Newcomers to Bungie's Destiny 2 might simply think of it as a typical sci-fi shooter with a "generic" space premise and RPG elements. However, Destiny lore savants can attest to quite a rich and invigorating story hidden beneath its competitive shooter exterior. In fact, Destiny 2 vastly expands the original post-apocalyptic premise of the first Destiny title.
Thanks to the main story, expansions, and even item lore, Destiny 2 managed to elaborate further on the mysteries of the Traveler, its Light, and the Guardians tasked to protect Earth. However, recent installments within Destiny 2 managed to answer some of the most heated questions regarding the franchise's lore.
10 What Is The Garden?
As per the Unveiling lore book, the "Garden" refers to the fundamental mathematical structure that predated known existence. Among this structure's innate principles were the Gardener and the Winnower - properties representing complexity and simplicity, respectively.
To pass the time, the Gardener and the Winnower played a "flower game" that required patterns to follow certain rules. Back then, these patterns - probable universes - remained in probability space. But when the Gardener and Winnower "converted" themselves into additional rules, their "game" transformed these mathematical concepts into reality. As a result, the Garden birthed the physical universe. Their "transformation" as rules became the paracausal forces Light and Darkness, with the flower game's emergent pattern crossing over to the known universe as the Vex.
9 Why Did Clovis Bray I Create The Exo?
Despite the misconception of being "sentient" robots, Exo are in fact artificial bodies housing an uploaded mind. While the Collapse left Exo memories scattered, it's the diary of Clovis Bray I that shed light to the Exo's true origins.
Apparently, the Bray patriarch's slow descent into megalomania culminated in a desire to become the ancestor of interstellar humans. He branded himself the LUCA, or the Last Universal Common Ancestor. It's his belief that immortality is the next step in human evolution. And to accelerate this process, Bray wanted to spearhead the creation of artificial bodies to house human minds. This led to the creation of the consciousness-carrying Exomind and their Exo bodies.
8 Where Did The Awoken Come From?
It's only during Destiny 2 that Mara Sov finally revealed the hidden history of the reclusive Awoken. In truth, all Awoken descended from the crew of the ship Yang Liwei. Back in the Collapse, the ship found itself in the crossfire between Light and Darkness, with their paracausal forces transporting the ship into a pocket universe.
Beginning first as disembodied forms of energy, Mara Sov and Alice Li reformed themselves and their universe inside the singularity. Afterward, the two began helping their other crew members get "reborn" into the initial 40,891 Awoken. In the events of Destiny, which happened centuries after the Collapse, the Awoken resurfaced from the pocket universe - which they called the Distributary - and formed a colony in the Reef in the asteroid belt.
7 What Is Alkahest?
Clovis Bray I followed Clarity's instructions to create the Vex portal in Europa not out of sheer insanity. According to Clarity (implied to become the Darkness), this portal would help the Bray patriarch discover the "secret" to immortality.
Alongside his discovery of 2082 Volantis, Clovis Bray I also retrieved samples of Vex Radiolaria, the most natural iteration of the Vex outside their vessels. When exposed to the Darkness, the new substance called Alkahest exhibited its own unique paracausal properties. Bray soon discovered that Alkahest can solve the "crashing" problems that disabled early Exominds. This eventually led to the creation of fully-functional Exos - minds in effectively immortal mechanical shells.
6 Why Is 2082 Volantis So Special?
The Beyond Light expansion would see the Guardian repel a sudden Vex invasion from Europa, courtesy of the Fallen Eramis, Kell of Darkness. In truth, the Vex got to Europa courtesy of an ancient portal, one constructed by Clovis Bray himself in humanity's Golden Age.
As per the patriarch's lost journals, Bray found himself constructing the portal as per the directions of the Clarity, a paracausal entity. Bray first communed with the Clarity back in Luna, after his team discovered the K1 Anomaly. Upon investigation, Bray discovered that 2082 Volantis not only is devoid of planets but is also 13-billion years old - a physical impossibility. It's revealed that the Vex, which pertain to the star as the Forge Star, has been prolonging the star's life to harvest its heavy elements, possibly to aid the construction of their vessels.
5 Do Vex Actually Time Travel?
As Guardians may know, some of D2's biggest plot points revolved around time travel. The Vex, in particular, had a penchant for "simulating" realities to determine their moves. It doesn't help that the Vex's Infinite Forest helped the Warlock Osiris see into various timelines. In fact, their Descendants and Precursors seemed proof that the Vex managed to "travel" in both the future and the past to attain these new modern Vex.
Did the Vex actually travel in time? Yes - but perhaps not in the literal sense. Given the nature of Vex as more of a "pattern" than species, the Vex seem dispositioned to comprehend probability space. In turn, Vex have no way of discerning their simulations with reality. As such, Vex may simply see two versions of the same equation - they need one version to conform with their "ideal" probability. And given how the Vex as a pattern existed before the physical universe, it also makes sense for their simulations to have a means of showcasing alternate realities and tapping that data to affect their present space.
4 Why Is The Vex So Threatened By Light?
Players eventually learn that the Vex are an emergent winning pattern in a "flower game" that became the multiverse. Its players, primordial properties of creation and destruction, became the paracausal multiversal entities the Light and the Darkness, respectively. And in their war, the emergent pattern escaped into the physical universe as the Vex.
As a primordial pattern in the "flower game" that simulated realities, the Vex can also "simulate" timelines to follow its emergent Pattern. However, the Guardian's Light and gift of resurrection constantly disrupted Vex simulations. Given its paracausal nature, Vex cannot control Light, making it a threat. This caveat may also explain why the Taken Vex Quria, the Dreaming Mind told the Guardian in a simulation that the Vex wanted to "simulate" the Light - possibly to find a way to counteract the Light's effects.
3 Is The Simulant Future The Same As The Dark Future?
Both the Future War Cult's precognitive Device and Warlock Praedyth kept seeing the enigmatic Exo Stranger in their visions of possible timelines. Soon, players learn this is Elise Bray - the granddaughter of Clovis Bray I himself. Thing is, certain events pull Elise back to Cayde-6's victory parade after killing Taniks, the Scarred. And in her time-loop towards her Dark Future, she always sees the Darkness prevailing against the Light.
Interestingly, Elise's Dark Future is starkly different from exiled Warlock Osiris's visions in the Infinite Forest. In the Simulant Future, Osiris saw a Vex-dominated universe with no Light or Darkness. Are Elise's and Osiris's visions the same? It's interesting to note that the ending of The Dark Future lore book mentioned no "finale" after the Traveler made an explosion of Light "then darkness." This may have ended in Darkness dominating or disappearing itself, leaving the Simulant Future valid. If the Darkness truly prevails, then perhaps the Simulant Future is just what it was - a Vex simulation of their ideal future.
2 What Is Savathun's Endgame?
When Guardians fell Oryx the Taken King, it seemed the resulting power vacuum has transformed the Taken into a more formidable threat. In fact, Oryx's sister Savathun the Witch Queen capitalized on this power vacuum - becoming a keyplayer in the war for the Solar System.
While Savathun herself hasn't revealed her true goals, players such as u/YamaOgbunabali observed that major events in the game benefited Savathun. With D2's 2022 expansion being named the The Witch Queen, it's all the more sensible for Savathun to have actually used the game's events in her favor. After Oryx's passing, Savathun bid her time eliminating her foes to position herself as the Taken's new leader. Her killing of Riven and machinations within the Awoken put their Distributary at risk while expressing interest in transforming the Dreaming City as a weapon. In turn, some predict Savathun's endgame to manipulate Light itself. With this in mind, Savathun may see it in her best interest to eliminate the Vex, and perhaps even the Darkness, to remove any threat for universal domination.
1 Is There A Canon Guardian?
In Destiny (and D2), Guardians - both NPCs and players - all contribute to the effort in saving Earth's Last City. However, the game pertains to "the Guardian" - the player of any given experience - as the game's primary unnamed protagonist. Thing is, does the game have a canon "the Guardian" in its stories?
Players might find the answer once again in Aspect: Epistemic. In Praedyth's visions, he's seen a recurring vision of a figure standing in front of a shard of the Traveler. According to him, while the shard's "sickly glow" doesn't change, the figure he saw does. This vision implies that every player's Guardian is "the Guardian" living and acting in parallel timelines.