Can you lore dump Destiny and Destiny 2 for me please? I haven't played it, and all I remember is "the wizard came from the moon" and "feel free to kill yourself" (<-actually a raw and badass line in context).
Also, do you think it was worth it for Bunjee to give up Halo and pursue this other thing? I don't really count 343 as canon, personally.
Destiny is a game series about paracausal powers that may have shaped reality as we know it, each culture calls them something different the Light and the Dark as they are known to humanity, the sky and the deep as they are known to the Hive and so on.
Destiny 1
Main story
Destiny 1 began with you waking up in the cosmodrome, Russia, no memories, your only company is a small flying machine that calls itself a ghost, it tasks you with finding a weapon and a means to get out of the region as the cosmodrome is fallen territory.
As you work your way through the cosmodrome you notice that everything is old, rusted and laying ruined by some unknown calamity or war, you assume these fallen must be responsible, your ghost tells you that humanity now only exists beneath the shadow of a massive spherical machine known as the Traveler.
Your goal is to reach the last city, join the Vanguard's forces and find your destiny by defending humanity against the forces of the Darkness, you are a Guardian, Humanity's last and greatest Hope.
You are told by the Speaker, a figure in the last city, that humanity was chosen by the Traveler, a great machine that was found by humanity on Mars, the first manned mission to Mars encountered it as it was terraforming the red planet using the Light, what would have taken Humanity centuries to do took the Traveler mere days, as the astronauts stood in awe, rain fell and they removed their helmets.
Humanity was raised technologically by the Traveler, blessed with the gift of the Light, this Golden Age lasted for an unknown period of time and was abruptly brought to an end by the Darkness, this is known as the collapse.
Apparently the fallen aren't the species that caused the collapse, they are mere scavengers, picking at the bones of Humanity's great civilization.
During this Golden Age humanity created a race known as the Exo's, machines implanted with the minds of people, they are considered as human as you or me, they can eat, feel love and breathe.
We also find out that those caught in the wake of the collapse, on the edge of Light and Dark, were altered, becoming what are known as the Awoken, another race of humanity, they mainly live in the Reef, an artificial area most likely within the Kuiper belt.
The Speaker then tells us that the Traveler sacrificed itself for Humanity, preventing our extinction during the collapse, and in its last moments, before going silent above earth, it released the Ghosts, artificial intelligences designed to raise the dead to wield the Light.
The dead BTW aren't just corpses from the collapse, or those who recently died, some have been resurrected from ancient eras in human history, such as the actual Gilgamesh and an Egyptian Pharoah.
SPEAKER: You must have no end of questions, Guardian. In its dying breath, The Traveler created the Ghosts to seek out those who can wield its Light as a weapon--Guardians--to protect us and do what the Traveler itself no longer can.
GUARDIAN: What happened to it?
THE SPEAKER: I could tell you of the great battle centuries ago, how the Traveler was crippled. I could tell you of the power of The Darkness, its ancient enemy. There are many tales told throughout the City to frighten children. Lately, those tales have stopped. Now... the children are frightened anyway. The Darkness is coming back. We will not survive it this time.
GHOST: Its armies surround us. The Fallen are just the beginning.
GUARDIAN: What can I do?
THE SPEAKER: You must push back the Darkness. Guardians are fighting on Earth and beyond. Join them. Your Ghost will guide you. I only hope he chose wisely.
You then head back to the cosmodrome, investigate the Hive, a race of Darkness wielding aliens that consume the Light and live to cause pain and torment, you discover that the Hive are mainly based on the Moon.
You go to the moon, search an area that was once occupied by humanity and discover that the Hive are consuming a shard of the Traveler that was broken off during the collapse.
You fight them, take the shard and discover the Traveler is being poisoned by an unknown source, so you head out and start to investigate the other worlds that were colonized by mankind.
The signal emanating from the shard leads you to these other worlds, specifically old Ishtar Collective bases and Clovis Bray labs.
You go to Venus, discover it is habitable, a verdant paradise that is littered with ruins, you are ambushed by the Vex, they are a race of machines that infect planets and convert them into machines, they have begun to do this on Venus, and you discover they have been doing this on Mars too.
You are saved by someone known as the Exo Stranger, a strange female Exo, who tells you that the Vex are behind what has been hurting the Traveler, she doesn't have time to explain why she doesn't have time to explain, except that the Vex not only infect planets, but are timeline hopping beings that are determined to survive some unknown future by making their existence an irrefutable and permanent one.
You go to Mars, discover the world is being invaded by a race now known as the cabal, giant bipedal space rhinos hooked on Roman Imperialism, those you face are clearly only a small part of a larger force, however they are locked in combat against another race for control of Mars, the Vex.
You discover that you need to get into the Vex network to get to what is known as the Black Garden, a realm controlled by the Vex that is outside of time.
You go the the Reef and seek the aid of the Awoken, specifically the Awoken Queen, Mara Sov, who tells you her brother Uldren knows how to enter the Black Garden, but will only tell you in exchange for a favor.
After this task you return, and Uldren tells you of the Vex Gate Lord, so you set out and claim its head, its core is the key to safely entering the Black Garden.
This is it, you enter the Black Garden and fight wave after wave of Vex, before coming upon a strange scene, a massive undulating mass of Darkness is floating above what can only be called a ritual site, and all around it are Vex, coated in centuries of moss and vines, they are all knelt in what looks like prayer.
These are the Sol Divisive, a cult in the Vex network tasked with the worship of Darkness to see if it will yield the result they seek, this mass as you approach sends out tendrils that infect large Vex statues that come to life and begun to attack you, you kill them and then destroy what is now known as the Black Heart.
Raid 1 Vault of Glass.
Raid sequence:
You discover that the Vex are attempting to rewrite history, using a machine known as the Vault of Glass.
The Vault of Glass is a Vex structure unlike anything else.
It serves as a meeting point between the past, present, and future, it is where all timelines converge and where every moment of time exist in one instance.
For the most part the Vault of Glass appears to basically be a pocket dimension. What happens in the vault can affect the outside world but it does not appear the Vex have been able to replicate the effects of the Vault outside of it.
There is still a lot unknown about the Vault of Glass.
We do know that the Vault of Glass can erase people from time, as several Gaurdians entered the Vault and only one made it out.
These people are Praeydeth, Kabr, Pahanin, and therotically three other unknown members.
Pahanin was the only one to make it out of the Vault, while both Praeydeth and Kabr were erased from our timeline.
The Opening of the Vault
There isn't much here. It seems it is designed to require multiple people to open it. There are three plates that when stood on activate. These plates will form a spire. How exactly the spire forms is unknown. There is speculation but nothing concrete.
The Path of Kabr
There are two paths through this part. One goes straight into the cavern and has you jump on floating platforms. The other path takes you to a very unique place. You can find a small entrance beneath the first chest that leads through bare vex structures and rock covered areas.
This area is the only place in the Vault that has organic growth, this is most likely because this is Kabr ripped open the Vault of Glass and let the Travelers light in. That light is only thing that allows Guardians to survive within the Vault.
The Templars Well
This is the next part of the Vault, this is where the Templar and Oracles wait.
The Templar is a large Vex that appears to be the master of the well, while the Oracles are paracausal super computers that calculate every possible timeline and tell the Templar of one in which it wins. The Templar then, through the Ritual of Negation, can erase you from time.
The Relic
During this phase and later on the Guardians use a Relic known as the Aegis.
This device protects Guardians from the powers of the Vault and help destroy those powers.
The Relic was forged by Kabr, he forged the last of his light into the thinking flesh of the Vex to create the Aegis, this final act is what gave us the ability to survive the vault.
The Aegis basically creates an isolated event outside of the Vault's control.
The Gorgon Maze
The Gorgons are another type of supercomputer that can control time, if they see something they don't think should exist they can remove it from the timeline.
The Jumping Puzzle
This is a fairly simple area. Platforms fade in and out of different timelines to create a path across the gap.
The Glass Throne
This is the last place in the Vault of Glass.
This is where the Vex start throwing everything they have at you, they have taken the Relic and hidden it away in different timelines.
To open the gates you have to kill the gatekeeper, a lesser form of Templar. Once the gatekeeper is dead Guardians have to stand on two plates, each activating its own portal through time.
Guardians will reach into the past and Future, Guardians will then venture inside the gate, kill the gatekeeper in that timeline and obtain the relic. Once two people hold relics they can come to the middle. of the current Vault and defend the conflux from Vex.
Once you have stopped their assault Atheon will appear.
Atheon is a being that we do not understand, he exists beyond time and created the Vault and/or the Vault created him.
Atheon is the being that pulls all timelines into one place, one idea is he is the centerpiece of a function that is attempting to basically control reality or become a part of the very fabric and code of the universe.
Atheon once again sends the relic through time as well as trying to scatter Gaurdians across time.
While killing oracles you are being blinded, and erased from our reality. The Relic prevents that. If you fail to kill the oracles you are lost to the corners of time. If you succeed at killing oracles you as Guardians have made your own fate. You have defied the Vault and broken its rules.
DLC The Dark Below
You meet Eris Morn, a Guardian who has lost not only her Light, Ghost and Fireteam attempting to take the Moon back from the Hive, but had spent centuries living in the dark recesses of the Moon, taking what she could to survive, practicing dark rites to steal power from the Hive who took everything from her.
She is a mysterious person, her face covered in a blindfold that hides pale green eyes, three of them, and from these eyes dark tears stain her skin.
Crota. Son of Oryx. He considered himself a god, and acted as such. His strength proved too much for my fireteam and I. He and his brood took their lives and left me nearly dead. Crota threatened all we had left.
She tells you of a dark ritual occurring, the Hive are attempting to resurrect a god, Crota, Son of Oryx, the "God-Knight", the "Light Destroyer" and the "Eater of Hope", an ancient and powerful Hive Prince who infamously wielded his sword and killed countless Guardians during the City's ill-fated campaign to reclaim the Moon.
So you set out to disrupt this ritual, on the way you track down Crota's officers and end them, this culminates with you fighting in the massive bones of Crota's corpse, attacking the crystal holding a fragment of his soul.
You destroy it, but are informed that Crota still lives.
Raid 2 Crota's End
You enter the Hellmouth, a massive crater on the moon leading to the Ascendant Realm of Crota, his Throne World, a realm outside time and space where the souls of the Hive can regain their strength before returning to the material realm, here Crota is a god, he is omniscient, and omnipotent, everything within bends to his will.
The Thrallway
We begin navigating the suffocating darkness by following a path of lanterns, large crystal constructs that contain the light of felled Guardians, staying next to one will lessen the crushing weight of Darkness that you feel, however if you stay for too long the lamps will explode as your light causes them to become overfilled.
While you navigate this maze an endless stream of Hive thralls will attack you, disorienting you and sometimes causing you to lose your way or fall in a pit.
At the end of this you channel your light into a plate to build a bridge to cross a chasm, during this more enemies spawn to attack you, Hive Ogres, Knights and Thralls all attempt to kill you and prevent you from reaching their God as your existence is the only thing beyond Crota's control.
You cross the bridge and enter a massive glowing portal.
The Abyss
You are now beyond the crushing darkness of the previous area, a massive broken planetoid looms over you as you take in the Hive architecture, and you come to notice a new plate meant for building a bridge.
You step on it and two totems begin to glow, these kill your team, you get one person to stand under each and channel their light to calm these annihilator totems as you build a bridge, while this is happening endless enemies are swarming you.
One person kills a knight known as the Sword Bearer and crosses the bridge as not holding a sword causes you to suffer the curse of the swordless, which kills you.
Once there you need to kill a Gatekeeper, an invincible knight meant to impede your progress, however the sword you wield was not created by you and follows a different logic, so it can harm the Gatekeeper.
You get your team across, kill ten of these and the door opens to a hallway of enemies, you fight your way through them to reach the next area.
The Throne of Crota
Here you must fight your way to the center of the area above where you entered to kill a wizard known as Ir Yut, the Death Singer, she has begun her Dark Liturgy and any who hear the full song will perish.
After killing her you get to fight Crota, a massive blue God-Knight that can only be harmed by what the Hive call the sword logic, so you and your team use the swords of his sword bearers to kill him once your teammates take off his shield.
If anyone died during this Crota would use their Light to fuel a ritual that creates something called an Oversoul, this massive sphere was a concentration of Darkness that could destroy a Guardian by erasing their Light.
DLC House of Wolves
The Fallen are on the move, a new fallen house is rising too quickly and it is up to us to find out what is happening.
So we set out, we begin to discover the Fallen are rallying under a new, or old, power, a Kell has risen to unite the houses, but who, who could do this.
Our investigation has lead us to discover the House of Wolves, a house under the command of Skolas, Kell of Kells, a great and powerful Fallen.
We kick his House's ass.
Raid 3 Skolas' Revenge
The Awoken ask for our aid, turns out Skolas has been getting this support despite being in prison, the Prison of Elders.
So you are sent into the prison to put him down for good as he has apparently taken control of if.
You fight a few waves and end it by fighting Skolas.
DLC The Taken King
Turns out Crota's daddy isn't too happy we killed his son, so he has come to pay us a visit, Oryx, the Taken King, Hive God and one of the three first Hive.
Mara Sov heads off Oryx's fleet at Saturn, and cripples his ship, but not before he seemingly erases Mara Sov in a massive blast of power that emanates from his sword.
Now stuck in the rings of Saturn, he sends his shade to the worlds of Sol, and begins to take the many enemies we have fought, and twisting them into more refined forms, these are the Taken, a race of shadowy beings comprised of pure Darkness.
We then set out to stop his shade from amassing an army of these Taken, as we do we discover the cabal have infiltrated Oryx's ship, the Dreadnought.
Fighting both Cabal and Hive we enter the Court of Oryx to find a clue to defeat the Taken King, as we do we discover the truth of the sword logic.
The Sword Logic is a thanatological application of the Darkness which serves as the guiding principle of the Hive and the Worms.
The Sword Logic acts as both a philosophy and a metaphysical system through which one may gain paracausal powers. It is the antithesis to the philosophy of the Light, which is associated with cooperation and sacrifice for the sake of others.
The central tenet of the Sword Logic is that "existence is the struggle to exist," and that any entity, whether a life-form or a fundamental aspect of nature, which cannot protect itself against defeat should rightfully be destroyed by a more powerful entity.
In the context of intelligent beings, the Logic promotes as its ultimate goal the establishment of a systematic, self-proving civilizational structure which can survive until the end of time (and possibly beyond), an end-state often referred to as the "Last True Shape".
The sword binds wielder to victim. It binds life to death.
Raid 4 King's Fall
We enter the Dreadnought, using the Hive's own logic against them, tithing ritual sacrifices into altars to open a portal in the Court of Oryx.
From here we enter his Ascendant Realm.
At first it is a large space, many Hive tombships enter and exit existence, using the Ascendant place to travel to unknown places, we take advantage of this, using these ships we traverse the large chasm that blocks our progress before coming upon an elevator.
We enter and head up, finding a large ceremony room filled with praying acolytes, each side of the room has an annihilator totem, and in the center a ritual plate for sacrifice.
We must tithe the plate with the power we take from the Hive we fell here, while preventing the totems from killing us, after we have tithed enough the door will open to the War Priest's ritual room.
A large, looming sphere of taken energy hovers above a stage, before it are three tithing plates behind massive towering totems of calcified chitin, carved in the image of Oryx, or rather his younger self, Aurash.
You use the plates to summon the War Priest, a knight which uses similar tactics to Crota and his Oversoul, you defeat him by using the tithing plates to disrupt his ritual and make him vulnerable.
After this you must traverse a dark maze full of Hive and Taken thralls, to come upon the cesspool of Golgoroth, a Taken Ogre that even Oryx cannot control, during this encounter you realize something, you cannot counter Oryx using his logic, so you take the light stored in batteries around the arena and use them to create pools of light to damage Golgoroth.
As you do you release this light and explode, this can kill your team, or it can be used to harm Golgoroth.
After defeating Golgoroth you enter an area known colloquially as the Dick Walls, a chasm of jutting and thrusting pillars that are made to knock you into the abyss, similar to Wipe Out.
After this you encounter the Daughters of Oryx, two Death Singers that hover over four tithing plates, during this they attempt to use a ritual to take you, to turn you into warriors of darkness.
As you go you use the Ritual plates to form platforms to reach a concentrated sphere of light, however only those being Taken or, torn, can touch these platforms, once the team has taken this light, they use what they've learned and release it on one of the sisters to take their shield and protect your team.
During this you can damage one of them.
Once you've killed them you get to face Oryx, in all his glory.
Same rules as before however you've pieced all of what you've learned together, and have created the Bomb Logic.
There is a war, and its name is existence. There are two ways to fight—one is the sword, and one is the bomb.
So for example, in this metaphor a bomb beats a sword. However the bomb depends upon the successful assembly and execution the sword does not.
If a bomb doesn’t have a fuse, its just a collection of individual, ineffective ingredients, which a sword will have no trouble tearing apart. The risk is greater, but so is the reward.
By bomb, I mean that way of being that is complex and schematic and that must attain a criticality to attack. The way that is made from new things and that triumphs by the arrangement of intricacy.
So you take the light hoarded by Oryx, and instead of using it to make yourself more powerful, you and your team use it in tandem to create a rebuke of the Sword Logic, to make Oryx vulnerable in his own realm, you detonate these bombs, release the Light and kill the Taken King, sending his corpse flying toward Saturn.
DLC Rise of Iron
You are called upon by Lord Saladin, a very old Guardian known for hosting an event in the crucible known as the Iron Banner, well it turns out a very old foe is rising again in the Cosmodrome.
A foe that wiped out the old Iron Lords, the force that predated the Guardians and the Vanguard, who helped guide and protect Humanity during the dark ages, Light wielders who fought against the Warlords, Light wielders who abused their gifts to seize power.
While the Iron Lords did this an AI, the Warmind Rasputin used an Exo to infiltrate the Iron Lords, to discover if they were a threat, a Warmind is an AI created to protect Humanity, a weapon against any possible threat.
This Exo, a Fragment of Rasputin's code, died and was raised, becoming the Iron Lord Fellwinter, Rasputin saw him as a threat and turned SIVA against the Iron Lords, a nanomachine tech used to terraform worlds.
The Iron Lords were destroyed, only Saladin survived, however they shut down the SIVA production facility.
Now the Fallen are using the SIVA they've found in the ruins of the Cosmodrome, becoming splicers, SIVA enhanced Fallen who can infect technology and hack anything.
Now you must retrace Fellwinter's path to shut down SIVA for good, at the end of this path you discover the SIVA facility, in the warped realm under splicer control, the SIVA attempts to save itself by using the mutated corpses of the Iron Lords against you.
You end them and destroy SIVA, laying the Iron Lords to rest.
Raid 5 Wrath of the Machine
You discover the splicers still control SIVA, so you enter one of Rasputin's bunkers and begin to fight the splicers.
You have to kill Vosik, the Archpriest to gain access to their lair, so you use their SIVA against them, creating concentrated bombs of SIVA to harm him.
Once Vosik has sustained significant damage, he will retreat and gradually warp inside the lair, you follow and make your way through a series of platforming areas, designed to prevent non fallen from safely traversing the lair.
Vosik is now within his gamer chamber, surrounded by monitors and pulsating SIVA, he charges an attack to kill you using SIVA, you have to end this by destroying the monitors and using SIVA bombs to kill him.
Upon exiting the Splicer's Den, you will reach the top of the wall in which the Splicers have holed up. Turning around once you get outside will reveal a giant Fallen assault battery lying immobile.
You must reach the end of this parkour course before the assault battery kills you, as you notice it has gotten up and has begun to follow you.
As you go you need to then take out the siege engine's engineers and crew.
After this you enter the server farm, a maze of servers you need to navigate.
After going through two more entrances your team will enter the Perfection Complex, the lair of Aksis, Archon Prime.
Aksis, Archon Prime was the leader of the Devil Splicers and the latest claimant to the title of Archon of the House of Devils when the SIVA Crisis occurred. The Devil Splicers worshiped him as a god.
"We are they who created themselves out of themselves and died in the creation. No longer merely the god in the machine, but the machine in the god. ~consume enhance replicate~ Here we rise, made equal at last to that which we worship. ~consume enhance replicate~"
To put this in context, the Fallen are actually a race known as the Eliksni, a four armed, spider-like race that was once blessed by the Traveler, or as they called it, the Machine God, it uplifted them and gave them great gifts, however their civilization was destroyed by what they refer to as the Whirlwind, the Traveler abandoned them to their fate and they followed it to Sol, only to find out their God had chosen a new people.
So Aksis chose to reject the Traveler, to become the Machine God the Eliksni needed, to perfect his form and lead his people to a new Golden Age.
You kill him.
Destiny 2
Main story
The Cabal have returned, a new faction of the Cabal has invaded Sol, they have attacked the Last City, laid waste to your home and scattered your people.
You enter the flagship and fight through the Cabal until you come face to face with the leader of what is now known as the Red Legion, his name is Dominus Ghaul, warlord of the Cabal.
"You're Not Brave. You've Merely Forgotten The Fear Of Death. Allow Me To Reacquaint You."
He gestures and the Traveler is sealed, your Light is taken and he kicks you from his ship.
"I am Ghaul. And your light... is mine."
Ghaul was raised as a child to believe that he and his legion, the Red Legion, are the rightful beneficiaries of The Traveler's power.
He came to believe that The Traveler made a mistake in choosing Humanity and the Red Legion would have developed into much stronger and more powerful Guardians.
At some point, Ghaul, with advice from the Consul, launched a successful coup against the Cabal emperor, Calus, usurping his throne and exiling him.
Ghaul attempted to talk with the Speaker about how to be graced by the Traveler.
He explained to the Speaker how he was an outcast who rose up and became something greater.
The Speaker stated, in order to be graced by the Traveler Ghaul needed devotion, sacrifice, and death.
Ghaul was intrigued by the Speaker listing death and asked for an explanation. He told Ghaul that devotion inspired bravery, which led to sacrifice and death, and thus sarcastically suggested that Ghaul should try killing himself to claim the Light.
You find a large part of the Traveler that had broken off during the collapse deep within the forests of Europe, from this you gain new powers of the Light and set off to ruin Ghaul's plan.
As you do the Consul becomes tired of Ghaul turning to the Speaker for guidance and kills the Speaker, enraged Ghaul kills the Consul, his adoptive father.
Ghaul had decided that taking the Light by force was the only option he had left, so he did, he took it and gained the power of the Light, and in a climatic battle with Ghaul you defeat him, only for him to take even more power, becoming a God-like being.
"Traveler! Do you see me now? I am immortal! A God! You have failed! Witness the Dawning of a New Age! You... do... See me."
As he does this the Traveler stirs for the first time, using its power to absorb Ghaul, and as it does it sends a pulse across all time and space, alerting something beyond Sol's borders.
Raid 1 The Leviathan
Emperor Calus has entered the Sol system, and begun to consume worlds to turn them into wine, he has invited all Guardians to participate in his games to entertain him, and if they win he will reward them and stop consuming worlds.
So we enter the Leviathan and make our way into the Castelum, a hub area of the ship, from here we can go to the Pleasure Gardens, the Royal Pools, the Gauntlet and Calus's chambers.
You must compete his trials to be able to challenge Calus, he was a power being, who uses psionic power to trap and kill you, however it plays out like a game rather than a fight, and it turns out you have not been fighting calus, but a body double robot, one of many.
DLC Curse of Osiris
Mercury is under threat, Osiris, an old Guardian, calls for your help in stopping the Vex Mind, Panoptes, a Vex tasked with using a machine known as the infinite forest to simulate paracausal power so the Vex can claim the Light as their own.
Raid 2 Eater of Worlds
This small-scale raid takes you into the gaping maw of the Leviathan to help Calus fix the engine, the Vex are gumming up the works, you need to remove the Vex while fighting off Calus's loyalists.
DLC Warmind
Warmind took us back to Mars, where they helped Ana Bray a Guardian, and Rasputin take on a Hive worm god.
Raid 3 Spire of Stars
DLC Forsaken
Forsaken saw the Prison of Elders being attacked, we, along with Cayde-6, the Hunter Vanguard, were called to help quell the riot as Mara Sov was missing, has been since Taken King.
Upon entering we need to kill the prisoners and fight our way through, until we are attacked by an unknown force, now known as the Scorn, undead Eliksni raised by Uldren Sov, during this Uldren sealed his own fate by killing Cayde-6 and his Ghost.
As we hunt Uldren we discover the Awoken have their own Ascendant Realm, a vibrant realm known as the Dreaming City, however something is very wrong, taken blights litter the realm, the Scorn and Taken now flood the Dreaming City, laying waste to its great temples.
It turns out Oryx had taken a being that was given refuge here, a being known as an Ahamkara, a wish dragon, a species the Last City had assumed extinct since an event known as the Great Hunt.
"And thus the Ahamkara were made extinct, their call silenced, their solipsistic flatteries erased, their great design - if it ever existed - broken. Of this you can be assured, oh reader mine. "
The Ahamkara are a mysterious and powerful species of shapeshifting, wish-granting creatures that first appeared in the Sol System after the Traveler arrived.
Their wish granting are like monkey paw wishes, for instance, Mara Sov wished for power and Riven, the one now taken by Oryx, used this wish to initiate the Great Hunt, making it so she would be the last Ahamkara and therefore Mara's greatest power.
Even their bones hold great power, and speak to their wielders.
We track down Uldren after assisting the Queen's guard in taking back some of the City, after finding him we discover this was all Riven's doing, her manipulations allowed her to use Uldrin to lure the Guardians to her.
Raid 4 Lastwish
We must delve into the heart of the Dreaming City, to slay Riven of a Thousand Voices, and calm her taken heart, throughout the raid we must perform ritual actions to unlock the gates that block our path, as we do we discover that Riven was sealed beneath the City, and was more of a prisoner than cherished guest.
By killing her we release her from Mara's wish and grant Riven's, we grant her the freedom she sought by taking her bones and fashioning her into the weapon the One Thousand Voices.
Raid 5 Scourge of the Past
Taking place in the Last City on Earth, the Scourge of the Past raid has us reclaiming sections of the city from the grip of the Fallen and defeating Insurrection Prime.
Raid 6 Crown of Sorrow
Set in the belly of the Leviathan, the Crown of Sorrow raid has us venturing into uncharted areas to quash a powerful Cabal-Hive hybrid that Calus created.
Born of the Royal Pools from within the Leviathan, Gahlran was bred to be a Shadow in Calus' service by wielding an ancient Hive artifact, the Crown of Sorrow, and using its powers to command the Hive.
The Crown, however, was a trap set by Savathûn, the Witch-Queen with the purpose of corrupting Calus to her will, and instead drove Gahlran insane. As a result, the mad Cabal brought the Hive to infest the lower levels of the Leviathan; having taken the deepest depths of the Menagerie as his kingdom.
"He had but one purpose: bear the Crown of Sorrow and make the Hive mine.
Imagine my chagrin when his very personality was annihilated within minutes of exposure. Whatever viral language was etched into the Crown's interior had taken over.
Until you ended him, he belonged to a witch."
We kill him and take the Crown.
DLC Shadowkeep
An ancient evil is discovered on the moon due to recent Hive activity, upon investigating a new fortress known as the Scarlet Keep, we came face-to-face with a Pyramid ship, something we only saw at the end of the main story outside of Sol, so why was it buried in the moon.
We are tasked with preventing the Hive from performing rituals to commune with Pyramid ship, as we do we have to face nightmares made manifest, Ghaul, the Sol Divisive, Crota, Skolas and more.
The Pyramid is set on tormenting everyone, even Eris is beset by the tortured phantoms of her murdered team, upon entering the Pyramid ship we are faced with ourselves, but something else is speaking through us, to us, saying it is our salvation.
Raid 7 Garden of Salvation
Taking place during an invasion of the Sol Divisive Vex, we are tasked by Eris Morn to track a signal from an Unknown Artifact, emanating from deep within the Black Garden.
We must trace the signal to its source at the center of the garden, all while battling an onslaught of Vex climaxing with the Sol Inherent Mind.
We fight it in the center of a massive tree trunk and overload it with voltaic motes, killing it, upon its death we discover it was onto of a Pyramid scale, a structure similar to the ship we found.
Season of the Dawn
We travel through the Vex Network to rescue a Guardian that has been trapped in time, a living legend once thought lost forever, Saint-14, hero of Twilight Gap, the Kell Crusher.
We sight through the Vex Network to create a perfect paradox and rip Saint from his fate, returning him to the Last City.
Season of the Worthy
We travel through warmind bunkers, turning them on and using them to generate targeting data for Rasputin, who uses it to strike down the Almighty, a Red Legion ship left over from Ghaul's stint, it was destroyed due to the fact the Red Legion were going to use it to destroy the sun.
Season of Arrivals
The Pyramid Fleet arrives in Sol and take up residence around Io, Titan, Mars and Mercury.
DLC Beyond Light
We travel to Europa, the old warden of the Prison of Elders is calling for help, Variks the Loyal, he asks you to help his people escape a new threat, a Kell chosen by the Pyramid Ships, Eramis.
During this we encounter the Exo Stranger, who we come to find out is actually Elsie Bray, sister of Ana Bray, not that Ana knows it, she tells us that we must make a choice, claim the power gifted to Eramis and fight dark with dark.
She makes a compelling argument, apparently she has been like a Vex in her actions, jumping timelines trying to find one where the Darkness doesn't win, through these experiences she had lost her sister to Darkness countless times, had to kill her sister countless times, experienced loss beyond any we could imagine.
So we do, we claim Stasis, fight Eramis' House and freeze her.
Season of the Chosen
Empress Caiatl has arrived in the Sol System, daughter of Calus, we fight her and her forces as Humanity refuses to kneel, and become a vassal to the Cabal Empire against the Darkness, we prove our worth and enter a partnership of equals.
Season of the Splicer
We must battle the Vex who are trying to take earth, yet we have unlikely allies, the Splicers join us against the Vex under the leadership of Mithrax, due to this the new House of Light is welcomed to live within the Last City.
Season of the Lost
We come to discover the Witch Queen, Savathûn, has been using Osiris as a disguise to spy on the Last City, Mara Sov uses this to trick Savathûn and eventually she is killed.
Raid 8 Deep Stone Crypt
We must venture beneath Europa to defend the Deep Stone Crypt, a golden age facility that birthed the Exo race, the threat is a Fallen named Taniks, don't ask, he's a meme now.
DLC The Witch Queen
We come to discover the Witch Queen survived, we however do not know how, and come to find her ship is sitting above Mars, which has returned to us.
We venture into her Throne world and discover it is brimming with light, there is vegetation and beautiful architecture, then, we see something disturbing, we kill a Hive that is wielding the Light, as we kill it we see a ghost resurrect this Hive Guardian, and in a fit of desperation we do something we never have before, we reach out and crush a ghost.
As we continue to investigate Savathûn's Throne world we are called by someone named Fynch, who we discover is a Hive Ghost, who is having doubts about helping the Hive.
With his help we use Darkness to recall lost memories, which can be used to create weapons, platforms, reveal forgotten paths and recall the past.
As we do we discover that Savathûn did indeed die, she laid outside the Last City, reminiscing with the Traveler until she drew her last breath, later a ghost found her and raised her, its name is Immaru, and was the first ghost, he never took a Guardian, as he disliked humanity, but found the God of Lies and Schemes a suitable partner.
The Witch Queen never stole the Light, the Traveler gifted it to her, by doing this it robbed her of her memories, however, through our actions she regained them, and enacted her plan to steal away the Traveler and seal it in her Throne world, safely away from the being known as the Witness, the power behind the collapse.
We reveal a further truth hidden from her by the Witness, it had orchestrated the creation of the Hive, corrupted her species into falling to Darkness.
Oh yes, so, the Hive were originally a species known as the Krill, they lived on a world known as Fundament, a massive planet that has immense gaseous oceans on which floated islands of Osmium.
The three sisters, Aurash, Sathona and Xi Ro, lived a good life on Fundament, being the heirs to the Osmium throne, however the familiar of their father, a dead worm that washed ashore from the depths of Fundament, began to whisper to Sathona, telling of a God Wave, an event that would kill her people, it also told her of a power to prevent this.
So the three sisters ventured into the depths of Fundament, they sought a way to prevent the coming calamity and came across a being only referred to as a Leviathan, it warned the sisters to turn back, that it m guarded them against an evil deep within the world.
"—What power calls you++
++Down to the deep?—
++What instinct draws you—
—Away from high hope?++
—Quick-breeding krill people, I tell you++
++For eons I have watched your struggle—
—Clinging to the sharp edge of survival++
++Balanced between the Deep and the Sky.—
++You were my treasure—
—My proof against despair++",
It was a disciple of the Traveler, and aided it in imprisoning the six Worm Gods in the planet's core. The Krill revered it, though they considered it mythical, and would swear oaths upon it.
The sisters rejected its pleas because it offered no way to end their species' suffering and avert the Syzygy.
Later, after the sisters had made a pact with the Worms, becoming the Hive and ravaging Fundament, the Leviathan tried to escape the planet's surface and take shelter with the Ammonites of Fundament's moons.
The Ammonites sent their best forces to protect the Leviathan, whom they revered almost as much as the Traveler, but the Hive saw this as an opportunity.
In one fell swoop, the Hive slew the Leviathan and destroyed the Ammonite civilization, forcing the Traveler to flee for its safety. The Leviathan's corpse was fed to the Worm Gods Eir and Yul.
This occurred billions of years ago.
Raid 9 Vow of the Disciple
We must enter the Pyramid ship Savathûn imprisoned within her Ascendant Realm, as it has begun to stir due to the actions of the Scorn.
We use Scorn technology to pry open the ship and venture deeper.
Upon entering a giant room with six pillars we are surrounded by what look like trophies, a sphinx statue, pieces of worm directed and preserved, and the rib of Fundament's Leviathan.
We discover that the only way to progress is to figure out a combination lock, and enter it while defending the locks from the Scorn.
After opening this door we come to the Caretaker, a massive Scorn abomination that has been tasked with looking after the contents of the Pyramid, and most likely the one who made the displays.
After figuring out the locks to over the stairs to each floor and fighting the Caretaker we must parkour through the ever changing ship to get to the next section which is just another lock.
After this we come to the boss, Rhulk, First Disciple of the Witness.
Rhulk is the first of the Disciples, extraordinarily powerful paracausal entities who collectively follow the Witness and do its bidding.
Hailing from the planet Lubrae, he played a prominent role in the creation of the Hive by conscripting the Worms into servitude to the Witness and then facilitating the production of Worm larvae in Savathûn's Throne World, all while keeping tabs on the Witch Queen herself from his own Pyramid.
Turns out Savathûn imprisoned him on his own ship.
After Savathûn's rebirth in the Light, Rhulk was imprisoned within his own Pyramid by a curse of Light placed by the Witch Queen. However, he retaliated by bringing the Scorn into her throne world and subsequently taking command of them.
Rhulk was born to his father Rhelik and mother Vrhuna on the planet Lubrae, a civilization that was blessed by the Traveler but fell into a military dictatorship after it left.
Rhulk lived with his clan of Wanderers in the Wildlands outside of the sole city on the planet, which was controlled by The Regime.
The Wanderer clans were subject to frequent dangers, including monstrous wildlife that emerged under the Umbral Sun at night and the Stalkers sent by the Regime to hunt and kill the Wanderers who rejected the city's ways.
When he was young, Rhulk witnessed his father kill Stalkers who threatened the clan with a brutality fueled by a bloodlust that Rhulk also felt. He confided in his father about their shared rage and was taught to hate the Regime by him, but when the rest of their clan began to shun Rhelik for his brutality he softened, much to Rhulk's disappointment.
His father attempted to teach him patience by making Rhulk watch as other Wanderers were killed by a hunting party of Stalkers and holding him back when Rhulk attempted to intervene. Rhulk was enraged and confused by his father's inaction and believed he was betraying his principles, and vowed to bring down the Regime.
Although the clan sought only to help others in need of assistance and to care for the land, the Stalkers continued to pursue them. During one battle several members of the clan were killed, including Fhent and one of Rhulk's clan-uncles.
Rhulk fought back against the Stalkers and killed several of them, claiming their supplies and equipment as his own, including a Glaive and Sapphiric Converter.
However, Rhelik was captured during the raid by the Stalkers and the rest of the clan, including Rhulk's mother Vrhuna, looked upon him with only concern and fear due to his brutality during the fight. Frustrated by what he perceived as their weakness, that night as the clan danced and sang in tribute to their survival and in honor of the dead, Rhulk ripped apart a pet Yhadt that belonged to some of the clan's children. The clan was horrified, and though Rhulk felt powerful in that moment he feared that made him a monster.
He was exiled from the clan.
He hunted the Stalkers with his new weapon and tools seeking any sign of his father in the hopes of rescuing him and bringing him back alive to the clan. He named his glaive Rheliksward in honor of his mission.
His search came to an end when he encountered Rhelik dressed in a Stalker's uniform and was captured by other Stalkers under his command. Infuriated at his father's defection to the Regime, Rhulk believed him to be a coward who sought only survival instead of sticking by his principles.
Rhulk was put on trial in the city for his alleged crimes against the Regime but was spared when Rhelik testified on his behalf and requested that he instead be made to serve as one of the city's Stalkers.
This only served to further infuriate Rhulk as he wondered if his father truly cared about their clan and family or if he was only an opportunist who would do or say anything he needed to in order to survive. He swore to himself that he would ensure that Rhelik would die by his hand.
However, despite his hatred for his father, Rhulk began to learn more about the city Lubreans and their philosophies. Although he found the government strict in its laws and with power concentrated in the hands of a few, the overcrowded city still had a higher standard of living and comfort than the Wanderers who faced terrible dangers aside from the Stalkers in the Wildlands.
He found that the Regime was also honest in its intentions, unlike his father, and his bloodlust was encouraged amongst the Stalkers.
They returned his glaive to Rhulk as well, which he renamed to Rheliksbane and took pleasure in how that unnerved his father.
With this new information, Rhulk began to reconsider the conflict between the Regime and Wanderers and realized that both sides' hands were stained with blood, not just the Regime's as his father had always taught him. Rhelik eventually confessed to Rhulk that he was not truly loyal to the Regime. Infuriated by his father's continued lies, the two fought, but Rhelik managed to escape from Rhulk and the City.
Pursuing his father, Rhulk tracked him to their clan's last refuge in the Wildlands. He found it abandoned but with numerous important personal items and other supplies left behind. Surmising that the clan had fled quickly after his father's return, Rhulk believed that they would seek shelter near the Abyss.
Rhulk found his former clan hiding near the Abyss, with Rhelik seemingly planning on smuggling the surviving Wanderers into the city through nearby tunnels.
Emerging from the forest to confront them, Rhulk noticed that many familiar faces were no longer amongst the clan, although his father, mother Vrhuna, and clan-mother Kheesa remained alive.
His father claimed that they had been expecting Rhulk to join them, and the Stalker was torn between killing them and helping them find a new home. Rhelik and Vrhuna both apologized for their wrongs against Rhulk and expressed their love for him.
Vrhuna apologized for exiling him, while Rhelik expressed his regret for indoctrinating him into hating the Regime and claimed that all he wanted now was for their clan to live in peace and safety.
Rhulk believed he could see the honesty in his eyes and thought that perhaps that was the path to follow, allowing his parents to embrace and comfort him. However, they took that opportunity to shove Rhulk backward into the Abyss. As he fell, Rhulk cursed his naiveté and looked at the faces of his clan, which no longer held regret but only relief at Rhulk's presumed end.
Rhulk survived his fall into the depths of the Abyss, although he was badly wounded by the drop. Surprised by his own survival and by the fact the supposedly endless Abyss had a bottom, Rhulk took in his surroundings and found himself in a swampy ruin filled with darkness.
He heard creatures approaching, but as they closed in on him Rhulk heard a voice declaring him unbroken. His wounds healed and he watched a being filled with dark luster approach, melting the encroaching beasts away with its very presence.
The being declared that it saw Rhulk's own dark luster and the Lubraean questioned what the being was and how it granted him life. The being declared itself an opportunity and told Rhulk that he was to be and cause ruin.
As the voice faded Rhulk saw its dark luster remain behind and noted how similar it was to that of the Umbral Sun.
Rheliksbane, which had been sundered in his fall, was repaired as well by the being and enhanced with its energy. Glancing upward, Rhulk saw the Abyssal Bridge that connected the city to the Wildlands and knew his clan had likely made its way into the city by then.
Taking with him the dark luster that remained, Rhulk used his glaive to begin climbing the walls of the Abyss back to the surface, determined that this time he would not show weakness and waver from his desires.
Upon reaching the city, Rhulk hunted down his clan and slaughtered them all, including his mother and father, whom he decapitated. He spared not even the children as the citizens of the city watched in horror of his butchery.
The forces of the Regime were horrified by the slaughter in the streets of the city and imprisoned Rhulk, stripping him of his glaive and calling for his execution.
However, the dark being assisted Rhulk once more in being freed of his chains and he recovered his glaive, now calling it Lubrae's Ruin, and set out to end his people entirely for their abandonment of him.
To do so, he utilized the gifts of the Traveler against his people by harnessing the dark luster to reverse the mechanisms of a machine that drew energy from the Sapphiric Sun to power the city.
Doing so destroyed the star and began cracking Lubrae apart. Rhulk was the last one alive, and as he stared into the Abyss he reflected in horror upon what he had done. Dropping the glaive and dark luster he had harnessed, Rhulk dropped himself into the now truly endless Abyss to finish the extinction of his species.
However, Rhulk once again did not perish by his fall into the Abyss. Instead, he awoke in a state of confusion as the dark being from before spoke to him.
"—-And what do you feel now? Devoid of family. Devoid of The Regime. Devoid of Lubrae. What do you feel here, in our embrace, now that they are gone and you are left? What do you feel, my child?—-"
"Relief."
Reborn as the First Disciple, Rhulk became the Witness' chosen enforcer and executioner, bringing destruction through fire and glaive and leading the Pyramids of the Black Fleet to wipe out the civilizations uplifted by the Traveler.
Season of the Haunted
The ship, the Leviathan, reappears over the moon, now abandoned and derelict, yet swarming with Scorn, loyalists and nightmares.
You, Caiatl, Zavala and Crow must face your pasts to overcome the schemes of Calus.
Season of Plunder
You along with Mithrax, Spider and the Drifter must set out against Fallen Pirate crews to reclaim ancient relics of power before the newly revived Eramis can claim them, there are 8 in total, turns out these are the body parts of Nezarec, a slain Disciple of the Witness.
Season of the Seraph
Eramis, having failed to take the pieces of the Disciple, now must aide Xivu Arath, the Hive God of War in her schemes, and we must rebuild Rasputin using submind fragments, during this we also save the AI of Clovis Bray, creator of the Exos, Rasputin and family of Ana and Elsie Bray, he's a sociopathic egomaniac who thinks he can become a God by using Rasputin to control everything.
We delete him, but not before he sends a signal to his giant robo head on Europa, we activate Rasputin and come to the conclusion that fighting Xivu Arath is exactly what she wants, she's a God of War after all, so Rasputin deletes himself.
In this moment the Traveler makes a move, as Xivu and Eramis' plan was to use Rasputin to destroy the Traveler, so they had assumed it would flee, proving to Eramis that Humanity wasn't chosen, unfortunately for her it stays, but it positions itself to protect earth.
DLC Lightfall
The Witness attacks the Traveler, begins to take it and the Traveler fights back, destroying the Witnesses flagship, causing a massive tree of silver wings to sprout from it.
As this happens the Witness tells Calus, the newest Disciple of the Witness, to find the Veil...
I'm done actually recapping Destiny lore and story, so much typing, now to answer the other questions.
Yes, it was worth it for Bungie to leave Microsoft and create new games, Destiny in many respects surpasses Halo story wise, and has created a gaming model no other game can emulate.
I started typing this at 9pm, it's now 4 am...
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