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| “ | We.. I.. I don’t understand… | „ |
| ~ The Witnesses last words as they succumb to their undoing via The Ghost. |
| “ | The Witness: You made it...we have heard your cries for help. And soon, we will answer. The Guardian: Who are you? The Witness: Don't you recognize us? We are not your friend. We are not your enemy. We are your... salvation. |
„ |
| ~ The Witness to The Guardian during their first meeting. |
| “ | We had such hope you would understand. But you choose… entropy. You revel in chaos. But in your wake, there is only SUFFERING! YOU ARE UNWORTHY OF SALVATION! | „ |
| ~ The Witness to the Vanguard and Crow after they discover their weakness |
| “ | ENOUGH! Secure the Veil. We will create the link. | „ |
| ~ The Witness snapping at Calus. |
The Witness is the main antagonist of the Destiny franchise.
It has been claimed, among other contradictory truths, by Savathûn that the Witness is the child and physical representation of the Darkness, it however is in reality an amalgamation of one of the first species The Traveler ever visited. It is the mysterious leader of the Black Fleet, the master of Rhulk, Calus, Nezarec and the other disciples. Its actions in leading the fleet to attack led to the Collapse and ended humanity's golden age, thus kicking off the story of the entire franchise. It intended to bring about its proposed "Final Shape" for the Universe by annihilating the Light and rewriting the world in their own shape.
It is voiced by Brett Dalton, who also played both Grant Ward and Hive in Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Parasite in Superman: Man of Tomorrow.
Biography[]
A failing species found The Traveler and it blessed them. They desired more thought and found The Veil. They used The Veil to make a link to gain the power to rewrite time and space, but The Traveler fled. The species did a ritual combining them all into one being, The Witness.
Billions of years before the events of the story, the Witness visited a planet known as Lubrae. There, it encountered the warrior named Rhulk, wounded from falling into a chasm after familial betrayal. The Witness healed Rhulk's wounds, empowered his glaive and sent him to massacre his people. Rhulk wounded himself by falling into the chasm a second time, and the Witness healed him again, and brought him to its pyramid. It then preached to Rhulk that his actions proved that the people of Lubrae were worthless to begin with and that Rhulk proved his worth by slaughtering them. Rhulk was then named the first of the Witness' disciples.
The Witness visited Fundament with Rhulk, tasking him with subjugating the Worm gods. The Witness then telepathically communicated with the young Sathona (who would later be Savathûn), warning her of the syzygy that would destroy her people. The reality is that the Witness sought to claim the Hive, known then as the Krill, as servants of the Darkness before the Traveler could gift them with its light.
The Witness also met deposed Cabal Emperor Calus and his loyalists, and claimed him as his herald to spread news of the coming end.
The Witness would then be in contact with a scientist named Clovis Bray during the Golden Age, manipulating him with Vex tech to revolutionize the production of Exos, robotic bodies for human brains. This however allowed the Vex to invade and almost terraform Europa into a machine world. The all out war that ensued led to Bray abandoning the colony.
The Witness would encounter the Vanguard's most prominent Guardian, appearing as a copy of them, renouncing the Light as weakness that brought death to those it blessed, citing the examples of disasters and deaths the Guardian had encountered before (this was of course a lie, as said disasters were caused by the Witness itself or were enacted under its orders). It also claimed to have heard humanity's cries for help and claimed that it would bring salvation.
After the destruction of Dominus Ghaul's Almighty in the main Destiny campaign, the Witness would push the Black Fleet into the Solar System. The AI Warmind defending earth, Rasputin, used the defense network around Jupiter to try and shoot down the ships to no avail. The Guardians would go on to engage forces amongst the Ascendant realms, before the Witness is able to tell them that they must embrace a dark power beneath the surface of Europa.
Following its guidance, the Guardians acquire new dark stasis powers, while the Witness tempts Eramis and her Fallen followers to do the same so they can destroy the Traveler. They were ultimately defeated by the Guardian.
The Witness offered the Awoken Queen, Mara Sov, a chance to become another disciple but she refused and fought back against it.
After Savathûn's defeat at the hands of the Guardian in the Witch Queen DLC, the Witness addressed the Traveler and began making preparations to attack humanity and the solar system directly, saying it has had enough.
When Calus began to doubt its power and abilities, he was whisked away by the Witness and later turned into its next disciple. This would awaken Eramis and bring her into conflict with the Guardians. The Witness claimed Eramis as one of its disciples to gather relics of Darkness. These relics contained pieces of another Witness disciple named Nezarec. When the Guardians successfully pushed her back, the Witness punished her by allowing Oryx and Savathun's younger sister, Xivu Arath, God of War to corrupt Eramis' forces of the House of Salvation, and raising Eramis' deceased forces to serve Xivu Arath as Scorn. The Guardian
Eramis and Xivu Arath would collectively gain access to the computerized defense system, the WarSat network, defending Earth with plans to turn it on the Traveler. However, when the Guardians successfully shut it down, the Traveler attempted to run just as it had done with Eramis' people eons earlier. However, it stopped at low orbit. When Eramis questions why, the Witness responded that it simply had no where else to run. The Witness would then continue its path to Earth, with the Pyramid fleet and a vessel with Calus, passing by Jupiter and coming ever closer to Earth. In Beyond Light, the Guardian defeats and kills Eramis.
In Lightfall, The Witness would arrive at Sol and find out that The Veil is on Neptune. Calus the Disciple would go and establish the link at the cost of his own life at the hands of the Guardian. The Witness would then carve the triangular hole into The Traveler they carved years ago and enter.
The Final Shape[]
In the Final Shape, the Witness travels to the center of the Pale Heart and reaches a monolith where it works to form the Final Shape. The Guardian, along with the Vanguard leadership storm the Pale Heart and confront the Witness's new forces, the Dread. Out of desperation, the Witness attempts to use temptations and painful memories to trick the Guardians, Crow and the Vanguard to defect; promising false hope and whatever fantasy they desire. However, within the Witness's collective consciousness lies dissenting voices. These, in conjunction with the Traveler, guide The Guardian to the Witness's site where it was created. The Dissenters then show Zavala and his Ghost, Targe how to stop the Witness. Near the Monolith, Zavala enters an area of pure darkness and meets the Witness and its dissenters within.
The Witness prepares to kill Zavala, but Targe steps in and sacrifices himself to save Zavala, and he reveals the Witness is truly afraid. This comes to a head in the mission Iconoclast where the Witness in a futile effort, offers the Guardian to be a disciple. The Guardian refuses, and confronts the Witness at the ritual sight. While the Guardian does wound the Witness by destroying some of the statues, the Witness is able to fight back. At no point did it become vulnerable to conventional weaponry. He successfully expunges the Guardian, nearly killing the Guardian's Ghost in the process.
3 Days after The Coalition stormed the Pale Heart, the Witness at the monolith attempts once more to enact the Final Shape, but is however stopped in the Salvation's Edge raid. After trying to use the power of the Monolith, calling in a Herald of Finality, and attempting to calcify the Guardian's fireteam, it is pushed from the Monolith and is forced to retreat. It makes a final stand, but this time, The Guardian, along with The Coalition, breaks though its forces and then confront the Witness. It fights back, but once The Guardian destroys a ton of statues of the Witness's voices within the Darkness realm. Now, the Witness is vulnerable to conventional weaponry. After a semi long fight, the Witness is finished off by using the Traveler's Light, and is killed by the Ghost and The Guardian. Its last words are , "We.... I don't understand." as its body is torn apart by an explosion of Light.
Personality[]
The Witness seems to lack any form of warmth, empathy or redeeming qualities of any kind. It is almost entirely devoid of emotion aside from rage, and is single-minded in its quest, without any regard to the lives lost in its attacks and manipulations. It is also fiercely intelligent, planning universe spanning conquest eons in advance and successfully tricking and manipulating other intelligent individuals like Savathûn.
The Witness is shown to be cruel and abusive to its Disciples if they do not do as they are commanded or if they do not perform the tasks the Witness assigns them to its satisfaction. It punished Eramis for failing it by turning members of her house into Scorn and did nothing to help Rhulk when he was killed by the Guardians, leaving him to die for his failure to kill them.
The Witness displays several traits of psychopathy and narcissistic personality disorder, which include its lack of empathy and emotion, its callousness and disregard for everything but its own goals, its cult-of-personality-like relationship with its disciples, its cunning and intellect, and its constant lies, exploitation and gaslighting. The Witness is hypocritical and remorseless, as it refuses to admit wrongdoing or take any responsibility for anything it does (another symptom of narcissism), blaming the Traveler for 'bringing death' to all the worlds it visits, refusing to admit that it itself is what brings death to said worlds in its pursuit of the Traveler. While the Witness did save Rhulk (twice) and did free the Krill (the weak, short-lived species that would become the Hive) from their meager existence on Fundament, it did so only to bind Rhulk to it as a disciple and turn the Hive into its personal army before the Traveler could uplift and rescue them. This proves that the Witness does not do anything that is not directly beneficial to itself and its goals and is incapable of doing any good deed unless said good deed furthers its goals in some way, a further example of its psychopathic and narcissistic tendencies. It also refused to save Rhulk from death at the hands of a Guardian fireteam.
In the Final Shape Story, it was revealed The Witness is afraid of having it's plans foiled, and will become desperate. Oddly enough, The Witness is very hypocritical; while it despises the chaotic nature of life, it has no problem causing massive suffering in the name of the 'greater good' of the Final Shape. Given the fact the Witness is a collective of billions of consciousness coalesced into one, there are a handful of dissenting 'voices'. They would rather be killed by the light, maybe as an act of self sacrifice, to stop the Witness's plan.
Powers and Abilities[]
Powers[]
- Hybrid Physiology: The Witness is the fusion of an entire unknown alien race whom wields the paracasual Darkness. As such it possesses multiple abilities.
- Umbrakinesis
- Shape-shifting: The Witness can change its look, can alter in size, etc. After the Guardian wounded it, it turned into a massive version of itself. It presumably did the same to frighten Calus.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: The Witness is nearly impossible to kill, with only Light attacks being able to hurt it.
- Regeneration: The Witness can recover from attacks not made from Light. It was able to heal Rhulk from near death.
- Telekinesis/Space-time manipulation: The Witness has planetary telekinetic powers, being able to move planets in between realities. It was also able to effortlessly stop ships in mid air, as well as slice Guardians and their Ghosts into pieces
- Matter manipulation: The Witness was able to terraform and destroy planets in its pursuit of the Traveler
- Telepathy: The Witness was able to telepathically communicate with other beings such as Sathona (Savathun), Guardians, and its Disciples.
- Illusion manifestation: The Witness was able to project itself as an illusion in order to communicate with its Disciples such as Calus
- Resonance Energy Manipulation: Like other wielders of the Darkness, the Witness was able to manipulate Resonance, basically darkness in the form of vibrations.
- Energy Projection: The Witness can project beams of resonance energy from its hands as seen in the Salvation's Edge raid
- Energy Constructs: The Witness can create shards out of resonance to attack the Guardian.
- Force-field Creation: In Iconoclasm, the Witness created an energy field protecting it from attacks
- Teleportation: The Witness can teleport from anywhere, suddenly appearing in front of the Guardian and during combat as well.
- Levitation: The Witness can levitate and move itself in the air
Abilities:[]
- Nigh-Omniscience: As an entity who is millions of years old, the Witness has vast knowledge of the Light, the Darkness and alien species.
- Master Manipulator: The Witness was able to convince many to join its cause in creating the Final Shape through manipulation. It attempted to convince Guardians to become Disciples and was able to successfully manipulate Calus and Rhulk in joining him.
Relationships[]
Allies
- The Black Fleet
- The Hive (excluding Savathun's Lucent Brood)
- Shadow Legion (Calus Loyalists)
- House of Salvation
- Sol Divisive
- Scorn
- Taken
- Disciples
Enemies[]
- The Vanguard: The Witness, and the Guardians's main leaders, the Vanguard, Zavala and Ikora, hsve yet to encounter each other. However, when the Young Wolf explored the Lunar Pyramid, it spoke through the Young Wolf's Ghost, mentioning that Cayde's death was due to the "failures" of the Light. The Vanguard finally saw the Witness when it challenged the Traveler directly. They also saw the Witness enter the portal that opened on the Traveler's surface.
- The Light: It is shown that the Witness has an great hatred for the Light, stating that in the Light "there is only death".
- The Guardians: Apparently, the Witness has a great interest in the Guardians, possibly, seeing them as the living representation of the "Final Shape" the Witness aims to create. However after their refusal to become Disciples, the Witness tried to destroy them
- The House of Light
- Imperial Cabal
Quotes[]
| “ | Let them come, and see our shape revealed. What they do then—unshackled from hope—that is who they are; because only in the end are we free. | „ |
| ~ The Witness on the Guardians |
| “ | The Witness: Love for them made you weak. Power over them made you strong. Upon reflection, you are filled with regret. Believing yourself to be under the spell of the Regime. Believing your actions in their tenure to be wrong. But morality, oh dear Rhulk, is subjective. And now that you are all that remains of Lubrae, isn't it time you made the rules? Isn't it time you looked back upon your life with pride? After all, your actions brought you to us. And only we can help you emerge from your cocoon. Rhulk: We…? What even are you? The Witness: We are your salvation. We are your judgment. And soon we will be… your Witness. |
„ |
| ~ The Witness and Rhulk |
| “ | The Witness: You made it...we have heard your cries for help. And soon, we will answer. The Guardian: Who are you? The Witness: Don't you recognize us? We are not your friend. We are not your enemy. We are your... salvation. |
„ |
| ~ The Witness and The Guardian |
| “ | You bring weapons. You will not need them. We offer only truth. | „ |
| ~ The Witness |
| “ | Eramis: Why? Why does it not flee?! The Witness: Because it has nowhere left to run. |
„ |
| ~ Eramis and The Witness when The Traveler remains in low orbit |
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- in the Altars of Reflection, Savathûn gives multiple origins for the Witness, the Witness was once mortal, the Witness is a child of the Darkness, and the Witness is the Darkness.
- The name Witness has significant meaning. In real life, the phrase 'To be a Witness (of Christ)' is often used by Catholics, and it describes acting as Jesus would have done. In the case of The Witness, it likely means to act as the Darkness does. This is added on by the fact that it is known by many names, yet the name The Witness is said by many of its disciples, including Rhulk.
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 Villains
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Black Fleet Rhulk, Disciple of the Witness | Nezarec, Final God of Pain | Calus, the Disciple Eliksni Riksis, Devil Archon | Sepiks Prime | Rahn, Devil Captain| Naksis, Devil Baron | S.A.B.E.R.-2 Aksis, Archon Prime | Kovik, Splicer Priest | Vosik, the Archpriest | Rahndel, the Perfected | Taniks Perfected Skolas, Kell of kells | Taniks, the Scarred | Orbiks Prime Fikrul, the Fanatic | Elykris, the Machinest | Praksis the Defiled | Hiraks, the Mindbender | Araskes, the Trickster | Reksis Vahn, the Hangman | Kaniks, the Mad Bomber | Pirrha, the Rifleman | Yaviks, the Rider | Skolas, Scorned Wolf Siviks, Lost to None | Insurrection Prime, Kell's Scourge Eramis, Kell of Darkness | Phylaks, the Warrior | Praksis, the Technocrat | Kridis, the Dark Priestess | Atraks-1, Fallen Exo | Taniks, the Abomination | Korha, the Hollow The Hive Sects Immaru | Savathûn's right hand | Alak-Hul, the LightBlade | Ecthar, the Shield of Savathûn | Šimmumah ur-Nokru, Lucent Necromancer High Celebrant of Xivu Arath | Leviathan-Eater, Bane of the Ammonites Kelgorath, Risen from Bones Hashladûn, Daughter of Crota | Zulmak, Instrument of Torment Nokris, Supplicant to Savathûn Crota, Son of Oryx | Warpriest | Golgorath Omnigul, Will of Crota Vex Panoptes, Infinite Mind | Argos, Planetary Core | Belmon, Transcendent Mind | Sanctified Mind, Sol Inherent | Consecrated Mind, Sol Inherent | Undying Mind | Akardon, Pitiless Mind | Persys, Pimordial Ruin | Conceptual Mind Agioktis, Martyr Mind Cabal Emperor Calus | Bracus Zahn | Zo'aurc, Explicator of Planets | Val Bho'kaurl | Sizmic, the Net-Desecrator Amtec | Yirix | Qalec | Qabix, Insurgent Dominus Ghaul | Val Ca'uor | The Consul | Thumos, the Unbroken | Kargen, the Technocrat | Niruul, Ozletc and Tazaroc Valus Ta'aurc Kolar, Numoc and Vatch Primus Ta'aun | Valus Mau'ual and Tlu'urn Gahlran, the Sorrow-Bearer | Umun'arath | Freeborn Otzot Taken Other | ||