To the surprise of many, Destiny feels strangely uninterested in its own story. There’s a huge amount of lore hidden away in the Tower and Grimoire, but overall, the game doesn’t really spend a whole lot of time explaining things to you. By the end of it, there are way more mysteries than there are answers.
Luckily, Bungie has stated that the launch of Destiny “marks the beginning of an epic adventure that unfolds over time.” Hopefully that means that more story content, and some explanations, are incoming.
Until then, we’ll have to wait and wonder about…
1. Why did the Ghost choose you?
At the beginning of the game, we see your soon-to-be-Ghost searching for something. That something turns out to be you (it seems rather surprised to have found you though). Apparently Ghosts find dead people to turn into Guardians, although what criteria they use for selecting them is a mystery.
There must be something about your character that makes you special though, otherwise every corpse would be a Guardian, right?
2. Who is the Stranger?
Who is the mysterious Exo woman who’s been following you around? She’s been watching your Guardian since at least the Cosmodrome, and was the one who ultimately brought you to Venus.
We do have a few clues as to what she really is though. We know she’s not a Guardian, and she wasn’t “forged in light.” She’s also the commander of some unknown force, as she’s seen relaying orders on her communicator. Additionally, she’s the one who reveals the existence of the Black Garden to you, so she likely has some intimate knowledge of the Vex.
Overall though, her role in the grand scheme of things is never revealed, although the fact that she features into the last scene of the game’s story-mode seems to point towards future appearances.
3. What is the Darkness?
We know it’s been hunting the Traveler for some time, and that it’s somehow responsible for the Collapse, signaling the end of humanity’s Golden Age. But what is it exactly? A big orb like the Traveler? Some kind of ancient god-like being? Or maybe something more intangible, like a force of pure evil?
4. What happened to the Awoken?
During the collapse, many humans attempted to flee Earth. Almost all of them were killed, with the wrecks of their ships forming the Reef.
According to the in-game lore, something happened to these people on the edge of the deep Black, and they were “forever changed.” Their descendants became the Awoken, with many of them living on the Reef, serving Queen and her mysterious purposes.
So, what caused that transformation, and what does the leader of the Reef want?
5. How did the Queen of the Reef manage to control Fallen?
Speaking of the Queen of the Reef, why does she have Fallen body guards? Are they from a Fallen house that’s aligned themselves with the Reef? Or is she controlling them somehow?
On a related note, how do the Queen and her brother know so much about the Vex’s Black Garden, including how to get there?
6. Where (or when) is the Black Garden?
When you travel to the Black Garden, your Ghost mentions that you seem to have entered a new dimension. However, after destroying the Heart, you find yourself back on Mars.
To make matters even more confusing, your Ghost mentions that Gate Lords have something to do with protecting Vex interests outside of time (although this is as confusing to him as it is to us).
So what exactly is the Black Garden? A separate plane of existence? A parallel dimension? An alternate timeline?
Which brings us to…
7. What is with all of these time travel references?
Destiny‘s in-game lore is really obsessed with time travel for some reason. Like, really obsessed.
The most overt reference is likely the Zydron, Gate Lord’s Grimoire card. It reads:
Warlock scholars believe that Gate Lords regulate traffic between Vex gates, and that their minds contain codes that might open the way into forbidden realms. An enormous amount of hope and anger has been spent on a particular debate – could we find a Vex gate that opens onto a place and time before the Collapse, and somehow forestall it?
Well, that doesn’t leave much to the imagination.
Someone on Reddit also translated a few of Rasputin’s (the Warmind AI on Earth) lines from Russian. Here’s one:
If, as they say, the coming events cast their shadows ahead of time, then the past events cannot but leave their reflections behind them.
Last but not least, the Future War Cult seems really fixated on the idea of timelines for some reason. Here are a few of Lakshmi-2’s (their Tower rep) lines, via Reddit:
- What if there were a single timeline untouched by war, would you have any idea how to live in it?
- What if there were a better timeline somewhere? What have you done to earn it?
- A trillion timelines, and all at war. Like a thousand red flowers growing in a black garden.
- An infinity of timelines. If one timeline in a trillion knows peace, how could you ever hope to find it?
- Dead Orbit just misdiagnosed the problem. It’s not a matter of distance, but of time.
- And in each new world, a new birth of time. And as always the seas of war will be there too.
- Even the stores struggle! From the black holes of their bodies, new timelines are born. Born into strife.
Whatever Destiny is building towards, it almost certainly has something to do with time travel.
