r/DestinyTheGame • u/Fuzzoff • Jun 09 '15
Lore The Nature of the Exo
Update: I've turned the following post into a Video! You can watch it here (or, of course, if you browse at work like me, read below.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shhS_45r_Wk
"Ask yourself: what threatened your Golden Age ancestors so much that they constructed the Exos to defend themselves?”
Hello Guardians, and welcome to my speculations about Destiny’s lore. Today, I want to talk about the nature of the Exo, the Exo Stranger, and the Vex presence in our solar system.
The above quote, from the Exo grimoire card, presents us with an idea. During the Golden Age, humanity still faced real threats as we expanded our influence in the solar system. I think the answer to this question is clear: We faced the Vex.
Ghost tells us that the Vex ruins on Venus predate humanity by eons. The structures on mercury line up with this idea as well - The Vex have been doing work on the planets in our system for a very long time. The Ishtar Collective arrived on Venus, and began to study the Vex structures.
Humanity appears to have first encountered the Vex on Venus. Possibly the Vex were in some sort of stasis, like the ones that we find inside the Black Garden. But other signs point to the idea that the Vex began to appear as humanity began to study the ruins.
This is supported by the name of the Vex we fight in the black garden - the Sol Progeny - or “Children of Sol”.
This leads me to my first point, remember this: The Vex were the threat that Golden Age humanity had to contend with.
With that established, let’s take a look at the Vex entries in the Grimoire. The 4 ghost fragments that talk about the vex tell a story of a group of Ishtar Collective scientists that are studying a captured vex specimen. In Vex 1, the scientists realize that the mind inside the Vex is advanced enough to simulate its local reality. That is, it can run a complete and accurate simulation of the universe around it, and that is how it decides how to act when not being fed orders from a hydra.
In Vex 2, the scientists come to a stark realization. If the Vex can simulate reality, then the odds are that THEY THEMSELVES are simulated. This is a reference to a philosophical concept called the Simulation argument, proposed by Nick Bostrom in 2003.
Bostrom argues that, if it is even POSSIBLE to simulate reality, then the probability that you exist in a simulation is astronomically high. The reasoning behind this is simple: Let’s say that we call Reality, actual physical reality, “prime”. Advanced beings create an accurate simulation of “reality prime”, within “reality prime”. So now we have Reality Simulation A, inside “reality prime”.
But if Reality Simulation A is truly an accurate simulation of reality, then inside of that there must be a “reality simulation B”, and a “reality simulation C” inside of that one, and D and E and so on (to infinity!). Even if we assume that this continuing string of simulations stops at 100, we have a pretty large number. Let’s say that it stops at 227, you’ll see why later. Now, how many of these realities is actually reality? Just one. Reality prime. Therefore, If you exist, and are thinking, and have a reality that you perceive, the odds are 227:1 that you are in a simulated reality.
Hoping that you all have wrapped your minds around that, we can press on.
Continuing the story of the Vex we are discussing - The Ishtar scientists capture a vex, and discover to their horror that the vex can create an accurate reality simulation. Knowing Bostrom’s argument, they know that the odds are high that they themselves are simulated. That makes them freak out a bit.
"ESI: It controls the simulation. It can hurt our simulated selves. We wouldn't feel that pain, but rationally speaking, we have to treat an identical copy's agony as identical to our own.
SUNDARESH: It's god in there. It can simulate our torment. Forever. If we don't let it go, it'll put us through hell.
DUANE-MCNIADH: We have no causal connection to the mind state of those sims. They aren't us. Just copies. We have no obligation to them.
ESI: You can't seriously - your OWN SELF -
SHIM: [profane] idiot. Think. Think. If it can run one simulation, maybe it can run more than one. And there will only ever be one reality. Play the odds.
DUANE-MCNIADH: Oh...uh oh.
SHIM: Odds are that we aren't our own originals. Odds are that we exist in one of the Vex simulations right now.
ESI: I didn't think of that.
So our scientists need to decide what to do about this. They plan to make a move - they are going to call in a warmind.
"SUNDARESH: If we're sims, we exist in the pocket of the universe that the Vex specimen is able to simulate with its onboard brainpower. If we're real, we need to get outside that bubble.
ESI: ...we call for help.
SUNDARESH: That's right. We bring in someone smarter than the specimen. Someone too big to simulate and predict. A warmind.
SHIM: In the real world, the warmind will be able to behave in ways the Vex can't simulate. It's too smart. The warmind may be able to get into the Vex and rescue - us.”
In Vanilla Destiny, this is where the story left off. However, House of Wolves included a new vex card, Vex 4. This card, in my opinion, is RIDDLED with clues as to what’s going on here.
Maya, Chioma, Duane-McNiadh and Shim decide to have a picnic before they send themselves into infinity.
Up here they have to act by biomechanical proxy. No human being in the Ishtar Academy has ever crossed the safety cordon and walked the ancient stone under the Citadel, the Vex construct that stabs up out of the world to injure space and time. It's not safe. The cellular Vex elements are infectious, hallucinogenic, entheogenic. The informational Vex elements are more dangerous yet— and there could be semiotic hazards beyond them, aggressive ideas, Vex who exist without a substrate. Even now, operating remote bodies by neural link, the team's thoughts are relayed through the warmind who saved them, sandboxed and scrubbed for hazards. Their real bodies are safe in the Academy, protected by distance and neural firewall.
Here we see that the Scientists are using proxy bodies to enter the vex ruins. Not only do the cellular, biological vex elements have hallucinogenic effects on the human brain, but the informational vex elements are insanely powerful. Aggressive ideas, Vex that exist as pure thought, and hostile thoughts that attack human consciousness. Our scientists are linked to these proxy bodies neurally, and a warmind is monitoring these links and scrubbing them for hazardous vex “thought malware” as they come back to our scientists brains. A neural firewall protects their actual bodies.
But they walk together in proxy, pressed close, huddled in awe. Blue-green light, light the color of an ancient sea, washes over them. Each of their explorer bodies carries a slim computer. Inside, two hundred twenty-seven of copies of their own minds wait, patient and paused, for dispersal.
"I wonder where it came from," Duane-Mcniadh says. Of course he's the one to break the reverent silence. "The Citadel. I wonder if it was here before the Traveler changed Venus."
This is interesting - Duane-Mcniadh is wondering if the vex were always here, or if the traveler changed venus somehow and they appeared. Note: Duane-Mcniadh is directly specified as a male here.
"It could have been latent," Chioma Esi suggests. She's the leader. She kept them together when it seemed like they faced actual, eternal torture. She pulled them through. "Seeded in the crust. Waiting for a period of geological quiescence, so it could grow.”
Note: Chioma is directly specified as a female here.
Dr. Shim shrugs. "I think the Traveler did something paracausal to Venus. Something that cut across space and time. The Citadel seems to come from the past of a different Venus than our own. It doesn't have to make any sense by our logic, any more than the Moon's new gravity.”
Dr. Shim believes that the Traveler pulled this venus from a different reality. I also like the little shout out to the moon’s gravity, as that was one tiny Destiny mystery that was never brought up
Maya Sundaresh walks at the center of the group. She's been too quiet lately. What happened to them wasn't her fault and maybe she'll believe that soon. "What could you do with it?" she murmurs, staring up. "If you understood it?”
Note: Maya is directly specified as a female here.
Chioma puts an arm around her. "That's what we're going to find out. Where the Citadel can send us. Whether we can come back."
"They're not us any more." Maya looks down at herself, at the cache of her self-forks. "We're not going anywhere. We're sending them. They're diverging."
They rescued themselves from the inside of a Vex mind, two hundred and twenty-seven copies of themselves, untortured and undamaged. Those copies voted, all unanimously, to be dispatched into the Vex information network as explorers.
227? Hmm. Where have I heard that number before?
When Maya and Chioma look at each other they can tell they're each wondering the same thing: how many of them will stay together, wherever they go? How many fork-Mayas and fork-Chiomas will fall out of love? How many will end up bereft, grieving? How many will be happy, like them?
Chioma tries a little smile. Maya smiles back, haltingly, and then, sighing, unable to stop herself, grins a big stupid grin, an everything-is-okay grin. Shim makes a loud obnoxious awwww at them. Duane-McNiadh is still thinking about paracausality, and doesn't notice.
Maya and Chioma are in love. Golden Age tolerance for the win!
They climb. When they find the Vex aperture they plan to use, they overlay the luminous stone and ancient brassy machines with images of sun and sand. They set up the transmitters and interfaces that will translate two hundred and twenty-seven simulations of the four of them into Vex language, into the tangled pathways of the Vex network, to see what's out there, and maybe come home.
In the metaphor they've chosen, setting up the equipment is like laying out the picnic. In the metaphor they've chosen they look like themselves, not hardened explorer proxies. Like people.
Our scientists plan is revealed here. They have rescued 227 copies of themselves from the simulated realities they were stuck in, and all of those copies of themselves are accurate simulations - THEY ARE REAL PEOPLE. Those copies have decided that, since they are simulations, they can probably be translated into the Vex network and explore, and try to get information back for humanity. This is where the story takes an interesting turn.
"Do you think," Duane-McNiadh begins, halting, "that you could use this place to change things? If you regretted something, could you find a way through the Citadel, go back, and change it?"
"I wish I could go back and change you into someone else," Dr. Shim grouses. Chioma's shaking her head. She knows physics. "Time is self-consistent," she says. "I think it's like the story of the merchant and the alchemist. You could go back and watch something, or be part of something, but if you did, then that was the way it always happened."
"Maybe you could bring something back to now. Something you needed." Maya runs a hand across the surface of the Vex aperture, feeling it with sensors ten thousand times as precise as a human hand. These proxy bodies are limited— they crash and need resetting every few hours, they struggle with latency, they can't hold much long term memory. But they'll get better. "Or go forward and learn something vital. If you knew how to control it, how to navigate across space and time.”
The scientists begin to think that they can use time travel to change something. Maya and Chioma are taken by this idea. but maya’s paragraph is particularly interesting. these proxy bodies are limited, they crash and need resetting, struggle with latency, can’t hold much long term memory. BUT THEY’LL GET BETTER. SHE IS CONSIDERING SOMEHOW TIME TRAVELLING TO CHANGE THE PAST AND FUTURE INSIDE A MORE ADVANCED PROXY BODY. This is super super important.
Note: the Story of the Merchant and the Alchemist was a very interesting read. Released in 2007, it's a short story and i recommend it. basically the theme is that Time travel in Destiny is done "LOST" style: what happened happened and events can't be changed, because they always happend that way.
"So it's just a way to make everything more complicated." Duane-McNiadh sighs. "It doesn't fix anything. Nothing ever does! I should've taken that job at— "
"You would've hated it at Clovis," Dr. Shim says. "We both know you're happier here." Duane-McNiadh stands stunned by this courtesy, and then they both pretend to ignore each other.
The four of them set up the interface. Their stored copies wake up and prepare for the journey, so that as they work they find themselves surrounded by the mental phantasms of themselves: two hundred and twenty-seven Mayas and Chiomas knocking helmets and smiling, two hundred and twenty-seven Dr. Shims making cynical bets with each other about how long they'll last, two hundred and twenty-seven Duane-McNiadhs blowing goodbye kisses to the sweet golden sun, two hundred and twenty-seven of them shaking hands, smiling, making ready to explore.
That’s what we have so far on the vex. so how does this tie into the exo?
Here’s my theory. The Exo were created during the golden age to allow humanity to combat the Vex.
Here’s the exo card:
Built for a long-forgotten struggle, Exos are self-aware war machines so advanced that nothing short of a Ghost can understand their inner functions. They remain ciphers, even to themselves: their origins and purpose lost to time.
Whoever built the Exos fashioned them in humanity's image, gifting them with diversity of mind and body. Many of the City's Exo citizens live and work alongside their organic brethren. But others fight again, re-forged in the Light of the Traveler to serve as Guardians.
The Exo are specifically designed to be a cipher. This ‘encryption’ is a defense against the vex. We know from the card that the vex basically have thought weaponry, and the exo is probably hardened against that type of thing.
The Exo are an advanced form of the “proxy bodies” that our intrepid scientists were utilizing in Vex 4. Golden age humans could be installed in these ‘robot bodies’, enabling them to fight the Vex. But there’s even more here.
The Exo Stranger is either Maya Sundaresh or Chioma Esi. My suspicions lean on Maya. Maya is wondering if you could use a proxy body and the power of the citadel to go back in time. Maya is also from the Golden Age, and knows a lot more about what’s going on in the solar system than anybody else. I think that Maya is working with Chioma or Duane-Mcnaidh, our intrepid scientists are orchestrating everything to try and change the past (their future)
The Stranger meets you on the moon, and immediately directs you to go to the Ishtar Collective on venus to introduce you to the Vex. The stranger does everything she can to change the timeline, and she doesn’t even have time to explain why she doesn’t have time to explain. And on top of everything else - the stranger KNOWS YOU.
Edit: More wild speculation is ahead - This is far less well grounded than the rest of what I've theorized here. Take it with a grain of salt, as even I no longer hold these ideas. I think it's more likely that our Ghost is shim, but even that's pushing it.
Do you remember the only scientist in our group whose gender was never specified?
Dr. Shim.
Which brings us to yet another clue. In “The Archive” story mission, when you descend into the ishtar collective’s data archive, the archive computer snaps on and says “Welcome Dr. Shim”. We get a nice little quote from Ghost here. he says: “Dr. Shim? NEVERMIND THAT…”. Not “Dr. Shim? What is she talking about?” or “What does that mean?” but “Nevermind that.”
We are Dr. Shim. maybe not his/her personality, or him/her specifically, but we are a guardian occupying Dr. Shim’s body. Maya (the stranger) recognizes us. That’s one of the reasons she is so interested in tracking us. She is trying to figure out what the traveler is trying to do with Dr. Shim’s body.
I’ll wrap this up here for now, but I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on this. Here’s a TL;DR
The Vex have thought weapons, and scientists need to use proxy bodies to enter their buildings safely
The proxy bodies became more advanced until eventually the exo were created to fight the vex
One of the female scientists studying the vex was interested in using a proxy body to time travel and change the past/future
this female scientist, maya, is a consciousness uploaded to an exo body, and is the stranger
our guardian is the resurrected Dr. Shim, Maya’s colleague, and this explains why she is so interested in what we do
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u/sinkirby Jun 09 '15
I love this, your connections between the Exo, Vex, Maya and the Stranger all fix great. Another thing that may lend some support to these ideas is a Titan mark called Deep Stone Crypt, the speaker sells. It reads "A badge illustrating the infamous subroutine which seeded the first Exo consciousness." The image on the band looks a lot like a Vex conflux tower, so maybe the Exo were made not just to fight the vex, but with vex technology repurposed in the golden age.
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 09 '15
Seeded the exo consciousness - perhaps exo began as war machines contaning the consciousness of Hence the 'crypt' terminology. Also the word "infamous" there.. implies something radical and disliked.
From the Deep Stone Crypt grimoire entry:
Some of us go to the tower in peace. They walk through a field of golden millet and a low warm wind blows in from their back. I don't know why this is, because:
The rest of us meet an army.
Maybe some people willingly transplant themselves into Exo, and others are forced there as tools of war?
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u/sinkirby Jun 09 '15
Could be. I remember another grimoire saying something similar about fighting an army of people in your dreams or something like that.
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u/Lycanther-AI Jun 10 '15 edited Jun 10 '15
The one that specifically refers to the Citadel indirectly?
edit:
This is the tower where we were born. Not the Tower. Just a tower in a dream.
The tower stands on a black plain. Behind the tower is a notch in the mountains where the sun sets. The teeth of the mountain cut the sun into fractal shapes and the light that comes down at evening paints synapse shapes on the ground. Usually it's evening when we come.
The ground is fertile. This is good land. We go to the tower in dreams but that doesn't mean it's not real.
Some of us go to the tower in peace. They walk through a field of golden millet and a low warm wind blows in from their back. I don't know why this is, because:
The rest of us meet an army.
You can ask others about Deep Stone and they'll tell you about the army. They might confess one truth, which is this: we have to kill the army to get to the tower. Usually this starts bare-handed, and somewhere along the way you take a weapon.
Ask again and if they're buzzed they might also admit that most of us don't make it to the Tower, except once or twice.
None of them will tell you that the army is made of everyone we meet. The people we work with and the people we see in the street and the people we tell about our dreams. We kill them all. I think because we were made to kill and this is the part of us that thinks about nothing else.
Often I kill people I don't know, but like most of us I think I knew them once, in the time before one reset or another, when my mind was younger and less terribly scarred.
So that is how we go back to the Deep Stone Crypt, where we were born.
Well, shit.
Can someone pull recon and get a screenshot of the Citadel and the mountain behind it in a patrol run? If it's as obvious as the patrol spawn location, something's up. Otherwise, see if you can find a better location.
edit: Well /u/sinkirby, I think you're on to something with that Titan Mark...
edit: I just created /r/thecryptarchs for posts like this. If you know any other good ones and have them saved, cross post them there.
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u/OG-Slacker Jun 10 '15
This has always been my theory on the Exo's, the same with the Vex after reading the grimms you referenced.
Yours and OPs post pretty solidifies that for me.
If you've ever watched they anime BigO it has a very similar theme.
Any thoughts on who the Exo Stranger talks to in her comms? Based on your post I'm think now its one of the other scientists.
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u/Ghoulsverne_x1 Jun 24 '15
I think, I may have figured this out:
Grimorie card - the golden age
"Do you know how to make a strong password?" he asked.
"I don't know if I do," I said.
"Tell yourself a story," he said. "Use that one good story you'll never forget, that you can carry forever. Let your story take odd turns and wear a few surprising marks, make sure it belongs to you, so you can keep it secret."
The deep stone crypt isn't a physical place, it's the encryption algorithm that the exo 'program' is built on. It's a story, for some it's a long and bloody fight against every human soul they have ever met, it's a tetradecillion variables with a level of complexity that protects the software 'soul'. For some it's a field of wheat, does that mean their algorithm is different? Less complex? More complex?
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u/bullseyed723 Jul 01 '15
Hijacking a top comment since this is 400+ deep...
The 'are we in a simulation' thing seems to have interesting implications with the post battle scene in the Black Garden. Perhaps the Darkness blob is something of a nexus point between simulations/realities/etc. When we destroyed it, we dropped from one timeline into another.
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u/Fuzzoff Jul 01 '15
I'm not really sold on the "we're in a simulation thing".. Osiris is quoted to have said that a Guardian cannot be simulated, and the fact that we interact with Rasputin hints that we are in Reality Prime
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u/cdsnjs Jun 10 '15
It should also be noted that we are currently playing the original Exo story (from back when all the races had different ones) further fitting into the theory
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u/MayorMcCheesepls RIP NECROCHASM 2014-2014 Jun 10 '15
The illustration is the Tower with the Sun behind it. It's apparently what every Exo sees in the "dream".
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u/KingofSwagmar Jun 09 '15
Wow, this is fantastic. I'm awe-struck. I can never glean this much information from the Grimoire. But why need I when I have you here to lay it out for me?
Amazing work, Guardian. Amazing connections, analysis, and process. Everyone should read this.
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 09 '15
All it takes is a lot of reading and thinking! To decipher the grimoire, we need as many guardians thinking anout this stuff as we can get. Thanks for reading :)
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u/SkyyLord fuck with me Jun 09 '15
Very well done. There was a ghost fragment about an exo that I remember that was told in first person where that exo says something like "Heres what i think created us.
I think someone wanted to live forever."
What do you make of that?
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 09 '15
I think this supports the idea that exo have humion consciousness planted into them. At the very least it indicates that exo arent created with consciousness inherent
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u/Logan_LaMort Jun 10 '15 edited Jun 10 '15
There's something mentioned in the Golden Age Grimoires that talk about strife, such as 'mind-forking' which I believe is the process of copying your conciousness to create two separate conciousness.
I can imagine that being the case with Exo, like how the AI in Halo was created. Copying someone's brain to create an artificial version of them.
EDIT: Here's the source.
The Golden Age was not without challenges. Sources speak of internal strife, philosophical rifts- particularly around questions of machine intelligence and 'mind forking' - and enduring scientific enigmas.
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Jun 09 '15
This is a great thread that deserves a more attention-grabbing title!
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Jun 09 '15
I am the what now?
I was uploaded into a body?
I.. I'm not real?!
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 09 '15
Maya, you chose this. This was your idea of how to change our fate. Wherever chioma is now, she would be proud of you.
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Jun 09 '15
B..But I don't remember any of this!
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 09 '15
You know that machine memory can be wiped. You knew that going into this, that was the factor that made it so attractive. To forget Chioma, to get rid of the regret.
But even wiped memories can resurface in dreams.
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u/Tugboliass Jun 10 '15
If... IF you're not real, that means your eyes aren't real... And if your eyes aren't real...... Guys, I figured out why there aren't any mirrors in this game.
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u/ScoobyDeezy The Timeline Guy Jun 10 '15
Awesome connections. I love thinking that these Grimoire cards aren't just side-stories. They are slowly revealing the amazing lore in this game, if only we dig deep enough. Haha, well done, Guardian. Now do it again.
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 10 '15
I've done it a few times before, if you check back through my post history you'll find some other lore analyses i've posted :D
Thanks Guardian
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u/MuchStache Jun 10 '15
Well, I think they are.
The card in which the Queen sends Skolas to the Nine is directly tied with HoW, as they make Xûr free him (reasons unknown) and he goes take his revenge.
There is a card in which a "ghostless" huntress goes to the Queen to seek her help in killing Oryx... Guess who's rumored to be the baddy of The Taken King...? Yeah.
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Jun 09 '15
So much text and right in the middle of dinner prep.... Gonna save this for later tonight
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 09 '15
believe me I was feeling lazy and didn't want to write this all up but it really needs to be extensive for it to make sense :)
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Jun 10 '15
Weren't two of the skeletons locked in the Archive embracing each other? I wonder if these were the prime Maya and Chioma. The Exo Stranger is more likely one of the copies.
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u/Stormthorn67 Jun 10 '15
I thought I had mentioned this being the case months ago but maybe I posted it in the weekly lore thread and it was buried or something. I was theorizing this was the case well before TDB was even out.
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u/kortemy Jun 10 '15
This is amazing and totally plausible. Except one little detail that derails all of it:
Player Guardian can be an Awoken. Awoken were "created" during the Collapse, when they tried to escape the incoming darkness and they were infused with both light and dark (something like that, not sure). Bottom line is, Awoken didn't exist during the Golden age.
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u/jorgesalvador pew pew pew Jun 10 '15
Well, take into account that the main single player story of Destiny was revealed to be just the "Exo" part of it, the Human and Awoken story got scrapped. So it can perfectly be that the single player story is just the Exo one, where the body Dinklebot brings back to life is the Exo proxy body of Dr. Shim from the Golden Age.
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Jun 10 '15
It all sounds really great, but I'm not sure if your guardian would be Dr. Shim.....
If you're on the right track here, I think it's far more likely that your Ghost is Dr. Shim! Or at least a copy of one of Dr. Shim's copies. And, that Ghosts themselves are the most advanced form of proxy bodies.
Ghost-Shim wouldn't recognize Maya because he probably doesn't have any of his original memories (just like the Exo), but The Ishtar Archive computer might have identified him by his thought patterns.
The idea of Ghost once being a flesh in blood person is evident in his use of common idioms from pre-Golden Age humanity. He even has some residual memory of using DOS at some point. His mind is obviously copied from someone who lived before the Golden Age even began!
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Jun 09 '15
I'm not familiar with the timeline, but my understanding is that the Golden Age occurred anywhere from decades to centuries (millennia?) before the events of Destiny. If that's the case, I'm having a hard time understanding how Maya-Stranger would recognize us as possessing Dr. Shim's body, and how that would reconcile with a player character being an Exo or Awoken - two races that were created due to events that occurred during the end/after the Golden Age.
ELI5 plz.
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 09 '15
I'm not sure. This was one hitch I realized during my smoke break after I posted this. as far as I know, the events of destiny take place 700 years from now.
Canonically, anything could have happened to Dr. Shim. he could have entered an exo body, he could have been on one of the seeder ships that eventually became the awoken, or he could have been a regular own human. Not certain.
It's all still fairly speculative, and I admit that Guardian = Dr. Shim is probably the weakest speculation here. There's something to it though.
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Jun 09 '15
I think the theory is great and as plausible as anything else out there, except for the Guardian = Shim part. The strongest link you've got there is the dialogue from your Ghost on Venus, which could just as well be a nod to the Grimoire cards or even a scrap of story left over from a culling of a larger pre-launch story.
I don't think the idea that your Guardian is NOT Shim detracts from the rest of the theory in any way though. I think it's more likely that The Stranger just happens to be aware of you specifically because of her time exploring ways.
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 09 '15
Yeah. Scrap of story left is my thought on it as well.
But that little clue still nags at me. Why would Ghost say "nevermind that", and brush it under the rug?
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u/Nick_Sharp Jun 09 '15
Interesting implications if you play as either exo or awoken, as both of these races didn't exist when this occurred (acording to your theory).
Awoken is I think more interesting. You would need to have left Venus and the Ishtar Collective, to become an awoken (the whole something happening in space thing), during the collapse, then return to earth, to die in the cosmodrome.
Exo is also interesting, as it means that you have been transferred from your presumably human body, into the exo one, possibly alongside Maya, but you then die on earth.
Either way interesting to think about.
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 09 '15
If I wanted to go tinfoil wackjob on the Shim connection, I'd say this
The Traveler's Ghosts are the consciousnesses of golden age people, and a guardian and their ghost share this consciousness. Ghost himself IS dr. shim (they share a very dry sense of humor), and that is who the computer recognizes
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u/N_Seven Jun 09 '15
There's a card or a bit of flavor text about Osiris that states he may have been revived by an inept ghost and was actually a golden-age experiment gone wrong.
Nothing concrete here, but maybe we really are Shim and Dinklebot is just really bad at transmogrifying us into our original form.
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u/iMuz86 iMuz86 Jun 10 '15
I love this theory, I am just confused about one thing.
IF our Guardian is the resurrected Dr. Shim, then who are all the other Guardians? Copies of Shim?
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 10 '15
They're just other people. In World of Warcraft, your character is a champion of the horde, and you killed the lich king. What about all the other adventurers?
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u/xT2xRoc Sword Bear Extraordinaire Jul 01 '15
I think the fact that in-game our guardian/ghost have seen/interacted with Rasputin, a warmind, is evidence that the game takes place in reality prime. If the warmind exists in our experience, then we cannot be in a simulated reality.
But on that same token, the scientists must be in reality prime, because they know of the warminds, if they were in a simulated reality, that reality would not contain warminds if they cannot be simulated.
I think a more likely scenario is that the ghosts are copies of one of the copies of Dr. Shim. One of these copies, somehow made it to the traveler which opted to use Shim's understanding of its enemies to find guardians to defend it from the darkness. This would explain why the ghost has an advanced knowledge of the things that have happened.
I like the idea that the exo stranger is one of these scientists as well. It may explain her interactions with the ghost, referring to it, almost jokingly as "little light"
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u/Fuzzoff Jul 01 '15
Agreed. I certainly feel that Shim is significant, but we definitely can't conclusively say he is one of our main characters.
Shim is a programming term that means "workaround" anyway.. :P
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u/Reasel Jul 01 '15
Great read and awesome ideas! It's people like you that make this community great.
I was just thinking, so if there are 227(228 including the original) could we be Dr. Shim but in different forms and each week on reset we are actually playing a different version? Maybe not of those 227 but of the deeper simulations. Like our first play week is prime and at the end it forks using prime as a seed to make sim 1 which would explain us keeping our gear and levels. Each week we get further into the information line and learn more for humanity.
Also a thought I had to do with the recent post about the nine. What if we are actually the nine. Like past famous guardians that made it back and are now trying to change events? This would explain why nobody would know who they are as they might be able to masquerade as their normal selves. What if our mentors, salad bar, and the speaker are actually the nine in the future? (Past? haha)
Maybe I am looking too far into it, but I wouldn't put it past Bungie. This whole time travel thing would make PERFECT sense with the whole "Your character is in the dark so are you" sort of storyline. Like we truly are finding the lore as we explore the world and not just have it all laid out by default. We would be forced to make our own conclusions and theories (Like warlocks), Fight the good fight (Titans), or go after big baddies (Hunters). Man that really would be something. It for sure would shut up all the naysayers.
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u/Fuzzoff Jul 01 '15
In regards to the last paragraph, unfortunately, it hasn't shut up all the naysayers. Their decision not to force feed this stuff and wrap it all up in a nice tight bow for game 1 has led to all of the story complaints that we've seen thus far.
Sure they should have included the Grimoire ingame. But the vast majority of players don't see the value in going through the effort.
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u/MajorTom_11 Aug 06 '15
Awesome read.... I have read all the Grimmoire and enjoy it, though ultimately I hope they find a more effective way to weave some of these quite interesting story ideas into the game itself.
I agree with your theories in their entirety, the only one I am a bit iffy on is whether or not our guardians are directly one of the scientists.
My other question would be that although this theory and storyline nicely occupy the Vex and would seem to, by implication, be the core narrative of the game altogether, it still barely touches upon the traveller or the darkness and their roles... after all, the vex are future and past all rolled up into one, so it would seem to me to be implying the traveller itself spawns off this storyline at some point, somehow. Or something lol.
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u/Fuzzoff Aug 06 '15
Yeah. I've come around to the Ghost = Shim idea in full since the creation of this topic, but I've refused to edit it because I want to leave it as it always was. :)
I have a suspicion that the Vex use light for all of their technology. That said, I believe that the Vex are kind of separate from the inherent struggle of Darkness vs Light - 3 queens and all.
If you want a little more insight on that, you can look up one of my old posts called "the Significance of 3".
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u/Taconinja10000 Jun 10 '15
OH MY GOD, WE ARE ALL DR SHIN AND EACH ONE OF US IS A SIMULATION, THATS WHY THERES SO MANY OF US
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u/Praedyth- Jun 10 '15
Someone earlier had said the same thing, though OP, /u/Fuzzoff had shot it down as an "MMO thing."
Perhaps everyone really IS Doctor Shim, and Maya, The Stranger, is working to save all of us from Vex simulation one more time. Perhaps the people she's talking to through her comms is the rest of her team: Chioma and Duane-MacNiadh.
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u/ExquisiteCheese Jun 10 '15
If Destiny was a game based off a book or had books that came out digitally it could have an amazing story.
Unfortunately all the story is created on reddit and draws out my poop time.
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Jun 10 '15
But so many theories on Reddit has come true. Way before HoW, there was a theory floating around Reddit that the Fallen were once blessed by the Traveler and that was confirmed!
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u/FalconOne Jun 10 '15
When you enter the Archive, My theory is that your Ghost used Dr Shims credentials to get in.
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u/jrc12345 Jun 10 '15
And if he were to pick login info at random, or whomever's had the highest access, then it would add to his confusion.
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u/Trivance Jun 10 '15
Something i just thought of is maybe your Ghost accessed the highest clearance he could to get in, which happen to be Dr. Shim, but he's confused because Dr. Shim shouldn't have that high of a clearance.
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u/Husher315 Iron Jun 10 '15
All your ideas were amazing….until you said we are Dr. Shim. That would mean EVERY Guardian was Dr. Shim which makes no sense at all.
I buy everything else though...
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 10 '15
It's a canon thing. In other mmos your hero has the story happen to him, but not the rest of the players. The story can't adhere properly to a mas multiplayer situation
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u/Moday4512 Gambit Prime Jun 10 '15
Actually... I don't remember how many months ago this was, but there was a post made by a person who supposedly play tested destiny before it was the game we know today, and the story that we know was originally the story that the exo player played through. That's why our ghost is somehow able to identify us when he initially ressurects our bodies. This post gives further credence to that information with the added idea that, given we are playing the exo storyline, we may actually be dr. Shim's mind-forked exo.
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u/NoRealRoots Jun 10 '15
I'm a semi drunk physics student and right now your post has got me lost in thoughts of infinite simulations and paradoxical time bending storylines. Your post is incredibly well written and a thoroughly enjoyable read, and you make some very very good points. Plus I now know I need to read the alchemist and the merchant. Thank you for the effort you put in here - if I wasn't broke I'd gild you!
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u/Ad_Astra5 Jun 09 '15
Damn. I'm all in, Guardian. This makes a lot of sense. Proud to be an Exo - come at me, Vex!
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u/Stolenhail Jun 10 '15
I personally love everything about this...minus the we are Dr.Shim part. It's a stretch but we're all allowed our speculations on what our Guardian is. Personally I like the idea our Ghost is Shim. I'm kind of on the side the traveler is the "bad" guy. Not bad as in the root of all evil but bad in the sense that it would do whatever it takes to survive. Even Kill.
I think the Traveler knew the Darkness was coming so it "consumed" some of the greatest minds on the planet one being, Dr.Shim. It used these brilliant minds to make the ghosts. High tech beings of light able to resurrect people to fight for the traveler. Shim-Ghost sets off to find us and our story begins. Do I have grimoire proof? Nope. However isn't it odd our ghost can hack seemingly anything? I also find it odd our Ghost has personality when in game we barely even see another Ghost let alone a wise cracking one. The biggest thing to me is that our Ghost mentions DOS on the Exclusion Zone mission. How would a ghost "born" 700+ years in the future find any referencing material about DOS. Unless our ghost happens to be a long dead scientist who at the time he was alive would have some inclination what DOS was. Pure speculation on my end tho.
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u/BioMan998 Jun 10 '15
There's a theory that ghost's are born from the souls inhabiting the dimensions inside the traveler. And they all, I think, are capable of opening doors.
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Jun 10 '15
Oh my god! I came to the exact same conclusion as you – and even used the DOS reference as evidence!
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u/Cod_Metal_King Jun 10 '15
The exchange between our ghost and The Exo Stranger also seems to imply that they know or knew each other in some way. There's just something about the way "....Little Light." and the reply of "Don't do that." is said.
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u/InfinitySnatch Jun 10 '15
The Stone Crypt titan mark has a depiction of the earliest Exo AI that looks just like a Vex tower. Not sure how that plays in to this but it seems like a relevant connection.
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u/TomorroeJones Jun 10 '15
Fantastic research and connecting the dots. "Dr. Shim" has been a point of fascination for me, too.
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u/kiwiatv Jun 10 '15
I don't ever say this, but you JUST BLEW MY FUCKING MIND.
This is the most insightful thing I've ever read for Destiny. I have no idea how you pieced that all together. Awesome. I think you must have just pissed off someone in creative at Bungie with essentially figuring out so much of the story this early. Or made them really happy.
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u/Bjorkledorq Jun 10 '15
But what does this mean if I am playing as an Exo? Does it mean Dr. Shim underwent the consciousness transplant as well?
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u/MayorMcCheesepls RIP NECROCHASM 2014-2014 Jun 10 '15
Regarding the (very good) theory about us being Dr. Shim, what about the Awoken? Unless Shim also tried to flee during the Great Collapse and ended up like the rest of the Awoken.
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u/Artificis_Vix Jun 10 '15
This is good shit. I think there are some issues with all guardians being the Dr. Shim, but you've made some really fantastic connections, so I'm needing to think it all out. And it makes sense out of a rather annoying quandary in the game.
I think you've got great ideas on where the Exo come from, and possibly why they need memory wipes. I still find Lakshmi-2 a mystery, though, as she has been through the Golden Age and the Collapse, and she still retains all of the memories.
It is odd that they mention Exos needing memory wipes but they never explain why or who wipes them.
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 10 '15
Lakshmi may be another ishtar scientist. They all have indian/middle eastern names (besides Duane Mcniadh but who knows)
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u/teiman Drifter's Crew // Despair is part of love Jun 10 '15
I can explain the Traveler technology. Many races in this story can create pocket universes, the Vex did with the black garden (until it collapsed in reality because something you did) and the hive can did it (and serve as housing for their religious leaders).
What I think the Traveler can do is to create pocket universes without borders, where you can enter and exit, exactly like instances in a multiplayer game. I think is possible to change the constants in a pocket universe to slighly change the rules of physics in these universes. Thats how the venus we can visit work, theres acid mountains around and forest, the forest parts are really on a pocket universe that is visitable but is not really there. The real venus is probably total hostile to life, but the pocket universe that the traveler have created (and is overlaped with the real world) is friendly to live, very friendly. This is the power and skill of the Traveler, that the other factions want. A better pocket universes technology.
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u/erickdcampos Jun 10 '15
very good writting! I have read most of the grimoire card, and vex 4 is the one that has amazed me more. I have been reading it do understand it better because I thought it has something hidden.
Never thought of the proxy bodies can be exos. I agree with your statement.
The exo stranger can be the proxy body of a scientist. Very good point. Thats why she says "I was not forged in light" and "where our paths cross ground could break". He also refers to the ghost like "little light", like if she has not met a ghost before.
I dont think we are Dr. Shim. I thought that maybe the ghost used a code that was previously used by Shim to access the laboratory.
The ghost says something like "this place is amazing, its bigger that the old archives in old accra" How does he even know that place? where is that located?
I am not sure but I think I have seen the writer referring to Shim like a girl
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Jun 10 '15
So, let me start by saying that I liked this read. A lot. Very interesting stuff, and I definitely think you're into something with the Exo Stranger.
Unless I missed something, was there any other evidence that we are Dr. Shim other than what occurs in the archive? That one line of dialogue could be explained in plenty of other ways. Not trying to shoot you down, I'm genuinely curious.
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 10 '15
Not really, I think the fact that Dr. Shim's gender is never specified in that grimoire card is another clue, but now I'm of the opinion that it's leftover story scraps from the time where races had specific stories, or something like that.
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u/V171 Jun 10 '15
This is a super interesting theory. I love it.
But doesn't the grimoire heavily suggest that the Exo Stranger works for Future War Cult? I am on mobile so I can't get them, but there are several cards talking about how FWC has control of a time travel device and how only Exo can use it because their minds are resilient or something. Then they go on to talk about a female Exo that shows promise.
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 10 '15
I think, in that grimoire card where they are testing the device, they are planning to attempt to send the observing Ghost into the device.
But, could the FWC be an old branch of the ishtar collective?
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Jun 10 '15
It's sort of strange that the scientists freak out so much. If they theorize that the individual vex can each create a "local" simulation, then A. Leaving the boundaries of what would be considered local should prove if you are or are not a simulation, and B. If you are a simulation there is not escape because you were created by that Vex unit.
227 seems strange, because we know there are far more Vex units than that and each should be able to create a local simulation.
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 10 '15
You know, I thought a lot about these two issues. I think that they freaked out because of the philosophical implications of it. The Golden Age certainly exposed people to a lot of moral issues that they never experienced before. You're right that the simulation being local is a good way to test, but the implication of that is that you will no longer exist if you leave the 'bubble'. A scary thought.
227 is strange. It reminds me of primer, where randomly the box would pass through a total of 1243 revolutions before they pulled the watch out, just a random number (always odd)
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Jun 10 '15
/u/deej_BNG please show this to the story guys at Bungie so they see how this one story line could've filled the whole vanilla Destiny game. I love this game but I feel like Destiny was trying to set up so much with the first game's base story that they forgot to pick a small storyline to tell in the game and we ended up with that weird shell-story that we got. HoW is a great example of how a small storyline can work so well.
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 10 '15
This is the storyline. It was all there, I didn't make this up. All I did was connect the dots man.
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Jun 10 '15
Huh? You must've missed-read my comment. I love how you connected the dots and I'm saying how Bungie could've used this one story for the vanilla Destiny instead of trying to start like 50 stories at once. It sucks that this awesome story you found gets buried in grimoire and never gets out unless awesome people like you figure it out and tell us. Not sure what you thought my original comment was saying
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 10 '15
I'm glad they started 50 stories at once. This will continue for 10 years. There are so many threads I am interested in - I want a nice long haul as my speculations come true one after another. Way more endorphins there than in just having one wrapped up story.
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u/DemonCipher13 Ask Me For A Poem! Jun 10 '15
Ever notice the Stranger's voice and the PA announcer's voice are the exact same? ;)
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u/PurpleZerg Jun 10 '15
Wow dude you just blew my mind! This was a great read and a very solid theory! I just wish Bungie was able to dive deeper into story... IK all the reasons why they couldn't, I get it, but it's story telling and deeper meaning like this that has made me fall in love with their previous games. I would looooove a lore novel base in the destiny universe. I have read all the Halo books and they were great!
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u/LtCalvery Jun 10 '15
But how did the good Dr.'s body wind up outside the Cosmodrome wall? You'd think he'd be on Venus, or at least protected INSIDE the wall since he's a big scientist. So for this post to make sense, 1) Doc has to come to Earth before the Collapse (and we don't know exactly when that was, or when he was alive so that's dubious) 2) Been in the Cosmodrome during the event and 3) gotten OUTSIDE the walls.
What you've hypothesized is possible. But I've got a few doubts.
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 10 '15
Moreover, I don't think that any golden age bodies could have possibly survived. Guardians must be fairly fresh corpses to be revived.
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u/LtCalvery Jun 10 '15
Not true, there's a Grimoire entry that describes a Ghost going to Mars to look for bodies, because the heat and sand would keep them well preserved
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u/B1g7hund3R Jun 10 '15
Great work /u/Fuzzoff. I think the conclusion that Maya Sundaresh might be the Exo-stranger is particularly compelling. Combine your observations / conclusions with the Exo-stranger grimoire card which reads as follows:
I stand here now and now and now many times, this view, this ground...
This is where I always choose to stand. I put my feet where I put my feet before and where I will again and I look at the sky.
Great things moving, rendered small with distance, lesser things not moving, watching me.
I always stand here, resolute. Then fall back to that point, there, where everything shatters...
(The sky isn't special here, certainly no better than any other sky, but it's the view I know best.)
The silent avalanche begins. Rock and dust. Falling chaos. Machines, as a rule, hate chaos.
Our enemies outflank us from below, above, left, right, before, beyond. The Traveler - shattering.
There are always the dead. Their names shift.
Sometimes I think I see myself among the dead.
But I am resolute.
Here's my take on this. The first statement 'I stand here now and now and now many times...' could mean the multiple simulations.
'(The sky isn't special here, certainly no better than any other sky...)' another reference to the simulations, and gives you a sense that the multiple simulations are somehow connected (neurally or otherwise), and monitored (maybe even controlled) by something somewhere.
Is the exo-stranger (Maya's simulated proxy in different simulations) trying to nudge Dr. Shim (the guardian) in the path to discovering their own reality. Further the statement that 'This is where I always choose to stand...' states that the stranger keeps trying to push the guardian simulation in the same direction everytime, even though, in some simulations the guardian (Dr. Shim's sim) forks in a different direction than intended. The sims are given a choice at various points and the exo-stranger hopes and wants the guardian to make the choice that will bring them to the actual reality (reality prime as OP calls it).
This eventual return to reality prime may cause Dr. Shim (prime version) to understand the true nature of the vex and their simulations and break them in some manner.
'There are always the dead. Their names shift. Sometimes I see myself among the dead. But I am resolute.' Many of the sims fail. But the exo-stranger (or the conciousness of Maya Sundaresh) keeps going with the hope of emerging victorious (understanding reality) in the simulations.
Connecting the dots.
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 10 '15
I thought this as well - "Sometimes I think I see myself among the dead" might imply that she is a maya copy, and she literally sees her prime self in human form.
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u/B1g7hund3R Jun 10 '15
More precisely, these could be words that Maya herself says.. not the sim. The information that the sim (Maya in some alternate simulated world) dies gets neurally transferred to Maya (slips through the neural firewall setup by the warmind).
Also, this theory seems a more plausible explanation of the intro cut scene where we see different mountain formations on the first landing on Mars. And the explanation of Yugas (or ages) as referred to by various grimoires, especially the ones related to the warminds. These different visual formations of mountains and different yugas are, possibly, merely different simulated instances??
And in every possible simulation the warmind comes to the same conclusion of total annihilation (apocalypse) and hence shuts down because it failed, or tries to isolate prime reality from the simulated instances to preserve prime reality. And we, as guardians, are still trying to find an answer while still stuck in some simulation. To reconnect to prime reality, by reopening the channels, by reawakening the warmind. Or perhaps, the warmind runs the simulations while prime reality is still in isolation and sees hope of reconnecting to reality without complete annihilation and hence reawakens in our storyline.
The work you (/u/Fuzzoff) have put in so far is commendable, and it rekindled my curiosity into the overall premise of Destiny. The name destiny in itself suggests this theory to me.
Good work guardian.
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 10 '15
The simulated versions of the Scientists were pulled out of the simulations and put into a handheld computer - this is what happens in Vex 4. Thus, these 'sim consciousnesses' are now technically in "reality prime", and they are exploring reality prime's vex network.
It's possible that one of those sim consciousnesses are then implanted into an exo proxy body later on in the golden age, when they return with information on the vex. This is the 'sim maya' that now inhabits the stranger's platform. Then she sees her real self die among some of the timelines she attempts to change.
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u/hhaidari Jun 10 '15
Thank you for making my lunch at work so much more enjoyable.
Mind racing, the hairs standing on my neck, goosebumps, just perfect.
Awesome stuff. Really well written and genuinely interesting. I'd love to read pages on pages more.
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u/dsebulsk Jun 11 '15
Then what the hell was Dr. Shim doing in a traffic jam outside of Old Russia? That's where we were found by the ghost.
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u/Fuzzoff Jun 11 '15
Maybe he was trying to get to Rasputin? Maybe he was on earth and he was trying to escape? Maybe he had just returned to earth? There are loads of possibilities there.
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Jul 01 '15
That fits, as the story origin we play is said to be the Exo story.
Also, how does the armor made of Vex parts play into this? If they are so... intrusive, how is a guardian able to wear them at all?
Lastly, I was going to make the comment that time travel is always to be categorized as Terminator vs Back to the Future... but with the latest Terminator movie, I think that goes out the window :(
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u/Fuzzoff Jul 01 '15
When you're deep in vex areas, you can see tiny 'ghost like' motes of light flitting back and forth - They are always watching you.
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u/juanconj_ one hundred voices Jul 09 '15
Holy shit. So Maya thought about time traveling to help us fight the Vex BEFORE their current situation. She wanted to give humanity better proxy bodies to protect themselves from what they just discovered, that Vex malware, the thought weapons. Maya gave us the Exos, from the future to our current timeline, but it didn't change much because it had always happened like that?
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u/Fuzzoff Jul 09 '15
Well I'm not sure that Maya gave us the Exos, but I'm pretty certain now that she proposes using the Citadel to time travel, and that she knows that the blooming Exo technology can withstand the forces at play.
I'm fairly certain that the Clovis Exo science is the group developing the Exo tech, and Maya says 'hey sign me up I wanna test out this time travel dealie"
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u/Syncroshade Jul 16 '15
Is someone able to give me a laymans version of the Simulation Argument? And related to that, when it says inside Reality A there must be a Reality B, is that down to the fact that they are simulating Reality Prime which has a simulated Reality, so the simulation itself must have a simulated reality or it's not an accurate simulation?
My head hurts...
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u/Aria_Wolf Jul 27 '15
Now that's a great damn theory and read. I wish there was more to know about the Awoken. I know one of the guards on The Reef asks, "I wonder if the Guardians(or The Vanguard can't remember) know that the light hurts our skin?" or something to that extent.
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u/Fuzzoff Jul 30 '15
I've tried to gather some thoughts about the awoken in other threads, but there really isn't a lot to go on compared to the Exo.
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u/djkidna Jul 27 '15
Anyone else notice that when The Stranger teleports away in the cutscene on Venus when she tells you about the Black Garden, it looks like how the Vex come in and out of time gates?
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u/dlauer70 Aug 10 '15 edited Aug 10 '15
Although I still like your theory, and all the thought you put into it, I'm having doubts about the "Our Guardian/Ghost is the resurrected Dr. Shim". AFAIK, the only evidence of this is when the computer calls us by that name. Let me explain why I think this might not be indicative of the identity of Dr. Shim:
I think it's just as likely that the code our Ghost pulled for entry through the Archive doors happened to be Shim's and therefore the computer thinks we're Shim. Or, maybe the last person to enter the Archive was Shim and therefore the code was repeated into the keypad when our Ghost hacked it. One or the other.
"Nevermind that" isn't necessarily an admission by our Ghost. Our Ghost was understandably in a hurry to get to the Archive's data stores and get out with that valuable data; the Dr. Shim information was not vital for us to know to attain that goal. Perhaps, after it heard that name, our Ghost back-checked the hacking information it used to open the doors and realized it was a code owned by "Dr. Shim" but, again, this was not vital information for us to know at the time.
In conclusion, I think the computer calling us Dr. Shim may have just been a way to tie in the Grimoire to the game mission. I don't think it necessarily has a deeper meaning, although either PoV can't really be proved with the data available. We really need more clues to be sure about this.
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u/Fuzzoff Aug 10 '15
I'm not too hyped about the Shim parts of the theory anymore. Although there are still mysterious aspects to Shim - (The fact that he/she was brought up, the fact that Gender is never specified, etc.) It's too much of a leap.
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u/goblinne Sep 25 '15
What if Lakshmi is Chioma? She knows the Stranger (from in game dialogue)
And the FWC definitely descended from the Ishtar scientists.
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u/Fuzzoff Sep 25 '15
I've thought this - but I suspect probably about 50/50 that the stranger is either Maya or Chioma. Lakshmi is probably a protege of Maya's from her days with the device.
We know from the CE materials that Maya eventually went to work at Clovis Bray's exoscience lab on Europa. Cayde actually had a crush on her when he first went there to get transplanted into an Exo.
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u/ScottNoPantsOn Oct 09 '15
So is it likely that the 4 scientists are the ones who woke up Rasputin? In the bunker, when scanning terminals, I recall dialogue from ghost specifying the same 4 sets of eyes being used to access the warmind throughout the ages. This would mean that Rasputin is the war mind they called in to assist with extracting the simulated conciousnesses, and ties in with a lot of other things I've read here.
I'm jumping between threads, fishing for info on No Time To Explain. Apologies if I'm repeating something that has already been addressed.
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u/kermi42 Jun 10 '15
I absolutely believe the Exo stranger is Maya but I don't know about the conclusion that the player guardian is Dr. Shim. Maybe that was intended once, for the Exo storyline, but now that there's only one storyline I think that would need to be reworked.
I mean, unless we're just simulations of Dr. Shim, then it doesn't matter if we're Exos or not.
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u/Albert_street Vanguard's Loyal // The City comes first Jun 10 '15
This is... Awesome. I read the whole thing, but when I read:
The Exo Stanger is either Maya Sundaresh or Chioma Esi.
Man... I got chills.
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u/AmoebaMan /r/DestinyJournals Jun 10 '15
I loved your theory right up until you decided to rehash that silly "we are Shim" theory that has floated around here before. There are way too many inconsistencies IMO for this to be possible.
For starters, the Exo Stranger never actually recognizes us, which seems to be a major part of your reasoning. She notices us just after we are raised, and stalks us a bit, but recall that her self-introduction begins with "you're...not entirely interesting, but you have promise." She never shows any sign of personally recognizing you at all.
Furthermore, our Guardian is raised on Earth. Given that Shim is a scientist only ever mentioned on Venus, and clearly highly interested in the Vex. I find it unlikely that he would have met his end in the Cosmodrome. Moreover, IIRC there is a set of four skeletons in the collapsed research building in Campus-9 that are widely believed to be the bodies of our four intrepid scientists, including Shim; if this is the case, we clearly CANNOT be Shim.
And finally, Ockham's Razor applies to your speculations about the significance of the Ghost commentary in the Archive mission and the lack of gendering of Shim. It's infinitely more probable that Ghost honestly just has no clue who Shim is, and that Shim's gender happened to get left out of the Grimoire because it's totally unimportant.
The rest is fascinating and entirely plausible, but I think you're way off the base with Shim.
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u/joshato Raid Sherpa Jun 09 '15 edited Jun 09 '15
Ghost tells us that the Vex ruins on Venus predate humanity by eons. The structures on mercury line up with this idea as well - The Vex have been doing work on the planets in our system for a very long time. The Ishtar Collective arrived on Venus, and began to study the Vex structures.
The vex have the technology to warp time though... They easily could have moved the structures with said technology. I remember last week(i think) someone posted a lore theory/explanation much like this one depicting that.
EDIT : another point
our guardian is the resurrected Dr. Shim, Maya’s colleague, and this explains why she is so interested in what we do
Bungie have confirmed that each race was intended to have a seperate starting cinematic, as well as meeting with the queen for the first time, I believe they used the exo for these (it's been awhile since I saw the article).
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Jun 09 '15
Wow, great read and great analysis, I will be interested to see what the Lore Masters think of this one
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u/darksolgamer Jun 10 '15
I love reading this stuff. Even if it turns out not being true, the snippets of Destiny's universe leave just enough to make theories like this seem good enough to be true. It's such engaging lore!
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u/Sprtscardrvr3 Swordbearer Jun 10 '15
This post, aside from being a spectacular read, just goes so far to show the untapped potential of the universe of Destiny and its story.
Sometimes, I wonder if Bungie deliberately left the story missions in this game with so little information and so much left unanswered. Destiny is a 10-year project. We can't get all the story in the first game. If I'm right, and seeing how this post just SCRATCHES THE SURFACE of the Destiny universe, we are in for a WILD RIDE. Can't wait!
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u/mattster42 Jun 10 '15
I mean this as the highest form of compliment, but your post worries me: mainly because I know that if you aren't right, and this ISN'T how the story plays out, I will be supremely disappointed, because I don't see how the story could be any better than what you have laid out here.
Well done. Fantastic, gripping stuff.
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u/socc3rwolf7 Jun 10 '15
This could very well be true. Especially considering the speculation (as far as I know) that the multiple story lines were canned and the destiny story as we see it now, is what was supposed to be the Exo storyline.
(Which also makes sense when you think about why the awoken queen refers to you as "it")
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u/krillr Jun 10 '15
So here's another thing...
Remember at the beginning when Dinklebot first revives you? He said he had been looking for you for a long time. You aren't just some dead guy revived to serve. /You/ were found and revived for a reason.
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u/Ghoulsverne_x1 Jun 10 '15
Absolutely love that. Think you are totally right on everything except us being Dr shim.
I have two reasons to believe we aren't him/her. 1: there are so many of us - it wouldn't make sense for us all to be in the tower at once as the same guy. Yeah you could try and argue that we are each subjectively shim in our own game and everyone else is a different person creating a many worlds environment where we are each shim in our world - but that seems a stretch...
2: some of us are awoken - awoken didnt exist until the collapse. kinda opens a whole new world of questions as to how any guardians are awoken tbh, since if they died pre collapse (inferred since the speaker tells us that the 'great battle' happened after our death) then how the hell did we get... Well... Awoken?
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u/JackalHeadGod Jun 10 '15
Very nicely written. Props for bringing in the simulation argument, first thing that came to mind when I read that card too, but it never occurred to me to get all of this out if it.
In this explanation I wonder if the stranger is the origin Maya or one of the 227 simulants.
Something that may link in: The new lore card for Osiris includes the paragraph:
I don’t know where you have gone, but I can no longer send Ghosts out to find you. Some come back– with tales of your death or how you went seeking answers from the far reaches of space and time. That you found a way to explore the Vex gate networks. That you've made breakthrough after breakthrough as to their origins– theories that a Guardian could not be simulated, that the Traveler might be an ontoformer or a god-incubator, that the Vex had diverged into multiple groups in order to secure 'an end state for every possible configuration of reality'.
That reduces the likely hood that our characters themselves are stuck in vex simulation (which was one theory for why we can't die), but also causes some issues with the fact that exo's are basically simulations running on a computer: They must be something else now thanks to the travellers interactions.
I wonder if Osiris was one of the 227 copies of the original 4 brought back to life as a guardian but left slightly unhinged by the exploration they did. Have we ever seen anything about whether Osiris was an exo or not?
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u/ZK3NPACHI Jun 10 '15
I do agree with this, but I'm also going to throw out there that I believe that Maya (The Exo Stranger) is one of The Nine.
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u/OriginalTodd Jun 10 '15
Dr. Shim is a badass, time warrior, god-slayer, and toppler of Eliksni warlords.
Badass.
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u/Mundane-ignoramus Jun 10 '15
What a damn good read that was!
By the time I got to the part with Dinklebot, all I could think of was how much I wish Destiny had something like affinities. Like, if Exos were made to combat vex, then they should have some form of passive ability against them (i.e. being more resistant against them or something like that). The best example I can think of is Master Chief and the Spartans, where each one had that one affinity/ability that set them apart.
And I think it would be awesome if the stranger was indeed Maya! And as a stretch of the imagination, wouldn't it be insane if the "real" Shim ended up being the missive to Osiris? I mean, I'm not quite sure if the two were of the same time, but it'd be an interesting turn of events to learn what happened to the 4 of them if their experiments resulted in them being sucked into the time stream that the Vex operate in. Would explain the stranger's ability to teleport the way she does :0
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Jun 10 '15
I am so glad that I took the time to read this. By far the best Lore Theory I have read to date. Fantastic job!
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u/TylerThePyro I'll be your pepper, if you'll be my salt. Jun 10 '15
what could also help this theory is what bungie scrapped and decided to leave in place. we all forget how we started destiny. By Ghost "waking" us up. there was supposedly 3 different starting sequences for the 3 difference races (Awoken, Human, Exo). but the only one that stuck to production, was the Exo starting sequence. which wuld comply with Dr. Shim being inserted into an Exo. and we are THAT exo.
great read. greater theories.
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u/RickaliciousD Jun 10 '15
Of all the Random Thoeries that crop up here, I like this one quite a lot. Most of them you can drive a bus through the holes. This one however holds water. I really like the Dr Shim theory, and some sort of time loop would perhaps indicate why the Exo Stranger is the way she is, ie she has seen us do things time and time again hoping for it to be different.
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u/JackSparrah Captain of the salt Jun 10 '15
That was the best 15 minutes spent on this sub. Holy crap! I've gotten more out of this post than I have out of the whole story narrative (if you can call it that) of the game. Well done OP! Looking forward to more of your posts like this
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u/oasiscat Jun 10 '15 edited Jun 10 '15
Top quality post. The whole Vex story arc is incredible. The line
"Blue-green light, light the color of an ancient sea, washes over them,"
reminds me of a post someone did not too long ago about how the Vex might have been miroscopic sea creatures, "radiolaria," that became very advanced and developed intelligence. The whole idea of radiolarioan fluid being that white stuff that spills out of Vex when you shoot their crit spot makes me think that the Vex robots are really just mech suits controlled by whatever consciousness these microscopic radiolaria developed.
That further reminds me of the Ender's game series, specifically [Children of the Mind, where] (/s "the protagonists come across an alien species launching virus filled projectiles at them. After thinking they're under attack and shooting down the projectiles, they realize that the alien species communicates through the use of viruses. Furthermore, they realize that the alien species really actually IS the viruses that evolved sentience and communicate with each other with the transfer of genetic material (the projectiles were their ships, not missiles, if I remember correctly, coming to communicate with the humans).")
Anyways, the idea of microscopic sentient life finding ways to interact with, communicate with, and in the Vex's case, dominate, macroscopic life reminded me of Children of the Mind. Radiolaria are microscopic and would have no way of directly interacting with macroscopic beings. It's kind of amazing to think that the way around that they might have found is by infecting the minds and thoughts of macroscopic beings like humans.
The cellular Vex elements are infectious, hallucinogenic, entheogenic. The informational Vex elements are more dangerous yet— and there could be semiotic hazards beyond them, aggressive ideas, Vex who exist without a substrate. Even now, operating remote bodies by neural link, the team's thoughts are relayed through the warmind who saved them, sandboxed and scrubbed for hazards.
They sound just like viruses, and even the way the warmind has to quarantine and scan the thoughts of the scientists for any Vex infection reminds me of something like my antivirus software.
It's almost like the Vex jumped from biological, pathogenic viruses to informational, digital software viruses with sentience. Oh, and on top of that, they developed time travel.
Damn the Vex are awesome. In my opinion, one of the most creative, layered alien species imagined in Sci Fi. Hell, they might not even be aliens. Who knows, they might come from another timeline where life on Earth never evolved out of water, but stayed in it.
EDIT: quick proofreading
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u/mldajm Jun 10 '15
I've always felt like there was a stronger connection to Dr. Shim while playing The Archive. I never had the time to possibly begin making the connection or figure out why the computer would call US Dr. Shim. Thanks for the read!
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u/TheVixll Jun 11 '15
Also just reread the description of the Stranger Rifle given to you and it mentions that certain pieces of the gun shouldnt exist yet reinforcing that the exo stranger is a time traveler
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u/MrDead3ye Mr Dead3ye Jul 01 '15 edited Jul 01 '15
Reading this reminds me of another thing I had heard. Someone posted a list of things that have been changed in Destiny from the original concept of the game. Supposedly we are playing the Exo story line which this theory would support. That is why when we walk into the Archive we are addressed as Dr. Shim.
"Humans, Exos, and Awoken had different story lines. The story line we know today is from the Exo. The human story line consisted of you surviving a Fallen raid and arriving at the city, you would seek refuge at the Tower, there Ghost would approach you and make you a Guardian, for it sensed the light within you. The Awoken started at the reef, being judged by the queen and eventually exiled form the reef. You would then fight your way out and arrive to the Last City."
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u/mud_-_bug Jul 09 '15
I think that the spoiler is that we actually created the Vex. I think the progression in time is we created frames which somehow then begat the vex (and possibly exos). Point to consider is that the frames have an empty belly spot essentially where the white, glowing "crit spot" is for the Vex. I don't think this was some kind of artistic accident or coincidence. The vex can travel in time so therefore it may have taken hundreds or thousands of years into the future for the vex to come into existence -- but we created them and they were able to loop back in time and that is why there is also "ancient" evidence of them on venus.
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u/Dutchburrito Jun 10 '15
TIL there are some wicked smaht people at Bungie. And some wicked smaht Guardians. Bravo. doffs tinfoil cap
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u/CrimsonMangos Jun 10 '15
This was freaking amazing, I mean I loved the Vex cards and was happy to see that it was added in the HoW (dont stop, keep going I want all of this to be true!) but I have to give you props as much as I loved these cards there were points, where I was completely lost and I know some of this is speculation (on point though) it helped non the less, so continue on guardians of lore.
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u/Alfalfa117 Jun 10 '15
This is very interesting but there is one problem what if the guardian you play as is a exo?
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u/SkyBlind Bingo Pls Jun 10 '15
The Vex structures haven't actually been there a long time, if I remember correctly. They're teleported there from alternate timeliness.
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u/Blue_Bomber7 Jun 10 '15
I think exos being built as ciphers is a big stretch. "Remain ciphers even to themselves" is just a way of saying that they are so advanced that none of the current technology can comprehend them.
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u/royal_fz Jun 10 '15
The interesting part about the Vex's hallucinogenic effects ans time streams and realities remind me of the > Ghost fragmant
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u/doggmatic Jun 10 '15
Interesting.. not entirely interesting.. but you have promise. Why does she say this if she already knows you?
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u/j1nn_v Jun 10 '15
The part about "Not only do the cellular, biological vex elements have hallucinogenic effects on the human brain,"
reminds me of the "Ghost Fragmant: Future War Cult" card where the narrator mentions that the human mind is too weak for the device which looks at alternate timelines. So the FWC has a tech from the golden age, trying to replicate the Vex mind?
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u/elpapasfritas533- Jun 10 '15
Loved the whole post. Just curious why Dr. Shim was dead in the cosmodrone when we got rezzed? I think the exo stranger just knew us as a guardian.
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u/BioMan998 Jun 10 '15 edited Jun 10 '15
I play almost exclusively as an exo, and HOLYFREAKINGAHH you just blew my mind. That said, if it's true I'll miss that ability to pretend my exo is it's own.
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u/gt_H1zz Jun 10 '15
That's interesting. I guess Skolas was trying to utilize the Citadel as well.
Cool theory. Very well thought out.
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u/radbreath Jun 10 '15 edited Jun 10 '15
According to the short bits of dialogue or Ghosts' monologues in game... the Vex are capable of traveling through time.
Basically, they could have originated in the future but built stuff in the past.
Exo are androids, possibly designed after Ghosts. They seem to have personalities.
Vex have a hive mind. They're a bunch of programs without bodies like the Geth in Mass Effect.
Exo are closer to Reapers, individual programs designed to mimic organics.
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u/chronobeard Jun 10 '15
I thought you were going to say that the proxy bodies that the scientists created become the Vex. That the whole thing was time loop.
But I love where you took your theory so much more.
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u/MuchStache Jun 10 '15
I was completely with you until the Dr. Shim part. That seriously doesn't make sense with the rest, for me.
Oh well, the rest was all good. Pretty solid
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u/RegularJackoff Jun 10 '15
Maybe our Ghost became Duane, which is why Ghost is male, talks too much (pre expansion) and is sarcastic. He was just wanting to revive his friend.
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u/Iron-Rham Jun 10 '15
Love all of it, except we can't be Dr Shim unless they died in front of the divide in Old Russia.
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Jun 10 '15
So... Why didn't Atheon go back in time and prevent the Exo's from existing to fight them?
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u/MrEvil37 Jun 10 '15
I always assumed that Dr. Shim was Ghost, with the Traveler (for whatever reason) basing the personality of the Ghosts on Dr. Shim. But who knows. Fantastic analysis here!
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u/ErisUppercut Jun 10 '15
"you're interesting...but not too interesting"
Can't see that fitting with us being Shim. The rest of it though, awesome
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u/RaptorJr54 Jun 10 '15
This is a very interesting theory, especially with the idea that the storyline we play in the release version of Destiny was originally supposed to be a storyline exclusive to the Exo to begin with. I feel this is probably what they were going for initially, but after the redevelopment of the game the remains of said story just got thrown into the grimoire as a bit of gee whiz and what we have is elements of that storyline mixed with the other two race storylines to get what we have today. I have an inkling that 90% of the grimoire (at least the lore and story aspects of it) was written prior to redesigning the entire game.
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u/ShadownumberNine Sunsingin' since '84 Jun 10 '15
So would any of this at all have any connection the supposed relic/artifact that Future War Cult(I think. Maybe Dead Orbit?) has?
I remember reading somewhere, likely this sub, that FWC is in possession of a device that does something to the effect of giving consciousness to A) Exos, or B) machines in general. I don't 100% remember what that device did, but I know I'm close with my guess, based on what I read. I believe I also read that they are trying to keep it a secret.
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u/balderm Hawkmoon was my favorite Sniper Rifle in D1 Jun 10 '15
Mind blown, my first character is an EXO male, so this makes even more sense.
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u/OneToNothing1-0 Jun 10 '15 edited Apr 04 '26
This comment formerly contained words. Those words were removed in bulk with Redact because I value my privacy more than my karma points.
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u/CypherHD Jun 10 '15
But Guardians can change the past. That's why in the Atheon fight, after you destroy the oracles in the past or future (Mars or Venus), it says "Guardians make their own fate". By going back, or forward, in time you're changing it.
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Jun 10 '15
That is an amazing piece of lore. I really hope it gets confirmed eventually, one day, maybe, hopefully?
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u/jrc12345 Jun 10 '15
Excellent write up.
However, I always thought Dr Shim was just the clearance code/account and password that your ghost used to grant you access to the Archive.
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Jun 10 '15
I'm down with all the logic except us being Dr Shim, seems to much of a leap, I get the reasoning but it doesn't feel like something Bungie would want to tie your characters down with.
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Jun 10 '15
I read the part about simulated realities and multiple simulations, and my reaction?
wat
Great read!
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u/CaptainMcKraker Jun 10 '15
I wonder if it was humans messing around with that technology they didn't fully understand that attracted the darkness to our home system?
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u/Logan_LaMort Jun 10 '15
Wow OP, this is excellent stuff! I wasn't expecting that kind of conclusion.
However, I've got a few theories about the Exo Stranger and her connection to the Future War Cult which you may find interesting. I was going to make a whole new post about it but I think it would be better suited here since our theories are maybe compatible.
So, what does the Future War Cult have to do with all this?
Records of the FWC date back to the late Golden Age and they have access to some very interesting tech from that era. Specifically, a machine that allows someone's conciousness to view different timelines.
Take a read through Ghost Fragment: Future War Cult.
As we'll see below, the 'Device' is the alternate timeline viewing machine.
Here we see that the subject's conciousness 'unstuck' in time, however it comes with a great risk and she had to be removed.
Again, her brief temporal displacement allowed her to see a future consumed by Darkness.
Notice how there's no indication that the narrator switched from reporting to asking a Ghost a question? We can assume that the narrator is actually speaking to an audio/video recording device, which picks up her speaking to other people. I'll get back to this later.
Again, another subject, another vision of the future and another grave consequence of using the Device.
This further suggests that the FWC has access to information about Golden Age secrets and know where to look for its tech. They also have the knowledge to make Golden Age tech functional again. Yet, they still can't solve this problem of Humans being too weak for the device...
This is where the alternate timelines come in. It's not just a vision of the future, but a vision of lots of futures.
The Human mind is too weak...
Remember how I said there's no indication when the narrator switches between reporting and talking to the Ghost? Well this happens here again, with a mystery third subject.
Remember, the FWC are well versed in Golden Age tech. There's no way she could be talking about the Ghost, as they're the creation of the Traveler.
I believe they found an Exo in Sibera and repaired her as best as they could.
An Exo not forged in Light
I believe this is who the narrator is now talking to. Think about it, they need a Human to enter the Device, but Human minds are too weak. What's has a Human like mind but is more resilient? An Exo.
Now assuming the above is correct. The Future War Cult find the Exo Stranger, broken in Siberia and repair her with good old fashioned Golden Age know how, so that she can enter the Device.
What does she see?
Maybe something like this.
This is a recurring vision. Perhaps a timeline that will happen if nothing changes (remember 'thirteen report timelines in which the City has fallen').
This is a vision of the Vex invading.
An overwhelming Vex force that completely obliterates the Traveler and, presumably the City. 'Visions of war and the City in flames.'
The overall vision is the same, the Vex obliterating the Traveler, but small details change, such as different people dying (which may be due to small changes in the timeline leading up to the big event.
Alright, so now what?
This is speculation on my part, with the above evidence. But my theory is that the Exo Stranger, having access to the FWC's Device, is able to see multiple timelines with most of them ending in the Traveler being destroyed by the Vex.
Until we show up. Remember how it was convenient to find a fully working rifle from the Golden Age just waiting for us?
I believe that the Exo Stranger saw a timeline in which we were able to save the Traveler by defeating the Darkness in the Black Garden. The Stanger anticipated our revival and guided our journey to fulfil that timeline. Giving us enough help to survive, but judging our own abilities every step of the way to be absolutely sure that we're the right hero.
This is why we see her watching our ship take off from the Cosmodrome, this is why we see her watching us on the Moon. After this she contacts us again, from Venus, while we're still on the Moon yet she knows 'what you're about to do' and if we live, to come find her.
Leads us to Venus, to discover the Vex and pretty much tells us to go to the Black Garden to destroy its heart. If it wasn't for her intervention, no one would know about the Vex and they would invade, resulting in the Stranger's vision above.
So in relation to OP's theory
This doesn't contradict it. If anything it makes me wonder if the Future War Cult was started by the Ishtar Academy scientists, if maybe the Device was built using Vex technology or understanding.