How did humanity survive the first collapse knowing what we know now?
From the very first moments of Destiny 1, we're told that the darkness had found us at one point, enclosed on the Traveler and almost took out humanity as a whole during what was known as the Collapse. But the Traveler pushed back and forced the darkness away. We know these references are most likely to the black fleet at the point, but I'm just a little bit confused because of what we know now about the black fleet. Massive and over-powering. How were the ships pushed away from us so far? How did the Witness essentially go dormant for centuries when they knew where the Traveler was all this time? I'm just curious about these things, because simply knowing the power of the Witness, the disciples, these ships, the darkness, I'm baffled as to how humanity survived the fleet the first time and then somehow veiled ourselves from them for all this time.
The collapse is just a loop, y'all are literally about to repeat and I'm going to enjoy your "victory". See ya in about another ten years, then another ten years after that...and we will start it all over again.