What if we are the villains, and we conquer everything else based off of what the Traveler wants us to do. Maybe we are the evil army of undead Golden Age soldiers, and the other races in the solar system are struggling because they don't get unfair super powers to kill everything with. Lets wipe out these Hive in genocide for trying to invade above Saturn, and also because we lost in the initial assault that we instigated on the Moon against their kind. Lets go pick a fight with the Cabal military to establish dominance on Mars. Lets take Venus back from time travelling simulant alien things that overtook it, with whom we started a fight with. Lets wipe out these Fallen pirate guys for following the Traveler around, instead of making peace with them and forming alliances, even though they aren't exactly malevolent. Their collapse wasn't dissimilar to our own.

you answered your own question, the villains think that we are way weak. when oryx came, he didn’t come to wage war with his army, he came to kill all the guardians by himself, there was mission where he spoke to us. Light, give me your will or something like that.

Despite the examples provided, there are some huge details that needs to be addressed to your topic. 1) Oryx's fleet was mighty while he was united with his sisters, Savathûn and Xivu Arath. They left him to outgrow him, and find their own path, their own journey. The once majestic Hive united fleet, was then split in three parts, losing a lot of firepower such war moons, for example, not mentioning two other Hive gods. This is particularly evident in this passage of the Books of Sorrow: "[i]Then sayeth Savathûn, “Siblings, listen, we must part ways a while, so that we may grow different.” She flies her war-moons into the black hole. Her throne becomes distant. Sayeth Xivu Arath, “King Oryx, you take up too much space, your power constrains too many choices. I must go away from you.” She flies her war-moons away into the night. Her throne is barred shut. Then Oryx was alone. He spent a while in thought, and those thoughts are recorded here.[/i]" [b]Books of Sorrow Verse 5:4 — The Gift Mast[/b] The second point is... the Awoken fleet was a major threat to Oryx's fleet, and the battle was in an impasse. That caused the Taken King to take a major decision: to fire his paracausal superweapon and annihilate all the resistance, plus his own fleet. This left his armada less operative when he took the next step: attack the Cabal forces in the area (we are in the Asteroid belt here, so Mars was the next strategical and logical target). He then took out their hold on Mars and the surroundings, breaking a stalemate that lasted for years and forcing the warring Cabal to send a distress signal for help. This alone lets you understand how much powerful was the almighty Dreadnaught even stripped off from the big chunk of fleet lost with the battle against the Awoken. While this whole thing happened, a stealth operation, with a renown Guardian, made the Vanguard to have a foothold inside the Dreadnaught and a chance to take the superweapon down before the vessel could reach Earth's range. Oryx, then, could not make the final move on the Traveler as planned and had to deal with our threat. All these events could appear as slower in actual time than in narration, but they were fast enough to effectively hinder Oryx's plan. 2) Cabal chain of command relied on Ghaul's authority. When we struck back and the Traveler dispatched him, the whole Red Legion was in disarray. That's when Calus came in the play. He diverted the loyalties and took advantage of the void of power left by Ghaul. Val'Cauor tried to take this back, but we eliminated the threat. We actually took years to get rid the majority of the system of the Red Legion too. 3) The Vex are not interested in threatening us. While we see their planet-converting actions and time incursions as an aggression, they are solely exploring possibilities. Their purpose is an "entelechy of zero and ones", as once stated, a programmatic search for the order in the universe - their order. The Vex simulate everything as a way to understand the universe, so an effective way to simulate something is to change the parameters and make them simpler. So, their action to simplify the universe are focused on that. It's a mathematic way to operate, that exists outside the dichotomy of Light and Darkness. Also, remember that the Vex are operating outside this whole conflict, as they are not sided (explained in the lore book "Revelations" and in many other situations, such as the very end of "Interference" quest. Last thing: while I can agree that a massive attack toward the City will definitely live it crippled if not destroyed, this is not likely to happen in order to not disrupt the gameplay idea behind Destiny too. From a lore standpoint, I would like to see a major fleet protecting the city, maybe by uniting the Factions and getting the Dead Orbit one working as an armada. This will require some major changes in the lore, but it is still feasbile. Do not forget, however, that we as Guardian are the best weapon against these large threats: acting as a commando with incredible powers, we are fulfilling the last defensive plan by the Traveler, creating a very mobile force formed of many targets, instead of a single, less mobile, big target (such as a fleet). I hope I answered all the points :)

Hopefully Savathûn proves to be a good villain. I mean, her whole schtick is that she's really smart, so it'd be kinda dumb if she turned out to be an idiot.

Plot armor, much like karma, is a b**** my friend. [spoiler]Sorry, all out of salt. [/spoiler]

Earth is going in Lightfall, change my mind.

I mean, I have over 800,000 kills in pve, and I’m just one guardian. We are just as monstrous as anything the bad guys can throw at us. I’m surprised that they can reproduce fast enough to keep up with our blood lust

I feel like the fallen are a pretty nice species but they are just highly religious and territorial. Cabal, I feel like cant live without luxuries. The cabal homeworld sounds like a really nice place to live in Vex are just robots Id say their pretty close to being the main enemies if it werent for the hive and taken Hive and Taken are mindless zombies following orders from the big 3 1 of which oryx is dead. Id say Oryx isnt as bad as a villain as most people say in the comments because we are still seeing the damage he has done its not over yet even though hes dead, plus im still hyped for Savathun just saying. Scorn, were around for one expansion personally their my least favorite species in lore aspect. Siva is badass you cant tell me otherwise since Sivas goal wasnt even targeting the tower, so you could call it filler content but personally i really liked it and is one of my favorite d1 expansions.

None of them have ever been Human, Awoken, or Exo I know. Uldren doesn't count. We never fought him in a boss fight.

Haven’t you figured it out? It’s because you’re the bestest Guardian evar!

The lore and story actually sucks because the story does not drive the game as in books and movies. The story is basically bungle using disjointed crap to tie together what ever content is easiest to reskin or reuse.

Zero stakes. We know we win. Nothing of consequence ever happens.