The Witness
From Destinypedia, the Destiny wiki
| “ | We know pain. Our purpose… is its end. | ” |
| The Witness | |
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Other name(s): |
The Entity[1] |
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Unmade by the Guardian using the Light of the Traveler[4] |
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Black |
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The Black Fleet |
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Notable info: |
Billions of minds collectively merged in Darkness into a singular paracausal entity |
| The Witness | |
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Mission: |
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| The Witness | |
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The Final Shape (Salvation's Edge) |
The Witness, also known as the Entity or the Voice in the Darkness, was an immensely powerful Darkness-wielding being who commanded the Black Fleet.
Originating from the first known civilization uplifted by the Traveler, the Witness was the product of an entire species having merged into one entity using their mastery of the Darkness, their minds bound together into a single gestalt consciousness. It spent eons chasing the Traveler as part of its pursuit to impose "salvation" upon all reality through its vision of the Final Shape; along the way, it was responsible for the destruction of countless civilizations across the universe, either by its own hand or through the actions of its Disciples, its Dread army, and other servants such as the Hive, the Taken and the Scorn. It is the overarching main antagonist of the first saga in the Destiny franchise.
Following its entry into the Pale Heart, the Witness would be pursued by the Coalition, and was wounded by the Guardian when they destroyed several veiled statues that contained the minds of dissenters that had been sequestered from its collective. The Witness managed to repel their efforts, however, and returned to its monolith to begin enacting its Final Shape after strengthening its grasp on the Light of the Traveler. This would be thwarted by a raid fireteam that breached the monolith and severed its hold on the Traveler's Light, forcing the Witness to flee.
After retreating from the monolith, the Witness was finally destroyed by the Guardian in a massive counterattack mounted by the Coalition, ending its eons-long quest to enact the Final Shape, avenging humanity and the countless civilizations victimized in its ancient war against the Traveler.
Biography
The Ancient Past
- "I stand before a being with a thousand names. It whispers one: The Witness. Remember it. Remember that name."
- — Savathûn, the Witch Queen[5]
The Witness's origins lie with an ancient humanoid species that lived billions of years ago on a desolate world. This species discovered the Traveler on their homeworld, half-buried in the ground, where it had seemingly been lying inert for an unknown span of time. Upon discovery, the Traveler activated and transformed their planet into a paradise.[6] With the Traveler's aid, the species developed a massive spacefaring civilization, and in the process, they learned to harness the Traveler's gifts, even using them to create entire worlds.[7] The species worshipped the Traveler as a deity, calling it "the Gardener".[6]
Although the Traveler's gifts brought about a golden age for the civilization, it never communicated with its patrons or offered them any hint of guidance. As a result, their society began to crave meaning and sought to find something that would bring order and purpose to an otherwise open-ended existence. In their studies of the Traveler, they also came to view the Light as a fundamentally capricious and chaotic force, equally capable of bringing life or death with no ultimate justification for either.[6] They also noted that some among their own species had abused the Light, such as the Swarm, who erroneously used the Traveler's gifts to destroy themselves, and the Sovereign, who used their gifts for subjugation.[8]
Faced with a lack of purpose and finding none in the Traveler and its Light, the civilization came to desire a "Winnower", something capable of carving meaning and purpose out of the chaos of existence.[6] They began to conceptualize the idea of a "Final Shape" toward which to strive, which would encompass the perfection of their society and the universe into an ideal end-state.[8]
Over time, the civilization's governing body, the Consensus, was plagued by tensions between different ideological parties struggling with their own interpretations of the Final Shape. The main parties were the Solipsists, who maintained that the self was the only meaningful "final shape" in this reality and that of all other realities; the Nihilists, who were labeled as "self-flagellating pessimists" that believed the Final Shape would be brought about by their own destruction; and the Penitent, the most radical group, which sought to rid the universe of all suffering by any means necessary, and who believed that any who did not act to do so were complicit in its perpetual cycle.[8]
At some point, the species discovered that the Traveler had a counterpart entity, located in a distant star system. They named this entity the Veil, and through studying it, they understood it was the source of a new power, one linked to the mind and consciousness rather than the physical world: the Darkness. In studying the Darkness, they discovered that it could provide the means to guide the universe into a perfected, eternal form, a "Final Shape" that would last to the end of time and beyond. In this, they found the purpose they had sought for so long.[6]
To achieve this goal, the civilization determined that they needed to bring the Traveler and the Veil into close proximity, which would strengthen the two entities' connection and allow the species to use their combined Light and Darkness to reshape reality itself. However, the Traveler was evidently unwilling to allow this outcome, and when the species brought the Veil back to their homeworld, it responded by leaving the planet and fleeing into the distant reaches of space.[6]
Unwilling to abandon their quest, and infuriated by the Traveler's denial, the Consensus voted to use the Veil and its Darkness to bind their entire species' collective consciousnesses together, resulting in the creation of an unfathomably powerful paracausal entity: the Witness.[9] According to a vision imparted by Ahsa to the Guardian, this process involved what resembled a ritualistic mass sacrifice, in which the participants dismembered themselves and piled their bodies and body parts on an altar.[6] Another vision shown to Zavala by the Witness itself showed a different ritual involving numerous members of the precursor species standing and chanting in a circle, wearing cloth veils and emitting smoke-like vapor from their heads; this smoke collected into a massive orb in the center of the circle, and as the participants' consciousnesses left their bodies to merge into the collective, their lifeless bodies fell to the ground.[10]
Having become one with the Darkness and commanding a paracausal armada of pyramidal ships, the Witness left its world behind and began a crusade to locate the Traveler and link it with the Veil, and in doing so bring about the Final Shape.[6]
The Witness encountered other spacefaring races early in its journey, eventually meeting the species known as the Eurhythmia, who warmly welcomed it into their midst. Upon discovering that the Eurhythmia had been blessed by the Traveler and that the Traveler remained in their solar system, the Witness flew into a rage that destroyed the Eurhythmia and forced the Traveler to flee once again. At this point, at least one of the Witness' component minds became horrified at what they had become a part of and became a Dissenter.[11]
The Recruitment of a Disciple
- "—-Love for them made you weak. Power over them made you strong. Upon reflection, you are filled with regret. Believing yourself to be under the spell of the Regime. Believing your actions in their tenure to be wrong. But morality, oh dear Rhulk, is subjective. And now that you are all that remains of Lubrae, isn't it time you made the rules? Isn't it time you looked back upon your life with pride? After all, your actions brought you to us. And only we can help you emerge from your cocoon.—-
"We…? What even are you?"
—-We are your salvation. We are your judgment. And soon we will be… your Witness.—-" - — The Witness and Rhulk[12]
Billions of years ago, the Witness visited a dying world called Lubrae, which had degenerated into a military dictatorship after the Traveler had blessed and left their civilization.[13] There, it encountered a warrior named Rhulk, who had fallen into a chasm after being betrayed by his family and clan.[14] The Witness healed Rhulk's injuries, gifted him a remade and empowered version of his Glaive, and told him that his destiny was to bring ruin to Lubrae.[14] Rhulk went on to massacre the people of the city above the chasm, and eventually destroyed his entire planet by using the Upended to destroy Lubrae's Sapphiric Sun. As Rhulk fell into the chasm again, the Witness saved him again by bringing him aboard its Pyramid. There, it converted Rhulk to worship of the Darkness by showing how, from the perspective of the Darkness, the lives that had been lost on Lubrae were never worth anything to begin with, and that he had proven his worth by destroying them and surviving the extinction of his species by his own hand. This caused Rhulk to swear himself to the Witness as one of its Disciples.[15]
Subjugation of the Worms
- "You desire life. My Witness desires your power. A trade is in the stars: your servitude for their lives."
- — Rhulk's offer to Xita.[16]
At an unknown point in time, the Witness's Disciple Rhulk sought out the power of the Sword Logic for his master's behest by subjugating the six surviving Worm Gods; having evolved to master the Deep but were imprisoned within the gas giant's core by the Leviathan. To that end, Rhulk offered a deal to the mother worm Xita, the Nurturing Worm, promising her offspring substance and safety in exchange for eternal servitude to him and his master.[16] Despite his earlier claims, however, it is later revealed that Rhulk only subjugated the worms out of his own desire to be recognized as an equal by the Witness; a sentiment that his master swiftly rejected after constantly stepping out of line.[17]
The Witness would also discretely introduce the concept of winnowing to the progenitor race of Worms on the gas giant of Fundament, offering a means to channel the forbidden magics of the Deep into apotheosis by death-fueled killing logic. The proto-worms that were tempted by the Witness' gift gave way to self-inflicted genocide as they killed each other and took power from their deaths, leaving only Ahsa to have rejected the logic and fled the carnage on Fundament into space.[18]
The Birth of the Hive
- "These frail siblings will soon be claimed by the Light… Unless we claim them first. We will tell the most cunning sibling of cataclysm. A prophecy… of a great loss."
- — The Witness observing the Krill.[19]
Desiring a host race for the subjugated Worms, the Witness and Rhulk both play key roles in the ascension of the Hive on Fundament, the latter creating parasitic larvae from Xita's body and distributed them across the oceans to reach the Krill of the Osmium Kingdom.[20] Eventually a dead white worm became the familiar of the Osmium King himself, the Witness fed through the worm whispers of an apocalyptic syzygy brought on by an unknown moon to the King. The king's mind proved too feeble to its whispers due to his age and senility, gradually driving him to madness in fear of the Traveler. His demented paranoia would escalate upon the actual sighting of the Traveler itself, which had reached a point that Taox and the other Krill conspired against his family for the sake of their kingdom. Taox brought the Helium Drinkers to invade the Osmium Court and usurp the throne, killing the king and leaving his three surviving heirs to flee for their lives. The Witness and Rhulk both watched the Traveler's movements as carnage unfolded from afar; the former having scouted the trio as potential candidates to be claimed by the Light. Instead, the Witness desired to claim the three and their young, unsullied minds to hear their whispers. By telepathically communicating with the young Sathona via her father's Worm familiar, it guided the three daughters into seeking out the remaining Worm Gods and became reborn as the first Hive; exacting their revenge upon the Helium Drinkers and becoming sworn servants to the Sword Logic itself.[21][19]
Sometime after the Witness created the Hive, the Darkness-wielding Ecumene and Qugu were rendered extinct by them. Their use of the Darkness is not reported in the Books of Sorrow, suggesting that either Oryx or the Witness itself excised this fact, presumably due to its seeming contradiction with the Witness' ideology.[22][23]
The Noesis
- "—-Why do you hide?—-
—-We see you.—-
—-Come, now. Don't be afraid.—-" - — The Witness to a member of the Noesis[24]
At an unknown point in its pursuit of the Traveler, the Witness encountered and destroyed the civilization known as the Noesis. According to a record left behind by the last surviving member of the species, the Witness appeared to have been less aggressive and violent in its treatment of the Noesis, which the Eliksni Scribe Eido of the House of Light speculated may have been due to the Noesis having never been visited by the Traveler.[24]
The Collapse
The Witness had a direct role in the Collapse, alongside its Disciples and Savathûn. According to Savathûn's Worm, the Witness intended to destroy the Traveler but was somehow tricked by Savathûn into sparing it instead. As a result of this deception, humanity survived while the Witness and its Black Fleet were driven back to intergalactic space, where they would remain for centuries before the Traveler revealed its continued existence at the end of the Red War.[25]
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Meeting with Calus
- "We have come upon the end of the world, and I've stared into its expanse. It has whispered into my ear, and I am enlightened. Death is coming, and It has made me Its herald. The end will eat everything."
- — Calus to his Loyalists[26]
During his exile aboard the Leviathan, the deposed Cabal Emperor Calus and his Loyalists encountered an anomalous void in deep space, described as a total absence of "light, dark, life, death (…) anything, even of absence itself".[26] Donning a pressure gel suit, Calus went out to the exterior of the Leviathan to inspect his surroundings. He received a vision from the void, showing a fleet of unknown ships and a coming cataclysm that would annihilate all life in the universe.[27] The void then told Calus that he would be its herald, to spread the news of the coming end.[citation needed]
Lunar Haunting
- "You made it…we have heard your cries for help. And soon, we will answer."
"Who are you?"
"Don't you recognize us? We are not your friend. We are not your enemy. We are your… salvation." - — The Witness and The Guardian[28]
When Eris Morn awakened the Pyramid beneath the Moon, the Darkness emanating from it reached out to the Guardian investigating her whereabouts and began to invade their Ghost.[29] When they return equipped with Dreambane Suit, the Pyramid invites the Guardian inside where whispers of the Witness' presence could fully possess their Ghost. It is there the Voice in the Darkness coldly denounces the Light as a weakness which had brought only death to those it "blessed", citing the Great Disaster, the Red War, and the death of Cayde-6 as examples of its numerous failures. Once the Guardian reached the statue at the center of the Pyramid, they are offered the Unknown Artifact as "respite", granting them a vision of the Black Garden. There, the Witness reveals themselves to the Guardian having taken their form with the Black Fleet floating in the skies. The Witness addresses the Guardian having heard humanity's cries for help and that they would soon answer, claiming that they are neither friend nor enemy, but instead their "salvation".[28]
Return of the Black Fleet
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- "You bring weapons. You will not need them. We offer only truth."
- — The Witness
Several days after the Almighty's destruction, the Witness would assert its fleet of mysterious Pyramid Ships and push into the solar system, with one ship accompanied by Pyramid Scales going to Io. Detecting the oncoming threat, Rasputin uses his Warsat network around the moon of Jupiter to shoot down the vessel. Sadly, his countermeasures have no effect, and the Pyramid responds by completely disabling the Warmind and his systems, leaving the Guardians to fend for themselves.
The Pyramids would be drawn to Io as it is the last place to be touched by the Traveler and station itself over a strange tree that has grown in the center of the collection of raised rocks. Both Eris Morn and the Young Wolf are also attracted to the moon, with Eris arriving in an attempt to commune with the Pyramids once again and the Young Wolf being sent by Commander Zavala to retrieve the lightless Hunter.
Upon arrival, the Guardian is drawn to a small disturbance on the edge of the cliff overlooking the largest of the Pyramids, where they are once again ensnared by the vessel, with the Witness communicating through their Ghost. However, before the Witness could do anything else, they would be saved by an intervention from Savathûn who transports them to the Ascendant Realm where they are forced to fight both Taken and Hive. They fight the Witch Queen's forces back and forth through realities until Eris brings them to the Tree of Silver Wings directly under the Pyramid. Here, after another battle with the Taken, the Guardian retrieves an artifact called the Seed of Silver Wings that, once charged, will allow Eris to listen to the Witness' messages without the Witch Queen's interference.
Soon, the Pyramid ships would spread further beyond Io, with three more ships now near the New Pacific Arcology on Titan, near the BrayTech Futurescape on Mars and above the Caloris Basin on Mercury. Pyramids also began rapidly deploying Pyramid Scales, which began infecting the environments with Darkness. In response, Zavala had deployed the Young Wolf to their allies on the four planets and moons with the presence of the Pyramids to begin preparations for a mass exodus and retreat to the Last City. However, after completing a series of tasks, Commander Sloane, Brother Vance, and Asher Mir chose to stay, with Ana Bray being the only V.I.P. to return to the City, but not after saving what remained of Rasputin with the help of the Young Wolf.
In the following weeks, Guardians were pulled into the Ascendant Realm, reminiscent of the Court of Oryx on the Dreadnaught, this time encountering Nokris, Supplicant to Savathûn, Savathun's supplicant. Upon defeating him, the Witness was able to begin cleanly communicating, while forcibly transporting the Guardians aboard a room within the Io Pyramid, telling Guardians there is an ancient power deep beneath the surface of Europa and that it must be embraced, displaying statues of each race approaching a central Pyramid, with a lone shadow lingering over the Fallen.
Almost half a year after the Pyramids returned, the worlds of Mercury, Mars, Io, and Titan had all disappeared from the system, hidden by the Witness. The status of the rest of the Pyramid Fleet was unknown, but it was presumed that they were holding position along the outer reaches of the system after being driven back by the Traveler healing itself.