The history of Destiny, part 2 - story recap of the first game
The first Destiny wasn’t really straightforward when it came to its plot, so we’re here to help you out. In this 2-part article we will explain the backstory of the world of Destiny.
This is the second part of our article about the history of the world of Destiny. If you’re interested in learning more what happened in the world before the games, make sure to take a look at this feature.
Earth
After a quick overview of the Cosmodrome and our first few skirmishes against the Fallen, our main objective is to acquire a ship with a warp drive, enabling us to travel across long distances in space. The equipment that we need can be found in abandoned buildings in Old Russia… except the Fallen never abandoned them. Eventually, we stumble upon a battered but working junk of a spaceship and reach the Last City on Earth, where, in the Tower, the Guardians have their base of operations. The Speaker informs us that the Darkness is once again preparing to attack, and every Guardian is needed to keep the threat at bay until the Traveler is ready to move again.
By the order of the Speaker, we scout the Skywatch area – part of the Cosmodrome once designed for communicating with the colonies. The entire complex is overrun by the hordes of the Hive, who are currently building their foothold on Earth there. The Cosmodrome is also constantly raided by the Fallen, who are trying to gain control of the satellite defense system. Luckily, its protector – the Warmind Rasputin – is still active, preventing them from gaining the necessary information. We are the ones to gain the codes required to reactivate the old antennae, enabling them to reestablish connection with their counterparts throughout the rest of the Solar System. This in turn allows Rasputin to regain control over a significant part of the defensive system around the colonized planets.
Moon
Our next assignment is to learn the fate of a Guardian tasked with finding the entrance to Hellmouth – Hive’s fortress on the surface of the Moon. At the doorstep of the Temple of Crota, the place where the Guardians fought their first battle with enemy during the Great Disaster, we find a dead body and a shell of a Ghost. Salvaged information reveal the Hive’s plans to invade Earth. To this end, the enemy is amassing a large army on the Moon.
In the meantime, the Vanguards order a quick strike to destroy a critical target in the hierarchy of the Fallen’s House of Devil – the arch Fallen Servitor Sepiks Prime. Servitors – spherical machines – are objects of nearly godlike cult, due to their ability to extend the lives of the Fallen by producing Ether required for the procedure.
When analyzing the Hive’s invasion plan, we infiltrate a location inside the Hellmouth fortress known as World’s Grave, where our Ghost intercepts a large amount of crucial information. The next time we visit Hellmouth, we acquire the Sword of Crota and use it to defeat its three creators – the Swarm Princes. With their death the Sword turn to dust too, and we, following a trail suggested by Osiris, delve into the deepest areas of Hellmouth in search of the Shrine of Oryx – a place used by the Hive to communicate with their god. Having defeated several powerful enemies, including Sardok, called the Eye of Oryx, we can finally destroy the shrine, and the quick strike that eliminates the giant ogre Phogoth serves to delay the Hive invasion on the City even further.
Venus
Our actions are constantly monitored by a mysterious character – a female EXO robot known as Stranger, whose messages direct us to planet Venus. After a short skirmish with the Vex, we are finally able to meet her. She informs us that for the Traveler to begin his autorepair (or perhaps healing) process, we must locate the Black Garden and destroy its core – the Black Heart. The Black Garden turns out to be a separate dimension located in an unspecified time and place, and the Black Heart is revered and protected by the Vex like a god. According to Ikora Rey, the essence of the Black Heart is beyond any comprehension, and even the Vex were unable to find any logic in it. The one things that’s known, however, is that the Heart is an important part of what is known as the Darkness.
Finding the Black Garden isn’t simple, which is why we need to travel to the Reef, to meet with the queen of the Awoken – Mara Sov. She tells us of a Vex Gate Lord, Zydron, whose eye will be required to enter the Black Garden. The Gate Lord needs to be summoned, though, which means we have to head for the ruins of a research facility of the Ishtar Collective, where our Ghost gains information on the Vex, and the ability to confront Zydron. In the meantime, we stumble upon the Fallen of the House of Winter clan, who are searching for something on Venus and hinder the Vex’s efforts to terraform the planet by destroying Sekrion, the giant machine supervising Vex’s expansion on Venus. Eventually, we reach the Endless Steps on Venus, where we can battle the Gate Keeper Zydron. Having returned to the Reef, we learn from Mara Sov that the portal leading to the Black Garden is located on Mars.
Mars
During our stay on Mars we visit the ruins of the Freehold metropolis, battling both the forces of the Cabal and the Vex. Often we will also witness both races battling among themselves, as also the Cabal are looking for the entrance to the Black Garden. At the same time, they are trying to destroy one of Rasputin’s critical systems to break its hold on the Warsats orbiting Mars. Luckily, during one of the strikes we are able to defeat three powerful Psion Flayers and enable Rasputin to block access to the system.
Once we pave our way to the Black Garden and the Black Heart chamber, the first thing we notice are the three giant statues, revered by the Vex assembled around them, and the Heart itself – black sludge levitating inside a giant ring. The destruction of the Heart is a battle that requires us to defeat the three statues becoming alive one by one – the Sol Progeny. They are the beings summoned by the Heart and relating to the past, present, and future, and according to the Speaker, they were supposed to use the power locked inside the Vault of Glass to manipulate reality not only inside of it, but in the entire Vex-controlled system.
The destruction of the Black Heart ends the plot of Destiny. The Darkness has been pushed back for now, The Traveler begins to heal, the mysterious Exo Stranger remains a mystery, and all we have left to do now is to follow in the footsteps of Kabr into the Vault of Glass along with five other Guardians.
Vault of Glass
Vault of Glass is a long mission that will require completely different skills that what we’re used to rely on. Many stages can be completed only through close cooperation, good timing, and efficient communication between all six members of the team. Where the legendary expedition led by Kabr met an unconquerable obstacle, we will find the aforementioned Aegis shield, forged by Kabr himself, which will enable us to reach the raid’s boss, Atheon, and destroy him. It is unclear whether Atheon was the entity who created the Vault of Glass or an entity created by the Vault of Glass. He can control time and is the cornerstone of the Conflux network – structures scattered across time and space that enable the Vex to control reality. When battling Atheon we will be taken into both the past and the future, but a team remaining in the present will bring us back every time. The destruction of Atheon will prevent the Vex from gaining control of reality and manipulating time.
DLC 1 - The Dark Below
Eris Morn – the sole survivor of the infamous expedition to avenge the Guardians killed in the Great Disaster, which was to be achieved by assassinating prince Crota – has returned to the Last City. Eris survived many years in the tunnels of Hellmouth, losing her eyes, which she replaced with a triple-eye visor taken from her enemies, but gaining vast knowledge of the Hive and its hierarchy. Somehow, she managed to return to Earth, but her obsession with Crota has earned her rejection from the Vanguards. Only Ikora Rey trusted her enough to employ Eris as a secret operative. And when Eris returned to the City from her last assignment, she had some bad news. The Hive were planning a new invasion on Earth, and Omnigul, a powerful witch known as Will of Crota, is nowhere to be found in Hellmouth. Eris is worried that this time the Hive want to begin with destroying Rasputin, the only significant obstacle their invasion may encounter. Ikora ordered her to stay at the Tower while she searched for Guardians ready to help with an extremely dangerous mission.
That’s where we come into the fray, beginning with fierce battles around the Cosmodrome. We manage to take down Sardon, Fist of Crota, but Omnigul is already on Earth, wreaking havoc. Eris confirms her suspicion that the witch’s goal is the destruction of Rasputin, which is why she becomes our new main target. Somehow, Omnigul manages to get inside Rasputin’s bunker before we finally catch up to her, and that’s where our battle with the Hive forces takes place. Rasputin is safe for now, but the witch escapes. The threat of the invasion is still there though, as Hive’s main weapon is Crota himself. Eris’s plan switches focus to preventing Crota’s body from uniting with his soul. We return to the Moon, to the Temple of Crota to stop the ritual and land right on top of the ceremony. After we kill the mages, known as the Wakers of Crota, we will also have to destroy the giant crystal that contains the Soul of Crota. The soul itself wasn’t destroyed by our action, only sent to a place known as the Oversoul Throne. This mysterious realm, or perhaps a chamber, is the place where Hive’s most powerful warriors can separate their bodies from their souls, effectively becoming immortal. Eris decides to ignore Crota for the time being and focus all her efforts on finishing off Omnigul. During a specifically designed strike, we reach the Skywatch area in the Cosmodrome, where we dispose of a whole new Hive army, and eventually the witch herself.
In the meantime, there’s trouble stirring on Venus that needs to be dealt with – the Vex are trying to resurrect the Black Heart and seal the Black Garden using the powerful machine known as Undying Mind. Luckily, we and two other Guardians are able to end this threat in time.
Crota’s End
The last thing that awaits us is to take care of Crota and his soul. A new six-guardian raid ventures into the deepest tunnels of Hellmouth, to eventually reach the Oversoul Throne chamber and use the Hive’s own weapon – a giant sword – against Crota himself. Killing the son of Hive’s god – Oryx – is to have dire consequences in the future.
DLC 2 - House of Wolves
The plot of the House of Wolves expansion is a separate story arc, located on the sidelines of the battle between the Darkness and the Traveler, and we need to go back a number of years to understand it. The House of Wolves’ main area of activity at the beginning of the Dark Age was Jupiter. The Wolves wanted to join the other Houses in the Battle of Dark Pass, but they were intercepted by the Awoken army near The Reef. This sparked the long-lasting conflict known as Reef Wars, between the Awoken and the Fallen led by the charismatic Skolas. The war ended with the betrayal of one of the Fallen – Variks – of the House of Judgement, who sold out Skolas and handed him over to the queen. Mara Sov initially placed him in the Prison of Elders, but soon he was offered as proof of good will to the Nine/Jovians – a mysterious group living beyond the Reef. The Jovians, however, betrayed the Awoken and released Skolas, who managed to reunite the Fallen clans under the banner of House of Wolves and launched a campaign against the Reef and its queen. Rumor has it that he’s also planning an assault on the Last City. In response, Mara Sov opened the Reef to all Guardians, creating a center of operations similar to the Tower in the Last City.
Nine – IX
Somewhere beyond the Reef, the moons of Jupiter are located. The area used to be colonized by humans, but ever since the Collapse, their fate remains unknown. The only sure thing is that a group known as Nine, or IX, exists and controls the area right now. The only tangible trace of their existence, though, is agent Xur, who regularly visits the Last City on Earth to spend a few days selling powerful exotic weapons and armor, which he describes as “junk”. The legends surrounding the Nine suggest that they may be either the descendants of the colonists who formed a pact with alien races to survive, an alien species from the Corona Borealis constellation, or a group of the first, uniquely mutated Awoken. The Nine’s (or Jovians’, as they are also known) loyalties may not lie with humans and the Awoken, as suggested by the events of the House of Wolves expansion.
Prison of Elders is a horde mode in Destiny. We repel enemy waves on a very limited area, and eventually face a powerful boss or a series of several stronger enemies from every hostile race. Skolas is the mode’s hardest challenge, and requires completely different tactics and employing varied gameplay mechanics – just like during raids.
This is where our hunt for Skolas and his army begins, leading through a number of familiar locations. Various skirmisheses will have us battle other groups of Fallen as well – House of Devils and Silent Fang. As it turns out,, Skolas’ goal is the Vault of Glass and the Vex technology of time manipulation, which he plans to use to unite the Fallen under his banner. We find Skolas in the Vex Citadel, where he is defeated and once again handed over to the queen to be put into the Prison of Elders. This time, however, his fate is sealed by a honorable execution in the arena performed by a team of three Guardians.
DLC 3 - The Taken King
The plot of The Taken King is directly connected to The Dark Below expansion. The death of Crota turned out to be a source of much bigger trouble. Crota’s father – Oryx – the almighty god of the Hive has heard of his son’s fate and decided to visit the Solar System aboard his flagship fortress-vessel, the Dreadnaught, to exact revenge. The Reef was his first stop on the way to Earth, which is why Eris Morn has convinced queen Mara to launch a preemptive assault on Oryx’ forces and catch them unprepared.
The Battle of Saturn
The rings of Saturn became a giant battlefield where the Awoken fleet engaged the Hive. The battle was quite balanced when it came to small craft skirmishes, and the enemy quickly found themselves taking heavy losses. Larger vessels were attacked using the Harbinger missiles, but the weapon was unable to damage the Dreadnaught. Then, a powerful counterattack came from Oryx’ fortress – a giant shockwave instantly wiped out everything – Hive and Awoken vessels alike. Also queen Mara and her brother Uldren were caught up in it, and their fate remains unknown to this day. The battle may have been lost, but its main objective was achieved – weakened Oryx forces had to hold their advance and stop near Saturn. Petra Venji rules the Awoken during the queen’s absence.
The Taken War
Oryx launched his first assault on the Cabal-ruled Phobos. Their distress signal was intercepted by the Vanguards, and that’s where we come into play. We are sent to the Mars’ moon during the final phase of the evacuation of the Cabal forces, slaughtered by a new enemy – the Taken army. It comprises soldiers of the Hive and other races, all enslaved and commanded by Oryx. Just like the remnants of Cabal, we escape Phobos in the nick of time. In the meantime, the Taken inflict heavy losses on the Cabal legions on Mars and land on other planets of the Solar System. The Taken War has begun for good.
New Powers
The Taken army turns out to be much more dangerous than our other enemies. To face them, the Vanguard sends us on a mission to recover some of the long lost powers of our ancestors. This allows all Guardian classes to gain a new sub-class and special power. Titans can now use a flaming hammer as Sunbreakers, Warlocks gain electric rays as Stormcallers, and Hunters can now wield an energy bow as Nightstalkers.
Dreadnaught
Getting to Oryx’s fortress on the Dreadnaught isn’t easy, and to be able to make it undetected, we’ll first have to travel to the Cosmodrome and find the Stealth mechanics, which Cayde-6 stole from Rasputin some time ago and hid somewhere in Old Russia. Once there, we discover that the Taken are already on Earth, battling the Fallen of the House of Devils. Eventually, using Eris’ ship equipped with a stealth drive, we get aboard the Dreadnaught. Turns out the Cabal had a similar idea, only their execution was a bit different. Cabal legion Skyburners was ordered to assassinate Oryx, and they began with ramming their flagship into the Dreadnaught, establishing a bridgehead for the assault. Their attack breaks down when their leader, Primus Ta’aun is enslaved and joins the Taken. We use this opportunity to steal Cabal data on Oryx from their ship. Having defeated Echo of Oryx, we learn from Eris that to go through the Rapture portal to the kingdom of Oryx, we must become Ascendant.
Return to the Moon
There are few Ascendants even among the Hive, which is why we need to return to the Moon to collect Crota’s essence. To do so, we must steal a shard of the crystal that contained his soul, first defeating Baxx – the Gravekeeper. The essence itself is not an easy picking either. We will find it in the familiar, final room of the Crota’s End raid. Turns out Crota’s funeral is underway; fortunately we are invisible when we stumble upon it – thanks to the technology gained from Rasputin. This makes stealing the essence pretty easy, unlike escaping with it – without our camouflage, we barely manage to get away.
Like Father, Like Son
Armed with Crota’s essence, we can now go through the Rapture portal to the Dreadnaught and face Oryx, but only after we deal with two new masters of the Taken army – Ta’aun and Baxx. The battle with Oryx results only in sending his soul to the Ascendant Realm, as, just like with Crota, we’ve defeated only Oryx’ physical body. Left after the battle is Oryx’ personal sword – the Willbreaker – and Eris collects its core to build a powerful weapon for us to use. Killing Oryx will require much more effort and a team of six Guardians.
King’s Fall
Armed with the best available weapons, sufficient Light levels and assisted by five other players, we embark on our next Destiny raid to take care of Oryx. As usual, we will have to display good spacial orientation, jump a bit, and traverse a labyrinth. Attempting to stop us will be: the mighty Hive knight – Warpriest, the giant Ogre – Golgoroth, and Oryx’ twin daughters – the witches Ir Halak and Ir Anuk. Once all of them hit the ground, we will have to face the long, difficult battle with the god of the Hive. If we complete a side mission for Eris during the raid, we will acquire a unique Hive weapon – Touch of Malice.
Not just Oryx
The events of The Taken King include a lot of sidestories that relate to earlier events. In addition to eliminating key figures of the Taken army during assault missions, we will be stopping a Cabal attack on the core of the Dreadnaught, saving the entire system from certain doom. On Venus, we will be revisiting the vicinity of Vault of Glass, which became Oryx’ interest, only to discover the fate of Praedyth – the legendary Guardian who accompanied Kabr in his first expedition to the Vault of Glass, and was lost in time and space. On Mars, in turn, we will be facing the reviving might of the House of Wolves.
Rise of Iron
The plot of Rise of Iron refers to the history behind the inventing of the SIVA technology during the Golden Age, the demise of the Iron Lords, and the character of Saladin.
One year after the war with Oryx, the Tower begins to receive reports of Guardians whose armor was “infected” with tech mites. The infection shows as a cloud of colored, glowing particles around a Guardian’s helmet. The Guardians themselves, however, are quite fond of this strange “disease”, and avoid quarantine claiming that the effects of the “infection” are nothing but positive. The researchers of The Owl Sector organization have traced the source of the infection back to a facility belonging to the Clovis Bray Corporation on Mars; what’s more, the lab that was its main source was full of traces of the Fallen activity. Luckily, the documentation secured on site revealed the way to cure the “disease”. The crisis seemed to be over.
The events related to the “disease” and the activities of The Owl Sector are never revealed to us during the Rise of Iron expansion, but the developers have taken care of every detail, giving Destiny’s lore hunters something to work on. Around a week before the expansion’s release, your character could actually catch the rumored cloud of colored particles, giving you a 37.48% bonus to gained experience points. The infection could be caught by coming into contact with other players online, e.g. by killing an infected enemy or picking up their Orbs. The mysterious disease vanished as soon as the expansion was released.
The Fallen of the House of Devils were obsessed with gathering all available Golden Age-era technology, and they were the ones to discover the tech mites on Mars, which in turn led them to the Clovis Bray facilities in the Cosmodrome and the chamber that contained SIVA, sealed shut ever since the demise of the Iron Lords in the quarantined area of Plaguelands. SIVA was discovered by the Fallen Special Forces, the Splicers – soldiers enhanced by cybernetic implants. The Fallen have noticed the power SIVA possesses, thanks to which they could become nigh unstoppable gods. Knowing SIVA’s power, Lord Saladin quickly understood the threat they posed and called the ranks of Guardians to help. That’s where we, the players, come in.
We begin by interrupting the Fallen invasion on Felwinter Peak, where we discover Sepiks, a servitor we destroyed early on in our adventure with Destiny, now resurrected by the power of SIVA. As we chase after it, we return to the Cosmodrome, where we can assess SIVA’s rate of expansion. That’s where we discover Splicers destroying Hive nests and using them to experiment with SIVA. Then we enter the previously unavailable area of Plaguelands, where the Site-6 facility and the SIVA replication chamber are located.
The Fallen invasion on a desolate location that is Felwinter Peak may seem illogical, but it all stems from SIVA. It’s a technology that follows a command until it is reprogrammed to do something else. The last order SIVA remembered was Rasputin’s command to destroy the Iron Lords, which is why SIVA-infected Fallen have assaulted their stronghold. The fact that they could only blindly follow the commands remembered by SIVA was a signal to Saladin that the Fallen are still unable to control SIVA, much less effectively use it.
In the meantime, Lord Saladin reopens the Iron Temple of the Iron Lords on Felwinter Peak, making it a base of operations for the Guardians. Having returned from the Plaguelands, we learn the history of SIVA and the demise of Iron Lords. Our next task is to search the old Clovis Bray labs on Mars to confirm the existence of weak points in SIVA’s early prototypes. The analysis of collected date sends us right into the lion’s den – the SIVA replication chamber at Site-6.
Once there, we discover a horde of Splicers and SIVA, along with a morbid view – the hanging bodies of the Iron Lords Felwinter, Ghaleon, and Lady Jolder. At their feet lies the giant axe belonging to the Iron Lords – the Iron Axe. Picking it up will begin the final battle. Felwinter’s corpse will be transformed by SIVA in to a giant monstrosity – Remnant of Felwinter, which immediately attacks us. Defeating him won’t end the battle, as the next moment the bodies of Jolder and Gheleon transform as well, forcing us to deal with two similar beasts at the same time! Luckily, the Iron Axe proves to be more than a match for them. Having cleared the area of enemies, all we have to do is to initiate the chamber’s self-destruct sequence and escape.
As we visit Saladin on Felwinter Peak, we give him the helmet of Lady Jolder, which we found earlier. Touched by the gesture, Saladin offers us one of the swords, which he uses to name us the Iron Lord of the next generation.
Wrath of the Machine
SIVA was destroyed (at least for now), and all we have left to do now is to clear the Plaguelands of the remaining Splicer forces. This will be achieved during Destiny’s final raid – Wrath of the Machine. Our task will be to face two smaller bosses, and eventually Aksis – the leader of the Splicers of House of Devils – this time in a much more futuristic and technology-focused setting.
Destiny 2
The sequel to Destiny is somehow related to the plot of The Taken King expansion. The distress signal from Phobos sent by the Cabal legion Skyburners when facing the threat of Oryx and his Taken army has reached the leader of the Cabal – imperator Dominus Ghaul and Red Legion army. Knowing the Oryx has fallen, his new goal becomes the Traveler and the power of Light, which Ghaul wants for himself. His fleet launches an invasion on the Last City and attacks the Traveler...
