Resources: Time Line of Events


** Needless to say this thread is going to contain immense story spoilers, so proceed with caution. **


It has long been a point of focus for the community to discuss Destiny's story, and apparent lack thereof. From the initial launch many people sited the immediately visible story as underwhelming and thin, an observation I also alluded to, which in hindsight and having experience with the Dark Souls series was a poor call. I've occasionally delved into the Grimoire section on Bungie.net to research characters of interest or points in the World that I'm not familiar with. I had heard of the Book of Sorrow snippets being divulged with Calcified Fragment finds, but was waiting until I had them all to read in full.

However, after reading Verse 1 I couldn't help myself and quickly Googled the remaining versus I had not acquire yet. If you're interested in finding out more yourself a simple search will reveal all, however this YouTubers channel has an extended playlist covering all verses therein: Myelin Games: Destiny Book of Sorrows - I'll link the videos independently at the bottom of the post. I finished watching sometime last night and was left with a lot to ponder.



** This is where I'm going to talk in detail about spoilers so you have been warned. **
Having finished all verses I found myself lying in bed thinking about the game I've been playing for the past 16 months and how it's now been forever changed for me. The last time lore directly affected my emotional connection with a game on this level was Dark Souls, and in some respects I think The Book of Sorrows surpasses the former.  The first emotion that came to be was insignificance. As a Guardian, as a Human. Within the larger tale of The Book of Sorrows we are but a grain of sand, only present for a fraction of the events that started out on The Fundament all those millennia ago.

I'm still sitting here as I type this pondering the grandness of it all. When you read or observe the book in total you'll understand what I mean - the closest work of literature to it I can think of is Tolkien's The Silmarillion, both in terms of (impressionable) scope and resonance. 

There are many points to talk about within the Book, I'm only going to pick two to begin. Again, huge major spoilers. The Fundament (as I had imagined it from the text) is a large Gas Giant, many times the size of our own Jupiter that houses species from all corners of the galaxy, many of whom are not inherently native to The Fundament. One of those races were the Krill. It would take up too much time to go into specific detail so please go read the Book of Sorrows or watch Myelin Games YouTube videos get a more rounded view on events. Needless to say, this race ultimately became The Hive we now know, the events that lead to this are tragic in my eyes.

What it came to in the end was a choice, a choice that was influenced by The Krill's will to save a species from extension. A choice that lead three Krill Princesses' to The Deep where they encountered (at this point) for all intent's and purposes agents of The Darkness. Obviously at this stage they were unaware of what was in play, having also been spoken to on the way down by an (as we find out later) agent of The Light - it comes to pass that at this very point a decision was made that altered the flow of time and outcome of the Universe, and ultimately the extinction of thousands of species.

Ironically Oryx was the one sister that had reservations on their fate once the tasks and 'purposes' had been allocated to them by The Darkness for gifting The Krill with the ability to save their species. Once Oryx received The God King and began to fulfill his fate he dived deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole so to speak. Having come into The Taken King with little or no knowledge of Oryx and The Hive, and having defeated Crota previously this once 'full-time evil' faction within the universe I suddenly find myself extremely conflicted on events.

As a closing point, The Touch of Malice was Oryx's way of ensuring his immortality should he ever be physically defeated. With it, his power and will, mission and philosophy. The question now is, as it's inheritors what will our fate as Guardians be. Will we become detached from reality after millennia of waging war, as Oryx did.

Obviously this is just a fraction of what's taken place within The Book of Sorrows and I'd be extremely interested in discussing it in more detail, I find it a fascinating commentary on the corruption of power and the power of corruption. Are The Darkness and The Light and different? The Traveller was willing to wipe out trillions of life forms to keep The Darkness submerged within The Deep of The Fundament, how is this action any different that Oryx's mission to purge The Universe of unworthy life-forms.

And then there's the entry on The Vex. wow.