The story of Destiny Part 1 – The light in the darkness

After two years, Destiny has a story. And it’s bloody massive. For a game that was light on details in the narrative department when it first launched, Bungie has managed to craft an intricate tale that spans millennia and solar systems across the cosmos. And that’s kind of daunting. Fortunately, you’ve got me to spin a few yarns about the legends of Destiny.

So sit back, relax and read on through the first part of our story catch-up feature as we recap the beginnings of the Destiny legend, all the way up to founding of the Last City on Earth.

The Traveller

Nobody knows where the Traveller came from, but we do know that it is a hyper-ancient being who has helped the various civilisations of the universe flourish. A creature that travels the cosmos, it usually takes the form of a celestial sphere, made up of hypothetical materials such as Neutronium and Electroweak matter.

Long before it visited humanity, the Traveler was seeding other civilisations and guiding them for reasons unknown to all sentient life. It helped shape a race known as the Eliksini, but when it sensed the arrival of its age-old nemesis the Darkness (Not that Justin Hawkins fellow), it fled and left that culture to collapse in an event that was called “The Whirlwind”. The Eliksini were forced to leave their planet and scour the galaxy for survival as interstellar pirates, eventually becoming known as the Fallen.

The 21st Century

The Traveller eventually made its way to our solar system, settling on Mars and starting a terraforming process. Aware of the presence of the Traveller, humanity finally finds enough motivation to mount a mission to visit the red planet and the first encounter with the ancient being resulted in the Golden Age for our species.

Over the years to come, the Traveller shared its knowledge with humanity, greatly lengthening our lifespans and helping us to explore the rest of our solar system. New technological advances were made, artificial intelligence evolved to create the Exos and the great Warmind satellite defense network was constructed.

Humanity also made breakthroughs in the fields of matter encryption through engrams, began developing the SIVA nano-machine technology and terraformed more planets in our solar system. Lasting several centuries, this was Humanity’s greatest hour.

And then the Darkness arrived.

The Darkness and the Collapse

Whatever the Darkness is, it cannot be properly explained. Some would argue that it is a physical entity, others an unstoppable fleet of ships while others debated that the Darkness was a necessary concept to help balance the light spread by the Traveller in our reality. But whatever the Darkness truly is, one thing was known for certain: The Traveller feared it.

Whenever it encountered the Darkness, the Traveller would flee from it as it watched countless civilisations devoured by the threat and left ruined. This time however, the Traveller decided to fight back. With the Darkness in our solar system, the Traveller protected humanity, sacrificing itself to push back against the Darkness  in a battle that left the Guardian of humanity stripped of its senses and in a comatose state.

Known as the Collapse, the event claimed scores of lives and humanity itself was almost extinguished. A last-minute effort from the Traveller managed to create a shield that would protect the last city on Earth from its eternal nemesis, while also releasing scores of Ghosts that carried a small sliver of the Traveller’s light to go beyond and awaken new protectors to safeguard the remnants of humanity: The Guardians.

Much was lost during the Collapse, but a new race of humanity was also born during that cataclysm as refugees from that massive battle founds themselves reborn as the Awoken and went on to claim the asteroid belt near the planet of Saturn as their new domain.

After the Collapse

Look, humanity was pretty much buggered at this point. Our species was almost extinct, new threats were on the horizon and the Traveller was left comatose. The arrival of the Guardians wasn’t exactly a blessing at first. Essentially immortal dead soldiers, the first Guardians used their Light to create their own kingdoms in the ruins of the Golden Age, carving out new nations that they ruled with an iron fist.

The Rise of the Iron Lords

But this was where the first true Guardians came into play. Banding together, individuals from across the Awoken, Human and Exo races sought to stand for something greater than personal gain. Fighting back, these true Guardians became known as the Iron Lords of legend and their ranks increased by the hundreds. But out of all the Iron Lords, the first of the group became a legend of their own as they established the Guardians: Radegast, Jolder, Perun, Silimar, Felwinter, Saladin, Gheleon, Skorri, Timur, and Efrideet.

The Last City

With our outposts in the solar system presumed lost during the cataclysm and most of the remnants of humanity seeking survival elsewhere, it was time to reunite our species. Guardians would lead the search, gathering various refugees beneath the safe haven of the Traveller and beginning to establish a city along the way.

This was when Humanity first encountered the Fallen, who had finally tracked the God that they had worshipped in ages past to our planet. Desiring to reclaim the Traveller, the Fallen and the Guardians engaged each other in the Battle of Six Fronts. Led by the Iron Lords, the Guardians were successful in pushing back the Fallen.

The Fall of the Iron Lords

This was the battle that helped forge the Crucible, as Saladin and his pupil Shaxx foresaw that future Guardians would need to be prepared for any potential threats from beyond our solar system. This was also the age in which the legendary Iron Lords met their demise when they encountered a strain of SIVA that had run wild, the Ironbane that they fought off to their final breath. Of all the Iron Lords who perished, only Saladin survived and lived on to forge the Iron Banner within the Crucible as the ultimate test of strength for Guardians.

But the darkest hour of humanity had yet to pass, as more threats loomed ahead…

Last Updated: September 6, 2016