Black Garden

This article is about the location. For the mission, see The Black Garden.

Black Garden
Overview
Enemy factions:	Sol Divisive Sol Progeny Precursors (Temporary) Descendants (Temporary) Virgo Prohibition (Temporary) Taken
Connecting areas:	Tharsis Junction (quest only) Valley of the Kings Lunar Battlegrounds (Raid only)
Gameplay
Area type:	Arena

"A trillion timelines, and all at war. Like a thousand red flowers growing in a black garden."

— Lakshmi-2

The Black Garden is a mysterious realm located outside of space and time. Described as the birthplace of the Vex, it once housed the Black Heart, a failed replica of the Veil that was used to weaken the Traveler, and is tended and guarded by the Vex collective known as the Sol Divisive. It was also once used by the Ahamkara Taranis as his lair, and serves as his resting place after he sacrificed himself to scatter his and Riven's clutch of eggs.

Overview

The Black Garden is a surreal place where "everything grows" and abstract patterns and ideas appear to bleed into physical reality. It is lush and heavily vegetated, with countless species of plants growing amidst Vex structures built by the Sol Divisive. Two notable species of plant are Asphodelia, a red-blossomed flower which can be used to create a panacea, and a large unnamed plant whose bulbs expand into broad, platform-like leaves when struck with force.

Within the Garden, ideas and concepts are carried on the wind as audible whispers, and introducing new ideas into the Garden's conceptual environment, such as through speech, causes those ideas to "take root" in the Garden; for example, when Uldren conversed with a Cabal Legionary in Ulurant, this led to the whispers taking on aspects of Ulurant grammar. The Sol Divisive Vex are particularly interested in the Black Garden because its effects on them "[grow] them toward what they want to be.", and they have been observed to "sing" to "see how the Garden changes their song."

Prolonged exposure to the Black Garden's environment can be dangerous. The concepts being whispered there are potentially a contagious "brainstain" hazard. The Legionary who Uldren spoke to had been exposed to the Garden for an unknown length of time and ended up having its "secrets" grown into him in the form of thousands of tiny seeds pockmarking his skull, imparting him with knowledge of the Vex. It is stated that everything that dwells in the Garden becomes symbiotic with it as an extension of its growth, whether it be shedding leaves that fertilize the soil, or the bones or unspoken thoughts of individuals.

When it was initially accessed from a Vex portal on Mars, the sky of the Black Garden appeared as a thick green veil of mist, but after the destruction of the Black Heart, it became more clear and centered in what appeared to be a cavern within the Martian landscape. When it was later accessed from the moon, the Black Garden also appeared with a misty sky, but with three suns along with a planet and its orbiting moon.

Accessibility

The Black Garden initially existed on a separate plane that the Vex kept locked outside of time; the only known way to access the Garden was through the gate network, requiring the authority of a Gate Lord. After the Black Heart was destroyed, however, the Garden became a part of contemporary time and space, accessible from a gateway at the Valley of the Kings on Mars. During the Taken War, an Echo of Oryx and a coven of Taken broke into the Garden by burrowing a new gate from Tharsis Junction, creating a new separate entrance that was closed sometime afterwards. Eventually, the gate at the Valley was destroyed upon the Red Legion's invasion of Mars.

Many years later, a Vex gate was uncovered hidden beneath the Lunar Battlegrounds on Luna. This gate may be how Crota and his broods appeared on the moon after being thrown into the Vex gate network.

History

Origins

The nature, origin and purpose of the Black Garden remain shrouded in mystery. According to the Warlock Pujari, who experienced visions of the Black Garden, the Garden is in some way a product or reflection of the Traveler's actions in terraforming Mars; however, he was careful to state that this was "not the beginning but it is the reason." The mesa-like structure in the center of the Garden strongly resembles the Cradles left behind by the Traveler on Mars and Io, which were also seemingly a product of the Traveler's terraforming activities.

The Black Garden bears many similarities to an allegorical description of the primordial state of reality referenced in several Lore entries, itself described as a "Garden", in which the entities known as the Winnower and the Gardener existed before the universe began. It is unclear whether the two locations are the same; Eris Morn writes of a Tree of Silver Wings that was felled in the Black Garden, but this could refer to either the primordial "tree" that predated the universe or the more literal tree whose massive stump was discovered in the Black Garden by the Guardians as they fought the Sol Inherent Minds.

At some point, the Vex collective known as the Sol Divisive came to reside within the Black Garden, and attempted to control it and impose their own changes through rigorous engineering and earth-moving.

Post-Collapse

Following the apparent loss of the Veil during the Collapse, the Witness visited the Black Garden and left behind a "seed" that would be used by the Conceptual Mind to construct the Black Heart, which was intended as a replacement for the Veil. However, the Black Heart was ultimately a failed copy, serving only to weaken the Traveler rather than forge the connection needed to open a portal into the Traveler's Pale Heart. The Sol Divisive, inherently unable to comprehend the paracausal entity which they had created, nonetheless saw fit to worship the Black Heart as a deity, and created three Axis Minds known as the Sol Progeny that the Black Heart could use to extend its influence. Two additional Axis Minds, the Sanctified Mind and Consecrated Mind, appear to have become physically warped by the influence of a Pyramid Scale and veiled statue left behind by the Witness following its visit to the Garden.

City Age

Long before anyone from the Last City set foot in the Garden, tales of its existence were told throughout the Sol System. The Warlock Pujari had a vision of the Garden when he drowned himself in the waters of the Shores of Time. Pujari's vision mentions that the Black Garden's existence is related to the Traveler's coming to Mars; the Traveler did not create the Garden, Pujari claims, but its actions may have allowed the Garden to come into existence. Pujari also stated that "The Garden grows in both directions. It grows into tomorrow and yesterday. The red flowers bloom forever. There are gardeners now. They came into the garden in vessels of bronze and they move through the groves in rivers of thought." The "gardeners" in question are most likely the Vex; Pujari's vision suggests that the Vex did not always inhabit the Black Garden, but came to existence after the life within the Garden called out a question, to which the Vex reached out as the answer.

The Cloud Strider Rohan of Neomuna stumbled upon the Black Garden early in his career, after being tasked with guarding the CloudArk-Nexus border by his mentor Tramontane. While trying to find a way out of the Garden, he witnessed the creation of the Black Heart by the Conceptual Mind, and deduced that it was an attempt by the Sol Divisive to replicate the Veil. He also overheard the voice of one of Maya Sundaresh's many Vex-simulated copies, presumably as she conversed with her fellow simulated Ishtar Collective members.

Sometime later, a pair of Awoken from the Reef, Uldren Sov and Jolyon Till, explored the Black Garden. By then, the location of the Vex gate leading to it was common knowledge, as well as the fact that it could only be entered by tricking the Vex into opening it for them. To enter it, Uldren and Jolyon provoked a Cabal attack on the gate, forcing it to activate and produce a Gate Lord to defend it, and then slipped in while it was distracted. While in the Garden, they witnessed many bizarre sights: plants with roots of circuitry, vines with thorns shaped like letters, beetles that wrestled with each other despite being only hollow exoskeletons. They came across the site of a battle between the Vex and the Cabal, and interrogated one of the surviving legionaries who claimed that he had been kidnapped by the Vex. They discovered that the Garden had been slowly assimilating him in the form of seeds growing into his flesh. After that point, Uldren's recollections grew surreal and dreamlike. His memories included a persistent heartbeat, fleeing through a thorny grove among fruits shaped like Ghosts, hiding with Jolyon from arguing voices and putting his Crows through a dryer in an apartment block with a perfectly round hole in his hand. Uldren and Jolyon somehow found their way out, bringing some of the native red flowers back to the Reef.

Destruction of the Black Heart

The Black Heart.

After learning of the Black Garden's existence from the Exo Stranger, the Guardian traveled to the Reef to get information about the Garden's location. Queen Mara Sov and Prince Uldren Sov revealed that a Vex portal on Mars led to the Garden, but required the eye of a Gate Lord to access. After obtaining the Eye, the Guardian activated the Vex spire controlling the portal and then passed through the portal. Deep in the Garden, the Guardian discovered the Black Heart, guarded by the Sol Progeny as it drained the Traveler's Light and kept it dormant. The Guardian defeated the Progeny, which in turn destroyed the Heart. As a result, Light returned to the Traveler and it began to heal. The Garden also ceased to drift between dimensions and was relocated to Mars, making it accessible to the rest of the Guardians.

Later, the Undying Mind arrived in the Garden and attempted to revive the Black Heart with assistance from the Sol Primeval. The Mind also attempted to separate the Garden from our timeline, but it was destroyed before it could do either.

During the Taken War, Oryx, the Taken King sent an expeditionary force of Taken into the garden to investigate and possibly restore the Black Heart. An Echo of Oryx and its Taken coven invaded the Garden through secret tunnels under Freehold. The Sol Divisive were overwhelmed by the Taken as the Garden became a war zone. Only through Guardian intervention were the Taken expelled.

When the Guardian was working with Cayde on finding the missing Nightstalker Tevis Larsen, they tracked him to the Black Garden. However, Tevis would meet his final death after the Vex destroyed his Ghost and the Guardian would take his remaining Void Light so they could become a Nightstalker themself while Tevis' consciousness would continue to persist within the Garden.

Red War

"The Vex there are having a heck of a time with the Red Legion, it seems like. Garden Gate gone. Bay lost. Bastion fallen. Huh."

— Ghost

During the Red War, the Red Legion invaded Mars and broke the Vex stalemate with the Cabal invasion. In addition to occupying Mars, the Red Legion destroyed the main gate used to access the Black Garden, irrevocably sealing the Garden for the Vex. On Nessus, an access point reports more than one garden similar to the Black Garden, it is unclear as to how many are being built or are destroyed, even the foliage on the access outside of the garden is somehow enhancing Vex firewall systems while still being organic and something else.

The Kentarch 3

At some point before the death of Cayde-6, a trio of Guardians known as the Kentarch 3, consisting of the Titan Yardarm-4, the Hunter Lisbon-13, and the Warlock Rekkana, ventured into the Black Garden to find secrets about its origin. There they plundered an ancient relic long revered by the Sol Divisive. However, after repelling significant Vex resistance, the three Guardians lost their Light after hearing whispers that their Ghosts could not detect. Afterwards, they made a deal with an unknown force which granted them strange powers and eventually caused Lisbon-13 to turn on Rekkana and Yardarm-4. Lisbon won the fight, and was subsequently offered "salvation" by the presence in the Darkness, which offered to remove his memory of what he had done. Lisbon agreed and found himself outside the Garden with his Ghost Piri, who had been rendered unable to speak by the same Dark presence. The bodies of the other two fireteam members were never found by a Vanguard scouting team.

Shadowkeep

The Garden revisited in the Raid.

When the Guardian ventured into the Lunar Pyramid, the Witness possessed their Ghost and led them to a chamber where they received the Unknown Artifact. Upon interacting with the artifact, the Guardian was subjected to a vision of the Black Garden, wherein the Witness, appearing as a doppelganger of the Guardian, spoke to them directly. The Witness stated that they had "heard [their] cries for help" and would soon answer, and identified itself a neither a friend nor an enemy, but rather their "salvation".

After bringing the artifact back to Eris Morn, it began transmitting a signal which led to the Black Garden. A fireteam of Guardians subsequently entered the Garden via a newly-discovered Vex portal on the moon, and faced two powerful Vex Minds, the Consecrated Mind and Sanctified Mind. After defeating the Sanctified Mind, a Pyramid Scale rose from the ground nearby and revealed a passageway, through which the fireteam traced the artifact's signal to a hidden Precursor statue; identical to the one within the Lunar Pyramid. Afterwards, Eris began receiving a missive of messages from the artifact, seemingly from an entity which claimed to be the Darkness itself.

However, the Vex would not take this incursion into the Black Garden lightly. The destruction of the Sol Inherent minds prompted the Witness to reawaken the Undying Mind. In turn, the Undying Mind copied itself across thousands of timelines after learning from its previous encounters; causing the Sol Divisive to invade the Moon en masse to bar entry into the Black Garden.

After defeating the Inherent Minds, the Guardians encountered a Vex Minotaur named Zeteon, Redemptive Mind entering the Moon from the Black Garden. Upon its destruction, a Vex artifact containing a link to the aftermath of the Kentarch-3 incident and the "divinity" they found in the Garden was discovered in its remains, a lead which the Guardian followed into the depths of the Garden in conjunction with the Unknown Artifact's signal mentioned below. After the heading back into the Black Garden, the Guardian took the Divinity with them, providing closure to the story of the Kentarch-3.

After weeks of holding the Sol Divisive back, the Guardians follow Ikora's plan to use a beacon to pull one of the thousand copies of the Undying Mind from the timeways, allowing them to destroy the Axis Mind. The Guardian push forward against the latest Vex Offensive, breaching into the Black Garden once again and planting the beacon. As planned, the beacon draws a copy of the Undying Mind and after a perilous struggle, the Guardians succeed in destroying the Undying Mind. However, as thousands of copies of the Mind existed, the Guardians were forced to continually destroy the copies one by one using the same process. Eventually, every last copy of the Mind was destroyed. However, the destruction of the Undying Minds caused the Corridors of Time to fracture, which proved an opportunity for the Red Legion to split Mercury into alternate timelines with the hijacked Sundial.

Lightfall

When the Guardian, Osiris, and Nimbus learned about the Black Heart's origins, they planned to enter the Garden to learn more. The Witness would order the Sol Divisive to destroy the Conceptual Mind due to the intel it held, but they would refuse, forcing the Witness to send the Taken to destroy the Conceptual Mind instead, leading to the Vex and Taken engaging in conflict. The Guardian would enter the Garden, with Nimbus entering shortly after, both of them quickly discovering the Taken presence. After convincing Nimbus to return to Neomuna and to do their duty as a Cloud Strider, the Guardian would destroy the Conceptual Mind, receiving its memory core and the information it held. Osiris would discover the information the memory core held as their investigation of the Veil concludes, where the Black Heart was used to create a static in the flow of the Traveler's energy as opposed to the link the Witness desired so it could begin the Final Shape.

Season of the Wish

Several moments after the Conceptual Mind was defeated, the Sol Divisive would create an Axis Mind capable of harnessing Ahamkara energies and simulating the Techeuns to stop them from recovering Riven's eggs. As the Guardian arrived too late to recover one of the eggs, the Sol Divisive would transport the egg into the Black Garden, near Taranis's corpse. Crow would track the egg and allow the Guardian to pursue them into the Garden by using Riven's accessway. They would use the sparks left behind to approach the structure resembling The Citadel from Venus, unlock the paracausal locks, navigate the mist otherwise hazardous to them, defeat Akardon, Pitiless Mind, and recover both Riven's egg and Wish-Keeper, a gift given to them by Taranis to honor his wish to protect his and Riven's unborn whims. Riven reveals that the Black Garden was used as a lair by Taranis, just like the Dreaming City was used as a lair by her. Taranis and Riven would spend time in the Black Garden until the Great Ahamkara Hunt was commenced by Lightbearers of the Last City when they were separated. Taranis would make a noble sacrifice at the cost of his death: he would grant his own wish to scatter the clutch. Riven would begin sending messages by having the Guardian use Wish-Keeper to form constellations around both the Black Garden and the Dreaming City, then having them visit Taranis's corpse to deliver it. As they do so, they would also build a mysterious platform to access a portal above the corpse. Once all the celestial anomalies are found inside the Dreaming City and the Black Garden, the Guardian finally discovers what lies behind the portal: a symbol of the Ishtar Collective built with Vex architecture.

After some time, the Witness would instruct the Sol Divisive to recreate the Black Heart as its final attempt to keep the Guardians out of the Pale Heart, with the intent to interfere in the connection between the Traveler and the Veil. It would use the Temporal Progeny, successors to the Sol Progeny composed of the Established Mind, Inevitable Mind, and Synchronal Mind, to guard the Black Heart. Osiris instructed the Guardian to return to the Black Garden and remove the interference disrupting Crow's entry into the Pale Heart. They explore the Black Garden in search of its recreated Heart and after defeating the Withdrawn Mind, would return to the site where they found the Black Heart on Elsie's instruction to destroy it and allow the Traveler to heal from the fight during the Collapse. They were successful in destroying the Black Heart again by defeating the Temporal Progeny, allowing Crow to finally enter the Pale Heart.

Locations

• Pantheon (Crucible map)
• Looking Glass
  • Embrace
  • Undergrowth
    • Boundless Horizon
• Aperture (Vex Offensive)
• Overland
  • Roost
  • Gateway Crossroads
    • Garden's Heart

Activities

Story Missions:

• The Black Garden
• A Ranger Found (Quest only)
• Tenebrous Tunnels (Quest only)
• What Remains (Exotic Mission)
• Starcrossed (Exotic Mission)
• Closer to the Heart

Strikes:

• The Undying Mind

Crucible:

• Pantheon

Raid:

• Garden of Salvation

Arena:

• Vex Offensive

Trivia

• Originally, Bungie planned the entrance of the Black Garden to be a hole in the wall of the subway tunnels below Freehold, but this was scrapped for being unimpressive. The entrance became a large Vex portal in the Valley of the Kings instead. The original entrance made a return in The Taken King, however, and is seen during the Story mission Tenebrous Tunnels.
  • An article back in 2015 regarding a Bungie ride-along video on Mars talks about a NASA Scientist who studies Geology and found the rock formations of the Black Garden on Mars familiar, The person theorizes that the location of the Black Garden is somewhere in Olympus Mons, which makes sense as the Tenebrous Tunnels connects all around the planet.
• Prior to Destiny's release, there was speculation that the Black Garden was located on Earth or elsewhere. Bungie clarified the Garden was found on Mars.
• In the Lore Book "Unveiling," the state of existence which gave rise to the universe is described allegorically as a garden filled with flowers. The flowers in this metaphorical garden are the basis of a game analogous to Conway's Game of Life, which the Darkness seeks to win by bringing about an end-state dominated by a single self-perpetuating pattern that subsumes all others. This description of the primordial state of reality bears many parallels to the Black Garden; however, the significance of these parallels is yet unknown.

Gallery

Browse more images on this article's gallery page.

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  Concept art of the Black Garden.

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  Concept art of the Black Heart.

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  Concept art of the "Upper Black Garden".

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  Black Garden in the Garden of Salvation raid.

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  The veiled statue seen in the raid.

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  Skybox in the raid.

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  Taranis's lair within the Black Garden

List of appearances

• Destiny (First appearance)
  • The Dark Below
  • House of Wolves (Mentioned only)
  • The Taken King
• Destiny 2
  • Forsaken (Mentioned only)
  • Shadowkeep
    • Season of the Undying
    • Season of the Worthy (Mentioned only)
    • Season of Arrivals (Mentioned only)
  • Beyond Light (Mentioned only)
  • The Witch Queen (Mentioned only)
    • Season of the Seraph (Mentioned only)
  • Lightfall
    • Season of the Witch (Mentioned only)
    • Season of the Wish
  • The Final Shape (Mentioned only)
• Entelechy (Mentioned only)