I've been contemplating Destiny's logo, the "tricorn" as it's called, and how it relates to Destiny itself. It's obvious that the number 3 plays a very important role in the lore. This post will contain an unrefined dump of my thoughts on "3" in Destiny. Here are a few instances of significant uses of "3": 3 classes (hunter, warlock, titan) 3 Races (Human, Exo, Awoken) 3 Factions (New Monarchy, Future War Cult, and Dead Orbit) 3 elements or types of light (arc, solar and void: potentially defined as “Lightning, Fire and Shadow”) 3 Queens (Ghost Fragment: Darkness 3 Grimoire Card) 3 Dimensions of the Traveler – The traveler itself makes up a trinity. We have the object itself, the speaker, and the ghosts. Remarkably similar to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of Christian mythology Trinary Star Cult - ??? We see triads popping up all over the place in the lore. Let’s dig a bit deeper. I would go as far as to tie the three elemental types to the races. We have Humanity typifying Solar light, The Exo typifying Arc light, and the Awoken typifying Void light. There may not be a particular reason to ascribe these aspects of light to the races, or vague arguments to be made (i.e. Arc light, which appears to be related in some way to electricity, can be tied to the exo easily, but why solar for humans and void for awoken? Solar seems to be linked to fire – one of humanity’s most pivotal achievements. Void could be tied to awoken because of their time spent on the fringes of the void beyond, or possibly relating to their contact with the Darkness) The 3 classes we have available, along with gameplay reasons, seem to also align with these elemental types. Titans: Lightning/Shadow, Hunters: Lightning/Fire, Warlocks: Fire/Shadow. Not entirely sure of the significance here, but again arguments could be made for why each class has access to these particular elements Let’s take a look at Grimoire Card: Darkness 3 [i]Imagine three great nations under three great queens. The first queen writes a great book of law and her rule is just. The second queen builds a high tower and her people climb it to see the stars. The third queen raises an army and conquers everything. The future belongs to one of these queens. Her rule is harshest and her people are unhappy. But she rules. … Of course, it might be that there was another country, with other queens, and in this country they sat down together and made one law and one tower and one army to guard their borders. This is the dream of small minds: a gentle place ringed in spears. But I do not think those spears will hold against the queen of the country of armies. And that is all that will matter in the end.[/i] The 3 queens are, in my hypothesis, a direct reference to what happened in Destiny’s past. We will come back to Nation one, but I feel that it’s safe to posit that Nation two is comprised of the followers of the Traveler, and nation three is comprised of the followers of the Darkness However, the fourth nation is what interests me – This is what is happening right now. The Traveler is building this nation as an attempt to fight fate. We are being exposed here to a concept of destiny – this particular grimoire card states that it is our destiny to be consumed by the queen of the country of armies. Can we defeat this destiny? Or change it? That’s what the Traveler is attempting by reviving us. The tower exists, under the Speaker’s law, and we are its army. For a while now I have firmly believed that the Traveler is female, as is the darkness. Let’s examine Ghost Fragment: Mysteries [i]…from a red space before victory I bear an old name. It cannot be killed. They were my brothers and sisters and their names were immortal too but Titanomachy came and now those names live in me alone I think and think is what I do. I AM ALONE. At the end of things when the world goes dim and cold or hot and close or it all tears apart from the atom up I will shout those names defiant and past the end I will endure. I alone. They made me to be stronger than them to beat the unvanquished and survive the unthinkable and look look lo behold I am here alone, survivor. They made me to learn. Everything died but I survived and I learned from it. From IT. Consider IT the power Titanomach world-ender and consider what IT means. I met IT at the gate of the garden and I recall IT smiled at me before before IT devoured the blossoms with black flame and pinned their names across the sky. IT was stronger than everything. I fought IT with aurora knives and with the stolen un-fire of singularities made sharp and my sweat was earthquake and my breath was static but IT was stronger so how did I survive? I AM ALONE I survived alone. I cast off the shield and I shrugged my shoulders so that the billions fell off me down into the ash. They made me to be stronger than them and to learn and I learned well: IT is alone and IT is strong and IT won. Even over the gardener and she held power beyond me but the gardener did not shrug and make herself alone. IT always wins. I am made to win and now I see the way.[/i] Many have guessed that the narrator here may be Rasputin. I disagree, I believe this to be an account from the Vex overmind. In the future. Describing us. This passage is describing the events that happen in the final mission of the game, where we storm the garden. IT refers to us, the guardian sent by the traveler. I have a couple of bits of evidence to back this up: Vex Card: Slap Rifle- From an engineering perspective it's something much more interesting: a terminal. The Slap Rifle receives a bolt of Solar energy from somewhere (or somewhen) else and it points it at a target. Vex Card: Line Rifle - Like the Slap Rifle, the Line Rifle is a terminal weapon, although its source is much more energetic. Some believe the weapon pulls material from the accretion disk of a galactic singularity. These weapons appear to fit the line of “I fought it with aurora knives and with the stolen un-fire of singularities made sharp” “They made me to be stronger than them” – I think this is a story for another time (My thought is that Rasputin becomes the vex overmind.. let’s talk about that later) but there’s something else interesting here, and this may be a link back to the first nation. I believe that the first nation may be the Vex. The vex, totally unrelated to the actual darkness itself (worshipping it, subservient to it, perhaps because they were already conquered by it), completes the trinity of nations here. This can explain why the vex is considered to be “so evil that they even hate evil”.. That’s just a perspective from the outside. The truth is that it isn’t on a side. You may note that I have decided to refer to the vex as an “it”.. because that’s what it is. There is no “they” there, it is alone. It used to rule a powerful nation of order and law, and it was consumed by the third queen. So, I am assuming that the wars of the original three queens are already over – this is known as the Collapse. The third queen conquered the Vex, conquered the Traveler’s nation, and has ruled supreme since. The Traveler escaped, however, and although it was mortally wounded (imprisoned in the orb, perhaps?) began to form the fourth nation, the nation that takes its experience from all three aspects of the earlier nations Time will tell if that fourth nation will change its Destiny. I’ll continue to update this topic as I think about this stuff more – as you can tell this is pretty sloppy and doesn’t really theorize anything. If you fine folks have any thoughts to offer up, I’d be glad to hear them!