I was doing some digging on some of the extended lore in Destiny through the Grimoire, as well as theories and research on these and other forums. Of the many speculations and questions I found interesting, I was able to find some actual answers for one of them: the Crow character. The following will be presentation of current speculations and conspiracies, statement of facts, and concluding theories. For starters , I'll list the sources for the speculation that has gone on thus far. 1. The character Crow is first seen in the ViDoc that Bungie put out during the Destiny announcement. In a quick clip showing and early build of the companion app, the screen reads something to the effect of "Help Crow loot the Archive on Venus". There is a mission on Venus called The Archive, but the story does not currently have any NPC's that send you there or help you out. There is also no character called Crow mentioned in the game. 2. In the Reddit AMA conducted by supposed Bungie employee 404Architect, the alleged whistleblower claims that Crow was at one time a major character in the story, and that he was replaced by the Exo Stranger character when the story was gutted following the departure of Joe Staten. As the authenticity of these claims cannot be confirmed, and this post removed, and with Bungie officially denying that these claims are true, we have to take these statements with a full shaker of salt. 3. During the E3 2013 gameplay trailer, a character that bears a striking resemblance to the Queens Brother is shown in an exchange with a Guardian in what appears to be Old Russia. He points a gun at the Guardian and says "out here in the wild, this is how we talk". It has been noted that the character wears black feathers on his armor, specifically around the neck. As we all should know at this point, that cut scene is not in the launch version of Destiny. These small bits of information and rumor have led to the speculations that the Crow character was removed entirely, changed to the Queens Brother, or that the Exo Stranger was created to take his place. Here's where things get real. Everything in this next section is a verifiable fact. 1. During the credits for Destiny, about halfway through is the cast listing for all the voice talent. Among the list of characters, one is conspicuously missing: the Queens Brother. However, the character Crow is listed among the voiced characters. I do not have a link to the credits, but you can watch them for yourself from the Director when playing Destiny to see for yourself. You'll see the name in the middle of the cast list. 2. On the IMDB page for Destiny, which lists all the voice actors, there is again no mention of the character Queens Brother. However, Crow is again present, and voiced by Brandon O'Neill (who himself kind of looks like the Queens Brother ironically). The IMDB page can be found here [url] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2983582/?ref_=nv_sr_1[/url] 3. In the Grimoire card Ghost Fragment: Queens Brother, he is speaking with machines that appear to be reconnaissance drones. These machines are described as looking like crows. One of them refers to the Queens Brother as "Master of Crows." In the Grimoire card Ghost Fragment: The Queen, there is also mention of the crows. The Queens states "And remind them of this: the Crows are mine." For those that might not have these cards unlocked, you can find them here [url]http://db.destinytracker.com/grimoire/allies/the-queen[/url] We can see clearly that the Crow character was not removed from the game, but is simply not addressed by his name during the time that we see him. If the character had been removed that far back in development, as claimed by the Reddit poster, then the credits to the game would have reflected the change in the characters name. Also, we know that the second expansion pack, The House of Wolves, will have something to do with the Queen and her brother, since it is she that currently commands the Fallen House of Wolves. There is further speculation that at least some of that expansion's missions will take place on Earth, leading some to deduce that the cut scene from E3 2013 mentioned above is actually from that expansion. Now I will pose my theory as to how we ended up having this discussion in the first place. I am a fan of epic stories and vast immersive universes, and as such I am among those that were disappointed in the execution and presentation of the in-game story. I am still enjoying the game, but I do see and acknowledge it's flaws. However, I do not believe that this situation with Crow was some vast conspiracy with Activision forcing Bungie to gut the story and re-package it as DLC. Expansion packs were a part of the Destiny plan from the beginning. However, the loss of the head writer on any project, in this case Joe Staten, will have an impact on the end product. I personally believe that Crow was the Queens Brother all along, but that in an earlier version of the story, he played a much bigger role, perhaps at his sister's request, to help you in entering the Black Garden. The Exo Stranger to me is much more interesting character. I believe that she was originally meant to be introduced at a later time, perhaps the end of the vanilla game or in early DLC. I also believe that after the departure of Staten, the new writing team decided to bring her in sooner, make her more your "guide" (I use that term loosely), and relegate Crow's story to DLC later down the road. Again, the DLC was always planned, but I think the order in which the character arcs are introduced was changed from how they were when we saw the game at E3 2013. Which leads to the confusion surrounding the context in which we see Crow in early marketing. Anyway, that's just my theory. But at least we now know that Crow is indeed in the game. TL;DR - Crow is in the game. Go look at the credits.