Timeline

Destinypedia: Timeline is a Destinypedia page which lays out the timeline of the Destiny franchise. This page is simply a reference for general events. For detailed information, please refer to the timeline template provided on the right. Note that nearly all events are not attached to specific dates; they may not be in exact chronological order, and adjacent events in the list may be separated by spans of only a few days or several centuries.

The Ancient Past

 * The Worms, an intelligent species able to wield the power of the Darkness directly, are imprisoned by the Traveler in the lowest depths of the global ocean that exists in one of the atmospheric layers of the gas giant Fundament. The Traveler tasks its disciple, a creature called Leviathan, with guarding the Worms and dissuading anyone who seeks them out. The Worms in turn begin calling across the stars to other intelligent species, seeking to lure one that can free them. As a result, hundreds of species make their way to Fundament and become stranded there, eking out a living on floating continents. One such species was the proto-Hive, whose homeworld collided with Fundament and shattered. The proto-Hive survive and build a new civilization for themselves on the floating shards of their former homeworld, gradually forgetting their original history.


 * Meanwhile, the Traveler shares its bounty of knowledge with the Ammonite species native to an icy moon of Fundament. The Ammonite eventually build an advanced starfaring civilization that spans all of Fundament's 52 moons, and comes into contact with the distant Ecumene.


 * At eight years of age, the proto-Hive Osmium King of the Osmium Court on Fundament sires his final brood of offspring, which include his three daughters Xi Ro, Sathona, and Aurash. The royal daughters are tutored by Taox.


 * At ten years of age, the Osmium King begins to succumb to senility and madness, consulting with his 'dead' pet worm, obsessing over the movements of Fundament's moons, and the possibility of a catastrophic alignment called the Syzygy. Fearing for the Osmium Court's future and believing the royal daughters were unsuited to rule, Taox secretly contacts the rival Helium Drinkers of the Helium Court, inviting them to invade, assassinate the royal family, and install her as a subservient regent of the Osmium Court. The Helium Drinkers agree, resulting in the Osmium Court's fall and the death of the Osmium King, but the royal daughters escape and vow to take revenge.


 * Three years after losing their kingdom, upon the advice of their father's worm, Xi Ro, Sathona, and Aurash use a salvaged high-tech ship to dive into Fundament's depths, hoping to discover a secret to stave off the Syzgy, which Aurash had come to believe was imminent. They encounter the Leviathan, but reject his pleas to turn back and continue on to the Worms. The Worms offer the sisters immortality and power in exchange for accepting their larvae as parasites and carrying out the will of the Darkness. The sisters agree to the pact and are transformed into the first Hive: Xi Ro becomes Xivu Arath, Sathona becomes Savathûn, and Aurash becomes Auryx.


 * Xivu Arath, Savathûn, and Auryx return to the surface and share the Worm parasites among the other proto-Hive, creating an army that quickly overwhelms Fundament's other species. Taox flees, at first to other continents and then to the Ammonite capital moon where she is granted asylum. The Hive follow and war against the Ammonites, eventually exterminating them, killing Leviathan, and forcing the Traveler to abandon Fundament. The Hive colonize and transform Fundament's moons into mobile war-moons, and embark on their purge of the universe in the name of the Darkness.


 * The Hive eradicate hundreds of intelligent species, including the Qugu.


 * Approximately twenty-four thousand years after the fall of the Ammonites, the Hive reach the frontier of the Ecumene and invade 17 worlds over the course of a century. The Dakaua, a client species of the Ecumene, discover Taox in cryo-stasis aboard an ancient ship. Taox shares her knowledge of the Hive's leaders and motivations with the Dakaua, and the Ecumene unleashes its most powerful weapons against the Hive, who immediately suffer setbacks.


 * Seeking the power necessary to allow the Hive to continue their crusade, Auryx slays the Worm God Akka, harnessing the ability to Take. Auryx becomes Oryx, the Taken King.


 * Over a period of one thousand, one hundred and forty years, the resurgent Hive annihilate the species of the Ecumene so utterly that no trace of them remains. Taox escapes yet again, however, and the Hive resume their pursuit, ravaging the galaxy along the way.


 * After destroying the Taishibethi, Oryx reaches the Darkness itself and communes with it. He decides to produce children, and sires a son and twin daughters: Crota, Ir Anûk, and Ir Halak.


 * While Oryx is absent from his court to observe the Darkness destroy an ancient fortress world, Crota inadvertently opens a portal to a place containing Vex. The Vex plague Oryx's ascendant realm for a hundred years before the Worm God Eir calls Oryx home to deal with the problem. Oryx comes to consider the Vex a worthy rival, and resolves to follow the Darkness and document the destruction it wreaks in a "grave of worlds", so that he may learn from it and use this knowledge to succeed in his crusade against the universe.


 * With his ascendant realm having been compromised by the Vex incursion, Oryx builds the Dreadnaught from Akka's corpse and houses his realm within it. Soon after, Oryx defeats Quria, Blade Transform and the remaining Vex who were attacking him. Quria's last act is to share what it has learned about Oryx's origins as Aurash with the rest of the Vex collective mind.


 * By means unknown, the Vex embed themselves in every known celestial body. On Venus this results in the creation of the Vault of Glass and Atheon, Time's Conflux.


 * The Hive destroy the Harmony, another species that had built a peaceful and advanced civilization with the aid of the Traveler. Afterwards, Oryx's sisters part ways with him; Savathûn takes her war-moons into the black hole the Harmony's worlds orbited, while Xivu Arath ventures into unknown space. Oryx journeys on in the footsteps of the Darkness, continuing the Hive's crusade and still seeking the elusive Taox.

Pre-Golden Age

 * The Traveler visits the Eliksni (later known the "Fallen") and provides them with limitless ether. The Eliksni revere the Traveler as "The Great Machine", and the House of Judgment enforces law and peace.


 * The Eliksni civilization is destroyed by an event known as the Whirlwind. The Traveler abandons the Eliksni around this time. In the aftermath, the House of Judgement attempts to maintain order among the survivors, but is unable to prevent the outbreak of a bloody civil war and is itself nearly eradicated. The remnants of the House of Judgment are forced into servitude by the remaining Kells.


 * The Eliksni take to the stars in search of the Traveler.


 * Chelchis, Kell of Stone is slain by Oryx himself, and becomes a legend amongst his people.


 * At some point, the Cabal begin forging a vast interstellar Empire. They conquer the telekinetic Psions and incorporate them into the Empire as a client race. Eventually, an unknown calamity, possibly the Darkness, is believed to have struck the Cabal homeworld, forcing the Empire to flee.

21st Century

 * The present day - Humanity detects and tracks the Traveler as it enters the Solar System and terraforms Mercury, Venus, and the moons of Jupiter. When it reaches Mars, the multinational Ares One mission is launched to make contact with it. The Traveler imparts its vast knowledge to humanity, spurring the colonization of the Solar System. The Golden Age, a centuries-long era of widespread prosperity and technological miracles, begins.


 * The Cloud Walkers lead the first Exodus.
 * The first off-Earth colony is established in Mare Cognitum on the Moon in the Ocean of Storms.

Early Golden Age

 * Fifty years after the Traveler's discovery, at the age of 90, Commander Jacob Hardy records his experiences from the Ares One mission in his diary and explains how the Traveler's dramatic impact on human well-being and civilization.


 * During the initial exploration of Venus, ancient Vex ruins are discovered. Early Vex research outposts like Campus 9 attract Earth's brightest minds, leading to a colonization rush on the planet. The researchers found the Ishtar Collective and the Ishtar Academy.


 * A copper box with a red lid is discovered, its lid dented, one hinge shattered. Inside is a small quantity of the finest, driest powder, more brown than gray, more blue than green. The powder is weighed by the grain, studied close. One hundred billion bits reside inside, all of them tiny and nearly spherical, and etched with the outlines of continents and islands and icecaps. Each sphere represents a planet. One is found of Earth, Mars, and Venus. The minds presume that the box is a message of how minuscule all of creation is. They wonder who delivered this message, and why.


 * Sekrion, the Nexus Mind, eats away at the planet, preparing to turn it into a Vex machine. Legends come to be told of the tunnels below the Ishtar Academy.


 * The city of Freehold is founded on Mars with the support of Clovis Bray. It becomes known as one of humanity's greatest achievements.

Late Golden Age

 * A Father shows his son a simulation of Venus before the Traveler’s arrival, when the Father was a little boy.


 * The first Exo are built to aid and protect humans.


 * The Ishtar Collective captures a live Vex specimen and nearly go mad until a Warmind intervenes. They send a group of proxies into the Vex ruins to explore the Vex network.


 * The Future War Cult is founded by members of the Ishtar Collective at Lhasa after experimenting with Vex technology.

The Collapse

 * The Warmind Rasputin detects the sudden arrival and rapid approach of an unidentified entity outside the Solar System. Recognizing the entity as a threat, Rasputin assumes control of humanity's defense network. As all countermeasures fail to affect the entity and defeat becomes a certainty, Rasputin decides to shut down to protect itself, leaving billions of people to perish.


 * The Collapse - The Darkness, the ancient enemy of the Traveler, arrives in the Solar System, precipitating the Collapse and the abrupt end of the Golden Age. Earth's defenders are steadily beaten back until humanity is threatened with extinction. Humanity is saved only through the intervention of the Traveler, which sacrifices itself to stop the Darkness. With its last breath, the Traveler creates the Ghosts, to seek out those who can wield its Light as a weapon.


 * At some point during the Collapse, some humans seeking refuge from the Darkness flee into deep space.


 * The House of Devils destroys London.


 * On Mercury, Venus and Mars, dormant Vex units, reacting to the Collapse reactivate and begin terraforming several worlds. While Mercury is turned into a machine in days the Vex terraforming is slowed on other worlds for reasons unknown.

The Dark Age

 * In the aftermath of the Collapse comes the Dark Age. It is a time of vast suffering and terrible evil.


 * Those humans who fled into space during the Collapse return, transformed into the Awoken. Many take up residence in the Reef.


 * Members of the First Light colony investigate the tunnels beneath the Moon. They discover the Worms and the Hive nesting deep within, but do not survive to tell the tale.


 * The Exo reappear, but their memories have been irreparably damaged.


 * Before the first Guardians appear, Takanome's Rangers protect humanity's survivors. They disappear after the Guardians become commonplace.


 * Ghosts travel among the refugee columns, seeking the first Guardians.


 * Rumors circulate of a haven beneath the Traveler.


 * The first Titans pledge to defend the refugees gathering to the Traveler, forming the Pilgrim Guard.


 * The Cabal establish a beachhead on Phobos for initiating the invasion of Mars. The Cabal wage a massive campaign of attrition with the native Vex programming the Virgo Prohibition, who desperately attempt to protect the entrance to the Black Garden from the ever expanding Cabal Exclusion Zone. The war will continue throughout the Dark Age and the City Age with little outside interference.

Founding the Last City

 * The Last City is founded - Survivors of the Collapse, human, Awoken, and Exo, travel from far and wide to the site of the inactive Traveler, and build the Last City beneath its protective aura.  The City Age begins.


 * The Faction Wars - Power struggles between various political factions for the support of the City's refugee masses escalate into a series of violent conflicts. The Guardians, known in those days as The Risen, band together and end the bloodshed before the City is torn apart by the civil war and a new encroaching threat: the Fallen. The Consensus, a representative body through which the factions could pursue their agendas peacefully, is subsequently formed to jointly govern the City with the Speaker.


 * In the aftermath of the Faction Wars, the first Titans construct and defend the City's walls.


 * New Monarchy coalesces in the wake of the Faction Wars.

Early City Age

 * The Battle of the Six Fronts - The first major attack weathered by the City. Four orders of Titans defended six different approaches against an overwhelming enemy force, lead by the Iron Lords. None of the orders faltered, and what could have been a disastrous defeat became instead a decisive victory.


 * The Crusade of Saint-14 - The legendary Titan and Exo Saint-14 rallies an army of Guardians to attack the Fallen surrounding the Last City. His campaign is successful and Fallen attacks on the City temporarily abate. During the campaign, he personally fights and kills Solkis, Devil Kell.


 * The Great Ahamkara Hunt - The Vanguard deems the Ahamkara to be too dangerous and orders their extermination in the Great Ahamkara Hunt. The Warlocks preserve some Ahamkara bones and fossils for study.


 * The Six Coyotes, a legendary fireteam of Hunters, make the first survey of the interior of the Cosmodrome in Old Russia.


 * The Hive begin landing Seeder Ships on Earth in a centuries-long process intended to precede an invasion. Guardians eventually first learn of the Hive's presence at the Rusted Lands, the future site of a Crucible arena.


 * Fireteam Tuyet traverses the Ishtar Sink in search of Vex secrets. Unfortunately the Vex find them first and Tuyet is lost in a last stand on the Shattered Coast. The intel they recover though is later used to forge Pocket Infinity.


 * The Iron Lords discover the SIVA plague within the Cosmodrome. They all pledge to prevent its spread and sacrifice themselves to contain it; only Saladin Forge returned to the City.


 * A fire team consisting of Praedyth, Pahanin, Kabr, and three unknown Guardians lands on Venus and breaches the Vault of Glass, hoping to destroy Atheon, along with whatever secrets the Vex have hidden there, and return to the City in glory. The assault is a disaster, as Kabr's team encounter the Templar, whose impregnable shields and powerful weapons force the team deeper into the Vault of Glass. Only Pahanin escapes the Vault. One member Praedyth is trapped by the Vex and lost in time, and the remaining Guardians are erased from existence. Kabr himself is not killed but instead goes mad, becoming obsessed with the Vex, fashioning armor and weapons from their corpses. In the end Kabr does not die but is assimilated by the Vex. In his last act Kabr creates the Aegis, a weapon capable of piercing the Templar's shields, so that future fireteams will not meet his fate.

Recent City Age

 * The Battle of the Twilight Gap - The Kell of Kings, the ruler of the House of Kings, manipulates the combined might of the Fallen Houses into an assault against the City. The battle is joined in Twilight Gap, just outside the City's walls. Vanguard Commander Saladin Forge coordinates the City's defenses with his students Zavala and Shaxx. Though many Guardians fall in the ensuing battle, the united Fallen Houses are driven off with heavy casualties. In the aftermath of the Guardians' hard-won victory, the outermost sections of the City are evacuated and converted into fortifications, and the Vanguard decides to take a more proactive stance in fighting the forces of the Darkness by deploying strike teams against high value enemy targets.


 * The Reef Wars - As Twilight Gap rages on Earth, the Awoken of the Reef ally with the Nine to subdue the powerful House of Wolves. Battles include the Hildian Campaign and the Raze of Amethyst. After their Kell Virixas is killed, a brutal civil war among the Wolves ensues which sees Skolas emerge as the new Kell. Following Skolas's capture at the Cybele Uprising, the Wolves surrender and swear fealty to the Queen of the Reef rather than be totally destroyed. The Queen seals their nobility in the Prison of Elders and allows the rest to serve as her personal guards and servants.


 * Following the Reef Wars, the Cabal commander, Valus Trau'ug attempts to authorize an invasion of the Reef. When he is denied by his superiors, Trau'ug massacres his own officers in an act of mutiny and leads his most loyal soldiers against the Queen. Trau'ug fails utterly as both he and his Broken Legion are interned in the Prison of Elders.


 * In the aftermath of the Reef Wars and the Twilight Gap, numerous rogues and outcasts of the Fallen houses band together to form the House of Exile on the moon.


 * Holborn's Host investigates the Dust Palace on Mars, seeking a Warmind.


 * Battle of Burning Lake - The Hive invade Earth and make first contact with the Guardians. Though the Guardians beat them back, Shaxx unsuccessfully attempts to dissuade the Consensus from ordering a counterattack, realizing that the Hive's power needed to be understood before they could engage. He instead begins developing the lost art of swordsmithing, reverse-engineering the dreaded hive blades for use by Guardians.


 * The Great Disaster - The Guardians launch an audacious offensive to reclaim the Moon from the Hive. The Hive Prince Crota, the son of their God-King Oryx, brutally repels the attack, personally leading the Hive's forces and killing scores of Guardians with his fabled sword. Humbled, the Vanguard orders a full retreat and declares the Moon off-limits, hoping that the Hive will lose interest and refrain from invading Earth.


 * Seeking to avenge their lost allies, Eriana-3 leads a fireteam of Guardians consisting of Eris Morn, Vell Tarlowe, Omar Agah, Sai Mota, and Toland, the Shattered return to the Moon to hunt down Crota. Though they succeed in destroying Crota's physical form, the Hive catch and preserve his soul. As the Guardians try to flee, they are killed one by one until only Eris remains. Eris survives in the Hive's tunnels for years before escaping and later becoming one of Ikora Rey's Hidden.


 * Andal Brask, the Hunter Vanguard, falls in battle with the vicious Fallen mercenary Taniks. Cayde-6 reluctantly assumes Brask's post in memory of his deceased friend.


 * The Concordat faction falls out of favor with the Consensus and is ejected from the Tower. The Vanguard and the Speaker approve the ascension of the Future War Cult to replace the Concordat.


 * The once noble hero Dredgen Yor, bearer of the Hand Cannon Thorn, begins his campaign of destruction, murdering fellow Guardians and civilians alike. His victims include the Crucible champion Thalor and the Hunters Jaren Ward and Pahanin.  Yor is finally killed by Ward's son, the Hunter Shin Malphur and his hand gun The Last Word after a fateful duel.

28th Century

 * The events of Destiny - Seven centuries from the present day, a Ghost revives a long-dead Guardian outside the Cosmodrome in Old Russia. The Speaker tasks this Guardian with finding the means to restore the Traveler before the Darkness returns and destroys the City once and for all.


 * A Guardian fireteam is ordered by Zavala to destroy the House of Devils' Prime Servitor, Sepiks Prime, in the Cosmodrome, crippling the house's ability to wage war against the city.


 * The Guardian discovers that Rasputin is still alive in the Cosmodrome. However, attempts by the Vanguard to make contact have been, so far, unsuccessful. Instead, Rasputin takes charge of the planetary defense network.


 * The Guardian discovers that the Hive have once more invaded Earth, and goes to the moon to investigate their activities. They discover a shard of the Traveler that had been captured by the Hive.


 * The Exo Stranger meets with the Guardian to warn them of the impending threat of the Vex and their attempts to their reality-altering powers.


 * Draksis, Winter Kell, is hunted down and killed by Guardians in his own Ketch in the Cinders, removing the last of the House of Winter's leadership.


 * The Cabal High Command is decimated after scores of its leaders are killed in battle with Guardians. Among them are Primus Sha'aul, leader of the Blind Legion and the veteran general Valus Ta'aurc, leader of the Siege Dancers. The Cabal suffer an even greater loss after an elite unit of Psion Flayers are wiped out in the Dust Palace by a fireteam from Earth.


 * The Guardian enters the Black Garden and destroys the Black Heart at its core. Freed from the Heart's parasitic influence, the Traveler regains its Light and begins to heal.


 * A group of Guardians ventures into the Vault of Glass and defeats Atheon, disrupting the Vex's plan to permanently incorporate themselves into reality itself.


 * Omnigul, the Will of Crota, arrives on Earth and launches several campaigns against the Fallen in the Cosmodrome. Her activities signal the return of Crota.


 * The Undying Mind attempts to revive the Heart of the Black Garden and seal it away from Guardian assault. Luckily the Mind and the Sol Primeval assisting it are destroyed by Guardians.


 * The events of The Dark Below - Eris Morn returns to the Tower, warning of an impending Hive invasion led by a resurrected Crota. A group of Guardians foil the invasion and Crota's resurrection before journeying into Oversoul Throne to destroy him for good.


 * With Crota dead, the Vanguard turns its attention to wiping out his generals. His direct servants are quickly eliminated including Sardon, Fist of Crota and the executioner Urzok, the Hated. Crota's final general Omnigul is assassinated after she makes a last stand near the Skywatch.


 * The events of House of Wolves - Skolas leads the House of Wolves in a rebellion against the Queen of the Reef. The Queen responds by opening the Reef to the Guardians and sending them against Skolas as he attempts to unite all of the Fallen Houses under his rule. Though Winter swiftly kneels to his banners, the remaining Houses—Devils, Kings, and Exile—refuse to join his cause. Skolas is eventually defeated after a final battle atop the Citadel, where he attempts to use Vex technology to augment his army. He is captured by the Queen and sent to his death in the Prison of Elders.


 * As Skolas' Wolves rampage through the system, the mercenary Taniks, is hired by the Wolves to acquire the secrets of the Darkness from the Hive, but is killed on his ship, Kaliks-Syn, during a Guardian strike.


 * The events of The Taken King - After the death of his son Crota, Oryx, the God-King of the Hive, looks for revenge against the Guardians who murdered his son by using his personal army the Taken, a coalition of different enemies corrupted by the Darkness in service of the Taken King himself. His Taken overwhelm the system, prompting the Guardians and the Cabal to board his Dreadnaught to stop him. Oryx's physical form was defeated, forcing his soul to retreat deeper into his ship until a team of six Guardians finishes him off for good.


 * With Oryx's arrival, the Cabal suffer catastrophic losses across the system and only avoid complete defeat after the reserve Skyburners fleet is deployed in a direct attack on the Dreadnaught. After the Skyburners' Primus is taken, however, their offensive crumbles. A unit of Cabal aboard the Dreadnaught, in the ship Dantalion Exodus VI, frantically sends a distress beacon directed at the Cabal Empire, but are wiped out by Guardians. Nevertheless, their message is believed to have reached its intended recipient.


 * The House of Wolves regroups on Mars and rebuilds their previous Prime Servitor, Orbiks Prime. Under Orbiks' direction, the Wolves attempt to establish a base in the Blind Legion's former keep, coming into conflict with local Cabal forces. The Guardian tracks down Orbiks Prime and eliminates it, scattering the House of Wolves once more.


 * A Taken Warbeast, Malok, Pride of Oryx, attempts to rally the remaining Taken from the Hellmouth. Malok is discovered however and a strike team eliminates him in a last stand at the Shrine of Oryx.


 * The events of Rise of Iron - The SIVA Plague is discovered by the House of Devils, and is unleashed upon the Cosmodrome. Lord Saladin personally leads the counterattack to contain the threat.