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, which serves as a mobile Throne World for Oryx, the Taken King, who came to the Sol System to enact his revenge against the Guardians for killing his son. Initially accompanied by an escort of lesser Hive warships and the smaller tombships, the Dreadnaught entered Saturn's orbit after being stalled by the Awoken, and would remain there for the rest of the Taken War.

It is a Destination added in The Taken King and serves as the expansion's main setting.

Ancient history
"The Dreadnaught is a blighted hollow gouged into our universe"

- Eris Morn

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.

Oryx decided to construct the Dreadnaught to house his throne world from beyond the Ascendant Realm after a Vex incursion accidentally caused by his son, Crota, demonstrated its vulnerability. In doing so, he evaded an ambush from Xivu Arath. He carved it from a piece of Akka and crafted armor for it using the Hammer of Xivu Arath and the Scalpel of Savathûn, both stolen. Finally, he everted his world into the ship's interior in an act that required a verse from the Tablets of Ruin and the combined efforts of his entire Court. 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, but was quickly defeated.

The Taken War
When Crota was killed by Guardians in revenge for the Great Disaster, Oryx was wroth with fury. Setting everything he had planned aside, he brought his fleet to the Solar system to exact retribution upon the Guardians—specifically the one who struck the killing blow. When he arrived at the Solar system, in the vicinity of Saturn, Oryx and his ships were met by the Awoken. After a fierce battle he ended it by obliterating both sides. Without a fleet to continue his crusade Oryx turned his attention to the Martian Cabal, who were already aware of him, and halved their forces to build his Taken army.

The Cabal uncharacteristically sent out a distress call from Phobos, which was answered by none other than Crota's killer, who barely escaped with their life when Oryx discovered them. Back on the Dreadnaught Oryx and his lieutenant, Ecthar, Sword of Oryx conversed about his captives. Later, the Guardian approached in Eris Morn's jumpship equipped with modified stealth tech, attempting to infiltrate the Dreadnaught; unfortunately, the cloak fell away and the Dreadnaught detected them anyway. Nonetheless, as their ship was destroyed, the Guardian entered the Dreadnaught. After disabling its superweapons and encountering an entrenched Cabal force, the Guardian tracked a Cabal Commander and his men to an active rupture portal; after the Cabal were destroyed, along with attacking Thrall, the Guardian unsuccessfully tried to enter the portal, and then departed, denying Oryx his vengeance a little longer.

Returning again, this time armed with Crota's vestige, the Guardian entered the rupture portal into Oryx's sanctum and faced him directly. After a pitched battle, Oryx was nearly beaten and he was forced to retreat into the Ascendant Plane using his Taken powers, abandoning his position to recuperate from his injuries. Eris Morn later approached the left behind Willbreaker and retrieved a crystal to construct a weapon, seemingly following a plan she and Mara Sov had created earlier. This crystal was incorporated into one of the three swords Shaxx constructed for the Guardian's usage, purified of its Darkness.

Guardians later began mapping the Dreadnaught to patrol and keep in check the Hive and Taken, and discovered the Court of Oryx in the process. At the urging of Eris and the Vanguard they challenged the Court and slew them all. Shaxx's Redjacks also secured a training ground aboard the ship at this time. In addition, following Dead Orbit's report, Guardians stopped a Cabal team from destroying the Dreadnaught core, and later on, a distress signal from within the Dantalion Exodus VI. Alak-Hul, a Darkblade present during the first failed attempt on Crota's life, is located and murdered in the ship's depths; a Hive ritual to infuse an Ogre with Taken power is stopped as well. Finally, a Guardian Raid team, led by Crota's killer, used the rupture to penetrated deeper into the Dreadnaught and slew the remainder of the Ascendant Hive including Oryx's daughters. They were met again by Oryx in his fully Ascendant form, only to triumph and slay the Taken King once and for all.

Without Oryx and his family, the Dreadnaught remains in orbit about Saturn. Malok, Oryx's nephew, attempted to seize control but was driven away to the Moon.

The Red War
The Dreadnaught remained present in Saturn's rings during the Red War. Its circle of destruction can be seen from the Saturnian moon Titan.

Years before the Pyramids arrived within the Solar System, the Fallen House of Kings led a salvage operation on the Dreadnaught to steal "Hive magic," from it. They were successful but were slain by the Vex as they sought what they had claimed on the Dreadnaught for themselves. They were able to simulate the salvage through candies, masks, and weapons.

Arrival of the Black Fleet
The Dreadnaught remained even when Titan vanished into the void following the Black Fleet's arrival. Osiris later investigated the Dreadnaught's dying internal communication logs to hunt for information concerning Xivu Arath. Notably, the gap created by the Dantalion Exodus VI has not been repaired although Cayde's transmat zone has ceased operation.

Season of the Deep
Shortly after the reappearance of Titan, and failing to Take Ahsa, Xivu Arath upon the Dreadnaught would commune with The Witness. It expressed its disappointment in the God of War's failure, but would tell her to prepare for the battle against the Vanguard and Savathûn.

Hull and physical characteristics
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 throne world 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 curve inward like an inverted pyramid. Four main spines protrude from the bow; numerous lesser spines protrude outward from both bow and aft. The Dreadnaught also generates its own gravitic field.

Propulsion
The Dreadnaught is equipped with one gigantic engine, likely powered by Solar energy. It is capable of maneuvering in a manner impossible for conventional spacecraft because of its paracausal origins.

For faster-than-light travel: the twin daughters of Oryx stand at the bow and aft of the vessel respectively; Ir Halak cuts open the fabric of reality with her "blades", likely special systems after the manner of the superweapon, allowing the ship to slide through; behind her Ir Anûk takes these fragments and threads of torn space and reweaves them together, infusing it with dark magics. This peculiar method of transportation was adopted from Xivu Arath's dimensional slicing, or the ability to make "wounds", to travel between points in space.

Armament
One of the Dreadnaught's most notable features is a massive parabolic twin-mounted dish built into its side nearest the aft, 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 waist 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 influence of his throne world within the Dreadnaught out into the surrounding physical space. This is essentially the same principle as an Oversoul death impulse. When deployed against the Awoken, it was described as testing individual molecular bonds with the sword logic and finding them "inessential", causing spontaneous fission. The blast radius created by the weapon is approximately fifteen thousand kilometers in diameter.

Apart from this weapon, the Dreadnaught is 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, and can wreck havoc with the mind. 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 when active.

Interior
Containing the entirety of Oryx's throne world, the inside of the Dreadnaught is vast 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 called sootpearls buried inside the rot. Sacrificial stones entombed with the souls of lesser Hive dot the place in strange nooks and crannies while prisons to torture the Hive's captives are found deeper inside.

Locations

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

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
 * Summoner's Circle

Strikes

 * Shield Brothers
 * The Sunless Cell

Raid

 * King's Fall

Crucible

 * Cathedral of Dusk
 * The Dungeons

Trivia

 * The anniversary of the Dreadnaught's completion, called Eversion Day, is the only known Hive holiday. It is celebrated only by Oryx's broods, who do so by turning things inside out.
 * Fan theories abound as to the actual size of the Dreadnaught. Fans used known data about Saturn's rings and the size of recently investigated comet (based on the comet from the initial trailer cinematic ) 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  or the 385 kilometer High Charity of Halo. This might not be the intended size of the Dreadnaught however, as the ship appears much smaller in relation to Saturn's rings when seen from Titan in Destiny 2; and from later in The Coming War cinematic, where the Dreadnaught is shown in profile alongside the much smaller Ketches.
 * The massive hole created in the rings of Saturn is visible from the surface of Titan.

List of appearances

 * Destiny
 * The Taken King
 * Age of Triumph
 * Destiny 2
 * Forsaken
 * Season of Arrivals
 * Beyond Light
 * Season of the Hunt
 * Season of Plunder