I happened to be discussing Philosophy with a friend when we were analyzing Nietche's famous quotation of "God is Dead." Upon delving into this assertion I found some things were tickling in the back of my mind. I'll put the gist of it out and see if it sparks anything for you guys before I disseminate. Nietche is often quoted for having said "God is Dead," however the context is never mentioned when this subject is broached. Truth be told, he was referring to human morality in his text (and humor me it's the real name) The Gay Science. to quote him fully, he says: "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? — Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Section 125, tr. Walter Kaufmann" This revelation was that mankind had created God through his own morality, and with our own moral Decay, had destroyed him. Nietzsche goes on to state that mankind is ignorant of it's own actions, that we do not even realize we have committed this destruction of our God. This sparked a school of thought known as "Theothanatology" or literally from the greek "The learning of the Death of God." I know this is a bit of a difficult read, but bear with me I'm getting to the allegory. In Destiny we come from a broken civilization that worships and deifies a mystical and unintelligible being simply known as the Traveler. This being has been defeated by an evil that we can qualify, if not quantify. That is to say, we know that something bad killed our God, but we aren't 100% what it is, so we will refer to it as "The Darkness," as it must naturally be antithetical to our Light bringing Traveler. As we progress and seek to understand what killed our God, we also refute the Gods of others. We acknowledge these alien Gods from very early in the game (Sepiks Prime is the first foe we hear Dinkle-bot refer to as a 'God') and strive to destroy them. Sepiks Prime, Atheon & The Black Heart, Crota son of Oryx... Each of these "Bad Guys" are referred to as a God during the course of the game. We as Guardians of the Light of the Traveler proceed to zealously seek out any god that is not our own, and destroy it. This theocide is a running theme through out the game. Lastly, there is a hidden easter egg in the game that many have pointed out before in the Black Garden. The Black Garden is supposed to be the heart of darkness for the vex, the very stronghold of evil. However, once we get inside we see it is vast and spherical, rather like looking at the inside of our Traveler. I postulate that the Darkness inside the Black Garden was in fact the Darkness inside the Traveler, and that it got there by us, the guardians. Who can say what actions our ancestors performed in the games past? What evils did they pursue in the name of science? In conclusion, I hypothesize that Destiny is an allegory for Nietzsche's philosophy of Theothanatology, and a reinforcement of this hypothesis will be self evident if the upcoming expansion "House of Wolves" involves God slaying. All that being said, if this is intentional by Bungie, my hat is off to you good sirs for your subtle implications and not so subtle use of philosophy to build a game world I truly enjoy playing.