Hive
From Destinypedia, the Destiny wiki
 |
This article is no longer up to date and needs to be updated with new information from Monument of Triumph. You can help by updating this article. |
- "There are nightmares rising from the shadows, and they hunger for our dying hope."
- — Grimoire description
The Hive, originally known as the Krill,[1][2] are a macabre, incredibly ancient species of arthropod-like aliens hailing from the world of Fundament, with a vast majority aligning with the Witness and the Black Fleet. Their culture is based around the Sword Logic: a supernatural, thanatological philosophy of competitive survivalism, which dictates that they must destroy other civilizations to accrue paracausal power and feed the Worms that live within their bodies. They are led by a pantheon of dark gods who derive power and sustenance from the destruction wrought by the Hive, a system ultimately derived from the Witness' influence.
In Sol, they have a significant presence on the Moon, where they have built the Hellmouth and Scarlet Keep, as well as in certain regions of Earth,[3] around Saturn, where the massive Dreadnaught orbits, the icy regions of Mars and on Titan, where they infest the ruined arcologies. They are also present in certain regions within the Reef, such as the Tangled Shore and the Dreaming City.
Overview[edit]
The Hive are an "impossibly ancient" race born from a pact with the Worm Gods. Hive structures delve deep into wherever they lay claim to, unheeding the damage done in the process, crafting linked caverns and gothic-like columns. These underground spaces resemble a dungeon recently pulled up after an extended period underwater.[4] The Hive are able to manipulate the physical world in ways humanity can only begin to imagine,[5] and have witnessed the Darkness consume countless worlds in the past.[citation needed]
The Hive are not an enemy military so much as a rising force.[6] They base their entire existence around the extermination of other forms of life, especially those that follow the way of Light and the Traveler, and approach their task with religious fervor. To the Hive, killing and conquest are not merely acts of war, but of worship.
By the time of the first Destiny game, they have burrowed deep into the Moon, residing there for centuries while growing stronger.[7] The Guardian's Ghost states that he believes the Hive to be contained on the Moon for centuries, but the player first encounters them in Old Russia, underneath the Skywatch, where the Fallen have attempted to seal them away.[8] The Guardians eventually discover that this is just the beginning; that the Hive have been building an army and intend to invade Earth en masse.[9]
History[edit]
Origins[edit]
- "The Fundament is very large. We are the smallest things in it. If you don't understand something, it will probably kill you. My teacher Taox says this is why we have such short lives. So we can breed and adapt quickly."
- — Xi Ro[10]
Long ago, the Krill crashed their homeworld into Fundament, ostensibly to hide from something unknown. The shards of this homeworld eventually formed several continents that floated upon a sea called the Fundament Ocean within a layer of the gas giant's atmosphere, and the Krill eventually built a meager civilization upon them and forgot their old history. Cohabiting Fundament with the Krill were hundreds of other intelligent species, and a space-faring species called the Ammonites inhabited Fundament's fifty-two moons and were watched over by the Traveler.[11][12][13]
Life was short and harsh for the krill. Their natural lifespan rarely exceeded ten Fundament years, though females who ate "mother jelly" developed the ability to spawn and live longer. In terms of environmental hazards, Fundament was very inhospitable. The Fundament Ocean was toxic, the skies eternally stormy, the rain poisonous and sometimes corrosive. Lightning had enough power to vaporize anyone it struck; "living clouds" called Stormjoys would prey on the populace, and the Krill frequently warred with each other.[11][10]
The progenitors of the contemporary Hive were Xi Ro, Sathona, and Aurash, the three daughters of the Osmium King who ruled the continent called the Osmium Court.[10] When the Osmium King was ten years old, he fell into madness, fearing an event called the Syzygy, wherein Fundament's fifty-two moons would align and create a massive tidal wave, the God-Wave, which would destroy Fundament's civilizations.[12] Taox, a sterile mother who served as the teacher to the King's daughters, feared the King's daughters were too weak to succeed the King, and invited a rival kingdom, the Helium Drinkers of the Helium Court, to invade the Osmium Court, kill the royal family, and allow Taox to rule the Osmium Court as their regent.[14] The Helium Drinkers invaded and slew the Osmium King, but the three sisters, two years old at the time, escaped on a ship and vowed revenge against the Helium King and Taox.[15]
After a year of traveling the sea, the sisters salvaged an ancient, high-tech ship they called the "Needle" from the Shvubi Maelstrom. Xi Ro wanted to sell it at the Kaharn Atoll, a gathering place of Fundament's many species, to raise enough money to hire a mercenary army, but Aurash wanted to take command of the ship. Sathona sided with Aurash, goaded on by a Worm their father had kept. The Worm had washed up on the Osmium Court's shores and was seemingly dead, but Sathona could hear it speak to her.[16] Unbeknownst to Sathona, the voice she was hearing was in fact that of the Witness, a paracausal entity who sought to keep the Krill away from the Traveler. In truth, there was no imminent danger from a "god-wave" nor the syzygy that would supposedly cause it.[17]
The sisters spent the next two years repairing the ship, after which Aurash decided to use it to fulfil its intended purpose: to dive to Fundament's core in the hopes of learning a secret that would prevent the Syzygy.[18]
As they descended, the sisters encountered a vast creature called the Leviathan, a disciple of the Traveler. The Leviathan warned the sisters against proceeding further, telling them that they faced a choice between the Sky and the Deep, the Light and the Darkness, the way of life and the way of death. Still, the sisters rejected the Leviathan, unable to accept that allowing their people to suffer was the better way. Instead, they decided to follow the worm Sathona had saved, which urged them to continue diving.[19][20]
The Pact[edit]
- "We want to help you, Princes. We offer to each of you a bargain... a symbiosis."
- — Yul, the Honest Worm[21]
Deep within the Fundament Ocean, the sisters encountered the imprisoned Worm Gods, who drew their power from the Darkness itself: Yul, the Honest Worm, Eir, the Keeper of Order, Xol, Will of the Thousands, Ur, the Ever-Hunger, and Akka, the Worm of Secrets. These Worm Gods claimed that they had lived and grown in Fundament's depths for millions of years, trapped by the Leviathan and the Traveler. They had called many species to Fundament, hoping one would be tenacious enough to find them. Now they offered Xi Ro, Sathona, and Aurash immortality in exchange for allowing themselves to be hosts for the Worms' larvae, with the caveat that if the sisters ceased to obey their natures (Xi Ro's desire to test her strength, Sathona's cunning, Aurash's curiosity), their Worms would consume them. Furthermore, the stronger the sisters became, the greater their Worms' appetites would be.[21]
The sisters accepted the pact.[22] Xi Ro took the knight morph and became Xivu Arath, the God of War;[23] Sathona took the mother morph and became Savathûn, the Witch Queen;[24] and Aurash took the king morph and became Auryx, the King of the Hive.[22] Over the following years, the siblings returned to their people and spread the Worms' larvae among them, re-creating the Krill as the Hive, and enabling them to liberate the Osmium Court from the Helium Drinkers, then drive Taox and the other species of Fundament to Kaharn Atoll, and finally to build the spaceships needed to break free of Fundament.[23][24]
Campaign of Destruction[edit]
- "We need champions. Crusaders. Help us save the universe. Help us exterminate that which would destroy all hope. You are oathbound to this task, by the covenant of the worm."
- — Worm Gods[25]
As the newborn Hive forced an ultimatum on the remaining Krill either to accept the worms or perish, Auryx turned his attention to Fundament's moons and the Ammonites there, who had allied with the Traveler and given asylum to Taox.[26] Initially he was willing to negotiate with the Ammonites. His sister Savathûn, under pressure from the Worms, killed Auryx as punishment for not destroying them.[27] Rather than dying, Auryx's soul instead passed to the Ascendant Realm, where it resided until he returned to the mortal realm.[28] Rebuked, Auryx purged what sympathy and goodwill he had left, becoming a merciless tyrant. They overwhelmed the Ammonites, slew the Leviathan, and forced Taox and the Traveler to flee.[25]
He and his sisters regularly warred with and killed one another afterwards, as part of their worship of the Sword-Logic and their attempt to become the sharpest blades in the universe, each returning to their throne worlds whenever defeated. Their war of revenge against Taox had transformed into a campaign of mass genocide when they slew the Qugu and other interstellar civilizations to feed their worms. The gods of the Hive also established their throne worlds within the Ascendant realm, with Auryx naming his the High War.[29][30][31][32] Savathûn was inspired by this, and named her own throne world the High Coven.[31]
During the Hive's war with the Ecumene, Auryx came to realize that the Worm Gods had deceived him and his sisters: their worms' appetites were growing past the abilities of their hosts to feed them with death.[33] Meeting with his sisters in his Ascendant Realm, surrounded by their servants (some of which despised them for showing weakness) they despaired over this dilemma. When his sisters offered their power to help Auryx find a way to save them, Auryx killed them, then used that power to confront his patron Worm god Akka, the Worm of Secrets.[34] He killed Akka so that he might steal its ability to call upon the Deep, and created the Tablets of Ruin, which gave him the power to Take. His transformation complete, Auryx was now Oryx, the Taken King.[35] During the subsequent war with the Ecumene, Oryx revived Xivu Arath in an act of war, and revived Savathûn in an act of cunning. He then decreed the tithe system: each Hive would kill their enemies, take some power to feed their own worm and tithe the rest to their superior. Thralls would tithe power to Acolytes, Acolytes would tithe power to Knights or Wizards, the Knights and Wizards would tithe power to the Ascendant Hive, who commanded legions of warriors and earned the right to enter the Hive gods' respective throne worlds. All of this violence would eventually reach Oryx, Savathûn, and Xivu Arath, allowing their worms to feed on violence while continuing to invoke their inner natures.[36]
Fearing that he was becoming a nihilist, Oryx eventually decided to sire his own spawn. The result of this was Crota, Son of Oryx, and the Deathsinger twins, Ir Anûk and Ir Halak. One day, the Deathsingers were refining their Deathsongs and came up with the idea of the Oversoul. Intrigued, Oryx commanded Crota to watch his sisters, so that he might learn something. But while Oryx was off studying the Deep, Crota was deceived by Savathûn into using his Cleaver to cut a portal in the High War, allowing the Vex to enter.[37] For one hundred years the children of Oryx waged war with the Vex, who quickly deduced that worshiping the Sword Logic and the Deep was key to attaining power in the High War. However, while the Hive were able to overpower the Vex, they were unable to expel them, as they lost too much power whenever they entered the Vex conflux. The situation became so severe that the Worm God Eir itself demanded that Oryx return and end the war.[38] Quickly returning to the High War, Oryx used his powers to Take the Vex and cleanse his throne world. Angered at his son's imperfection, Oryx threw Crota into the Vex gate network, decreeing that he "return victorious or die forgotten". At first, Crota resented his father for his apparent abandonment, but after time, he came to understand his father, and built temples to Oryx and the Deep, eventually becoming a vital link in Oryx's tithe of death and achieving godhood himself.[39] However, Oryx recognized that the threat of the Vex invading his throne world could not happen again, so he moved the High War into a mighty Dreadnaught scrimshawed from the remains of Akka.[40]
During the Hive's campaign against the Harmony and the Vex, Quria, Blade Transform presented Oryx with a simulation of his former self, Aurash. Oryx looked upon the simulation with amusement, while Aurash looked upon Oryx in horror, demanding to know what he had done to her sisters and her people.[41][42] In the end, Oryx Took Quria and presented the Vex to Savathûn as a gift. When she asked him what proof they had that their actions right, Oryx simply replied that the Hive's existence was proof enough in their convictions to live eternal by the Sword-Logic.[43] Following the war with the Harmony, Savathûn decided that her fleets would enter the black hole that the Harmony lived around, claiming that they would become stronger for it, while Xivu Arath detached her fleets from Oryx's, as she felt he constrained her too much.[44] Meanwhile, Oryx continued his crusade alone while ruminating on the future.[45][46]
Early Campaigns in Sol[edit]
- "For millennia, humanity gazed at the Moon and envisioned visiting it. Yet, no one dreamed it a trespass. The Hive is not a welcoming host, as you well know."
- — Toland, the Shattered
At some point before the dawn of Humanity on Earth, the Hive had secretly seeded themselves deep below the depths of Luna.[47] It is there that they would completely terraform the entire interior of the moon from the bottom up into an impregnable fortress called the Hellmouth.[48] Traces of their presence were first uncovered by human scientists sometime during the Golden Age, when they uncovered an artifact that established contact with the Witness.[49] The Hive would emerge during the Collapse, whereupon they slaughtered the inhabitants of the First Light Lunar Installation and the K1 Project site.[50] [51] After reclaiming their stake on the moon, they continued to lie dormant and recover their strength for centuries until the threat of their existence faded to myth by the time of the City Age.[52]
During the early City Age, Rezyl Azzir became the first Guardian to reach the Moon. Pursuing ancient mysteries regarding the existence of the Hive, Rezyl made first contact with Xyor, the Blessed and her betrothed Knight.[53] After facing off with Xyor's consort and the witch's magic, Rezyl emerged victorious, and escaped to warn the City of the imposing threat. However, the magic that affected Rezyl during the battle with Xyor and her Knight would slowly corrupt him into the hated Guardian killer, Dredgen Yor, and create the most infamous Weapon of Sorrow: Thorn.[54]
The Wrath of Crota[edit]
- "We went to the Moon seeking vengeance, but it found us first. Crota, the Son of Oryx. We'd never faced anything like him. In the end, only I was left. Crota and his armies destroyed our Moon. If we don't stop them, I fear Earth will suffer the same fate."
- — Eris M