"The Darkness" - DBO Forums

I thought the concept of "the darkness" was phased out in Des2ny… but Rahool mentioned it just now.

"Talk not to me of the Darkness. I want no part".

locked

1912 views

- No text -

locked

1822 views

I think the past three times that this topic was brought up, it was pointed out that several of the returning vendors have recycled lines from D1 (Saladin is a prime example, as he still has his “power matters” dialogue).

locked

1885 views

If you have D1 Guardians to carry over into Destiny 2, they show up in the character select menu at Power Level 100. Can we take that as true, and assume that our Guardians gain that much more power over the course of Destiny 2? Are we more than three times as powerful as our D1 counterparts?

locked

1782 views

While there are occasional references to Guardians growing more powerful or the unusual or awesome power of individual Guardians, I don’t think there’s ever been anything like an in-game or in-lore reference to Light Level or Power Level. The closest thing I can thing of is when the Exo Stranger tells us that “Many Guardians fell. Strong ones.”

locked

1865 views

While there are occasional references to Guardians growing more powerful or the unusual or awesome power of individual Guardians, I don’t think there’s ever been anything like an in-game or in-lore reference to Light Level or Power Level. The closest thing I can thing of is when the Exo Stranger tells us that “Many Guardians fell. Strong ones.”

I'm not honestly sure that's even really what I'm asking. I don't actually know. I don't think anyone in universe would be able to say, "You're power level is 335." This isn't Dragon Ball.

I really do wonder if we can take that power level at least somewhat literally, though. Are we now actually three times more powerful than we used to be? Did we gain that much power? Did the Traveler waking up boost our powers?

Or do we just have to take it as the arbitrary gameplay construct that it is?

I know this is all random, but the though struck me when I logged in on Xbox tonight and saw my Titan and Warlock from D1 that I haven't brought into D2 yet at level 100.

If we do take it seriously, I surpassed my D1 power level by the time I got to Nessus. Is there a way to explain our rapid power growth throughout the campaign? Is it because we are the only Light-wielder in the solar system at the time? Are we literally the Traveler's Champion, and thus rapidly gain strength?

locked

1809 views

I don’t think either our Guardians or other NPC Guardians are ever said to be more powerful than they were before. I think it’s just a video game conceit. It might have been cool if they wove regaining our Light more into the story. I recall Jedi Knight II doing something like that with Kyle Katarn. Early on, Kyle reconnects with the Force, but his years of neglecting his powers are why he only ever so slowly gets new or upgraded Force abilities.

I can imagine our Ghost teaching our Guardians how to concentrate our Light into grenades or instructing us how to double jump or calling upon us to unleash our full power (our Super) during an early large battle.

locked

1815 views

- No text -

locked

1782 views

Sure, but the story is still written in such a way that I’m inclined to think newly created characters still canonically did all the D1 stuff. They’re still referenced as “that Guardian you’re always talking about.” I guess you could rationalize a different explanation for that easily enough.

I know it’s just a video game construct used to relay information to the player. It’s just fun to think about what the implications are if we can take it more literally.

locked

1805 views

I think the past three times that this topic was brought up, it was pointed out that several of the returning vendors have recycled lines from D1 (Saladin is a prime example, as he still has his “power matters” dialogue).

Sure. But the bigger point is that claiming that The Darkness has been phased out of Destiny 2 is a gross misunderstanding of what is happening. Bungie admitted that they overused and misapplied phrases relating to The Darkness in D1. Like how the Fallen, Hive, Vex, and Cabal were all at one point referred to as Minions of the Darkness when that was not really true. Both the Hive and the Vex had dealings with The Darkness at the beginning of D1. So had the Fallen as their civilization was wiped out in what they called the Whirlwind and which was almost certainly an attack by The Darkness. It is somewhere between unclear and unlikely that the Cabal (or at least the main bulk of the Cabal civilization) had yet encountered The Darkness by the start of D1.

For D2, we have that quote from Luke Smith in Game Informer that said:

We’ve never really said what [The Darkness] means,” Smith continues. “Ultimately, we do owe our players a story there – what is The Darkness? – but that’s not this game. We wanted to remove as much of the extra terminology as possible and focus on telling the Destiny 2 story. In so doing, allow Destiny 2 to usher in the rest of the saga. It’s going to start some threads that we intend to carry through.”

This is, again, Bungie being more specific about what the Darkness is and isn’t. It’s not the space pirate Eliksni (Fallen) on the run from the destruction of their civilization trying anything and everything to survive. It’s not even the Hive who are in a temporarily mutually beneficial relationship with the worm gods which draw upon the powers of The Darkness. Bungie wants The Darkness to be something specific instead of being a catch all term for any random thing that opposes Humanity.

So no, we don’t have characters spouting off about The Darkness left right and center. But then, most of the threats in our solar system are not actually The Darkness at the moment. But just because The Darkness is mentioned a lot less in Destiny 2 doesn’t mean that saying something like “the concept of the darkness was phased out of Des2ny“ even remotely correct.

Off the top of my head, Ikora mentions The Darkness directly as part of her rotation of phrases once you retake the City and the Tower. The opening description on the inside cover of the 1st Osiris comic mentions The Darkness directly as well.

Beyond that, The Darkness is still all over the lore. Lore text for things like the Arc Strider and Sentinel subclasses make direct reference to The Darkness. As does the lore text for the Kairos Function armor, the The Conqueror 2 and Sol Pariah 6 SMGs, the Sails of Osiris ship, and the Graviton Forfeit hunter helmet.

And that’s only the direct references to The Darkness that include the word darkness. There are others like the lore on the Calus sword It Stared Back where Calus encountered “the infinite deep” which Calus describes as “a nothing” and “a space that simply did not exist” and “the perfect void” which he would become the herald of.

Even the opening Destiny 2 cutscene which shows the black triangular shadows cross over the City and the Traveler doesn’t say Darkness explicitly, but it does mention the Traveler’s “ancient enemy” which is what the Darkness was referred to as in its original Grimoire card.

TL;DR:

- The idea that The Darkness has been phased out of Destiny 2 is demonstrably false.
- While The Darkness is only mentioned once by a voiced character in Destiny 2, it is referenced both directly and indirectly several times both in-game via the Lore tabs and out of game in the D2 Calus collector’s book and in the more recent Destiny 2 comics on Bungie.net
- The focus away from mention The Darkness comes partially from Bungie’s desire to be more exact about what The Darkness is, and partially because the things we are currently fighting in our solar system in Destiny 2 are not The Darkness.

locked

1850 views

Jason: You said you will not be talking about the Darkness in the game . . . Tell me the truth, is it because none of you have any idea what the Darkness actually means?

Luke: I think that at a point, just totally candidly, we had no idea what it was—straight up we had no clue. For a period, we decided we were going to lump all the races . . . and you see this in the tools tips in the game: “minions of the Darkness,” and we had taken all the races and just said, “Ah, they’ll just be the Darkness.” But that’s not what the IP deserves, it’s literally not. So what we’re doing with Destiny 2 is we are deliberately telling a story about the Light and what it means to be chosen. And as such we’re in the process of removing the term Darkness from the game, because when we are going to talk about Darkness next, we need to know what it is and have and plan for it . . . and we do.

So yeah. They didn't just decide the Darkness isn't a thing anymore. They're just . . . refining it as a concept.

As you said, I think the Darkness just isn't a prime threat in the story of D2. It was all about Ghaul and his assault on the City. He's not the Darkness, just a big dickhead.

With some of the stuff they've talked about with Warmind, I wonder if we'll start to see some more about the Darkness.

locked

1815 views

Right. It may be that Destiny 2 never gets back around the actual Darkness. We may just fight the Cabal, Vex, Hive, and Fallen for the next couple of years until the actual Darkness arrives. But from the very beginning to the very end of Destiny 2 we have dark triangle shapes being referred to as the Traveler’s ancient enemy and we end to scary black pyramid ships being shown after the credits roll. And, as mentioned, the term Darkness or The Darkness is present across Destiny 2.

Personally, I think it would have been more impactful to keep us away from the City and the Traveler for the entirety of Destiny 2. Like, what if the Red Legion had held onto the City and the Traveler for all of Destiny 2’s lifespan and we only took back our home at the very end. And in the meantime we stopped the Vex’s infinite forest and beat back the Hive and their worm god(s) and Rasputin and so on. Winning so early against the Red Legion took something away from the significance of their threat. At least that way all of us Guardians would be too busy to even think about The Darkness. Instead... we’re kinda back in our comfy tower again already.

locked

1797 views

That’s always been an issue with Destiny, and honestly probably always be. After Oryx, I feel like The Darkness really is the only thing left that could feel like a real threat. Gameplay wise, maybe not, but according to the lore, Ghaul doesn’t even come close to being as terrifying as Oryx. Maybe they just didn’t do enough to sell the absolute military might of the Cabal. They tell us about it, but we still never really see it—we just see the Tower destroyed.

Maybe Savathun can feel as dangerous as Oryx did. The Hive and Worm God on Mars could also come close, but given the presumed scope of the smaller expansion, I’m not sure it’ll be fleshed out enough to work in that regard.

Again, I think that’s just sort of the nature of Destiny. Every huge big bad we kill is going to inherently make the next one feel less dangerous. We’ve already killed Atheon, Crota, Oryx, Ghaul—what the odds the next guy will be the one to do real damage?

locked

1763 views

I… actually remember those now.

I just needed to be reminded :-)

locked

1860 views

Back to the forum index

RSS Feed of thread

DBO Forums

"The Darkness" (Destiny)

We’ve had this discussion before. You don’t pay attention.

We’ve had this discussion before. You don’t pay attention.

Speaking of "power matters." Is Power Level cannon?

Speaking of "power matters." Is Power Level cannon?

Speaking of "power matters." Is Power Level cannon?

Speaking of "power matters." Is Power Level cannon?

fwiw, new characters start at 100 too

fwiw, new characters start at 100 too

We’ve had this discussion before. You don’t pay attention.

We’ve had this discussion before. You don’t pay attention.

We’ve had this discussion before. You don’t pay attention.

We’ve had this discussion before. You don’t pay attention.

We’ve had this discussion before. You don’t pay attention.