Guardians have been wielding the powers of Stasis for a while now in Destiny 2, much to the chagrin of more traditional lightbearers like Commander Zavala and Lord Saladin. But just as the Light they bring to bear against their foes can be expressed in the forms of Void, Solar, and Arc energy, there’s no reason to expect that Guardians will always be limited to weaponizing the Darkness in the form of space ice. We’ve already seen Darkness appear in a number of different forms in-game, and when switching between Light and Dark, Destiny 2 prompts you to select Darkness “subclasses,” implying the existence of others besides Stasis. So what might multiple Darkness subclasses look like? Here’s one possibility.
The Fundamentals
First, what exactly are the different Light energies? There’s a popular theory that they represent the fundamental forces that govern the universe: the strong nuclear force (Solar), electromagnetism (Arc), and gravitation (Void). (The weak nuclear force is absent from this arrangement.) The prompt to select a light subclass in Destiny 2 backs up the view of Light as manipulating these forces, inviting Guardians to “Wield the Traveler’s gift to bend cosmic nature.”
Conversely, the prompt to select Stasis reads “Embrace the power within and unleash it upon the physical world.” That’s apt for a couple of reasons. First, in the lore of Destiny, Darkness seems to be all about imposing one’s will on the universe. Second, Stasis is a far more tangible power than any Light subclass — it doesn’t generate energy pulses or temporary barriers, it reaches out and attacks enemies on a very obvious, physical level.
There’s already a contrast between the more delicate, complex workings of the Light and the direct, physical powers of Stasis. So if we’re looking for other potential Darkness subclasses, what about other states of matter?
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Stasis, Flux, Miasma
Before Stasis and its emphasis on solidity, Darkness had already manifested in other observable forms: as gas and liquid. The Scorn’s Dark Ether allows them to fight on after death as well as shift into a gaseous, intangible form. And the Taken are apparently composed of and accompanied by a kind of Darkness goop that we’ve wielded via the Exotic weapon Witherhoard. Solid, gas, liquid.
A liquid-based Darkness subclass might be called something like Flux. Most obviously, it could involve manipulating Taken goop to damage foes over time. Perhaps it might even temporarily allow Guardians to Take their enemies and make them fight their former compatriots.
How about gas? Maybe Miasma, or, less likely, Vapor (please let it be called Vapor, Bungie.) I could see a gas-based Darkness subclass allowing Guardians to use abilities similar to the Scorn, like shifting into an invulnerable fog form to reposition themselves in battle.
We likely won’t see any new Darkness subclasses until the next major expansion, which means we’ve got a while to speculate on what these new powers might look like and what their use might mean for Humanity. But whatever forms future Darkness subclasses take, I bet using them will really tick off Zavala. And at the end of the day, that’s really all that matters.
