Destiny Blog

All guardians were chosen by the traveler to protect it right?? It’s stated multiple times that ghosts don’t get to choose who they rise, that they have only one person calling to them and thats their one true guardian. So why is our ghost saying that they are traitors to humanity and could have chosen anyone else when they couldn’t have and he should have known that by being a ghost himself????

How could the hive steal the light if it was gifted to them by the traveler???????? Presumably. because all we know at this point in the story is that ghosts granted by traveler after collapse must protect and we have seen the cabal try and fail to try and synthesize the light and also the vex can simulate it but can’t can’t wield it

So like. Where else would they get it from….???? We have seen the hive eat light I think??? I read something about Eris where it said that she saw one of her fireteam members light be fed to a newly hatched brood of thralls so maybe that idk but. And I can not stress this enough. Have seen time and time again that the light can only be gifted to someone by the traveler. And it’s not the ghosts decision. So why are we automatically presuming the hive stole the light here??? Why is that the first natural assumption to come to??? Yeah maybe savathun is like. The deception guy but idk if you can deceit your way into a blessing from god.

And okay. What if savathun did steal the light or whatever. OUR GHOST WOULDNT KNOWWWW THAT YETTTTUHHH. We have to at least imagine and consider a fucked up reality where the traveler would give light to the hive.

And then that opens up a whole new can of worms of why is it ethical when the humanity has light and kills shit vs. When the hive have light and do fuck all in their own damn plane of existence???

Literally at this point in the story at least what makes crushing a hives ghost any different than crushing a humans ghost?

Obviously the hive are objectively bad. Space colonizers who have invaded our solar system with the purpose of destroying humanity and bringing about the final shape. And we are actively at war with them and have been since the collapse. savathûn, xivu arath, and oryx have killed countless innocent people and have sacrificed even more of their own species to try and reach these ends. But humanity (and the awoken and exos) have done almost the same exact shit with different purpose.

Humanity killed all of the ahamkara, We know that saint 14 has literally given the eliksni generational trauma with his lowkey kinda genocide on them, taking out the eliksni ‘s servitors specifically and strategically to cause them to starve and rot from the inside out, just the entirety of the dark age, also the entirety of the great disaster (though those two are more like the humanity fucking with humanity)

And so what makes all of these things bad when the hive does it, and good when we do? Is it the traveler and its light? Is it to protect the last city? Earths life as a whole? And then why does it extend to other planets that have (at least no clear) human settlements on it? At what point does it stop being self defense and protecting the traveler and begin attacking? Is destroying eliksni and cabal settlements become okay when it’s in the vanguard’s interest? Because they might attack us? What made the eliksni houses redeemable and the hive not?

The assumption that the Hive somehow stole the Light also makes sense from the perspective of the characters because it's so unfathomable to believe that the Traveler ever intended for the Hive to have the Light; something that we learn later to be untrue and is crucial in figuring out how to take down Savathun. The Traveler did intend to give Light to the Hive originally, though obviously not through Ghosts. But it proves that the Hive are capable of receiving the Light. Or at least the old Krill of the Fundament were. We just didn't know that until later. The idea that Savathun and her Hive did something to trick Ghosts or the Traveler or that they somehow stole it all were perfectly feasible theories, and it was why there was a whole investigation going on during WQ to figure this out.

As for why is it bad when Hive do awful things but not when humanity does? Well, it's both bad. Great Ahamkara Hunt has always been presented as kinda fucked up and this was recently even more emphasised (Season of the Wish), our warlord crimes have always been condemned, Saint's crusade against the Eliksni was never meant to be perceived as a good thing. All of those things were products of their own time and circumstance, and there were always characters who objected to them. Iron Lord rose up because Lightbearers decided that letting superpowered immortal humans running around killing everyone was bad. While we were fighting the Eliksni in multiple wars, Osiris claimed that they're not our enemy and that they're not different from us. (Also The Great Disaster had nothing to do with humanity, it was a complete slaughter of hundreds of Lightbearers by Crota on the Moon when we tried to reclaim it from the Hive).

I think a lot of people forget that various alien species arrived to our system just post-Collapse to kick us while we're down, and people forget that because we happened to have gotten Lightbearers... Who were also kicking humanity while it was down for XY number of years before the Iron Lords decided to put a stop to warlords. This is most interesting with the Eliksni to me because the Eliksni were also kicked when they were down, and also by their own people, just like humans. Human and Eliksni stories are incredibly similar and both species suffered first and foremost from their own. Random dregs trying to survive are not at fault because their Archons and Kells want to take power and control, same as random humans aren't at fault because of warlords (or bad Vanguard decisions). Eliksni came to the system to survive, and over time we've managed to establish normal relations with them because both humanity and Eliksni chose to do so.

The Hive came here to kill us. That's it. They came here to kill us like they did everyone else in the universe. They're not making a choice to do otherwise, even after gaining the Light. I'm not sure why this is a stumbling point for a lot of people, but the reason we're killing Lucent Hive is because they're trying to kill us. At no point did any Lucent Hive faction decide to behave in any way other than the same old Hive philosophy they were using before. Luzaku notwithstanding, but she's just one person. If any Lucent Hive approached us with the choice to use their Light-given second chance to be better, we would accept it, as we did with Luzaku.

So far, none of the Hive have ever even remotely expressed any kind of interest in not exterminating us. This is especially egregious for the Lucent Hive because they were reborn in the Light, with no memories, and no reason to pick up arms against us, and yet they do. They do because Savathun organised them that way, because they are force-fed their old memories and names and rituals back, because of who even knows what reason that they use to just go back to doing the same thing they've always done, except with the Light now. Maybe it's just how it goes; it did take humanity hundreds of years to move past warlords! Perhaps it is the same with Lucent Hive. Maybe they just need time. Maybe being away from Savathun and her schemes would help. Maybe Luzaku can lead the charge for change among them.

I would personally love to see this because this is the biggest point of the whole story and WQ in particular that I feel like was not adequately planned out and developed over time. The Hive having the Light changes everything, theoretically, but in practice it really didn't. This is strange to me, and it may be a deliberate choice, but I would be much more interested in seeing more Lucent Hive becoming like Luzaku, because that's just what makes more sense.

Or... Perhaps the way Hive Ghosts act and the way Hive hierarchies are structured, Lucent Hive are simply not getting a chance to act on their own. Hive Ghosts act in tandem with Hive philosophy and are rezing their Lightbearers to immediately be subsumed by the same old hierarchy and philosophy they belonged to previously. Because why wouldn't Hive Ghosts pick their Lightbearers and move them away from the slaughter and from their inevitable goal of killing Guardians? This loops us back to why we treat Hive Ghosts as traitors. They seem to be actively encouraging (or at least supporting) their Lightbearers, Lucent Hive, to stay within the known Hive structure of killing and detesting humanity. So how are we supposed to treat them?

In Season of the Risen, which was the first season of the Witch Queen year, Lucent Hive invaded multiple places on Earth and the Moon and were slaughtering Guardians and their Ghosts, as well as using them to create "Light batteries," draining and stealing their Light. There's a lot to be said about how we dealt with that whole thing, as well as how Savathun was capable of manipulating her Lucent Brood, but at the end of the day the reality is that every Guardian and their Ghost is an acceptable target to kill by the Lucent Hive, indiscriminately, and it has remained so ever since. I guess it would be nice if we could sit down with Hive Ghosts and the Lucent Hive for a talk, but opening this conversation up isn't on us, as demonstrated by Luzaku.

I think our Ghost's rant at the end of the Witch Queen should put things in perspective the most. All Ghosts were created at the same moment. All Ghosts have been through the entirety of the post-Collapse world of the Dark Ages. All Ghosts have seen every single event and battle that happened since. All Ghosts, including ours AND those who will eventually move on to choose to rez the Hive, have seen and learned what the Hive have done. Seeing the Hive accepted by the Light, but still behaving the same way they always have and being willing to continue killing both Guardians and Ghosts is definitely something that would give a very unique perspective specifically to a Ghost:

No concessions? How stupid do you think I am? You and your siblings, you killed my friends! I remember Crota, and the Great Disaster! I remember Oryx, and the Taken! I remember what you did to the Awoken and the Dreaming City! I'll never forget what happened to Sagira. To Osiris. I would die before I ever chose to help the Hive.

He's correct! Objectively, imo. The Hive have done nothing except harm all life in the universe and have never, not even with the Light, expressed an interest in changing their ways. Until they do so, there's nothing that WE can do about it except defend ourselves. And Luzaku proves that they are capable of change. But they have to choose it, just as Luzaku did.