Editing Precursors (Species)

Billions of years ago, the Precursors were a nomadic people who trekked through the desert of their desolate homeworld. At some point, they discovered [[Traveler|an enormous white orb]] buried in the sand, which subsequently activated and terraformed their planet into a lush garden world; they called this entity "the Gardener", and began to worship it as a deity.  

The Gardener gave the Precursors a Golden Age that lasted for millions of years, transforming the deserts into fertile deltas and lush gardens, and gifting its patrons with the means to build great cities and ships that let them travel to other worlds that they could then terraform themselves.<ref name="Origin">[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0CKckjryVI'''YouTube''' - ''Destiny 2: Season of the Deep - The Witness's Origins Cinematic'']</ref><ref>'''Bungie (2024/6/4)''', ''[[Destiny 2]]: [[The Final Shape]] - [[The Traveler#Visions of the Traveler|Visions of the Traveler]]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvwWQjx8FwI Ninth Vision]''</ref><ref>'''[[Entelechy]]''', ''[[Entelechy#Scribe Archive XI-2-4A|1-2]]''</ref> However, despite their prosperity, the Precursors eventually became dissatisfied with the Gardener's silence, as they desired a higher purpose to guide their existence. They also came to view the [[Light]] as a chaotic and capricious force, capable of taking life just as easily as it could create it; two factions within the Precursor civilization, the '''[[Bountiful]]''' and the '''[[Primacy]]''', are recorded as haviing misused the Gardener's gifts to the detriment of themselves or others, reinforcing the Precursors' view of the Light as being a fundamentally amoral force.<ref name="6-11">'''[[Entelechy]]''', ''[[Entelechy#Scribe Archive XI-9-2C|6-11]]''</ref> As a result, the Precursors sought a "Winnower," something that could select a just and righteous purpose from the infinite choices of their open-ended existence, and began to idealize a "[[Final Shape]]" toward which their civilization could strive.<ref name="Origin"/><ref>'''Bungie (2024/6/4)''', ''[[Destiny 2]]: [[The Final Shape]] - [[The Traveler#Visions of the Traveler|Visions of the Traveler]]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc48r_h88pA Tenth Vision]''</ref>

In time, various factions arose within the Precursors' governing body, the Consensus, each with their own conception of the Final Shape. The '''[[Solipsist]]s''' believed that the self was the only true "Final Shape,"{{Citation needed}}, whereas the '''[[Nihilist]]s''' believed that the Final Shape would only be achieved through their own destruction.<ref name="6-11"/> The '''[[Penitent]]''' desired to rid the universe of all suffering by any means, and believed that anyone who did not act to do so was complicit in its endless cycle.<ref name="6-11"/> Eventually, the Penitent became the dominant faction within the Consensus.

The Precursors eventually discovered another paracausal entity in a distant star system, which they called the [[Veil]]. The Veil appeared to be a counterpart to the Gardener, but where the Gardener's Light could reshape physical reality, the [[Darkness|power]] associated with the Veil was linked with thoughts, memory and emotion. The Precursors determined that by combining the powers of the Veil and the Gardener, they could bring their conception of the Final Shape into the physical world, carving away the chaos of existence and calcifying it into an eternal, timeless state, free of even the possibility of suffering. However, when they brought the Veil back to their homeworld so as to form a link between it and the Gardener, the Gardener fled from their world.<ref name="Origin"/>

Unwilling to abandon their pursuit of the Final Shape, the Precursors used the power of the Veil to merge their minds into a single, unfathomably powerful Darkness-wielding entity, guided by a unified, unwavering will: the [[the Witness|Witness]].<ref name="Origin"/><ref>'''[[Entelechy]]''', ''[[Entelechy#Scribe Archive XI-23-1C|32-35]]''</ref><ref>'''Bungie (2024/6/4)''', ''[[Destiny 2]]: [[The Final Shape]] - [[The Traveler#Visions of the Traveler|Visions of the Traveler]]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2ZQQWnz7Fg Eleventh Vision]''</ref> In at least one location, the process of creating the Witness took the form of a ritualistic ceremony where the participants cloaked themselves in cloth veils, standing in a circle and chanting in unison until their consciousnesses departed their bodies to merge in the Darkness; another depiction portrayed the Precursors as dismembering themselves and piling their body parts upon an altar.  

At the start of its journey, the Witness' component minds were more or less completely unified in their goal of finding the Gardener, free of doubt or dissent. However, as time went on, many within the collective began to question or regret their decision to create the Witness, as they watched it perpetrate countless massacres and genocides out of a desire to "correct" the needless profusion of life (and therefore suffering) left in the wake of the Traveler. These '''Dissenters''' were sequestered by the Witness away from the rest of its collective consciousness, with the intent to reintegrate them during the creation of the Final Shape.