What does that make the Black Heart? Are the Vex and Hive worshipping the same thing? Seems weird that the Exo Stranger would refer to the Vex as the greatest of all evils if the Hive seem more in tune with these powers. So is it something else?

It is possible that the only reason the Vex are in the Sol system at all is an attempt to get direct access to the Darkness via the heart, rather then through it's intermediaries in the worms. This could be the result of the data obtained by Quria Blade Transform in the past. The Vex assimilation of Mercury occurs at the outset of the collapse, timed just as the darkness arrives. They are the only race noted to arrive concurrent with the darkness, and this time Oryx is not there to stop them.

Also Atheon is the needle moving through time, and we don't know the shape that comes after the needle. Oryx wanted to be master of shapes, but would presumably have to dethrone the darkness to do so, making the darkness the final shape.

I think both these shapes are the same. The Vex want to be the Darkness, Oryx wants to be the darkness. Both recognize and draw upon that power via worship.

In the book of sorrows it is mentioned that Oryx and the hive don't actually know how their power works, they access it through ritual and prayer as indicated by the worms, who then perform the real science. So most of their power is interpolated through worship of the worms. That is why Quria Blade Transform (which reminds me of Fourier Transforms) initiates the same thing, it realizes that the worms would give the same effect to anything that performs the same ritual.

What does that make the Black Heart? Are the Vex and Hive worshipping the same thing? Seems weird that the Exo Stranger would refer to the Vex as the greatest of all evils if the Hive seem more in tune with these powers. So is it something else?

No, nothing like that.

I have no idea what those are. If they're Pyramid schemes (which Advocare sounds like based on the name alone) then yes.

Further proof of pyramid scheme:

The worm feeding on him demands more sacrifice than he can give it on his own, so he receives sacrifice from his Underlings to help him keep it at bay. With his underlings dead he is receiving less sacrifice, so the worm must be taking more from him.

So the Hive is like Advocare, Thrive, or Mary Kay?

• A lot of Oryx's power comes/came from his son and lieutenants. If it weren't for killing Crota and the champions at the Court of Oryx we might never have beaten him. I imagine this is why he's so angry that we killed his son - it's not sentimentality, we literally made him weaker by doing it.

I think he is drawing his power from somewhere else. His doomsday attack in the raid is labeled as 'Doxology' if it kills you. I looked it up:

"A liturgical formula of praise to God."

So it seems when he is charging his attack, he is drawing that power from a God. A Taken God? A god of the Darkness? Who knows. But it's not his underlings :-)

I guess I explained poorly. I don't mean power as in his strength, but the power that keeps him alive. The worm feeding on him demands more sacrifice than he can give it on his own, so he receives sacrifice from his Underlings to help him keep it at bay. With his underlings dead he is receiving less sacrifice, so the worm must be taking more from him.

My initial thought was that it didn't diminish his ability to kill us, but made him less resilient to death. But thinking about it we don't really know if that's how the worm works.

If nothing else, killing his underlings (particularly Crota) must have made him very aware of the fact that if he didn't deal with us his Worm might claim him. Certainly a good reason to be angry.

So Oryx is pissed that 1. You killed his son permanently, and that you have put his own existence in jeopardy. His whole justification is that he is the master of shapes, the third queen, that his right to exist as a genocidal maniac is strength. That a mere weak guardian, or squad of them, could threaten him also threatens to undermine the very idea of his existence.

Thus his two sisters could not resurrect him as he did for them, since defeating him defeats the idea of hiim as well.

We know from the new grimoire that Rasputin himself attacked the traveler, to disable it and force it to create ghosts and guardians to defend the darkness. It was going to do exactly what it did with the fallen and run away, but Rasputin shot it down forcing it to fight for its life. That's why we see damage on the underside.

The question is whether he did that to save humanity, or just himself. Judging by your observations, it seems like it was just self preservation, and he only cares about humans insofar as they can protect him.

.....but i told you so

Posted on Oct 15, 2014

We are told the traveler made a last stand on Earth to save humanity, but all the damage to the sphere is on the bottom. If the Traveler was protecting us, wouldn't the bulk of the damage be on the upper part? It looks like WE were shooting UP at it, rather than our enemies raining DOWN on us.

• A lot of Oryx's power comes/came from his son and lieutenants. If it weren't for killing Crota and the champions at the Court of Oryx we might never have beaten him. I imagine this is why he's so angry that we killed his son - it's not sentimentality, we literally made him weaker by doing it.

I think he is drawing his power from somewhere else. His doomsday attack in the raid is labeled as 'Doxology' if it kills you. I looked it up:

"A liturgical formula of praise to God."

So it seems when he is charging his attack, he is drawing that power from a God. A Taken God? A god of the Darkness? Who knows. But it's not his underlings :-)

Destiny's story really has lots of uncertainty around the Traveler, if it's motives were truly benign or partially/completely self serving. This line seems to support that even golden age humanity had reservations.

The Traveler's participation in creating the "God Wave" is the first hostile act that I've seen it take in the fluff thus far, and I'm trying too square it up with the Alpha Lupi:

The Traveler
You have lived as invisibly as possible, flicking from solar system to solar system, making grand plans, overseeing the culturing of civilizations, before leaving in a blink. But you have no recollection of ever wanting worship or even thanks from those blessed by you.
But memory is heavy now.
It feels like lead and neutronium and electroweak matter fashioned into a moon-sized ball that you must carry as you move.
Now, your flight is rapid, your vast mind infected with such dread and toxic doubt that you find yourself afraid of the simple act of thought.
And it is your children you must turn to now, in time of need.
The Traveler 2
This has been such a long chase. This will be the place you will fight. Fight and win.
But do you really know why you go where you go, and where this journey is taking you?
The chase leads you where you need to be, you believe.
Unless...you are being pushed.

We know the Hive have been hunting the Traveler from the time of their inception, but that means that the Travelers later gifts came with the knowledge that there was something worse out there, coming after her. Or did she not know of the failure of the commune of civilizations to contain the Hive, and discovered the Darkness Oryx was also pursuing?

• A lot of Oryx's power comes/came from his son and lieutenants. If it weren't for killing Crota and the champions at the Court of Oryx we might never have beaten him. I imagine this is why he's so angry that we killed his son - it's not sentimentality, we literally made him weaker by doing it.
  
  
• The fact that the Court of Oryx enemies respawn and can be summoned again is actually canon (mostly) - Ascendant Hive seem to only be killed if they are slain in the Ascendant plane. The three sudters and Kagoor may be exceptions to this though, as they have "hidden their deaths" elsewhere.
  
  
• The concept of an Oversoul, of storing your "death" somewhere safe so you can be brought back after an otherwise fatal incident is not all that different to the way our Ghosts seem to work.