Honestly it was a great first time read and there’s a few points that stood out to me in reading it. [spoiler]We get confirmation that so far as the Precursors were concerned, they were the first to be chosen by the Gardener.[/spoiler] [spoiler]We see that the Gardener gifts were wielded by factions of the Precursors for malicious purposes. It seems that like their questioning of the Gardeners lack of direction regarding their purpose, it’s lack of intervention regarding these rogue elements also played a part in their eventual betrayal.[/spoiler] [spoiler]We see that the Precursors seeded worlds with life using gifts from the Gardener. Now, this isn’t to say these Precursors created Humanity. In fact, that’s impossible. The statues on the Dreadnought predate the formation of the Earth, so Humanity seemingly sprouted up naturally.[/spoiler] [spoiler]How the Witness treats civilisations not blessed by the Traveler. Now THIS is absolutely fascinating, because this is another outlier in regards to the Witnesses methods. We see that in the absence of the Traveler the Witness is more efficient in its annihilation of a species. It doesn’t attempt to bend them to its will, it doesn’t recruit a Disciple, it simply dissects them and moves on. Because the Witness wasn’t a perfect creation of the Precursors. Because how else do we explain this cruelty? It believes wholly in its purpose, this Final Shape, yet still the rages at the Gardener remains. It seeks to either make those touched by the Traveler suffer or seeks to corrupt them. Look at Rhulk, the First Disciple. Lubrae was visited by the Traveler long ago, having departed long before Rhulk’s time. Yet the Witness waits ever so patiently until Rhulk comes along, turning him into its instrument of destruction and rendering all of Lubrae to dust and echoes. Why this distinction? It’s not purely directed towards the Traveler, because even in its absence the display continues. Is it perhaps angry that we cannot see what it sees? Whatever the case, we see that the rage Mara described in the Witness is against more than simply existence itself, because if it was then why offer the Noesis some comfort?[/spoiler] [spoiler]The Nihilists as described within the Precursor records almost sounds like Sword Logic rhetoric to me, that destruction was deserved and the natural way of things. If the Witness did write Unveiling, is this portrayal perhaps born of this opposing ideology? Is that where the deceptive portrayal of the Final Shape as given to the Osmium Siblings came from? Is this another lingering remnant of the Precursors within the Witness?[/spoiler] There’s probably more, but I can’t wait to see this book dissected more thoroughly. Even if it feels like we should have gotten some of these answers during this year, especially with Lightfall.