Light

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Light
Biographical information
Other name(s):	The Sky
Species:	Paracausal force
Political and military information
Affiliation:	Leviathan (Traveler) Humanity (Ghost, Guardians) Fallen (Splicer Gauntlet, House of Light) Cabal (Traveler Cage, Red Legion) Hive (Lucent Brood)

"The Light lives in all places, in all things. You can block it, even try to trap it, but the Light will find its way."

— The Speaker

The Light, also known as the Sky is a paracausal force associated with the Traveler. Its counterpart is the Darkness.

Overview

"The Gardener is hard to bother; she is constantly amidst her weeds, kneeling in the tangent dust, gloves covered in a mix of distant soils and metallic saps. She is listening to the music of the insects amidst the flowers, the unguent as it begins to drip from the ferns, the slight scratch of the Worm beneath, and not to you, and certainly not to your cries for help."

— Mk. 44 Stand Asides Lore Tab

Like the Darkness, the Light is a paracausal force that has existed since before the beginning of time and space. It is fundamentally driven to increase the complexity and diversity of entities within the universe, and in particular to encourage the growth of new lifeforms.

The Light emanates from the Traveler, but it is not exclusively produced by it. All living things and all places possess some Light—possibly as a soul—as the spark of life is Light in itself. Ulan-Tan hypothesized that all Light is connected, later confirmed when Guardians discovered the Hive siphoning light from the Traveler through a piece of itself. The Light is antipathic to the Hive, though they are known to feed on it and offer it as a sacrifice to their gods.

Guardians are the rare few able to wield the Light as a weapon. Additionally, the Light was used by the Traveler to construct the Ghosts. Orbs of Light may also be found, which give power to a Guardian's Super, their ultimate use of the Light. Light, as used by the Guardians, comes in three different varieties; these are the elemental damage modifiers, and are used in both a Guardian's chosen subclass and in certain weapons. It is possible for Light to be corrupted, as the shard of the Traveler within the European Dead Zone is corrupting an area of the surrounding forest. In addition, the Light Dominus Ghaul wielded was corrupted due to him taking Light from the Traveler, which was an act of Darkness.

Like the Darkness, the Light appears to be intelligent in some sense. However, whereas the Darkness seems all too willing to communicate with its wielders in their own languages, the Light appears to be more aloof and cryptic, communicating in symbolic visions and signs, if at all. Likewise, whereas the Darkness appears to be associated with memory (as exemplified by Deepsight), the Light appears to be associated with forgetting, as Lightbearers lose all memory of their past life upon being resurrected and gifted the Light.

Relation to the Physical Universe

As hypothesized by Osiris, the Light seems to be connected to the physical universe, whereas the Darkness appears to be more strongly related to thought, emotion and consciousness more broadly. This dichotomy can be seen in the nature of the elemental manifestations of Light and Darkness: Arc, Solar and Void all grant control over physical forces (electricity, heat and gravity, respectively), whereas Strand allows one to manipulate the psychic "threads" connecting all conscious beings, and Stasis may be seen as embodying the abstract concepts of will and control. This emphasis on physicality versus consciousness may also explain why resurrection via the Light wipes away memories, as well as why the Darkness seems more acutely concerned by the pain and suffering of conscious beings than the Light: both memory and pain are within the realm of conscious experience, and therefore outside of the Light's domain of interest.

History

Origins

"Once upon a time,* a gardener and a winnower lived** together in a garden.***
* It was once before a time, because time had not yet begun.
** We did not live. We existed as principles of ontological dynamics that emerged from mathematical structures, as bodiless and inevitable as the primes.
*** It was the field of possibility that prefigured existence."

— Unveiling: Gardener and Winnower

According to the Lore Book "Unveiling," both the Light and the Darkness have existed since before the start of time, and thus before the universe came into existence. Being unbound by the laws of causality, neither the Light or Darkness can be said to have a beginning. Rather, they are emergent properties of even more fundamental "mathematical structures" that in turn underlay reality itself.

In the allegorical story recounted in the Lore Book, the Darkness and Light occupied themselves by engaging one another in a game, analogous to a vastly more complex version of the "Game of Life" devised by Earth mathematician John Conway. This game would consistently arrive at an end-state dominated by a single, self-perpetuating pattern, which subsumed all others in the game. The Darkness found this to be a pleasing outcome, but the Light felt the pattern to be boring, and desired that the game endlessly produce novel patterns instead. In order to promote this novelty, the Light transformed itself into a new "rule" within the game; the Darkness did the same, to counteract the Light's efforts. These new rules were "set aside" from the other rules of the game, so that they could not be limited or influenced by them, but could manipulate the other rules to bring about their intended outcomes.

While the story above is laden with metaphor and open to interpretation, it appears to suggest that the universe is the "game" which the Light and Darkness played in the garden, that the rules of the game are the laws of physics as they are commonly understood, and that the "new rules" that the Light and Darkness became are the basis of paracausality.

The Ancient Past

One of the earliest recorded mentions of the Light comes from the Books of Sorrow, a collection of ancient Hive texts chronicling the origin of the Hive and their history of interstellar conquest. The Light is referred to as "The Sky," and is described as a philosophy that upholds collaboration and gentleness with the goal of creating a thriving, harmonious society and universe. Its counterpart, "The Deep," is also described, being a philosophy claiming that existence is the struggle to exist, and it is the goal of all life to challenge and defeat other life so as to become stronger and continue existing. Several disciples of the Light, including the Leviathan and the Traveler, also feature in these texts.

Before the rise of the Hive, the Traveler had visited several civilizations and bestowed the blessings of the Light. These civilizations included the Ammonite, the Lubraean and the Harmony. At an unknown time in the past, the Traveler also came to the Eliksni and uplifted their civilization.

The Golden Age

When the Traveler came to the Sol System, it used the Light to terraform several planets and moons to render them suitable for human habitation.

The Collapse

When the Black Fleet pursued the Traveler to the Sol System, a cataclysmic battle ensued in which the Traveler used the Light to push back the Darkness, at the cost of rendering itself largely inert. Fragments of the Traveler were thrown far from the site of the battle, with one of the largest landing in Europe. The Light emanating from this shard interacted with the surrounding landscape, creating the European Dead Zone.

While it battled the Darkness on Earth, the Traveler also extended a ray of Light to protect the distant colony ship Yang Liwei from the Black Fleet. This ray pushed back the Fleet's Darkness, but could not repel it entirely; the energy of the resulting struggle was so great that a kugelblitz formed, which swallowed the Yang Liwei and its crew.

The City Age

After its sacrificial last stand, the Traveler created the Ghosts, small machines infused with Light, to seek out long-dead individuals and resurrect them as warriors with Light-based abilities. These warriors, first called Risen and later known as Guardians, can manifest weapons and defenses made of Arc, Solar or Void Light, and can return from death with the assistance of their Ghost.

During the events of Destiny 2, the Cabal Red Legion invaded the Solar System and attacked the Last City. Forces under Dominus Ghaul successfully captured the Traveler, and placed a cage around it, thus cutting all Guardians connection to the light. Yet, at least one Guardian managed to reclaim their light from a corrupted Shard of the Traveler in the European Dead Zone, proving that not all light emanated from the Traveler itself. Ghaul attempted to repeatedly gain the Traveler's favor and grant his Red Legion the ability to wield the light. However, the Traveler refused, and Ghaul resorted to outright stealing the light by siphoning it from the Traveler via its cage. Light was only restored to all Guardians after the Traveler broke free of its cage and destroyed once and for all a power-hungry Ghaul.

Traveler's Awakening

In Forsaken, it is revealed that the Traveler had been "speaking" to the Guardians through visions of crowns, roses, silver trees, and torches turning into bonfires since its awakening. Ikora Rey tells the Guardians to follow these visions, which leads them to Io. The remnant light on Io then granted the Guardians new powers.

The Nature of the Light

In addition to being a tangible paracausal force, the Light is also synonymous with a certain existential philosophy, as detailed in several Lore entries. Powers originating from the Light embody a theme of "Creation", contrasting powers from the Darkness that have the theme of "Consciousness". The way of the Light emphasizes cooperation between intelligent beings, with the goal of creating "a gentle world" where all entities may harmoniously coexist. Its antithesis is the philosophy of the Darkness, which claims that "existence is the struggle to exist" and that all intelligent life must compete to survive at the expense of other beings. The philosophy of the Light is also referenced in the Marasenna as "the way of the bomb," meaning that it encourages a complex world with many interrelated parts that rely on each other to achieve greater goals. In contrast, the philosophy of the Darkness is described as "the way of the sword", which seeks to reduce everything in the universe to a final, simplified, self-same state.

Ghosts

The Traveler created the Ghosts to seek out and revive fallen warriors as Lightbearers with the intent of protecting Humanity.

Speaker's Understanding

The Speaker

The Speaker described the Light as living in all places and all things. He said that you can block it and even try to trap it, but the Light will always find its way. He stated that Guardians are called to do what the Traveler cannot, and that ordinary citizens now view the Guardians as it's saviours over the Traveler. Viewing the Traveler to been apart of their past, but present is shaped by the Light and will be their future.

Toland's Understanding

Toland, the Shattered describes Lightbearers as gifted and armed with the "secret physics of a lost age," capable of tearing reality apart, and concludes that there is one true logical end to the universe which he describes as "The Last True Shape."

Rasputin's Understanding

The Warmind Rasputin first refers to The Traveler as "the Gardener", alluding to its role in nurturing civilization. However, Rasputin grew cautious of the Traveler as it came from somewhere unknown. Due to this, Rasputin began to question its motives and whether the Traveler could bring any foreign dangers with it.

Hating the possibility of risks, he devised a contingency plan that would be kept secret which no other human or AI system could access for the sake of protecting humanity. His plan was if the Traveler showed any signs of betrayal or attempts to flee, Rasputin would prevent this, as he believed it was morally obligated to protect humanity.

Minor positions

Ulan-Tan, a renowned Warlock, viewed the Traveler as a necessary symmetry to the Darkness to maintain a cosmic balance, and that Light is interconnected across space and time. He saw the Traveler's act of sacrifice to stop the Darkness as inherent goodness and urged humanity return that goodness by healing the Traveler.

Unveiling

According to the Lore Book Unveiling, the Light has existed since before the beginning of the universe (insofar as such a statement has any meaning), and is the counterpart to the Darkness. In the Lore Book, the Light and Darkness are referred to by the names "Gardener" and "Winnower" respectively; notably, the Traveler has also been given the title of "Gardener," presumably alluding to the connection between the Light and the Traveler.

Aspects and Manifestations

Arc

Arc is an elemental manifestation of the Light which grants the wielder control over electricity.

Solar

Solar is an elemental manifestation of the Light which allows the wielder to harness the power of fire and heat.

Void

Void is an elemental manifestation of the Light which allows the wielder to manipulate spacetime to generate black holes and other space-warping phenomena.

Terraforming

The Light can be used by the Traveler to terraform entire worlds, making them more habitable to life-forms and causing new flora and fauna to spontaneously appear on their surface.

Resurrection

Ghosts use the Light to resurrect their Guardians if they are killed. If their connection to the Light emanating from the Traveler is severed, they lose the ability to resurrect their Guardians.

Influences

Guardians

Guardians are the most prolific wielders of the Light, with humanity being the current chosen of the Traveler.

Fallen

The Fallen civilization once hosted the Traveler, which they named the Great Machine. However, it left their system around the time of a catastrophic event only known as the Whirlwind. The Eliksni also held their Prime Servitors to great esteem and worshipped them as god as they were sources of Life and Light. In a desperate bid to reclaim the Great Machine, they used their Primes to chart interstellar flight and followed the Light throughout the vast cosmos.

Arriving in the Sol System, they began conflicts with Humanity to claim the Traveler for themselves, in an effort to prevent the destruction of their race. While captured Skolas, Kell of Kells tells Variks, the Loyal to have seen a "Light-Snuffer" and "Dark-binder", referring to Oryx, the Taken King. When Skolas dies at the hands of the Guardians, Variks wonders if their own Eliksni heroes were bestowed with Light.

Later a new Fallen House called the House of Light would rise under the Kellship of Mithrax, Kell of Light. He believed that Humanity deserved the Traveler over the Eliksni and proclaim that he will become Kell to the "Mind-Open Fallen" who are willing to fight for "The Great Machine" together with Humanity. On the other hand Eramis, Kell of Darkness founded the House of Salvation to force the Traveler to feel the pain it caused her people during the Whirlwind through the use of Darkness. She viewed the Light as only being able to last so long, while Darkness can reign forever.

Cabal

Dominus Ghaul, emperor of the Cabal, traveled to the Solar System with his elite the Red Legion with the goal of claiming the Traveler and its Light for himself. By attacking the City, Ghaul sought to show the Traveler the error of its ways for choosing Humanity over the Cabal and aimed to establish a new order of Guardians from within the ranks of his own species.

After interrogating The Speaker, Ghaul began to accept that to earn the Traveler's favor he would need to learn devotion and self-sacrifice. The Consul, in contrast, only viewed it as an advanced machine, and advised Ghaul to seize its Light by force. When The Consul refers to the Traveler as "this great machine", it provides insight that the Fallen were indeed referring to the Traveler, as the he notes that other civilizations were precise in their naming. Ghaul disagreed with the Consul's approach which eventually lead to the death of the Speaker and Consul. Having no choice Ghaul took his warship to the center of the Traveler Cage device to drain the Light by force.

Ghaul having successfully stole some of the Traveler's Light managed to become a Lightbearer. However, the Light bestowed upon him was corrupted as stealing the Light is an act of Darkness. Ghaul explores his Light abilities by trying to use Radiance and due to his corrupted Light grows into a massive ethereal figure. He declares himself immortal as he speaks to the Traveler directly which promptly awakens the Traveler from its slumber, destroying the device harvesting its power and Ghaul himself. Its reawakening sends a massive shockwave across the whole Cosmos and restores the Light.

Later the exiled Emperor Calus claims to have knowledge on the true origins and purpose of the Traveler, having encountered powers far greater during his travels. When Val Ca'uor rose to prominence he also agreed with the Consuls sentiments and viewed the Traveler as a weapon belonging to the Cabal.

Hive

The Hive have great hatred for the Light, where it is both a source of nourishment and a cause of pain. To them, the eternal struggle between light and dark is not only a war, it is a crusade; all Light must be devoured so Darkness can reclaim the universe. They have even attempted to attack the Traveler directly, through a ritual in which they drained its light through a fragment that they captured in the Chamber of Night. The Hive under the Lucent Brood embrace the Light by using Hive Ghosts, with Knights acting as Sentinel Titans, Wizards acting as Stormcaller Warlocks, and Acolytes as Gunslinger Hunters.

Vex

The Vex originated in the "flower game" conducted between the Light and Darkness in the primordial "garden" that existed prior to the creation of the universe. All of these games would end with a single, self-sustaining pattern emerging and dominating the entire simulation. This was pleasing to the Darkness, but was irritating to the Light, which desired that the game produce endless novel patterns instead.

When the Light and Darkness began to war with one another, initiating the beginning of the universe, the patterns from the flower game escaped into it. In the initial hot state of the universe the abstract patterns existed as quantum fluctuations, before eventually creating a more stable substrate for themselves in the briny seas of the first worlds to form in the universe, the radiolaria. This was the origin of the Vex as they would later come to be known, and from this point forward they were driven to once more totally dominate the reality they found themselves in, though operating on "outdated" rules that did not account for the paracausal powers of the Darkness or the Light.

Due to the paracausal nature of the Light, the Vex are unable to simulate it. While they may succeed in projecting a image of the Traveler, they are unable to actualise it's power and fear this nature of the Light as it is beyond their understanding. While they can determine the destructive outcome of a Nova Bomb, they are unable to simulate if the Guardian will use their powers at all.

In the the Vault of Glass, a pocket universe they controlled and could write things out of existence, they were able to create ontological weapons such the Gorgons and Oracles. However they could not foresee the creation of the Aegis by Kabr, the Legionless, who pierced a wound in the Vault to let the Light in.

When Saint-14 entered the Vex network, they spent years tuning a Mind to the frequencies his Light. Eventually Agioktis, Martyr Mindis would hunt down the Titan out of desperation to stop his rampage. While Saint successfully destroyed the Mind, it succeeded in draining his Light and leaving him helpless for the Vex to finish off. Out of respect, the Vex laid Saint-14's body to rest in a tomb as a memorial to the grief he gave them. The great respect the Vex have for Saint-14 is symbolised in the naming of Hagios and Agioktis as both mean Saint in Greek. Though they are not worshipers of the Light, they showed admiration for its mightiest of Lightbearers.

Awoken and Jovians

In Forsaken, it is revealed the Awoken are the descendants of the crew and passengers of the Yang Liwei, codenamed Exodus Green, a generation ship that left Earth shortly before the Collapse in an attempt to find a way to live without the Traveler. The ship refused to take a side when the Darkness attacked the Traveler. During the initial sparring between the two acausal entities, the ship was at the centerpiece of a kugelblitz, a black hole-like anomaly in space time that sucked it and all its inhabitants into a newborn pocket universe. The Yang Liwei's 891 crewmembers and 40,000 passengers were annihilated and lost their physical forms, becoming beings of pure potential. Mara Sov, a low-ranking crewmember, was the first person to enter the kugelblitz just before the ship. She reassembled her own disembodied conscience, manipulated the Distributary's physical laws to shape it into an earthly paradise of a planet and created a new body for herself. Together with the ship's captain Alis Li, who awakened the same way, Mara Sov induced other disembodied humans from the Yang Liwei to awaken as well and reincarnate into new blue-skinned, star-eyed bodies, having only vague memories about their past.

Other Races

Ammonites
At some point, the Traveler became a patron of the Ammonites, who built an advanced spacefaring civilization with paracausal technology that spanned all of Fundament's fifty-two moons. The Traveler's disciple, the Leviathan who lived in Fundament's ocean layer and kept the Worms at bay, was revered by the Ammonites almost as much as the Traveler.

The Ammonites worshipped a song developed by the Traveler, dubbed the "Song of Life". The Hive attempted to sing the song in reverse, which in turn killed the Choir and lead to the creation of the Deathsong.

Harmony
The Harmony also benefited from the patronage of the Traveler who realigned the orbits of their homeworld and nine other planets around a Black Hole. From polar jets of the the Black Hole, they race built the Gift Mast, a hollow construct that radiated pure silver Light and allowed the Harmony to thrive.

Ahamkara
The Ahamkara first appeared in the Sol System following the Traveler's arrival; several sources describe them as being part of the "neolife" that was generated by the Traveler's actions, but their exact origins are unclear. They appear to follow the Traveler as they are previously had a relationship with the Harmony. In the Hive's Books of Sorrow; the Harmony describe them as "wishful bishops" that grant "dragon-wishes" which outraged Xivu Arath who demanded the imprisonment of "the dragons". Eventually the Ahamkara met their end in the Great Ahamkara Hunt.

Gameplay

Year One

During Year One of Destiny, Light was a value present on all level 20 armor of Rare, Legendary, and Exotic rarity. In order to increase a character's level beyond 20, the player had to obtain armor with more and more Light, which would give them a Light level between 21 and 34 depending on the Light value of the gear. The highest attainable Light level in Year One (after the release of the House of Wolves expansion) was level 34, which required four armor pieces (one for each armor slot available at the time) with 36 Light each, which came to a total of 144 Light.

Light level determined the player's strength and what activities the player could participate in. To participate in an activity effectively, players had to have a Light level that matched or exceeded the activity's recommended Light level, or the higher-level enemy units would be able to both inflict significantly more damage on the player and resist more of the player's attacks. If the player was as little as four levels below an enemy, the player's damage output would be reduced to the point that the enemy would be "immune" to the player's attacks; the player would actually still be damaging the enemy, but the amount of damage being inflicted would be so small as to render killing the enemy within a reasonable amount of time an extremely difficult, if not impossible, feat.

Year Two

The Taken King changed the way Light was determined and used by players. Light is now a weighted average of the Attack and Defense values of all of the player's currently equipped gear; weapons count more heavily in the calculation than armor. Under this new system, Light reflects the player's strength and what activities the player is prepared for, but operates on a less severe penalty curve than Year One Light levels; whereas a Light deficit of four would make the player harmless to an enemy in Year One, in Year Two it takes a much higher Light deficit to noticeably impair the player's combat effectiveness. The Attack and Defense values of all Year One gear is capped at 170, meaning a player must equip Year Two gear in order to reach a higher level of Light.

Certain thresholds of Light must be attained in order to unlock or be able to complete some activities: Light 240 unlocks the Daily Heroic Story, Light 260 unlocks the Vanguard Heroic Strikes playlist, and Light 280 unlocks the Nightfall. The Raid King's Fall is available immediately, but it is recommended to achieve a Light level of 290 before attempting. The highest attainable Light level in Year Two was 335.

Year Three

The Light mechanic remained the same as Year Two with the transition to Rise of Iron, but the limit was raised. Light 300 unlocks the Daily Heroic Story, and Light 320 unlocks the SIVA Crisis Heroic Strikes playlist and the Nightfall. The Raid Wrath of the Machine will have a recommended Light level of 360 on normal difficulty, and 385 on heroic difficulty. The highest attainable Light level in Year Three was 400.

Year Four

The Light mechanic from Year Two of Destiny was carried over to Destiny 2, but was renamed Power. Everyone starts at 750 Power, and can raise their natural Power up to a maximum of 970 with the introduction of the Season of Dawn, then augment it further by leveling up the seasonal artifact. However, soft caps make reaching 970 power with gear difficult. While all engrams will raise a player's average Power level until they reach Power level 900, and Prime Engrams, Exotic Engrams, and powerful rewards will take them to 960, only pinnacle rewards will be able to level a player from 960 to 970. There are only a few sources of pinnacle rewards, each of which can only be acquired once per week, and those are:

• The current Nightfall Ordeal with a score of 100,000 or higher
• A heroic run of the Sundial
• The Pit of Heresy dungeon
• Each encounter in the Garden of Salvation raid
• The Iron Banner weekly bounties, when available

Most content in Destiny 2 currently has a recommended Power level of 750, effectively meaning they have no Power requirement. The exceptions are content coming with and following Shadowkeep, such as its campaign, Nightmare Hunts, the Pit of Heresy, the Garden of Salvation, and the Sundial. Additionally, Nightfalls can impose a Power handicap through the Five of Swords (purchasable from Xur), and Ordeals, Nightmare Hunts, and the Sundial all have multiple difficulties, ranging from 750 Power to 980 Power (among other differences).

Trivia

• According to Asher Mir, Light can still possess the properties of real light as in being both a particle and a wave.

List of appearances

• The Law Of The Jungle (First appearance)
• Destiny
  • The Dark Below
  • The House of Wolves
  • The Taken King
  • Rise of Iron
  • Age of Triumph
• Destiny 2
  • Curse of Osiris
  • Warmind
  • Forsaken
  • Shadowkeep
  • Beyond Light
  • The Witch Queen
  • Lightfall