Before we get into the main topic, there is a line of dialogue from the campaign that stuck with me once I caught it on my second playthrough, so much so that I recorded the scene and took pictures of the dialogue in question during my third playthrough: [i]"[b]The relationship between the Light and the Nine may speak to why Maya is here[/b]. Vex interact with the fourth dimension, but can't exist in it. [u][b]The Nine can't create or use paracausality, but they are the rules that enable and regulate it[/b].[/u] The Vex are intrigued by this."[/i] Perhaps it just means the Nine are the rules that enable and regulate what happens in the fourth dimension, but my initial impression was that there's a deeper relationship between the Nine and paracausality. Even if they cannot use it themselves, their existence "enables" and "regulates" it in some manner. I suspect the former, though, because it'd otherwise mean a line of dialogue with significant lore implications was dropped out of nowhere. But if it is the latter, perhaps the Nine are a form of life that emerged from the existence of paracausal forces. ---------------------------------------------------- On to the main topic, I've always found it curious that the way the Light and Darkness work both have some parallels to the way the Vex function. The domain of the Light is the physical world, and the Traveler is a terraformer able to create life on dead worlds and change the laws of physics in localized manners. Meanwhile, the Vex are also terraformers, using radiolaria to turn entire planets into machine worlds as part of the Pattern. They are even capable of retroactively inserting themselves into the pasts of worlds, like Venus and Neptune. Darkness is a power over thought and consciousness, with domains like the Ascendant Plane tied to the mind. The Vex are a collective consciousness spread across the universe, and characters familiar with either the Vex Network or the Ascendant Plane have remarked on how the two are remarkably similar to one another. This even extends to their simulations. They simulate virtually perfect duplicates of living beings, and those simulations are sentient entities in their own right. It is the technology they are best known for. Now, in Edge of Fate, we have the Nine and their powers over time. The Nine are fourth-dimensional beings who can interact with our world through dark matter, can view all of time from the distant past to the distant future, and they even have the power to pull objects and people forward through time (though never backward, as part of the rules). While the Nine have immense power across linear time, the Vex's time manipulations are associated with timelines. They can travel from one timeline to another, and their simulations are used to predict and plan for virtually all possible futures. In short, the Light, the Darkness, and the Nine's power over time all can be compared to how the Vex function and what they can do. But there is also something else: all three are inimical to the Vex, in one form or another. While this applies to paracausality as a whole, the Light is often focused on as a power that the Vex, who perceive and interact with the world through simulations to an extent, cannot simulate. For the Vex, who use simulations to understand the world, and as a framework to make reality match their simulations, paracausal forces are something they cannot naturally perceive, since their simulations are bound to normal physics. [url=https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/v-as-a-stranger-give-it-welcome]They didn't even notice the Echo of Command when it landed on Nessus.[/url] It's why they've always struggled with the Light, and why it was a major problem when Panoptes came close to understanding and simulating it, to the point where the Vex in the Infinite Forest could see Sagira's Light. That's something I'll go into more detail on later. The Darkness is the same. Going back to the Books of Sorrow, the Vex struggled heavily with creating structures in the Ascendant Plane, and Quria was incapable of simulating Oryx in his entirety, only able to create a bootstrap simulation of Aurash, who Oryx was before he took in a Worm. When a Taken Hydra infiltrated the Vault of Glass, the Vex had no recourse but to let us in and have us deal with it for them. [url=https://www.destinypedia.com/Mysterious_Logbook]The Darkness is how Clovis Bray finally stabilized Exominds, by introducing Clarity Control into radiolaria[/url]: [i]The Vex radiolarian fluid is obviously too virulent for use in exominds. [b]But if exposed to Clarity, the Vex patterns break down, and the fluid takes on some of the properties of Clarity itself—namely, its reductive effect.[/b] Introducing a tiny aliquot of this reified Clarity into an exomind solves the loop/billboard/crash cycle. As far as I can tell—permanently. THE COMBINATION OF VEX FLUID AND CLARITY IS THE KEY TO CYBERNETIC IMMORTALITY! [/i] We even see it on Neptune with the Veil. Although the Vex could retroactively insert themselves onto the planet,[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feNCLoZljfs] they were stopped in their tracks by the Veil, unable to do the same to the environment around where the Veil's paracausal field held sway[/url]. On a related note, [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rS4ZGHXgqg]regular Exominds are overloaded and unravelled in the presence of the Veil.[/url] Now, [i]Edge of Fate[/i] has revealed that dark matter is inimical to the Vex on a biological level. The Nine and dark matter are not paracausal, but exposure to dark matter affects the Vex negatively, and can be fatal to them. Iatros, the Wyvern boss from the Desert Perpetual, was focused on studying ways to neutralize the effects of dark matter contamination on itself. Furthermore, the Nine affect time in a way even the Vex cannot, because they exist within the fourth dimension while the Vex can only interact with it. -------------------------------------------------- All of this is not happenstance. If elements within the "Unveiling" are correct, then the Pattern that would become the Vex was dominant within the "field of possibility". They existed before the Light and Darkness. When Light and Darkness were introduced into the "flower game" as reality was created with the clash between the Gardener and Winnower, the Pattern survived and became the Vex in the present reality. The Vex are dominant within causal rules, but the paracausal forces of Light and Dark are new rules that they cannot normally interact with or perceive, never mind Prismatic. Despite all their technological prowess, they're near-powerless against paracausality. For instance, it took everything the Vex in the Infinite Forest had just to create a single Axis Mind capable of draining Saint-14's Light so they could finally kill him. Going back even further to the Vault of Glass, where the Vex developed ontological weapons as a potential result of Quria's studies of Oryx's Throne World and the Taken power, we were able to break through the Vault with an Aegis of Light made with Kabr's Light. As the Unveiling indicates, the Light and Darkness were made in response to the Pattern's dominance, and they are "separate" from the rest of the rules of reality, as paracausality, so they cannot be compromised by the Pattern. If the Nine have any relation to paracausality, as the quote I shared above may imply, that could extend to their existence and influence over dark matter, as well. The dark matter under their control is inimical to Vex radiolaria, and their power over time is beyond that of the Vex, able to do things the Vex cannot. Three cosmic forces, two paracausal, and one tied to dark matter and the fourth dimension of time, and all of them are inimical to the Vex, the "Pattern" that once dominated "the Garden". But that has never stopped the Vex from trying to understand them all. As I said, Panoptes was such a threat because he came close to understanding the Light and paracausality; while it took everything they had, the Vex of the Infinite Forest were able to create an Axis Mind that could drain Saint-14's Light and finally kill him. The Vex of the Black Garden sought to wield Darkness through fealty to the Witness. They created the Black Heart with the Witness' guidance as a failed copy of the Veil, and in Season of the Wish, the Sol Divisive were able to bring Oracles outside of the Vault of Glass using Resonance, and create a simulation of the Black Heart. Now, we have the Vex and Dark Matter. The Desert Perpetual raid was all about the Vex trying to digitize III's remains, and study dark matter so they can manipulate timelines via the use of quantum entanglement and dark matter. If they succeed in this, they could do what Maya seeks to do, and swap our Earth with a past Golden Age Earth, and leave us right in the path of a new Collapse. For Guardians, paracausality is the main advantage we have over the Vex, and dark matter is another. Both can influence the world in ways the Vex cannot; the Vex either cannot perceive and simulate them, or they are inimical to them. If the Vex are ever able to understand and simulate paracausal forces, whether it be the Light or the Dark, to wield them themselves, and if they are ever able to safely harness dark matter and use it to manipulate time in the ways the Nine can, the results would be nothing less than a nightmare, and potentially the end of everything.