Collapse

"There is no hope anymore. Only the screams of humanity."

- Henriette Meyrin during the Collapse.

The Collapse was a cataclysm in human history that nearly brought the species to extinction. Following the Golden Age after mankind had colonized the Solar System, the Darkness attacked humanity, presumably through the Black Fleet, and pushed it back to its homeworld, Earth.

Timeline of events
Immediately before the Collapse, an entity or group of entities were detected just beyond the edge of the Solar System, in what was termed as a "TRANSIENT NEAR EXTRASOLAR EVENT". The only means of determining that a transient event had even occurred was through the detection of a 0.3 second displacement of gravity waves, as well as anomalous interactions in the local Higgs field traced to sterile neutrino scattering. An AI observing the event, the Warmind Rasputin, was able to derive some information, based solely on the phenomena that it could detect, but was unable to ascertain its mechanism. Rasputin conducted an "Omnibus analysis" of the event's effects on local spacetime, measuring a wide range of data points including direction, distance, range, speed and size as well as a comprehensive pattern analysis of the event itself. This last set of data showed, to a certainty of "9 Sigma", a definite and measurable pattern which had a complex, almost linguistic, structure that demonstrated both intelligence and intent.

On Earth itself, the Darkness overran the Knights stationed at Mumbai. Humanity would have been wiped out if not for the intervention of the Traveler. In a climactic battle, the Traveler drove the Darkness from Earth. However, the Traveler was unable to destroy the Darkness outright. Additionally, the Traveler was horrifically injured in the process and forced to enter some form of stasis. In an attempt to protect the still remaining humans, the Traveler sent out the Ghosts to find Guardians to protect humanity. The Traveler then entered stasis, coming to rest over the site that would become the Last City. In the aftermath of the Collapse came the Dark Age. Virtually nothing else is remembered of the Collapse, as very few survived.

At some point during the Collapse, a single Pyramid was left behind on the Moon, where it would remain undiscovered for centuries.

List of appearances

 * Destiny
 * Destiny 2