{{
`${userDetail.user.displayName}${userDetail.user.cachedBungieGlobalDisplayNameCode ? `#${standardizeBungieGlobalCode(userDetail.user.cachedBungieGlobalDisplayNameCode)}` : ""}`}}
{{getUserClans()}}
3/16/2025 12:40:02 AM
8
Heresy Act 2 - Who Controls the Taken?
As a preamble:
The release of Heresy Act 2 has been a bit...wonky, to say the least. The first two quest steps seem to be out of order; we got all the Willbreaker shard quests sooner than we were supposed to, I reckon; I also imagine we got our hands on the Writ: Path of Ambition quest sooner than intended.
This could be what happens when you lay off people who were likely in charge of testing things like this before you release it, and/or it could also be the result of switching gears on how Act content is meant to be released. I don't know, but it also resulted in the topic of this thread, because I think a lot of things meant to drop with week 2's story came early, both quests and dialogue.
----------------------------------------------------------
The Echo of Navigation has brought a version of Oryx back but, unlike what I've assumed up to this point, [i]the Echo is not the one producing these new Taken.[/i] The Echo doesn't know what it is, only calling it something that stands between the Winnower and the Taken; Xivu Arath also doesn't know what it is, and cannot find it. The Path of Ambition quest has Eris talk about a call she felt emanating from the Deep and pursuing its source takes us back to where we first found Barrow-Dyad.
If no one affiliated with the Hive Pantheon knows who or what is controlling the Dire Taken, then everything going on with them - the Eyes, the veins growing throughout the Ascendant Plane and the Dreadnaught - has to do with a third party. Something powerful enough to take control of the Taken and create new ones with new abilities distinct from the original Taken. Something the Hive Gods don't seem to know about, and they've been around for billions of years.
The name of the new Taken faction - the Dire Taken - and the eyes that give us Suffocating Terror scream Nezarec to me, as it fits his theme. He would be the most likely candidate, if not for the fact no one seems to recognize what is behind them. This points towards something new, or something from the lore that's finally taking the spotlight.
We'll just have to wait and see. While I suspect it isn't someone entirely divorced from the Hive, whoever the new entity is can imbue the Taken they create with Strand and Stasis abilities. The Taken had no access to Strand before, and their only access to Stasis was an update giving certain Taken new Howler weapons.
Stasis and Strand abilities intrinsic to the Taken's repertoire show the scope of the new threat.
-
5 RepliesEdited by Shockwave 989: 3/20/2025 5:26:59 PMA thought has just occurred to me, which might be entirely off but it does explain some pieces of the puzzle. This entity has been described as a wound in the deep, full of grief and hatred. Something summoned by the Taken in their need for a controlling interest, the will without will. What if it’s Oryx’s Worm? We know from the Ghosts of the Deep lore that there was no sign of it with his body. It knows how to Take, an ability it could only learn from a few different sources. What better way to learn it than being present for the invention of this dark power? If the Worm was separated from Oryx before he left the borders of his Throne, it might explain why it’s located within the Ascendant Plane and having to reach out from there, as the Dreadnaught is the biggest crossover of the Ascendant and Material Planes. The Worm of the Taken King would be powerful, but it’s never had to be a commanding force. It could explain the hesitancy, only drawn in when the Taken are so desperate for a hand on their hilt. It would also explain why Eris was targeted, she was instrumental in the defeat of Oryx. And almost a decade adrift within the Ascendant Plane as the powers of Stasis and Strand were harnessed might explain how it came to bestow such power upon its troops. Not to mention how it has the knowledge necessary to launch the Eversion Anchors. But again, this is an undeveloped idea, could be nothing. Just thought I’d add another idea to the list. Edit: The grief idea also applies if this is a wholly new entity the Taken created from their need of a controlling will and explains why it would target Eris. Also it would be absolutely game changing if the Taken managed such a feat.
-
A member of the worm God species maybe. It would have access to deeper knowledge of the taken especially if it knew akka. That race have became so deeply embedded with the darkness an old enough one would have an easy time of getting deeper knowledge of the taken.
-
1 ReplyGood points made here, but in regards to stasis and strand abilities within the Dire Taken ranks, I wouldn’t read into that too much as they are almost certainly just gameplay updates I do wonder if it is Nezarec. My main arguments against would be that I doubt Bungie would give him a presence in Episode Revenant and Heresy, seasons and episodes usually switch focus onto different enemies. Also, of it is Nezarec he is behaving uncharacteristically non-verbal. All throughout Root of Nightmares he is chewing your ear off and certainly rambled on when he plagued Mithrax. I don’t understand why he would now be so quiet.
-
7 RepliesEdited by Shockwave 989: 3/16/2025 5:48:54 PMByf did bring up the Not-Worm mentioned in Echoes and I do believe it’s a likely candidate given the reaction to an Echo and the fact that the emergence of these new Taken and the Eversion anchors coincide with the Echo of Navigation. The major question is what makes this creature a Not-Worm? The eyes have always invoked that image of Ahsa looking into the sub in Deep for me, which could point towards a Proto-Worm that hasn’t quite undergone the same Worm God transformation. Perhaps an exile, or one that chose to follow the Sword but managed to escape imprisonment below the depths of Fundament. Because as you mention, it clearly has more mastery over Darkness than our other foes given that it has not only managed to acquire the power to Take, it also commands Stasis and Strand while rivalling Oryx’s command of the Taken as well as the Dread. This thread could actually see the Taken utterly separated from the Hive by the Episode’s conclusion, which would be a massive departure from their utilisation since their introduction in Taken King. The question is why does it seek to use the Eversion Anchors? What purpose does using the Ascendant Plane in such fashion serve? Is this force aligned with the Winnower, or does it work for its own reasons? Edit: The reason why I’m leaning away from Nezarec is twofold. One would expect both Savathûn and Xivu would have some familiarity with the Disciple, as Savathûn worked alongside him and Xivu witnessed the attempts to revive the Disciple in Plunder. I’m not entirely convinced that Nezarec retains the same hold over death after his infusion with Light during Root of Nightmares. To me there’s a very real possibility he was killed for good during Revenant, but I’m open to being disproven on that with time.
-
2 RepliesWhatever it is, I really hope we don’t end up going down another Witness route. Bungie has continually put themselves in a corner by making the Darkness progressively more or less evil at a given time. In d1 Darkness was synonymous with enemy. Even in early D2. It only started to change in forsaken, and in beyond light, we used the Darkness as a power. Here in lies the issue. Bungie needed to adapt the lore so that the darkness wasn’t the enemy, rather, a voice in the darkness or the Witness was the enemy. But then they reintroduced the Winnower, and now they are putting a block in place between the Winnower and the Taken, witch just sounds like it’s going to be another being to use the Darkness as a cloak, while abandoning a bunch of narrative threads they have set up. What we need is two fold. We need a clear and concise explanation of what the Traveler is, to a certain extent. This is to dispel and confusion on whether it is the Gardener or just the Light Variant to the Veil, as they are essentially massive wellings of Light and Darkness. We need to know what the new goal of the enemy is to a certain extent. Back in D1, we knew of the goal to a certain extent. Sure, we didn’t know of the Final Shape, but we did know that the forces of Darkness wanted to see the traveler gone, destroyed, or entrapped. We don’t have that after the Witness. For all intents and purposes, the Traveler is kinda… safe right now.
-
Guardian,Archon Of LightErisLoverLivingVicariouslyThroughDrifter - 4/1/2025 4:17:37 AM
The Nine, and we have known since the 30th anniversary "Volunteered against there will by the studio audience, I present The Taken" Studio Audiance, they are part of the 9 -
7 RepliesEdited by Iccotak: 3/16/2025 11:38:50 AMByf did a video on this recently, he mentioned lore that was attached to the seasonal sparrow That the Proto-Worm on Titan had called out to universe and heard something like it, not of the Hive pantheon, and the entity that responded was not pleased. Byf supposes that the entity might be this unknown Proto-Worm (or an entity like it) (Edit: No I am not saying he is right, it is a potential. I just found it interesting that there might be more Proto-Worms - or creatures like the Worm Gods out there. All of the tentacle motif does seem to lend to an eldritch motif of whoever is behind it.)
-
40 RepliesGreat post truly 😇👍💠. I wonder who it could be. Also, if you're playing... the Hive and new'ish Taken often fight each other. The Drifter gave a list of individuals able to control the Taken in week 2 of ACT 1.
