BL4 Plot (this is a long one):
At the end of BL3, it seems as though Lilith has given her life in order to save the planet from The Destroyer, and Sanctuary 3 is headed toward the giant sigil in the sky with the hope that she’s still alive up there. Unfortunately, a world-quaking explosion followed by the appearance of a planet-sized sigil of fire in the sky is tough to miss and has drawn the attention of other, less heroic entities.
The Tediore corporation has flown under the radar for ages, winning themselves the reputation of the gun supplier of the common man by providing inexpensive, reliable-albeit-weaker weaponry. In BL3, they are referenced multiple times as a company that, if it even exists at all, is a joke of a corporation. In reality, though, they’ve been garnering favor from the people of the Borderlands who constantly find themselves playing the role of “fodder” in the wars of the wealthy corporations for the latest tech.
When the sigil appears in the sky, Tediore’s Head of R&D, Johannes Smith - the stuttering but brilliant man responsible for inventing the reload “blink tech” that first put Tediore on the map - leads his corporation and its techies directly into the sigil while calling on the common folk of the Borderlands to lend Tediore their aid in putting an end to all vault wars. No one suspects ill will of the company, because they’ve always maintained such wholesome, even family-centric ideals, and the people of Pandora and every planet throughout the Borderlands flock to support Smith. This presents an issue for the VHs seeking Lilith’s whereabouts, because in addition to the vanilla NPCs, one by one, the people they’ve come to know and trust, not the least of which being people like Marcus, Hammerlock, and Lorelei, are manipulated into defecting to Tediore’s cause without Lilith’s leadership. Even Moxxi and Ellie eventually abandon Sanctuary 3 when we learn that Scooter, presumed dead for years and embittered by the fact, that no one even bothered looking for him, re-emerges as the loyal Chief Technician of the Tediore corporation.
Without Marcus to supply a constant stream of weaponry, Ellie to maintain Sanctuary and it’s proxy vehicles, or Moxxi to feed a constant stream of intel, the VHs have to rely entirely upon the most unstable members of the former team, Tannis’ and Crazy Earl who finally gets a backstory, and as it turns out, isn’t all that crazy after all (once an architect more brilliant than even Tannis, he stumbled across an ancient prophecy about sirens, their ultimate purpose, and the end of all things until he was captured and tortured by none other than Johannes Smith - then Tediore’s Head of Acquisitions - to divulge the prophecy and, thereby, giving fuel to Tediore’s mission of putting an end to all war). Beyond the often-nonsensical ramblings and leadership of the unhinged siren and recluse, the VHs must trust in their own skills and resourcefulness to equip themselves and discover the truth about Lilith’s demise. As they uncover the true - albeit typical - intentions behind Johannes Smith and the Tediore corporation, it becomes increasingly apparent that Lilith is not who - or what - she once was. By the end of the story, the VHs learn, that in giving her life to save the planet, Lilith became the fulfillment of that ancient Guardian prophecy, perfectly merging the inherent power of the vaults with the limitless potential of the sirens. Now the apex guardian herself, Lilith is deaf to the voices of her former compatriots and blind to the inevitable universal destruction her very existence creates. “I am the embodiment of all your deepest desires - power, greed, and senseless, unending destruction. Come, then. I will give you all that you want and more as, together, we enter oblivion!”
When the story ends, Lilith has regained her consciousness, but having utilized the combined power of all the sirens to permanently close all vault doors and destroy their keys, her tumultuous life finally comes to an end, and the Borderlands are free of the evil corporations which once controlled it.
