So, we're all aware of the Dreadnaught, correct? Well let me give you a brief history of it anyway.
The Dreadnaught is a massive Luna-sized Hive ship under the command of Oryx, the Taken King. It was built after the Vex/Hive War using the corpse of the Worm God, Akka. It was built so Oryx's Throne World has the ability to move around, so that enemies have a harder time entering it.
Arguably, it's most prominent feature is the super weapon it houses. It is represented by two dishes (one each side of the ship) with lines on either side of the dish running down the length of the ship. The weapon was built by Ir Halak and Ir Anuk, the Daughters of Oryx, because they are way smarter than their dumbass brother, Crota.
Let's see how it's activated.
As shown in the Battle of Saturn cutscene, Oryx used his sword to activate it. The sword's power must've been so strong or that is one hell of a button. Energy runs down the length of the ship and meets at the disks, where it collects in the center and releases a large sphere of death. The sphere reaches up to 15000 kilometers.
The sphere is actually Oryx's throne world being pushed out into the physical world, so let me give you an explanation as to how things could actually survive the blast and how it actually kills.
Only Ascendant beings can enter the Ascendant Realm. It's confirmed when we tried to enter it in the Enemy of My Enemy mission. You are pushed away from the portal with great force.
Given this, imagine the sphere of death as a large portal to the Ascendant Realm. Nobody during the Battle of Saturn on the Reef's side were Ascendant. The portal launches with such force that it pushes anything near the Dreadnaught away and destroys them at the same time. Imagine being hit by One Punch Man and increase it. That's the power we're talking about here.
Putting the Dreadnaught next to Earth and activating the weapon would decimate it.
Oryx killed his own fleet.
Or did he?
Once we became Ascendant, we could enter the portal.
Assuming the "sphere of death" is a large portal, Ascendant Hive (and us) [u]could[/u] survive. That doesn't mean we would survive the initial blast, however. If our ghost survived, then we could resurrect, but if the ghost died, then we would be permanently dead. Don't forget the strength of this blast could literally level planets. Meanwhile, Ascendant Hive would retreat back to their realms and come back later.
So, that's all. If this is the power the Hive possess, then I don't even want to know what the Darkness has in store for us. After all, if the Worm Gods are with the Darkness, that would mean they rest in the Tetrahedral Ships, meaning that the smaller ships are bigger than the Dreadnaught and the main ship is at least 10 times as big.
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So what your saying is ... [spoiler]Oryx molested Crota and to keep him from talking he through him into a Vex portal?[/spoiler]