The story of Destiny Part 2 – War never changes

And the story continues! Here’s part two of our retrospective of the Destiny story so far, as we cover The City Age that saw the arrival of Crota, the Vex and culminated in the cataclysmic Battle of Twilight Gap.

The Battle of Mare Imbrium

With the Faction Wars over and the Last City now a safe haven for the newly formed Guardians and various other refugees, a new danger arose. The Hive made their presence known, claiming the unprotected Moon of Earth for themselves and preparing for an onslaught of our planet. Led by Crota, the favoured son of the Hive’s God-King Oryx and the future heir to the Osmium Throne, the Hive carved tunnels throughout the satellite and cracked it in half with their might.

Sensing the danger of Crota and the Hive, the Vanguard organised a full-scale frontal assault on the God-Knight and his forces. The Battle of Mare Imbrium went down as one of the greatest failures of the Vanguard. Thousands of Guardians were slain, as Crota earned his title of “Eater of Hope” by personally slaying scores of Guardians and legends such as the Titan Wei Ning.

The Sword Logic of Crota and his Knights would go down in history as The Great Disaster, as the Vanguard forbid any travel to the Moon unless absolutely necessary. Wounded and in full retreat, the Vanguard gave up the Moon to stop the march of the Hive, as the invaders burrowed deeper and deeper below the surface to prepare their armies for the next assault.

The extinction hunts of the Ahamkara

When the Traveller first appeared on Earth, it revealed a new species on the planet that had escaped detection over the ages. Known as the Ahamkara, these dragons survived the collapse and used their abilities to grant new powers to Guardians eager to grow stronger. Such power usually came with a hefty price however, a bargain that the Vanguard decided was too high as they began the great Ahamkara Hunts.

Hunted to extinction, all that remains of the once mighty beasts are their remains that are worn by Warlocks.

The building of the Tower

Recovering from the battle of Mare Imbrium, the Guardians find themselves divided into three distinct groups: The Titans who defend the city and built the great wall around it, the solitary Hunters who explore life beyond the Last City as they shepherded refugees to safety and the Warlocks who were both warrior and scholar as they sought to understand the Light of the Traveller.

Realising that the Guardians needed a headquarters within which to meet and co-ordinate efforts, the Tower was built as a hub for these purposes.

The Vault of Glass

The ancient and enigmatic Vex had made their presence known within our timeline, as they invaded the formerly colonised planets of Mercury, Mars and Venus. Mercury was completely transformed into a new stronghold for the Vex, work began on Venus and the mysterious time travellers fought a stalemate against the Cabal who had also made their way from a solar system beyond ours.

On Venus, the Vex constructed the Vault of Glass in an effort to conquer all of space and time as they sought to unite their forces across the entire timestream. The Guardians Kabr, Praeydyth and Pahanin entered the Vault of Glass in an effort to understand their foes, but the forces within proved too great a threat.

The Guardians were erased from existence in excruciating ways: Praedyth starved to death in the labyrinth of the Vault of Glass, as even the memory of him was stripped from existence. Pahanin was also deleted from the fabric of space-time, leaving behind only a journal. The fate of Kabr however, was more ambiguous.

Thought to have been overwhelmed by the Gorgons in the Vault, Kabr managed to drink of the Radolarian Vex fluid that powers the race and used his own light to forge the Aegis. The only weapon capable of defeating the Vex Conflux in the core of the Vault, the last words of Kabr the Legionless were:

If I speak again, I am not Kabr.

The assault on Crota

Seeking vengeance for The Great Disaster and looking to tie up a loose end, a six-man fireteam of Guardians decided to infiltrate the Hive base on the Moon. Together with Eriana-3 and the disgraced Warlock Toland the Shattered, this team descended into the bowels of the Hive base. It wasn’t long before this team was soon annihilated by the Hive however, shortly after they killed Crota.

Death however, was merely a setback for the Hope-Eater as he merely sent his soul back to his Ascendant Realm, ready to be reborn in the near future in a new vessel. Eriana-3’s fireteam however, was stripped of their light and murdered in grisly ways as only Eris Morne survived, escaping many years later from the shadows. As for Toland? Only his journal survived him, but his death was never witnessed…

The Reef Wars

Humanity’s greatest conflict since the Collapse was fast approaching. The Fallen had united, hellbent on reclaiming the wounded Traveller for themselves, as their age of strife had resulted in the Eliksini forming a new cult of worship based on the machine gods that they believed in. While several Fallen houses gathered in the Cosmodrome, the House of Wolves made their way through space towards Earth.

And right into a surprise attack by Queen Mara Sov and her Awoken forces that destroyed the planet of Ceres, cut the forces of the Wolves in half and ended with the demise of their Kell Virixias. Their leader dead, the House of Wolves scattered across the asteroid belt and a great hunt began in a series of skirmishes that would be known as the Reef Wars.

The Battle of Twilight Gap

The single greatest battle ever waged by humanity after the Collapse had begun. With the Awoken having successfully halted the House of Wolves from joining the Kings,Winter, Devils and other smaller enclaves, the Last City now had a fighting chance. The House of Devils led the charge to reclaim the Traveller as Fallen Walkers matched firepower against the gun emplacements of the Last City.

Vanguard Commander Saladin organised the Guardians into an army of legends, while Lord Shaxx led a counterattack to repel Fallen forces further back in defiance of orders from Saladin. Despite staggering losses, the Guardians were successful in their efforts and had managed to deal a decisive blow to the Fallen that they would never ever fully recover from.

With hundreds of Guardians dead, weaponsmith Feizel Crux immortalised their remains by forging their armour into the mighty Gjallarhorn as a tribute to the fallen. Meanwhile, Shaxx saw that it was necessary to begin preparing the next generation of Guardians as he took over the Crucible and the Vanguard adopted a more proactive attitude to prevent any massive enemy assaults on the City ever again.

And so the Strikes were born, as the Vanguard directed Guardians to attack key targets.

Missed the first part of our retrospective? We’ve got you covered.

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

Last Updated: September 7, 2016