(Alternate title: the first ever actual lore post in the D2 Lore forum) [spoiler]Note: This is a repost of something I put on the Destiny Lore subreddit, forgive the wonky formatting, it's not easy to transition everything over, especially the table, I can't get that to line up any better than this.[/spoiler] I got to thinking about when/if an enemy race will join forces with us in Destiny and looking at past Bungie games gives us more than one potential suspect. While there's some speculation here, it's not a "grand unification theory of Bungie shooters" where I try to convince you that Durandal and the S'pht got a hold of some Forerunner tech and became the Vex, though admittedly that [i]does[/i] sound pretty cool. (Shitty 5 second video game history lesson: Destiny is Bungie’s third FPS series. Marathon first put them on the map in 1994, followed by some game called Halo a few of you may have heard of. I never played it, sadly, but apparently it was pretty good. ) Anyway, much in the way that every Gundam series ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUBMTiIk-qc ) has a conflicted villain in a mask and some angsty kid with supernatural piloting skill, there are similar themes to be found in Bungie FPS games. They all have (to varying degrees) a semi-anonymous hero, a power-hungry AI that helps you when it suits them, and an alien species that joins forces with humanity while everyone fights over some mysterious alien power: Game | Hero | AI | Alien ally | Mysterious alien power -------------|-----------------------|-------------|------------------|------------------------------ Marathon | Security Officer | Durandal | S’pht | The Jjaro Halo | Master Chief | Cortana | Arbiter/Elites| Forerunners Destiny | The Guardian | Rasputin | ????? | "Light"/The Traveler Assuming that [i]someone[/i] is joining up with humanity in D2 (though Variks already has), all 3 series are thus basically just a progressively more complex evolution of the original concept they came up with in Marathon: ITT I'm grossly oversimplifying things, but in Marathon there were effectively only 2 enemy factions, Durandal was 100% sketchy from the beginning, and the S'pht flipped sides pretty quickly. Halo went a little deeper with more enemy factions, the Arbiter didn't join up until the second game, and Cortana was a pretty late entry into the AI Guild of Calamitous Intent. (I fully realize that Cortana does not fit as well as the other 2 but does eventually decide we meatbags cant think for ourselves) ------------------------------------------------------ The implications for Destiny? Well, if you ask me, it’s shaping up to be [i]a combination of the two series that preceded it.[/i] ----------------------------------------------------- Let’s start with Halo. Not having played it, I don’t know the depths of the story as well as I do Marathon’s, but from what I’ve read, the Arbiter is a former prominent Elite who fell from grace and eventually turned on his masters because he didn’t agree with their religious crusade to wipe out humanity. The closest parallel in Destiny 1 is in fact the aforementioned Variks - the Fallen have been trying to destroy humanity to get their God, The Great Machine (aka The Traveler) back and Variks thought they were going down the wrong path and has switched sides. So, basically, [b]Variks is “Destiny’s arbiter"[/b] and has already switched sides, and based on the story so far, it would be pretty shocking if a great deal more Fallen [i]didn't[/i] join up with us at some point. The House of Wolves was under the Queens control for a while, and it appears that history is going to repeat itself( http://www.ishtar-collective.net/cards/ghost-fragment-the-reef-4 ). I mean, seriously, that card alone is just [i]screaming[/i] “future alliance with humanity!” With the Fallen as the Covenant, The Traveler obviously becomes the Forerunners, and the Hive/Taken are the Flood. ------------------------------------------------------- Easy peasy right? No need to even play Destiny 2 now, we already know the story: Variks (and maybe Uldren) convince more of the Fallen to join humanity and help fight our common enemy… [i]the Hive![/i] Hm. Wait a minute…. Something’s wrong here. WTF did this asshole Gary come from? ---------------------------------------------------- Where do the Cabal fit in? I mean, besides blowing up our vaults and this theory. [b]Marathon [/b] The main bad guys in Marathon are the Pfhor, an alien race who come out of nowhere and suddenly attack the huge human colony ship the game is named for. Long ago the Pfhor conquered and enslaved a race called the S’pht. Throughout most of the game they use the S’pht to hack into the ships computer systems and try to disrupt it’s AI’s. What’s that got to do with Destiny? I’m glad you asked. It’s thought that the Psions may be another species( http://www.ishtar-collective.net/cards/psion ), and considering Cayde’s Dust Palace dialogue where he states that the Psion Flayers were “let...out of their cages”, it’s not a huge leap to say they might be slaves to the Cabal. Another way in which Destiny resembles Marathon more closely than Halo is Rasputin. He’s much more like Durandal, and has never really been our BFF like Cortana was. In both cases, the AI is [i]mostly[/i] on our side, but other characters keep warning you about him and there is definitely something very sketchy about the whole thing. Pretty sure he’s just using you to get more power and deep down, are you really going to be [i]that[/i] surprised if he eventually tries to kill you? Anyway, as the lone security officer left on the ship, you spend most of the game trying to repel the invasion, fighting both the Pfhor and the S’pht along the way. That is, until chapter 24, “Welcome to the Revolution”( http://marathon.bungie.org/story/rebellion.html ). Still one of my all time favorites from any game. It starts with this image ( http://marathon.bungie.org/story/terms/chapter-screens/m1/rebellion.html ) of a S’pht who just killed one of it’s Pfhor masters. [i](spinfoil hat activated)[/i] [b]The Psions just might turn on the Cabal and fight on our side by the time D2 is over.[/b] Picture this: You load into the Destiny 2 raid. You see a clip of a Psion standing over a dying Cabal legionary. As you spawn in, a bunch of Psions flash by, but they totally ignore you. Instead, they start f*cking up the “regular” Cabal. As you follow the carnage, you find out that [i]the Psions are working for Rasputin now[/i] and have staged a rebellion. (Spoiler alert for a 23 year old game!) That’s basically what happened at the end of Marathon. Durandal convinces the S’pht to join him, together you defeat the Pfhor, steal the Pfhor ship, and they head back to the S’pht homeworld to: [quote] find a weapon or some piece of knowledge with which they could fight back against their oppressors. All over the ship, dancing through the wreckage of the Pfhor computer core, DURANDAL WAS LAUGHING[/quote] (from the final screen of Marathon) Crazy, right? Pretty mind blowing by early 1990’s FPS standards, let me tell you. I’m not saying it’s going to go down like that (though, seriously, that would be -blam!-ing [i]amazing[/i]), but considering Bungie’s love of alien alliances and much of the story so far, it’s definitely possible. ------------------------------------------ [b]TL;DR[/b]: Halo, Marathon, and Destiny all share some common themes and Destiny has so far been a mix of the prior two series. It really looks like the Fallen will become our allies soon, consistent with Halo’s story. But if you look at the plot of Marathon, it gets really interesting as there’s an argument for the Psions potentially rebelling against the Cabal Empire.