Destiny 2 - The Story So Far - Part 2

Destiny 2’s first two years introduce an incredible amount of new characters and concepts, more so than even the first game, which we’ll see fully develop over the next five years. 

The Red War was a gargantuan war fought between the Cabal’s Red Legion and the Guardians. Utilising the powers of the cabal Psions — soldiers with psychic abilities — they nullify the outer defences of The Tower and directly assault the Guardian’s HQ. Upon taking the fight to Dominus Ghaul’s ship (the commander of the Red Legion), we find out his plan: he places a light-suppressing cage around The Traveller, severing our connection and gives him time to figure out a way to steal the light for himself. During this, Ghaul also kidnapped The Speaker. After barely surviving our encounter with Ghaul, we claw our way out of the city, barely avoiding Cabal execution squads, and follow an eagle which seems to be leading us somewhere. After falling unconscious, we are awoken and rescued by Suraya Hawthorne, a human survivor from outside of the city, who took us to The Farm, a new beginning. After seeing visions, we go deep into a nearby forest, which is heavily corrupted, and find a shard of The Traveller, which imparts to us some of our lost abilities.

After recovering our lost light, we began our search for the missing members of the Vanguard while planning our revenge. This takes us to Titan, where we find Commander Zavala alongside Deputy Commander Sloane. Upon Titan, we find out that the Cabal has “The Almighty”, a superweapon designed for annihilating entire solar systems. After this, we take ourselves towards Nessus to find Cayde-6. We find him trapped in a teleport loop, in a Vex teleporter. Upon rescuing him, he tells us Ikora would likely be on Io. When we find her, she is in incredibly low spirits; due to her loss of Light, she feels it is worthless to try and fight back. Despite this, we convince her to at least try, and we find out that Ghaul is mining for energy from the fallen Shard of The Traveller on Io. At the Cabal base, it’s oddly empty until we are suddenly attacked by The Taken… After preventing their attack, Ikora accurately predicts that they are under the control of a new threat, considering the death of Oryx.

We find out there is no way to outright destroy The Almighty without destroying the sun in the process, which would be less than helpful, yet we do find a method of disabling it. After stealing the ship of a high-ranking Cabal, we fly to The Almighty and shut it down. After this, all that’s left is to take back the tower and kill Ghaul for good. After fighting through the city and infiltrating Ghaul’s ship, with the assistance of the vanguard, we take the fight to Ghaul for a second time. He manages to steal a portion of The Traveller’s power and use it for himself, yet is still defeated. After his death, however, he revives in a giant, ethereal form and speaks to The Traveller directly; this rouses it from its incredibly long slumber and, upon awakening, releases a huge burst of light, which annihilates Ghaul and returns the light to all Guardians. During these events, The Speaker was murdered after helping Ghaul, leading the leadership of The Tower to the Vanguard.

After the defeat of Ghaul, the exiled Emperor Calus of the Cabal returns, yet he bears an offer for the Guardians: to join him in his goal, being the final beings left in the universe and learning more of the universal truth and the battle between Light and Darkness.

Curse of Osiris

After the Red War, they receive a distress call from Brother Vance, a follower of Osiris — a warlock and Ikora Rey’s master. Upon arriving at Mercury, we find Osiris’ ghost, Sagira, injured and requires reviving. After helping Sagira, she leads us into the Infinite Forest, a simulation of a multitude of timelines, including a dark future, which we bear witness to and realise that it’s already in motion. We head to a Vex structure on Io, the Pyramidion, to find a map of the Infinite Forest in an attempt to track down and defeat Panoptes, the leader of this Vex incursion, allowing us to rescue Osiris from the depths of the Forest. After some attempts to navigate the forest, we found and engaged with Panoptes. After the Guardian is incapacitated and nearly killed, Osiris appears and saves us, allowing us to deal the final blow, shutting down the Vex’s plan and saving Osiris in the process.

Warmind

We later received a distress call from Ana Bray, a descendant of Clovis Bray, a lead researcher on SIVA, the warmind Rasputin, and Exo’s robotic bodies for human consciousness. Warminds were an array of supercomputers used before The Collapse as a defence system. Ana Bray was investigating the area surrounding the Futurescape on Mars, where Rasputin was kept, and found an ancient army of Hive, frozen below ground, alongside Xol and Nokris, a Worm God and an exiled Hive God, respectively. We spend most of our time on Mars fighting against the Hive while Ana tries to discover her past and help Rasputin. We find out that Nokris was another son of Oryx, yet was exiled due to his interest in Necromancy, a taboo subject in Hive sorcery due to its direct contradiction of the Sword Logic. The Guardian manages to destroy both Xol and Nokris, protecting Mars and Rasputin, who pledges to help defend humanity once more.

Uldren Sov, the brother of the deceased Mara Sov, is driven mad by the influence of the searches for Mara, whom he believes is still alive. This takes him to the Prison of Elders, where he employs the help of Scorn — a group of Fallen brought back to life with tainted energy — to create a massive prison break. Cayde-6, Petra Venj (the leader of the Queen’s Wrath, a strong military force in The Reef), and the Guardian are sent to investigate and cull the prison break. During this, we have our first direct encounters with the Scorn, and Cayde-6 battles with them head-on. Despite his strength, the scorn employs technology which allows them to kill Cayde’s ghost and his eventual death at the hands of Uldren. We spend the foreseeable future hunting down the Scorn Barons on The Tangled Shore, with the help of The Spider — a Fallen leader with a similar goal — and after defeating them one by one, we eventually find Uldren’s trail, leading into The Dreaming City. The Dreaming City is a sacred location for the Awoken, created by Mara Sov and her Techeuns (Awoken witches). Uldren has unknowingly removed all the protective seals within the city, which gives the taken full access. This is due to the fact that this whole time he’s been manipulated by Riven, the last remaining Ahamkara. Ahamkara was a race of ancient dragons with the power to grant any wishes, good or bad. Due to their incredible power, they were all hunted to extinction (or so we thought) decades prior. Riven has also been Taken, increasing her power and she is now under the control of a mysterious benefactor. After defeating an incredibly strong Taken Chimera which was summoned by Uldren, we kill him and finally take our revenge for Cayde-6.

Petra Venj then put together a team to kill Riven and cleanse her heart of all Taken essence. Despite killing her, it was all a trick; the Guardians accidentally made a wish in their heads, which Ahamkara can still accept, and in a similar way to a monkey’s paw, Riven twists this wish and curses the city. There was a mass influx of Taken, Hive, and Scorn at this time, and there is no concrete way to break the curse for good despite everyone’s efforts. During this time, we also find out that Mara is still alive, as she has her own Throne World and lives there, as only her physical form was killed by Oryx.

Season of the Forge

Sometime after the death of Riven, we found details regarding “The Black Armory”, an ancient weapon foundry. We spend time helping out Ada-1, the last remaining member, and reclaiming the ancient forges from the Fallen.

Season of the Drifter

This season primarily followed the Drifter, a character with mysterious ties to both the Taken and The Nine — godlike beings about which we know little. The vanguard is relatively suspicious of his activity, so we are tasked with researching and figuring out what he is doing. In the end, however, while suspicious, his activities are beneficial to the Last City, and he is left to his own devices, under close watch.

Season of Opulence

A little later on, Emperor Calus returned with a proposition for the Guardians: to become a loyalist and join his Shadows. Calus’ Shadows were essentially a private army with one goal: kill anyone who would oppose the Emperor. Calus also wanted to control the Crown of Sorrow, an ancient artefact which he hoped to control to be able to control the Hive. Despite this, the Crown was a trick by Savathun, Oryx’s sister, and the God of Trickery, in the hopes of being able to control Calus herself, yet we managed to foil her plans.