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Destiny 2 is a game that is filled with lore to the point of confusion. If you are a New Light there are things you missed out on and if you are a veteran there are things you might need to revise. The Witch Queen expansion launches on February 22 and in it, Guardians are about to face their most dangerous and cunning threat yet. The Hive God of Deceit, Savathûn. Sit back as we go over the Destiny 2 story including campaigns, raids, and seasons. Savathûn has been around for a while now, even if you never noticed it.
The Red War
Destiny 2 story begins with the Red War. The new Emperor of the Cabal, Dominus Ghaul, launched a full-scale invasion on the Last City. Commanding his Red Legion he attacked the city and even though we tried to fight back, we couldn’t do much. The Red Legion attached a machine to the Traveler that suppressed its power, stripping us from the light. No abilities, no resurrection, we were now mortals.
We escaped the city end regrouped with the Vanguard on Titan where we decrypted several Red Legion transmissions. Red Legion stationed a deadly weapon “The Almighty” near the sun. The weapon can be used to detonate the sun destroying the whole system. Ghaul started pumping the Light out of the Traveler to empower himself. Once we disabled The Almighty’s weapon we faced Ghaul at the flagship. Not being able to control all the power, Ghaul was defeated.
The Traveler awakened showing Ghaul that the lighbearers can only be chosen. It destroyed the machine dampening it and emitted a wave of light that spread across the universe. But it didn’t go unnoticed. On the far edge of the universe, the Darkness has witnessed the return of the Traveler. And was now on its way to Earth.
Curse of Osiris
On Mercury, followers of Osiris found his ghost Sagira. Osiris is an exiled warlock who oversees the Infinite Forest, a Vex technology that is used to simulate different futures. As it appeared, the Vex have discovered a timeline in which they reach ultimate domination in the world. No light, no dark, only Vex until the end of time.
The main threat in this operation is Panoptes and the mission is to find it in the Infinite Forest and destroy it. But the forest is, well, infinite. We tracked Panoptes down from the very day he was created in the past. And tore it to pieces. Osiris thanked us for the help and returned to protecting the Infinite forest.
Warmind
Traveler’s wave of light awakened the Hive and a worm god on Mars. Hive is not a big deal but a worm god is. On Mars, we encountered Ana Bray, a Guardian that faked her death to study her legacy, a warmind Rasputin. Zavala and the Vanguard don’t trust the AI but it’s our only chance on defeating the worm god. After killing its herald and the worm itself, Rasputin declared that it will protect humanity, but on its own terms.
Forsaken
It begins with a regular day at the office. On the edge of the system, in the place filled with outlaws called Tangled Shore, there was a prison riot. To restore the order in the prison us and Cayde-6 were deployed. Upon arrival, you meet Petra Venj who serves Queen Mara Sov. We get to work, clean most of the containment blocks while Petra checks the high-security block. But once she gets there, she realizes that all of the most wanted criminals have escaped and that this in fact was a prison break.
Most wanted criminals, specifically, eight Scorn (Undead Fallen) barons led by Uldren Sov, Queen’s brother escaped. How did they escape? With a good deal of manipulation, the prison’s overseer, a Fallen named Variks, released them himself.
In an attempt to cut their escape, Cayde-6 and his ghost get killed. With the help of Petra and Spider, we hunt the barons one by one. But Uldren Sov broke the barons out for a reason. He saw visions of the Queen (who disappeared) and followed her instructions to bring her back. We caught up with Uldren and discovered that he was fooled by the Darkness. Visions were a lie and everything he did was meaningless. We still got our revenge by putting him down.
The Last Wish (Raid)
After a little research and help from the real Mara Sov who is locked in her pocket dimension, we discovered that Uldren Sov was possessed by the Riven, a wish-granting dragon. And this one was locked right below the Dreaming City. With some extra firepower, we found and slew Riven that made a deal with a Hive God Savathûn and now has Taken powers.
After extracting Riven’s heart, the true goal of that deal is revealed. Dreaming City was now cursed by the Taken. There is a way to break the curse by but it will only reset itself. From now on, the Dreaming City is consumed by the endless cycle of the curse. But there is a spark of light as the ghost revives a new Guardian in the Dreaming City. A hunter that used to be known by the name of Uldren Sov.
Season of The Forge
In the Annex of the Tower, a new location opened. New vendor Ada-1 is the last representative of the Black Armory. Those guys make guns and any self-respectful Guardian loves guns. We helped Ada with retrieving and restoring the Black Armory forges and defeating a Fallen syndicate Kell’s Scourge who used the forges to create chaos.
Season of The Drifter
At some point, Drifter appeared in the Tower. He offered Guardians to play a new game called Gambit. In Gambit, Guardians would fight the enemies of humanity, with the help of Darkness. Toying with the Darkness is a shady business that Vanguard was not fond of.
Later on, we learn of the Nine. An organization that seemed to be of a higher power. They used their emissary to get in contact with Drifter to host Gambit in the Tower. The Nine warned him about the coming Darkness, and that the point of Gambit was to allow us to learn more before facing it.
Season of Opulence
On the orbit of Nessus, a mighty ship called the Leviathan arrived. Emperor Calus is a former emperor of the Cabal and he claimed that he met the Darkness a while ago. He tested and challenged us offering rich rewards if we succeeded. Finally, Calus asked us to clean up the mess he made. The mess included a Hive magic crown put on the head of the cabal warrior. The warrior lost his mind because of the crown and was uncontrollable. That crown was a trap laid by the Hive God we have heard of before already. Savathûn.
Shadowkeep
Eris Morn found a Darkness pyramid ship in the depths of the Moon. There is no way of telling how long has it resided there nor if it had a specific purpose. Moreover, Hashladûn received orders from Savathûn to start building a Scarlet Keep. A fortress that will be ready to fight Guardians once they return to the Moon.
We attacked the Moon and the Keep with everything we had and found the pyramid. But it was unreachable. The enemies created by the Darkness, Nightmares, were extremely powerful and a barrier would not let us through. Eris Morn instructed us to hunt other Nightmares and craft a unique set of armor that allows us to enter the pyramid.
Inside the ship, Darkness used our Ghost to communicate with us. It told us the Light and the Traveler are weak. It showed us a vision of a fleet of pyramid ships above the Black Garden and warned us: “We are not your friend, we are not your enemy, we are your salvation.”
Black Garden (Raid)
In the pyramid ship, we discovered an artifact that seemed to be originating from the Black Garden. Inside the domain, we found a group of Vex that worship the Darkness. After defeating multiple Vex and going deep into the Garden we found the spot the artifact is from. The artifact will now send transmissions from the Darkness directly telling that there was a need for Light and Dark balance in the universe.
Season of The Undying
Unfortunately, the main Vex Mind in the Black Garden would not stay dead. It came back with more Vex and directives that threaten humanity. The trick with this Vex Mind is that to kill it we need to kill it in every possible future timeline. The Vex are known for using simulations to explore possible future outcomes but to simplify the job we built a portal that would pull the Undying Mind out of every timeline for us to kill in one go.
Season of Dawn
On Mercury, Osiris has been working on ways to bring his old friend and a legendary Guardian, Saint-14, back to life. Osiris built a Sundial, a time machine linked to Mercury to explore the timelines and find his friend. Without any luck in achieving the goal, Osiris gave up and returned back to the Infinite Forest.
The Sundial remained on Mercury and was eventually found by the Cabal. Cabal intended to capture the Sundial and use it to find a timeline in which they had won the Red War. They sent their forces in the past and the future using the Sundial and we have to stop them. While dealing with the Cabal we found a weapon that belonged to Saint-14. The shotgun was emitting coordinates that would then locate Saint-14 in the past. We saved him from death altering his future and eventually brought him back to the Tower.
Season of The Worthy
After defeating Ghoul during the Red Ward that kicked off the story of Destiny 2, The Almighty was left stranded near the sun. The remains of the Red Legion are going for a desperate attack. They fire up the Almighty engines, aim the ship at Earth and destroy the controls. Now the ship is flying to us with nothing to stop it.
The Vanguard doesn’t have enough firepower to destroy The Almighty, but Rasputin does and it was the only option. We discovered many of the Rasputin bunkers and aided it with establishing a satellite grid to destroy the unstoppable ship. The Almighty was greatly damaged by the satellites and crashed in the mountains not far away from the Tower.
Rasputin then revealed why he wanted to work with us so much. The Vanguard and Rasputin had disputes and mistrust all the time but it was time to put that behind. The Darkness pyramid ships have already entered the solar system. And it’s only a matter of weeks before they are at our doorstep.
Season of Arrivals
They are here. The pyramids menacingly hover in the skies of Io, Titan, Mars, and Mercury. The Darkness reached out from the Cradle on Io. In the Cradle, there is a tree of The Silver Wings. We have no choice but to reach back. On our way to the Cradle, we faced a lot of interference. The comms were cut, and something was constantly pulling us to the Ascendant Plane. At the Cradle, Darkness offered an artifact called the Seed of Silver Wings. It’s been offered as a way to commune with the Darkness but even that is experiencing interference.
Eris Morn figured out that it is Savathûn who is responsible for the interference. Eris and Drifter came up with a way to charge the Seed using the Taken energy. Charged Seed would be able to break through the interference and allow us to hear the Darkness out. Every week we decoded new messages from the Darkness. It said that the Light is like a barrier that we have to break through. It offered a gift, a weapon powered by dark energy, and told us that an ancient power awaits us on Europa.
A while later the Vanguard began an evacuation procedure. Zavala intended to bring his allies like Sloane and Brother Vance back to the Tower. But most of them decided to stay on their stations and face the Darkness. The Darkness advanced and consumed Io, Titan, Mars, and Mercury. As a reaction, Traveler healed itself and emitted yet another wave of light. But this time, it won’t help.
Beyond Light
Beyond Light continues the story of Destiny 2 right after the Season of Arrivals. We land on Europa and try to get in contact with Darkness. But it seemed empty, at that moment we received a distress signal from Variks. He claimed for the world to be in great danger and that Darkness walked among us. We rescue Variks from the hands of Eramis, a Fallen who is building an army powered by Darkness. In your preparations for the battle, you get an invitation from the Darkness.
Darkness wanted to offer us another gift: the dark power of Stasis. On our way, we met Drifter, Eris Morn, and Exo Stranger who already use Stasis. They explained that we are capable of wielding dark powers as well and that we should start our training. No matter how bad it sounds, we went along with the idea as it is the best strategy to beat Eramis. It is a dangerous path but Eramis was stopped. She couldn’t control Stasis and got frozen. This proved that the Darkness is very dangerous but possible to use if we keep our minds clear.
Season of The Hunt
Assessing the damage dealt by the arrival of Darkness, Osiris went on a mission to the Moon to investigate Xivu Arath, a Hive’s God of War and Savathûn’s sister. She decided to start assembling an army to slowly gain power and control across the solar system. During his mission, Osiris lost his faithful ghost Sagira and called us for backup. Osiris almost got himself killed but a new Guardian saves the day. A Guardian by the name of Crow, but most people would know him as Uldren Sov.
Xivu Arath also tightened her grip on the Tangled Shore that created business issues for the Spider. Crow brought us to the Spider and after a small talk, it became clear that Crow belonged to the Spider and even had a bomb in his ghost’s shell. But Spider called us for another reason. We are to track down the High Celebrant, a commander of the Hive army, and put an end to the Hive’s expansion on the Shore.
We successfully killed the High Celebrant making Spider very pleased. Spider made us a promise: when we complete the job we could have anything in his lair as a prize. So, we chose Crow to set him free.
Season of The Chosen
One morning we found a Cabal fleet over our head. Caiatl, the new empress, is looking to restore the Cabal’s War Council to bring her nation back to its former glory. She came to us with an offer. She offered humanity to join the Cabal empire and to Zavala have a seat in the War Council. As it will be mutually beneficial to fight the Hive and the Darkness.
Zavala denied and assembled the task force to fight back. However, there was a way to fight Caiatl without starting a war. She used a Cabal’s tradition, “Proving Grounds” to find the worthy members for her council. Our move? Go in there and kill every contender. While we fought in the battlegrounds a group of Psions developed an unsanctioned assassination plan. Their target was Zavala.
Once the contest was over and we won, Psions tried to execute their plan. But Caiatl helped to prevent the attempt assuring that she never ordered it. In the end, Cabal left us in peace. From now on we also know that Caiatl is an honorable Empress and that she might become our ally one day.
Season of The Splicer
The tower is consumed by the endless night. No day, no sunshine, only dark skies above. The Vex managed to put the Last City inside of a simulation so it’s time to save our home again before it gets consumed completely. We located Mithrax on Europa, a Fallen who knows a thing or two about the tech used by the Vex.
With the help of Mithrax and the Vanguard, we learned how to navigate the Vex network and locate the source of the simulation. Only to find it corrupted by, once again, Savathûn. She corrupted and manipulated Vex into creating this simulation and threatening the Tower. But we got rid of the Vex Mind that controlled it, saved everyone, and made some friends among the Fallen.
Throughout this adventure, one specific character seemed a bit off. Osiris not only acted and spoke differently but also abandoned his comrades during the final stand. From the Vanguard’s point of view, this is basically, treason.
Season of The Lost
Vanguard issued an arrest warrant for Osiris. Us and Saint-14 tracked him down to the Dreaming City to find it filled with Xivu Arath’s forces. And when we met with Queen Mara Sov, we understood why. Osiris was possessed by Savathûn for as long as we knew him throughout Destiny 2 story. Xivu Arath is hunting Savathûn, so she offered a deal. We need to break her free from the worm god that will break her connection with Xivu. Mara Sov agrees as this can be an opportunity to break the curse of her Dreaming City.
In preparations for the ritual, we got to speak to the Witch Queen a few times. She claimed to be our friend, that we have mutual interests. At the moment of writing (17.01.2022) we are in the progress of preparing a ritual to free Savathûn that will lead to the events of Witch Queen.
The Witch Queen
In the next chapter of Destiny 2 story, The Witch Queen, Guardians will travel to Savathûn’s throne world. It is unclear what are her goals and ambitions after breaking free from the worm god. What is clear is that she somehow managed to acquire light and create Hive ghosts. And with Hive ghosts, come Hive lightbearers. They can use the light and its power in the same way we do, which makes things a whole lot complicated.
