Bite-sized Backstory is an ongoing guide to the incredible stories contained within the Grimoire Cards and Lore Books of Bungie’s Destiny.
Select one of the following entry points to get started:
History of the Hive
History of the Eliksni
History of the Awoken
History of The Last Word
Bite-sized Backstory 11: Rampant Speculation 1
There are a few interesting questions I’ve put off until we could reach a good stopping point in the Hive’s timeline. A lot of little nuggets that don’t really have directly supported answers but are ripe for a little good ole fashioned Rampant Speculation. No sources this time (Calcified Fragments: Curiosity – XX: Hive if you must) as I’m trying to draw some fun…
Bite-sized Backstory 12: War on Life
After their defeat of the Ammonites, the Hive hollow out some or maybe even all of Fundament’s 52 moons turning them into giant spaceships capable of traveling to distant star systems. I wonder if this process looked anything like what Crota was doing to our moon? For a very long time, the Hive’s fleet of moons travels through the cold dark between the stars. Interestingly, even though they are…
Bite-sized Backstory 13: The Amiable Ecumene
With more than three hundred worlds in ashes behind him, Auryx should have felt mighty and powerful. Instead, he felt trapped and he felt afraid and he felt betrayed. He wasn’t sad or or ill at ease with the destruction he’d caused. This time, he called his sisters to him and cried out in grief because he’d finally proven something that had been nagging at him for some time: His worm’s hunger was…
Bite-sized Backstory 14: Oryx – The Taken King
The Hive were all but beaten. Thanks to Taox’s information, the Ecumene knew exactly where to strike and exactly who to target. Before long, Auryx, Savathûn, and Xivu Arath could not even emerge from their throne-worlds for fear of being killed again and again. Worse, hiding and waiting was not an option, either. Each of the siblings felt the gnawing of their worms inside them. Without a supply…
Bite-sized Backstory 15: War and Trickery
For the next hundred years, Oryx fought the combined forces of the Ecumene. Where as before he and his Hive were unable to stand against these “lords of matter and physical law,” Oryx was now able to turn the Ecumene’s own units against them. We’ve seen some pretty devious Taken enemies as Guardians, and that’s with Oryx just subverting Fallen, Hive, Vex, and Cabal. I like to imagine that a Taken…
Bite-sized Backstory 16: Oryx’s Pyramid Scheme
For a thousand years, Oryx and his sisters must have killed billions and maybe even trillions of thinking beings who were once members of the Ecumene. We know the numbers they slaughtered were so great two ways: 1. When the Dakaua War Council first met to address the Hive threat the Hive had only destroyed somewhere around 300 worlds, and only seventeen (17!) of those were part of the Ecumene. By…
Bite-sized Backstory 17: The End of an Age
Some 10,000 years after their defeat of the Ecumene empire, and more than 30,000 since the brave exiled sisters were betrayed and fled to the inner seas of Fundament, the Hive have finally reached what Oryx says is the edge of the Deep. We first learned that Oryx was chasing after the Deep after he and his sisters eliminated the Qugu so many thousands of years ago. Back then it was Oryx’s…
Bite-sized Backstory 18: Majestic Battles and Waves
After defeating the Taishibethi, Oryx returns to his throne world and makes preparations to have his first direct meeting with the Deep. He creates a special alter for the Deep and prepares an unborn ogre for it to possess. We’ve seen unborn ogres several times in Destiny. You might know them better as Tomb Husks. When he is ready, Oryx calls out to the deep saying: I can see you in the sky. You…
Bite-sized Backstory 19: Betrayal & Dreams of Teeth
Coming out of the Deep’s friendly monologue to Oryx, we immediately move into an odd dream sequence. This dream is told form Oryx’s point of view and takes us back to his childhood back at the Osmium Court. In this dream, Oryx (or should we can him Aurash?) is heading to his father’s orrery when he notices his sisters are chasing after him. They are ripping up the road behind him with their…
Bite-sized Backstory 20: The Eater of Hope and His Sisters
Following his meeting with the Deep (which Destiny players would know better as the Darkness) and his betrayal by his sisters, Oryx somehow manages fight his way back to his throne world and the physical world. This may have been possible because, as mentioned last time, Xivu Arath described the nature of her brother just like he once described her and her sister after killing them during the war…