Why take so much creative freedom with the NPCs?
My question is; why not?
Even the Grimoire cards leave the Stranger shrouded in a mystery, which is all well and fine, but there's not even a hint of who or what she actually is. Within the game she says she's not forged in Light but yet she can come and go like a wraith, an ability with no name. The whole character leaves a lot to the imagination and I let my mind run wild.
What if the Stranger is actually a part of the Traveler? Maybe she was created so it could wander where it could physically can not go. The Stranger is synthetic just like the Ghosts which the Traveler made, and a female since it's always been the human mentality that they are not as intimidating. I say this phrase lightly, so don't read into that line too much. But it would explain why she can walk on air, disappear in a blink, and why she's never seen in combat despite having a weapon.
Why can't she be an appendage of the Traveler to keep an eye on the beloved Guardians? This would of course explain why she would avoid the Speaker since he would most likely be able to recognize Traveler created tech. Plus if you, the Guardian, tried to explain the Stranger to anyone the rest of the Tower might think you're a loon. It's actually the perfect way to relay information, little Miss Disappear can be a valuable story plot device.
As probably seen in the library scene a massive amount of liberty was taken. It always bugged me that the Stranger says “I don't even have time to explain why I don't have time to explain” then launches into a whole dissertation. Sure it could mean that she's taking time out of her busy stalking schedule, but she's not even rushed when she's talking. It just doesn't sit right, that's why I changed the whole scene save for the 'Little Light' part which is a nice comedic break. There was such wasted opportunity to explain the realm we're trying to save and why each enemy was trying to make us extinct.
Unless I missed it somewhere it was never explained how the Fallen had gotten involved in this five sided war. Could the Traveler have considered them but they were too piratical? They could have blamed each other for not meeting expectations, deteriorating into separate Houses which would only fuel the pirate culture more. I'd be a grumpy space bug too if I lived off Ether and had two of four arms cut off as a puberty ritual.
The Hive is easiest to explain since they're practically the end all be all of malevolence. They flourish in places where there's a lack of light like any good villain does, so they'd probably want the Traveler dead simply because it embodies Light in a physical form. Does this mean the Hive wants to wipe out suns too? No because it's not that literal, and no one wants a bunch of planets being released from an orbital pull. That's just a mess. The Hive is nothing more than cockroaches.
Again, unless I overlooked it in the Grimoire cards, it's not clear why the Cabal are trying to kill us all either. At a glance they come off as militaristic gorillas in armored suits, which is of course a very crude observation but true none the less. Why would they be after the Traveler? They're technology seems advanced enough with land tanks the size of aircraft carriers and a wall of trusty four inch thick shields. Their battle tactics seem rather tried and true, and Psions possess abilities much like us Guardians. What if all they want is a challenge? There is hardly anything more terrifying than a villain doing something simply because he can. Now throw that mentality into an army. Doesn't it just make you want to groan while reloading?
Now for the Vex. While yes they are ancient civilization of robots that have instant communication across lightyears, they had to somehow come upon that sort of tech didn't they? So either they invented it themselves or it was gifted to them. Plus, the white liquid core is organic and that has to come from somewhere. Let's assume the Vex are driven by electricity, the same way the human body is such as brain synapses and the nervous system, and water is major conductor. What if the white is a type of liquid battery? Throw in some salt-esque flecks and you have bodily remains of what they use to be, therefore that core is what drives the metal body much like a mech out of any number of anime shows.
Perhaps they were gifted this magnificent way of communicating and becoming a machine is a form of immortality in their culture. The Traveler would have been their idea of a god in the beginning, worshiping the great white orb. As time went on, and they come closer to what we encounter them as, they would become less reliant on the Traveler and lose sight of who they were before. With the Traveler being a benevolent entity it would abandon the Vex in search of another species, and something that massive would take centuries upon centuries to reach Earth. Of course the Vex would follow in order to complete their ascension to their own form of godliness.
Now to explain the Divisive Mind so it fits this theory. The Vex might have had a caste or class system which could still be in place in the virtual lines between the bodies. The lesser classes would be kept to the sub processes such as repairs, priority queues, anything that can have logic applied easily so there's not much thinking involved. Middle class would be the combatants, chess pieces on the galaxy theater of war. Liquefying a global army of billions can be enough brains brought together to power all of those Vex bodies so there's no shortage of them to kill. The high class, the intellects and geniuses of their society, would be the mass we know as Divisive Mind, and other likes it. The transfer of energy into the three giants we had to take down in the Black Garden might have been enough for a retreat to another organic body meaning the one we saw merely transferred to another point in space and time. This also explains how the Vex are still fighting afterwards.
The reason I focused on the Vex in this explanation because they are the endgame enemy to beat, with the raids focusing more on the others such as Crota's End. The Hive, along with the other two, will be addressed in later articles. But only if the interest is there.
