In Destiny 2, many players often find it difficult to follow the confusingly told story – or to recognize a narrative. The Destiny historian Byf describes what fascinates him about the story.
Destiny has no story? Every Destiny player knows the tiresome discussion that the loot shooter lacks a story. And objectively, even the biggest Destiny supporter must agree that the story sometimes stumbles, especially when there is no time for explanations or Bungie itself admits: “We have no idea what the Darkness is about.”
The story of the Destiny universe is often well hidden. It is told in story fragments, item descriptions, or even outside the game. Moreover, the individual plotlines simply refuse to connect meaningfully.
Often it seems as though an exciting story is just starting to gain momentum … and Bungie hits the brakes!
Destiny still owes us an ending for numerous stories.
YouTuber My name is Byf is the lore guru of Destiny
This is the lore expert: James Byford is well known in the Destiny community. Under the name My name is Byf, the YouTuber has established himself as “the” lore expert for Bungie’s shooter.
Here on MeinMMO.de, we have often referenced his work. He is known for untangling many of the confusingly presented pieces of lore or narrative fragments. Yes, literally untangling and presenting it to the interested Guardian in an engaging way.
In an interview with Vice, the full-time historian with the distinctive voice revealed what fascinates him about the story of Destiny.
Of dragons and misleading lore texts
This is what fascinates the expert about the story of Destiny: Byf describes his relationship with Destiny as a kind of “love at first sight”. He immediately immersed himself in the new universe. For example, in Destiny there isn’t one enemy race, but many entirely different peoples. Each brought its own background story or unique facet with it – and Byf wanted to explore them all.
The world of Destiny is like a puzzle. Solving it and discovering all the small revelations, these incredible stories – that’s what makes Destiny’s lore fans so obsessed.
James Byford via Vice.com
For the lore expert, Destiny became a “blank canvas” on which he could let loose. When you listen to Byf, it sounds as though he is going on a treasure hunt.
Only he isn’t searching for powerful weapons but for a key that opens a new door in a convoluted story. Thus, Destiny reveals more of its seemingly endless narrative riches piece by piece, with each lore fragment.
Telesto hints at the Forsaken story
These story fragments he finds particularly cool: The weapon Telesto came to Destiny 2 with the Osiris DLC in 2018. At first glance, the lore text of the exotic weapon Telesto appears quite normal.
But the Destiny historians discovered a peculiarity: a hidden message seemed to be embedded in the text.
Contingency reserves overdrawn. We underestimated nobility troth reparations. Uldren suggests that we open reintegration talks. Have you discussed endowment support? If Reef endorses support, Paladin Oran will engineer reinforcement.
Only by taking the first letter of each line of the lore text and putting them together could the actual message be deciphered.
The hidden message of the Telesto warned of the power-hungry Crow, of Uldren Sov, who at that time had been missing from Destiny for years; the last time Guardians saw Uldren was in 2015 when he disappeared in the expansion The Taken King.
With the 2018 expansion Forsaken, the assumptions of the lore experts came true. As suspected, Prince Uldren returned from the void and was the trigger for a dramatic revenge story.
Byf recognizes Ahamkara formula in the dialogue text
During that very revenge epic, it becomes clear that the Crow Prince seems to be controlled by his sister. In the final campaign mission, a weighty statement is made offhand: “Free me, oh my brother.” While this sentence was just one of many for regular players, it made Byf sit up and take notice.
He explains that this phrase (oh…my) is associated with the Ahamkara in Destiny. These are dragons, but not fire-breathing monsters.
The Ahamkara are so-called wish-dragons and possess magical powers. These seductive djinns are actually considered to have been long extinct.
Byf predicted: The story of Forsaken will culminate in the Guardians slaying a dragon. As it turned out, he was right. He concluded his remarks by stating that by killing the Ahamkara, we only set a story in motion that had begun centuries ago and will occupy us for a long time to come.
The examples vividly demonstrate how seemingly loose story scraps form a narrative. With the current season of Dawn, Bungie is opting for a more direct story.
Can you understand the enthusiasm for the story of the Destiny universe? Do you wish Bungie would rather finish one storyline before always starting new ones? Which 10 stories My name is Byf is particularly fond of, you can read here:
