Video Games and Cosmere Parallels

[FeatherWriter]

Okay so here's a few ideas that I've kicked around in my head for a while because I love video games and I love lore and I love Cosmere and I love crossovers. So as I was playing certain games, I started to notice a few... similarities to some of my favorite Shardworlds, and the more I looked, the deeper the parallels became. It's amazing how easily some of these games would fit into the cosmere, I think, and the way that they share some cool aspects with some existing Cosmere books.

This is all just for fun, some wacky coincidences between some of the stuff I love. There will be spoilers for the following: Dishonored, Dishonored 2, Destiny and its DLCs, Stormlight Archive, and Mistborn. This is a super long post too, because I love this topic and can babble at length.

To start us out:

Destiny as Stormlight Archive (in SPACE)

Primer for those who don't know anything about Destiny here:

Spoiler

This trailer gives a good glimpse at the worldbuilding, but I'll also explain below.

Sometime in the future, an entity/being/super-powerful, moon-looking orb known as the Traveler arrived in the solar system and created a golden age for humanity by extending lifespans and terraforming all of the other planets in our system and all kinds of cool stuff like that with power known as "Light." However, the Traveler's ancient enemy, the Darkness, "killed" it somehow, leaving its power behind and it's broken shell still floating over earth.

The Traveler's last act however, was to send out tiny, sentient bits of its power across the world, who are little robots known as Ghosts. The Ghosts, who's the little floaty ball guy who shows up in that trailer, seek out worthy warriors and bring them back to life, giving them awesome magical powers, making them basically immortal and allowing them to use the Traveler's light in different ways depending on what kind of Guardian they are.

Guardians then, through the game, fight off the hordes of alien races which serve the Darkness, and basically do cool stuff with their powers and try to protect the Light.

Now that we're all on the same page, basically, I'm gonna dig into how this one plays out Cosmere-wise:

• The Traveler is a Shard. This one feels pretty obvious. Being of immense power that changes entire solar systems with its very presence with insane amounts of power? Shard.
   
• The Traveler was splintered by a rival Shard, the Darkness. I feel like the Traveler ends up as a good mix of Honor (establishing orders of guardian knights) and Cultivation (creating life and habitability on otherwise barren landscapes), and that leaves the Darkness as Odium, who has splintered Honor/the Traveler.
   
• Ghosts are Splinters, specifically spren. Little, sentient pieces of a dead power? Check. Bond with an individual to give them powers? Check. Cute little companions that appear and disappear at will? Check. 
   
• The Traveler's Light is investiture, specifically Stormlight. I mean, come on. Light siphoned from the power of the shattered power of an extremely potent entity? It even gives Guardians extreme recovery abilities, letting them heal from wounds in only a few seconds, and making them basically immortal.
   
• Guardians are Radiants. Thanks to their bond with their spren/Ghost, Radiants/Guardians have different and unique ways that they can channel the Light to create various distinct powers.
   
• Guardian subclasses are Radiant Orders. Though there are only three classes (Titan, Hunter, Warlock) for Guardians, each of those classes has three subclasses (Titan - Striker, Defender, Sunbreaker; Hunter - Gunslinger, Bladedancer, Nightstalker; Warlock - Voidwalker, Stormcaller, Sunsinger), and each has their own powers. The names even sound like Radiant orders. Edgedancer/Bladedancer? Stormcaller/Elsecaller?
   
• The races which serve the Darkness are Voidbringers. The four enemy races in Destiny—the Fallen, the Hive, the Vex, and the Cabal—are fighting against the forces of Light in hordes, serving a nebulous but terrifying enemy of the Traveler and the Light. Guardians have to defend the regular people against these overwhelming armies.

And finally, one of my favorite little tidbits about Destiny and its implications on this crossover comes from the heavy weapons category in Destiny. Guardians can carry three guns at a time: a primary, a secondary, and a heavy. Primaries are most used for normal encounters (regular guns, pretty much), secondaries are special situations (shotguns and snipers and stuff), and heavies (which deal massive damage, but are hard to find ammo for).

For the first year, there were only two weapon types in the heavy category: machine guns and rocket launchers. As of Year 2 and The Taken King DLC, though, we got a new kind of weapon in this category:

Swords.

Now if you are thinking that putting swords in the same category as rocket launchers is not really fair, you are right, because swords are so much cooler than rocket launchers in Destiny. (Spoilers below are gifs and pictures)

Spoiler

These are weapons of powerful energy that eat through bosses, and when you pull them out, they flash into existence from the hilt. They're all gorgeous and unique looking and though they're pretty massive, the Guardians hold them like they're weightless.

Spoiler

Guys, they're shardblades. Destiny has shardblades. Look at those jagged waves on the back of the right-most sword, Razelighter. That's completely something a Shardblade would have. Oathbringer has waves just like that on its backside.

Case closed, everybody, pack up and go home. Destiny is the Stormlight Archive. 

Now that that one's settled, let's move on to our next game and book pairing:

Dishonored and Dishonored 2 as Mistborn

Once again, for those not familiar with the two Dishonored series, here's your quick primer:

Spoiler

There's a couple of trailers that might work, but I'll give you guys this one for the original Dishonored and this one for Dishonored 2.

The gist is, first game, you play Corvo Attano, the Royal Protector of Empress Jessamine Kaldwin until she gets murdered by magic assassins, her young daughter and heir, Emily Kaldwin, is kidnapped, and everyone thinks you did it. You get thrown in prison and tortured for a year until some sympathetic loyalists break you out, and then you're visited by a powerful entity known as the Outsider who resides in a realm known as the Void and gives you his mark and the magic assassin powers that go with it.

You then set about, with your new magic, to eliminate the people who framed you, find Emily and bring her to safety, and bring the real killers to justice.

Dishonored 2 jumps 15 years into the future, with Emily as Empress and Corvo as her Royal Protector (and Corvo now officially being recognized as Emily's dad and the previous Empress' consort), until an Outsider-marked witch named Delilah declares she's Jessamine's long-lost sister and kicks Emily off the throne in a sudden coup.

This, we might say, is odd, since Delilah was supposed to have had her spirit banished to the void years ago, and was pretty much, for all intents and purposes, dead.

(Note, you can play as either Emily or Corvo in Dishonored 2, but Emily's playthrough is the "canon" storyline, so that's the one I'll use.)

Corvo gets his mark and powers taken away by Delilah and is turned to stone in the middle of the throne room. Emily barely escapes and leaves the city, only to be visited by the Outsider herself. He offers her his mark he offered her father years ago, and her own set of powers, and she sets off to—you guessed it—find the people who organized the coup, take them down, rescue Corvo, and eventually destroy Delilah once and for all.

So, there's a few really obvious ones right off the bat that I'll get out of the way before I start delving into some of the really cool Cosmere parallels. Even those of you who have just watched the trailers can probably pick up on some of these:

• Aesthetic and ambiance. If there were ever to be a Mistborn video game, I'd want it to feel like Dishonored does. The worldbuilding of Dishonored's Empire of the Isles, especially in the first game, has an extremely Scadrian feel to it.
  
  We have a dark, dismal, dystopian Empire, where the rich hold opulent lavish parties while the rest of the city suffers and dies in squalor just outside their golden-lit stained glass windows. The guards exist to beat the lower class down and keep them from bothering the upper crust, and the government holds all the power.
  
  The bureaucratic Abbey of the Everyman, a religious organization more focused on tracking down illegal magic users and summarily executing them rather than any kind of real piety, is a perfect fit for the Steel Ministry, and the Canton of Inquisition in particular. 
  
  Dunwall, the city of the first game feels a lot like Final Empire-era Luthadel, albeit with a Victorian steampunk twist that would be right at home with Elendel. The best of both Mistborns here.
  (spoiler tag is pics)

Spoiler

• The Outsider's Mark powers feel very Allomantic. Though there aren't any metals involved, and both Corvo and Emily (and Daud, the DLC protagonist) have different powers from the Outsider, there's no denying that the powers that the Outsider grants are perfect for the kind of stealthy, sneaky, stabbity modus operandi that Mistborn favor. Corvo and Daud's Blink power feels a lot like Steelpushing, whereas Emily's Far Reach power could be the Lurcher equivalent. Watching Emily toss a grenade and then yank it back toward her over her head, or yank a body or living guard towards her in midair feels exceptionally like Ironpulling. The Dark Vision power feels a lot like tin, as it enhances vision and sounds around you to help you keep silent and keep track of where the guards and enemies are.
  
  Dishonored is a game that you can play perfectly stealthily, carefully never being seen, or you can rush in as a malestrom of superpowered death. Even the most high-tiered enemies, the "hazekillers" of Dishonored, really can't stand a chance against a Marked assassin who really knows what they're doing with their powers.
  
  Not to mention what the mark looks like. Crescents, dots, and long strokes? The Outsider's mark would fit in with the Steel Alphabet perfectly.
   
• Protagonist story parallels. Corvo is thrown into a terrible prison and tortured as a regular person, and then receives magical powers and goes to overthrow the evil empire who did it to him. Though it happens off-screen between the two games, the tutorial of Dishonored 2 shows him teaching Emily how to fight, sneak across rooftops, and defend herself. The Kelsier parallels are manifold.  
  
  Meanwhile, Emily, especially after inheriting her powers, feels like a wonderful Vin parallel. The empress who'd rather go galavanting off across the rooftops than sit in court, an avenging assassin, using her powers to take down her enemies with deadly precision and skill. 

Now, that the surface level is taken care of, let's dig into some of the ways that Dishonored really and shockingly lines up well with Realmatic theory, and some of the more intricate Realmatic things on Scadrial specifically. 

• The Outsider is a Shard. Unlike Destiny's the Traveler, which felt like a splintered Shard like Honor, the Outsider as a Shard would be one with an aware and active Vessel. Though he appears to protagonists in the Void, it's very clear that this is an avatar that he projects of himself, for his true form is something far more nebulous, something that suffuses the entirety of the Void and can watch over the entire physical world as well. He speaks only to a special chosen few, and only a handful of individuals merit enough attention from him to be gifted with his Mark.
  
  The parallels are even more clear when you find out more about his backstory. Like the Shards' vessels, the Outsider was once a human, who was sacrificed in a ritual to bind him to the powers of the Void. After his ascension, he remained fascinated with humanity, even though he himself was quite beyond human himself, now. (If I had to pick a Shard name for him, I'd probably go with Chaos.)
   
• The Outsider's power is the investiture which fuels the powers of the Marked. In the same way that the powers of Allomancy are drawn directly from Preservation, Marked individuals draw their power directly from the Outsider.
   
• The Void is the Cognitive Realm. This is an exceptionally important one, and I'll expound on it further in the next point, but the way the Void functions in Dishonored is strikingly similar to the Cognitive realm in the Cosmere. It's misty and off-balance, filled with moments and memories that seem more based in perception than reality. Though the Outsider can manifest himself within the physical world on a few special occasions, the Void is his true home. And like a Shard with a nexus, though his focus is usually in one place, his power is everywhere.
   
• Delilah Copperspoon/Kaldwin was a Cognitive Shadow who returned to life, just like Kelsier. Spoilers for the plot of Dishonored 2 and Secret History, but if you watch that Outsider backstory video linked just above, it explains a bit of Delilah's situation. Her spirit was banished to the Void, however, she was still able to communicate through the dreams of those who had been close to her, whispering ways to them that they could bring her back. In much the same way that Kelsier was able to, as a Cognitive Shadow, whisper to Spook because of their Connection so that they could find a way to bring Kelsier back.
  
  Delilah's friends and supporters then, were able to perform a seance to draw her spirit back from the Void into the physical world once more, and in the process, made her immortal. Much the same way Kelsier and Spook apparently figured out some way to use hemalurgy to return Kelsier to the physical world and make him immortal as the Sovereign.

All in all, it's pretty dang incredible just how many ways these stories line up with each other, in some really really cool ways. In case you guys couldn't tell, I love both Destiny and Dishonored, and could talk about them endlessly.

Anyone familiar with the games (or introduced to them here) have anything to add to my interpretations? Or can you think of any other games that line up well with Cosmere worlds like this? Sorry for the massively long post, but I'd love to hear you guys' thoughts on this!

[Jedal]

This pretty good. I feel like there are others which may be worth looking into as well. Could Skyrim be an analogue of Elantris? With the shouts being ancient words in the dragon language, it has a very similar feel to the Aons, allowing one to manipulate reality with words, just of a different kind.

[TheBlueShifting]

I actually posted something similar about Dragon Age a few months ago. here is the link if you are interested!

 

 

[FeatherWriter]

Ohhhh my goodness, I can't believe I missed that one. Blue, I am utterly addicted to Dragon Age, and the number of times that I've called the Well of Sorrows the Well of Ascension is so many. Honestly. I mean, I wrote almost 25,000 words on a story of all the Stormlight characters in Thedas. And the Fade is definitely a Cognitive Realm equivalent. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

[Thunder_93]

The one of me isn't in the same way comparable like the ones of you... but it still got me a little bit...

Assassin's Creed Syndicate (the last one) remembers me just from the whole world to the second Mistborn era...

Just the style all the people dress, the state of technology, the coaches everywhere, and specialy, as you're an assassin, climbing around in a world like that, kind of remembers to Wax jumping around through an alike time-era with his coinshot-abilities... anyone else felt like that? I played the game at the same time as I read Shadows of Self (or Bands of Mourning? not sure...). So it really got me. Really felt like I'm in a similar world.

 

My second one isn't a game, but it really got me: The legend of Korra (from the Legend of Aang, the last Airbender, the second part).

There, the airbenders live kind of isolated on a small island, living like monks, always meditating. In the big part of the city, they are far more advanced in technology, with cars just coming up more and more. And again, in a really similar timesetting... So, this really remembered me as well to the second era of Mistborn, the Airbenders are like the Feruchemists, living isolated as monks. Anyone else had this feelings?

[Jedal]

While we are looking though... Could Epic Mickey be slightly similar to Warbreaker? I'm just thinking about colors, of course.

[Landis963]

15 hours ago, FeatherWriter said:

 

Dishonored and Dishonored 2 as Mistborn

Once again, for those not familiar with the two Dishonored series, here's your quick primer:

  Hide contents

There's a couple of trailers that might work, but I'll give you guys this one for the original Dishonored and this one for Dishonored 2.

The gist is, first game, you play Corvo Attano, the Royal Protector of Empress Jessamine Kaldwin until she gets murdered by magic assassins, her young daughter and heir, Emily Kaldwin, is kidnapped, and everyone thinks you did it. You get thrown in prison and tortured for a year until some sympathetic loyalists break you out, and then you're visited by a powerful entity known as the Outsider who resides in a realm known as the Void and gives you his mark and the magic assassin powers that go with it.

You then set about, with your new magic, to eliminate the people who framed you, find Emily and bring her to safety, and bring the real killers to justice.

Dishonored 2 jumps 15 years into the future, with Emily as Empress and Corvo as her Royal Protector (and Corvo now officially being recognized as Emily's dad and the previous Empress' consort), until an Outsider-marked witch named Delilah declares she's Jessamine's long-lost sister and kicks Emily off the throne in a sudden coup.

This, we might say, is odd, since Delilah was supposed to have had her spirit banished to the void years ago, and was pretty much, for all intents and purposes, dead.

(Note, you can play as either Emily or Corvo in Dishonored 2, but Emily's playthrough is the "canon" storyline, so that's the one I'll use.)

Corvo gets his mark and powers taken away by Delilah and is turned to stone in the middle of the throne room. Emily barely escapes and leaves the city, only to be visited by the Outsider herself. He offers her his mark he offered her father years ago, and her own set of powers, and she sets off to—you guessed it—find the people who organized the coup, take them down, rescue Corvo, and eventually destroy Delilah once and for all.

So, there's a few really obvious ones right off the bat that I'll get out of the way before I start delving into some of the really cool Cosmere parallels. Even those of you who have just watched the trailers can probably pick up on some of these:

• Aesthetic and ambiance. If there were ever to be a Mistborn video game, I'd want it to feel like Dishonored does. The worldbuilding of Dishonored's Empire of the Isles, especially in the first game, has an extremely Scadrian feel to it.
  
  We have a dark, dismal, dystopian Empire, where the rich hold opulent lavish parties while the rest of the city suffers and dies in squalor just outside their golden-lit stained glass windows. The guards exist to beat the lower class down and keep them from bothering the upper crust, and the government holds all the power.
  
  The bureaucratic Abbey of the Everyman, a religious organization more focused on tracking down illegal magic users and summarily executing them rather than any kind of real piety, is a perfect fit for the Steel Ministry, and the Canton of Inquisition in particular. 
  
  Dunwall, the city of the first game feels a lot like Final Empire-era Luthadel, albeit with a Victorian steampunk twist that would be right at home with Elendel. The best of both Mistborns here.
  (spoiler tag is pics)

  Hide contents

• The Outsider's Mark powers feel very Allomantic. Though there aren't any metals involved, and both Corvo and Emily (and Daud, the DLC protagonist) have different powers from the Outsider, there's no denying that the powers that the Outsider grants are perfect for the kind of stealthy, sneaky, stabbity modus operandi that Mistborn favor. Corvo and Daud's Blink power feels a lot like Steelpushing, whereas Emily's Far Reach power could be the Lurcher equivalent. Watching Emily toss a grenade and then yank it back toward her over her head, or yank a body or living guard towards her in midair feels exceptionally like Ironpulling. The Dark Vision power feels a lot like tin, as it enhances vision and sounds around you to help you keep silent and keep track of where the guards and enemies are.
  
  Dishonored is a game that you can play perfectly stealthily, carefully never being seen, or you can rush in as a malestrom of superpowered death. Even the most high-tiered enemies, the "hazekillers" of Dishonored, really can't stand a chance against a Marked assassin who really knows what they're doing with their powers.
  
  Not to mention what the mark looks like. Crescents, dots, and long strokes? The Outsider's mark would fit in with the Steel Alphabet perfectly.
   
• Protagonist story parallels. Corvo is thrown into a terrible prison and tortured as a regular person, and then receives magical powers and goes to overthrow the evil empire who did it to him. Though it happens off-screen between the two games, the tutorial of Dishonored 2 shows him teaching Emily how to fight, sneak across rooftops, and defend herself. The Kelsier parallels are manifold.  
  
  Meanwhile, Emily, especially after inheriting her powers, feels like a wonderful Vin parallel. The empress who'd rather go galavanting off across the rooftops than sit in court, an avenging assassin, using her powers to take down her enemies with deadly precision and skill. 

Now, that the surface level is taken care of, let's dig into some of the ways that Dishonored really and shockingly lines up well with Realmatic theory, and some of the more intricate Realmatic things on Scadrial specifically. 

• The Outsider is a Shard. Unlike Destiny's the Traveler, which felt like a splintered Shard like Honor, the Outsider as a Shard would be one with an aware and active Vessel. Though he appears to protagonists in the Void, it's very clear that this is an avatar that he projects of himself, for his true form is something far more nebulous, something that suffuses the entirety of the Void and can watch over the entire physical world as well. He speaks only to a special chosen few, and only a handful of individuals merit enough attention from him to be gifted with his Mark.
  
  The parallels are even more clear when you find out more about his backstory. Like the Shards' vessels, the Outsider was once a human, who was sacrificed in a ritual to bind him to the powers of the Void. After his ascension, he remained fascinated with humanity, even though he himself was quite beyond human himself, now. (If I had to pick a Shard name for him, I'd probably go with Chaos.)
   
• The Outsider's power is the investiture which fuels the powers of the Marked. In the same way that the powers of Allomancy are drawn directly from Preservation, Marked individuals draw their power directly from the Outsider.
   
• The Void is the Cognitive Realm. This is an exceptionally important one, and I'll expound on it further in the next point, but the way the Void functions in Dishonored is strikingly similar to the Cognitive realm in the Cosmere. It's misty and off-balance, filled with moments and memories that seem more based in perception than reality. Though the Outsider can manifest himself within the physical world on a few special occasions, the Void is his true home. And like a Shard with a nexus, though his focus is usually in one place, his power is everywhere.
   
• Delilah Copperspoon/Kaldwin was a Cognitive Shadow who returned to life, just like Kelsier. Spoilers for the plot of Dishonored 2 and Secret History, but if you watch that Outsider backstory video linked just above, it explains a bit of Delilah's situation. Her spirit was banished to the Void, however, she was still able to communicate through the dreams of those who had been close to her, whispering ways to them that they could bring her back. In much the same way that Kelsier was able to, as a Cognitive Shadow, whisper to Spook because of their Connection so that they could find a way to bring Kelsier back.
  
  Delilah's friends and supporters then, were able to perform a seance to draw her spirit back from the Void into the physical world once more, and in the process, made her immortal. Much the same way Kelsier and Spook apparently figured out some way to use hemalurgy to return Kelsier to the physical world and make him immortal as the Sovereign.

All in all, it's pretty dang incredible just how many ways these stories line up with each other, in some really really cool ways. In case you guys couldn't tell, I love both Destiny and Dishonored, and could talk about them endlessly.

Anyone familiar with the games (or introduced to them here) have anything to add to my interpretations? Or can you think of any other games that line up well with Cosmere worlds like this? Sorry for the massively long post, but I'd love to hear you guys' thoughts on this!

I can't speak for Destiny as I haven't done nearly the amount of research necessary to figure out the Traveler's and the Darkness' Intents (Although Odium does appear to fit surprisingly well for the latter).  Dishonored, on the other hand, I am quite familiar with so here we are.  The Outsider's Intent is not simply "Chaos," I think.  He's far too interested in and appreciative of Low Chaos protagonists for that.  In addition, Word of Harvey Smith (the game director) states that the Void Ritual that made him what he was filled him with an "insatiable curiosity about what people do when given power over others."  (from a Twitter conversation, screencapped here) Part of that comes from his human origins as a powerless boy forced into the ritual, of course, but not all, especially since the ritual in question happened some 4000 years in advance of the games, (Another Twitter conversation, here).  I suspect that he is a mixture of Ruin and at least one other Shard (Honor, perhaps?), with the intent of "Nemesis." (Hence the empowering of a select few and sending them out to seek their version of justice)

And Delilah is a Cognitive Shadow that (I suspect) found the memory of the ritual (Or at least found the Cognitive Realm version of that knife the cultist was holding) and used it to start siphoning off the Outsider's power.  And of course, she's more of a Ruinous character, so that's what she's drawing from the Outsider, and why he's willing to return Corvo's powers to him, should you choose to play as him in the sequel.  The rest of Delilah's actions in Dishonored 2 match pretty closely to Kelsier's situation.  

Also, Dishonored's world's Focus is bone (the evidence for this is endemic), and their subastral (except for the bits that the Outsider Invests for live visitors) seems meant to evoke the ocean depths.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Landis963

[FeatherWriter]

1 minute ago, Landis963 said:

I can't speak for Destiny as I haven't done nearly the amount of research necessary to figure out the Traveler's and the Darkness' Intents (Although Odium does appear to fit surprisingly well for the latter).  Dishonored, on the other hand, I am quite familiar with so here we are.  The Outsider's Intent is not simply "Chaos," I think.  He's far too interested in and appreciative of Low Chaos protagonists for that.  In addition, Word of Harvey Smith (the game director) states that the Void Ritual that made him what he was filled him with an "insatiable curiosity about what people do when given power over others."  (from a Twitter conversation, screencapped here) Part of that comes from his human origins as a powerless boy forced into the ritual, of course, but not all, especially since the ritual in question happened some 4000 years in advance of the games, (Another Twitter conversation, here).  I suspect that he is a mixture of Ruin and at least one other Shard (Honor, perhaps?), with the intent of "Nemesis." (Hence the empowering of a select few and sending them out to seek their version of justice)  And Delilah is a Cognitive Shadow that (I suspect) found the memory of the ritual (Or at least found the Cognitive Realm version of that knife the cultist was holding) and used it to start siphoning off the Outsider's power.  And of course, she's more of a Ruinous character, so that's what she's drawing from the Outsider, and why he's willing to return Corvo's powers to him, should you choose to play as him in the sequel.  The rest of Delilah's actions in Dishonored 2 match pretty closely to Kelsier's situation.  

Also, Dishonored's world's Focus is clearly bone, and their subastral (except for the bits that the Outsider Invests for live visitors) is clearly meant to evoke the ocean depths.

Yeah, he's actually kind of a difficult one to pin down into one good Shard-y sounding word. I mean, he obviously has some amorality going on in that he doesn't seem to be disappointed in high-chaos protagonists, and yet, as the devs said, the Outsider is fascinated by the low-chaos protagonists, at seeing someone be given extreme powers and not using them selfishly or violently. I'd be tempted to say his intent was something like "Curiosity" but that's really just him, and doesn't really have anything to do with his powers. "Motivation" or "Consequence" perhaps? Neither sound particularly shardic. "Nemesis" could work, though since the Outsider himself doesn't really have any rivals, it's hard for him to act that out.

Honestly, as I think about it, as simple as it sounds, "Power" might be the best fit. The Outsider's motivation, as you pointed out, is seeing what happens when the powerless are given power. He contacts Corvo and Emily only at their lowest points, and presumably he did the same to Delilah, an illegitimate daughter kicked out to the street. The Outsider is most interested in seeing the powerful who are brought down low, and the lowly who claw their way up to power, and playing with the dynamic there with his interference.

Also, now that I think about it, if I were to try to name the Traveler something shardic, I might go with "Progress." Some of the lore talks about other worlds that the Traveler visited, and in each case, societies and civilizations blossomed, spreading and thriving in the gifts that it gave them.

One of the Darkness' races in particular, the Hive, is morally opposed to this idea, weirdly enough. (The Hive are fascinating.) The Hive's philosophy (and likely the Darkness' as well) is that only those things which are strong enough to keep themselves alive deserve to exist. Therefore, the Hive feel a moral obligation to figure out what those "worthy" things are... by attempting to eliminate every civilization that they come across. To them, peaceful societies encourage weakness, and allow it to fester, which makes the universe weaker. They see the Traveler as evil, because it shelters and coddles weak races that don't deserve to continue existing of their own right. 

[Quiver]

17 hours ago, FeatherWriter said:

Meanwhile, Emily, especially after inheriting her powers, feels like a wonderful Vin parallel. The empress who'd rather go galavanting off across the rooftops than sit in court, an avenging assassin, using her powers to take down her enemies with deadly precision and skill. 

I enjoyed the original Dishonoured, but never got around to playing the sequel. But the chance to play as one of my favorite video game characters?

Yeah, I'm in.

(As for game parrallels... I'll get back to you. Is it cheap to draw a comparision between the tropical, ocean setting of Pokemon Sun/Moon and Sixth of the Dusk? even ignoring the pet monsters part)

Edited December 6, 2016 by Quiver

[Landis963]

4 hours ago, FeatherWriter said:

Yeah, he's actually kind of a difficult one to pin down into one good Shard-y sounding word. I mean, he obviously has some amorality going on in that he doesn't seem to be disappointed in high-chaos protagonists, and yet, as the devs said, the Outsider is fascinated by the low-chaos protagonists, at seeing someone be given extreme powers and not using them selfishly or violently. I'd be tempted to say his intent was something like "Curiosity" but that's really just him, and doesn't really have anything to do with his powers. "Motivation" or "Consequence" perhaps? Neither sound particularly shardic. "Nemesis" could work, though since the Outsider himself doesn't really have any rivals, it's hard for him to act that out.

Honestly, as I think about it, as simple as it sounds, "Power" might be the best fit. The Outsider's motivation, as you pointed out, is seeing what happens when the powerless are given power. He contacts Corvo and Emily only at their lowest points, and presumably he did the same to Delilah, an illegitimate daughter kicked out to the street. The Outsider is most interested in seeing the powerful who are brought down low, and the lowly who claw their way up to power, and playing with the dynamic there with his interference.

"Nemesis" didn't always have the connotations it does today.  Unless I am misremembering, it is another term for "Justice" of the slow-burn variety, the "You're gonna get what's coming to you" variety.  

Another thing to consider is what bonecharms and such do to the non-Marked.  Namely, the tendency for them find a piece of scrimshaw, then start calling it "My Precious."  However, before the madness and spontaneous shrine-construction sets in, the bone charms do work as intended.  They react as expected to the Overseers' music boxes (namely, they go cold and inert), and they've been used as anti-pregnancy and good luck charms for long enough that certain carved patterns must be known to cause certain effects.  However, none of these charms on their own provide power like the Mark does.  At best, they provide a small healing factor, or to move faster under certain conditions, or cause certain things to malfunction.  And those are the ones that aren't dependent on having powers, e.g. "You can possess white rats for longer" doesn't help your average Joe on the streets of Dunwall or Karnaca.  

[TheBlueShifting]

22 hours ago, Landis963 said:

 I suspect that he is a mixture of Ruin and at least one other Shard (Honor, perhaps?), with the intent of "Nemesis." (Hence the empowering of a select few and sending them out to seek their version of justice)

Actually The Outsider might behave similarly to how Dominion might have acted. You know, making worthy people strong and watching how they use that power over others? 

[Landis963]

13 hours ago, TheBlueShifting said:

Actually The Outsider might behave similarly to how Dominion might have acted. You know, making worthy people strong and watching how they use that power over others? 

That doesn't fit right IMO, or rather it doesn't fit well with his demeanor in Dishonored 2, which is much more active, in every sense, than his performance in Dishonored 1.  Also, speaking of his Dishonored 1 performance, he's almost gleeful when describing the High Chaos ending, as though he's sitting back with a bowl of popcorn and watching the empire tear itself apart.  This does not play well with "Dominion," I don't think.  He's much more disappointed and mournful in the High Chaos ending of Dishonored 2, when he describes Corvo the Black or Emily the Vengeful ruling the Empire with a clenched fist and an iron blade.  I will admit that a valid argument could be made for that.  

However, I'm assuming that, if Dishonored can be considered part of the Cosmere, the Shattering that created the Shard for the Outsider and his predecessors (because yes there have been predecessors) did not do so along the same lines as the Yolese Shattering.  So having a Shard that is a direct analogue to one of the ones we already know about... well, it beggars belief.  

Edited December 8, 2016 by Landis963

[A Secret Corner]

On ‎12‎/‎6‎/‎2016 at 10:31 AM, FeatherWriter said:

Yeah, he's actually kind of a difficult one to pin down into one good Shard-y sounding word. I mean, he obviously has some amorality going on in that he doesn't seem to be disappointed in high-chaos protagonists, and yet, as the devs said, the Outsider is fascinated by the low-chaos protagonists, at seeing someone be given extreme powers and not using them selfishly or violently. I'd be tempted to say his intent was something like "Curiosity" but that's really just him, and doesn't really have anything to do with his powers. "Motivation" or "Consequence" perhaps? Neither sound particularly shardic. "Nemesis" could work, though since the Outsider himself doesn't really have any rivals, it's hard for him to act that out.

Honestly, as I think about it, as simple as it sounds, "Power" might be the best fit. The Outsider's motivation, as you pointed out, is seeing what happens when the powerless are given power. He contacts Corvo and Emily only at their lowest points, and presumably he did the same to Delilah, an illegitimate daughter kicked out to the street. The Outsider is most interested in seeing the powerful who are brought down low, and the lowly who claw their way up to power, and playing with the dynamic there with his interference.

Also, now that I think about it, if I were to try to name the Traveler something shardic, I might go with "Progress." Some of the lore talks about other worlds that the Traveler visited, and in each case, societies and civilizations blossomed, spreading and thriving in the gifts that it gave them.

One of the Darkness' races in particular, the Hive, is morally opposed to this idea, weirdly enough. (The Hive are fascinating.) The Hive's philosophy (and likely the Darkness' as well) is that only those things which are strong enough to keep themselves alive deserve to exist. Therefore, the Hive feel a moral obligation to figure out what those "worthy" things are... by attempting to eliminate every civilization that they come across. To them, peaceful societies encourage weakness, and allow it to fester, which makes the universe weaker. They see the Traveler as evil, because it shelters and coddles weak races that don't deserve to continue existing of their own right. 

I would think it very shardic as well in how the Darkness has changed Oryx and the Hive in general... I would have to agree that the Hive are very fascinating as well...

The traveler has been more about promoting civilization, allowing people to have the "soft" societies to which Oryx, the Hive, and the Darkness are apposed. I think that thus something like Civilization would be best as a name...

And swords are amazing

I have played Destiny a good amount, but haven't for some time, because Xbox live is letting me buy Rise of Iron...

My favorite thing to do with swords though is to use Radiance  + Radiant Skin + Sword + Heart of the Praxic Fire... to literally duel the bosses... and win... well that and absorb rockets and the vaporize other supers... Literally, with Dark Drinker I vaporize everything in my path...

I'm scared about how much of tank I would be if I were to use The Ram's armor perk, a chest perk for using a fire class, max armor stats, Radiant Skin, sword and radiance together...

Edited December 8, 2016 by Secrets

[FeatherWriter]

@Secrets Ayyy, Warlock master race!

Mmm, I finally buckled down and did the hours of resource gathering to get my Dark Drinker (I had a Raze Lighter before!) and I finally got to use it against those captains at the end of Wrath of the Machine and it felt so wonderful. I will say I tend to keep my girl on Voidwalker for the most part. With Nothing Manacles in PvE, I can throw grenades about as fast as a Sunsinger in Radiance but all the time, as long as I'm getting kills and triggering energy drain off of them. With max discipline, a grenade kill will replenish my grenade in a second or two, and with two grenade charges, I don't even have to wait.

I mean, the Manacles are pretty nice in PvP too, but I also just picked up an Ophidian Aspect and that's just too good in PvP to pass up. 

Even though I end up using my exotic slot for other things, I have to admit, there's nothing more fun to use than those exotic swords. I feel like such a Shardbearer rushing in to the heart of danger with it!

[A Secret Corner]

15 hours ago, FeatherWriter said:

@Secrets Ayyy, Warlock master race!

Mmm, I finally buckled down and did the hours of resource gathering to get my Dark Drinker (I had a Raze Lighter before!) and I finally got to use it against those captains at the end of Wrath of the Machine and it felt so wonderful. I will say I tend to keep my girl on Voidwalker for the most part. With Nothing Manacles in PvE, I can throw grenades about as fast as a Sunsinger in Radiance but all the time, as long as I'm getting kills and triggering energy drain off of them. With max discipline, a grenade kill will replenish my grenade in a second or two, and with two grenade charges, I don't even have to wait.

I mean, the Manacles are pretty nice in PvP too, but I also just picked up an Ophidian Aspect and that's just too good in PvP to pass up. 

Even though I end up using my exotic slot for other things, I have to admit, there's nothing more fun to use than those exotic swords. I feel like such a Shardbearer rushing in to the heart of danger with it!

Warlocks are master race indeed.

When I've played though, I've been running Sunsinger for a very long time... funny thing is I still tank with radiance and sword and radiant skin while running a max agility (well I use endperk in sunsinger tree for two grenades because heart of the praxic fire...)

I originally used only voidwalker, but after TK, I actually started to use sunsinger...

I just am disappointed in how much bad nova  in PVE I see... whenever I used it I would get 3+ and on multiple occasions got 6...

The exotic swords do take a lot of time but are definitely worth it...

But I've spent probably over 50-100 hours in quests  for exotic stuff... the amount of time I spent getting the heavy fusion rifle alone...

But if you haven't, try out a radiance, radiant skin and exotic sword combo...

If you use it right ... well it feels like you actually are a shardbearer , for real though...

 

[Glamdring804]

Well Damnation. You beat me too it. All this week, I've been working on a write up on how Destiny is Cosmere, but because of school, I never finished it. Then I came here, and saw this thread. I agree that Destiny is obviously Cosmere. My own Cosmere take was built from the ground up, instead of trying to fit it into the Stormlight Archive, which led to some simplifications on the Destiny side. Here's my explanation and evidence, in no particular order.

Bad Juju

This isn't particularly important, but it's a nice example of exactly how Cosmere Destiny is. This is the flavor text for the exotic pulse rifle Bad Juju:

"If you believe your weapon wants to end all existence, then so it will." —Toland, the Shattered

Basically, what Toland is saying, is that he somehow managed to align his weapon with his intent for the weapon. This phenomenon, that believing something will have the desired effect will result in you getting said desired effect, is something we see all the time in the Cosmere. Toland believes Bad Juju wants to end all existence. Every time he uses it, he invests it ever so slightly. Over time, he has invested it enough that it has begun to show signs of an Awakened object, and develop a degree of sentience. Now, before we jump to conclusions, I am not saying that Destiny magic is awakening, only that the investiture in Destiny can be used in a similar manner.

The Fallen

The alien race known as the Fallen are another important hint regarding the Traveler's nature as a shard. It would seem that, over time, races and species exposed to the Traveler develop a dependency on Light. They carry around a small portion of investiture with them, slowly warping their spirit web. Again, this is something we see all around the Cosmere. Scadrians have small amounts of investiture within them. The people of Nalthis are imbued with even more investiture, so much so that they have a dependency on it, and if they are stripped of that investiture, they suffer physiological and psychological effects. This is exactly what happened with the Fallen.

Before the Traveler came to Earth, it visited another system that was home to a race known as the Eliksni. The Eliksni were quite similar to us. They were a burgeoning civilization that were just taking their first steps to the stars. The Traveler's arrival kicked off a golden age of innovation. Their technology surged forward in leaps and bounds. Lifespans increased tremendously, and things in general were pretty peachy for the Eliksni. Then, the Darkness showed up, and the Traveler fled. Without the Traveler, Eliksni civilization collapsed, and they became the Fallen, a wretched race of space pirates roaming the stars to collect enough scraps to survive.

The effects of the Traveler's departure were quite severe for the Fallen. Without the Traveler as a source of light, they literally started withering away. Their bodies became stunted, and their statures were greatly reduced. They were forced to rely on the Serivitors, mysterious artificial lifeforms that collect and concentrate ambient investiture in the form of Etherium, to sustain them. They were exposed for heightened levels of investiture for too long, and now their spirit webs bear the scars. The Fallen aren't actually direct servants of the Darkness yet, but the holes in their spirit webs open up the possibility for them to become such. It would seem that this happened with Skolas after he was captured. The Darkness used its investiture to fill the cracks in Skolas, granting Skolas new power, and turning him into a proper servant of the Darkness. Not a good sign.

The interesting thing about this is that there is evidence that what happened to the Fallen is starting to happen to humans. All humans on Earth now carry small amounts of light within them. They're gradually becoming attuned to the Traveler's investiture. The longer they are in its presence, the more invested they become.

The Darkness, the Traveler, and Intents

Initially, I also thought that the Darkness could be Odium, but this didn't quite add up. Only two of the four alien races in Destiny are direct servants of the Darkness: the Hive and the Vex. Now, the Hive certainly act in many hateful ways that wouldn't be out of place among Voidbringers, but the Vex do not. (Before we get too far, the Vex are not actually robots. They are mecha suits for colonies of bacteria) The Hive follow something called the Sword Logic, which basically says that if something can be killed, it never deserved to exist in the first place. Therefore, they should go on an omnicidal rampage and destroy everything they see until only one living being is left in the universe. This sounds pretty hateful, but it's also something that can be described as extreme ambition. Their ultimate end goal is to become the dominant species in the universe. Pretty rusting ambitious, right? Their society even directly rewards ambition. The only way to advance is to forcibly take what you need to reach the next level.

The Vex also have a similar goal. Their endgame is to become the dominant life form in the universe. Their chosen method isn't to destroy everything until there's nothing left, but rather to reprogram the universe so their existence becomes a fundamental property of it. They want to rewrite the laws of physics to make themselves literally indestructible. This isn't really what I would call hateful behavior. The Vex, being mostly machine, seem incapable of hate and other emotions. Integrating themselves into the laws of physics though, that is pretty darn ambitious. Thus, I came to the conclusion that the Darkness is not Odium, but rather Ambition.

But that's not all.

The question of the Traveler's intent was a little harder. The Traveler goes from star system to star system helping fledgling species and generally being a good guy (or girl). The Darkness was following the Traveler, though and whenever it caught up, the Traveler fled and abandoned the young species to the Darkness's wrath. That wasn't exactly an honorable move, so Honor was out. The Traveler could be cultivation. It goes around terraforming inhospitable planets, which is apparently something all shards can do, but I'm sure it would help to be a shard about growing things. It also focused on nurturing young civilizations and helping them grow.

The biggest problem with this is the Guardians. They do not act in a way that is aligned with Cultivation. The Guardians are a very independent group, both with each other and outside influences. Even their commanding officers, the Vanguard, don't really have direct control over them. They are more of the Guardians' managers. The Guardians themselves are not really a unified force even. Most Guardians work on their own or in small groups that rarely contain more than half a dozen members. The Guardians, for the most part, do their own thing. They go around looking for big bads to fight and loot to collect and glory to be won in general. The Titans are perhaps the most subdued example. They seek prestige by aspiring to be shining paladins who defend the weak. The Hunters imagine themselves to be the big damnation heroes, great warriors roaming the wilds and fighting monsters. Warlocks are the classic sorcerer,  constantly looking for ways to expand their powers. All three orders are seeking their own form of glory. The Guardians are heroes in their own right, but this seems to be more of a natural byproduct of their actions. Their driving motivation is their own ambition: to seek ever greater challenges and achievements. The Guardians as a whole, are also aligned with Ambition.

Now this is a sticky situation. How can both the Traveler and the Darkness be Ambition? Neither of them are, and they both are at once. We know that Odium splintered Ambition. However, we don't know hoe exactly that happened. As evidenced by Sel and Honor, there is more than one way to splinter a shard. I believe that when Odium splintered Ambition, Rayse somehow split the shard straight down the middle. Some point after, Cultivation took up one half, and Odium, in a desperate move to prevent a shard from becoming more powerful than him, took up the other half. The Ambition mixed with their original intents, and Cultivation became Glory, and Odium became Conquest. Thus they became the Traveler and the Darkness as we know them.

The Guardians and Ghosts

Since the Traveler is a shard, I think it's fairly obvious that the Light is the Traveler's investiture, and the Guardians are the ones capable of channeling it, which is how they gain their abilities. So what exactly does this make the Guardians? They aren't quite Radiants, since their parent Shards aren't Honor and Cultivation, and their powers are quite different from those of any Radiant we've seen so far.  Also, the Ghosts are similar to spren, but they are also similar to Seons, and can do things neither can.

Let's start off with the nature of the Ghosts. They were created by the Traveler after he/she was severely wounded by the Darkness. The strain of fighting the Darkness drove the Traveler into hibernation, and with its last act, it created the Ghosts to protect humanity. These ghosts are obviously splinters, but they are not a type of splinter we have seen before. All the ghosts have a physical body, and almost count as robots. It would seem that the Traveler splintered pieces of its own cognitive and spiritual forms and bound them to physical forms to create the Ghosts.

Guardians are not your typical investiture wielders. The Ghosts travel the Earth and Solar System searching for bodies of the ancient dead that are compatible with Light. As soon as they find the right person, they fill the remains with Light and resurrect the person as a warrior of Light. This is quite interesting. It would seem that the Ghosts can detect the spiritwebs of people who have long since passed on. Once they find a compatible web, they use investiture to somehow pull the person back into the world. Furthermore, the Ghosts act as permanent anchors for the guardians. A Radiant can die if their central nervous system is destroyed. Guardians can only die if their ghost is killed or drained of investiture. They can be decapitated, vaporized, you name it. As long as their Ghost survives, they can still be resurrected. Guardians, it would seem, are much more invested than your typical magic wielder.

As for their specific uses of investiture, Guardians have a few abilities we haven’t seen before. There are the usual suspects, such as becoming nigh-invincible by filling your body with investiture (Warlocks' Radiance) and warping physical phenomena using investiture (Titans' Fist of Havoc and Stormcallers' Stormtrance). Guardians though, can also shape investiture into solid physical constructs, like weapons and shields. Quite fascinating.

This relates to the last strange ability Guardians have: Universal ammo packs. When a guardian fights, he or she will often pick up ammunition off of their defeated enemies. This makes no sense. Why would alien weaponry use rounds that are compatible with our weapons? This is even stranger when you consider the fact that many of the alien weapons are energy based, not projectile. What I believe is happening here is the Guardian's Ghost uses investiture to transform scavenged matter and energy from enemy packs into rounds that are compatible with their own weapons. This also explains the swords of Destiny. They very similar to Shardblades. Instead of forming the entire weapon themselves, the Ghost creates the blade using existing matter and investiture. The Ghost itself can't form the blade, because it is already locked in a single physical form.

God Metals

This transitions nicely into the new God Metals introduced in Destiny. There are three elements in the game that do not correspond to anything in the periodic table: Spinmetal, Relic Iron, and Hadium. I believe these are the God Metals of Cultivation, Ambition, and Odium, respectively. Spinmetal is an electrically conductive metal that grows on plants in cold environments. These plants apparently started showing up when the Traveler did. The fact that it grows on plants is a dead giveaway that this is Cultivation's metal. Relic Iron is a dense and durable material found in lumpy deposits on the deserts of Mars. This would seem to be Ambition's metal, since it also appeared when the Traveler did. The third metal, Hadium, has to date only been found on the Hive ship Dreadnaught. Hadium reacts to energy and investiture it is exposed to. The Darkness likely grants it to the Hive to help them kill everything. All three of these metals react to the Light in interesting ways, and are often used in the construction of Guardian gear.

---

Whew. That was longer than I expected. Kudos to you if you read all of it. I even have more I might add later! Any thoughts?

[Jedal]

Destiny is too long, Cosmere is too short. They can't be the same. THEORY DESTROYED

 

In all seriousness though. This is a good theory. I have my own personal issues with Destiny however.

 

I spent maybe 1000 hours on that game, spending every weekend grinding with friends. It was fun, but it got tedious and stopped being fun. After R6S and Fallout 4 came out, Destiny stopped being my main source of entertainment. Although raids were fun, I had nowhere near the amount of dedication to keep leveling my main, a Warlock, much less my alt characters. My friends kept playing, but I had more fun elsewhere.

Edited December 11, 2016 by Jedal

[Glamdring804]

3 hours ago, Jedal said:

I spent maybe 1000 hours on that game, spending every weekend grinding with friends. It was fun, but it got tedious and stopped being fun. After R6S and Fallout 4 came out, Destiny stopped being my main source of entertainment. Although raids were fun, I had nowhere near the amount of dedication to keep leveling my main, a Warlock, much less my alt characters. My friends kept playing, but I had more fun elsewhere.

That's just a personal preference. There some people (like me) who enjoy that kind of game. To each his own.

On a different note, the world of Destiny is one of the best science-fantasies I've encountered. Everything just feels...right. If Brandon weren't so busy with the Cosmere, I would suggest he write some adaptations for the game. It feels a lot like one of his worlds. It feels logical and right, yet lived in and real.

Edited December 12, 2016 by Glamdring804

[Jedal]

9 hours ago, Glamdring804 said:

That's just a personal preference. There some people (like me) who enjoy that kind of game. To each his own.

On a different note, the world of Destiny is one of the best science-fantasies I've encountered. Everything just feels...right. If Brandon weren't so busy with the Cosmere, I would suggest he write some adaptations for the game. It feels a lot like one of his worlds. It feels logical and right, yet lived in and real.

Definitely. One of the things that kept me drawn in WAS the story. There is a lot of potential for a good book. Just not Brandon, because I don't think it works well with him.

[FeatherWriter]

8 hours ago, Jedal said:

Definitely. One of the things that kept me drawn in WAS the story. There is a lot of potential for a good book. Just not Brandon, because I don't think it works well with him.

Funny, up until the Taken King, I'd say that Destiny's storyline was easily the weakest point of the series. (And even after TTK, because I'll be real, Rise of Iron's story was pretty bare bones.) Now, I know that there was some stuff in vanilla Destiny with apparently the entire original story got scrapped way too close to the finish and the original scriptwriters were fired or something like that. So vanilla Destiny ended up as this kind of storyline that technically I guess made sense, but was also so meaninglessly vapid that it was pretty dang boring.

Did anyone get to the mission with the Black Garden and really feel like this was the climactic culmination of everything we'd been working toward? Hmm, probably not. Destiny original's plot can get summed up as "there are bad things, go kill them" with the set pieces changing behind, and different voice actors saying "yes go kill the things."

I mean, we have such stunning voice lines as "I don't even have time to explain why I don't have time to explain" and when my Ghost wakes my Guardian up and says "You must have questions," it would... be nice to maybe answer those at some point? But we don't. The mission style is pretty much all the same too: "fight your way through small things and then there's a big thing at the end." And while the cutscenes seem very cinematic and dramatic, when you get to the end of them, it's pretty much just... yeah go kill the next thing.

Thankfully for vanilla Destiny, the gameplay's fun, the settings and graphics are gorgeous, and if you take the time to dig into the Lore, it's stunning. But the story itself? Pretty sad, honestly.

The Dark Below has Eris, who is the most extra, but you know what, I love her anyway. Kind of a slightly better story in terms of Crota's soul and all that, but also super short. :C

House of Wolves is... kind of interesting, but unfortunately all of the really interesting things seemed to happen before we got there. A dangerous Fallen Kell escaped prison and led the Queen's Fallen guards in a bloody betrayal before fleeing? That sounds really cool. Except by the time the first mission starts, it's already over and the Guardians are just on clean-up duty. Which, is fine, but again we're getting missions that are all "go fight through little guys to the big guy at the end" sort of thing. Skolas, Petra, and Variks are pretty cool though, and at least we get some dialogue over our comms during missions now. That's nice.

Taken King is honestly the storytelling highlight for me. The Dreadnaught feels alive and the cutscenes and plot are really actually engaging. Cayde-6 shines far and away above everyone else, both within missions and outside of them, but everyone else is pretty good too, with Eris, Holiday, and Zavala doing some pretty fun moments. Oryx is a compelling and terrifying antagonist, which is very much something that helps the story. When playing the TTK story missions, I feel like my Guardian is actually doing something, and the creative mission design on these, with some stealth missions, climbing puzzles, the mission-end fakeout at Crota's soul, all just make it feel really fun and engaging in a way that the game didn't before.

And unfortunately, Rise of Iron feels like a step back in terms of story. SIVA feels too inanimate to make a good antagonist, especially when compared with Oryx. It's just a virus thing, and yes, that's bad, but also not super interesting. Shiro-4 and Saladin are okay, but neither carry the same kind of engagement and characterization that TTK brought to the table. I'm a bit disappointed, since it feels like a step backward, but eh, whatever.

Anyway, I probably didn't need to type all of that out, but while the lore of Destiny is fantastic, I'd say storytelling (TTK aside) is still a pretty rough patch for the franchise. I think I once compared it to setting a game on Roshar and just... not actually having anything to do except kill random things. It's baffling how the game designers could come up with such an interesting world and just... not do very much with it and sequester all of the really cool stuff in cards that aren't even accessible in the game! Bungie, pls. Hopefully, Destiny 2 can learn from some of these mistakes...

[Jedal]

1 minute ago, FeatherWriter said:

Funny, up until the Taken King, I'd say that Destiny's storyline was easily the weakest point of the series. (And even after TTK, because I'll be real, Rise of Iron's story was pretty bare bones.) Now, I know that there was some stuff in vanilla Destiny with apparently the entire original story got scrapped way too close to the finish and the original scriptwriters were fired or something like that. So vanilla Destiny ended up as this kind of storyline that technically I guess made sense, but was also so meaninglessly vapid that it was pretty dang boring.

Did anyone get to the mission with the Black Garden and really feel like this was the climactic culmination of everything we'd been working toward? Hmm, probably not. Destiny original's plot can get summed up as "there are bad things, go kill them" with the set pieces changing behind, and different voice actors saying "yes go kill the things."

I mean, we have such stunning voice lines as "I don't even have time to explain why I don't have time to explain" and when my Ghost wakes my Guardian up and says "You must have questions," it would... be nice to maybe answer those at some point? But we don't. The mission style is pretty much all the same too: "fight your way through small things and then there's a big thing at the end." And while the cutscenes seem very cinematic and dramatic, when you get to the end of them, it's pretty much just... yeah go kill the next thing.

Thankfully for vanilla Destiny, the gameplay's fun, the settings and graphics are gorgeous, and if you take the time to dig into the Lore, it's stunning. But the story itself? Pretty sad, honestly.

The Dark Below has Eris, who is the most extra, but you know what, I love her anyway. Kind of a slightly better story in terms of Crota's soul and all that, but also super short. :C

House of Wolves is... kind of interesting, but unfortunately all of the really interesting things seemed to happen before we got there. A dangerous Fallen Kell escaped prison and led the Queen's Fallen guards in a bloody betrayal before fleeing? That sounds really cool. Except by the time the first mission starts, it's already over and the Guardians are just on clean-up duty. Which, is fine, but again we're getting missions that are all "go fight through little guys to the big guy at the end" sort of thing. Skolas, Petra, and Variks are pretty cool though, and at least we get some dialogue over our comms during missions now. That's nice.

Taken King is honestly the storytelling highlight for me. The Dreadnaught feels alive and the cutscenes and plot are really actually engaging. Cayde-6 shines far and away above everyone else, both within missions and outside of them, but everyone else is pretty good too, with Eris, Holiday, and Zavala doing some pretty fun moments. Oryx is a compelling and terrifying antagonist, which is very much something that helps the story. When playing the TTK story missions, I feel like my Guardian is actually doing something, and the creative mission design on these, with some stealth missions, climbing puzzles, the mission-end fakeout at Crota's soul, all just make it feel really fun and engaging in a way that the game didn't before.

And unfortunately, Rise of Iron feels like a step back in terms of story. SIVA feels too inanimate to make a good antagonist, especially when compared with Oryx. It's just a virus thing, and yes, that's bad, but also not super interesting. Shiro-4 and Saladin are okay, but neither carry the same kind of engagement and characterization that TTK brought to the table. I'm a bit disappointed, since it feels like a step backward, but eh, whatever.

Anyway, I probably didn't need to type all of that out, but while the lore of Destiny is fantastic, I'd say storytelling (TTK aside) is still a pretty rough patch for the franchise. I think I once compared it to setting a game on Roshar and just... not actually having anything to do except kill random things. It's baffling how the game designers could come up with such an interesting world and just... not do very much with it and sequester all of the really cool stuff in cards that aren't even accessible in the game! Bungie, pls. Hopefully, Destiny 2 can learn from some of these mistakes...

I mostly meant the lore. But Bungie also has the room to make some pretty great Guardian storylines in a book series. I mean, channeling Light and uncovering mysteries and I mean WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE PEOPLE WHO FIRST WENT INTO THE VAULT?!? WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO ERIS IN CROTA'S WORLD? IS THE QUEEN DEAD? These are some great story ideas, and if they don't do it in the games, they better be some damnation good books. I'd write them myself.

[FeatherWriter]

8 hours ago, Jedal said:

I mostly meant the lore. But Bungie also has the room to make some pretty great Guardian storylines in a book series. I mean, channeling Light and uncovering mysteries and I mean WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE PEOPLE WHO FIRST WENT INTO THE VAULT?!? WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO ERIS IN CROTA'S WORLD? IS THE QUEEN DEAD? These are some great story ideas, and if they don't do it in the games, they better be some damnation good books. I'd write them myself.

If Mara Sov's dead, I'll eat my Ghost, though I suppose what with me being utter garbage I'm mostly just pleased that Uldren survived.