The World Of 'Destiny': Humanity, Guardians, And The Last City
Image Source: Bungie
Destiny as a franchise has been running for ten years, and while there has been some rocky news at Bungie and the wider gaming industry, it is a world with a rich lore full of amazing characters, intriguing concepts, and some beautiful locations. In the past several articles going over the world of Destiny, we’ve addressed many of these details. But the core concepts of just who players are, where they gather, and why, have been discussed only briefly. Today, we finally tackle what Humanity is in the far future of Destiny’s universe, what Guardians are, and what the Last City is.
Who Is Humanity?
This question is a little more difficult to answer in the universe of Destiny despite the continued survival of people on Earth and persistent remnants of the past across the solar system. Obviously, there are still Humans on Earth, but every few years, we learn more and more about other pockets of Humanity surviving out in the universe. There are the Neomuni, the inhabitants of the hidden city Neomuna, who might be considerably different in some ways we simply are unaware of, given the fact that all of their populace are in pods, projecting their minds into a digital landscape as they wait out the ongoing incursions of the Shadow Legion and the Vex.
RELATED:
Image Source: Bungie
There are also the Aionians, the latest enclave set to be discovered in The Edge of Fate, Destiny’s next major expansion. We don’t know much about this society, or what they look like under the helmets, masks, and robes that guard them from the environment of Kepler, but we can assume they look like everyday Humans if Lodi is anything to go off of.
It is important to add that the arrival of the Traveler extended the lifespans of the average Human thanks to the profusion of new technologies and medical breakthroughs, but also possibly an effect of the very presence of the Traveler and its Light bathing the Sol system. While we don’t see many elderly Humans in the world of Destiny, some of them may be closer to 200 years old than they are 100, or perhaps even older than that.
Image Source: Bungie
In addition to Humans who look and sound like everyday Humans in the modern day, there are the Exos. They have truly depressing lore associated with them, but to make a long story short, they are Human minds imprinted onto machine brains and placed inside artificial bodies. In possession of the Human body plan, Exos generally do not need things like food or water to survive, but instead eat and drink to mimic real-world actions in order to stay sane. Exos have some trouble with the last detail, and must sometimes be reset, erasing many previous memories to try and save their minds from total collapse. This is why many Exos have a number suffix that goes with their name, such as Cayde-6, and most unfortunately, Banshee-44, who has been repeatedly reset to the point of having constant memory issues, even if his continuing abilities as a gunsmith are peerless.
There are also a few unique Exos, such as Ada-1, created independently and with unique technology integrated into her frame that made her a target by nefarious forces for some time before she eventually revealed herself to the denizens of the Tower to ask for help during a time of crisis. There is also Elsie Bray, a reality-hopping Exo who was a big mystery in the Destiny universe until more recent events revealed her backstory. Despite their metal bodies, Exos are ultimately still Human beings and are part of Humanity. They remain centered on Earth, and are not among the Neomuni and probably not the Aionians either.
Image Source: Bungie
Lastly, there are the Awoken. Known for their pale blue skin, brightly hued eyes, and various hair colors, the Awoken were created when an independent colony ship fleeing during the Collapse was sucked into a singularity created by the clash of Light and Dark in the Sol system. When the survivors awoke, they were not dead, but instead transformed, and existed within a pocket dimension called the Distributary. Originally few in number, they gradually came to dominate the realm and entered into a civil war. Eventually, Mara Sov, the master manipulator of this conflict, rose to power and left with a large portion of her loyalists. When they reentered the Sol system, mere centuries had passed instead of the millennia that had passed while in the Distributary.
Upon entering the wider universe, some among Mara’s people split off and went to Earth, forming an enclave among the Humans and Exos that lived there. Mara did not want to abandon connection with them entirely, and occasionally sent envoys to interact with them. The remaining Awoken loyal to Mara built a kingdom out in the asteroid belt, which they called the Reef, colonizing many large asteroids we know today. They thrived for years until the Taken King, the Scorn, and other threats pushed them to forge closer ties with the Last City. The Awoken of Earth, meanwhile, essentially lived lives just like Humans, except with an ageless beauty and elusive mystery about their people. Despite these differences, the Awoken are still an offshoot of Humanity and have grown closer to the terrestrial brethren over the past few years.
Who Are The Guardians?
Image Source: Bungie
Guardians emerged late into what is called the Dark Age, a period of chaos and conflict after the Collapse. When the Traveler went dormant above Earth, it gave birth to the Ghosts, small mechanical beings that could infuse a chosen individual with the Light, resurrecting a body but without that individual having any memories of their past life. These resurrections can be from anything as simple as a corpse dead mere days, to fragments of ancient bone. Each Ghost knows who they are linked to in the universe and searches to find them, with some still searching to this day, centuries after they were first created.
Anyway, those Ghosts who quickly found their partners resurrected them. These figures became known as the Risen, and unfortunately, they were a nasty lot. Many were quite violent and cruel, attacking and killing other Humans for supplies, even killing people in their sleep. Eventually, some set themselves up as Warlords, enacting a feudal system of government over others where so long as surrounding populations gave them resources, they would protect these people, fighting off other Warlords and their bands of warriors, as well as alien groups such as the Fallen.
Image Source: Bungie
Over time, some of these Warlords came together and became the Iron Lords, warriors of the Light devoted to protecting Humanity as benevolent leaders and not cruel overlords. Some among their number were former Warlords who now sought forgiveness for their past transgressions. But other Warlords were not willing to accept the offers of brotherhood and forgiveness, and attacked the Iron Lords. The Lords destroyed every Warlord, even killing their Ghosts because Ghosts are generally bound to revive their chosen partner regardless of their crimes, sometimes even agreeing with their twisted mortality. The age of the Iron Lords ushered in allowed the people to flourish, but it also set the seeds for the Iron Lords' end.
Throughout these conflicts, the Last City had grown beneath the Traveler, hovering close to the surface of the Earth. Convoys of Humanity’s remains left their communities and even traveled across the whole planet to congregate beneath a being many of them almost worshiped. From among the Lightbearers who gathered here came the Guardians, warriors of the Light who gradually divided and took on specific roles. Titans were true brawlers, unbreakable walls, and stoic, stubborn figures who occupied the City’s walls. Hunters were scouts, wild, untamable, and full of stories and tall tales to keep people talking for years to come. Lastly, there were Warlocks, wizards, who delved deep into knowledge and esoteric understandings of the Light and many other matters.
No Guardian class is a monolith, as there were warrior poets and philosophers among the Titans, those skilled in the arts of mysticism among the Hunters, and blunt-headed brutes among the Warlocks, but these three roles still evolved with time and came to define the Guardian Classes of the Last City. The Iron Lords gradually lost the populations they defended, most groups willingly migrating to the City, before the Lords sadly lost a terrible battle in a region of the Cosmodrome called the Plaguelands. The two survivors of their nearly-extinct order sealed the region tight, and went their separate ways, with the most prominent of those two being Lord Saladin, who has had a long, winding story across the narrative of Destiny.
But from that time forward, the Guardians have defended Humanity and made many efforts to expand and learn more about the rest of the Sol system. They are led in this task by the Vanguard, a council of three leaders, one from each Class, who plan strategy and inform one another of discoveries. Unfortunately, their efforts alongside those of the average Guardian were constantly stymied by enemies like the Vex, Hive, Cabal, or Fallen. By the time of the original Destiny, the Last City had entered a period of isolation. Gone were the expeditions beyond Earth, and much has been left up to private ventures by civilians and solo or small Guardian teams operating without official support.
The player character changed all of this by defeating the Sol Divisive of the Vex, thus allowing the Traveler to begin healing, and by journeying off-world, prompting missions and explorations beyond Earth once again. Destiny 2 has seen the Guardians exploring far afield and traveling to previously mysterious and off-limits parts of the solar system. In addition to all of their fantastical power granted by the Light (and now also the Dark), Guardians are outfitted with a huge range of armor and weapons provided by various factions that help them get their job done, which often involves killing those enemies of Humanity spoken of earlier. Several factions of those enemies have since joined Humanity in an alliance called the Coalition, but we’ll speak more on that below.
What Is The Last City?
Image Source: Destinypedia
The Last City was a city built under the hovering form of the Traveler. Constructed from scratch, and featuring vast parks and green spaces alongside dense residential areas, with low-density regions alongside picturesque canals, great and vast marketplaces, the Last City has it all. Remnants of a huge array of Human cultures can be found in the City, with culinary creations fusing elements or keeping to old traditions, only now as part of a single, united whole. English, Chinese, and Portuguese are the main languages spoken in the City, which can be seen in many examples of trilingual signage, though vendors and story characters that players encounter only speak English, suggesting its dominance over other languages.
The Last City has been the homebase for the Guardians for centuries, with Titan groups sworn to defend the walls that they helped build centuries ago when the city was first rising from the vast valley in which it was built. The Last City is surrounded by mountains and is generally self-sustaining despite the vast number of people who call it home, though it does rely on salvaged technology and shipments from abroad to supplement its provisioning capacity in some areas. Other populations have taken up residence within the City more recently, namely the Fallen of the House of Light, though this created no degree of tension for reasons explained shortly.
Image Source: Bungie
The Last City has been threatened by many different forces across its long history, but the biggest was an enormous attack launched by the Fallen. A union of various Houses tried to take the City, seeking to reclaim the Great Machine for themselves, their term for the Traveler. Instead, the Guardians broke their advance, though many were lost, and it was a very close-run thing. Only the absence of the House of Wolves ended up saving the day, and that was because the Reefborn Awoken attacked their ships, triggering a war in the asteroid belt that the City was oblivious to as they counted their blessings and rebuilt.
Image Source: Destinypedia
Later (and as part of the Red War seen in Destiny 2), the City fell under Cabal control when the Red Legion was able to advance undetected right to the doorstep of Humanity’s assumed last bastion, and overwhelm its defenses. The main Tower, one of several that kept watch over the walls, was destroyed, sending Guardians scattering, while the population either bunkered down in fear, or fled the city to escape the onslaught. Eventually, the Red Legion was expunged from the Last City, and work began to rebuild everything that had been lost, with a different Tower housing the Guardians and their support staff instead.
A few other threats have haunted the City since then, but the biggest was the Traveler’s apparent departure. However, instead of leaving, it simply rose to a point away from the Last City, probably to give it room to maneuver in the battle to come against the approaching Black Fleet. This empty void was then filled with the ships of the Coalition, a union of cooperation between Earth’s defense forces, Empress Caital’s Cabal, the Reefborn Awoken, and the House of Light Fallen. The City, while no longer the only bastion of Humanity in the Sol system, is still an epicenter of life in a hostile universe.
Image Source: Bungie
Millions look to the Guardians as protectors and saviors, especially in the wake of the Witness’s defeat. But there is now a power vacuum. The Traveler will take time to heal, and strange foes lurk once again at the edges of the City’s long reach. Where the next true threat will come from is unknown, but the Nine are stirring. Ancient cosmic beings connected to the Sol system, they have put out a call from the astronomical object Kepler at the very edge of the system, and when we answer it, Guardians must remember who they fight alongside, and what they are fighting for.
READ NEXT:
Source(s): Destiny 2
Latest News
Featured
