Source
r/DestinyLore•
AdFuture6874

Is the Gardener/Winnower separate from our universe?

Question

Yes. I understand the lore has referenced the Traveler as gardener. But upon me reviewing. I don’t think it’s ultimately THE Gardener. Just what’s called a “plenipotentiary”. Envoys in their game. Bearing the image + likeness. The reason I’m saying this because Unveiling described them like self-created. Two formless, yet institutional-conceptual entities debating abstractly. Prefiguring, or shaping reality. They seem beyond physical comprehension.

———In their game, the gardener and the winnower discovered shapes of possibility. They foresaw bodies and civilizations, minds and cognitions, qualia and suffering. They learned the rules that governed which patterns would flourish in the game, and which would dwindle.

They learned those rules, because they were those rules.

The Traveler IS….. "A special new rule. Something to…" The gardener threw up their hands in exasperation. "I don't know. To reward those who make space for new complexity. A power that helps those who make strength from heterodoxy, and who steer the game away from gridlock. Something to ensure there's always someone building something new. It'll have to be separate from the rest of the rules, running in parallel, so it can't be compromised. And we'll have to be very careful, so it doesn't disrupt the whole game…"

——And thus we two became parts of the game, and the laws of the game became nomic and open to change by our influence. And I had only one purpose and one principle in the game. I looked at the gardener. I looked at my hands.

-I discovered the first knife.

—I won, because the gardener always stops to offer peace. And when they do, I always strike.

——But by then, it didn't matter. The game was over. The garden had given birth to creation, the rules were in place, and there would never be a second chance. We played in the cosmos now. We played for everything.

Posted Jul 10, 2022, 8:23 PM UTC

1945
WarlordRogue•

My lore is alittle rusty. But to clarify, everything that existed in The Garden was manifested into our reality. And I mean everything. The Two new rules were the paracausal forces. We got evidence of this due to the Vex.

The Vex are the manifestation of The Pattern of the Flower Game. If every flower game, The Pattern won, why hasn't it win yet. That's due to the Pattern never dealt with the new rules, Light and Dark. Henceforth why the Vex hasn't converted the Universe yet.

The Winnower and Gardener are metaphors in Unveiling but were still manifested into our reality one way or another. Gardener being The Traveler makes perfect sense in that case. Especially when the Gardener is the one that "stand it's ground" against the Winnower, as a direct reference to our Collapse, even if there was other implications.

Please be free to add on anything I missed

11
The_Omniarchivist•

It irks me to no end thinking about how the Vex see our war as just a battle royale they've won countless times before.

9
Vulking•

Vex Collective: "Haha look at them struggling on their first universal Flower Game, how cute."

Vex Collective: Proceed to keep polishing their trophy hall full of Flower Game champion cups

9
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
AdFuture6874OP•

So we have the Gardener to thank existentially. Making the first checkmate, against the pattern overriding all possible shapes it nurtured. The Winnower only inserted the counterargument. It had no issue with a single pattern taken over. Likely the Black Fleet/Traveler manifested into our universe as collateral, upholding their principles.

I’m not sure if the Witness IS Winnower. Or just a prime disciple. Remember. The Leviathan creature on fundament was revered nearly as much as Traveler. Being a disciple of Light.

Maybe the Witness ultimate purpose is to restore the original flower game. Where the Vex are destined to be final shape. And paracasual influence is removed. At least the Light is extinguished.

2
WarlordRogue•

I like to side with the Witness being the Winnower, especially after Eris in the Communion mission literally said we spoke to one of its many voices during Witch Queen and if what we know about the Winnower is correct, then it uses whatever personal it needs to benefit its own goal. But I'll keep them separate for this conversation, as i dont want to have that debate happening as its not the real focus of the conversation. And the Leviathan, we still had no idea what kinda creature it was beside it being a Acolyte of the Light

But yes the Traveler first move in the Garden is the real reason we are alive. But it also started a war between form and formless. Or in this case 1 vs many.

I wouldn't say the Winnower wants the Vex specifically to win. As far as we know it wants the Final Shape, that who remains. In the Flower Game, The Pattern always win, therefore they were the Final Shape. In this case the Vex. As long as someone or thing becomes the final shape, the Winnower wins. The Hive were going down this route

1
ComaCrow:dz: Darkness Zone•

This is all good, I think one thing many people haven't noted is the fact that many times the Darkness Consciousness that we now know to be the Witness is described as the final shape itself and many characters simply are wishing emulate it or "join with it" at the end.

My personal theory for the Sol Divisive is that their logic is "The Witness becomes everything in its goal, we join The Witness, we are now everything. Vex end goal is achieved" which would explain why they sometimes are in fights with other collectives and why this "technical win" would require conversion that originally started with the Black Heart but became more direct with Garden of Salvation.

1
WarlordRogue•

True and true. I'm not too big on the whole Witness being one with the Shape, I can go either way and I do want to see how everything will play out.

The Sol Divisive do worship the Darkness, as they believe it will further there own goals which it would. Which make sense in Destiny 1 as the Black Garden is the manifestation of The Garden.

1
AccomplishedTravel54•

If the two new rules were the paracausal forces, that means Gardener and Winnower became the Light and the Darkness in our universe. Makes more sense.

1
WarlordRogue•

They aren't the rules themselves, they use the rules to benefit there own goals as they are the ones who made them. Think of the Flower Game as our universe, plus the new rules light and dark.

The Flower game is separate from the Gardener and the Winnower. It was a game that they played.

2
Tenthyr•

The way unveiling has described it, the two principles that were around before existence were not created,they just were. An inevitability woven into the acausal mathematics of the possibility field that prefigured reality.

As we have only the lore entries of Unveiling to actually assess, along with the dreams of Alpha Lupi and, to an extent, some of the books of sorrow entries? Evidence points to these ontological principles embedding into our reality.

It's controversial on this Reddit to claim that the Winnower and the Witness are the same entity, but there's no reason they can't be, and no evidence other than Savathun doing her usual stuff that the Witness is a primeval alien who harnessed a mindless force. Unveiling used metaphor to describe occurrences that we cannot parse in their natural state, as they occured in a non-place lacking any space, time causal structure. This doesn't make the Winnower or Gardener any less real.

Meanwhile, Dreams of Alpha Lupi make it very clear in concert with Unveiling that the Traveler is an aspect or the whole of the Gardener, wounded and lessened by the final cheap shot of the Winnower and its first knife.

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ComaCrow:dz: Darkness Zone•

I honestly don't understand the people so attached to the "The Witness is an alien" theory. Like it comes from the must untrustworthy source with multiple variants among other very contradictory statements and is a fairly big reach given everything else we know imo.

I think people really should look at all the lore on Darkness Consciousness (including the dialogue specifically from Presage, The Communion, and Wayfinders) because they are pretty important to understanding the relationship between "The Darkness" (which is just a neutral force, like gravity) and The Witness (a being with an agenda and goal).

3
United-Revolution-21:stasis: Freezerburnt•

I mean, anything that doesn't come from earth is a alien to us.

1
Puzzled_Worker_7861•

but there's no reason they can't be

There are some. There is a very clear difference in their tone and speech, for one. The two lore bits that are confirmed to be the darkness talking are unveiling and oryx's chat with the deep. In both its a very relaxed character speaking in first person singular. Meanwhile the Witness speaks in first person plural. The witness has also been implied by Calus and Savathun to be beyond light and dark, which doesnt make much sense to me but will probably be cleared up next expansion.

1
Tenthyr•

The most notable thing about the witness is that it can speak with many voices. When it talked to us in Unveiling and the book of sorrows, it chose an affiable, reasonable seeming persona that was disarming. In unveiling it explains that to communicate it simulates our mind to understand how we would respond to its communication, it's perfectly capable of choosing how it presents itself.

3
ComaCrow:dz: Darkness Zone•

I am really surprised most people haven't caught the fact that we get Unveiling from the same artifact that The Witness used to send us a vision of it emulating us (which the narrator of Unveiling also says its doing) as well as the many many many connections and parallels that The Witness has with "The Deep" from the Books of Sorrow, including characters outright conflating them and characters summoning them in nearly identical fashions (and after Lost and WQ its pretty much undeniable they're the same)

0
Outrageous_Dust_3384•

we get Unveiling from the same artifact that The Witness used to send us a vision of it emulating us (which the narrator of Unveiling also says its doing)

That's what makes it so strange. The witness has never hesitated to contact us "directly", and has generally been fairly direct and upfront with us when doing so. It's odd that it would speak to us in a such distinct way for most of Shadowkeep, suddenly switch to a much more casual tone, and then immediately go back to how it previously spoke to us.

Even considering Unveiling as tempting propaganda, the witness has already given us honeyed words of assurance both before and after receiving the lore book. It has never seemed to have an issue with speaking to us in its "usual" way, so it's a little bizarre that it would suddenly go out of its way to sound "casual" a single time and no other.

It's also worth pointing out Unveiling disparages "Those who peddle the tired gotcha that all life hastens entropy. They are fatuous little nihilists who pretend to prefer no existence to a flawed one." which seems to be at odds with the witness' implied goal of annihilating all life.

​

I honestly don't understand the people so attached to the "The Witness is an alien" theory.

Wishful thinking, honestly. A lot of the presumed ideology driving "the darkness" prior to witness was pretty neat and compelling, which makes the possibility that the man behind the curtain is just a nihilistic Boohbah trying to kill everything incredibly disappointing.

Personally I'm holding onto the possibility that the witness isn't the darkness equivalent to the traveler itself, but to guardians (A single traveler empowering thousands, versus a fleet of pyramids empowering a single being).

0
ComaCrow:dz: Darkness Zone•

The two lore bits that are confirmed to be the darkness talking are unveiling and oryx's chat with the deep.

This was The Witness. We pretty much know The Witness was "The Deep" that Oryx spoke to and "The Darkness" is a neutral fundamental force of the universe, not a being or person. Unveiling was written by The Witness.

​

The witness has also been implied by Calus and Savathun to be beyond light and dark, which doesnt make much sense to me but will probably be cleared up next expansion.

Light and Dark make up two sides of the fundamental forces of the universe. To have dominant control of the universe you need both powers. This is why The Witness seeks to corrupt The Traveler and The Traveler's "pale heart" is the key (something that has been used to describe The Traveler's Light in the past).

​

In both its a very relaxed character speaking in first person singular.

This is due to Unveiling being propaganda as well as a translation of whispers from The Witness. Its attempting to come off as more human and approachable to try and lure people in, as was talked about in the CE lore for Witch Queen.

1
Puzzled_Worker_7861•

Light and Dark make up two sides of the fundamental forces of the universe. To have dominant control of the universe you need both powers.

That makes a lot of sense

This is due to Unveiling being propaganda as well as a translation of whispers from The Witness. This was The Witness. We pretty much know The Witness was "The Deep" that Oryx spoke to

This would make sense if the witness consistently spoke to us like that. But whenever he possesses our ghost and when he speaks to us at the end of shadowkeep, he uses that creepy tone and first person plural. It doesnt make sense to me for him to use singular to be approachable in one scenario and not another Unless I missed something, the CE lore doesnt claim unveiling to be a lure. It just claims stasis is

2
ComaCrow:dz: Darkness Zone•

I grabbed some sources I had stored away on this topic, the first few are specifically on the idea of the difference in talking while the stuff below the "----------" is stuff on The Witness and The Deep.

(TWQ Collectors Edition lore: VANNET PERSONAL)

Many Guardians read Unveiling scriptures and discuss perspective of enemy Darkness. Many Guardians prefer chatty Darkness to silent unspeaking Light. Now we have stasis, very cool. Guardians bored of Light and want to massacre each other with Darkness.

(TWQ Collectors Edition lore: PERSONAL EXAMINATION OF THE GLYKON VOLATUS DERELICT)

Why is it that so many places touched by Darkness carry a sense of memory? The nightmares we fought on the Moon. These haunted growths. The Taken, who are the product of a literal taking of the will. Even the Unveiling missives, delivered in a clear and casual first person. The common element of identity, memory, consciousness. While the Light is impersonal and silent: it is everywhere and in all things, but invisibly so. Silently so.

(TWQ Collectors Edition lore: REQUEST FOR CLARIFIED/UPDATED STANCE ON STASIS USERS)

I promised I would hunt down the corrupt, and I keep my promises. But again and again, I hear the renegades make the same excuse. The Traveler is silent. The Traveler is still. Meanwhile, the enemy whispers its offers. At least the enemy seems to care..

(Unveiling: The Cambrian Explosion)

Now, I could not possibly communicate with you unless I could emulate your mind, and with that mind, I acquire the moralities that govern you.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Books of Sorrow: King of Shapes)

Auryx the First Navigator set upon his god with his sword and his words, and cut Akka to pieces, and took from those pieces the secret of calling upon the Deep. He wrote this secret on a set of tablets, which he called the Tablets of Ruin. And he wore them about his waist.

Then Auryx said, “Now I may speak to the Deep, the beautiful final shape. I will be King of Shapes. I will learn all the secrets of our destiny.”

His speech to the Deep is not recorded here. But it is known that he returned, and he said, now I am Oryx, the Taken King. And I have the power to take life and make it my own.

(Books of Sorrow: Battle Made Waves)

Oryx went down into his throne world. He went out into the abyss, and with each step he read one of his tablets, so that they became like stones beneath his feet.

He went out and he created an altar and he prepared an unborn ogre. He called on the Deep, saying:

I can see you in the sky. You are the waves, which are battles, and the battles are the waves. Come into this vessel I have prepared for you.

And it arrived, the Deep Itself.

(Captain's Log: Excess of Avarice)

My Councilors place their hands on the Crown and focus cognition through it. They pry open the Scorn's collective synaptic pathways and sew them into the fabric of the anomaly's memetic sphere. The Glykon strains against the pull.

Velocity surges forward to the anomaly; the surrounding reality tears away. We hold, suspended before the writhe. It fills all sight; Nothing just beyond the bend. Time ceases, and the cosmos arcs to accommodate my will. Now.

"Delight in me. I emulated all of me in your image; stretched my mind to live through so many… I reaped the pleasures and experiences of every vessel. But despite my sundry perspectives, I still only see through my own eyes—and I want more." I peer into the Dark nothing. "You are… oblivion. Not a destruction, but a melding of all that has come to pass. I wish to become as you are. To gorge on existence. To collect your promise to elevate me." My laughter is wild. All of my forms transfix on the swirling anomaly. "LOOK UPON ME!"

The cosmos bends and snaps as I stand, returned to my feeble reality. Ignored again. The Scorn shriek nonsense in unison. It drowns out of the whispers. It is all any of me can hear.

I reach out, as you showed me when last we met. I split open each Scorn mind from my carriage, searching for you. Nothing. Every time. So I tear open their bodies. Fitfully pulling limb from socket, mind from skull, scouring them for your presence. I search until the shrieking can only be heard from distant pens.

I meet the eyes of each crew member who would not look away. In them, I see it. You. Peering back from behind the tension: An Observer.

(Confessions: Entry IV)

I must be calm. I must record my thoughts. Now I think of the OXA Machine, eternally lost and eternally rebuilt, passed down from civilization to civilization like a ship's black box. I think of the legends of the Hive King Oryx and his quest to pass into the Deep. I took that story as an allegory. I think I was wrong.

(TWQ Collectors Edition lore: PERSONAL EXAMINATION OF THE GLYKON VOLATUS DERELICT)

When Oryx called the Darkness down into an Ogre to speak with him, was this the voice that answered? Mara says there is a distinction between Darkness and its chief exponent.

(Books of Sorrow: Strict Eternal Proof)

Their echoes move among the war-moons, walking together on the hull of a two-thousand-year-old warship. Savathûn’s fleet has assembled here, in preparation for an assault on the Gift Mast. The Deep is headed that way, on the trail of its prey, and the Hive will be its vanguard.

(Books of Sorrow: The Partition of Death)

But while Oryx traveled to observe the Deep destroy an ancient fortress world, Crota conspired with his sisters to learn their secrets. “I too will experiment with a wound,” he said. With his sword Crota cut open a new wound, into a new space. In here he thought he might obtain a secret power.

These are both things The Witness and Black Fleet are known for doing, especially during The Collapse. Rhulk even has a weapon made to destroy celestial objects.

The Witness is described as being the original master of The Taken as well as having its power (an advanced nuanced form of Taking) being described as ITS power. Savathun discovers this and phrases it like "finding a riddle" in the Tablets of Ruin.

1
El_Kabong23•

I think the biggest problem with equating the Winnower to the Witness is that if the Winnower is the embodiment of death (among other things), and the Witness is a material being, then we're in a position to literally kill death itself and that's a narrative can of worms I don't see them opening up. Same for the Traveler and the Gardener.

1
Tenthyr•

The universe is ticking along fine. The winnower and gardener weren't meant to interact with the universe after it was set into motion-- that's what light and dark is, their power intruding on physical reality.

1
El_Kabong23•

See, that's pretty close to how I see it - although I see Light and Darkness as categorical labels for different groups of forces that are natural parts of the universe (Light roughty equates to forms of energy, Darkness to forms of entropy), and the paracausal bit is our ability to harness these forces in ways that shouldn't be possible, like making things burst into flame with a snap of our fingers.

I think the problem in interpretation comes in when we say that these forces (or the broader ontology that underlies them) are actual physical beings. The way I read Unveiling, the Gardener and Winnower were just principles embodied as characters to make the story easier to understand, and T=0 tells the story of how these principles became part of the fabric of a material universe/multiverse. In this universe, life emerges, growth happens, proliferation occurs, complexity increases. And in this universe, death and decay happen, reduction occurs, and things move toward simplicity. That's because those principles are embedded in the universe.

To my thinking, it then becomes a problem if you say that one of these principles is literally a physical being - I can see the Traveler and Witness pursuing goals consonant with the principles described as the Gardener and Winnower, but if the Gardener = life and the Traveler = the Gardener, then the Traveler = life itself. Being able to destroy life itself is a tough story to tell.

1
El_Kabong23•

I don't think they are. I think that the Gardener and Winnower are personifications of abstract principles in a creation myth - abstract ideas written as characters to make them more easily understood by the reader. But I think they represent principles which. at the moment the multiverse was born, the moment where the abstract became material, became part of the multiverse itself. They're why life emerges, and why it dies. They're why there's energy and entropy. They're part of the fabric of material existence.

4
VolSig:dz: Darkness Zone•

Once upon a time,* a gardener and a winnower lived** together in a garden.***

* It was once before a time, because time had not yet begun.

** We did not live. We existed as principles of ontological dynamics that emerged from mathematical structures, as bodiless and inevitable as the primes.

*** It was the field of possibility that prefigured existence.

They existed, because they had to exist. They had no antecedent and no constituents, and there is no instrument of causality by which they could be portioned into components and assigned to some schematic of their origin. If you followed the umbilical of history in search of some ultimate atavistic embryo that became them, you would end your journey marooned here in this garden.

Look at all those asterixis. Unveiling is a metaphor. Its not literal. It poses a philosophical question to the reader about the true meaning of good and bad. Light and dark. Life and death. Unveiling was released in Shadowkeep. Prior to that, the discussion of "light good dark bad" wasnt properly explored.

Whether the Gardener or Winnower are actual entities that look upon the universes and singularities of bungie games and watch to see who wins, or NOT, doesn't matter.

The fact is, the author of Unveiling believes it to be true. And this gives us insight into their justification for their pursuit of the final shape. The author most likely is the Witness, who believes that they either ARE the winnower, or so closely aligned/related to the Winnower that they can no longer tell the difference.

Much like Truth to power, most destiny lore books tell a literal story, but they are cover for a deeper more important message. A truth to be uncovered. A voice whispered between the stars. The one that is whispered and can only be heard by those listening.

3
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1
ComaCrow:dz: Darkness Zone•

The Gardener and Winnower created the Light and Dark and fought with them. Fighting with them (And in general) created the Universe around them and in everything. There was no "escaping the universe" here.

The Universe was one built on Light and Dark and thus had a reality that we understand as simply "reality" with the basic concepts of decay, growth, time, gravity, etc etc etc.

I'm sure you can guess who tf "The Gardener" and "The Winnower" became given who the big two Dark and Light gods of the Light and Dark Saga are and who wrote and gave us Unveiling in the first place.

1
AccomplishedTravel54•

Yeah, I agree. The Traveler probably not the Gardener per se, and less said about existence of "the Winnower" the better.

1
Queenie2211:osiris: Osiris Fangirl•

First Unveiling is told in a sort of neat way starting with a once upon a time theme. At many times the Witness who is conveying the story uses they(Winnower and Gardener), and then sometimes he uses I. He makes clear its allegory and even says that a time or two also in regards to some things

It is very clearly said the Gardner and Traveler are the same. However it's clear the Winnower and witness are not. In fact according to the Witness he was once an oozeball during one of the flower games that mutated and ate another ooze ball. According to him this lead to The life forms found today such as us. He relishes in taking credit for what he deems as our existence though admits The Gardner brought us back from the dead and gave us light. The Gardner made a stand with us believing we would make the right decisons.

It was the gardener that chose you from the dead. I wouldn't have done that. It's just not in me. But now that they have invested themself in you, you are incredibly, uniquely special

Some poor mutant discovered that it could collect carbon compounds much faster if it stopped grazing on the bacterial mat and started dissecting and eating the lumps of predigested carbon all around it: its neighbor oozeballs. It couldn't help but do it. It couldn't help but thrive. We don't get a choice about the rules. We just play the game. It was the first defector—the first predator. It changed everything. Now the oozeballs needed sensors to watch for danger, and brains to integrate those senses and generate plans of survival, and swift neurons and muscles to enact that plan. This was the Cambrian Explosion, the great birth of complex life on your world. I caused it. I, the defector, the destroyer, the one who takes

It seems like those that are the final shape get to live forever and sort of ascend like the Witness did.

Much of what you are quoting is about The traveler tired that the Vex always won and before new interesting forms can be created or evolved they won every time. So they changed the rules. They became part of the rules to stop the Vex from easily winning each time.

This game played is played equally by both sides the traveler didnt run while with the Eliksni cause of fear of Winnower but because they couldnt win the game there. Offers peace-well after our collapse caused by said Traveler btw we were indeed offered peace and just like always that's when Winnower and those who drive its forces swoop on in.

They are playing their game like they always have except this time we may just outsmart them both.

In a nutshell prior to the Gardner and Winnower inserting themselves into the game and rules they seemed to sort of watch meaning noone was gaining dark or light etc. They had to win on sheer willpower and need for survival like the oozeball or the Vex.

1
Daankeykang:student: Lore Student•

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your question but the gardener and winnower exist in our universe as the Light and Darkness.

1
ComaCrow:dz: Darkness Zone•

They created them, they didn't become them. Light and Dark are neutral fundamentals of the Universe, the Gardener (Traveler) and Winnower are conscious beings.

1
Daankeykang:student: Lore Student•

I wouldn't say they created them. It's more that they always were the Light and Darkness.

Gardener and winnower are just names in a story to help us understand the nature of the paracausal forces they're metaphors for. Growth/possibility vs correction.

Edit: I think it'd be more appropriate to say the Traveler is an agent of the gardener which is why it's referred to as the gardener so frequently.

Likewise, The Witness is an agent of the winnower (as it alludes to in the p53 entry).

1
ComaCrow:dz: Darkness Zone•

(Unveiling: Patternfall)

But they are not incontrovertibly destined to rule this cosmos. They were made before Light and Darkness, but the rules are different now, and even this pattern must adapt.

Light and Darkness didn't exist when the 'Flower Game' existed, those came after.

(Unveiling: The First Knife)

"A special new rule. Something to…" The gardener threw up their hands in exasperation. "I don't know. To reward those who make space for new complexity. A power that helps those who make strength from heterodoxy, and who steer the game away from gridlock. Something to ensure there's always someone building something new. It'll have to be separate from the rest of the rules, running in parallel, so it can't be compromised. And we'll have to be very careful, so it doesn't disrupt the whole game…"

The Gardener is most likely speaking about The Light here

(Unveiling: The First Knife)

"No," the gardener said, "I am the growth and preservation of complexity. I will make myself into a law in the game."

The Gardener is not complexity itself (which the Light is), The Gardener is the growth and preservation of complexity.

(Unveiling: The First Knife / T=0)

I looked at the gardener.

I looked at my hands.

I discovered the first knife.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

And I won.

I won, because the gardener always stops to offer peace. And when they do, I always strike.

But by then, it didn't matter. The game was over. The garden had given birth to creation, the rules were in place, and there would never be a second chance. We played in the cosmos now. We played for everything.

The Winnower speaks of the first knife and how it won the original fight that sparked the universe.

(Ghost Fragment: The Traveler 3 )

The knife had a million blades.

And you were giant, powerful and swift. But the knife pinned you. Cut your godly flesh away.

Very little was left, you are sure, because you feel insignificant now. The hard slick heart of your soul: That is what remains. A body small as a river stone, and just as simple. You picture yourself as a piece of indigestible grit, a nameless nothing hiding among other nameless stones. Perhaps you glitter like a gem, yes. Pride makes you hope so. If only you could see yourself. But you have no eyes. Not the dimmest sense survives. What lives is memory, and what slim portion of these thoughts can you trust?

The knife stole much more than your body.

The Traveler speaks about a "knife with a million blades", this is also in the same lore grouping where the Traveler describes it gaining her shell.

​

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On The Gardener/Traveler:

(Ghost Fragments: Mysteries) (POV: Rasputin)

I AM ALONE I survived alone. I cast off the shield and I shrugged my shoulders so that the billions fell off me down into the ash. They made me to be stronger than them and to learn and I learned well:

IT is alone and IT is strong and IT won. Even over the gardener and she held power beyond me but the gardener did not shrug and make herself alone. IT always wins.

I am made to win and now I see the way.

(Unveiling: The Wager)

It was the gardener that chose you from the dead. I wouldn't have done that. It's just not in me. But now that they have invested themself in you, you are incredibly, uniquely special. That wandering refugee chose to make a stand, spend their power to say: "Here I prove myself right. Here I wager that, given power over physics and the trust of absolute freedom, people will choose to build and protect a gentle kingdom ringed in spears. And not fall to temptation. And not surrender to division. And never yield to the cynicism that says, everyone else is so good that I can afford to be a little evil."

The Winnower explicitly calls the Gardener a wandering refugee that chose us from the dead and spent its power to make a stand. This can be no one else but The Traveler.

(Lumina) (POV: Humanity/Sol System)

From beyond emptiness, a Gardener emerged, drawn from pseudophotons and impossible math. And our nest of colliding space dust was never the same.

For it heard meaning in our roar.

(Dreams of Alpha Lupi) (POV: The Traveler)

The blaze sits inside a nest of little worlds, still too distant to share its heat but plainly staring out at you. A face emerges, drawn from plasmas and radiation...

There must be meanings in its roar.

(Witch Queen Collectors Edition Lore) (From Aunor)

Ikora, what are we doing? If you believe the Unveiling texts, the Traveler made a gamble on us. It said: "Here I wager that, given power over physics and the trust of absolute freedom, people will choose to build and protect a gentle kingdom ringed in spears. And not fall to temptation. And not surrender to division. And never yield to the cynicism that says, everyone else is so good that I can afford to be a little evil." Aren't we failing that trust?

Tell me you haven't used Stasis. Tell me you haven't.

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Daankeykang:student: Lore Student•

Light and Darkness didn't exist when the 'Flower Game' existed, those came after.

Fair. Light and Darkness as we know it today didn't exist in the pre-universe but they existed as principles of what we would eventually come to know them as (paracausal forces):

If you followed the umbilical of history in search of some ultimate atavistic embryo that became them, you would end your journey marooned here in this garden.

If we take the gardener and winnower to be metaphors of Light and Darkness, their primordial forms would be what we're introduced to in Gardener and Winnower.

The Gardener is most likely speaking about The Light here

I agree but I don't think the gardener is actually saying anything. This conversation is one part of a story meant to illustrate how Light and Darkness fundamentally oppose each other and how they're able to coexist with the rest of physics. This isn't something they decided they would do because they didn't actually live. Their creation just... happened alongside the Big Bang:

In the wet pop of grapes and the smear of berries—in the perturbation of the field that was the garden before the first tick of time and the first point of space—were the detonations that made the universes.

Their wrestling match in The First Knife never actually took place in the way it's told to us. They were swirling energies that can't be anything other than what they've always been and will be.

And thus we two became parts of the game, and the laws of the game became nomic and open to change by our influence. And I had only one purpose and one principle in the game. And I could do nothing but continue to enact that purpose, because it was all that I was and ever would be.

The Gardener is not complexity itself (which the Light is), The Gardener is the growth and preservation of complexity.

I think this is the root of our differing interpretations.

I used to believe the gardener and Light were separate but after re-reading Unveiling recently, I've come to see the vast majority of it as a metaphor. To give a better example of what I mean, one user here likened the Gardener/Traveler connection as Judge Dredd proclaiming "I am the law!" and I thought that made a lot of sense. The Traveler's purpose is inextricably intertwined with the Light's nature. It's the "gardener" in the same way that Judge Dredd is the law or how the Grim Reaper is death. It's a figure of speech.

Furthermore, I don't see the Light as complexity itself. Complexity already exists as a concept independent of our paracausal forces. The Light simply gives us the means to grow it further beyond than what is naturally possible. From p53:

However, without p53 as an enforcer, the body's utopian surplus of energy becomes a paradise for cancer. Cells cannot resist the temptation to steal from that surplus. Their genetic morality degrades as tumor suppressor genes fail. The only way to stop them is by punishment.

In this analogy, the Light is growth. It's a surplus of energy that needs an enforcer or a stasis to help prevent it from growing out of control like a cancer (although I wouldn't exactly say the Light is cancer lol).

The Winnower speaks of the first knife and how it won the original fight that sparked the universe.

Again, I don't think this actually happened. There was no fight that sparked the universe. The First Knife is the lore's first example of game theory to help us understand how the Light and Dark fundamentally work. The unconditional cooperation the gardener offers to the winnower in this story is a "strategy" aimed towards maximum/common good. From the Witch Queen ARG lore, Illumination: Light and Dark Manifest:

The prisoner’s dilemma. A relic of the days of the high carceral system. Two criminals are interrogated in separate cells. Who committed the crime? Tell us. Tell us the other one did it, and we’ll let you go.

If both stay silent, both will get a year in jail. (The common good.)

If one blames the other, the rat goes free and the other gets 10 years. (One winner. One loser.)

If both rat out the other, both get five years in jail. (Common failure.)

The only choice an individual prisoner has is to stay silent (cooperate) or blame the other (defect). Together, their two choices make four outcomes.

Naïve rationality, which was the assumption in the first days of behavior theory, always leads to the common failure. Always.

Both prisoners blame each other and go to jail for five years. No other outcome is possible. This is why:

A prisoner who stays silent (cooperates) suffers a year in jail if the other cooperates; 10 years in jail if the other turns. Possible outcomes: one year or 10 years.

A prisoner who turns on the other (defects) goes free if the other cooperates, or gets five years in jail if the other also turns. Possible outcomes: zero years or five years.

No matter what one prisoner does, the other benefits from turning on their ally. So both players will rationally defect, and rationally doom each other to five years in prison.

.......

Imagine another situation:

If two villages tend their own crops, both will produce 900 bushels of grain. If one village attacks the other, it could end up with 1,200 bushels of grain, and the other village will get none. (Whatever isn’t stolen in the attack is burned.)

If both villages go to war against each other, each will produce 500 bushels of grain, since labor is devoted to fighting.

What does the gardener do as explained in the First Knife? It cooperates. Always.

Cooperate no matter what the other village does. This strategy achieves the greatest total grain output, but only if it is playing against another cooperative village.

And what does the winnower do? It defects. Always. From The Cambrian Explosion:

It was the first defector—the first predator. It changed everything. Now the oozeballs needed sensors to watch for danger, and brains to integrate those senses and generate plans of survival, and swift neurons and muscles to enact that plan. This was the Cambrian Explosion, the great birth of complex life on your world. I caused it. I, the defector, the destroyer, the one who takes.

The way I see it is: Unveiling isn't an origin story of The Traveler and The Witness. The gardener and winnower don't exist as sentient beings. They exist in an allegory to help us understand how Light, Dark and its wielders interact with one another, especially when in direct opposition.

The author is staunch in their assertion that defecting is the only winning play and why the Darkness is the only standard that will ever matter. It's the entire basis of the book.

It's probably already very clear that we're on a massively different wavelength here but I figured I'd extend you the courtesy of replying to the rest of your comment. Also, I just love doing this lol.

Re: "On The Gardener/Traveler"

The Winnower explicitly calls the Gardener a wandering refugee that chose us from the dead and spent its power to make a stand. This can be no one else but The Traveler.

I 100% agree. But I don't think it's literal. Like I mentioned previously, The Traveler is referred to as the gardener because of how closely its behavior aligns with the nature of the light (not to mention it's also just a huge ball of Light).

"I'm vengeance."

"I am the law."

Except The Traveler never really says anything so we'd probably never hear "I am the gardener!"

Fwiw, I used to subscribe to gardener = Traveler. Now I see most of Unveiling as an opaque prequel to Illumination: Light and Dark Manifest. It presents the same philosophical arguments Ikora clarifies for us in the Witch Queen ARG. And that's all it is, really. It's an argument.

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corva96•

They predate the universe but became a part of it during creation. I would say that the traveler is a manifestation of the gardener but not the entirety of it. Same for the pyramids. The pinnacle manifestation of the winnower. The witness is just a follower.

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Archival_Mind•

No. Destroy the machine shell and you kill the Gardener. If it so chooses to, then its death won't end Light, just end its own life.

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SparksTheUnicorn•

The fuck?

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Archival_Mind•

The Gardener, which is the Traveler, can die. However, while it's the common belief that its death will end our connection to the Light, it can sever the connection or otherwise make our Light self-sustaining if it chooses to. This is how the terraformed worlds remained unchanged and how Ghosts managed to survive, though weakened due to them partly functioning off that dependence.

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