First we see (Oryx’s?) Hive restate their belief in the form of an open letter to the things they plan to kill. It’s the same basic thing where they say that building safe spaces for cooperation is a fatal lie because the universe only offers two paths: Being ruthless or being extinct.

Next, we see Oryx musing a little about where he is now. How his Hive and Crota keep him and his worm sated with rich tribute. And how he is now using his power to learn more about the Deep. Oryx briefly wonders about his sisters and has come to suspect that they might be hiding secrets and power from him since they went their separate ways, but as is typical Oryx is fine with that because “the only meaningful relationship is the attempt to destroy.” He also states that the Deep dosen’t want everything to be the same, but rather it was strong life that can live forever. This seems to have a few logical flaws, like what happens when there are only two forms of life left, but Oryx seems committed to his way of thinking now…

Then, we see Oryx thinking about his past and about returning to Fundament. But he concludes there is no point because he knows what happened to everything on that gas giant. He became that world’s ultimate descendant and learned the answer to the questions about the universe his people had been asking. We also see that Oryx is actually aware enough to know that he doesn’t yet fully understand the natures of the Deep and the Traveler, but he does want to learn.

And finally, Oryx considers all he has done. He thinks of his goals as to become so closely associated with death that if the universe ends he will survive as a part of the nothingness the universe becomes. He also relates the Hive’s philosophy in perhaps the most understandable terms yet:

Far better to have a savage universe with a happy end than a happy universe with no hope.

Oryx himself goes on to think through the process something would have to go through to defeat him. He reasons that someone would need to kill his echoes, defeat him in the material world, defeat his count, and then confront him in his throne world. He realizes that while he is vastly powerful, a lot of that power is now derived from the tribute flowing from his daughters, and Crota, and his court, and if all of those are defeated he would no longer be able to feed his worm god.

As cruel and destructive as Oryx is, he still acknowledges that if something is able to defeat his Hive and his court and his children and him then that thing deserves to win. As bad as Oryx is, he is at least honest about the whole thing.

We know he was honest when he wrote this final Book of Sorrow because if we track forward to the time of our Guardians we take this exact path to killing Oryx. We first killed Crota, then we eliminated the key players of Oryx’s court (namely the Warpriest, then Golgoroth, then Oryx’s daughters) and finally we cut Oryx off from the tribute of corrupted Light he has stored up. As Oryx said, if all these things were to happen, if he was to fail, then let him become wormfood. And so he did.

Of course, as all great villains, Oryx’s isn’t quite done. Even in defeat he is confident that whoever defeated him will ultimately be forced to carry on his work. He believes that no matter what happens, he, in the form of his ideas and his cruelty, will live on forever. And so far, we don’t have much to prove him wrong!

But, just as Oryx came to an end, so too has our in depth look at the Books of Sorrow! We’ve come a long long way!

• We tracked the heroic exploits of the three brave sisters who should have been heirs to the Osmium Court.
  
• We watched as the Hive, a race of short lived krill people entangled themselves with a group of evil worm gods and used destruction to rise above the lives they had lived for millions of years.
  
• We watched as Oryx, Savathûn, and Xivu Arath laid waste to hundreds if not thousands of powerful civilizations.
  
• Here at the end, we’ve see that the Hive fractured as its three masters went their separate ways based on differences of ideology as raw destructive might.

We’ll eventually revisit the Hive and their exploits as we explore their attempts to conquer Humanity and defeat the Guardians of The City. But first we have some new and exciting topics to cover, starting with:

I hope you’ll join me as I attempt to trace a proud race as they are forced from the heights of their Golden Age down to becoming scavengers on the edge of extinction.
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Next: 27: Whirlwind & Rain