Neomuna

Neomuna is a destination added in Lightfall. It is a Human city on Neptune that developed in secret during or shortly before the Collapse.

It is defended by warriors known as Cloud Striders, who have voluntarily undergone cybernetic augmentation at the cost of significantly reducing their lifespan.

History
During the Golden Age, Rasputin and the Ishtar Collective created Soteria with the help of Vex technology, intending to use her to simulate deep space travel and extrasolar colonization. Just before the Collapse, however, Soteria detected the presence of the Black Fleet outside Sol, and was unable to devise a trajectory that would allow a hypothetical launch to evade the Pyramids and survive unassisted.

Rejecting orders from Clovis Bray I to stand down, Soteria placed a submind of herself inside a large amount of ECHO colony ships before she was trapped in the Ares Spire and forced them to launch into space with supplies, colonists, and crew members on-board. Most of the ships were destroyed in their flight, but one was caught by Neptune's gravity well and crashed into its surface. Soteria's submind began to hide itself and the remains of the ship away from all other third parties, and evidently allowed itself to develop into a settlement that would eventually become Neomuna.

During the Collapse, a colony ship called the Exodus Indigo made it to Neptune. Its crew (which included the distinguished Golden Age scientist Maya Sundaresh) would go on to establish Neomuna, likely with help from Soteria. Rasputin would hold a codename called Nefele Stronghold within his list of known human colonies and settlements, suggesting he was somehow alerted to Neomuna's creation and Soteria's survival.

Neomuna would remain completely unknown to both the surviving denizens of Earth and the Awoken of the Reef, opting to remain isolated for their own safety. Even after learning of survivors on Earth, the citizens of Neomuna understood that beings wielding strange paracausal powers existed there, called Warlords, who oppressed the few survivors. For this reason, the Neomuni opted to refrain from reaching out to the people of Earth, fearing the conflicts of Earth would reach their safe city, even after the Warlords had been toppled by the rise of more noble Risen of the Iron Lords and therefore becoming ignorant of the current generations of Guardians. Likewise, they are aware of the existence and origins of the Exo, initially believing that they went extinct after the Collapse, again ignorant of many existing within the Last City on Earth. To further help defend themselves, the Neomuni developed a means to cybernetically augment a human, granting them heightened abilities at the cost of reducing their lifespan, the Cloud Striders, who would go on to be the main protectors of Neomuna. The main foe the Cloud Striders would face in protecting Neomuna would be the Vex, but they would expect to one day face against the Lightbearers should they actually find Neomuna.

Centuries later, things would change dramatically for the people of Neomuna. They would detect the return of the Pyramids to the Sol System, and as a precaution, the people of Neomuna put themselves in a cryogenic slumber within the CloudArk to prevent casualties during what was predicted to be a second Collapse. As luck would have it, war came to the doorstep of Neomuna, as the city would come under assault from the Shadow Legion. In service to the Witness, the true cause of the Collapse, they sought an object called the Veil, which was entombed beneath the city. The Cloud Striders now fought against the Shadow Legion, but despite their efforts, they were losing ground. However, the latest Cloud Striders, Rohan and Nimbus, would gain the aid of the Guardian and Osiris who had come to prevent the Shadow Legion from acquiring the Veil. Despite being skeptical of the Lightbearers, the Cloud Striders agreed to join forces with the Guardians to save their city.

At an unknown point in time after the Arrival, Asher Mir followed the Vex to Neomuna through the Nexus and encountered information about the Veil, which he began to manually research and simulate. His appearance would be noted by archivist Quinn Laghari due to his name appearing in cryptic references within the network, but Asher himself was either unable or unwilling to inform the outside world of his findings. He remained in Neomuna's sector after the Shadow Legion's invasion to monitor the Guardian's excursions into the network, though circumstances would later force him to flee back to Earth and extract his research to the material world. It is later revealed that Asher's activities on Neomuna forced him to resume integration into the Vex Network, resulting in his death four weeks after the invasion when the Nexus captures his consciousness.

Despite Rohan sacrificing his life in the fight, the Cloud Striders' alliance with the Guardians would bear fruit in keeping Neomuna and its people safe, defeating Emperor Calus and especially in protecting the CloudArk from the Vex. However, some Neomuni have displayed skepticism in whether the Guardians were different from the Warlords, as the Earth representatives objected to the label, clarifying that the Guardians have the Vanguard to provide checks and balances and a command structure but the same critics would point out the Vanguard's apparent lack of control over their membership and lack of accountability. To further add to the confusion, the civilian City Council of Neomuna are unsure how to legally classify the Guardians' Ghosts, especially the unpartnered Ghosts.

Since the Shadow Legion's attack, the Neomuni have petitioned the City Council to expand their military capabilities but this was rejected by the council as they didn't want to risk an increase in military authority or the loss of reconstruction expertise. However, they did agree to approving a petition to expand the scope of civilian defense force efforts.

Trivia

 * Neomuni is the demonym for the citizens of Neomuna.
 * Calus also referred the people of Neomuna as Neptunians.
 * In return, Nimbus referred to those from Earth as Terrans.
 * Little is currently known about etymology behind the name "Neomuna", however, some guesses could be made by looking at the name’s components in different languages:
 * "Muna" is an Arabic name that means "wishes" or "desires", making Neomuna mean "new wishes" or "new desires".
 * "Muna" is also a Native American name that means "overflowing spring", possibly alluding to Neomuna as a "new spring" of life.
 * In many old/proto versions of modern European languages "muna" means "egg", possibly used as reference to the shape of planets/moons, and as something that gives 'new life'.
 * "Neomuna" is a Romanization of the Korean word 너무나 (너무 = neomu, 나 = na), which translates to English as "far too much" or "excessively". However, the pronunciation is "nomuna", without the "e".

List of appearances

 * Destiny 2
 * The Witch Queen
 * Season of the Seraph
 * Lightfall