#xivu has a lot of players in the system that work for her but she physically cannot show up yet

[thefirstknife]

I saw some confusion among people thinking that Eramis' appearance was random and that she had no business being on the station with access to the Warsats. I'd like to try and clarify some stuff about that.

Eramis was a constant presence this season; more so than Xivu Arath. It has been explained that Xivu Arath cannot invade with her army until the specifics of a ritual are fulfilled and that moving her army through the ascendant plane takes an extraordinary amount of energy and resources.

Some of Xivu's forces were here and acting on her behalf, yes, but largely the main enemy this season was Eramis. Eramis is already in the system and was very explicitly used by the Witness as the one who would act often and faster. The Witness spent a lot of time turning Eramis' friends and soldiers into Scorn for this purpose.

These Scorn are the ones that had the Seraph Station under constant siege. Every time we attack Seraph Station, it's canon because Scorn come back to life so every time we clear it, we have to do it anew. They've been digging in the Station for months, trying to gain access to the Warsat network and preparing for the final assault.

Eramis was not randomly on the Seraph Station; she was there because she's been trying to get there for months. We were fighting their attempts by uploading a virus into the network each time we're there, but that's never been a certain way of stopping Eramis and the Scorn army from wrestling control over the network away. Which is the point of us having to do it multiple times.

I know the Seraph's Shield mission only played dialogue once so if anyone needs a refresher:

Elsie Bray: I've gained remote access to the launch facility's subsystems, but someone is already in here. House Salvation Splicers are hacking the launch mainframe.

Eramis had splicers working on hacking into the station. As a matter of fact, they gained access to the station first.

Ana Bray: She's here? Of course. That must be how Xivu Arath plans of co-opting the Warsat network. The Hive can't do it on their own, so the Witness sends Eramis and her Splicers in to assist.

Ana explaining how Eramis being there makes sense because Xivu cannot gain access to the Warsats on her own, she needs Eramis to assist.

The whole seasonal story hinges on Eramis hacking the station to get to the Warsats and the Seraph's Shield mission was explicitly about us trying to stop her week by week. It just so happens that she succeeded hacking it at the end, before Rasputin was fully operational and ready to be uploaded without negative consequences.

Is the setup a little bit clunky? I think so, yeah, because the whole season is doomed from the start. We have to stop our enemies but it's the nature of the end-of-the-year story for enemies to win in some capacity. I also think that we didn't really have to kill Rasputin for the same effect and for the enemies to somehow get the upper hand; I think it would've been fine if Rasputin simply had to destroy the Warmind stuff but that he could've remained with us as an Exo.

But Eramis having access to Seraph Station and the Warsat network is not random or out of nowhere nor is it nonsensical. That was her entire plan the whole season. Actually her first big win, possibly also saved her life. Not sure how many failures from Eramis the Witness would've tolerated.

I guess the issue is that with the current seasonal structure, we expect the seasonal goal to be fulfilled and for us to walk happily into the sunset until the next season because that's how it worked so far. It can feel like we've been fighting our enemies for 3 months for nothing given that we've essentially failed and it almost caused a catastrophe. But I'm not sure how else to create a story (seasonal or otherwise) where things don't go as planned or where we fail.

There were multiple fronts to fight on this season and there's one where we dodged a massive bullet; Xivu Arath. We lost to Eramis because we had to think about the bigger picture and that is Xivu's invasion. Our loss to Eramis also took the Warsats out of the equation now so that's also a loss to Xivu. It's what we needed; a stalemate. It's not flashy or happy, but it's better than the alternative which is Xivu Arath's portal over Earth. So in that regard we succeeded. We lost the Warsats and Rasputin and almost the Traveler, but all of that was to prevent Xivu Arath from invading which we managed. For now.

[spartanlocke]

Lightfall spoilers below

I am once again wishing everyone who complained that the Traveler “stole our kill” during the Red War a very stubbed toe.

Thanks to all the bitching and moaning for what was a very fitting and impactful moment in Destiny’s story, Bungie has become convinced that the Guardian must always be the one to kill the bad guy, otherwise players might feel that they were “robbed.” And we can’t have that, now can we?

Ever since Caiatl was introduced as a character she was driven by her desire to kill her father, she said over and over again that she would be the one to kill Calus, so we all thought she would, because Bungie seemed to be building up to it and it’s fitting for her.

Instead she stays behind and we just shoot Calus to death.

Calus was defined by his desire for power. His endless hunger for everything. Something that the Witness nurtured into a imperishable need to be the end. He is hedonistic, yes, but he was cunning and powerful and had the killcount to prove it. He didn’t just laze around and let everyone else do the work for him, even though his subjects did help, he conceived the plan, moved the pieces, and got his hands dirty. Not only does lore not from his biased PoV confirm this, but see it ourselves when he was introduced as literal raid boss, fighting the Guardians to see if they can prove their strength. He fights Ca’our in Spire of Stars, he uses his run-down robots to kill intruders, he murders hundreds of his own subjects to feed the Egregore; he’s literally a one-man army fueled by megalomania.

But he doubts the Witness, doubts that it will fulfill his desire to be the very last at the end, so what does that say about his motives, his desires, which come to conflict with the Witness’s?

...Apparently it says he just sleeps through the whole campaign until the Witness yells at him to get back to work, then we just shoot him to death.

All those years of buildup and carefully constructed characterization, thrown away because players told Bungie that our Guardian needs to always land the final blow.

Anyway, hope y’all are happy, Bungie gave you want you wanted!

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UPDATE: OKKKK got all that out of my system, feel better now.

Despite that I will say that all in all, I like Lightfall! There were a lot of things it could’ve done better but overall I really enjoyed the experience! Strand is tricky to master but I am really enjoying it, the environment and music are 11/10 as always, and the Cloudstriders (Nimbus my beloved) continue to be a very intriguing addition to the story and I love the entire concept of the CloudArk and allowing the citizens to be part of the patrol zones without actually being there. I’m a bit disappointed we still don’t know what the Veil is but it’s normal for Bungie to reveal things in bits and pieces rather than all at once. Also like the foreshadowing Nezarec is getting, feels a bit on-the-nose but I find it preferable compared to how Rhulk just appeared out of nowhere (no shade though VotD definitely made up for that)

Some people are saying the campaign felt like a filler and while I can kinda see it, I can also see why Bungie would’ve done that. The whole reason we're getting The Final Shape is because Bungie realized three expansions was not enough to conclude all the plot threads they were building, so they had to include another expansion to make room. Lightfall‘s conclusion allows them to temporarily Vault the Witness allow the Witness to exit the stage so they can focus on concluding the stories of Xivu Arath, Mara Sov and Clovis Bray before finally taking on the Witness in The Finale Shape.

...I just hope Bungie does them more justice than they did Calus and Caiatl.