Darkness (Destiny)

Latest revision as of 05:47, 26 April 2024

The Darkness is an entity that features in Destiny.

History

The Darkness was an ancient paracausal force that inhabited the universe and served as the antithesis to the power of the Light that was embodied by the Traveler. According to ancient lore, both the Light and the Darkness have existed since before the beginning of time, and thus before the universe came into existence. Being unbound by the laws of causality, neither the Light nor Darkness can be said to have a beginning. Rather, they are emergent properties of even more fundamental "mathematical structures" that in turn underlay reality itself. An allegorical account referred to the Darkness and the Light as the Winnower and Gardener respectively. The Winnower and Gardener occupied themselves by engaging one another in a game, analogous to a vastly more complex version of the 'Game of Life', as devised by Earth mathematician John Conway. This game would consistently arrive at an end-state dominated by a single, self-perpetuating pattern, which subsumed all others in the game. The Winnower found this to be a pleasing outcome, but the Gardener felt the pattern to be boring and desired that the game endlessly produce novel patterns instead. In order to promote this novelty, the Gardener transformed itself into a new 'rule' within the game; the Winnower did the same, to counteract the Gardener's efforts. These new rules were "set aside" from the other rules of the game, so that they could not be limited or influenced by them, but could manipulate the other rules to bring about their intended outcomes.

Billions of years ago, a nomadic humanoid species discovered the Traveler lying dormant and half-buried on their homeworld. The Traveler awakened, and began to terraform the planet and grant paracausal gifts to the species, uplifting them into a golden age that lasted for millions of years. Despite their prosperity, however, the civilization became dissatisfied with the Traveler's silence and refusal to impart guidance or wisdom, and sought a greater purpose in which they could find meaning; in the words of Ahsa, they desired a 'winnower' to shape the otherwise formless garden of their existence. In addition, they came to view the Light as a fundamentally chaotic and capricious force, equally capable of bringing life or death with no ultimate justification for either. In studying the Traveler, the civilization discovered that it was connected to another entity in a distant star system, which they named 'the Veil'. They determined that the Veil was the source of a power that was the opposite of the Light, one tied to the mind and consciousness rather than the physical universe: the Darkness. Furthermore, they determined that by bringing the Veil into close proximity with the Traveler, their powers could be used together to reshape reality as they saw fit, enabling them to convert the universe into a perfected, eternal form they called the 'Final Shape'. Seeking to achieve this outcome, the civilization traveled to the star system where the Veil was located and brought it back to their homeworld, where the Traveler had remained since its discovery. However, the Traveler responded by leaving the planet and fleeing into the far reaches of space. Unwilling to give up their quest, the civilization used the Darkness to bind their consciousnesses together into a singular, unfathomably powerful entity, which became known as the Witness. This being then left its homeworld with a fleet of pyramidal ships, seeking to find the Traveler and unite it with the Veil by force, and in so doing bring about the Final Shape.

In this time, a single Pyramid came to be buried beneath the surface of the Moon.

after the Cabal Almighty's destruction, the Darkness began to arrive in the Sol system with its Pyramids entering the region. One Pyramid headed towards Jupiter where its arrival was detected by the Warmind Rasputin who activated the Warsat network to shoot the vessel down. Despite countermeasures being launched, the weapons had no effect on the Pyramid that continued to completely disable to Warmind and its systems thus leaving the Guardians to fend for themselves against the Darkness.

Overview

One aspect of the Darkness was its paracausal nature allowing them to violate the nature of reality.

It was able to possess the bodies of physical beings to serve as a presence within the material plane. The Darkness was able to take control of the body of a Ghost and spoke through it.

The Darkness was said to embody a philosophy known as Sword-Logic that reduced all existence to its most simplistic and basic form. It believed that conflict was needed with only the strong having to constantly prove themselves being worthy of continued survival.

For centuries following the Collapse, the Darkness was believed by scholars of the Last City to be an inherently evil force, with its usage inevitably corrupting the wielder. This is now known to be untrue; just as the Light can be used for constructive and benevolent purposes as well as destructive and self-serving ones, the act of wielding the Darkness has no moral valency of its own, and it can be used for good or ill. Ancient civilizations such as the Ecumene and Qugu used the Darkness for peaceful purposes, such as communing with the memories of their ancestors. In contrast, the being known as the Witness and its Disciples, who collectively lead the armada known as the Black Fleet and have exterminated countless civilizations uplifted by the Traveler, wield the Darkness as a weapon against their enemies. Most of humanity's experience with the Darkness has come through conflict with those aligned with the Witness and its cause, such as the Hive, Taken, Scorn and the Vex of the Sol Divisive, which has in large part led to the one-sided view of Darkness as a destructive force hostile to life and peaceful civilization.

It was known to possess a number of servants that sought to enact its will on the cosmos. These included the large serpentine Worm Gods that were once imprisoned underneath the oceans of the planet Fundament. The beings were trapped there until freed by a trio of sisters of a native species who bound themselves to the Worm Gods and thus were reborn as the Hive. The Hive as a result served as among the primary servants of the Darkness and waged war across the cosmos in its name.

An aspect of the Darkness was a fleet of tetrahedral vessels known as the Pyramids that were not ships but said to be part of the Darkness itself. These varied in size with some being city-sized flagships whilst others being similar in size to a Fallen Ketch. These Darkness aligned entities were capable of deploying Pyramid scales that were simple hexahedrons the size of a jumpship.

The Darkness was able to create psyche-violent manifestations for use against its enemies with these being the Nightmares that were designed to torment people of their past trauma. They pried into the minds of their quarry and attacked them at their most vulnerable. Nightmares were capable of waging psychological warfare that were devoid of corporeal form.

Notes

• The Darkness was created by Bungie and featured in the setting of the Destiny universe.

Appearances

• Destiny:
• Destiny 2:

External Links

• Destinypedia Entry

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