Here's the summary at ABO:

http://args.bungie.org/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=1757

And here's where we stand so far, provided by Dont Pass Gass over at Bungie.net:

http://i.imgur.com/V649sZI.jpg

(Original post couldn't make it by spam filter again)

Here is the image for just Day 4 so you can read it better.

And the text:

Even the largest body lets itself be pushed where it
needs to be, seduced into nice, warm loving orbits.
Persistence is the key.

Seafloors transform and then yank themselves
skyward, shattering the icy crust as new worlds
awaken inside the swirling depths.

You build homes of ocean laid over stone; giant
and tiny, surrounding this half-born sun ripped by
storms and supersonic wind.

You deliver your last orders to an army that needs
nothing anymore---not instruction, courage or
even prayers---and then you hide again.

In ecstasy they search you, finding nothing but
dense quiet dropping from the stars.

Man every day makes me more excited. Really happy about how much i DON'T know, lol.

Grim

In this one's text I imagine that entire planets are being… formed… from the depths of gas giants? In the second part we again have the theme of whoever we're talking about doing something then (intentionally?) hiding / vanishing.

The part about the army seems odd. Maybe these terraformers / planetary creators (/destoryers… it kinda implied that someone created AND THEN later destroyed Mercury) are fighting a war against a somehow superior foe (how it can be superior to someone who can create and destroy planets and vanish is intriguing) and would be easily destroyed if the enemy (or good guys?) ever manage to pin them down?

Man I love this return to unbiased, unhindered, unbaggaged rampant speculation! :)

What's killing me personally is that it looks like I won't be around until Sunday evening after the big reveal and everything. :(

Even the largest body lets itself be pushed where it
needs to be, seduced into nice, warm loving orbits.
Persistence is the key.

A gravitational tug to move Jupiter around? Impressive. Are warm, loving orbits life-sustaining ones in habitable zones? Is this where Jupiter is now, or has it been moved?

Seafloors transform and then yank themselves
skyward, shattering the icy crust as new worlds
awaken inside the swirling depths.

You build homes of ocean laid over stone; giant
and tiny, surrounding this half-born sun ripped by
storms and supersonic wind.

This sounds like the ice-covered moons of Jupiter.

You deliver your last orders to an army that needs
nothing anymore---not instruction, courage or
even prayers---and then you hide again.

In ecstasy they search you, finding nothing but
dense quiet dropping from the stars.

This sounds like the army is searching for you in ecstasy. So who would order their own army to search for them, and then hide? And who would search in ecstasy? Zealots seeking their god? I'm thinking of S'pht and S'pht'Kr, as well as Jarro/Yrro. And of course the Covenant's search for the Forerunner and Halo.

This is getting me very excited.

This has probably been mentioned before, but I'm thinking these messages each correspond to a faction, presumably since each faction is headquartered on a planet? The names of the three Bungie Day shirts seem like they relate to planets:

Dead Orbit - Mercury
(edit: the shirt graphic might also suggest the Moon, but I feel like since this is the future the Moon is probably healthily colonized and not "dead")
New Monarchy - Jupiter
Future War Cult - Mars

The "armies" mentioned in the messages might correspond to the factions headquartered on each planet. Dunno about the dramatic imagery in the messages, and the references to "you." Maybe the "you" is supposed to refer to that big sphere hovering above Earth, or some related entity. The references to "you" creating and guiding armies would have some precedence in Bungie lore, involving some ancient, foreign entity tipping over the first domino that led to the current state of humanity.

Second edit: WestCoastRonin's post has some messages from Bungie which I think are also relevant to the factions/their planets

[...]
[...]
3. Make the City safe again.
4. Together we will take back all that we have lost.
5. Hope shines brightest in the dark.
[...]
7. Only the trusted few…

The most obvious connection is 7, which refers to the "trusted few." The same phrase is used in the puzzle image whose symbol relates to the Moon. "Trusted few" sounds like it might refer to the organizational structure of whatever faction belongs to the Moon, similar to the Prophets in Halo.

If 7 refers to the first released image, then it might make sense to work backward.

5 would be the third released image, then, which corresponds to Mercury. "Hope shines brightest in the dark." Doesn't make much sense at first since Mercury is, presumably, a very bright place due to its proximity to the Sun. I can only think of two possible rationalizations:

(1) Whatever faction is on Mercury is actually based in orbit around Mercury at its L2 Lagrange Point, thus always keeping it in Mercury's shadow and, thus, in the dark. Seems like that'd be the only consistently hospitable area around there.

(2) The quote doesn't mean much and its purpose is just to draw contrast -- "Hope shines brightest in the dark." This would be in keeping with the theme of the message in Mercury's leaked image, which involves contrast, and begins with "One face is blistered, the other plunged into a brutal chill" and goes onto include various other dichotomies.

4 is anyone's guess. If the pattern holds up, it refers to the fourth leaked image which corresponds to Jupiter. The message makes a couple of relevant references, first to "hid[ing]," then to "search[ing]" and "finding nothing." Sounds like it might be related to "taking back what was lost," but what exactly was lost is anyone's guess at this point.

Holst all up in this.

I had a strange thought after reading today's image. What is the Traveler is talking about itself when saying "you".

At the end it says:
"You build homes of ocean laid over stone; giant
and tiny, surrounding this half-born sun ripped by
storms and supersonic wind.

Maybe the Traveler helped this Jupiterian society along by encouraging proper circumstances, that it was at some point worshiped.

You deliver your last orders to an army that needs
nothing anymore---not instruction, courage or
even prayers---and then you hide again.

Again, refering to itself delivering orders to this society or army, then leaving. Which leads to:

In ecstasy they search you, finding nothing but
dense quiet dropping from the stars."

Perhaps refering to that society again trying to find the Traveler, desperate for the Traveler's aid in advancing them further.

I'm probably completely wrong, but it's fun to speculate again!

Perhaps refering to that society again trying to find the Traveler, desperate for the Traveler's aid in advancing them further.

I'm probably completely wrong, but it's fun to speculate again!

Yes, that's a very good idea. I just posted a new topic with something similar a few seconds ago before I saw this, but I didn't consider this point of view. Like you say, maybe the speaker of these passages is some race that had their world built by the Traveler, that was uplifted by the Traveler, and that is now seeking to find the traveler but can't because the Traveler has gone into hiding.

I haven't really been following this until just now, and I have to say: this gets me really fucking excited and interested.

Seriously, I'm amped for Sunday.

Different factions, different planets fits rather well. The story is perhaps setting up to suggest our solar system has been manufactured, which would place special purpose on each "artificial" planet, and hence, faction.

If they intend to truly unite gaming community through Destiny, then it will be very important to create a deep and unique identity for each faction.

Do you think 7 factions total?

Addendum: perhaps not Jupiter, but instead moon of Europa?

So, this has probably been painfully obvious for almost everyone here, but it's something I just noticed this morning. I pulled up all the solutions thus far and noticed that each passage is sitting beside each geomancy. And these geomancies are also shown at positions relative to each other and appear to mark the planet/celestial body position on the same star chart. This furthers a belief that I have that each passage is relevant to the body it sits beside (again, y'all probably knew this from day one so please forgive my ignorance). Now whether the passage belongs to the natives of said body or from The Traveler's experiences there, I'm not sure. I just found that both telling and interesting and maybe it's something that other people have overlooked as well.

Now, on to my question(s). What does the relative position of each body mean?. I'm not an astrologist by any means nor do I even have a decent grasp of space, but, I do know that you can use the position of stars, planets, etc. to either date events or possibly predict them. Looking at the position of these bodies, does that point to any historical event or predicted event that we know of? Perhaps that might hold a few clues?

- CC An intrigued but decidedly ignorant follower of Destiny.

Jupiter has been transformed into a "half-born sun" to warm Europa for habitation. This is indicated by the sun being "ripped by storms and supersonic winds." This is certainly referring to an event in the future because it mentions the seafloors rising and "shattering the icy crust".

I think the armies quote refers to the automatons used to nudge Jupiter into a warmer orbit. They need nothing after their purpose has concluded. Or perhaps the army is the life that is blossoming on Europa.

As for the reference to them searching for you, it's either referring to the automatons (who may have developed awareness past their originally intended purpose), or to us, searching out our creators (the "you" continually referred to), or to the life that developed on Europa doing the same.

So here's what I'm brought to... if the "you" is the Traveler, then who is speaking to the Traveler?

This sounds like the ice-covered moons of Jupiter.

So, pull Jupiter into a warm, habitable orbit, and then terraform the moons? I feel like I've seen a fair amount of sci-fi and I don't think I've heard of such a thing before - very cool.

Yeah! Igniting Jupiter occurred to me... then I forgot about it. We're going to have one heck of a weird solar system if all this pans out. A potentially destroyed Mercury, a revitalized Mars, a bright burning Jupiter orbited by one or more habitable moons.

I wonder what Earth is like!

a bright burning Jupiter orbited by one or more habitable moons.

Or maybe not that bright - sounds like a brown dwarf (an almost-star that never quite got going - not ignited the way we'd normally think of a star but still a major heat source). I dunno if Jupiter's current mass is anywhere near that required for a brown dwarf? Maybe whoever it was either added more mass or forced the reaction somehow?

Or maybe not that bright - sounds like a brown dwarf (an almost-star that never quite got going - not ignited the way we'd normally think of a star but still a major heat source). I dunno if Jupiter's current mass is anywhere near that required for a brown dwarf? Maybe whoever it was either added more mass or forced the reaction somehow?

Wikipedia says the floor on a brown dwarf is about 12x Jupiter's mass, at least by today's definition; it's a slippery concept.

Still, getting Jupiter to cook a little warmer could create a little habitable zone around it even without its igniting like the Sun; warm enough, maybe, to melt Europa's ice shell and turn it into a water world.

-- Steve needs to consider that more, particularly in light of the rather nasty radiation bands close in to Jupiter.

a bright burning Jupiter orbited by one or more habitable moons.

Or maybe not that bright - sounds like a brown dwarf (an almost-star that never quite got going - not ignited the way we'd normally think of a star but still a major heat source). I dunno if Jupiter's current mass is anywhere near that required for a brown dwarf? Maybe whoever it was either added more mass or forced the reaction somehow?

This question came up a while ago when one of our probes was sent into Jupiter. There was a brief spike of concern that its atomic batteries (thermoelectric generators or whatever) might get compressed enough to ignite a nuclear reaction turn Jupiter into a stat. Turns out it it can't happen At least not without something more scifi occurring. :)

Wikipedia says the floor on a brown dwarf is about 12x Jupiter's mass, at least by today's definition; it's a slippery concept.

Well I'd guess that the "adding more mass to make a brown dwarf" theory is dead (or at least endangered) then. Might as well make your own planet if you're going to bring in that much extra material.

Still, getting Jupiter to cook a little warmer could create a little habitable zone around it even without its igniting like the Sun; warm enough, maybe, to melt Europa's ice shell and turn it into a water world.

True this is.

-- Steve needs to consider that more, particularly in light of the rather nasty radiation bands close in to Jupiter.

That's ok, we'll just designate that world for the Vorcha.

So here's what I'm brought to... if the "you" is the Traveler, then who is speaking to the Traveler?

In that context, I'd read it as self-referencing... Like talking oneself. But in a more non-crazy way :) like poetry perhaps. As is, really, all this exposition...

It definitely seems like an entity is rebirthing our solar system. Mars blossoming, Jupiter being integrated as a half-sun, Venus's rebirth? What about Saturn and the Sun, they're slated to be next in the geomancy.

I bet the Traveler is Pluto out to get some vengeance on the bastards who took away it's planethood.

The planets being tied to factions and vice versa are a big part of my speculation, as well. I'm pretty much in concurrence with what you're saying. Yesterday's reveal certainly narrowed down my ideas as to what factions go where.

Hmm...I'll need more time to organize my own thoughts, though.

I bet the Traveler is Pluto out to get some vengeance on the bastards who took away it's planethood.

I was under the impression Jupiter already is a half-born star.

Anyway, *2001: Space Odyssey series MAJOR SPOILER* igniting Jupiter was a turning point in the end of 2010: Odyseey Two, when the Monolith of Jupiter starts multiplying itself (the dark spot on Jupiter the crew of the Alexei Leonov observes expanding during their journey) until Jupiter ignites. That, in turn, turns Europa into a very much so hospitable place, with alien lifeforms with potential to become intelligent and all, forbidden to human interaction by the ascended entity of Dave Bowman (from the first novel).

So yes, your interpretation has sci-fi grounding and I'm quite fond of it myself.
:)