I've finally finished the story. Can you believe it took me over a week? I know, shame on me. I'll start by saying that I'm not going to comment so much on how the story was delivered, so much as on how much and how connected the story is so far. I believe that the story Bungie has painted could be clearer (like the critique that follows), and I do fault them for that. I also think that the story so far (even in its mystery) could be tied closer to player action. But that aside!

Television and Uncertainty
Before I dive into why I'm optimistic about the Destiny story, I'd like to talk a little bit about television shows. In televisions shows that have a continuous story arc over multiple seasons, the first season is usually odd, and stands out. The reason for this is often because when starting a new show, the authors do not know if they will have a second season. They might drop some larger story arc hints, but in general the first season has to be self contained and leave the viewer AND author feeling moderately satisfied if the show doesn't make it long term. Naturally, they will slip in a cliff hanger to get you to next season, but usually it's the type of cliffhanger that can be resolved in the first 15 minutes of the next episode. I find these sorts of first seasons to be annoying and contrived. You know they have something bigger, but they have to put a pretty bow on top and try and wrap up too much of a story that they want to spend multiple seasons telling.

All that Filler
Television shows also suffer from having a defined start and end, filled with season after season of filler that they will produce as long as they can. See Star Trek: Voyager for an example of this. It doesn't make for bad television, but it's not a great story arc. You know how/why it starts, and the end point is well defined. In the interim, the writers will spend as much time as they can get away with filling the middle with stories that don't actually have an effect on the larger arc. Again, it's the uncertainty of knowing how long a thing will last causes either highly compressed story, or a bunch of filler that can't actually change the overall story for fear that you'll start wrapping it up.

Imagine I give you the first and last page of a story, and tell you to start writing pages in the middle. A natural thing to ask is "how many pages can I write?", to which I tell you it'll be a number between one and infinite. I'll tell you when to stop, and give you a page to wrap it up. Exactly how interesting can a long story arc be in that sort of scenario? Not much. Even side stories or character development and change aren't allowed, because you can never say "I'd like to have my character go through hell, screw up, and return over 50 pages". Nope. You have to pull that off in one page because I might end it.

The god of SciFi Television Stories
In contrast to that sort of uncertainty, you have one of my favorite shows of all time, and an outlier in the television world, Babylon 5. The creator had a story that he wanted to tell in 5 seasons, and 5 seasons is what he got. Because of that knowledge, each season is not self contained, but has the freedom to create a story arc with an obvious beginning, middle, and end. On top of that the first season doesn't waste your time by trying to create and wrap up a story arc. The first season focuses on character development and drops dozens of unsolved mysteries and shadow figures that you know nothing about. But nothing much happens or changes in the first seasons. It would be a rather terrible show if you stopped watching after the first season. If you did stop, you'd be left saying "Look at all these other shows that do character dev AND a complete story in one season! The story is so thin in Babylon5 season 1! There is hardly anything there!".

For the youngins that can't stand 90's CGI, see the story arc of Battlestar Galactica for a similar (but not as good) example.

Games often times do a similar sort of thing. Just like television shows and other entertainment, in one "season" or game, they create an evil that you destroy, only to start the next season with a giant "j/k lol bad guy still exists!". There is no story arc, there is a story line that is flat and uninteresting. I find this annoying, and besides a lack of imagination, I blame the constraints that are placed on writers and story tellers regardless of medium, with Television and games seeming to take some of the hardest hits. Books by their nature are generally complete and not held to the same constraints. They are instead usually ruined by lack of imagination, author greed, or the inability to end a story.

Dat Optimism
My optimistic view of the Destiny story is that Bungie doesn't have to deal with the uncertainty that would otherwise box them into delivering a story just like every other game. They get to deliver a story that in the "beginning" makes little sense, with lots of disjointed information and mysteries that have no connection. But the story is far from over, and I anticipate that judging the story arc and delivery at this point would be like trying to judge TLOTR after the first book/movie, or any other story that was intended to be long. The Destiny story is not over, and I do not believe that we the community have any idea about how much of the story we've consumed so far. We could be on page 50 of a 400 page book. We don't know. My evidence for this is based on one of the primary complaints, that the story so far is relatively short compared to what was delivered in something like Halo.

My theory is that Bungie has just done a lot of Universe development, and is working on Character introduction and development. Nothing has changed, the story has gone no where, and things just don't connect. When Destiny is "done", we and our children (and our children's children!) will be able to play the entire story from beginning to end. In that hypothetical reality playing through the story we have so far will take a handful of hours with lvl 20+ characters, because there really isn't a lot of story. My hope then is that we have a multi day story to play through with a couple hours of confusion, not unlike any other solid story arc.

In the end, our confusion and feeling of disconnectedness will last for the half day play through of "Season 1", followed by a few days of awesome twists, turns, and explanations. At the end of those days, a final climax will occur that can't be dug out of in the first 15 minutes of "Activision's Destiny, The Reboot". Not that Activision won't try, but Bungie will have washed their hands and moved on to the next story they want to tell.