<Aight, sit back and listen to another round of warped ravings about the interstellar entities calling themselves the Nine. My previous theory said that the Nine were not nine but 5... 5 groups. 9 Ghosts, 9 Awoken, 9 Warminds, 9 Leviathan intelligences, and 9 Jovians. They had something to do with signals from the Corona-Borealis Supercluster, they shared a viral language of pure meaning, and the remaining 2 theories were left hinted at or unconfirmed, one each. I surmised that the 9th member of the 5 groups would act as leaders to a sort of evil council, with the Leviathans leading the charge through some form of indoctrination like what they put on Xur or the Emissary. I believed that their ultimate goal was to infiltrate us from within and help the Darkness kill us all and that the best way to do that was to get all buddy-buddy then annihilate us unexpectedly. I was... wrong about some things. Despite that, I still believe they are evil. Let's get some context. A new lore book was added, Dust. Dust is the story of Lavinia, a Cryptarch who wants to find out exactly what the Nine are, starting with Xur and eventually being stuck in an Awoken base holding a strange portal to an unknown dimension. She got into some serious shit. However, I have to commend her and Osiris for at least trying to figure out what the Nine are. Unfortunately, I'm not there to remind everyone of the impending doom, so everyone keeps shit under wraps and Xur continues to be rather vague. Let's get right into this shit. [quote]"Much of dust was once cells," Xûr says, and coughs loudly. "This dust was once of the Nine. It commingled. It was forever changed." That harsh, percussive cough again. "Dust to dust. One dust to another. The Nine are the flesh of dust."[/quote] [quote]"To make wishes," Lavinia pants. "Xûr didn't appear in the Tower until the end of the Great Ahamkara Hunt. Whatever they used to get from the Ahamkara..." She leaves it unsaid: maybe the Nine are now getting it from Guardians.[/quote] [quote]"I saw the shape of the Nine on Venus. A place that was once precious to them, where wishes could transfigure their flesh. I saw that they are bound to this star and to these worlds. You are of a kind in that way, you and the Nine. Not I. I will be glad to leave this world, Mara Sov. I am tired of being a pawn."[/quote] These first three pieces are from agents and pawns. The first is Xur telling Lavinia that the Nine are essentially dust. The second is Lavinia making a rather educated guess that the Nine needed the Ahamkara to make wishes. The third is Skolas confirming this. Side note about that one, it really makes me feel bad for Skolas, I mean it. I would regret killing him, but apparently it's what he wanted. I mean, come on... he saw the end of the Vex at the hands of Oryx AND interstellar space gods who were always there controlling the game as much as they could. The tab appropriately named "The Nine" explains a bit more of their origin. [quote]They were already ancient when the first human beings named themselves. Their flesh was older than stars: the dark dust wind that blows through the galaxy, pinched by the gravity of Sol and its planets, drawn into their cores and exhaled again. These were the Nine. In time loops did form. Great arcs of outbound dust collapsed back to their sources to create circuits of shadow. The thickening and thinning of these circuits were the first thoughts of the Nine. They dwelt in massive indifference, unborn primordial gods. There was no force among them except gravity; no structure except the distribution of mass. Their hearts were in the cores of worlds, but their farthest streams faded out into the turn of the galaxy.[/quote] Aye, gravity. That'll be a bit important later so remember that. The tab proceeds to explain how life formed on Sol and how that affected the Nine. Life changed the Nine, and the latter realized that life essentially made them exist. They were dependent on "matter-life". Powerful, but at the whims of one measly asteroid if it happened to annihilate Earth. The Nine extended through the galaxy but seemed centered on Sol. Their vastness explains why the Cabal know about them. It may even explain the Ahamkara presence at Harmony, as the Gift Mast was a tool of pure Light. Oh yeah, how DID they react to Light? How would infinitely vast Dark Matter-based entities react to a force outside of causality? Well... [quote]Came now the Traveler, and with it a strange hope—for the Traveler's Light had the power to cause without causation! If the Nine had the Light, they could seed their own minds, free themselves from the dependence on matter-life! They could gain forces beyond Gravity to structure themselves, and so become more than wraiths of dark dust.[/quote] [quote]In passing, Lavinia sees the entire history of the Queen's interactions with the Nine: more than anyone suspected, and more vital. She sees how one of the Nine blinded Guardians to Ghaul's approach, risking everything (for Ghaul would have destroyed the sun, and the Nine with it) to learn how to steal the Light. She sees how that one was punished.[/quote] This is where things get a bit more frightening, other than Lavinia described us as silhouettes caught on the ends of the Nine's "infinitely long spider legs". It's with this that I begin a new theory... a slight alteration. I'll call it [b]Nine Theory 4.9[/b] for the hell of it. I believe the Nine are what they say they are, dark matter beings, invisible to us but the signs are there. They abduct members of certain species (the 9 Ghosts, Awoken, Jovians, Warminds, Leviathans, you get the idea) and inhabit them. This is where the 5 factions come from. The language and signals still apply, but my previous thought that the Leviathans were controlling the others has been redacted as they are now part of the indoctrinated IMO. The stellar remnants theory now applies as well, which leaves ONE unconfirmed theory, the Nine being Aspects of Darkness. At least, that would be the case, but now I have to move it up to the category of "hinted". Introducing Cocytus. It's a research area containing a portal. It was a Golden Age experiment that did (???). It was taken over by Crota when he arrived, and he turned it into a "conduit into hell". Considering that the lore tab "Cocytus" describes similar ambient molecules to that of the Hellmouth, I'm going to assume that "hell" is the Ascendant Plane. After all, you got to be powerful to enter and well... it's not like the Sophia's crew was powerful. Nor any Awoken (minus Mara), ask those who got blasted by Oryx's Throne World during the Battle of Saturn. The portal was opened and it proceeded to release atoms, then molecules, then complex shapes, then small life, then two entities roughly our size, a giant orb and a giant worm. All of these things were destroyed or killed as soon as they entered or shortly after in the worm's case. Ever watch the movie Evolution? Yeah, it's like that but with Tar-covered monstrosities. Lavinia reveals that the Nine are behind it AND that the far side of the portal is a realm of utter darkness and dissolution. Now, I don't know how many people get this, but the connections between Unknown Space and the Ascendant Plane get pretty interesting when you read between the lines... or when the text at the bottom of the screen says "Ascendant Plane" above "Unknown Space" in the Corrupted Strike. So, for the second part of Theory 4.9, I suggest this: The Nine can't really BE in our world, so they need the Light to make themselves EXIST. Well, just because one risked the entire system to watch how Ghaul took the Light, it doesn't mean it was the WORST idea. Hell, Cayde said "everyone loves a bad idea when it works". So, they are devising a plan to take the Light, and that leaves them working with the newly awakened Darkness. Whether they've worked with them before, I don't know. Either way, it could be a pretty interesting system. A sort of "help me help you" kind of thing. I mean, the plan's real simple. Get the Darkness in to overwhelm the City and take the Light, fax it over to the Nine so they can BE and then blow up the Traveler. Alright, I added that last part. I just really want to see all the City's hopes and dreams shatter at the hands of the enemy we thought we'd be fine against. A way of saying "I told you so". Once the Light is in the Nine's hands, they don't need the life anymore, so the Deep can finish humanity off once and for all. After that it becomes a question of is the Darkness our true enemy or are the Nine? Thoughts on my latest insane drivel?>