Dreadnaught

"My throne world is vulnerable. I am going to move it." "Where?" "Into a mighty dreadnaught. I shall keep my glorious mind cosmos inside a titanic warship."

- Oryx and Kagoor

The Dreadnaught is a massive Hive spaceship that serves as the fortress of Oryx, the Taken King, who came to the Solar System to enact his revenge against the Guardians for killing his son. Accompanied by a fleet of Hive warships and Tombships, the Dreadnaught entered into orbit around Saturn after having been stalled by the Awoken and stayed there for the rest of the Taken War until Oryx's defeat.

History
Oryx decided to construct the Dreadnaught to house the High War, his Ascendant Realm, after a Vex incursion demonstrated its vulnerability. Once it was completed, his first act with it was to attack the Nicha Thought-ship and the Harmonious Flotilla Invincible that defended it. While the Flotilla was easily destroyed by the Dreadnaught's death impulse weapon, the Thought-ship proved to be a trap set by Quria, Blade Transform, who launched a second invasion of Oryx's throne and was quickly defeated.

According to an analysis by Ghost, the Dreadnaught may pre-date the formation of the Earth, making it at least 4.54 billion years old.

Design
The Dreadnaught's hull is carved out of a segment from the corpse of the Worm god Akka, whom Oryx had previously slain in order to learn the power to Take. Oryx turned the High War "inside out" by tying it into the structure of the Dreadnaught. In effect, his Ascendant Realm has become the Dreadnaught and vice versa, becoming physically mobile and thus more difficult to attack.

Its design is a consistent rectangular hexahedron along its length, while the ends taper inward toward the center. Four main spines protrude from the bow while the end has one engine. Numerous lesser spines protrude outward both bow and aft. One of the Dreadnaught's most notable features is a massive parabolic dish built into its side nearest the bow, which is the emitter for a paracausal superweapon capable of decimating fleets and even destroying a portion of Saturn's rings. As the weapon charges, energy travels laterally along the Dreadnaught's hull from each end until it reaches the dish, where it is collected and released in a devastating spherical pulse that expands outward from the ship, destroying or severely damaging anything in its path. Designed by Ir Halak and Ir Anûk, the weapon draws on Oryx's power to briefly evert the Ascendant Realm within the Dreadnaught out into the physical realm. This is essentially the same principle as an Oversoul death impulse.

Apart from this weapon, the Dreadnaught was also capable of remotely generating "eversive breach events," creating interdimensional rifts either to Take nearby organisms or to attack a given area with a short-lived stream of energy. The Dreadnaught was capable of maneuvering in a manner impossible for conventional spacecraft because of its paracausal origins; furthermore, it continuously emitted exotic radiation in the form of sterile neutrinos, phaetons, mass growl, gravity waves, and axions, with significant spikes in this radiation being correlated with the breach events taking place across the Solar system at the onset of the Taken War. The Dreadnaught also generated its own gravitic field.

Interior
The inside of the Dreadnaught is as vast as the Moon, and dangerous. Reports indicate the ship is host to numerous biomes hostile to all life except the Hive and Worms. Hadium and Wormspore litter the ground in many areas, including beautiful orbs call sootpearls buried within. Sacrifial stones entombed with the souls of lesser Hive dot the place in strange nooks and cranies while prisons to torture the Hive's captives are found deeper inside.

Locations

 * Hull Breach
 * Mausoleum
 * Dantalion Exodus VI
 * The Bridge
 * The Narthex
 * Trenchway
 * Altar of Oryx
 * The Founts
 * The Asylum
 * The Hanging Crypts
 * Hall of Souls
 * Court of Oryx
 * The Crux
 * Portico
 * Basilica
 * Golgoroth's Cellar
 * Transept
 * Threshold
 * Cathedral of Dusk

Secret Chests
There are a number of chests hidden within the Dreadnaught that can only be opened with keys. To obtain the keys, one needs to kill Hive in the Hull Breach area until one drops the Wormsinger Rune. Use the rune on a console inside one of the side rooms in the Hull Breach area to summon a Hive Ogre champion. Killing the Ogre drops a Wormfeeder Rune; killing fifty more enemies turns the rune into one of nine keys which are used to open any of the chests below:

Activities
The Dreadnaught is a massive destination with its own Patrol mode and other activities. The Dreadnaught includes many raid-like secret locations and puzzles that players can revisit and solve to earn special rewards. Players will not only have to find a way inside the Dreadnaught in story missions, but also plant the beacons to be used later in patrol. Though it is a Hive ship, it is defended primarily by Oryx's personal army of Taken; in addition, a Cabal strike force has breached the interior and can be encountered engaging both the Hive and Taken.

Patrol

 * Court of Oryx
 * Secret Chests

Story Missions

 * The Dreadnaught
 * Enemy of My Enemy
 * Regicide
 * Outbound Signal
 * Dread Patrol

Strikes

 * Shield Brothers
 * The Sunless Cell

Raid

 * King's Fall

Crucible

 * Cathedral of Dusk

Trivia

 * Fan theories abound as to the actual size of the Dreadnaught. Devoted fans used known data about Saturn's rings and recently investigated comet 's size to estimate that the Dreadnaught is approximately between 3444 to 3500 kilometers (2140.002 to 2174.799 miles) long. To put that in perspective, that is equivalent to the width of the continental United States, or the size of Earth's, making it one of the largest ships to appear in science fiction, surpassing even the 160 kilometer of Star Wars.
 * Sterile neutrinos, phaetons (or dark photons), and axions are all hypothetical particles proposed in connection to dark matter.

List of appearances

 * Destiny
 * The Taken King