{{
`${userDetail.user.displayName}${userDetail.user.cachedBungieGlobalDisplayNameCode ? `#${standardizeBungieGlobalCode(userDetail.user.cachedBungieGlobalDisplayNameCode)}` : ""}`}}
{{getUserClans()}}
JavaScript is required to use Bungie.net
IC: We are the Ishtar Collective, a website dedicated to categorizing the lore of Destiny by subject.baxter: My name is baxter (also known as Paul or LordBiro depending on where you look). My PSN ID is LittleBigBaxter, which I regret. I founded the website in June of 2015 and I maintained it by myself until a few months ago when normalnorman, h0lyheck, and purplechimera joined the team. I have a soft spot for Titans, but at the moment I am addicted to playing Nightstalker. I can’t get enough of dropping Smoke and shutting down Supers!n0rmaln0rman: My name is Ron, and my gamertag is n0rmaln0rman. I connected with baxter through the Destiny Ghost Stories podcast guys. I was blown away with what he had put together using the Destiny API so I offered to help out. I mainly play on my Hunter. Right now I’m really into running Gunslinger with the Young Ahamkara’s Spine. Having two Tripmine grenades and two throwing knives is seriously fun.h0lyheck: My name is Bethany but my gamertag is H0ly_Heck. I was listening to Destiny Ghost Stories on my ride home from work one day and Baxter was talking about the Ishtar Collective and all the sudden they started talking about n0rmaln0rman and I was like holy crap! I work with that guy! I was amazed by the site and asked if I could contribute to a redesign, and baxter was nice enough to say yes. Warlocks are best-locks.purplechimera: I’m Forrest and my gamertag is purplechimera. I started playing Destiny a little over a year ago after hijacking my husband’s account for a while. I’m not a huge fan of FPS’s in general, and the lore is a big part of what drew me into the game. When my husband spotted the “archivist wanted” notice on the Ishtar Collective site, he immediately convinced me to apply since I worked in several real historic archives before quitting to be a stay-at-home-mom. My first love was Defender Titan, though I did end up maining a Voidwalker through most of Year 1. Now I’ve returned to Titan—both Defender and Sunbreaker.
baxter: You can find us online at ishtar-collective.net and on Twitter at @IshtarColl. The Destiny Community is fantastic, there are a ton of people coming up with interesting theories and connecting dots that no one else has even considered. The goal of the Ishtar Collective has always been to provide a great resource for those people, and to do that by being as evidence-based as possible.Categorizing Grimoire cards and items is one way that we do that, but we also do it by writing summaries that give an overview of a subject without speculating. We’re really obsessive about citing sources and we try to make sure that we never say something that’s not confirmed somewhere in the game.That’s not always easy to do! In some cases we touch on commonly held theories, but whenever we do that we always try to make it clear that it isn’t confirmed.
The rest is history, you could say. What is your favorite piece of lore from the Destiny universe?baxter: Thanks very much! I’m always really glad to hear that people find the site useful.The inspiration for the site came from a few places. I remember becoming obsessed with certain aspects of the lore, but not having the right Grimoire cards unlocked to really delve into those subjects properly.I’m a software engineer, and I’ll often write small programs to solve problems, so I wrote a program to download all of the cards from the Bungie API and then search through them for references to the subjects that I was interested in. I ended up learning a huge amount by reading through the cards this way, and it struck me that other people might find it useful too!From there it was a case of turning this small program into something more robust, and then building a website around the data that it generated. Everything since then has been a natural progression from that very basic program.
h0lyheck: Fusion rifles are my favorite weapon type, so anything related to Rasputin and his antics with fusions is very intriguing to me.purplechimera: What first drew me in to Destiny & its lore was the Last Word/Thorn story. But now that I’ve delved more deeply, I really love learning about Guardians of the past and how they tie in to what we are doing ‘today’ in-game. (once a cultural historian, always a cultural historian!)n0rmaln0rman: I’ve been really into Toland lately, his connection to the Hive, to Osiris and exile from the City are really interesting. Don’t listen to Nolanbot, I’m pretty sure Toland was a ton of fun at parties.
baxter: Thanks! And yes, we have a lot of plans. There’s a new feature that we’ve been working on, and some people from the Destiny Community have been helping out with it (thanks AnonPig!). I plan to announce it within the next week or two, so keep an eye out on Twitter.I’ll let h0lyheck talk about what’s in store in terms of the design of the site.h0lyheck: I really appreciate the aesthetics of Destiny and all the nods to design history in our world. The site is currently undergoing a redesign that has a lot of those same influences from Swiss design and the New International Style. It’s been a lot of fun to use such classic design principles in gaming, where you don’t often see them, and I think it will lead to an even better experience for visitors to the site.
baxter: I predict that there will be dragons.purplechimera: I have a theory that the Vault of Glass is the Vex attempting to make a throne realm. Based on the Books of Sorrow, the Vex clearly take influence from the Hive with regard to their worshiping and sacrifice. It’s possible they are trying to replicate the Death Song, and kill paracausal beings.
h0lyheck: Please make fusion rifles better so I can be happy again. With regards to the lore, I’d hope the story and the gameplay could be more intertwined moving forward. I’ve always admired how Demon’s Souls (and the rest of the Souls series) is able to have a rich story for those who want it, but it’s unobtrusive to those who don’t.n0rmaln0rman: I feel like the lore is getting better with each update, though a hardbound copy of the Books of Sorrow would be awesome! For Destiny as a whole, custom games! The competitive community that has grown within this game is amazing and keeps so many players coming back.
baxter: I think one of the best additions to Destiny in The Taken King was Ghost Scans. They’re a really good way to introduce more Lore into the game in an organic way. I would absolutely love to see more of them… especially if there was a way to add them to year 1 missions!There are a huge number of people that have contributed to the success of the Ishtar Collective. The Ghost Stories podcast team have helped a huge amount and are constantly promoting us. We are also grateful to Focused Fire Chat and Byf for all of their kind words. And to the /r/DestinyTheGame, /r/DestinyLore and /r/TheCryptarchs subreddits for all of their advice in improving the site.
Your role as a moderator enables you immediately ban this user from messaging (bypassing the report queue) if you select a punishment.