog. Does it drown? Or rise? Perhaps you will decide.
  [NEW OBJECTIVE: You Search and Search and Search...] Listen not to those who supply cautions. It is insulting to you, oh children of the Light. Let strength be your guide.
  [NEW OBJECTIVE: Truth. Symbolize. Is. Materialize. Everywhere.] Your eyes are always closed. Do you not see what's right in front of you? Those who fail to see the truth will drown in it.
  [NEW OBJECTIVE: You Exhaust Me] Life is but a pointed game, pointing you in pointless directions towards pointless goals.
  [NEW OBJECTIVE: Do Not Disrupt The Caretaker] SCORN. They eat away at the decay within a shell of. SCORN. Truth exists all around outside the shell of. SCORN.
  [NEW OBJECTIVE: You Are Directionless...] They say purpose questioned is healthy. Perhaps aimlessness does not plague you. Futility, however...
  [NEW OBJECTIVE: Nothing More Than Meaningless Trinkets] Did you think you were the observer? Or did you believe you pulled the strings? Now's your chance - with artifacts of fate, you can make them dance.
  [NEW OBJECTIVE: Apocalypse is on Your Horizon] The end is near by your own hand, children. Come, sit beside me before you drown.
  [NEW OBJECTIVE: DROWNDROWNDROWN] The Upended is alive. You have no more tasks ahead. Lie down and embrace the darkness beyond your final days.
• Jana-14 is back, this time having made the full descent into becoming an utter nutcase that is somehow worse than Thorn's previous wielder. Now, she possesses the original Osteo Striga, and openly gushes about owning and using the third Weapon of Sorrow by talking about it as if it were a human infant, seeing the use of ritual murder and the Striga's poisonous bullets to feed it as no different than giving a baby milk. To further hammer home how much of a psychopath Jana has become, she mentions that she did in fact have a real human child in a past reboot, so clearly, Jana has done nothing wrong. Indeed, there is nothing wrong with gutting a Lightless human and carefully extracting their individual ribs, because babies need their calcium and protein.
  • What makes it worse is the very last line or so - a description of a piece of evidence linking to Jana being at large, in the form of an audio log left near some poor bastard's body with their ribs removed. Before that Wham Line, you're likely to be left wondering why a mother is talking about her kid in the lore tab for a Weapon of Sorrow. After... you become acutely aware of how far she's Jumped Off The Slippery Slope.
• The main method of gathering information from the Lucent Hive in Season of the Risen involves using the seasonal artifact, the Synaptic Spear, to probe their mind. How does it work, you ask? Well, to start, it involves at least two Psions appearing and stunning the subject, allowing Guardians to enter its mindscape. There, in order to subdue and capture the Lucent Hive in question, the Guardians use the Spear to forcibly erase the very idea of their allegiance to Savathûn and put them into a state of limbo, allowing for easy extraction for the Psions to investigate back at the HELM. While it's stated that they're neither alive nor dead and it doesn't actually hurt them while being probed there, it's still incredibly screwed up, and a sign of how desperate things have gotten if Zavala's willing to allow it. Best seen in Crow and Zavala's reactions, the two being very alarmed and freaked out by it, Crow moreso.
  • The process is essentially a lobotomy, as it kills the idea of allegiance to Savathûn, slays the Hive Guardian’s sense of self, and severs their connection to the light. Nightmare fuel in the extreme, tempered only by the fact that these creatures have been killing Guardians and draining them of their light.
• On that note, one of the key parts of the Season of the Risen is that the Hive appear to be stockpiling the light. The areas that the Lucent Brood have set up shop in take on the appearance of Savathûn‘s home world and are littered with the corpses of countless dead guardians. There’s also countless “light batteries” littered through out the land, apparently encouraging the terraforming, and a massive stockpile of them hanging over the land. Once you start to think about how many guardians must’ve died to fill those batteries… you’ll never sleep again.
• While Crow's Accidental Murder of the friendly Psion in the HELM is mostly depressing, the "Quintessence" lorebook has a pretty graphic sequence of him getting Mind Raped so hard, his insides are liquified and painfully ejected through his eye socket. Those probably aren't burn marks on his corpse...
• Of course, there's also the lorebooks as well - including the ones gotten from collecting Lucent Moths. One particular entry details a Hive Ghost named Jynx resurrecting a Lucent Acolyte that is repeatedly blowing its own brains out.

Season 17 - Season of the Haunted

• This Season takes what horror elements there were from Shadowkeep and the Presage Mission and ramps them up to eleven. The Leviathan returns after vanishing at the start of Beyond Light, now infested by Nightmares and the Alien Kudzu from the Glykon, and Calus is apparently well on his way to becoming a new Disciple of the Witness. Hope you weren't planning on playing a game of Menagerie, Guardian, because the stakes have ramped up significantly...
• In order to move and work within the confines of the Leviathan to stop Calus' plan for the Lunar Pyramid, Eris performs a ritual to bind certain Nightmares to the main team, each one intrinsically tied to each person that will torment them until they can finally make peace with their pasts. For Zavala, it's his dearly departed wife, Safiyah. For Crow, it could only be his original self, Uldren Sov. Meanwhile, Caiatl refuses, voicing distrust of Eris' Hive magic (understandably since the last time someone she knew dabbled in the Hive, it led to Torobatl's demise), but the closing scene of the first mission shows that one Nightmare in particular has already attached itself to the Empress: Dominus Ghaul.
• The Leviathan has undergone a horrendous transformation since our last visit. Gone is the otherworldly and gaudy splendor of the World Eater, replaced instead by nearly every inch being covered in Egregore plants and biomass as Nightmares and Scorn stalk its halls alongside the Loyalists. Even the binary stars hanging above the crown of the ship have been transformed, now sporting an ominous blue glow to them. Returning to the moon has the Leviathan overtaking much of the skybox like it did on Nessus for years, but now the orange glow of its maw has been replaced by a deep red, as if it's now vacuuming up the Nightmare energy from the Lunar Pyramid.
  • Scan patrols have Calus exposit about the numerous changed aspects of the Leviathan, but his tone is noticeably more somber and mellow compared to the bombastic and jovial energy most people would be familiar with. He also makes some very... disturbing comparisons between the Leviathan's transformed state and himself, as if implying that he has become ONE with the ship and all the Loyalists aboard. The Calus robot in the Sever—Grief mission eventually confirms he's merged with the Leviathan, going on to describe the "unmatched sensation" of Guardians fighting throughout his innards.
  • Ever wonder how you face countless Loyalists even though they should realistically be all dead, especially after all the raids done on the Leviathan before it disappeared? A Behold patrol leading to the Royal Pools reveals the answer: Calus has a cloning facility located beneath the Pools. The "water" in the pools? It's not water. It's a protein slurry with Cabal DNA mixed in it... made of failed experiments, which Calus uses to feed the clones as they develop. And yes, you step in it constantly while in the Pools. You're walking in in the liquified remains of Cabal and who knows what else. It's incredibly disgusting as well as horrifying.
  • According to Calus, Egregore grows from death, taking root at the moment consciousness ceases to exist, and grows between dimensions rather than through soil. Calus says that it would normally take centuries for Egregore to overtake a space as large as the Leviathan, though Calus managed to find another way. Calus doesn't give an answer, but Crow quickly manages to fill in the blanks: Calus fed the Egregore countless people, all but stated to be his own Loyalists, to allow the Egregore to consume the entire Leviathan! Crow's reaction sums up what every player will no doubt be thinking:
    Crow: (disgusted) This is horrifying.
  • Another patrol and a radio message from the second week reveals that the Loyalists didn't just willingly follow Calus into the Darkness. There was a full scale rebellion against Calus sometime after the Leviathan's departure from the Solar system. Calus put this down ruthlessly, now stating that the Loyalists are of "one mind". That wasn't true. According to Caiatl, when the Leviathan returned, the remaining Loyalists abandoned the Leviathan in an attempt to get away from it. All that's left of the Loyalists are clones ready for combat in Calus' name with no higher brain functions. Now, being a Loyalist is no longer a choice of serving Calus, it's utter enslavement to Calus. At this point, the difference between the Loyalists and the Taken are based on which minion of the Darkness you serve.
  • Sever - Forgiveness has a moment where Eris notes the changes that have happened to the Leviathan, describing it as "breaking bones and resetting them elsewhere". With the revelation that Calus has truly become one with the ship, this adds a disturbing layer of horror to it - Calus is willingly tearing himself apart and fusing himself back together to remake the Leviathan as a vessel akin to a Black Pyramid. And judging by his commentary on how it feels to have the Guardians fighting aboard the ship, he loves it. You'd be forgiven for wanting some Brain Bleach after that.
  • In every Sever mission, you'll cross paths with an enemy called the Unrelenting Nightmare, essentially a reskinned Gladiator with sickly, almost jaundiced green skin. It might not sound scary... Until you realize absolutely nothing in your arsenal can hurt it. Machine guns? Rocket launchers? Supers? You might as well be shooting it with a squirt gun. And you always run into it cramped, near-claustrophobic areas where you have to lift lockdowns. You've faced down paracausal entities, beings that can defy physics and rewrite reality on a whim. And all you can do against this seemingly rage-fueled thing is run and hide. It's not until Week 5 and 6, when you're helping Caiatl, that you can finally kill it by luring it into an incinerator.
• This season's Ornaments from the Season Pass are definitely creepy to look at. They make you look like you searched for Skeletons in the Coat Closet, given how you have what seems to be bone plating on your gear. To top it off, the helmets make it look like you have a chattering, ghostly skull instead of a face. Imagine seeing that wandering around the Tower.
• The Duality Dungeon sees you exploring Calus' mind in an attempt to steal whatever secrets he may be hiding. While the atmosphere itself is pretty creepy, including the moments when the whole area turns a disturbingly dark shade of red, some of the thoughts and memories you hear from Calus bring some horrifying new insight behind his rule. Of particular note is how he ran the Red Legion and his "blood guard". Recall from previous lore tabs and entries about the former group that they never knew defeat and were essentially the Cabal's strongest military force. Under Calus, they were a lot more than that. According to a recovered memory in Duality, it is implied they were his secret police, sent to silence and kill any dissenter who still held loyalties to the old Praetorate.
• The Nightmare of Ghaul, due to not being bound by the ritual courtesy of Caiatl refusing to participate, proves to be a lot more imposing and scary compared to Uldren and Safiyah. He berates and mocks Caiatl for her failures in a fashion that's part undiluted anger and part confused betrayal, ripping through her otherwise unflappable demeanor and hitting her where it really hurts - her failures against the Hive and her decision to ally with the Guardians. During Sever - Rage, you can hear him explode at her regularly, and after a certain point you get the sense that if he wanted to, he'd gladly kill her on the spot. Caiatl's reduced to bitterly remarking that the "real" her died on Torobatl, and the one the Guardians and the current Empire know is just a fake.
  • On that note, the final boss of the mission isn't another related Nightmare - it's another manifestation of Ghaul, willing to fight you. And it's just as capable of using Supers to try and vaporize you with as the real deal once did at the height of the Red War.
• The finale of the Season: Calus uses Caiatl’s failed Severance attempt to kickstart his connection to the Lunar Pyramid. As he does so, he manifests within the Pyramid as a giant ghastly head, spewing skulls of psychic rage at you. If that’s not freaky enough, once we finally beat him and the 3 previous nightmares he’d summoned to kill us. However, at the end, it is revealed to have all been for naught, and that The Witness has spirited Calus away to be the next Disciple. We lost the battle, and the war is coming soon. Another horrifying part of the finale is, not long after we win the battle against Calus, he calls us up on the H.E.L.M. to gloat, hijacking the war table with egregore fungus, and tells us in no uncertain terms that the Witness is coming for the Traveler, and there is nothing we can do to stop it.

Season 18 - Season of Plunder

• Eramis escaping her Stasis prison and rallying the most cuthroat and ruthless pirates of the Fallen is one thing, but a surprising source of unnease comes from Mithrax of all people. He is visibly stressed from the start of the whole ordeal, from wanting his daughter to stay out of the fight against the Old Crews to butting heads with the Spider, the latter of whom, alongside Eramis, wastes no time in needling the Kell of Light about the more... unsavory aspects of his past. This quickly comes to a head in Week 2, where Mithrax blows up at Spider for daring to even suggest using Eramis's own relics against her, invoking a Full-Name Ultimatum against the mob boss and threatening to end him if he tries to pull something like that again, leading to the first time we see Spider crumple in genuine fear. Between this and Spider very deliberately avoiding a conversation with Eido about his and Mithrax's time in the House of Wolves, it is very clear that the man once known as the Forsaken was far, FAR more ruthless and terrifying than even the sparse details we do know about his previous life, and that dark past is starting to creep into the light...
  • This needs to be emphasized here: the Spider has treated the Guardians of the Last City, the Awoken of the Reef, the Elksni of the House of Light, the legions of the Cabal Empire, and the minions of the Darkness as annoyances at best and as business rivals to be eliminated at worst. When Mithrax threatens Spider, he not only acquiesces immediately, but is still visibly rattled, so much that he tells the Young Wolf, who has killed most of the Gods of the Hive, to immediately Get Out!, and still struggles to calm himself afterwards. What the hell happened between Misraaks and Rakis?
• During Week 4's Pirate Hideout, it's revealed that prior to us arriving there, someone beat us to the punch and slaughtered tons of Alaaks' lackeys, leaving just their corpses behind for us to happen upon. Alaaks and the last of her gang are all that remain, and it's not clear just who managed to get there before we did. This is prime Paranoia Fuel, as it suggests a potential third party nobody knows about, and one that hid their tracks very well. Though it begs the question as to why they spared Alaaks and the rest of her gang.
  • Week 6 reveals the mysterious third party's identity: the Lucent Brood! Despite the loss of their Witch Queen and countless Lucent Lightbearers being taken down permanently, they're still a major player, and are evidently trying to get the relics for their own purposes. Suddenly the plot of the season becomes a Mêlée à Trois between the Last City, Eramis' crews, and the Lucent Brood. This does NOT bode well...
• Week 5 reveals the truth behind the relics Eramis and the Fallen pirates have been acquiring: They contain the remains of Nezarec, the "lost" Disciple of the Witness. What's more, it was Mithrax's own mother who discovered Nezarec's tomb in the Lunar Pyramid, and when the Old Crews harvested its body parts for their dark power, Mithrax himself inherited one and wielded it for many years. The relics were scattered across the galaxy during this age of Fallen piracy, but now for the first time in centuries we're gathering them all together in the H.E.L.M.
• As for Nezarec himself, we're falling right into a trap he's concocted. Opening up the Delicate Tomb fusion rifle by reloading it reveals Pyramid tech powering the Light-based weapon, which pretty much gives away the fact that the soul inside the gun is none other than the ex-Disciple. Rightfully taking the Vanguard for fools by assuming he's permanently trapped within the Delicate Tomb, he sees his condition as a trojan horse that he will soon escape... but is simply content in staying within our vault next to his other belongings and the relics. Waiting for the right moment.

Season 19 - Season of the Seraph

• The main enemy faction this season sees the return of Xivu Arath's Wrathborn, which comprises not only of her Hive soldiers, but even Eliksni from House Salvation. Worse still, there are also Scorn among their number, who keen eyed players might notice wearing House of Salvation colors. According to Mara Sov, this is related to Eramis' failure to retrieve the artifacts of Nezarec, showing that both the Witness and Xivu Arath hold very little tolerance towards failure.
• The idea of the Hive and the Darkness gaining access to Rasputin's database and everything it entails is scary enough, the idea they might even get ahold of his warsat system is another level of terrifying. Recall Season of the Worthy and how Rasputin prevented the Almighty from falling atop the Last City. Now imagine what destroyed the Almighty coming down on the city.
• With Rasputin regaining the ability to communicate in Week Four, he reveals the extent of Clovis Bray I's god-complex, and it is staggering. Clovis did not create Rasputin to save humanity, he created Rasputin to destroy the Traveler and take its place as humanity's protector, because Clovis literally could not handle anyone else being humanity's savior. Ana's work in teaching Rasputin about the humanities convinced Rasputin that Clovis was wrong, and so he rewrote his code to lockout Clovis. Unfortunately, now that Clovis has awoken to discover Rasputin is disabled, he no longer intends to control the AI, but replace it, uploading himself into the Warsat network. While he claims that he wants to save humanity, it's clear he also intends to finish what he started and try to remove the Traveler from the equation as well.
  • After Ana uploads Rasputin and deletes the Clovis AI from the H.E.L.M.'s Exo frame, the AI sent an encrypted message to primary Clovis AI on Europa. All Ana could decrypt so far were two words: "They know." Now that he's been exposed, Clovis will try and achieve his plan another way. Given that Clovis is The Sociopath through and through, what will the Mad Scientist of the Golden Age do now to achieve his goal? Or rather, what won't he do?
• In Week Six, Mara reveals to the Coalition that she and the Techeuns have discerned Xivu Arath's goal: it doesn't matter who controls the Warsats. As long as they are used, Xivu Arath will receive a massive increase in death tribute either way. If the Hive gain control of the Warsats, then the Hive can use them against the Last City, the Reef, and the Imperial Cabal. If Rasputin gains control of the Warsats, then he uses them against the Wrathborn, whose deaths will feed Xivu Arath via the Sword-Logic, letting her open a portal over Earth and invade the Solar System, just like what happened on Torobatl. Xivu Arath will win either way. The only thing the Coalition can think to do is upload Rasputin and have him prevent the Hive from gaining control, but have the Guardians fight the Wrathborn in small scale engagements to prevent the surge of death from growing too high. There's literally no option but a Forever War with the Wrathborn, and that alone could feed Xivu Arath.
• The January 26th TWAB teases the name of the season's final mission. It alone is far more chilling than any other event in the story: "ABHORRENT IMPERATIVE," the name of the Warmind protocol that will damage or destroy the Traveler if ever activated. Whether something else has tripped the protocol or if Rasputin has been forced to seriously consider using it again, those two words alone indicate whatever's in store for him is not good.
• The finale of the season sees everything come to a head, setting the stage for Lightfall as the end begins...
  • The one to ultimately obtain control of the Warsats isn't Rasputin or Xivu Arath, but Eramis, who manages to successfully bypass the network's security and intends to reactivate ABHORRENT IMPERATIVE, pointing every single weapon platform at the Traveler to destroy it. It's only due to Rasputin's own AURORA SACRIFICE protocol that he takes all the Warsats with him and prevents them from being used against humanity.
  • Even when her hand is on the big red button, Eramis has a moment of hesitation when Mithrax is begging for her to think about their people, but the Witness quietly appears in the monitor screens, saying nothing as it just stares right through her. It will not give her the chance to reconsider her place in its ranks and finally goads her into pulling the trigger by offering her the one thing she has left: revenge.
    -—Make it know your pain.—-
    • Spotting the Witness on the screen causes Eramis to turn around to face the door across the room. She could've done this as a sign of hesitation, perhaps hoping the Guardian would come through the door to stop her... or she might have expected the Witness itself to be standing behind her, reflected on the glass. The fact nothing was there might've cued Eramis in; even if the Witness wasn't physically there, it's always watching, and deserting the mission at this critical point? It's just not an option, if she wants to avoid herself or any of her remaining House Salvation troops to face a similar fate to that of Phyris, Praksis, or any others now under Xivu Arath's Wrathborn and Scorn.
  • Though the plan was thwarted and Eramis is left lost and confused as to why the Traveler would choose to stay and protect humanity, the Witness is unbothered. It knows that the Traveler's time to run is now up, it's bringing the full might of the Black Fleet, and its new Disciple is ready to herald the coming of the end. The Second Collapse has begun, and all of Sol will receive "salvation" from the Darkness...

Season 20 - Lightfall / Season of Defiance

• Caiatl's Vanguard report in the Collector's Edition contains a disturbingly realistic sequence of Emperor Calus abusing Caiatl, Lictor Shayotet, Umun'Arath, and Moli Imoli in his residence. After Moli says the armies want to honor their deployed soldiers, Calus immediately snaps and starts screaming about how worthless Moli and his interests are and that his only purpose is to be Calus's entertainer, doing the same to Umun, then whining to Caiatl and Umun'Arath about how he's apparently the only person in the Cabal leadership who can be bothered to live a little. While this is all happening, Moli is assaulted with a model of the Almighty and Shayotet has to chase Moli down for his safety, just to put the cherry on top. And everything above is punctuated by how this is exactly how real domestic abusers operate.
• The first promotional image for Season of Defiance reveals just how bad the Shadow Legion's advance has gotten: a truly massive Pyramid structure not unlike the Dark City has touched down on Earth, crawling with Cabal and ready to hunt down the rest of humanity. Anyone else smell wet earth and petrichor out of nowhere lately?
• The launch trailer has arrived. Our End Begins.
  • One highlight of the trailer is the Witness making a flicking motion with their hand... and then cut to a shot of a Titan's Ghost suddenly looking like it got ripped to shreds, the pieces floating away from each other. The Witness just casually kills a Ghost and marks Guardians for death with about as much effort as moving their hand.
    • It's not just the Ghost; the Titan is also cut to pieces as well.
    • And moments after that, the Witness simply glances at a trio of Guardian jumpships, which are then similarly sliced apart.
  • At one point in the trailer, the Traveler appears to fire a massive beam of energy at the Black Fleet. Not only does it seem to have no real effect (apart from causing strange plants to grow on one of the Pyramids), but the above-mentioned moments of Guardian-slicing? It's implied they all happen while the Witness is standing inside the beam. Humanity's protector finally makes its first offensive move since the end of the Red War, and the one on the receiving end is able to tank it while being left merely... annoyed.
• The Tormentors. Soldiers from the Witness' own army, they're not only able to launch huge tracking waves of Void energy at you, but they can summon a disc in the air that does it for them. Any innocent player might think that you jusdt have to shoot the glowing weak spots on the shoulders, right? Do that, the Tormentor Turns Red and starts rushing the player with a leaping area-of-effect attack that can suppress the player's abilities if they're too close to the impact zone, after which they'll try to grab you for their "Dark Harvest" move. All of this, on top of them No-Sell-ing everything you throw at them outside of Supers.
• After the Guardians manage to wrestle control of the Veil from Calus, he reports this to the Witness. When the Witness proceeds to give him a dispassionate "The Reason You Suck" Speech, Calus throws one back at the Witness over how it is effectively a god but only seems to follow its collective obligation toward the Final Shape. The Witness promptly raises its voice and immediately puts Calus in his place, with the latter immediately apologizing.
  Calus: You hold the Universe in your grasp, and all you can think of to do with it is—
  Witness: —-ENOUGH!—-
  (bubble of reality shatters around Calus)
  Witness: —-Secure the Veil. We will create the link.—-
  Calus: (looking absolutely terrified) Infinite apologies. The Veil is yours. It will be done.
  • Note that for much of Calus' tirade, we only see the Witness' eyes. When Calus finally goes too far, the Witness glares at him for the first time, and it is chilling.
  • Pay close attention to Calus when the Witness loses its temper - not only does he have a Psychic Nosebleed, but he's slowly looking upward, implying that either the Witness got bigger, or it has another form that we can't see.
• For the first time in an expansion, The Bad Guy Wins! Unambiguously - in spite of all the effort the Guardians put into stopping it, the Witness secures the Veil and uses it to open a portal inside the Traveler so that it may enact the Final Shape. The devs weren't kidding when they said Our Ends Begins.
  • The moment to get your heart rate up starts before contact is even made, when Osiris finally restablishes contact - with nothing short of panic in his voice. The Guardian is so busy catching their breath and indulging Nimbus in their revelry that no one notices Ghost floating up to the Veil...
    Osiris: Get your Ghost— [static]
    Guardian: What's wrong, Osiris?
    Osiris: Get your Ghost out of there!!
• Nine simple words at the end of the Neomuna strike: "I am pain. I am terror. I am Nezarec!"
• The lore tab for Swarmers suggests the Neomuni were once visited by a Vex mind who intentionally devoured all of their children in the CloudArk because they refused to make it king. Seems like Persys isn't alone in consciously choosing to be a pain to humanity...
  • This is also intensified by the fact that the Vex Mind in question is known as Aesop the Sovereign. The entry even makes the point that HE called himself that. A Vex with individuality and ambition is practically unheard of. The fact that one would actually offer to divert the Vex horde in exchange for loyalty is unthinkable, and makes for a dangerous foe. He also hinted that he would return one day, and he wouldn't be alone...
• Nezarec, the Final God of Pain. Initially thought to be long dead back in Plunder, he's revealed to have returned in a new form aboard the Essence after the Witness departs with the rest of the Black Fleet. As his name suggests, he's a powerful deity who represents pain, torment, and fear, and he delights in causing as much misery and agony as possible. He's taken to rooting around in the Cloudark and giving nightmares to the Neomunians sleeping there, relishing in their terror.
  • His voice alone can make your blood run cold. It's got a similar reverbing echo like Rhulk's had, but whereas his was more arrogant and full of power, here, Nezarec's voice is utterly drenched in malice and sadism. He's less concerned with fighting you and more focused on taking pleasure in making people suffer.
  • And unlike Rhulk, who is dead for good, Nezarec will never truly die, even after his defeat. He himself boasts that so long as there is any form of pain or suffering, he will return again and again, savoring every moment with glee. Justifying repeated raids clears has never been so dread-inducing.
• The Root of Nightmares raid takes place in the Pyramid ship that the Traveler blasted with its terraforming beam at the start of the expansion's story. The violent clash of pure Light versus pure Darkness has resulted in the Pyramid being ripped asunder, with enormous, white-hued vines snaking through the otherwise impenetrable black stone. Near the end, garden-like formations are spotted around the area, showing the power of the Traveler taking root. Everything about it feels wrong, like something out of a fever dream.
• The story of three of Nezarec's Acolytes - Acasia, Briar and Koraxis - are enough to send shivers down your spine.
  • Acasia is/was a Psion who lost a loved one to Nezarec's influence, and now hates him with a burning passion. She became an Acolyte out of desperation to save said loved one.
  • Koraxis is/was an Eliksni pirate who took one of Nezarec's eyes, and was tortured with nightmares.
  • Briar is/was a Lightbearer who Nezarec tormented to the point that he burned down his house and repeatedly cut out his own eyes. His Ghost kept trying to stop him until Briar finally snapped and killed said Ghost in a fit of terror.

Season 21 - Season of the Deep

• Bungie released promotional images for Season of the Deep in This Week At Bungie for May 4, 2023. The good news is that it showed Deputy-Commander Sloane is still alive, and the Guardians are coming to rescue her. The bad news? Right behind the fire team is a a gigantic eye belonging to some creature in some ocean. Fortunately for us, as the season proper shows, the creature is friendly.
• The opening cutscene of this season sees the Vanguard attempting to enter the portal created by the Witness. Their attempt ends in failure as the Guardian who tried to enter the portal is later found fused to the wrecked remains of his ship. Worse, it's implied the Guardian is Killed Off for Real as he hasn't been resurrected when the Vanguard finds him because his Ghost is beside him, similarly mangled.
• Xivu Arath has always been a foreboding figure in the lore, being the Hive God of War and all that. Now that she's directly speaking to us this time, it's a lot easier to understand the threat she poses - all her dialogue has her roaring and screaming at you, outright demanding you bend the knee to her and submit to her overwhelming power. Being denied a chance to manifest back in Seraph has done nothing to temper her undying bloodlust.
• To say that Sloane has had a rough time since the Witness took Titan somewhere would be an understatement. When you happen upon her at the end of The Descent mission that opens up the season, you find that her right arm and her lower body have Taken corruption. The lore tabs for the seasonal armor explain how she got this corruption in great detail, having absorbed the corruption so as to "key in on enemy communications". While this helped her stay ahead of Taken forces, it also caught Xivu Arath's attention as well. It's made abundantly clear that had Ahsa not formed a 'link' with Sloane, the Hive God of War might have corrupted Sloane and made her into one of her Taken.
• The idea of navigating through the crushing depths of an ocean is bad enough. But during the Ghosts Of The Deep dungeon - specifically, in one part of the first boss fight, you have to do it to look for runes to align... while the boss is running you down. You have no means to fend him off. All you can do is run.
• You think Oryx as the Taken King was bad? Try to imagine him as "Oryx, Lightbearer". This is the goal of the Lucent Brood, who wish to add Oryx to their ranks. The purpose of the "Ghosts of the Deep" dungeon is to prevent this very thing from happening. Even though the mission is successful in stopping Oryx's resurrection, the Hidden team sent to secure the site discover some unsettling things:
  • Oryx's Worm is unaccounted for. The thing that first tied Oryx to the Darkness and, if it's anything like Savathûn's parasite, possesses untold knowledge of Hive arcana and the Darkness itself, is still out there somewhere.
  • Even though Oryx's mind is long gone, his body is still "active" to some degree, to the point that thanks to a kind of mitosis, it's actually bigger than when it was at the end of the King's Fall raid. The remains also radiate both Darkness and Taken energies, and are said to cause audio-visual hallucinations to those near it. Eris Morn even likens the body to the Crown of Sorrow in its dangerous effects.
  • Just the fact that even though he's been dead for 8 years, Oryx never ceased to be a threat. Sol is already pretty banged up after the Black Fleet came through - a resurrected Oryx, imbued with the Light, would likely mean the end of everything.
    • Which raises some startling implications. Oryx still radiates dangerous power as a corpse, and Savathûn, while not doing the same, is still indirectly dangerous due to her Ghost, Immaru, being alive, alongside the Lucent Brood acting of their own accord. In the event we do finally defeat and even kill Xivu Arath... would that really even stop her?
• After completing the dungeon for the first time, Hawthorne will want to speak with the Player Guardian about what happened, stating that Ikora has made the events of the dungeon classified. She initially wants to know what happened in the Arcology, but then she remembers how shaken Ikora was and decides she's better off not knowing. To reiterate, Ikora Rey, one of the most powerful beings in the City, is scared by the prospect of Oryx's body somehow still being active despite his death and the possibility he can be resurrected. Even in death, the Taken King is to be feared.
• The Witness' origins are revealed by Ahsa. As it turns out, the Witness is not so much a singular entity, but rather an entire alien civilization merged into a single body. Originally a struggling race, the people who would go on to become the Witness eventually discovered the Traveler half-buried in the Earth. Like future races uplifted by the Traveler, they became enlightened and thrived in a golden age with the power of the Light, only to later despair when the Traveler remained silent and could not find a purpose after their enlightenment, leading them to venture into the space. When they discovered the Veil and the power of the Darkness, they realized the Light by itself as a primordial force that could bring about chaos if not brought under control, leading them to try and use the Veil and the Traveler. The latter fled when it realized what they were trying to do, and in doing so, led to the civilization it uplifted merging their consciousnesses and thoughts into the being that would come to be called the Witness.
• The mission "Barotrauma" has Xivu Arath's forces trying to Take Ahsa by way of a Hive ritual. This is scary enough, but when you kill each Wizard and dunk the corrupted coral in the cleanser to stop said ritual, Xivu's response is not only to laugh, but to outright compliment you, calling you clever. It really nails in the point that Xivu Arath is the closest thing to the embodiment of war that we can get. All its glory, and all its pain.
  • Cleansing the corrupted coral seems to hurt Xivu Arath in some way. But after every gasp and of pain? She laughs. Either your efforts really aren't doing much, or she just loves war that much.
  • Look up at one of the walls and you get to see Ahsa's eye observing the situation... and flashing white-black as she's being Taken. It's a startlingly unnerving glimpse into how being Taken looks in real time, especially on a non-humanoid entity.
• The final cinematic cutscene sees Sloane temporarily possessed by Xivu Arath. This alone is scary enough, but what is even more worrisome are the brief scenes of Sloane cowering in the fetal position in a dark, enclosed space. She's always maintained the persona and image of a tough-as-nails woman willing to brave hell itself if it meant getting the mission done, so to see her in such a state is unsettling, to say the least. For a moment, it looked as though we were going to have a repeat of Savathun and Osiris.
  • The shots of Sloane cowering are implied to either be before she was Taken when Titan disappeared, or Sloane's mind being trapped while Xivu puppets her body around. Neither one is very nice to think about.
  • Speaking of the cinematic, Ahsa drops a bombshell that leaves Saladin and Saint-14 seething: "The Witch Queen must rise." Saint-14 has not forgotten what happened to Osiris, and Saladin reminds Zavala that Savathun's machinations led Xivu Arath to Torabatl's doorstep. The fact that the Guardians must now rely one of their most dangerous enemies to reach the Witness is more than enough cause for concern, especially since this is the Hive God of trickery we're talking about here.
• The final page of the Purpose lorebook reveals that Rasputin's sacrifice only delayed the inevitable - Xivu Arath is in the Sol system, currently aboard the Dreadnought. While Ahsa has been saved and the Coalition have more information on the Witness and how to go after it, the fact that the Hive God of War is finally here raises all kinds of alarm bells. And she's still undergoing her massive Villainous Breakdown ever since Oryx died - in her hysteria, she might do something far worse than simply embroil Sol in endless war. And she's very likely all too willing to do so to get her revenge on the Guardians who took her beloved brother away.
• The exotic mission of the season has the Guardians go off-course during a Deep Dive to infiltrate an underwater Pyramid complex. It's a temple to Xivu Arath, and she invites the Guardians inside to sharpen themselves against her champions. After killing the Tormentor inside, Xivu grants the Guardian an audience, complete with an exotic Scout Rifle. She then states that we are a warrior, limited by the Sky, and that we should look at what can transpire when there are no limits. Make no mistake: Xivu Arath is sharpening us like a sword, so that when we challenge her, it will be a challenge to her.
• The "Parting the Veil" quest on Neomuna provides a great deal of lore about the Neomuni's experiments with the Veil, but as the weekly audio logs continue, it becomes clear that Maya Sundaresh— one of the founders of both Neomuna and the Future War Cult— was becoming nearly as bad as Clovis Bray I. Believing that it was speaking to her and that it would be their "salvation," she continued experiments against Chioma Esi's wishes, until she used brain-dead Exo bodies to channel data gathered from the Exos into a central recipient, another brain-dead Exo with at least a partial copy of Maya's personality uploaded into it. The name of that Exo? Lakshmi-2. How Lakshmi-2 ended up going from Neomuna back to Dark Age Earth is as yet unrevealed, but the revelation of Lakshmi-2's actual identity calls into question, and casts a shadow upon, every interaction and piece of lore we know about the deceased leader of the Future War Cult.

Season 22 - Season of the Witch

• Savathun, anticipating the arrival of Xivu Arath in the Sol System, left behind a bold plan in place to defeat her and clear the way for her resurrection. In the recordings she left behind to describe her plan, she claims that Xivu can only be equaled and overcome by a Hive, by another empowered by the Sword-Logic just as she is. So, Eris puts up a candidate to take on this role: herself. After you complete Savathun’s Spire for the first time, Eris enacts a powerful ritual to transform herself into a Hive, binding herself to the Sword-Logic as a means of taking on Xivu on even terms.
  • Eris' transformation, shown on-screen, is also disturbing, as the distinct bone-armor plating of the Hive audibly and grotesquely grows from her body, and its shown to be visibly hurting Eris as it changes her.
  • After Eris completes her transformation, when you speak with her, the first thing she does is name the Guardian her first acolyte, and asks that she begin receiving her tithes. Now that Eris is a Hive, she’s going to have to survive and grow in the same manner as the Hive Gods do: receiving tribute via violence, death, and destruction. And who’s going to have to feed her new powers? You. What the Hive have been doing for billions of years? Killing beings to absorb their power and "prove" their existence? Now, you and Eris must do the same.
  • Eris describes her transformation as having given herself "to vengeance". Remember, the Hive Gods all became as they were by swearing never to abandon their natures in accordance with the Sword-Logic, Oryx with his inquisitiveness, Xivu with her strength, and Savathun with her cunning. Now, Eris has chosen to define herself in the Sword-Logic through vengeance. In other words, Eris became a pseudo-Hive God.
  • It also hearkens back to the storyline of Elsie Bray from "Beyond Light". In "Beyond Light", the lorebooks revealed that, in the Bad Future that the Exo Stranger originated from, Eris gave herself over to the Hive, becoming a new powerful enemy to humanity. Now, Eris has actually become a Hive, making that future one degree likelier. One of the completion dialogues for "Savathun's Spire" has Ikora outright say that she's spoken with Elsie, and Eris acknowledging that her actions do lean towards Elsie's dark visions of the future.
  • Remember how in the lore for "King's Fall" Toland raged at the Guardians for not taking Oryx's place after defeating him, spitting in the face of the Sword-Logic in the process? Now, the opposite happens here. Eris, one of the few people who, in spite of knowing how dangerous it could be, absorbed Toland's teachings and knowledge on the Hive, has given herself to the Sword-Logic, and now you have to help her in following and proving it in order to defeat Xivu Arath.
• "Mission: Invoke" shows the kind of power Eris is unleashing in action. Returning to Savathun's Throne World, you travel to a ritual chamber called the arcane oubilette: a large prison where Savathun contains live subjects for her experiments and rituals. There, you need to summon and destroy enemies to invoke the violence needed to feed Eris' new hunger. Eris' reactions to the newfound sensations of absorbing power from death are...unsettling.
  "Your tithes flow through me like a surge of hot blood…" (gasps)
  "I feel in your tithes the fear and anguish of our foes. Exalt in your retribution!"
  • At the mission's conclusion, Immaru tells a disturbed Ikora that what they just experienced is simply the start of what will be needed to empower Eris. He ends the mission by encouraging the Guardian to enjoy the slaughter that is about to come.
    Immaru: Welcome to the Hive.
• In the distance of Athenaeum, you can see three points of light in the shape of Hive eyes. There's a possibility that Xivu Arath is watching the Guardians enact their plan against her and allowing it to proceed, either because she doesn't think they're a threat, or because she's looking forward to a real challenge.
  • To make matters worse, in the events of week 3, Xivu Arath has decided to make how much she loves Eris known ... by sending her forces into Savathun's Throne World en masse way ahead of schedule, all of which are led by the the Leviathan-Eater, one of her strongest warriors that slew the Leviathan protecting the Ammonites by his lonesome. Immaru is understandably unnerved by this and lets the Guardian know that none of this was in their plans.
• As much as Savathun earned her brutal payback at Saint’s hands in “Proportionality”, Saint’s actions here still fall under this. Gentle Giant and Boisterous Bruiser he may be, Saint perfectly demonstrates in this story just how dangerous he can be if pressed hard enough.
  • His initial attack and appearance before Savathun sets the stage very clearly. As it shows, Saint was waiting in the Throne World at the time to ambush Savathun. He knew she’d be weak from her resurrection, and took the opportunity to strike at her when she was vulnerable.
  • Then, Immaru comes out and checks out the damage. He finds Saint in absolute rage, breathing heavily but maintaining a steady composure. He’s so mad he doesn’t even notice Immaru at first. He then finishes off Savathun without a word before coldly ordering Immaru to restore her.
  • Immaru, predictably, refuses, and prepares to leave with her before Saint releases a Ward of Dawn, blinding the Hive Ghost and blocking his transmat. He then grasps Immaru in his fist, much like the Young Wolf did at the start of the season, before swearing that, after he’s finished, he will allow them both to leave. Immaru acquiesces and restores Savathun. Leading to…
  • Saint executing Savathun over and over and over again. It’s mixed with a brutal breakdown of Saint describing how continual death and resurrection would feel for her as a Lightbearer, only to point out that she’s a Hive and thus, she’s very used to death. So, instead of fearing death, Saint’s making Savathun realize what it means to helpless, a prisoner. Much like what she had done to Osiris, no?
    Saint-14: "Savathun, (...) You are very new to resurrection as a Lightbearer. In the beginning, there is a weakness when you first come back. Like waking from a deep sleep. From a coma. That is why I can best you; you are still unsteady. You are Hive, and you know suffering. You come from death. It is nothing to you. But I think, maybe, you do now know how it feels to be helpless. I will teach you."
  • It gets worse, as it’s implied that, after every one or two sentences Saint says, he kills Savathun yet again. A cold prolonged lecture, coupled with a continual loop of death and resurrection. It’s less like Saint exacting punishment on Savathun and more like Giorno’s Requiem exacting punishment on Diavolo.
• During the Festival of the Lost, the accompanying volume of Tales of the Forgotten finally gives us a good look at Drifter's Ghost. The week the Festival dropped, the Drifter made a comment about introducing Immaru to his Ghost, with his tone implying that the leader of the Lucent Brood would not like what he saw. This was not an exaggeration.
  • The scene starts with Immaru wandering through the Derelict, looking for something Drifter had offered him. While exploring, he finds a room filled with samples, including eyes that stare right at him and move to keep focus. Immaru's thoughts reveal that some of the samples are still alive, but he doesn't know which ones and would not like to take the time to find out.
  • The presence of Drifter's Ghost is heralded by a Drone of Dread that is crossed with moaning and gets indescribable as the ghost get's closer, only stopping when the red-eyed ghost is right behind Immaru.
  • The physical description of the ghost is nightmarish - the shell is patchwork and leaning to one side, its eye seems to bug out of said shell, and again, its eye is blood red.
  • When Immaru asks for the stuff related to the Headless Ones that Drifter promised, the Ghost heads up to a container filled with Cabal Brains and starts lovingly caressing it.
  • All of the above indicates that Drifter's Ghost has undergone massive Sanity Slippage over the course of his existence. Given that the explicit moment he's described as cracking was when the Light was sealed away during the Red War, which occured while Drifter and his crew were fighting Darkness monsters that suppressed the Light, you have to wonder just how terrifying those creatures were to break this Ghost so badly.

Season 23 - Season of the Wish

• Once again, the Coalition is forced to work with an unscrupulous ally to try and access the Traveler's Pale Heart. But unlike with Immaru and Savathun, the Coalition has no leverage against Riven, and it's made abundantly clear that Riven's offer is decidedly in her favor. And she most certainly has not forgotten that we killed her.
• The fact that Riven refuses to grant the 15th Wish. Previous lore entries had implied that while Ahamkara would twist wishes to their own benefit, granting the wish in the first place was something that just happened in their presence and that even they had no control over it. Riven's first words in this season remove any ambiguity - Ahamkara can choose which wishes they grant. It also puts a new spin on the creation of the Scorn by indicating that Riven knew exactly what would happen when she granted Uldren' wish.

The Final Shape

• This expansion gives us the rest of the faction to whom the Tormentors belong: the Dread. These aren't the Scorn, Taken or Hive, these are the Witnesses' own personal forces, and as such have been enhanced and changed to fit the Witness' view.
  • The Subjugators are soldiers based on Rhulk, and are able to suspend or freeze the Guardian with their powers.
  • The Grim are bat-like creatures that can scream at you, slowing you down while suppressing your abilities.
  • The Attendents and Weavers are Psions that have been reshaped by the Witness and empowered with Stasis and Strand. They may have chosen the Witness' side, but seeing them twisted into the Witness's forces is still unsettling.
  • The Husks are melee-focused bruisers who rush you down with dual blades and overwhelm you, and if you kill them without destroying their weak spot, they have a surprise: the Geist, a homing missile that flies towards the Guardian and explodes.

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