destiny 2
It’s been a long, long-held theory that Destiny 2 will end with a fifth subclass based on the concepts of poison or decay. For a while the idea was that maybe it would be rooted in Hive Soulfire, which could lend itself to the concept.
Now? The true source of our next subclass may have been staring us in the face for years.
Remember the first time we saw Egregore, the strange growths currently covering the Leviathan? No, it wasn’t on the Glycon in Season of the Chosen. Rather, it was the first time the Drifter appeared in Forsaken, having kept a growth behind glass from his miserable journey to a darkness-infected ice planet (not Europa).
Now that Egregore is currently on course to take over our entire HELM starship, the theory is growing that it could be the basis of our next subclass, and the maybe the way we get our poison based powers in the future, probably with Lightfall.
Why Egregore? Because it’s a different manifestation of darkness, similar to Stasis but different. The lore from this season’s Eidolon Ghost Shell has the best explanation, narrated second-hand by someone passing the information from Eris:
“BUT a certain hidden contact, Eris Morn, has informed me that the fungus resembles a synapse within a nervous system. She claims it is a physical manifestation of darkness, like stasis. But unlike Stasis, it appears to be an “impure” manifestation – her words, not mine.”
destiny 2
This joins a whole host of other Egregore lore, mostly tied to the new armor set we got this season (parts of which have green liquid running through tubes), leading Eris to study this further. Here she is talking to the Drifter about his sample and where he got it from:
“Do you at least remember where you found it?”
“Sister, you don’t want to know.” Eris fixes the Drifter’s face. He staggers back awkwardly and shrugs. “Icy little nothing in the middle of nowhere. Has no name, and you don’t want to go there alone.”
“But you could take me with you?” Eris tests his defenses.
Drifter brushes the mottled fur off his shoulder guards and leans against a poorly fixed railing. “Only if we take your JumpShip. And I drive.”
destiny 2
She later burns Egregore in the Pyramid Ziggaraut to test how it reacts with this technology:
“The ziggurat vibrates like a tuning fork. The vibrations themselves take shape in the smoke, and Eris is drawn to a distant and empty place. She follows, and the smoke swirls with dots of color like stars, separated by lonely cracks of black expanse. Echoes radiate from the black depths through space like graviton waves. They wash distortions across the stars until they break against four other points—two larger, two weaker—ghostly strands of disembodied egregor between them.”
Although the egregore appears to be a form of communication to some extent, it stands to reason that since it is a manifestation of darkness like stasis, it could only be used “impurely”, much like stasis we use to a kill many things. We were essentially “gifted” to Stasis by the Pyramid, as was House Salvation, but this is where I’m wondering if Eris might be manually working on turning Egregore into a tool that we can use, and this is the start of that process.
It stands to reason that the poison/decay idea could be carried forward with what appears to be just…lots of coarse organic matter. I don’t know if this will be something like shooting egregore vines out of hand or sporulating an area as a super, but who knows.
It’s just a theory, but keep an eye out for the next few seasons and more experiments with Eris and Egregore as we head into Lightfall.
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