Destiny Expanded Universe (Destiny)

by cheapLEY , Sunday, July 19, 2015, 23:33 (3514 days ago) @ Ragashingo

I've always stood by the idea that the reveal of the Forerunners was just mishandled. Mainly by 343i. Look instead at what Bungie was able to do with the Covenant. In Halo 1 they were a handful of unit types plus three vehicles and one type of warship. The extent of their culture and backstory could be summed up with: "Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instruments." By Halo 2, they were a complex mix of cultures bound together for safety but falling apart under the weight of a well guarded lie. That's how you do it!

Or look at how the Forerunners went from a monolithic race who all sacrificed themselves for the greater good (in Halo 1) to the awesome story of the Didact and the Librarian (in Halo 3). Those Halo 3 terminals turned a race that was summed up by a single word (Forerunner) and a single idea (they built the Halos then all died to stop the Flood) into a story of love and longing and betrayal and sacrifice and a cool as heck space battle between AIs, all without ruining the mythos of the Forerunner. It too was the right way to do it.

But I think Contact Harvest was also the right way to do things. And the Halsey journal. And The Cole Protocol. And Halo Reach. And Halo Evolutions. Halo has had some highly questionable extensions of its lore, but has had some great ones as well. And I think any work be it Halo, or Star Wars, or even Destiny can be expanded on in other mediums without being ruined.

I think we're arguing the same point. I guess that's what I was getting at. Bungie has shown that they know how to expand upon their ideas in interesting ways. I agree that what I see as the diluting of the Halo franchise has happened under 343i's rule. And I'm not taking a dig at them, really; I liked Halo 4 for the most part. Halo 5 looks promising, I think. But the pace at which they're putting out novels (mostly bad ones), and for not very good reasons, is astounding. I think most of their novels are solely to set up their games: the Forerunner trilogy isn't that compelling, I don't think, but Halo 4 makes very little sense without having read them. I haven't read the new Buck novel (and it sounds okay), but it obviously sets up Buck as a Spartan. Hunters in the Dark wasn't a compelling read at all, but it introduces the Armigers.

I think the key is to make any such expansions... good. The Halsey journal is one of my favorite pieces of literature of all time because of the way it enhanced a lot of what we knew about Halo. Halo 4's story that gave us a copy of Halo 3's Didact who we didn't really know was a copy and who, seemingly at random, decided that the best way to protect the galaxy was to turn an entire race into unthinking robots to fight a threat that had already been dealt with? Yeah, not so much.

Again, agreed. Halsey's Journal is incredible, and something I still flip through from time to time. Easily my favorite part of the Reach collectibles.

Destiny, in particular and even more so than Halo, I think was made to be a universe that could support just about any kind of story. Already it is host to everything from undead zombies to space pirates to scifi military to time traveling robots. So yeah, I think it can easily be host to further extensions even in new mediums without becoming "broken" like Halo eventually did.

Yeah, this is the point I was trying to make, although in not as concise a manner. It seems to me that Halo grew too big, too fast. Microsoft realized they had a money printing machine on their hands, and capitalized on it as much as possible. Luckily, it turned out pretty well during the Bungie era, as far as the EU stuff is concerned. There were a few duds in there, but overall is was good.

I think Destiny could handle this sort of expanded universe approach, but they have to be extra careful about, since people are already so prone to grab the pitchforks in regard to how the story presently stands.