: I don't think these references are implying a connection between the Taken
: and the BattleRoid. The "grafted to powers" reference is about
: the Guardians. And it's unclear who Oryx(?) is talking to about stepping
: backwards and forwards through time, although it's clear that it's not the
: Traveler (I believe that's the flower eater reference). The Vex maybe? It
: would make sense if the Vex were an analogue for the BattleRoid; their
: narrative of testing different timelines to find the "right" one
: is very similar to the BattleRoids narrative in Infinity.
Oh, no, I don't think the Taken and the battleroids are connected at all - if anything, the Guardians are more like battleroids (being resurrected as warriors and all). The Taken are just - sad and horrifying. But I went digging through some of the other Books of Sorrow cards and found a couple more references, including "You are the waves, which are battles, and the battles are the waves" - which indicates pretty strongly to me that the Darkness, particularly as channeled through the Hive, is connected to or a manifestation of the W'rkncacnter (which has been my theory for ages), while the Traveler is probably Jjaro tech in some fashion (my other theory: it's what the security officer had become by the closure of the Marathon universe).
There's also some stuff about divine immortality/adaptativeness going on, which is especially interesting to me because it's rather like Durandal's speeches in the first game, but by the point of Infinity Durandal's philosophy has at least somewhat shifted away from being driven by pure survival instinct/ambition. So could some of that be Tycho speaking? Or, after surviving the closure of one universe, has Durandal regressed in his character development and joined up with the W'rkncacnter/Darkness? I could definitely either see him or the security officer inspiring the Vex in some fashion, and I really hope that's something that starts coming up more in the game - the Vex are annoying as hell to fight, but there's definitely some interesting story stuff going on with them that I want to see explored.
Plus, Rasputin flat-out is referring to Durandal/Thothandal as "cousin." So that's pretty exciting to me. :D YES, GIVE ME ALL THE GRUMPY ANGRY AI KNOWING EACH OTHER.
