Destiny 2 - The Story So Far

Destiny covered the first 3 years of content, before transitioning into Destiny 2, where the majority of the content and the story resides, yet it still set up and put into place many of the core concepts and ideas which are still being referred back to to this very day, and is an important base to the rest of the world, through its use of worldbuilding.

Destiny’s long and winding plot begins with the rebirth of your character. Being revived within the Russian Cosmodrome by a mysterious robot simply known as Ghost. Ghost gives you a brief explanation of your situation: you were chosen by “The Traveler”, a giant orb which appeared in the solar system years ago, leading to a technological Golden Age, yet after an as of now, unknown apocalyptic event — The Collapse — the solar system has fallen into near endless war and combat. You are a Guardian, essentially a space wizard, empowered by the Light and are initially tasked with finding a ship and escaping the cosmodrome to the safety of the Tower, the last human city. Upon hunting for this ship, however, you come into contact with the Fallen, or Eliksni in their own tongue. A race of space pirates who’ll fight, steal and kill anything and anyone who stands to oppose them. Upon finding yourself back at the tower, you are greeted by The Speaker, a man who speaks for The Traveler. You are also introduced to The Vanguard: Commander Zavala, Cayde-6 and Ikora Rey. These are the closest thing to leaders and are the heads of their respective classes: Titan, Hunter, and Warlock, respectively. After this, we are tasked with helping push back the minions of The Darkness, who live to oppose The Traveler. Upon exploring Earth, the Moon, Venus and Mars, we come across not only more of the Fallen but also Hive, Cabal, and Vex.

Fallen — The Fallen (Eliksni) are an alien race highly dependent on technology, who were once graced by the presence of The Traveler, but its departure sent a once proud race spiralling into piracy.

Hive — The Hive, once known as the Krill, are an ancient alien race who directly worships The Darkness. Utilising the powers of the Worm Gods, they are incredibly strong, while they also follow the “Sword Logic”. This principle leads to them killing anything that opposes them to feed the Worm’s, while also acquiring power through doing so. 

Cabal — The Cabal is a military race primarily focused on taking over as much of the universe as possible through technology and sheer military prowess.

Vex — The Vex are essentially a mass of radiolaria, micro-organisms which control mechanical frames. They are believed to be as old as the universe itself, possibly in part due to their abilities to manipulate time, and are primarily aiming to terraform as many planets as possible into machine worlds. The Vex are incredibly strong, yet they cannot comprehend paracausality — systems which exist outside of physical logic, such as the Light and the Darkness — leading to their struggling to achieve their goals.

Upon being approached by “The Stranger” while hunting down Hive on the moon, she warns us of a much bigger threat and pushes us to meet her on Venus. While there, she tells us of the Vex and The Black Garden, a realm which exists outside of space and time and is believed to be the birthplace of the Vex themselves. We find a pathway into the Garden on Mars thanks to the Awoken, a humanoid race birthed through the combined magic of the Light and the Dark, and upon entry, we fight through hoards of Vex, finally reaching the Black Heart — an object of worship for the Sol  Divisive, a darkness worshipping subsection of Vex, upon destroying the three leaders of the Sol Divisive and destroying the Black Heart.

With the Vex threat culled, we meet with Eris Morn, an expert on Hive rituals, and find out that the Hive is attempting to resurrect Crota, a Hive God, and tasks us with stopping the ritual. Unsuccessful, we end up having to fight and kill Crota himself before his power leads to the ruination of Earth. After this, our help is requested by Mara Sov, the Queen of the Awoken, to capture Skolas, the leader of a fallen House — the House of Wolves. He is captured and then killed in a trial by combat within the Prison of Elders, an Awoken prison, which earns us much more trust within the Awoken.

After a distress call, we head to one of Mars’ moons, Phobos, and discover a new enemy… The Taken, enemies from many races who are taken, empowered by Darkness and become the underlings of whoever transformed them. After escaping the overrun moon, we find out that the Taken are the subordinates of the Hive god Oryx, Crota’s father, who has entered our solar system. He directly opposes the Light, and after hearing of the murder of Crota, he personally travelled to our system to kill us himself. A large battalion of Awoken assault the Dreadnaught — Oryx’s ship — but are effortlessly wiped out, leading to the death of Mara Sov. After spending time infiltrating the Dreadnaught and finding a method to kill Oryx, we manage to break through and destroy his physical form, yet this isn’t quite enough. Strong enough followers of the Sword Logic are able to form a pocket dimension known as a Throne World, where they will remain even after death and are able to control their Throne World to their every whim. We manage to break through into Oryx’s Throne World and kill him within, ending the Taken King for good.

After the defeat of Oryx, Lord Saladin and his fireteam of Iron Lords — an early group of Guardians — head to the northern part of the Cosmodrome, yet are all slaughtered, aside from Saladin and Lady Efrideet. Saladin employs our help in avenging his fallen comrades, and we find out the cause — SIVA. SIVA is a mass of self-replicating nanobots, and upon the death of the Iron Lords, the House of Devils (another Fallen house) hear about what happened and utilise SIVA for themselves, transforming them into cyborgs. Upon hearing this, you’re tasked by Saladin to kill the “Devil Splicers” and shut down their SIVA operation. This involves you breaking deep into the heart of the Cosmodrome, returning to where the rest of the Iron Lords were killed, and after defeating the reanimated corpses of Saladin’s former comrades, you destroy the facility and escape, bringing in a new age of Iron Lords.