#ive been thinking about watcher dlc all day

[mothsakura]

APC doodles + late birthday doodle for ash (belongs to @ardienothesieno )

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

I was talking to my good friend The Wild West Pyro and he brought up a good point that “we don't know why Tannis dropped hints about TPS's overarching plot and the setup to BL3, but it shows that Tannis has known about this for a very, very long time. Perhaps even as far back as BL1.”

so, basically, (um) I really don’t want Tannis to be evil, and this sparked a theory for me, so here’s some totally unfounded ramblings:

tl;dr: eridians wrote about the future they saw in elpis in some ruins around the vault of the destroyer, warning for it to never be opened or the end of the universe will come about in year 2xxx, which is why it was sealed away. tannis translates this (probably after they open the vault in bl1 but before TPS) and is like “oh fuck lmao” but the others are like “nahhh we killed the destroyer, no worries” and she’s like “uh-huh”, but also is doing all this shady stuff like slag experimentation and plant monster armies because she wants to prevent the destruction of said universe. also i want the bl3 vault hunters to be the heroes of the logs prophecy mostly bc i wanna see what the aliens think of Fl4k. ‘we’ve seen the short one get inside a big metal vehicle temporarily... is this metal one piloted by an even smaller fleshy one?’

What if the Eridians locked away the Destroyer because they used Elpis’s Vault to see (calculate... still think it’s a big computer) the future and saw the Destroyer ending the universe and wrote about it in their ruins around the Vault of the Destroyer, that's the explanation as to why they locked it away. Something ominous like the oncoming apocalypse and their attempt to stop it by locking away the Destroyer, so do not open the Vault for any reason.

“I explained to my mother how the translation program i was writing would greatly help me understand exactly what all this eridian text i’ve attempted to decipher actually means... my program was able to decipher quite a bit more than I had been able to before. it will take a few days to fix... it looks like there are extreme measures to keep the Vault secure, but that it can be opened every 200 years...”

So, Tannis, who translated these ruins, then knows that the end of the universe is coming ("I thought we still had 7 years until that happened") because she's one of (if not the only) person who knows how to translate these ruins, the Eridians probably saw this event happening in the far future and locked the Destroyer away to prevent it. 

Given that Jack’s short glimpse showed him the exact ending to borderlands 2, despite all his attempts to save Angel, I think this means no matter what you do, whatever you see in there is going to happen. Zarpedon saw the end of the universe, she tried her best to prevent it and died. I’m sure the Eridians did, too, and they’re all trying their damndest to stop it. The Watcher no doubt already knows this and that’s probably why she’s warning Lilith at the end of TPS. Hey, the end of the universe IS going to happen in borderlands 3. maybe u wanna not kill anyone who can help us stop it?

And maybe Tannis brought this up to Roland/Lilith, but was dismissed because 'we killed that twice lol', you know, to hand wave away the 'why didn't she tell anyone' argument. maybe she did, and was shot down. And maybe she didn't press because ‘you know what they did kill it, maybe these ruins are inaccurate because they never foresaw someone killing it (but, also, maybe not)”. 

So, she spends the rest of her free time trying to create a failsafe for when the Destroyer returns (or, you know, whatever that end of the universe scenario is). That is, she’s trying to create artificial Sirens, she's trying to buff up the Crimson Raiders with digistruct peak, she's trying to create a plant army, all not because she's actually wanting of this huge power (as someone with severe social anxiety, that would be a Worst Nightmare), but because she's trying to stop the inevitable destruction of our universe.

And, yeah, maybe she aided in the creation of the Calypso Twins, the ones who are going to bring about the end of the universe, and this is all a self-fulfilling prophecy (still doing a thinking emoji on this one, ngl. literally one of the first theories i ever posted here so idk how i feel about it. maybe thru her info getting to hyperion... yeah i aaam working on that theory, ive just been super busy lately and im doing the new IGN stuff rn, they’re flooding me with beautiful content). Also, I really want to believe ‘Tannis is not what she seems’ is because she’s been trying to give herself Siren/Eridium/Slag powers, not because she’s evil or, like, an alien or something. Like, yeah, it could be that the devs are just trying to deflect suspicion for the reveal, buuuuut... I really hope not. I just want there to be a scene where we’re on planet and lilith is like talking to us, then there’s a commotion in the background and it goes silent. then lilith is like “hey, uh, we need you back up here as soon as possible” and as soon as you teleport in there’s a cutscene and tannis has Siren tattoos or some powers or whatever and everyone is freaking tf out and gathered in the common area (the one with the pool table). 

also, if this whole prophecy of the end of the universe theory IS true, how tf are the four vault hunters in bl3 supposed to stop this inevitable shitfest from going down? no fucking clue lmao. maybe the eridians only ever saw the beginnings of the universal apocalypse and assumed it was the end of everything. altho... now how fuckin cool would it be if we found some Eridian logs (the diamond slabs) for Tannis to decipher and they began describing our VHs vaguely as they were depicted in the vision? four heroes of alien origin.... all glowing and with guns... aw man. now im hyped for something that’s probably not going to happen. (inb4 the moon is called elpis (‘Hope’) because it showed the eridians the bl3 vault hunters fighting back against the apocalypse.) this could kinda explain why gearbox is so against dlc vault hunters lol. like how they didn’t add in ECHO logs for Gaige or Krieg... i know Timothy has some, though! hmmmmmm. maybe gaige’s were meant to be added but they never did for some reason? i did find them in her dlc files... guess it’s not a great explanation afterall lol.

Anyway, blah blah, I don't want Tannis to be evil, eridians can SeE tHe FuTuRe and i want the bl3 Vault Hunters to be the heroes of prophecy because that’s just hilarious to me.