I've always been intrigued by the Stranger's Rifle. If you recently started playing or never finished the original story to the end of The Black Garden, then you probably don't know about this gun since it hasn't been around much for a while. It is the gun that the non-guardian female exo who pops up in the first mission of the game, once on the moon, once on Venus, and once on Mars. After you kill The Heart of Darkness and return to the tower to be praised by the Speaker and other guardians, she gives it to you. The gun's little history text thing says something along the lines of: "according to ghosts scans this gun has experienced tremendous force, and some of its' parts shouldn't yet exist", if I remember correctly. This suggests that the gun is somehow from the future, and one would also be able to make that assumption just by looking or listening to it. In the first mission on Venus, I think it is called 'The Stranger's Call', after killing a multitude of Vex, the female exo appears. We can assume that she is 'The Stranger' that is referred to in the mission's name, and the gun, however, it never actually confirms this in the game; The Stranger could be her leader, a powerful Vex, an old friend of hers, etc, etc. Anyway, after killing said Vex, she pops up and tells you that Vex could kill everything, and you can only stop them at The Black Garden, and that she "was not forged in light", remember that quote. Some radio static of some sort comes in through her earpiece and we are unable to hear what she hears, but she responds to whatever is on the other line with something like 1."Yes I'm here with them." 2."too late, returning" 3."how many are there?" and 4."Kill the lights, stay quiet, and DON'T let them find you." and vanishes into thin air with some cool looking particle effects - nice job bungie. Considering that her rifle appears to come from the future, one can assume that she is too, which is very interesting to the story or possible future story of the Destiny universe. She could have been speaking with someone from the same future through her radio. Since the humanish exos - I don't know what exactly they are called, but they are the playable ones - seem to appear exclusively either on Earth as a guardian, or from Earth as a sort of clean bot or guard link in The Reef, you can assume that they have all been forged in light. "No 'Little Light', I was not forged in light". The only explanation I can think of for her not being forged in light is that in the future that she comes from, the Traveler either left, turned against us, fully died, was destroyed, or lost to the darkness. This would also explain why she is coming from the future just to dump confusing information into your metaphorical lap, she is trying to alter the past to save or change the future or us from our death. This is also supported by the conversation she has with the contact in her ear or neck area after killing those damn Vex. I'm going to make some assumptions as to what the person on the end could have said to get her responses, this isn't necessarily correct, so bear with me. ?: "Are they alive?" Exo: "Yes I'm here with them." ?: "<something about how she shouldn't tell us something or that doing so could have consequences in their future>" Exo: "Too late, returning" ?: Something like "I was right, they're here." or "they got in", "they found it/us", etc, Exo: "How many are there?" ?: "<number between one and the number of times you didn't get the loot you've wanted for longer than I've been writing this theory on my tiny phone keyboard>" Exo: "Kill the lights, stay quiet, and DON'T let them find you". This would suggest that she isn't alone or working alone, and that after telling you about The Black Garden and changing your path your future was altered into something worse, and so too was theirs. She leaves without saying goodbye while arming her rifle and crouch walking, and seems very worried and frustrated. Of course we later go defy the odds and successfully destroy the heart of The Black Garden. After doing so, she returns to The Tower to speak with you and seems much more relaxed and hopeful, and somewhat proud of us. This could mean that by destroying the heart of The Black Garden, we resolved whatever was horribly wrong with the future, or saved ourselves from death. She thanks us, sort of congratulates us, says "I'll see you again gaurdian" and my favorite line in the game - besides all of Cayde's of course - "All ends are beginnings" while staring into the sun setting over The Last City. She then gives you her rifle, says use it well or it well serve you well or something along those lines, and vanishes again while walking towards the edge of The Tower Hangar. Saying that she WILL meet us again, also supports that she is from the future and that in her original future before we killed the heart of The Black Garden, she knew us, or was our friend, which would explain why she picked us as the one who will save everything or helped steer us from our own death. Afterthought: this plot line also seems to match what would have happened not in Destiny's story, but what happened in the story of Destiny. There was one future for Destiny, the one that their lead story writer was writing or had written, the developers or someone in charge at Bungie saw it as bad or needed to be saved, their lead story writer left because of a disagreement about how the story should play out or was fired, and they hired a new lead story writer. This sort sort of hidden plot in the story that I just talked about could be a little easter egg or subtle nod to how they got their position at Bungie put in the game by that second/current story writer. Anyway, the resolution to the Stranger's and The Black Garden storyline could mean that there won't be a problem in the future as serious as there would have been, but, by giving us her rifle, she could be altering or ruining that saved future. If at some point in what would have been the future for our guardian, and the past for her, that rifle could have saved her life, our life, or someone she was talking to in her radio, and by giving us the rifle in her past (our present time) it would vanish from the future that she came from, or belong to us or someone else, meaning she could already be dead, we could be dead, or someone wouldn't have motivated her or helped her contact us and fix the future in the first place (sorry for that repetitive run-on sentence, I had a thought and didn't want to lose it), which I am actually happy about because if the future was perfect, there wouldn't be a sequel to Destiny. That whole essay thing ( better than any essay I've had to write for my education, shows how much easier it is to do things when you are passionate about them )originally started as a different topic and sort of a suggestion or whine to Bungie, so I'll briefly talk about that. If that rifle is from the future, is able to withstand "tremendous forces" and can sort of pull bullets back through time after missing shots and stuff as the gun's perks suggest, then it should be the most powerful weapon in the game. Now I understand that if this gun was an exotic or stayed a legendary and was slightly or incredibly more powerful than all the other weapons in the game, everyone would use it and pvp would suck - sidenote: everyone using exactly the same gun in crucible sounded boring but it would balance crucible better, and maybe be kind of fun, you know, being less about what guns you use and which ones have an advantage over your choices in certain scenarios, kinda like how in Overwatch, if two people play the same hero, they don't get an unfair advantage over each other. But I guess that should stay in other games, I love Destiny pvp for the most part as it is, providing a higher skillcap. - and I understand that it is a year one gun with year one attack values, and as the story progressed perhaps we encountered something more powerful or not as worn down that we do know how to upgrade and since it's parts "shouldn't yet exist" we don't really have a logical way that developers could explain our guardians being able to more than double it's combat capabilities. That being said, it's lore and history still say that it should be the best, so, Bungie.. can you maybe show some love to a great gun and at least make it infuseable to year three attack values? The gun is incredibly cool, felt so fun to use in year one, sounds awesome, has cool particle effects, and if infusing it to year three would make it opens, maybe you could just nerf it a little, not into the ground, because remember you already said that it should be the best, so maybe just destroy it's reload speed and lower range or stability a little bit. <3 u Bungie - neviKoS_ , the year one hunter