Many fans were excited to finally see the return of Trials of Osiris to Destiny 2, but guardians may not want to rejoice just yet. As more lore has been released on Osiris' competitive PvP endgame activity, fans have been getting clued into the original purpose of the Trials. While similar to guardian training tests like Iron Banner and Crucible, it seems Trials of Osiris may have an ulterior motive other than proving several guardians' collective strength.
Through a leaked Destiny 2 lore book from the "Trials and Tribulations" triumph, it seems the Lighthouses may not have the best intentions. While guardians are certainly able to compete for total victory in Trials to access the Lighthouse's grand rewards, it may serve a much more sinister purpose that very few have been made aware of.
Trials of Osiris: A Guardian's Ultimate Test
Without context of this latest lore drop, fans have always known the Lighthouse and Trials of Osiris as an endgame PvP activity that guardians can participate in for pinnacle loot. Squads of three guardians would need to face each other in three-vs-three matches that emulated the "Survival" playlist in Crucible. Each guardian only has one life, and can only be resurrected through another player reviving them mid-match. Players must eliminate the enemy team each round in a first-to-five set in order to win the match. Squads that win nine matches in a row achieve Flawless status, which grants all three guardians access to the coveted Lighthouse.
From there, the Lighthouse provides pinnacle weapons and armor that reach above the power level's soft cap. Everything seems grand for guardians who complete this challenge, even if the rewards for going Flawless in Trials are not as strong for some. But in the end, not many figured the Lighthouses and Trials of Osiris had any ill intent, at least not at face value. What dataminers found in the Trials and Tribulations lore book sheds light on what the Lighthouse's true purpose is.
The Lighthouse's True Purpose
Brother Vance introduced the Trials of Osiris originally under the guise of how it appears to players now. According to the datamined lore, Trials of Osiris has had an interesting effect on the Lighthouses, something the Cult of Osiris and Brother Vance discovered and researched extensively. Vance concluded that each time a guardian dies and is revived/reborn in the Trials, their death triggers a distinct reaction from the Lighthouse. Vance let the Trials of Osiris continue fully-knowing the Lighthouse's correlation with guardian deaths, using the competition as an opportunity to dive deeper into the purpose of the Lighthouse's reactions.
How the Lighthouse reacts to each death is described vaguely and never elaborated on, but there seems to be a clearly negative connotation associated with it. Brother Vance did eventually take his findings to both Mara Sov and Osiris, seeking additional advice and both stating Vance should end the Trials immediately. At one point, Brother Vance did end the Trials of Osiris after a guardian permanently died, at the behest of Osiris himself. Likely using this lore scenario to justify the reason why Trials of Osiris went on hiatus, now it seems Trials' return may not be as joyous an occasion as guardians expected it to be.
Foreshadowing A Dark Fate
Now with the Trials of Osiris back in full force, it seems Brother Vance is ignoring the warnings of both a trusted adviser as well as the philosopher Osiris he became the disciple of. The Cult of Osiris has always ruthlessly studied to research and understand the truth about the Light and the Darkness, and it seems Vance cannot cease in the face of a potential discovery. In this pursuit Vance has visions, thanks to a Vex hardware machine he designed called the Infinite Simulacrum, that all but certainly alludes to the Darkness returning. Specifically, the Lighthouse is in some way signaling the Darkness with the lights of dead and resurrected guardians.
The final passage of the Trials and Tribulations lore book contains an account of Brother Vance's last vision. Within this record are several references to the Darkness overtaking the Lighthouse and Mercury in a tide of literal darkness. "One singular spec of illumination blinked into being," Vance wrote. "|an end| seen by none, and then |many| spread as the shadow did." Vance also described "An angular |hungering patient yawning deep| shadow," potentially referencing the specific triangular shape of the Darkness' spacecraft.
Pairing this vision with an excerpt from the "Saint's Vocation" ship lore, where Osiris tells Saint-14 directly that the Lighthouses "may bring a ruin upon us that we have no answer for," it's impossible to rule out a potential connection with the events of Season of Dawn. At the end of the Corridors of Time quest last season, guardians discovered a grave for themselves in which Saint-14 gives a eulogy describing the players' valiant effort to defend the Last City. Why else would players discover this tomb in the Corridors of Time unless it was foreshadowing a powerful threat coming for humanity that required a guardian's ultimate sacrifice? What fans now know about the Lighthouse's purpose brings some new relevancy to this scene at the end of Corridors of Time that cannot be ignored.
As to what's coming for humanity at the end of Season of the Worthy, players have learned some tidbits of information about the Darkness, but the threat is still ambiguous. The only thing guardians can know at this point is that there's an impending doom coming that's vastly more threatening than a Cabal flagship with no brakes on a crash course.
Destiny 2 is available now for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.