Greetings guardians, it's me your friendly neighborhood AnonPig! I'm back after a small pause from these posts, and really can you blame me? I went like six in two days. Either way, welcome to the winner of the [u]Who Do You Want To Know About?[/u] poll number 4, The Previous Legends! If you haven't been following us all on this journey of exploration, research, and speculation then I suggest that you come join me, and many other great guardians, in The Collective of Knowledge. It is my playstation clan currently or you can search for it by CoK. CoK will also bring you to any of my previous posts: The Vex, The Exo Stranger (which really didn't get any love, did you guys read it?), The Traveler, and The Darkness! I feel this will have to be a 2, maybe even 3 part post, so let's start with the biggest one! [b]Toland The Shattered[/b] Toland was banished from the tower because of his perversions about the Hive and Darkness. To put it frankly, he was down right obsessed. He walked along a line between light and dark and that worried the Vanguard as well as the Speaker. Toland created the Bad Juju, but is this truly a weapon of sorrow? Or only an imitation from someone obsessed with the Hive? Thorn and The Necrochasm are undoubtedly weapons of sorrow, and clearly share characteristics with Bad Juju, but Juju was built in light, does that make it different? In the Darkness 3 grimoire we can see a direct piece from his journal trying to explain what the darkness was. He explains it using a metaphor about 3 queens who ruled 3 nations. One queen built a tower and her people reached for the stars, one made laws and her rule was just, the last made an army and conquered all. Her people weren't happy but that didn't matter. Now what if there was another nation with its own queens, these queens worked together though, and have a tower to reach for the stars [i]Dead Orbit[/i], Laws to make the rulers just [i]New Monarchy[/i], and an army to defend itself [i]Future War Cult[/i]. He doesn't think these queens, or people, will survive when the first queen of armies comes. The rest of him is less known. We know he was banished during the city age, and that he was sought out by Eris and the rest of the fireteam because of his knowledge of the Hive. It's in these cards that we see more pieces of his journals. [b]Might of Crota[/b][quote]Toland: When a god's Will is met with force, its Might will be unleashed in the form of those raging beasts we call the ogre—monsters bred of pain, tormented by the Light, nothing but hatred for all who bring its suffering forth. Eris: And how do you know this? Toland: It was told to me. Eris: By the Speaker? Toland: By the Darkness itself.[/quote] This clearly shows just how far gone Toland was. Others were inspired [i]corrupted?[/i] by the darkness, and did not come so lucky. [b]The Blades of Crota[/b][quote]Vell: They’re more than Knights. Eriana-3: They look like Knights. Vell: That’s like calling you a tin can. Eriana-3: Excuse me? Vell: I’m saying calling them Knights is an understatement. Omar: What are they then? Toland: World carvers. Omar: Meaning? Toland: Those swords are neither bone nor steel. There’s a dark purpose to their edge. Eriana-3: Darker than death? Toland: Death is peace compared to the shadows. Omar: Those Blades cut down more Guardians than I can count. Vell: Hundreds. Eriana-3: Thousands. The Vanguard should’ve known better. Toland: I tried to warn them. Omar: But we’re prepared? Vell: I am. Omar: Not exactly the question. Eris: I have a feeling Light won’t be enough. Eriana-3: Then we’ll take their swords from their ashes, and cut them down one-by-one, Blade-by-Blade. Eris: You would wield a weapon of the night? Eriana-3: For her—them? I will butcher any who stand in my way with even the darkest blade. Eris: Pray it doesn’t come to that. Vell: Heh. To cleave our enemies with their own tools of destruction? We should be so lucky. Omar: You’ve got a strange view on luck. Toland: When you’ve got your hand around the hilt and their ash under your boot, you might change your tune, Hunter.[/quote] This piece shows just why he was banished. He knew an excessive amount about the hive, when no one should be able to know just that much. Telling the Vanguard only got him turned away, but is it because of Ikora? Cayde? Zavalla? Or was the Speaker pulling more strings there than we would like? I'd like to go more into this, but I'll leave it for the Vanguard, Factions, Tower Allies Post. [b]Ir Yut, The Death Singer[/b][quote]Eriana! Let's sing. Sing with me. No, no, you rattling machine, not yet, it's too soon: we don't know the words. We'll learn the song down there. We can learn it from Her. She comes up from the deep dark places where the greater Hive await to sing it to us, and here's a puzzle for you— The song is death. To hear it is to die. To know the words is mortal. Oh, good point, Eriana, death is just a word, isn't it? A catch-all term for the failure to go on, nothing spiritual, nothing with its own quiddity. We all died once, and it did not prove insurmountable. But what if what if what if, shhh listen, what if death were reified, described in its totality, made autonomous and universal, separate from any context or condition? What if She could invoke the ending of anything? How, then, would She know the song, and sing it, without Herself dying? Perhaps they know a way to make themselves part of the song, part of something vast and burning that rots and peels into ash but never ever ends. Perhaps She has engineered this for Him, and pinned His power up against the quiddity of death itself. I am so terribly curious to know.[/quote] This card really cements my belief that the Hive exist outside of death. They are created from nothingness and are destroyed to nothingness. Toland quickly learns that the Hive become a part of the song, and more importantly that Crota is a part of the song. This seems to indicate that he exists outside death to a different extent than the rest of the Hive. [i]reified: make something abstract more concrete or real, quiddity: the inherent nature or essence of something[/i] This is presumably where Toland died, but that doesn't mean his legacy didn't carry on. If Toland were to die here, would that mean he died the death of a Hive? Turning to dust only to be used to create another abomination? No matter what has happened or will happen to this legend it can be said that he walked a dangerous path. He got close to the darkness and understood it on a deeper level than most anyone has. This was the reason for his banishment, I do not believe this was the primary decision of the vanguard, but more of the Speaker. Too little is known about that man to actually guess his intentions. If anyone has any more information about Toland that i have missed please tell me.