Destiny Lore Wishlist

Well, since I apparently had success back in 2018 when I spoke my Saint-14 conspiracy theories out into the universe, here’s some other things I’ve been thinking about and going on at length at my friends about, particularly when I’ve had something to drink. And since I was recently reminded that this is my blog and I can write whatever dumb stuff that no one else cares about I want here, let’s do this.

Ana Bray, if that is your real name

Not going to lie, I really hated Ana when she was introduced in the Warmind expansion. I’d like to believe it’s not a gamer-with-internalized-misogyny issue and more because the writing in that expansion was embarassingly terrible, and Ana became sort of the figurehead of that. I’ll freely admit that there’s something about the combination of badass hunter plus computer super hacker plus know-it-all about the Hive that really annoyed me. But the thing that annoyed me far more was that… look, the whole interesting thing about Guardians who are basically zombie space wizards is that they’re totally different people from who they were during their first life, even before they start developing the weird indiosyncrasies that come with being effectively immortal and no longer afraid of death, but rather curious and experimental about it.

Now, I get that some Guardians would be really, really curious about who they were when they were alive. That’s only natural, and actually a really interesting character and story feature, I think. (Insert me bemoaning the lack of tie-in prose fiction here. Because honestly, Bungie, what the hell.) But Ana’s journey is in my estimation the least interesting way to go about it, particularly how it was set up in Warmind. Because Ana basically goes to Mars, finds out that she apparently she still has all her super duper old computer skills, and… that’s kind of it?

She’s at least gotten more interesting in Shadowkeep, as she continues to dig into her past and discover that past Ana Bray was really not a good person. (Head scientist/engineer of a massive technology corp conducting unethical experiments. Who’da thought.) Her blind faith in Rasputin is at least a little more interesting because Rasputin is getting a chance to show himself as a being with his own goals, which he may or may not be sharing, as opposed to the sort of gee-whiz girl-and-her-dog effect in Warmind.

But honestly? Still don’t buy it. The one and only Ana Bray gets brought back as a Guardian and just so happens to figure out that’s who she is and remains a total whiz kid? Pull the other one. It’s got bells on.

My conspiracy theory I’ve been nursing since Warmind is that Ana Bray isn’t actually Ana Bray. Rather, she’s someone related or otherwise genetically similar enough that she could unlock all the right doors. Someone desperate enough for an identity (because being a Hunter wasn’t enough, for whatever reason) to go looking. And gullible enough to be the perfect tool for an extremely cunning, intelligent, and patient super AI who needed some human hands to do his bidding. After all these centuries, Rasputin finally found the guardian with the right combination of biology and neediness and made himself a puppet so he could start getting put back together.

Which is not to say I’m on the “Rasputin is evil” band wagon. Rasputin is Rasputin. Hopefully he’s on our side. But he’s getting everything he wants right now, and Ana is also helpfully talking Zavala around, the guy who was the most paranoid about the Warmind.

Anyway, I like Ana way better in this season than I ever liked her before, and the lore’s making her more interesting. I’d just like her even better if she was more… “Ana.”

Eliksni

Not a conspiracy theory. Pure wish list item here. But goddamn I want to see the Eliksni get to be Guardians again. Or at the least, I want some solid, prominent allies. We’ve got Mithrax and the House of Light. We’ve got Variks and his plans for House Judgment. Neither of them want to kill all humans. And yes, I know Mithrax has decided that humans deserve the Traveler (and depending on what kind of mixed blessing you think it is, that becomes a pretty loaded statement) but it would be just the kind of douche move we’d expect from the Traveler to decide that now that there are Eliksni that no longer want it, it’s coming back for them. Of all the non-humans in Destiny, the Eliksni have the most potential to get to be all kinds of different things, because they’re not dedicated servants of the Darkness (unlike the Vex or Hive) and they’re much more likely to want to live their own lives and make peace than the Cabal. They’re just people who got seriously fucked over by the Traveler running its happy little ass away, and they weren’t lucky enough to have a Rasputin on their side at the time. There but for the large number of guns wielded by a scary AI goes humanity. There’s a lot of really cool, meaty story stuff that could happen if a solid, real alliance (not House of Wolves 2.0) got built between the humans and Eliksni, and I want it. And then I want Eliksni Guardians mostly because I want to play one, and I think there’s nothing better for juicing an MMO than giving us another playable race. But hey, I got spoiled by WoW like that.

Calus the Ahamkara

Look, he uses that “O ____ mine” construction several times in the Menagerie. That entire speech pattern was the beautiful moment of “oh SHIT” Forsaken handed us, the clue to what was about to happen to Uldren right before it did. I’m just saying it’s in there for a reason, along with him talking about being imprisoned, etc etc etc. I’m not sure how I feel about there being more Ahamkara lurking around, but it’s not like we dont have plenty of other gross stuff to fight in the meantime. Also, I’m thinking this particular ahamkara is more of a “loser trickster” sort of guy, which is why they’re tooling around on the Leviathan, pretending to be a robot emperor. Just messing with people for funsies. In which case the end game might not be killing them. It could be a lot more fun than that.

I might change my opinion if I ever got to do any of the other raids on the Leviathan, but then again, maybe not.

Uldren

I actually don’t have any conspiracy theories here. I just want to say that 1) I’m mad there isn’t an entire novel about Uldren’s journey as he tries to become a new person while everyone hates his face, 2) I think he should totally be the Hunter Vanguard (don’t @ me), and 3) I think he also totally shouldn’t be the Hunter Vanguard, because if we’re serious about Guardians being entirely new people when they come back to life, then this poor bastard didn’t actually murder Cayde (also don’t @ me).

But please please please let him show up again soon. He’s a drama storm in a cape.

PS: MAKE IT GAYER

Look, we busted our asses to make sure our gay grandads, Saint-14 and Osiris, could have their perfect vacation home. Stop holding back. I’ve got some major Feelings I need to wallow in.

And just, you know. Gayer in general. Trans characters would be A+ too. I appreciated the first “trans” character in Destiny being a literal god, but it would be super nice to have a trans character we then don’t spend an entire raid gloriously murdering.