Destiny

For decades, Shin Malphur hunts the man who killed his friend, mentor, father figure. Shin and Yor finally met atop a place called Dwindler’s Ridge. And… this is how it played out. I don’t often quote large portions of Grimoire Cards, my goal is to summarize and make available, not to copy and paste, but this showdown is one of my favorite scenes in all of Destiny’s lore. It is a scene that deserves to be read:

Now.

We stood silent, the sun high.

Seconds passed, feeling more like hours.

He looked different.

He seemed, now, to be weightless – effortless in an existence that would crush a man burdened by conscience.

My gaze remained locked as I felt a heat rising inside of me.
The other spoke…

“Been awhile.”

I gave no reply.

“The gunslinger’s sword… his cannon. That was a gift.”

My silence held as my thumb caressed the perfectly worn hammer at my hip.

“An offering from me… to you.”

The heat grew. Centered in my chest.

I felt like a coward the day Jaren Ward died and for many cycles after.

But here, I felt only the fire of my Light.

The other probed…

“Nothing to say?”

He let the words hang.

“I’ve been waiting for you. For this day.”

His attempt at conversation felt mundane when judged against all that had come before.

“Many times I thought you’d faltered. Given up…”

All I’d lost, all who’d suffered, flashed rapid through my mind, intercut with a dark silhouette walking toward a frightened, weak, coward of a boy.

The fire burned in me.

The other continued…

“But here you are. This is truly an end…”

As his tongue slipped between syllables my gun hand moved as if of its own will.

Reflex and purpose merged with anger, clarity and an overwhelming need for just that… an end.

In step with my motion, the fire within burst into focus – through my shoulder, down my arm – as my finger closed on the trigger of my third father’s cannon.

Two shots. Two bullets engulfed in an angry glow.
The other fell.

I walked to his corpse. He never raised his cursed Thorn – the jagged gun with the festering sickness.

I looked down at the dead man who had caused so much death.

My shooter still embraced by the dancing flames of my Light.
A sadness came over me.

I thought back to my earliest days. Of Palamon. Of Jaren.

Leveling my cannon at the dead man’s helm, I paid one final tribute to my mentor, my savior, my father and my friend…

“Yours… Not mine.”

…as I closed my grip, allowing Jaren’s cannon, now my own, to have the last, loud word.

“Yours… Not mine.” is easily my favorite quote in all of Destiny. It was already a powerful line, but knowing the history of it, how it was both a confident, forceful statement, and a memorial to a lost friend, makes it so much better. It would make a great ending… but this is not the end of the story of The Last Word!

Unless killed in unusual ways, Guardians are immortal, meaning Shin does not just grow old and die happy. Similarly, the call of the Darkness and the Hive did not go away just because Shin put an end to Dredgen Yor. From here, Shin Malphur takes it upon himself to put a stop to any Guardian who would dare meddle with the powers of Darkness like Dredgen Yor did. And, once he becomes known as a feared boogeyman restlessly and ruthlessly devoted to the Light, Shin goes a step even beyond that…

I hope you’ll join me next time as we begin to delve into the frightening Legend and thought provoking truths behind The Man With The Golden Gun.

Ghost Fragment: The Last Word 4

For the next several years Jaren Ward stays at Palamon after freeing it from Magistrate Loken. We know that Shin Malphur thought of him as the town’s savior and eventually came to think of Jaren as a friend and father figure.

The Fallen were still a major problem for Palamon, however. It sounds like the town gets hit hard by Fallen raiders again. Jaren Ward and a few of the toughest survivors leave to give chase and possibly to prevent that group of Fallen from coming back. Four days later, someone new comes to what was left of the town. This man is tall and dark and solemn. Shin recalls that there was an intense sadness about him, but that he was polite and took up a room. This is Shin Malphur’s first time meeting Dredgen Yor.

Something happens soon after and we find Shin and a few others out in the wilderness having put Palamon’s “ash” to their backs. The lines get a bit hard to read between, but we learn that Shin and those with him were seeking vengeance for something. Could just be the fallen attack, but I think there’s a strong chance they are hunting Dredgen Yor. We have another transcript featuring the corrupted Guardian being drawn into a loud conversation with some local bandits one of which wants to see his gun, Thorn.

[u.1:0.1] Can I see what you got there?
[silence]
[u.1:0.2] Yer cannon…can I see it?
[beat]
[u.2:0.1] I know you?
[beat]
[u.1:0.3] Not that I can say.
[u.2:0.2] And you wanna hold my piece?
[beat]
[u.1:0.4] Just that I never…seen one like it.
[beat]
[u.2:0.3] No, you haven’t.
[u.1:0.5] Looks dangerous.
[u.2:0.4] Seems, maybe, that’s the point.
[u.1:0.6] Suppose so.
[u.1:0.7] Can I see it?
[u.2:0.5] Not likely.

Dredgen Yor banters with the leader of this group of four men for a bit and takes it unkindly when the leader states as “fact” that no one has ever been to the moon. The men begin to threaten Dredgen Yor and after warning them off in his own sort of way Yor finally has enough of their tough guy acts and guns three of them down. He saves the leader for last. This man who had wanted a look at Thorn now gets to stare down its barrel as Dredgen Yor explains to him about the nightmares of the Hive and how they will soon be coming for them all. And then the leader, too, is murdered.

Now, there is nothing that directly says this sorta old west bar room “conversation” happened in Palamon, but just nine days after Palamon is reduced to ash Shin Malphur and his group of Palamon survivors encounter Dredgen Yor again. I don’t think they were hunting Fallen because Shin notes that they had accidentally wandered into Fallen territory as they tracked the trail of something or someone. Along the way, some of Shin’s group are killed, “gunned down”, we’re told. But, what’s left of Shin’s group also meet up with Jaren Ward, and together they continue tracking their target. Jaren has an intense confidence that keeps the group going even though hope seems to be lost. But then, everything falls apart late one night.

A crack of gun fire then several more echo through the woods… These shots sound familiar, perhaps even comforting to the group. They’ve come from Jaren Ward’s prized hand cannon, but, tragically, they are not the last word this time, as one sickly, unfamiliar shot answers Jaren’s several. Afterward, there is only silence.

Everyone back at Shin’s camp knows what has happened. Jaren had gone out alone to engage “the other”, the same thing Shin termed Dredgen Yor when he met him, but this time Jaren Ward was not coming back. Those with Shin soon leave fearful for their lives. Shin, though, stays and searches for his mentor. Shin doesn’t find Jaren Ward, at least not at first. Instead, he finds Jaren’s still very much alive Ghost. The Ghost has something for Shin: Jaren Ward’s hand cannon. Dredgen Yor left it for Shin. How do we know? Because Dredgen Yor and Jaren Ward’s Ghost have a little conversation after Yor permanently kills Jaren Ward with a single shot from Thorn. The conversation between the two is interesting for a few reasons:

1. Both the Ghost and Dredgen Yor agree that Shin Malphur is special. We know that of course, since we know Shin’s history of being revived in the Light by his long lost Ghost when he was nothing more than a baby. But we’ve also gotten some little indications that Jaren Ward and his Ghost knew Shin was special. We now learn that Dredgen Yor knew, as well.
2. Dredgen Yor tells Jaren Ward’s Ghost to give his Guardian’s gun to Shin Malphur. Yor calls it a gift. He calls it giving the apprentice his master’s sword. The Ghost thinks that Yor is mostly just trying to further anger and sadden Shin.
3. Jaren Ward’s Ghost calls Dredgen Yor a monster. Yor responds by alluding back to when his own Ghost called him that before they parted ways.
4. Jaren Ward’s Ghost also argues that Dredgen Yor is not just a monster or an evil force of nature, but that he’s still a man that can be killed. And Dredgen Yor agrees that, yes, in that there is a sliver of hope.

Now there are two ways to look at this forth point, and I think both are valid. On one hand, Dredgen Yor is someone we have quoted as saying “Nothing dies like hope.” He is probably gifting Jaren Ward’s gun to Shin Malphur to fuel that hope so he can crush it too.

But, and we’ll get into this a whole lot more very soon, Dredgen Yor is also agreeing that there is hope that maybe he still is a man who can be stopped, who can be killed. It will take someone very special to stop him, Dredgen Yor knows, and maybe he thinks he’s found that person in Shin Malphur.

Next time I get to take y’all through one of my very favorite encounters in all of Destiny: The Showdown at Dwindler’s Ridge!

Ghost Fragment: The Last Word 4
Ghost Fragment: Thorn 2
Ghost Fragment: Thorn 3
Ghost Fragment: Thorn 4

Next: Bite-sized Backstory 57: The Showdown at Dwindler’s Ridge

If Jaren Ward was the embodiment of Light and Hope, Dredgen Yor was what you get when that hope dies. You see, long before the Titan we know as Dredgen Yor became perhaps the worst, most corrupted Guardian in history, he was a man known as Rezyl Azzir.

Rezyl was one of the Risen. One of those found by their Ghost before the Iron Lords, or The City, or the concept of Guardians existed. Rezyl, along with legends such as Zavala, Ikora Rey, and Lord Saladin saw to it that The City’s great walls were built in the first place. Rezyl was a hero, a bringer of hope. I love this quote about Rezyl Azzir:

The noble man stood. And the people looked to him. For he was a beacon – hope given form, yet still only a man. And within that truth there was great promise. If one man could stand against the night, then so too could anyone – everyone.

There are some great stories of Rezyl’s accomplishments. In one, he charges an entire Fallen Ketch on his sparrow knowing he’d be killed in the process. But he has a plan. He had his Ghost hang back. When the Fallen Kell and his troops came out to parade Rezyl’s lifeless body as a prize, Rezyl’s Ghost slipped into the crowd and quickly revived him. Alive again, Rezyl unloaded on the Kell with his hand cannon Rose and then:

In one motion, Rezyl rose from a crouch, his fists clenched and raised high as a storm of Arc Light built within him, his full might raining down on the Kell’s chest. The shockwave of Rezyl’s attack hit like a meteor, shattering the Kell’s body and any Fallen within the Havoc storm’s radius.

Through cleverness and strength, Rezyl had managed to kill a Fallen Kell, one of their highest ranking leaders!

In another story, Rezyl tracks a group of Fallen to a small town nestled in the snowy, tree covered mountains. Although it is not named, the town is almost certainly Palamon. Rezyl saves the town and leads those that are willing back to The City, but some stay behind. This might very well be the event that set Magistrate Loken down his bad path. And for Rezyl, this is yet another time that he does good and saves lives, but only after evil and suffering occur. We learn here that Rezyl is tiring of the endless war and is realizing that the good that he does is never enough.

By this point, Rezyl is a hero known far and wide beyond The City, but there are shadows growing in his mind. Shadows coming from a specific place. From the Moon! There were stories and legends of an evil far worse than the Fallen pirates that Rezyl and other Guardians had been fighting. This is a man who is already slowly losing hope after centuries fighting the Fallen, but Rezyl is also a proud man who is trying to push forward and be the hero he is expected to be despite his fears. So, at some point, Rezyl goes to investigate the strange calling he has been hearing from the moon.

On the moon, Rezyl soon finds and begins to investigate the Hive structures that have long been silent. This is long after the Hive emerged once before and killed thousands of Guardians, and long after Eris Morn and her fireteam managed to kill the Hive god Crota which banished him temporarily from our world. Rezyl’s Ghost notes that the Hive are all supposed to be gone. Once they lost Crota they fell silent… and yet the giant doors of the Hive structure Rezyl is investigating creek open for him as soon as he arrives. The Hive have been waiting for him. They have been calling to him. They invite him in.

Rezyl leaves his Ghost behind with instructions for it to run for help if he doesn’t return. He then proceeds down and down into the depths of the Hellmouth until he encounters waves of Hive being lead by a Hive Wizard. Rezyl does his best, but even his Rose is not enough to save him… and yet the Wizard and her Hive do not kill him. Instead she taunts him, goads him, and plays upon those fears that have been growing in his mind. She show him that the Hive are preparing to reemerge and that there’s nothing he nor The City will be able to do to stop them this time. And then, cruelest of all, she lets him leave.

Two days later, Rezyl emerges back on the lunar surface, but he has been permanently changed by his experience. One of the first things he does do is begin to affix some of the tough, cursed bones of the Hive he fought and killed to his hand cannon Rose. Later, perhaps after warning The City about the reemergence of the Hive, Rezyl spends one last day looking up at the moon while struggling with himself. He was a hero. Someone who spread hope wherever he went. He saved towns and killed alien leaders and helped establish a Last Safe City whose walls now guard millions. And yet, all he can do is look up at the moon in fear of what is coming.

In that cool evening air, as dusk was devoured by night, the noble man ceased to exist. In his place another stood.

Same meat. Same bone. But so very different.

The first and only of his family. The sole forbearer and last descendent of the name Yor.

In his first moments as a new being, he looked down at his Rose and realized for the first time that it held no petals: only the jagged purpose of angry thorns.

And so, the man that was Rezyl Azzir dies, and in his place stands Dredgen Yor. As Yor, Rezyl leaves a gash of death and destruction in his wake. We don’t hear a lot about his deeds, one of the few acts we do know about is that he uses his corrupted Rose, now called Thorn, to permanently kill Thalor, a famed Crucible Champion. It is clear from surrounding context in Destiny’s lore that Dredgen Yor becomes infamous and feared by even Guardians of The City. After that Crucible match he is likely driven out of The City after which he continues to wander and continues to sow destruction wherever he goes.

Interestingly, Dredgen Yor’s Ghost stays with him through everything he does. But, eventually, Yor even sends his Ghost away. We have a transcript of the final conversation between Yor and his Ghost. We learn that his Ghost never even really considered leaving his side, not because it agrees with the terrible things he is now doing, but because, as his Ghost says:

I rekindled your Light, it falls first to me to aid in its survival.

Ultimately, though, Dredgen Yor convinces his Ghost to leave by talking up how he now only inspires hope so he can crush those that have it all the more. “Nothing dies like hope” he is quoted saying. But there is one very interesting thing at the end of this transcript that needs to be pointed out. Something important for the future:

[u.2:5.5] If you cannot let that man go, you will forever taint his legacy. All the good I have ever done will be washed away in the fire of who I have become. (Note: u.2 is Dredgen Yor speaking)
[u.1:5.3] If you care, there is still some promise within you. (Note: u.1 is Dredgen Yor’s Ghost speaking.)
[u.2:5.6] If I am being honest, I care only to give hope to the frightened, huddled masses so that when I come upon them they will have more to lose. Their pain will be greater. Their screams more pure.
[u.1:5.4] You…
[u.2:5.7] Nothing dies like hope. I cherish it.
[u.1:5.5] You’re a monster.
[u.2:5.8] Finally, you see the truth.
[u.1:5.6] [REDACTED] is truly dead.
[u.2:5.9] So I’ve said. Long live Dredgen Yor.
[u.1:5.7] This is farewell, but you can only run from your sins so far. In the end, you will die alone.
[u.2:6.0] Maybe so. But I gotta tell ya… I tend to like my odds.
[u.1:5.8] Your tainted “Rose” will not always save you.
[u.2:6.1] Old friend… It already has.

Yes, Dredgen Yor wants to be remembered as the hero Rezyl Azzir for the sole purpose of crushing the hopes of those he next murders, but that one final line, “Old friend… It already has.” is very curious. We’ll come back to this transcript in a bit. For now, I’ll just tease by saying that Dredgen Yor’s Ghost was right the first time.

We don’t have anything even close to a timeline of what Dredgen Yor does once he and his Ghost part ways, but we do know he eventually returns to Palamon, the town he once saved. By doing so, one of the darkest, most twisted Guardians we have record of will come face to face with Jaren Ward, one of the best and brightest.

Next: The Last Word vs Thorn

References:
Rezyl Azzir – Before These Walls
Rezyl Azzir – War Without End
Heart of Inmost Light
Legends and Mysteries: Rezyl Azzir
Legend: Rezyl Azzir – The Triumphant Fall
Ghost Fragment: Thorn
Mark of Contention
Ghost Fragment: Thorn 3

Next: Bite-sized Backstory 56: Thorn vs The Last Word

Even though he is the gun’s original owner, Jaren Ward is really just a minor character in the story of The Last Word. He came to the town of Palamon nestled in the snowy, tree covered mountains one day like a heroic gunslinger out of an old western. He walks in from the south and everyone stares but no one talks. That is, until someone we recognize, Shin Malphur, the child of light, now a growing boy, breaks free of his adopted father and races out into the street to greet the newcomer.

Jaren is described as a Hunter that wears a racing helmet with thick tinted visor. So, shift your mind from straight western, to something with a little more sci-fi. He silently greets this kid that ran out to him, but also knows there’s something special about him. Shin, for his part, looks Jaren over in awe, but his gaze is soon fixed upon Jaren’s golden hand cannon. Jaren notices this and instead of chastising the boy or driving him away, he leans down and holds out his gun for this kid to inspect and hold. This is the first time Shin Malphur ever gets to hold The Last Word.

No one really moves after that. You have this sorta high tech western gunslinger with a Ghost floating over his shoulder standing in the street. You have towns people all crowded around waiting for something to happen. You have a young boy in awe, holding a very special gun for the first time. But they’re all waiting on someone. On Magistrate Loken. Loken is someone who started like all the other people who founded Palamon. He started out as the town’s overseer. He was someone who helped enforce the rules they’d all agreed on. But, over time, Loken became stricter. He began to enforce his will over everyone instead of just maintaining order. We’re told he lost people, but unlike most others, unlike Shin who barely remembers his parents and a small spark of Light that he tries not to dwell on, Loken’s losses eventually broke him.

As Loken grew more and more dictatorial people left. Palamon shrank. Soon, its people lived under one man’s rule… Loken’s rule… until Jaren Ward shows up. I don’t think we see Jaren and Loken’s first meeting, but we do catch up with Jaren Ward after he has done something to set Loken off. I’d like to think Jaren Ward took a few days to understand the situation in Palamon then decided to change it. In response, Loken sends nine men to surround Jaren in a courtyard and then he comes to confront the Hunter himself.

Loken does the classic villain thing. He struts and taunts and threatens Jaren all while Jaren just stands there calmly with his hands on his belt. The exchange ends like this (as recounted by Shin):

“This is our town! My town!” Loken was shouting now. He was going to make a show of Jaren – teach the people of Palamon a lesson in obedience.

Jaren spoke: clear, calm. “Not anymore.”

Loken laughed dismissively. He had nine guns on his side. “Those gonna be your last words then, boy?”

The movement was a flash: quick as chain lightning. Jaren Ward spoke as he moved. “Yours. Not mine.”

With those words and Jaren’s quick movements, Loken falls dead in an instant, and his men back down almost as quickly. From then on, Palamon is a free town. Jaren stays and helps. We don’t know a lot about his activities after freeing the town, but we do know two things:

1. He becomes a new father figure to Shin Malphur, watching over him and teaching him for several years.
2. He would sometimes lead hunting parties to track down and kill Fallen who got to close to town.

It’s while Jaren Ward is away on one of these hunts, several years later, than a second stranger with his own very special gun strides into Palamon. If Jaren Ward was the embodiment of the Light, this new man is his opposite, someone smothered in Darkness. And nothing good will come of it when these two meet.

Next time, we’ll work our way through the long history of the man best known as Dredgen Yor.

References:

Ghost Fragment: The Last Word
Ghost Fragment: The Last Word 2
Ghost Fragment: The Dark Age 2
Ghost Fragment: The Last Word 4

Next: Bite-sized Backstory 55: Rezyl Azzir & Dredgen Yor

Destiny has a lot of lore. There are so many good stories that you can pursue and so many different types to read. Sci-fi, drama, epic fantasy, political intrigue, you can find all these and more, you just gotta pull on the right thread. But one of my favorite stories, and one of Destiny’s oldest and longest, has all of the above. I want to tell you the story of The Last Word, an iconic exotic hand cannon that itself has been a huge part of Destiny’s gameplay and was, at least at one point, at the top of Destiny’s multiplayer meta game. The story of The Last Word begins with a ravaged Earth and a new wave of alien invaders.

In the Dark Age, that time period after the Darkness was driven away by the Traveler but before The City was well and truly established by the victory at the Battle of Six Fronts, much of Humanity was spread across the remains of our world. Some cities, like London, apparently survived the Collapse. Probably they weren’t well off, but they were still places people could live. Then the Eliksni came. These “Fallen” aliens were fleeing their own equivalent of our Collapse. They too had barely survived an encounter with The Darkness. They were beaten and bloodied and desperate from decades or centuries of fleeing from their homeworlds all the way to our star system. They were looking for the Traveler which had abandoned them and they were looking for any advantage they could give themselves. No matter the cost. Sentient lives? Plundering the ruins of a civilization in need? The Fallen were far too desperate to give such concerns any attention. We even have some references and reports saying that the Fallen would eat humans when food ran short!

What was left of Humanity was furthered scattered by the Fallen. Cities like London fell to an enemy that still had ready access to starships and high technology. Smaller towns lived in fear, and were often forced to run for their lives when the Fallen found them. But, over time, Ghosts began searching the world for their Guardians. As decades passed, Ghost who had yet to find their Guardians took it upon themselves to help the pockets of humanity they could. A Ghost can fabricate. It can scout. It can deliver food to the hungry. We find one such Ghost assisting a small group of humans on the run.

When this group first sees this Ghost they are wary. To them, it is another alien. But, in time, they come to see it as a helper. They name the Ghost Tiānshǐ, which is Mandarin for Heaven’s Messenger. Some even think the Ghost is an actual angel! The Ghost is quick to deny this, but it keeps the name, nonetheless. Along with this small group of Humans, living presumably somewhere in or near China, is a single very young child. The child’s mother and father, and the groups as a whole, did their best to care for this baby despite the tough times they found themselves in. And the baby? It had a fascination with the Ghost. After gaining their trust, Tiānshǐ began the long task of leading the group in the directon of the The City, but one day, while hiding in a cave in order to avoid a Fallen Skiff, the worst happened. The group, some thirty strong, had lost two thirds of its members in a recent Fallen attack. And then they lost one more. We’re not told if the baby was sick, or malnourished, or injured, but it died there in that cave in his mother’s arms.

Tiānshǐ, who was outside keeping lookout, heard the mother’s and father’s cries and turned back and saw something new. This Ghost had been sad for a long time. It had given up fining its Guardian and had turned to help this struggling group of Humans in an effort to do at least some small amount of good. This Ghost had never seen even a hint of the Light it was looking for… until now. Back in the cave, held tightly in the grieving mother’s arms, was the Spark Tiānshǐ had never been able to find! This makes sense. Ghost only revive the dead. This child could have been the Ghost’s companion all this time but the Tiānshǐ would never have known it.

The Ghost approaches, but hesitates at first. Tiānshǐ wonders what kind of life it will be imposing on a child that was not even old enough to talk. But, quickly, Tiānshǐ remembers that its true purpose is to deliver hope, and almost as a reflex it ignites the dead child’s Light. The baby that was lifeless moments before begins crying once more stunning the eight others huddling in the cave. Tiānshǐ is proud of what it did, but the small… enormous… act of reviving the child is not something that will save this group of humans. Not all of them.

Just a few months later Tiānshǐ’s group is on the run from the Fallen again. They’d been spotted and soon they were chased down and began to take losses. The reborn child’s mother is killed. Then his father. We’re told this group had developed a bond tighter than that of a family after having shared so many close encounters, so as a matter of course, others in the group pick up the child as they continue to flee. Tiānshǐ flees with them, but it soon makes a choice. It is all but programmed to protect the child any way it can, so, when there is no other option, Tiānshǐ veers away from the group it had been guiding the last few months and makes itself a target. It successfully leads the Fallen away, but is unable to escape them. Tiānshǐ notes in its final transmission that by this point the Fallen have long learned that killing a Ghost can save many, many of their own lives in the future, so they hunt Tiānshǐ relentlessly!

In Tiānshǐ last moments, it notes that no matter what happens the child will be safe. That he has been adopted by a brave but careful man and woman who will look after him. Tiānshǐ final message, apparently picked up and archived by some other Ghost nearby, is joyous and heartbreaking:

I am not sorry for the choice I made. The child gave hope, though fleeting. What comes next for him is unknown. But there is promise in him, should he find sanctuary. Should he find guidance.

This is not a confession. This is my hope. This is my—

The next time we see this child he is now a boy named Shin Malphur who survived that fateful encounter with the Fallen and who has grown up in a small settlement called Palamon. It’s there that he meets two men, one Light, one Dark, who change the destiny of his life.

The story of The Last Word is tied to these two men at least as much as it is tied to Shin. To understand this story we need to take a look at both of these men. So that’s what we’ll do next time.

References:

Confession of Hope | Part One
Confession of Hope | Part Two
Ghost Fragment: The Last Word

Next: Bite-sized Backstory 54: Jaren Ward

Once the dust settled and the fires of the Fallen attack were put out, Mara takes stock of her Awoken. One in three of them are gone, either killed in the Fallen’s attack or else they left and have gone to try and aid the Humans on earth.

For the Awoken that remain on their ships with Mara near the large asteroid Vesta, new work begins. As Mara says to Uldren,

…never again can I allow my people to be divided. We must offer them more than shielding ice and cold habitat cylinders and the warrens of Vesta. We must make a culture, a thread that binds us all in pride and wonder at the mystery of ourselves. Nowhere does culture flourish better than in a city.

But do the Awoken have the population or spare resources to build a city? Perhaps not. Even before the mutiny, Mara was insistent that the Awoken’s first goals were to restart their industry and grow their population. Now, with a third of her people gone and their fleet even more smashed by the Fallen attack, the Mara’s Awoken are stuck in a venerable position. Uldren is quick to voice this, nothing that gathering in one place, like a city, will just make them a target.

That when Mara gives one of her most fateful orders of all time. An order that will lead to her own death and the death of her brother. An order that will trap her Awoken in an endlessly repeating cycle of heartbreak and carnage. An order that we still have not yet seen all the implications of. She says:

Go forth and find me a power unknown to all the other powers of this world. Return it to me, and I shall make of it the cornerstone of my new city, where the Awoken shall dream of all they have been and all that is yet to come.

Uldren does so, and when he returns, he has with him a tiny lizard-like creature barely bigger than his hand. He say to his sister:

Behold, Sister, the lie that makes itself true. This is an Ahamkara.

The Awoken continue on from this point. They build a great network of cities and stations spread among the asteroid belt. At Mara’s command, they put themselves in harms way not once, but twice, in order to save Humanity. And, of course, Mara Sov, Uldren Sov, Sjur Eido, Petra Venj, and Mara’s Techeuns continue all the way up to Destiny’s present day.

There are still some great stories to tell about the Awoken, but next I’d like to tell perhaps the greatest Destiny story of all. Next I’d like to lead you through the great twists and turns of The Last Word.

Chapters Referenced:

Revanche II
Telic I

The Awoken’s political troubles have finally come to a head. Those Awoken that had been threatening to leave in order help the people of earth actually carry out their threats. Despite the best efforts of Mara and Sjur, the first ship of those who wish to break away manages to depart the reef. Mara even tries to send a shutdown command to the ship in a similar way she had absolute control over the Hulls that took her people away from the Distributary, only to find out that it will not respond to her commands. It is one from Humanity’s golden age, not one based on the Hulls Mara’s people brought from the Distributary so her overrides have no power over it.

Once the first ship breaks away, Mara recognizes that the worst that can happen has happened, and that trying to prevent the other ships from leaving will just cause unnecessary deaths. So, Mara orders Sjur to broadcast to the other rioters that they will be allowed to leave peacefully as long as they go now. Again, we see some of the special magic possessed by the Awoken and by Mara in particular. Sjur replies that there is no need to tell them because she and all the rest of the Awoken heard Mara’s proclamation directly!

We take a little look ahead here, a little extended look at what these Awoken accomplish after the split away from Mara’s group. We’re told that they go down to the earth with a level of technology and knowledge that save thousands of lives even in just the first year. These Awoken are seen almost like angels with their glowing skin and impossible tech and strong desire to help. For the first time in years or decades, the people of Earth are able to look up into the stars and know that there’s more than just doom up there. Over the next few centuries these Awoken integrate into what’s left of human society and over time their attachment to the Distributary and the Reef and Mara fade. But, we’re told they always have a little connection to Mara, some little tie that they can still feel. I think there’s still a bit of Awoken magic linking them back to Mara Sov.

This split of Mara’s Awoken into two peoples has some immediate implications for the Reef. For one, Mara finally listens to the advice and criticism everyone around her has been dumping on her. She stops trying to treat her people as equals and finally takes her place as the Queen of the Awoken. Following the example set by Alis Li so many thousands of years ago, Mara designates the Techeuns, a group of scientists and thinkers, to explore the mysteries of the universe, and a group of Paladins who will lead the Awoken’s security and defense.

And then the Fallen attack! A single Ketch spotted the earthbound Awoken and tracked their course back to the asteroid belt. The Reef spots the large warship coming and makes it’s power known by gutting it in an instant using some of their limited supply of weapons they brought from the Distributary. But, it turns out that the Fallen are just a bit smarter than that. The Ketch didn’t just fly in confident of a sure victory. Instead, its Baron pre-deployed all his dropships so even though his ketch is destroyed in an instant, his attack force is still largely intact.

Mara, freshly crowned Queen that morning, takes to the personal defense of her people. We’re told that Sjur is encased in a full combat suit, but that Mara fights in the open. She knows that her people need to be able to spot her and be able to see her vulnerable so that they will rally to her side. And it works. With Sjur handling the larger threats, and Mara serving as a rallying force, and Uldren watching his sister’s back, the Awoken of the Reef once again put aside their differences and come together as a people.

While Mara and her brother are busy inside, Sjur is busy outside engaging the Fallen Baron and his forces in zero-g combat near the exterior of the Sacred Fire. The Fallen had attached a Spider Tank to Awoken’s largest habitat ship and it was up to Sjur to stop them. I’d love to see this scene rendered by cutscene studio Blur or someone. Sjur and a large Fallen Baron leaping among asteroids and debris. The Baron and his spider tank trying to pin Sjur down. Sjur finally ending the Baron with a single well aimed arrow through the throat. But, even with the Baron dead, Sjur still has to stop the tank from destroying the Sacred Fire.

It’s here that Sjur knows she is going to die. Remember, she told Mara that her death would be doing something incontrovertibly heroic. Her only chance to save thousands of her sisters and brothers is to hastily place an explosive charge down the tank’s main gun. When it fires next, it will detonate in a devastating backfire that Sjur knows she will be unable to get clear of. And it does. And Sjur is engulfed in the blast. And Sjur is… not killed. She’s not even harmed! How is that possible?!

Earlier, before the Fallen attack, before Mara became Queen, her lead researcher had revealed more about the research they have been doing into the Awoken’s special form of magic. Not only can every Awoken subtly affect outcomes, Mara herself seems to be the source and concentration of that power. And those subtle effects seen in other Awoken are massively increased for Mara. Simulations show that Mara’s subtle magic is so powerful that even things like weapons and bombs don’t work properly around her. The fundamental physics that would normally control a trigger mechanism of a gun or bomb are literally thousands of times less likely to function correctly if triggered near Mara Sov.

This is what saved Sjur. Mara focused her power and instead of dying, Sjur is thrown safely clear of the blast. As Sjur wonders what happened she see’s Mara’s face projected into her mind and she knows who saved her.

Next time, we’ll look at some of the more obscure connection to past Destiny lore and reach the end of the Reef’s beginning.

Chapters Referenced:

Revanche IV
Revanche V

All night, following Uldren’s return, Mara isolated herself from her brother. From her advisors. From even Sjur. What Uldren’s scouting mission had discovered was both inspiring and devastating, and it left Mara with a weighty decision to make. By morning, Mara had made up her mind, but now she had to tell her people. And it wasn’t going to be easy.

Mara called together the elected representatives of her people to the Sacred Fire, one of the largest ships they had salvaged from the Golden Age reef. Set up in a large room with a holo projector, Mara and her brother present what they have found. 

“We’ve found Humanity,” she tells them. “We’ve found our ancestors.”

Uldren snaps his fingers and a holographic recording from his ship lights up the room. The disorienting view plunges down through the clouds then skims the terrain until it comes across the beginnings of The City and, above it, the battered remains of the Traveler. The Awoken in the room gasp and marvel. This is something out of their fairy tale storybooks, out of their ancient history they weren’t complete sure was real. And now it is real. But, for Mara, this thrilling scene is dangerous. She knows what her people will want to do, and she knows what she will have to tell them. 

One of the Awoken in the gathered crowd, the historian Esila, voices that danger:

 “What are we waiting for?” she calls. “That’s everything we came to find! They need us, and that’s where we belong!”

With a look from his sister, Uldren continues the playback from his fighter’s cameras. From somewhere nearby, the trees rumble and a red-brown aircraft shaped like a fat, wingless, furiously angry dragonfly bursts from cover and climbs to intercept. It launches a swarm of missiles at Uldren and he has to pull a tight, high-g turn to evade. 

“Those are Fallen,” Uldren says. “They’re a species of interstellar scavengers and subsistence pirates. They’ve been here for a long time, and they’ve sacked most of the large settlements that survived the original fall of Humanity. There may be more Fallen than there are Humans left on Earth.” He lifts his chin to bare the pale scar across his throat. “I landed and went looking for prisoners. I was ready when he pulled two knives on me, but it turned out he had an extra set of arms.”

Mara steps in to further emphasize the point. Not only are there likely more Fallen in the solar system than there are Humans, they aren’t the only threat. Mara tells her people about the Cabal occupying Mars and about Mercury lost the to Vex, an enemy that Humanity had encountered back during its Golden Age. 

Elisa speaks up again: 

 “So they need our help, don’t they? We have to go to them! Our ships, our technology—we could make all the difference.”

Now comes the part Mara struggled with. The part she had been dreading the previous night. She stands there and tells Elisa and the rest of her people “no.” Mara explains to them that while it’s true they could provide some assistance, that doing so would leave them vulnerable. It would allow the Fallen to track their ships back to the Reef. It would see their expedition destroyed before they could really accomplish their goal to save Humanity. 

Elisa responds from the crowd once more: 

“Mara, with all my respect, all my genuine gratitude for bringing us here,” Esila sighs, “who died and made you Queen?”

Although she doesn’t speak it, Mara knows the answer to that question. All of them died and made her queen. But, remember last time? Mara is not trying to be a queen to her Awoken. She is treating them like equals. She and her brother right now are standing before a crowd of elected representatives. And, right now, those representatives and the public opinion they represent are all trending against Mara. 

After the conclusion of the gathering, Mara meets with her brother and Sjur in private. Sjur is busy patching up more of the wounds Uldren suffered during his scouting mission. She and Mara hold a conversation as she does so. Things are bad, Sjur confirms. Almost a full third of the Awoken have indicated they want to split off from the Reef and head to earth. And worse, among the highly influential Awoken that hail back to the 891 who were reborn remembering their past, that number rises to almost 80%. 

What this all means is that Mara has a significant political problem. Maybe her first in the thousands of years that have passed since she awoke on the Distributary. If a third of her people split away, it will leave the Reef with a shortage of technical skills and will diminish their somewhat fragile gene pool. That alone would do great harm to Mara’s mission. If, in heading to earth, her people alert the Fallen to their location, it could destroy everything. Sjur, certainly thinks that it will. 

“I know,” Sjur says, heavily. “That’s when I’m going to die.”

Mara, of course, declares that unacceptable, but Sjur figures her death is inevitable. And she predicts that it will be when the Fallen soon come for them. After all, she is the Queen’s body guard. If she is going to die at all, it will be in a moment of great heroism. Mara objects, reminding Sjur that she has not taken the position of queen. But, to Sjur, Mara denying her own position is part of what is causing her so many political problems in the first place. And Sjur says so.

We don’t get a real response from Mara on that political point, but to Sjur Mara responds: 

You won’t die. I won’t allow it.

Chapters Referenced:

Revanche II
Revanche III

The transit through the portal back to our normal universe all but trashes the specialized ships Mara and her Awoken had designed for the voyage. The advanced materials making up their ships’ hulls were stretched, and warped, and torn away by the passage through the micro singularity, not to mention the five ships that had suffered missile impacts and still survived the journey. Perhaps even worse, transitioning between realities devastated many of the Awoken’s electronics. From AI’s Mara’s Awoken made it back to our solar system, yes, but they did not arrive with a powerful post-Golden Age fleet. Instead, they limped to our asteroid belt in search of resources and shelter.

The first ship they find is an old, Golden Age, AI controlled “habitat tender”. That is, it’s a forest ship! During our Golden Age, this ship went out, snagged a comet, then built a domed forest on its surface. It would have been the perfect starting point for the Awoken if its forest had not caught fire some time before. Still, the ship had reactor power and gravity and was even continuing to support life in the form of insects and rats. I love this section because it is a reference back to one of the more cryptic original Destiny 1 Grimoire Cards “Ghost Fragment: Awoken”.

Soon, Uldren’s scouting flights find a large collection, a Reef, of other ships that had tried to congregate together for survival during the Collapse. Mara orders that they strip what remained of the Awoken’s battered Hulls in order to fix up this reef of still partially functional ghost ships. Once they restore gravity and power, the Awoken will be able to start building habitats and industry and start having children. Remember, the Awoken in our solar system number in the tens of thousands at most, and have no warships and few weapons. They do have some powerful personal and ship-based maltech weapons from the Distributary, but most of those are far to powerful to be used within the confines of delicate starships adrift in space.

Mara, being Mara, is serious about the whole thing, but Sjur is giddy. She’s already thinking about forging bladed weapons since they don’t have the spare resources to build firearms, and she is considering how to get ship to ship communications and sensors up and running without any spare fuel to launch satellites. It’s then that she starts talking excitedly about launching things into orbit around their ships and asteroids and even the sun without using rockets or explosives.

Amusingly, Sjur’s excitement is contagious and even gets Mara into the spirit of things. Even with serious work to be done, Mara can’t help but think of the sight of her partner straining mightily against her bow and launching communication satellites off the surface of their ships. Sjur is having the same thoughts:

I’ll be the first woman in the universe to place a comsat in heliocentric orbit with a longbow.

“You’re absurd,” Mara tells her, but even she is looking forward to exploring and rebuilding this new Reef with Sjur at her side. Somehow, even though Mara is outwardly calm, Sjur picks up on and comments on her excitement. Normally, this would just be a sign of two people knowing each other very well and picking up on subtle signs, but Mara responds with an odd question:

Sjur, can you hear what I’m thinking?

At first, Sjur begins to deny it. As special as the Awoken are, and as close as she and Mara have become, they cannot read each other’s minds… but then, Sjur gasps mid-sentence and scolds Mara playfully for something that Mara apparently just thought at her. One can only imagine what could cause that sort of reaction in Sjur.

As the Awoken start the long work of making the Reef habitable, they also begin experiencing strange, almost life-like visions. Faces and images of people they know or knew appear to them as they work and as they sleep. Some of these seem so real that they even drape shrouds over their statues to prevent the real, physical works of art from being mistaken for visions. All the Awoken feel a strange new hum of energy in their bodies, as if they are connected to something new and different than they were before. And many of these vision concern Mara.

Around this time, two amazing discoveries are brought to Mara’s attention:

The first comes from Kelda Wadj, the head of Mara’s Techeuns. “We’re all a bit magic now,” she tells Mara. She and her fellow thinkers and scientists have found evidence that the Awoken now have a small but measurable amount of acausal power. This limited ability for the Awoken to violate the laws of physics seems to be tied to their thoughts and emotions. This slight acausality will eventually be the reason that the Awoken persist and remember each cycle of the Dreaming City when a normal human or alien would have been reset each time the city goes through its loops.

As usual, Mara seems to have some greater insight to this new power, but she says very little about it. Mara briefly mentions that this magic likely comes from the Traveler and possibly the Darkness or the mixing of the two, but she keeps whatever else she knows to herself. Kelda Wadj is more interested in how they will classify this new magic. Do they try to describe it in terms of physics? Do they just accept that it is space magic? But if this power can be influenced by thoughts, how exactly does one teach it or explain it? Kelda is like a scholar trying to decide how to explain the newest mystery they have fund.

At one point during their conversation, Kelda Wadj calls Mara “your majesty” to which Mara recoils. Mara says that she doesn’t wish to be called that. She insist that the Awoken are now part of a democracy. Sjur, Kelda Wadj, and the others around her all roll their eyes. After all, it was Mara’s multi-thousand year plan of cunning and ruthlessness and compassion that brought them all back to our solar system.But Mara still seems to seriously want to treat her fellow Awoken as equals. This will have some serious, disastrous implications within days or weeks. But first, the other amazing discovery barges into the room in the form of Mara’s brother.

Uldren has just returned from a scouting mission to Earth, and shockingly, he has a serious slash wound across he neck! But this is Uldren we’re talking about. Stubborn and adventurous. He’s holding a makeshift bandage of cytogel to his bleeding neck while grinning an excited grin.

“Aliens!” he rasped. “I found aliens, and one of them cut my throat!”

Chapters Referenced:

Palingenesis III
Revanche I
Ghost Fragment: Awoken