Xivu Arath, God of War

Xivu Arath, God of War
Biographical information
Other name(s):	Xi Ro Avatar of War War Dominant She Whose Victory Is Idempotent
Homeworld:	Fundament
Species:	Hive
Gender:	Female
Political and military information
Affiliation:	Xivu Arath's Horde Wrathborn
Class:	Goddess of War

"Xivu Arath, knight morph of Xi Ro. You love to conquer, don’t you? We love to see you work. Nearly two percent of Fundament’s surface is now our dominion. Your species embraces the worm. [...] Overwhelm the Kaharn bastion. Slaughter everyone there. From your acts we shall obtain the logic we require to cut space open and migrate to orbit. Reality is a fine flesh, oh general ours. Let us feast of it."

— Worm Gods

Xivu Arath, God of War, formerly known as Xi Ro, is a Hive god and youngest sister to Savathûn, the Witch Queen and Oryx, the Taken King. Together with her two siblings, she was a progenitor of the contemporary Hive species and one of its chief gods, having made a pact with the Worms of Fundament. She is driven to become the mightiest warrior in the universe, and her influence is present wherever armed conflict takes place.

Biography

Origins

"I am Xi Ro, youngest daughter of the dead king. I will take back my Osmium Court and kill the traitor Taox. On my left eye I swear vengeance."

— Xi Ro

Xivu Arath was born Xi Ro on the gas giant Fundament with her sisters Aurash and Sathona; her father was the Osmium King, ruler of the Osmium Court. She was a member of a short-lived, proto-Hive species called "krill" whose original homeworld had crashed into the gas giant millions of years ago. As a young "krill" she was fascinated by her surroundings, attempting daring feats that would have killed lesser beings; she took six of the stormjoys' bait-stars because of this. Above all she wanted to be a warrior, a Knight like her father's warriors.

When her father became mad and raved about the Syzygy, and the Helium Drinkers invaded at the urging of Taox, Xi Ro used her bait-stars to help her sisters escape and comforted Aurash as they fled their home. Together with her sisters she swore a blood-oath on the mast of their ship, upon her left eye, to avenge their father and kill Taox. When they salvaged an ancient, high-tech ship from the Shvubi Maelstrom, Xi Ro wanted to sell it to raise an army and kill Taox immediately, but was convinced by Sathona that it was worthless.

During their aimless journey at the behest of Sathona (who was guided by their father's worm-familiar) Xi Ro cleaned up the ship and attempted to take her sisters' minds off their task. Eventually, when Sathona fretted they would not be able to avenge their father, and Aurash concluded they would have to dive, Xi Ro was initially afraid but understood. Xi Ro warned them, however, that this was how the crew had died, but Sathona, urged on by the Worm, agreed with Aurash. The sisters took the needle into the deep. They finally reached a point where they could use the ship's sensors on the oceans. To their horror, they discovered that the Syzygy was real, and that Fundament's moons had already aligned. Just then, they were encountered by the Leviathan, a creature long spoken of in proto-Hive myth. The Leviathan warned the sisters that they needed to turn back, or else would unleash disaster upon the universe, saying that they faced a choice between the Light, which offered civilization, and the Darkness, which offered only violence. However, the Leviathan offered no hope to the sisters to avoid the Syzygy. Sathona then revealed the Worm's help to her sisters, and how it urged them to go down. Rejecting the Leviathan's entreaties, the sisters dove into the core.

Reaching the very center of Fundament, the three sisters found the Worm Gods: Akka, the Worm of Secrets, Eir, the Keeper of Order, Ur, the Ever-Hunger, Xol, Will of the Thousands, and Yul, the Honest Worm. The Worm Gods offered the three sisters a chance for the proto-Hive to escape Fundament as well as achieve immortality. All they had to do was take the Worms larvae into them as symbiotes and spread them among the proto-Hive. The Worms posed the caveat that the sisters must never cease their natures: Xi Ro must always test her strength, Sathona must always be cunning, and Aurash must always try to understand. The sisters accepted the pact and became the first Hive: Xi Ro took the Knight morph and became Xivu Arath, Sathona took the Mother morph and became Savathûn, and Aurash took the King morph, transforming into a male and became Auryx, the King of the Hive.

Campaign of Destruction

"We have marooned Oryx within the Deep. This is our obligation as lords of the Hive, to make war upon each other, to eradicate weakness and make ourselves sharp."

— Xivu Arath

As Auryx and his sisters forced an ultimatum on the remaining proto-Hive to accept the worms or perish, Auryx turned his attention to Fundament's moons, and the Ammonites there who had allied with the Traveler and gave asylum to Taox. Initially he was willing to negotiate with the Ammonites, but his sister Savathûn, under pressure from the Worms, killed Auryx as punishment. Rather than dying, Auryx's soul instead passed to his Ascendant realm, or throne world, where his soul resided until he returned to the mortal realm. Rebuked, Auryx purged what sympathy and goodwill he had left, becoming a merciless tyrant. He and his sisters warred with and killed one another on a regular basis after the defeat of the Ammonites, as part of their worship of the Sword-Logic and their attempt to become the sharpest blades in the universe, heading to their Ascendant realms when defeated. Their war of revenge against Taox had transformed into a campaign of genocide, when they slew the Ammonites and other interstellar civilizations to feed their worms. While Oryx and Savathûn established courts to practice and study the sword logic, Xivu Arath declined, declaring that her court would be everywhere war was found.

During the war with the Ecumene, Auryx came to realize that the Worm had deceived him and his sisters: their Worms appetites were growing past their ability to feed with death. Meeting with his sisters in his ascendant realm, surrounded by their servants (some of which despised them for showing weakness) they despaired over their dilemma. When his sisters offered their power to help Auryx find a way to save them, Auryx killed them, then used that power to confront his patron god Akka, the Worm of Secrets. He killed Akka so that he may steal its ability to call upon the Deep and created the Tablets of Ruin, which gave him the power to Take. His transformation complete, Auryx was now Oryx, the Taken King. During the subsequent war with the Ecumene, Oryx revived Xivu Arath in an act of war, and revived Savathûn in an act of cunning. He then decreed the tithe system: each Hive would kill their enemies, take some to feed their own worm, and tithe the rest to their superior. Thralls would tithe to Acolytes, Acolytes would tithe to Knights or Wizards, the Knights and Wizards would tithe to the Ascendant Hive, those who commanded legions of warriors and earned the right to enter the Hive gods' Ascendant realms. All of this violence would eventually reach Oryx, Savathûn, and Xivu Arath, allowing their worms to feed on violence while continuing to invoke their inner natures.

Following the Golden Amputation, Oryx declared to his sisters that the Hive had conquered its way to the edge of the Deep, and that it had granted him a personal audience. As Oryx retreated into his throne world to commune with it, Savathûn conspired with Xivu Arath to strand him there and steal his Tablets of Ruin by cutting off the tribute flowing through his tithe system. They were ultimately unsuccessful. On returning, Oryx deceived Xivu Arath and poisoned her own flow of tribute so that she could never try to steal his Tablets again.

In the aftermath of this attempted betrayal, one of Oryx's daughters, Ir Halak, visited Xivu Arath's throne world and tested her Deathsong there. All who heard it were irreversibly killed. Xivu Arath complained about Ir Halak's behavior to Oryx, who was greatly amused.

After the Vex invaded Oryx's throne world, Savathûn tipped Xivu Arath off as to its location. Xivu Arath planned an ambush, but Oryx, aware of his own vulnerability, evaded her by moving his throne into the Dreadnaught.

Following the war with the Harmony, Savathûn decided that her fleets would enter the black hole that the Harmony lived around, claiming that they would become stronger for it, while Xivu Arath took her fleets away from Oryx's as she felt he constrained her too much.

The Dreaming City

A year after the Red War, Xivu Arath began committing her forces to the Reef in aid of her sister's Taken as they both invaded the Dreaming City after its unsealing, pillaging it for Awoken relics. Among them are Taken entities named in honor of her and lead by Xaras, Greed of Xivu Arath. These forces were destroyed by The Guardian and the relics returned to the Awoken. Her forces are forced to repeat events following the curse looping every three weeks, trapping them in an unending pattern.

Fall of Torobatl

"MY HOME IS WAR. MY VOICE IS A BATTLE SONG. FOR AS LONG AS YOU HAVE WORSHIPED WAR, YOU HAVE WORSHIPED ME. I AM HERE TO CLAIM MY TRIBUTE. IT IS OVERDUE."

— Xivu Arath to the Cabal of Torobatl

At some point, her sister Savathûn had been secretly working in her name to undermine the Cabal homeworld of Torobatl, corrupting Evocate-General Umun'arath into becoming a worshipper of Xivu Arath. Driven by obssession over war, Umun'arath undertook a Hive ritual in the capital city to summon the God of War to their planet, which was accidently completed when Caiatl, the Princess-Imperial slew Umun'arath, providing the blood and sacrifice needed to open a portal for Xivu Arath to cross through with her armada of War moons and armies of Hive. As she invaded Torobatl, Xivu Arath declared that the Cabal had been worshipping her for as long as they venerated war and that she had finally come to claim her "overdue" tribute. Her forces overwhelmed the Cabal's defenses and drove Empress Caiatl to evacuate the remaining population to the remnants of her fleet and retreat to the Sol System.

Rise of the Wrathborn

"I AM THE WAR YOU CRAVE. PURPOSE ETERNAL. A LEGACY IN BLOOD.
WHEN YOU DRAW BLADES, YOU DRAW ME.
YOU CANNOT RESIST WITHOUT INVOKING MY BANNER.
EMBRACE ME, LIGHTBEARER, AND BE A GOD OF DEATH.
CONSUME OR BE CONSUMED."

— Xivu Arath to Osiris

Following the second arrival of the Black Fleet in the Sol System and the sudden disappearance of Savathûn from her Court, Xivu Arath began marshalling her forces into the system and making her influence more overt. Her High Celebrant began spawning Cryptoliths throughout the system, corrupting Hive, Fallen and Cabal alike that came under within range of them into Wrathborn subjects. Though Xivu Arath's High Celebrant would be hunted down and killed by the Guardians, it was later on revealed that her Wrathborn were not only attacking the Solar System, but also spread out across the galaxy. Most notably, the Cabal themselves had been under siege since the fall of their world, prompting the newly coronated Empress Caiatl to propose an alliance with the Last City to stand against the Hive God of War.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Hunting her Sister Despite the "gift" Savathûn had given her, Xivu Arath has begun to actively hunt her sister, apparently at the behest of another, forcing the Witch Queen to go into hiding. Following Osiris' loss of his Light, Savathûn "saved" him from Xivu Arath and began to adopt his form, knowing that Xivu Arath would never expect to find her sister within the Last City. Xivu Arath would continue to hunt her sister regardless but her efforts would distort the Ascendant Plane, which ultimately led her to corner the Awoken Queen, Mara Sov, who was being escorted by her Techeun Coven. Though Mara Sov managed to escape, Xivu Arath captured her coven, Taking them into her service. To save her people, the Dreaming City and combat the Black Fleet, Mara Sov strikes a bargain with Savathûn; in exchange for excising her worm from her being, she would release Osiris. In addition, Mara Sov wishes to stabilize the Ascendant Plane with her rescued Techeuns using the Ley Lines, which would prevent Xivu Arath from corrupting it to her advantage. Later on, she would task Kelgorath, Risen from Bones to steal an Awoken artifact. Kelgorath would attempt to do so but the Guardian would get there first taking the relic and using it to kill Kelgorath and the pillagers accompanying him.

Family

• Osmium King - Father
• Xivu Arath, God of War
  • Xavan - Daughter (implied)
  • Tir Balok - Daughter (implied)
  • An Ragaar - Son (implied)
• Oryx - Brother
  • Crota - Nephew
    • Hashladûn - Grandniece
    • Besurith - Grandniece
    • Voshyr - Grandniece
      • Yishra - Great-grandniece
      • Ayriax - Great-grandniece
    • Kinox - Grandniece
      • Ulg'Urin - Great-grandnephew
  • Nokris - Nephew
  • Ir Halak - Niece
  • Ir Anûk - Niece
• Savathûn - Sister
  • Balwûr - Niece
  • Malok - Nephew
  • Dûl Incaru - Niece

Trivia

• Umun'arath, Evocate-General and Primus of All Legions of the Cabal Empire, shares part of her name with that of Xivu Arath; notably, Umun'arath is also known to use a signature phrase, "this war is all there is" associated with the Darkness. Given Umun'arath's role as a primary military leader of the Cabal, she may have some connection to the Hive God of War.
• Xivu Arath is the second confirmed female knight. The first is Mengoor.
  • However, Xivu Arath could be considered the first of the Hive Knights.
• Though Xivu Arath has been mentioned throughout the Destiny series and her forces didn't appear until Forsaken, she wasn't mentioned by name until Shadowkeep.
• Similar to her sister, Xivu Arath has likely discerned her own path through the Sword Logic. She is described by one of her knights as a master of 'operontological warfare' whereby she can directly attack an enemy's very being through mere strategic prowess, essentially winning a battle before it is fought simply through insurmountable tactics.

List of appearances

• Destiny
  • The Taken King (First mentioned)
• Destiny 2 (Mentioned only)
  • Forsaken (Mentioned only)
  • Shadowkeep (Mentioned only)
  • Beyond Light (Mentioned only)
    • Season of the Hunt (Mentioned only)
    • Season of the Chosen (Mentioned only)
    • Season of the Splicer (Mentioned only)
    • Season of the Lost (Mentioned only)