The Darkness

The Darkness is a paracausal force predating the universe and considered the direct opposite of the Light and the Traveler. Seemingly more active than the Traveler, the Darkness has been driven since the beginning of time to reduce complexity and diversity in the universe by eradicating any and all species unable to escape the possibility of extinction, ensuring that the only life that existed was that which would endure forever. This philosophy is often referred to as the 'final shape', the idea of a single dominant form of life ruling over the universe alone. The Darkness acts indirectly through various servants, including entire species modified by it in order to enforce its will on the universe, including the Hive, the Taken and the Scorn. In recent memory, the Darkness is primarily represented in the form of a fleet of black pyramid-like starships.

History
In recounting its own history, the Darkness claimed to have existed before the universe alongside the Light, referring to them as the Winnower and Gardener respectively. The two would compete in a so-called garden game a metaphor for the creation of the universe. The Gardener (Light) believed that the universe should contain an infinite variety of forms of life, each unique from one another, whilst the Winnower (Darkness) argued that there should only be one form of life, one which subsumed any other that dared to exist with it. The two forces came into conflict and the universe came to be as it was by that point, with the Vex and the Ahamkara entering as anomalies.

The earliest recorded history of the Darkness follows the discovery of the Worm Gods, immensely powerful entities loyal to the Darkness who effectively created the Hive when they were discovered by the three children of the Osmium King of the gas-giant Fundament. They agreed to become hosts of the Worms' larvae in exchange for paracausal power and immortality, a transformation which they forced upon the rest of their species. At the behest of the Darkness, which they worshipped as something beyond even their gods, the Hive waged war against the rest of the universe, following a philosophy known as Sword Logic. A central component of the Hive's culture, Sword Logic refers to the philosophy that anything that can die should die, that the strong should cull the weak in order to become stronger and so come closer to the final shape of the universe the Darkness sought to create. Bound to the Sword Logic, the Hive exterminated countless other species in order to gain greater strength and favour from the Darkness, with its most powerful servants becoming ascendants, boasting immortality, god-like power and a personal Throne World within the Darkness-based dimension known as the Ascendant Realm.

During the Hive's war with the Ecumene, their king, Oryx, sought to communicate directly with the Darkness in the hopes of being granted an advantage over their enemies. After killing his sisters and even one of the Worm Gods, Oryx got his wish and was granted the power to transform his enemies into mindless minions known as Taken.

Whilst the Traveller is considered the Light's representative within the universe, the Darkness is represented by the Pyramids, an armada of jet-black pyramid-like starships of impossible paracausal power. For an unknown length of time, for as long as the Traveller sought out, uplifted and enlightened various species, the Pyramids followed, destroying them as the Traveller fled at their arrival. The Eliksni was one such species, and the Human race being the latest. For reasons unknown, the Traveller remained on Earth when the Pyramids caught up to it and succesfully drove them back, but not without suffering extreme damage or the Pyramids driving Humanity to the point of near-extinction. Details on this event, known as the Collapse, are sparse, although reference is made of horrific creatures controlled by the Pyramids and survivors experiencing a sensation of being shrouded in darkness, although they were still able to percieve the devastation around them. This was also the time the Awoken came to be, a species descended from Humans torn between the Light and Dark.

Centuries after the collapse, a manifestation of the Darkness appeared in the Black Garden, a pocket dimension believed to be the Vex homeworld. As the Vex were unable to simulate paracausal forces, their last attempt to study the Darkness culminating in a war with Oryx and the corruption of one of their Axis Minds, they were compelled to worship the so-called Black Heart in order to harness its power. Thanks to the intervention of Light-empowered Humans, Awoken and Exos known as Guardians, the Black Heart was destroyed.

After the Guardians killed the Hive prince Crota, his father Oryx invaded the solar system seeking retaliation, unleashing the Taken upon Earth and its surrounding planets. Immune to the corruption required to produce Taken, the Guardians boarded Oryx's Dreadnought, accessed his Throne World using a fragment of Crota's soul and defeated him. However, as he was an Ascendant, the Guardians had to destroy him within the Ascendant Realm to ensure he could not return. Using Light stolen and trapped by Oryx, the Taken King was finally destroyed. In defiance of the Sword Logic, the Guardians refused to take his place, unknowingly contradicting the Darkness' philosophy of the Final Shape as they used cooperation rather than individual power to destroy Oryx and even rejected the greater power the Darkness would have otherwise offered them for it.

Despite losing their Light to the Cabal during the Red War, the Guardians eventually prevailed largely thanks to the Traveller awakening from its dormancy, destroying the Cabal Emperor and returning the Ligt to the Guardians. However, the Pyramids detected the Traveller's awakening and began their long journey back towards Earth.

After the Traveller's reawakening, numerous Darkness incursions happened across the system. One of the Worm Gods, Xol the Will of Thousands, emerged on Mars at the summoning of the Hive necromancer, Nokris. Later, the essence of the Darkness was used to corrupt the liquid/gaseous substance known as Ether, making it into Dark Ether that transformed dead Eliksni into Scorn. Later still, the Guardians discovered one of the Pyramids buried beneath the surface of Earth's moon, where the Hive had constructed a fortress, the Scarlet Keep, directly above it. Despite seemingly being a derelict, the Pyramid attacked the Guardians through the use of Nightmares, ethereal entities manifested in the forms of their most powerful enemies. After fighting through the Nightmares and entering the Pyramid, a lone Guardian was met by a doppelganger of themselves, which claimed it was neither their friend nor enemy, but their salvation. Mere months later, the Pyramid fleet finally returned to Earth's solar system. By their power, the planets Mercury and Mars, as well as the moons Io and Titan, mysteriously vanished. The Traveller, finally repairing itself from the damage it sustained in the Red War, banished the fleet once more before Earth could fall again.

Due to her interference and defiance, Savathun, Witch-Queen of the Hive, was excommunicated by the Hive and forced into hiding, leaving her sister Xivu Arath to replace her and assume command of all the forces of the Darkness within the system. During this time, a faction of Eliksni known as the House of Salvation, led by Eramis the Shipstealer, pledged their allegiance to the Darkness and sought to harness the power of stasis from it in order to exact their revenge on the Traveller for abandoning their homeworld Riis to destruction. Alerted by Eramis' former ally Variks, the Guardians also harnessed this same power, defeating Eramis and the House of Salvation, but also becoming a source of contraversy over the light-bearing protectors of Humanity fighting the Darkness using power harnessed from it.

When the Last City of Earth became shrouded in the Endless Night, the Guardians believed it to have been a Vex simulation. However, Mithrax, Kell of the Eliksni House of Light, discovered and revealed the truth that the Vex responsible was in fact Quria, which had been Taken by Oryx and gifted to Savathun ages before. When the Guardians tracked down and destroyed Quria, Savathun seemingly lost control of the Taken and was imprisoned by the Awoken. However, she had made a bargain with their queen, Mara Sov, which involved removing the worm larvae from within her and breaking her connection to the Darkness. While the Guardians sought out the Awoken Techeuns needed to perform this exorcism, it quickly became apparent that the Hive, Taken and Scorn had united under Xivu Arath's command. According to Queen Mara, Xivu Arath herself remained subservient to something else, a supposed voice of the Darkness, presumably the same voice from the Pyramids that spoke to the Guardians through their Ghosts and assumed their form when it spoke to them on Earth's moon.

After her death and revival by the Traveller, Savathun revealed this entity to be an impossibly ancient being known as the Witness. As Savathun would attempt to tell the Guardians, the Light and Darkness are neutral forces for paracausal power, and that the Witness was directly responsible for every malevolent event involving the Darkness. After recovering the calcified remains of Savathun's Worm familiar, the Guardians discovered that the Hive became servants of the Witness after it lied to them about a world-ending catastrophe that supposedly only the Darkness could save them from. The Guardians revealed this truth to Savathun, shattering her resolve and focus and enabling them to defeat her. Savathun was killed, but her Ghost Immaru escaped, and the Guardians now knew the identity of their true enemy.

Sometime after Savathun's downfall, the Scorn began to rally around a Pyramid ship sunken into the swamps on the outskirts of Savathun's throne world. Mara Sov determined that the Scorn now had a new leader within the Pyramid, and enlisted the aid of the Guardians in revitalising Savathun's Worm Larvae for information. Despite being tricked and imprisoned within a grenade launcher, the Worm revealed that the Witness was responsible for the collapse of Human civilisation and that it would have destroyed the Traveller had Savathun not saved it, using an illusion to fake its destruction and prompt the Witness and its fleet to leave the Sol System.

Eventually, the Guardians gained access to the Sunken Pyramid, guarded by hordes of Scorn and Taken. At its heart, the Guardians encountered Rhulk, the first Disciple of the Witness and last of the Lubraeans. Sent to the throne world to breed Worm Larvae for Savathun's broods, Rhulk became imprisoned in his own ship after Savathun embraced the Light and betrayed the Witness. Despite his immense power, Rhulk arrogantly held back and allowed the Guardians to fight him at their own advantage. The Guardians proved stronger than Rhulk expected, and by the time he finally stopped toying with them and fought at his full strength, he was already too late and promptly killed. Upon Rhulk's death, his Pyramid shattered but remained a stronghold for the Scorn. Despite their victory, the Guardians now knew that the Witness likely had other Disciples like Rhulk in its service, each of whom would likely be extremely powerful Darkness wielders.