As it should be clear to all of us, every great story has a kind of lesson to learn from it. Undoubtedly, Destiny will be no exception. In this thread I'm going to show you a video, a lecture, and I'll briefly describe the philosophy. If you watch the video and listen to the lecture, you may not even need to listen to me. So before I go, I want you to first watch [url=http://www.upworthy.com/some-strange-things-are-happening-to-astronauts-returning-to-earth]this video[/url]. It's about 20 minutes long, and it describes a certain feeling some astronauts experience that, in short, can be described as [b]awe[/b]. ... You're back? Good. Now I'd like you to listen to a particular lecture given by Brian Moriarty, a game designer, back in 1996. [url=http://ludix.com/moriarty/media/thepointis.mp3]The Point Is[/url] The lecture is about 50 minutes long. In the lecture, Moriarty makes a few predictions about how the internet will affect games. The shocking part is that these predictions are all highly accurate. ... Good, so you've watched the video and listened to the lecture. Or you haven't. If the former is true, then proceed. If the latter is true, then I highly recommend you scroll up and catch up with the rest of us. [spoiler]Ok, so by now you've noticed and comprehend the abundantly clear motif of "one-ness." To be frank, I don't think the goal of Destiny will be to simply "regain the solar system," but rather it will be the awesome recognition of humanity's one-ness, and our impact on the earth. Remember when David Beaver quoted an astronaut right at the beginning of the video? "When we originally went to the moon, our total focus was on the moon. We weren't thinking about looking back at the earth." This idea of protecting our planet is so highly relevant for this generation. Everyone knows that humans haven't exactly made the best impact on the planet, and a lot of people live with the fear of self-inflicted global annihilation. Now, Destiny's earth was mostly destroyed by "something," not us, but it is easy to relate to the concept of our own extinction. Destiny takes that concept and slams it right in our face. Remember that line in the video almost 14 minutes in? The one that stood out? [i]"This view of the earth from space, the whole-earth perspective, I think is the true symbol of this age, and I believe that what's gonna happen is there's going to be a greater and greater interest in communicating this idea because after all it's key to our survival; we have to start acting as one species with one destiny.[/i] Yeah, that one. See, I believe that "Destiny" does not mean a kind of "manifest destiny" that drives us outward, but something that brings us together as one: our destiny being our ultimate conscious connection to each other and beyond. Sounds pretty "out there," I know, but just look at technology. As predicted in the lecture, we are so technologically connected it's scary sometimes. And now, Bungie plans on pushing the boundaries once again by bringing more people together in Destiny. Again, as Moriarty predicted, future games biggest selling point are the customers themselves; developers are selling their customers to each other. So, what I'm saying is that I believe Destiny's point is to bring people together and to portray, and hopefully make some of us experience, that awesome feeling of connectivity; of [b]one-ness[/b]. Or it'll just be about regaining the solar system. Alright, thanks for trudging through this one, I hope you enjoyed it. If you want to hear more about the importance of awe, you can listen to [url=http://ludix.com/moriarty/media/MoriartyPsalm46.mp3]this lecture[/url], also by Moriarty, which will be included in the upcoming game The Witness. To download either of these lectures, you can right-click the links and click "save link as." And remember: Be Brave.[/spoiler]