Vestian Outpost: Difference between revisions

From Destinypedia, the Destiny wiki

No edit summary
m (Reverted edits by 90.202.12.174 (talk) to last revision by Dante the Ghost)
Line 1: Line 1:
×
{{Location infobox
In order to stay up to date with the latest Services offered by Kinja, we've made changes to our Privacy Policy, which can be found here, and to our Terms of Use, which can be found here. These changes will go into effect on March 24. If you do not want to accept these changes, please cease using and/or accessing any websites powered by Kinja.
|image            = VestianOutpost.jpg
The 7 Most Intriguing Philosophical Arguments for the Existence of God
|location        = [[The Reef]], Asteroid Belt
George Dvorsky
|accessibility    = Reach level 20
1/23/14 1:10pmFiled to: Superlist
|capacity        = 9
353.4K
}}
710
{{Quote|Looks like the Queen wants Guardians close... but not too close.|[[Grimoire]] description}}
24
{{Quote|Join forces with the Queen's Guard and hunt down their enemies.|Location description}}
The '''Vestian Outpost''' is a social space located in the [[Reef]].<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPg3jWn6Nn0 '''YouTube''' - ''Planet Destiny: Reef Social Space'']</ref><ref>[http://planetdestiny.com/complete-reef-reveal-recap/ '''Planet Destiny''': Complete "Reef Reveal" Recap]</ref>


Nietzsche is famous for saying that God is dead, but news of The Almighty's demise may have been greatly exaggerated. Here are some of the most fascinating and provocative philosophical arguments for the existence of God.
==Overview==
Built out of the hull of a captured [[Ketch]]<ref>'''Bungie (2015-5-24)''', ''Destiny, Activision Blizzard: [[Petra Venj]] dialogue''</ref> and the asteroid [[5560 Amytis]],<ref>'''Bungie (2015-5-19)''', ''Destiny: House of Wolves, Activision Blizzard, [[Grimoire]]: [[Grimoire/Enemies#WANTED: Wolf Scavenger|WANTED: Wolf Scavenger]]''</ref> the Vestian Outpost is the gateway to the heart of the Awoken realm, centered around [[4 Vesta]]. Here, the Queen allows [[Guardian]]s to interact with the Reef, without getting too close to the Awoken realm.<ref>'''Bungie (2015-5-19)''', ''Destiny: House of Wolves, Activision Blizzard, [[Grimoire]]: [[Grimoire/Places#Vestian Outpost, Queen's Bay|Vestian Outpost, Queen's Bay]]''</ref>


To be clear, these are philosophical arguments. They're neither rooted in religious scripture nor any kind of scientific observation or fact. Many of these arguments, some of which date back thousands of years, serve as interesting intellectual exercises, teasing apart what we think we know about the universe and our place within it from what we think we're capable of knowing. Other arguments, like the last two listed, are attempts to reconcile questions that currently plague scientists and philosophers.
==Characters in the Vestian Outpost==
8 Great Philosophical Questions That We'll Never Solve
[[File:VariksTheLoyalGrimoireCard.jpg|thumb|250px|[[Variks, the Loyal]] sells Fallen-themed items in the Vestian Outpost.]]
*[[Berg 99-40]], Bounty Tracker
*[[Brother Vance]], Disciple of [[Osiris]]
*[[Master Ives]], [[Cryptarch]]
*[[Petra Venj]], Queen's Wrath
*[[Sentha 55-30]], [[Postmaster]]
*[[Variks, the Loyal]], [[House of Judgment]]
*[[Xûr, Agent of the Nine]]<sup>(Appears at a random location at the Vestian Outpost or the Tower on weekends)</sup>


Philosophy goes where hard science can't, or won't. Philosophers have a license to…
==Trivia==
Read more on io9.​com
*The Vestian Outpost gets its name from the minor planet [[Wikipedia:4 Vesta|4 Vesta]]. It is the second largest body in the [[Wikipedia:Asteroid Belt|Asteroid Belt]] and, at roughly 326 miles in diameter, is one of the largest asteroids in the [[Solar System]]. The [[Wikipedia:Vesta family|Vestian family]] of Asteroids, a cluster of some 235 core bodies with thousands of smaller members are designated as "[[wikipedia:V-type asteroid|V-type asteroids]]" or "vestoids", which are the result of two separate impacts on 4 Vesta's southern hemisphere approximately 1 and 2 billion years ago. The Vestian Outpost is located either on or nearby the "sunward side" of one of the vestoids.
*Like the [[Tower]], the Vestian Outpost contains a ball that players can interact with. The ball is ostensibly a [[Servitor]]'s core (possibly the core of the heavily modified and visibly hollow [[Warden]] used by Variks to oversee the [[Prison of Elders]]), and will light up and make Servitor noises when kicked and while in motion. If the core is kicked fast enough, it will begin to emit a trail of purple light.
*On the ground near the Postmaster is a switch that will activate and deactivate the lamp on the table next to the Postmaster.
*An unfinished version of the Vestian Outpost appeared in various pre-alpha trailers. This version of the Outpost had various Fallen patrolling the area, but took place in third-person perspective.
*There are a total of three [[Dead Ghost]]s in the Outpost. They can be found:
**On the roof of [[Variks]]' hut. Climb the nearby crates or, more daringly, the railing to get on top;
**On a scaffold hanging between the walkway intersection where [[Brother Vance]] is found. Don't jump, just walk between the railing and you'll drop down;
**And on the far right corner, above ground level. Climb up the debris on the right side and follow the contour of the wall to reach it.


Now, none of these arguments make a definitive case for the existence of God, and many of them are (fairly) easily debunked or problematized (as I'll try to show). But at the very least, they offer considerable food for thought.
==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Destiny POoD Location pic 3.png|A screenshot of the work-in-progress Vestian Outpost from ''Destiny's'' E3 2013 teaser trailer. Note the differences from the final version (missing catwalk and staircases, no vendors, no Reef ships, different scenery). A lone Fallen can also be seen in the bottom left corner.
File:Reef screenshot.jpg|A second screenshot from the E3 2013 trailer, showing [[Guardians]] in the area. The Fallen from the previous screenshot is on the left.
</gallery>


Finally, by "God" or "god," we're not talking about any specific religious deity. As this list shows, the term can encompass everything from a perfect, omnipotent being to something that can be considered even a bit banal.
==List of appearances==
1) The very notion of an all-perfect being means God has to exist
*''[[Destiny]]''
**''[[House of Wolves (expansion)|House of Wolves]]'' {{1st}}


This is the classic ontological, or a priori, argument. It was first articulated in 1070 by St. Anselm, who argued that because we have a conception of an all-perfect being — which he defined as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" — it has to exist. In his essay Proslogion, St. Anselm conceived of God as a being who possesses all conceivable perfection. But if this being "existed" merely as an idea in our minds, then it would be less perfect than if it actually existed. So it wouldn't be as great as a being who actually existed, something that would thus contradict our definition of God — a being who's supposed to be all-perfect. Thus, God must exist.
==References==
<references/>


Okay, admittedly, this sounds a bit weird by modern standards. Actually, it even sounded weird back then; Gaunilo of Marmoutiers ripped apart Anselm's idea by asking people to conceive of an island "more excellent" than any other island, revealing the flaws in this type of argumentation. Today, we know that this type of a priori argument (i.e., pure deduction) is grossly limited, often tautological, and utterly fails to take empirical evidence into account.
{{Social Spaces}}


But surprisingly, it was a position defended by none other than Rene Descartes. His take on the matter is a bit more illustrative; Descartes, in his Fifth Meditation, wrote that the conception of a perfect being who lacks existence is like imagining a triangle whose interior angles don't sum to 180 degrees (he was big on the notion of innate ideas and the doctrine of clear and distinct perception). So, because we have the idea of a supremely perfect being, we have to conclude that a supremely perfect being exists; to Descarte, God's existence was just as obvious, logical, and self-evident as the most basic mathematical truths.
[[Category:Reef]]
2) Something must have caused the Universe to exist
[[Category:Places]]
 
[[Category:Destination]]
Philosophers call this one the First-Cause Argument, or the Cosmological Argument, and early advocates of this line of reasoning included Plato, Aristotle, and St. Thomas Aquinas. It's predicated on the assumption that every event must have a cause, and that cause in turn must have a cause, and on and on and on. Assuming there's no end to this regression of causes, this succession of events would be infinite. But an infinite series of causes and events doesn't make sense (a causal loop cannot exist, nor a causal chain of infinite length). There's got to be something — some kind of first cause — that is itself uncaused. This would require some kind of "unconditioned" or "supreme" being — which the philosophers call God.
 
I'm sure you've already come up with your own objections to the First-Cause Argument, including the issue of a first-causer having to have its own cause. Also, infinity does in fact appear to be a fundamental quality of the universe. All this said, however, cosmologists are still struggling to understand the true nature of time and what "caused" the Big Bang to happen in the first place.
Does infinity really exist?
 
Our universe appears to be bound by a finite set of laws, yet we often talk about things that go on …
Read more on io9.​com
3) There has to be something rather than nothing
 
Called the Cosmological Argument from Contingency, this is a slightly different take on the First-Cause Argument. The German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz put it best when he wrote,
 
    Why is there something rather than nothing? The sufficient reason... is found in a substance which... is a necessary being bearing the reason for its existence within itself.
 
Because it's impossible for only contingent beings to exist, he argued, a necessary being must exist — a being we call God. Writing in Monadology, he wrote that "no fact can be real or existing and no statement true without a sufficient reason for its being so and not otherwise."
 
Image: Hubble.
 
More recently, the philosopher Richard Swinburne looked at the issue more inductively, writing,
 
    There is quite a chance that if there is a God he will make something of the finitude and complexity of a universe. It is very unlikely that a universe would exist uncaused, but rather more likely that God would exist uncaused. The existence of the universe…can be made comprehensible if we suppose that it is brought about by God.
 
4) Something had to have designed the Universe
 
The Design Argument, or teleological argument, suggests we live in a Universe that surely had to be designed. The cosmos, goes the argument, exhibits orderliness and (apparent) purpose — for example, everything within the universe adheres to the laws of physics, and many things within it are correlated with one another in a way that appears purposeful. As William Paley argued, just as the existence of a watch indicates the presence of an intelligent mind, the existence of the universe and various phenomena within it indicates the presence of an even greater intelligence, namely God.
 
ThomasLENNE/Shutterstock.
 
Needless to say, this line of argumentation was far more compelling prior to the advent of naturalism (the idea that everything can be explained without the benefit of supernatural intervention) and Darwinian evolution. Indeed, Darwin served as a kind of death knell to the Design Argument, at least as far as the biological realm is concerned. We know that the human eye — in all its apparent complexity and purpose — is not the product of a designer, but rather the painstaking result of variation and selection.
Does the new Pope believe in evolution?
 
The answer is actually yes. And in fact, the Roman Catholic Church has recognized Darwinian…
Read more on io9.​com
The Top 10 Claims Made by Creationists to Counter Scientific Theories
 
One of the most challenging tasks for the modern day creationist to is reconcile the belief in a…
Read more on io9.​com
 
But the Design Argument isn't entirely dead yet. The exquisite fine-tuning of the "biophilic universe" has lead some to conclude there is in fact a greater intelligence at work. To counter this line of reasoning, however, philosophers say we should simply defer to the anthropic principle, which is interesting because theists say the same thing!
How does the Anthropic Principle change the meaning of the universe?
 
One of the more extraordinary things about the universe is that it has produced beings who can…
Read more on io9.​com
5) Consciousness proves that immaterial entities exist
 
We still don't have a working theory of consciousness, giving rise to the notorious Hard Problem. Indeed, subjective awareness, or qualia, is quite unlike anything we normally deal with in our otherwise material universe. The weirdness of consciousness, and our inability to understand it, has given rise to the notion of substance dualism, also known as Cartesian dualism, which describes two fundamental kinds of stuff: the mental and the material. Dualists say that material on its own is incapable of producing qualia — one's capacity to have internal thoughts, subjective awareness, and feelings.

Revision as of 13:04, March 22, 2017

Vestian Outpost
VestianOutpost.jpg
Overview

Location:

The Reef, Asteroid Belt

Gameplay

Accessibility:

Reach level 20

Player capacity:

9

 

"Looks like the Queen wants Guardians close... but not too close."
Grimoire description

"Join forces with the Queen's Guard and hunt down their enemies."
— Location description

The Vestian Outpost is a social space located in the Reef.[1][2]

Overview

Built out of the hull of a captured Ketch[3] and the asteroid 5560 Amytis,[4] the Vestian Outpost is the gateway to the heart of the Awoken realm, centered around 4 Vesta. Here, the Queen allows Guardians to interact with the Reef, without getting too close to the Awoken realm.[5]

Characters in the Vestian Outpost

Variks, the Loyal sells Fallen-themed items in the Vestian Outpost.

Trivia

  • The Vestian Outpost gets its name from the minor planet 4 Vesta. It is the second largest body in the Asteroid Belt and, at roughly 326 miles in diameter, is one of the largest asteroids in the Solar System. The Vestian family of Asteroids, a cluster of some 235 core bodies with thousands of smaller members are designated as "V-type asteroids" or "vestoids", which are the result of two separate impacts on 4 Vesta's southern hemisphere approximately 1 and 2 billion years ago. The Vestian Outpost is located either on or nearby the "sunward side" of one of the vestoids.
  • Like the Tower, the Vestian Outpost contains a ball that players can interact with. The ball is ostensibly a Servitor's core (possibly the core of the heavily modified and visibly hollow Warden used by Variks to oversee the Prison of Elders), and will light up and make Servitor noises when kicked and while in motion. If the core is kicked fast enough, it will begin to emit a trail of purple light.
  • On the ground near the Postmaster is a switch that will activate and deactivate the lamp on the table next to the Postmaster.
  • An unfinished version of the Vestian Outpost appeared in various pre-alpha trailers. This version of the Outpost had various Fallen patrolling the area, but took place in third-person perspective.
  • There are a total of three Dead Ghosts in the Outpost. They can be found:
    • On the roof of Variks' hut. Climb the nearby crates or, more daringly, the railing to get on top;
    • On a scaffold hanging between the walkway intersection where Brother Vance is found. Don't jump, just walk between the railing and you'll drop down;
    • And on the far right corner, above ground level. Climb up the debris on the right side and follow the contour of the wall to reach it.

Gallery

List of appearances

References

  1. ^ YouTube - Planet Destiny: Reef Social Space
  2. ^ Planet Destiny: Complete "Reef Reveal" Recap
  3. ^ Bungie (2015-5-24), Destiny, Activision Blizzard: Petra Venj dialogue
  4. ^ Bungie (2015-5-19), Destiny: House of Wolves, Activision Blizzard, Grimoire: WANTED: Wolf Scavenger
  5. ^ Bungie (2015-5-19), Destiny: House of Wolves, Activision Blizzard, Grimoire: Vestian Outpost, Queen's Bay

Template:Social Spaces