Speculation Saturday #4: The City

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Last Saturday we took a closer look at the Fallen. Who were these nomadic people? How and why did they come to our system? What do they want? What will it take to beat them? This week we’re going to look at one of Humanity’s largest assets: the last safe City on Earth. Read on for The Facts, some Informed Supposition, and my personal favorite, Rampant Speculation.

The Facts:

Defend the last safe City on Earth. Discover the ancient ruins of our solar system. Become legend.

Destiny features a compelling storyline, competitive multiplayer, cooperative gameplay choices, wide open public combat destinations, and third-person community spaces where you can repair and rearm before going out on your next adventure.

For centuries we've huddled under the safety of the Traveler, protected from our enemies. Now, a new era has begun, and the only hope for our future lies in unlocking the greatest mysteries of our past.

In our darkest days, Humans, Exos, and Awoken found the Traveler where it made its last stand, low above Earth, silent and immobile. We built this City – our last – within its protective Shield, fighting countless wars to keep its peace. From that dark age, the Guardians of the City were born.

You are a Guardian of the last safe city on Earth, able to wield some of the Traveler's incredible power. You are taking this mantle just as a new day dawns. Titans, Hunters, and Warlocks have finally returned to our long-lost worlds, only to find out we are not alone.

The first Titans built the Wall, and gave their lives to defend it. Now, you stand in the same high place, steadfast and sure, protecting all who shelter in your shadow. You hail from a long line of heroes, forged from strength and sacrifice. Our enemies may be deadly and merciless, but so are you.

The wilderness beyond the walls of the City are ruined and corrupted, claimed by nature and our enemies. From the war-torn fortresses of the Twilight Gap to the skyward steppes of Old Russia, evidence of our lost glory still litters the Earth, waiting to be rediscovered.

Early exploration attempts have proven too dangerous. The City has since classified Earth's Moon as a Forbidden Zone.

Beyond the safety of our Walls, strange and deadly enemies now occupy our old worlds. Every day they grow bolder, probing the Traveler's shields for weaknesses, looking to stamp us out for good.

Everyone’s an alien, aren’t they? Concepts of nationality don’t really apply when there’s only one safe city left on Earth. Destiny is a melting pot. A tossed salad. Gumbo. What’s in gumbo? No one knows. Tom Slattery, Localization Content Manager

“The City wants us to recover a piece of Charlemagne, one of the great Warminds of the Golden Age—a vast machine intelligence built by the ancient Powers of Mars." Joseph Staten

Hylebos Can you tell us anything about the Robotic Guards we've seen wandering the Last City in the ViDoc?
They’re deathly afraid of spiders. Although, we do tend to impose our own personality onto our machines (like that guy who swears that his bitchin’ Camaro hates stoplights), so this might just be me with my own things going on.

Tigerman What kind of things can Guardians do in The Last City, other than mill around and socialize?
The Tower is a friendly and familiar place to regroup, rearm, and repair before heading out on your next great adventure. As a Guardian, the Tower is a refuge – a sanctuary – but it is also bustling with all the activities you would expect to find in the last safe city on Earth.

”Why is The City breathing down my neck?” - Frontier dwelling Awoken

Informed Suppositions:

- After the Fall what’s left of Humanity somehow recognizes the safe zone established by The Traveler and builds a large walled city there. But did we have to build each building and road post Fall, or was there an existing city already there for us to start with? Based on the watermarked maps in the background of even the oldest Destiny content we suspect that The Traveler settled over the city of Puerto Princesa. Perhaps that island city was never touched during the Fall and, due to its intact nature, became the obvious location to being our rebuilding efforts?

- The City seems to have quite a bit of influence and political power. It declares some locations off limits. It “breaths down the neck” of those not living within its walls. It makes a lot of sense that the one place the enemy can’t touch would be most powerful force, politically, among Humanity, but this also cleverly points us at another probable truth: The City may be the last safe city on Earth, but that doesn’t mean it is the last one period. How many settlements, communities, and even cities are there on earth besides The City? And if that number is greater than zero what does that mean for Humanity's other worlds?

- We’ve seen “FOTC” (Forces Of The City) stamped or painted on everything from the inner workings of Humanity’s guns to the wings of their dropships. It seems that They City has a fairly impressive industrial sector. What is The City capable of producing? Are supplies fairly tight and yields very constrained or do we have surpluses just waiting for Guardians to carry / ride them into battle?

- If we huddled under The Traveler for centuries why are we poking our heads out now? “War is upon us” says leader at the end of the E3 demo. Well, yeah… Or is actual fighting between Humanity and the various alien races a new thing? If so, what sparked it?

- The City is safe, but how exactly does that work? Is it safe because The Traveler zaps anything foreign that comes into view, or is it “safe” because it has thick walls that must be maned at all times to keep attacks from forcing their way inside?

- It is clearly stated that Humans, Exo, and Awoken were there at the founding of The City. Just how different are these three "species"? Do they all get along, are they all treated equally? All three are allowed to be Guardians so it seems probable that all three are given some measure of trust, but how much?

- The Tower is a place we can go to repair and rearm. It appears to have everything from launch bays for our personal spaceships to observation decks overlooking The City. Do Guardians live there too? What about non-guardians? Is the tower some sort of off limits military building, or does it perhaps have a gift shot and daily tours?

Rampant Speculation:

- How was The City built? Where do we get the materials to sustain it? Presumably Earth is no longer the hugely interconnected manufacturing marketplace that it is today. The City can’t just order in new parts from someplace an ocean away. I wonder if that big sphere right above it with pieces large and small seemingly falling away has anything to do with this? Or, stated more clearly: Is Humanity perhaps cannibalizing The Traveler to build The City and or fuel Humanity’s war effort?

- If The City actually is safe, why are we sending out fire teams of Guardians instead of hunkering down and building up an actual army? Even if it is just a small one comprised of large groups of Guardians, wouldn’t that get more accomplished than sending out forces only powerful enough to complete what would seem to be fairly limited tasks? Perhaps there is a reason The City can’t deploy armies? Maybe small ships can slip in and out past The City’s enemies, but bigger groups, or larger warships would get shot down?

- I touched on this a bit last week with the Fallen, but given that Humanity has an actual city, and not just a hunkered down military base, isn’t it destined to win by attrition? If each one of our Guardians can kill just one enemy, and we can keep producing Guardians, don’t we eventually win in the long term?

- How much pressure is there to be a Guardian? We’re told we can become legend, but what does The City need more? Explorers and Warriors, or regular people? Which is more important, a Guardian, or a population of engineers and weapon smiths and construction workers building things for Humanity’s offense and defense? Are Guardians our best and brightest, or could they be our most brash and those who don’t get along well with others?

- What is the population of The City like? There must be some limit to its ability to grow outward. Has it reached that limit yet, and if so is overcrowding becoming a concern? Or do we have too many tasks to do and not enough people around to do them all? We see what seems to be roads and districts, does the city function anything like a normal city? Is there unrestricted travel for instance?

- What is The City’s end goal? Peace? Expansion? The complete annihilation of all it enemies? Just because it’s where we are going to originate from doesn’t mean its leaders have good or honest motivations. Once again I come back to the idea that Humanity, and The City in particular, has done something, or is hiding something that has caused all these aliens to want to destroy us.

- It seems very likely that The City can manufacture weapons and vehicles for its war effort, but is that all The City is? Is there entertainment? Are there social scenes? Restaurants? Malls? Parks? Heck, is there even money? Or could it be one large population operating under marshal law with an “economy” fueled by work rations and strictly controlled time and material allowances?

- What about governments? Are The City’s leaders elected? Do they serve for life? Are there kings and queens or a bunch of honest, good natured representatives doing the right thing? If a person disagrees with the apparently new push to regain the offensive how would they voice that? Or do they dare speak up at all?

- Is The City perhaps waking a sleeping giant or giants by sending out Guardians? Perhaps all these aliens were out there battling it out amongst themselves until we proved we were a bigger threat. Are we even the bigger threat, or are we considered nothing more than a hard to reach itch?

That's it from me for this week, but cities are big places. Maybe you've thought of things I haven't, or maybe I've gotten something wrong and you know how to set it right. If so, speak up. I want to hear from you!

Next Saturday: Gameplay
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Over the past four weeks we've taken a closer look at mankind's Golden Age and it's Fall. We then scoped out one of our chief enemies in The Fallen and have just finished examining the blueprints of The City. There are other races and other locations my radar, but I'm not sure there is enough specific information on any of them to really dig into yet. So next week we'll focus on gameplay. What will Destiny be like? What can we glean from the content Bungie has already released? What will it bring to the table that no other game will? I'd love it if you'll once again join me as I look at The Facts, make some Informed Suppositions, and then close my eyes and let loose a bunch of Rampant Speculation. But until then:
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All Speculation Saturdays:
Speculation Saturday #1: The Golden Age
Speculation Saturday #2: The Fall
Speculation Saturday #3: The Fallen
Speculation Saturday #4: The City
Speculation Saturday #5: The Gameplay
Speculation Saturday #6: What's New?
Speculation Saturday #7: The Hive
Speculation Saturday #8: The Vex
Speculation Saturday #9: The Cabal

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I am personally interested in what role the Factions have to play in the city. We see FOTC on many vehicles, but is that kind of a faction for regular new Guardians kind of like how in Ender's game the soldiers don't have an army? Or are factions purely optional?

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Personally I think that the FOTC is what The City calls the sum total of it's military, from any traditional army it might have to the Guardians and whatever divisions and subgroupings they might have. That said you do bring up a good point. How will new players be grouped? Did the sorting hat survive the Fall for instance?

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The continued usage of the word 'repair', in regards to what the player can do when he visits the city, evokes in my mind the image of a wookie repairing your spaceship in a cluttered hangar... which would mean that vehicle can be damaged... which means spaceship combat confirmed, everyone! :P

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The city might prefer small strike teams due to the lack of information. A large army would be very noticeable, and a clear threat to any equivalent force. Nor is a large force highly mobile, at least in today's conception. Even the USA's quick reaction forces are limited in the tonnage they can move on short notice.

By sending out small teams of Guardians, the City's forces keep a small foot print and potentially avoid stirring up a hornet's nest of enemies, any more then they already have if they have been under constant ground attack for centuries.

The city itself may be the remnant of a golden age capitol. Clearly, any location the Traveler chose to park during the golden age would become wealthy and important, if only due to the proximity of the Traveler and access to it's power. Alternatively, the Traveler could have chosen the location for its last stand to be one of the last military strongholds of humanity. Puerto Princessa seems an unlikely choice for a military location, other then as a naval base given its isolation in the South China Sea, but I could easily see it become a secondary redoubt. Escaping the enemies first strikes on the continents, then being a hard location to reach without air transport may have saved it from the worst assaults.

This however puts the FOTC in a bind. They needed raw materials and food after emerging from the bunkers and foxholes. Food may be fairly plentiful near the sea, and some initial resources would be obtainable from scrap around the city, but long term they would need elements that just are not available on that island. That implies that the City has mining/scavenging operations ongoing around the world. It also means Wildcatters, small mining operations run off the books by a handful of prospectors. These groups would live in constant fear of claims jumpers and aliens, but if they can pull it off they can probably pay for significant luxury back home.

Just as an aside, Athens at one time had extensive fortifications that surrounded the city and lead to the sea. When they warred with Sparta, the Spartan army would come up, burn Athens crops, and march around the city, but lacked the siege craft to enter. Unable to perpetually campaign, the Spartans would have to leave after a few weeks. The Athenians would then emerge, replant their farms and continue on.

I imagine the FTOC have suffered like this for the last few centuries. An alien force comes along, destroys everything outside the walls but cannot overcome the ground defenders and cannot risk bringing in heavy ships due to the Traveler, so they eventually leave. It helps that Bungie is well aware of the Spartan campaigns for obvious reasons...

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The city might prefer small strike teams due to the lack of information. A large army would be very noticeable, and a clear threat to any equivalent force. Nor is a large force highly mobile, at least in today's conception. Even the USA's quick reaction forces are limited in the tonnage they can move on short notice.

By sending out small teams of Guardians, the City's forces keep a small foot print and potentially avoid stirring up a hornet's nest of enemies, any more then they already have if they have been under constant ground attack for centuries.

This actually makes me wonder, maybe all of the players in Destiny (at least the first one) will be members of the Vanguard. We're being sent out to complete small missions or scout out locations for the City.

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We certainly seem to be set up as Commandos at minimum. The city desperately needs intel in order to plan mankind's return. Where are the enemy? How many? What are their military capabilities? Is their strength waning or waxing?

Also, where are resources that can be exploited by the city to fuel the war machine? Are there other allies out there?

If you have ever read the Warhammer 40k backstory, there is a point where Mankind's interstellar empire is laid low by a combination of cybernetic revolt and total and sudden loss of interstellar travel. The forces of Earth manage over many centuries to rebuild a giant fleet and send it out to reunite everyone, and at one point meet another force that is doing the same thing. They even have the same propaganda! Of course, this being 40k, they immediately go to war with one another.

I'm hoping any allies we find won't be so trigger happy.

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The city might prefer small strike teams due to the lack of information. A large army would be very noticeable, and a clear threat to any equivalent force. Nor is a large force highly mobile, at least in today's conception. Even the USA's quick reaction forces are limited in the tonnage they can move on short notice.

By sending out small teams of Guardians, the City's forces keep a small foot print and potentially avoid stirring up a hornet's nest of enemies, any more then they already have if they have been under constant ground attack for centuries.

This actually makes me wonder, maybe all of the players in Destiny (at least the first one) will be members of the Vanguard. We're being sent out to complete small missions or scout out locations for the City.

I'm betting on the Vanguards being an elite group that the player will not be a part of at the beginning of the game. Instead, you start out as a Guardian and eventually as you "become legend" you get invited to join the Vanguard.

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In our darkest days, Humans, Exos, and Awoken found the Traveler where it made its last stand, low above Earth, silent and immobile. We built this City – our last – within its protective Shield, fighting countless wars to keep its peace. From that dark age, the Guardians of the City were born.

Perhaps the "countless wars" to keep it's peace are actually internal wars and each of the factions represents a group of people who fought for control of the city at one point or another? If that were the case, then I could see the competitive multiplayer aspect being part of conflict between the various factions that control the city together. In this light, I'm thinking that the Guardians are a group made up of the best and brightest from all of the different factions who have been selected to help keep the peace and defend the city.

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- After the Fall what’s left of Humanity somehow recognizes the safe zone established by The Traveler and builds a large walled city there. But did we have to build each building and road post Fall, or was there an existing city already there for us to start with? Based on the watermarked maps in the background of even the oldest Destiny content we suspect that The Traveler settled over the city of Puerto Princesa. Perhaps that island city was never touched during the Fall and, due to its intact nature, became the obvious location to being our rebuilding efforts?

I just want to get a general idea where the city is, or at least whether or not it's an extended Puerto Princesa.

- The Tower is a place we can go to repair and rearm. It appears to have everything from launch bays for our personal spaceships to observation decks overlooking The City. Do Guardians live there too? What about non-guardians? Is the tower some sort of off limits military building, or does it perhaps have a gift shot and daily tours?

I hope it has some stuff like that, that would make it, well, less boring. Also I still want to stay in first-person view there. >_>

- How was The City built? Where do we get the materials to sustain it? Presumably Earth is no longer the hugely interconnected manufacturing marketplace that it is today. The City can’t just order in new parts from someplace an ocean away. I wonder if that big sphere right above it with pieces large and small seemingly falling away has anything to do with this? Or, stated more clearly: Is Humanity perhaps cannibalizing The Traveler to build The City and or fuel Humanity’s war effort?

You're right about not getting things from an ocean away, but what about the land around them, and what about spans of water that aren't a whole ocean? If The City is an extended Puerto Princesa there's a lot they could get to quickly even in a pretty bare-bones boat.
As for looking around on the land, or even going anywhere, at least two pieces of concept art (which you used in your post) show lines extending from The City that could be roads.

- If The City actually is safe, why are we sending out fire teams of Guardians instead of hunkering down and building up an actual army? Even if it is just a small one comprised of large groups of Guardians, wouldn’t that get more accomplished than sending out forces only powerful enough to complete what would seem to be fairly limited tasks? Perhaps there is a reason The City can’t deploy armies? Maybe small ships can slip in and out past The City’s enemies, but bigger groups, or larger warships would get shot down?

I figured that the rough number of people playing for most of the game's lifetime would be canon as far as how many Guardians there are, which would qualify as an army, but they could work it some other way. Either way a lot of what we do may be scouting missions (or at least start that way).

- I touched on this a bit last week with the Fallen, but given that Humanity has an actual city, and not just a hunkered down military base, isn’t it destined to win by attrition? If each one of our Guardians can kill just one enemy, and we can keep producing Guardians, don’t we eventually win in the long term?

that is largely answered by this:

- What is the population of The City like? There must be some limit to its ability to grow outward. Has it reached that limit yet, and if so is overcrowding becoming a concern?

regardless of how much room there is and whether it's crowded, The City only has so much room, and we're protected there but not elsewhere; plus we're outnumbered and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find out one or more of the species that want us dead have their own city or cities

- What is The City’s end goal? Peace? Expansion? The complete annihilation of all it enemies? Just because it’s where we are going to originate from doesn’t mean its leaders have good or honest motivations. Once again I come back to the idea that Humanity, and The City in particular, has done something, or is hiding something that has caused all these aliens to want to destroy us.

Bungie already did that to varying degrees at least twice, I don't think they'll do that again this time; I think there at least won't be any coordinated bad stuff and cover-up

- It seems very likely that The City can manufacture weapons and vehicles for its war effort, but is that all The City is? Is there entertainment? Are there social scenes? Restaurants? Malls? Parks? Heck, is there even money? Or could it be one large population operating under marshal law with an “economy” fueled by work rations and strictly controlled time and material allowances?

I hope so, it'll help it be interesting. Oh, I said that above. well... >_>

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