The Guardian

"All of the after-action reports I've shown you about the Taken War, the calm state of the system... we have this Guardian to thank. I've attached more details, if you want to read evaluations from the Vanguard. Just skim Cayde's. He's... not very biased, here."

- Grimoire description

The Guardian is the character players are know by when playing Destiny and Destiny 2. Events following their resurrection take place four hundred years after the event known as the Collapse. They are a Protector of the Last City, and participated in several legendary battles to retake humanity's past from the forces of the Darkness.

Beginning
Centuries after the collapse, a stray Ghost wandering the ruins outside the Cosmodrome, searching for a Guardian before finally finding one among the ancient remains, and revives him/her. Ghost leads the Guardian out of the Cosmodrome and back to The Last City after finding a ship, and introduces them to the people of the Tower. The Guardian returns to the Cosmodrome in order to find a Warp Drive which will allow him/her to travel the solar system faster ; after slaying an Archon of the House of Devils to retrieve the Warp Drive, the Guardian gains an audience with the Speaker, who confides in them that the Darkness is returning, and that the Guardian must help protect the City any way they can.

The Guardian makes two important discoveries while in the Cosmodrome; the first is that the Hive, who had slain countless Guardians after they were beaten back to the Moon, have returned to Earth to prepare for an invasion. The second is that Rasputin, one of the legendary warminds, has survived the collapse, and has restored contact with the rest of the Solar System. The player travels to the Moon to investigate the Hive threat; they receive an urgent message that the Hive are attempting to drain the Traveler of its light, and that they must be stopped at all costs. However, they also run into a mysterious stranger, who tells them to meet her on Venus to stop another rising threat.

After stopping the Hive ritual, the Guardian travels to Venus and discovers the Vex, a machine race bent on dominating reality itself. The Stranger tells the Guardian that the only way to stop the Vex and save the Traveler is to enter the Black Garden and destroy its heart. The Guardian seeks counsel with the Awoken of the Reef; the Queen tells them that the only way into the Garden is to retrieve the eye of a Vex Gate Lord. They assume it to be a suicide mission, but the Guardian returns with the eye. The Queen tells the Guardian that they now owe her a favor in return for her information.

The entrance to the Black Garden, located on Mars, lies behind thick Cabal defenses. After successfully restoring the Gate Lord's eye using dormant Vex technology, the Guardian enters the Black Garden, a strange Vex realm outside of normal spacetime. At its center is the Black Heart, an abomination whom the Vex worship and seek to use to bend reality to their will. The Guardian kills its protectors, the Sol Progeny, destroying the Heart and freeing the Black Garden from Vex control. Light begins returning to the Traveler. But to finish off the Vex threat, the player must enter the Vault of Glass, the source of the Vex's reality-altering powers, and kill its leader, Atheon.

Return of the Crota, Son of Oryx
Eris Morn, the last survivor of a fireteam who went to the Moon to stop the Hive god Crota, is looking for Guardians to help her. The Hive's return to Earth is but a prelude to the return of Crota, whom his followers are attempting to awaken. Eris sends the player into the Cosmodrome to stop the invaders, especially after they attempt to kill Rasputin. She then sends the player to stop the Hive's awakening ritual on the Moon. After eliminating Crota's generals, the player finishes off Crota himself in his netherworld, the Oversoul Throne, deep within the Hellmouth.

House of Wolves Rebellion
The Reef is embroiled in civil war as the House of Wolves, a Fallen house whom the Queen had conquered during the Reef Wars, are now in open rebellion. Their leader, Skolas, has declared himself the Kell of Kells and wishes to unite the Fallen under his banner. The Queen has summoned the Guardians to aid her in ending the rebellion, in return for the Reef's treasures. The player is aided by Petra Venj and Variks, The Loyal, with whom they search for Skolas and put a stop to his plans. After failing to seize control of the House of Devils and House of Kings, Skolas instead attempts to seize control of the Vault of Glass and the Vex technology within. The player finally captures him atop the Citadel, stopping him from summoning his entire House through time from the Vex's time portals. Skolas is sent back to the Prison of Elders, where he's finished off once and for all.

The Taken War
Oryx, the father of Crota, has come with his Hive fleet to avenge his fallen son. Using his terrible power, Oryx creates a new army called the Taken, and lays siege to the entire solar system. The Awoken fleet lead by Queen Mara Sov attempt to stop him before he can enter the Inner System, but they are utterly destroyed. He then starts Taking the Cabal stationed on Phobos who send out a distress signal, which catches the Vanguard's attention. Responding to the distress signal, the player is sent to investigate. Upon seeing the devastation, the player is confronted by a vision of Oryx, who tells the player that he is there to pay back humanity for his son's death. Realizing the threat that laid before them, Cayde-6 crafts a plan with the player to sneak aboard Oryx's Dreadnaught. Though they are successful, they cannot enter Oryx's inner sanctum until the player becomes Ascendant; Eris helps the player recover the last fragments of Crota's Soul, allowing entry into Oryx's chambers, where they duel. Though Oryx's physical form was defeated, he retreated even further into the ship, recovering his strength. Meanwhile, the Guardians work towards pushing the Taken out of the system. Once Oryx's lieutenants, the Court of Oryx, have been defeated the Guardians push deeper into the Dreadnaught to seek out Oryx within his Ascendant realm. There, he confronted the Fireteam of Guardians sent to kill him once and for all with his full might, even pulling them into a Darkness dimension. But in the end, using Light stolen from his pawns, Oryx was slain permanently.

Siva Crisis
The Fallen House of Devils, while looting ancient tombs from the Golden Age, accidentally unearth a self replicating nano-technology plague known as SIVA within the depths of the Old Cosmodrome. This plague mutates the Devils into powerful machine gods which collapsed The Wall in Old Russia, prompting Lord Saladin, the last of the Iron Lords, to leave his post as the Handler of the Iron Banner and personally lead the Guardians in a final stand against the plague, raising a new generation of Iron Lords to guard the Last City.

Destiny 2
The Guardian boarded Dominus Ghaul's flagship to deal with the Cabal warlord, but was cornered by Ghaul in a darkened hallway. Afterward, Ghaul would brutally engage in a fight with The Guardian, severely injuring them. Ghaul beat the Guardian without remorse, nearly killing them by kicking them off of a building. Surviving the encounter later on, they would aid in the recovery effort of the Guardians, helping to establish their camp, and also aiding in the assassination of Protheon, Modular Mind.

Gallery
 File:Lone.jpg|The Guardian looks over the landscape of Titan. 

List of appearances

 * Destiny Alpha
 * Destiny Beta
 * Destiny
 * The Dark Below
 * House of Wolves
 * The Taken King
 * April Update
 * Rise of Iron
 * The Dawning
 * Age of Triumph
 * Destiny 2