Final Shape

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This article is about the goal of The Witness. For the conclusion of The Light and Darkness Saga, see The Final Shape.

Civilians of the City being calcified as Earth is reshaped.

The Final Shape was the name used to describe the ultimate end goal of the Witness and its precursor species. It referred to a potential end-state of the universe in which the Witness intended to winnow, carve and calcify the universe into a frozen state of eternal perfection. In this hypothetical state of reality, only items and entities with a purpose or structure that The Witness deemed fit for existence will remain. Had this state been achieved, The Witness would've accomplished its eons-long quest to impose its form of salvation to a meaningless, chaotic, and open-ended universe.

Possible Forms

The idea of a "Final Shape" has been described by several different entities associated with the Darkness. According to the Hive, the Final Shape is the natural end state of violent winnowing; what remains when everything that can possibly be destroyed has been obliterated, leaving only that which has proven its ability to defeat all obstacles to its continued existence. This conception is later echoed by Oryx, the Taken King, who describes the Final Shape as "a fire without fuel, burning forever, killing death, asking a question that is its own answer, entirely itself".

As described by Ahsa, the species that would eventually become the Witness also sought to bring about a "Final Shape", which they sought to achieve by uniting the Traveler and the Veil and using their combined powers to reshape reality as they desired. The details of this goal are unknown, other than it involved converting the universe into a perfected, eternal state.

The Witness seeks to bring about the Final Shape, but the exact nature of this goal remains unclear even to its Disciples. Each Disciple seems to have developed their own conception of what the Final Shape entails, and is seemingly permitted by the Witness to act accordingly. According to an unnamed and long-dead Disciple whose thoughts are recorded in the Inspiral lore book entry "The Cave," Nezarec believed the Final Shape to involve becoming one with all of existence, whereas Rhulk believed it to be a universe free of disparity and differentiation, and Savathûn and her Hive believed it to be a universe in which the Sword Logic was triumphant. This unnamed Disciple subsequently concluded that none of the Witness' followers could fully grasp the true nature of the Final Shape, and that the Witness was allowing each of its Disciples and other servants to act according to a greater plan that would ultimately realize all of their seemingly disparate visions of the Final Shape.

The Witness's Truth

It would later be revealed that the Final Shape is what will happen when the Witness freezes and calcifies reality into one perfect moment forever, where all are calcified into a marbleized reality, much akin to the frozen forms glimpsed within the Pyramids. The Witness believes that the Traveler wastes its power by not responding to tragedy and requests for guidance, and instead remaining still and silent in seeming uncaring indifference and ambivalent inaction, all while sprouting more life that live to suffer without purpose. The Witness desires to usurp the Traveler's power in order to prevent life from having unfair "suffering". An end to anguish and bliss, to the cycle of action and reaction, the chaos of life untangled, its complexity made known and contained, and given a static "purpose". With the Darkness projecting possibilities from thought and memory, and the Light to give them form and make the imagined structures real, the Witness plans to reshape reality into a "perfect stillness" that never changes and never dies, where all lives are immortalised in the universe at the time of their greatest triumph or most profound regret. To carve the universe into something that cannot be destroyed, and thus will surpass infinity and triumph over entropy, but yet would never create more life which the Witness believes only leads to chaos and suffering. The Witness will not be part of the Final Shape itself, but will instead become the god that chooses what each person's eternity would be that they are imprisoned in; to transform the universe into a fixed state based on what the Witness believes we deserve, a perfect ending it chooses for us, and where nothing exists without the Witness's consent.

Due to being able to see into being's memories using the Darkness, the Witness is able to use this knowledge to tempt its enemies to surrender to or join the Witness in return for a more personalised Final Shape, either as a version that cures them of past pain or suffering they've experienced or by offering what it thinks they want. For Crow, it offered him to be looked at with pride, trust and love by his friends and sister, as well as to erase his past mistake with the Dreaming City and make him into a version that rules the Awoken and the stars. It also offered to bring him out of the shadow of his sister by doing so, as well as hinted that it would let him see "[his] sunrise" again. For Zavala, it offered to bring back Safiyah and Hakim where he can be spend eternity with them at their home, and later to remove any doubts or fears he had in his lack of purpose and join the Witness's amalgam mind. For Ikora, it offered to remove her from the endless cycle of death and rebirth that it believes she's grown weary of, and instead have her friends returned and let her only experience eternal victory in battle forever. With The Guardian, it initially offered freedom from their unending life in "enslavement" to the Traveler, but later, believing they desired endless challenge, offered to ascend them to as that which destroys all that can be destroyed, to make them "chosen" and be regarded by all other Guardians as above them. It then offered to give them an escape from the eternal cycle of battle for rewards and commendations, and instead promised all the vast riches the Guardian's strength was "owed". Finally, the Witness, claiming that the Guardian's potential was being limited by the Vanguard leading them, offered to help them achieve the power they deserved beyond what the Traveler would give; to not become part of the Final Shape, but instead to join the Witness as a god controlling all. Their Ghost, however, believes that the Witness is only making these offers of becoming a disciple or even a god because the Witness is desperate and terrified of what the Guardian can do to it.

List of appearances

• Destiny
  • The Taken King (First mentioned)
• Destiny 2
  • Forsaken (Mentioned only)
  • Season of Opulence (Mentioned only)
  • Shadowkeep (Mentioned only)
  • Season of Arrivals (Mentioned only)
  • Season of the Lost (Mentioned only)
  • The Witch Queen (Mentioned only)
  • Season of the Haunted (Mentioned only)
  • Lightfall (Mentioned only)
  • Season of the Deep (Mentioned only)
  • Season of the Witch (Mentioned only)
  • Season of the Wish (Mentioned only)
  • The Final Shape (First appearance)
• Entelechy (Mentioned only)