Weather Conditions in Destiny 2 (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Friday, March 09, 2018, 16:24 (2528 days ago) @ Ragashingo

ultimately, I think I'm with Cody on this: No efforts were made to make any of this believable or realistic outside of normal Earth norms.

You can die more than once, too!

But that's explained well by having a ghost that has the power to bring you back. The weather and gravity stuff, well, there's not anything close to an attempt being made, at least not when it comes to places that can't be explained by "the traveler did it."

Which places are those? I count one place that we visit that was not altered by the Traveler or another “sufficiently advanced” race:

• Titan

Vs

• Earth
  
• The Moon
  
• Venus
  
• The Reef
  
• Mars
  
• Phobos
  
• Oryx’s Dreadnaught
  
• Io
  
• Nessus
  
• Calus’ Leviathan

It’s funny, I almost put Titan in the second list since post-collapse Humanity has the tech to hollow out asteroids and link ships together and live in space as seen in the Reef. I don’t think we have significant gravity tech, certainly not on a planetary scale, but humanity in Destiny is still a good bit more advanced than 2018 humanity is.

Wait... Are you saying the Vex, Hive, and Cabal are on the same level as the Traveler? Okay, I had not considered them in the same league, and - as such, was definitely assuming that they couldn't do things like change gravity or cause life to flourish where it once didn't. Certainly that would change things. Also, one argument for humanity having gravity tech: The reef has normal gravity and a breathable atmosphere in D1. I'm pretty sure it's not just spinning really quickly to generate force, but maybe it is? Dunno.

Anyway, I think we're getting into some "whose capable of what" issues. Again, if you look at it (as I was/do) as only the Traveler can do full-on terraforming into a living world with normal gravity and a breathable atmosphere, then we're talking about

• Titan
  
• The Moon
  
• The Reef
  
• Phobos
  
• Oryx’s Dreadnaught
  
• Nessus
  
• Calus’ Leviathan

Vs

• Earth
  
• Venus
  
• Mars
  
• Io

Anyway, that's how I viewed it. There's no reason why the Vex, Cabal, and Hive would all decide to make their own worlds, ships, and moons all have earth-normal gravity. It just doesn't make sense. And on Titan, for example, if humans did make it earth-normal gravity, then they wouldn't have 40 foot methane waves, because the gravity would make them behave differently, right? Inconsistencies abound. I'm fine with them, but let's please not pretend that there's a perfectly reasonable and canon-supported explanation for all of this weirdness.

Of course, now that I've said that, I'm going to do my best to come up with a canon-supported argument that does explain it all.

First, we know we're NOT in a Vex simulation because they cannot simulate the Light. So that option is ruled out. BUT, it has been theorized that perhaps the Vex are the future descendants of exos via Charlemagne or another warmind gone rogue, which would explain a predilection for earth-normal gravity. Plus the certainly have the acumen to completely alter worlds (and time, and therefore spacetime, which is where gravity comes into play), so changing the gravity of places they've visited is definitely feasible and also changing it to earth specific seems to back up this theory.

For the Cabal, we know they drop planets on their enemies, so maybe they use some kind of gravitational propulsion (or pull-pulsion?) to make those things happen, though I kind of always assumed they would just use bigger and bigger bombs until the orbit shifted in the way they wanted. They don't seem to be keen on terraforming, what with most of them needing to wear masks (except Gary and his advisor... so inconsistent and frustrating to me!). I dunno, I can't think of any reason why their mars bases, phobos bases, spaceships, etc. would all have artificial gravity set to match Earth's. it doesn't make any real sense to me, even if the cabal were capable of gravity manipulation, which I doubt (because seriously why try to blow up a bomb in the dreadnaught if you could just gravity manipulate it to crash into saturn?). I can't think of any good rationale here.

The Hive, save deal. Obviously they can terraform places to become more "hive-like," but their terraforming seems quite localized, more like an infection than an organized global event, and that makes gravity manipulation on planetary or even lunar scale seem highly unlikely until, at least, the entire world is infected. And - as with the Cabal - why choose Earth standard? They've conquered thousands of worlds. There's no reason to change what they've been doing just for little ol' us.

Again, the easiest explanation is that a design decisions was made to just keep gravity consistent for the sake of gameplay, and to not explain why at all. It's a logical game design choice, though it does result in some arbitrary-ness that makes thought exercises like this one a tad disappointing. Do I wish Marathon had more outside the ship levels where you need to refill your oxygen? Yes. Do I also think it's weird that your space suit only has a few seconds of oxygen in it rather than several hours? Also yes. But the explanation of "it makes for more fun gameplay" is wholly acceptable to me. It is, after all, a game. Same applies to Destiny. It's okay to let consistency go if it makes the game more fun (see Gary just breathing whatever is around like it's no big deal while cabal grunts always wear some kind of breathing mask). Perhaps frustrating, but ultimately better for the game. Imagine if you had to figure out how to judge your jumps all over again every time you changed worlds. UGH. Much better this way.