I agree. Considering the Fallen who arrived in this system were already refugees of their own collapse they called "the Whirlwind", there numbers were likely already somewhat limited. They took the Dead Orbit approach and bailed on their system to find a new one. Much of the remaining houses suffered high casualties both during six fronts but also Twilight gap. Many of the remaining prime servitors/archons and kells were slaughtered by our own guardian, during the reef wars, Skolas's uprising, taken, or killed and converted into scorn. The number of actual Fallen remaining should be pretty minimal at this point. And also, Eramis rising up as a house of darkness has a few other problems. Not only the "Where are these Fallen coming from?" as recently discussed, but also isn't that effectively just Fikrul all over again? The scorn are Fallen corrupted by darkness infused ether. So how many Fallen would join Eramis and blame the light and the Traveler for all their woes after a darkness infused former archon was just murdering the few of them that remained?

Yes and No to your Fikrul point. While it's true that the Scorn have corrupted ether. That ether is a result of Taken Ahemkara magic of Riven. As Fikrul was dying, Uldren had wished for him to live, and the monkey's paw effect of wishing kicked in. And since Riven affected Fikrul, and Quria resetting the curse every 3 weeks, he's basically in a perpetual reanimation cycle and constantly being put down. I might have to fact check that last bit, but I'm pretty sure when we finally kill The Blade Transformed, that should put Fikrul, Riven, Dul Incaru and the curse on the Dreaming City out of order.

If it worked that way, wouldn't Ulren also be in a perpetual reanimation cycle as the wishes to Riven also corrupted him? But when you(or Petra) kill him he is quite dead until a ghost resurrects him. And also, isn't the curse already out of order by the Guardian using "Wishender" and becoming the "Cursebreaker?"

This part of the Destiny lore is a bit confusing. Uldren used his wish on Fikrul, not himself. The Awoken are born of Darkness and Light. His corruption was different from the Corrupted Ether that Fikrul and the Scorn. The curse on the Dreaming City is made by a Vex mind made in Oryx's previous body. Aurux (I think that's how you spell her name) Oryx took the machine, and left some of its will intact. He then gave it to Savathun as a gift. That same Taken Vex mind is the reason Savathun is able to take and control taken. The Taken Ahemkara also helps in her Taken grasp. (I have to fact check this next part) After Uldren opens the way to the Dreaming City with a Chimera in the guise of Mara. Riven uses this to attack the city. The Guardian goes to kill Riven, believing and wishes for the city to be saved. That monkey's paw wish logic kicks in again and Riven traps the Dreaming City within part of the Ascendant Realm, which causes the curse that is looped in time by the aid of the Blade Transformed.

Didn't Uldren did wish to speak to Mara again prior to finding Fikrul? In which case he did use a wish on himself. You can see the darkness coursing through him in the campaign, so he either affected by the wishes himself, or corrupted do to his proximity to Oryx's dreadnaught weapon during the battle of Saturn. But in either event, Fikrul is a darkness powered Fallen who was exiled for questioning the great machine. Sounds very similar to Eramis.

The Cabal from Destiny 1 were either killed or integrated into the Red Legion. There’s also the point that the Cabal Empire is still out there, going strong. There’s no question though that in terms of narrative involvement that the Red Legion should’ve been removed long ago and replaced. As for the Fallen, they can obviously procreate. The reason they’re almost at extinction is because since Uldren shattered the House of Kings the House of Dusk has been left leaderless, splintering off aimlessly into different factions. Eramis is now rising to attempt to become that leader, utilising the Darkness and promising revenge on the Last City and the Traveler for everything they have endured.

I'm pretty sure we've had this discussion before. There's no one else for the Cabal to send our way. And procreating don't mean you're not on your last leg. Narratively the Fallen and Cabal are not threats nor do they pose as one. Financially, bungie would rather reuse assets than actually create new enemy factions. Look at the two factions added to the list. Taken and Scorn. Taken are all of the four enemy factions under one faction. And the Scorn are just Zombie fallen. It took 5 years for us to see an Ahemkara and the Awoken's Homeland. Humanity is pushing extinction too. The majority of what's left is in the Last City. Where are these fallen bases at where they can keep calling in Skiffs and Katches. The Fallen are down to a handful. House of Wolves was practically wiped out, House of Kings was wiped out and became Scorn, House of Devils were on the verge of dying out, discovered SIVA buried, turned to splicers and still lost. So along with being Taken and being turned into Scorn. The Fallen need to stop fight a losing battle. Same with the Cabal. They serve no purpose to the story other than Bungie saving money by slapping them randomly in things they don't belong.

Unfortunately you’re still wrong about the Cabal. The Empire is comprised of multitudes of Legions. All that stands betweens them and invading our system is their orders. As for the Fallen, this owes to our tactics in dealing with them since the Battle of Twilight Gap. If you haven’t noticed, we haven’t prioritised extermination. We have prioritised cutting off the head of the snake. We completely destroy their leadership and scatter them. Look at the House of Winter for example. We killed their Kell in the Vanilla campaign and by the time it came to HoW they threw themselves at Skolas’s feet.

You're forgetting that those battles with the Fallen are what cut their numbers greatly. And Skolas wasn't above killing other Fallen either. It's why they joined him out of fear. Lore wise, Fallen should die off when their Servitors (and sometimes) Captains are destroyed. It's not that we've only killed a few. The Last City has been in war with the Fallen for hundreds of years. Not to mention, we're not the only ones killing them. Cabal, Scorn, Taken, Hive, Vex, Reef Awoken, and Humans, and Guardians are all killing them. The Fallen Houses were getting decimated and called for backup. But Mara Sov intervened and separated half of the HoW's fleet, thus causing the Reef Wars. Which leads into the HoW expansion. The game has stated multiple times that the Fallen are on the verge of extinction. People like, The Drifter, the Spider, Mithrax. They've all said it. (Aside from not wanting to reskin the Fallen) The Fallen joined under the House of Dusk because they're numbers dropped so low. They even took in the House of Exile. There's nothing the Fallen can really do to us at this point. Skolas and Aksis were their last real chances at doing damage. But they're not like the Hive or Vex. They posses no real means to reality warping tech or magic unless they steal something from them. The Fallen and Cabal are basically the Destiny equivalent to The Joker and Solomon Grundy. Sure they'll cause minor damage, but they're not Doomsday or Trigon. The literal fact that the Eliksni homeworld got destroyed on the same level as the Collapse and that same event is about to happen again, you'd think they would focus their resources in helping. As for the Cabal. Ghaul was their strongest member and he died. They're not a threat. Calus even mocks their power. Don't forget, Calus borderline destroyed the Cabal homeworld with his greed to the point where him and his loyalists were banished in to space. While they're headstrong, the Cabal have a hierarchical society with the Red Legion at the top. We took them out, anyone else that's left is a lesser being. It's why they sent in the big guns after the Bond Brothers' distress beacon. Having a leaderless homeworld doesn't pose much of a threat, especially if the new person in charge doesn't have the same dogma as the prior.

[quote]You're forgetting that those battles with the Fallen are what cut their numbers greatly. And Skolas wasn't above killing other Fallen either. It's why they joined him out of fear. Lore wise, Fallen should die off when their Servitors (and sometimes) Captains are destroyed. It's not that we've only killed a few. The Last City has been in war with the Fallen for hundreds of years. Not to mention, we're not the only ones killing them. Cabal, Scorn, Taken, Hive, Vex, Reef Awoken, and Humans, and Guardians are all killing them. The Fallen Houses were getting decimated and called for backup. But Mara Sov intervened and separated half of the HoW's fleet, thus causing the Reef Wars. Which leads into the HoW expansion. The game has stated multiple times that the Fallen are on the verge of extinction. People like, The Drifter, the Spider, Mithrax. They've all said it. (Aside from not wanting to reskin the Fallen) The Fallen joined under the House of Dusk because they're numbers dropped so low. They even took in the House of Exile. There's nothing the Fallen can really do to us at this point. Skolas and Aksis were their last real chances at doing damage. But they're not like the Hive or Vex. They posses no real means to reality warping tech or magic unless they steal something from them. The Fallen and Cabal are basically the Destiny equivalent to The Joker and Solomon Grundy. Sure they'll cause minor damage, but they're not Doomsday or Trigon. The literal fact that the Eliksni homeworld got destroyed on the same level as the Collapse and that same event is about to happen again, you'd think they would focus their resources in helping. As for the Cabal. Ghaul was their strongest member and he died. They're not a threat. Calus even mocks their power. Don't forget, Calus borderline destroyed the Cabal homeworld with his greed to the point where him and his loyalists were banished in to space. While they're headstrong, the Cabal have a hierarchical society with the Red Legion at the top. We took them out, anyone else that's left is a lesser being. It's why they sent in the big guns after the Bond Brothers' distress beacon. Having a leaderless homeworld doesn't pose much of a threat, especially if the new person in charge doesn't have the same dogma as the prior.[/quote] Alright, several problems here that I’ll break down a bit. The House of Winter joined Skolas because he filled in the power vacuum we left. Simple as. The Servitor point has the right idea, but no quite correct. The Servitor’s producer Ether, the Fallen collect and store it. Killing a Servitor does not instantly doom the Fallen, it simply means the production of their supply is weakened. The Fallen Houses did not call the House of Wolves for backup after being decimated by the city. The House of Wolves were supposed to be a part of the siege from the beginning, fortunately for us however Mara Sov intervened. There’s also the fact that the Fallen united based on the fact that they shared desperation. They were not on the verge of extinction in terms of numbers, it was simply that the Kell of Kings recognised and asked Uldren to convey this. If they remained divided the Guardians would continue to pick off HVTs and each House would dwindle separately until they were wiped out. Humanity is actually described as being on the verge of extinction far more in the lore. As for the danger the Fallen pose, in the early days of the City it was their aggression, numbers and organisation. However, this has changed. The major threat they pose now is their sheer desperation. Look at what this has birthed. We had Skolas take control of the Vex Gate Network, Devil Splicers utilising SIVA to build engines of war, a mad Archon Priest resurrect his own kind as dangerous Scorn infused with Dark Ether And now we have Eramis wielding the Darkness itself. Narratively speaking I would say that this is the beginning of the end for the Fallen as a major enemy faction, given that this is likely the furthest they will ever get. Variks is being reintroduced to us, so one way or the other Bungie will wrap things up there. Going back to the Cabal however, I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Empire works. Ghaul was not the strongest Cabal, he was merely the one who deposed Calus in the Midnight Coup. He never claimed the title of Emperor as he felt that he did not deserve it yet and saw the Light and the Traveler’s blessing as a sign that we was worthy of it. The Red Legion were his elite Legion, sure, with the whole undefeated thing, but that simply meant that they had never experienced defeat. That, coupled with Ghaul’s obsession, led to their defeat in the Red War. Now Calus’s daughter has taken the reigns, with full intent to continue Ghaul’s warmongering without his preoccupations. This will likely be the narrative explanation for why Calus leaves the system when they Vault the Leviathan, to attempt to reclaim his throne from his daughter. Bungie’s main problem in terms of the Cabal and the Fallen is that they always make it a side story when they’re brought back in. It wasn’t Eramis leading the Kell’s Scourge Syndicate to raid the Black Armoury. It wasn’t Caiatl who ordered the Almighty be sent plummeting into the Last City. We hadn’t heard about Variks since Black Armoury until the Beyond Light ghost shell despite him being one of four major Fallen characters. Contrast this with the Hive, where even when it is a side story Savathûn always bleeds into things.