Toland, the Shattered

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Toland, the Shattered
Biographical information
Homeworld:	Earth
Species:	Human
Gender:	Male
Political and military information
Affiliation:	Vanguard (formerly) First Crota Fireteam
Rank:	Guardian (formerly)
Class:	Warlock (Sunsinger), (Voidwalker)
Notable info:	Exiled for his apparent madness Creator of Bad Juju Owned a journal chronicling his discoveries about the Hive Transcended death and now exists in the Ascendant Realm

"Tell me, Guardian: Do you trust me? Do you believe I am an ally of the Light or a servant of the Darkness? What if I told you I was neither?"

— Toland, the Shattered

Toland, the Shattered was a Warlock Voidwalker who studied the Darkness and Hive lore, which led to him being deemed mad and exiled from Last City together with his Ghost Guren. He was an expert on "forbidden" Hive arcana; for that reason, he was recruited by the Praxic Warlock Eriana-3 to be part of the six Guardian Fireteam who delved into the Hellmouth in search of Crota. Considering only Eris came back alive, he was assumed to be dead, though unlike the other members of the fireteam, his fate was never witnessed by anyone else. After Eris' return to the City and the start of her cooperation with the Guardian, messages purportedly written by Toland were discovered, indicating he yet survived in the Ascendant Realm. He attempted to communicate to the Guardian by unknown means, as he was taking "a debased joy in speaking again to small human-form heads." He is believed to be the creator of Bad Juju, an exotic pulse rifle covered in the bones of an unknown creature. In addition, Toland is said to have left behind Shadow Price, a legendary auto rifle issued to the Vanguard. Along with Eris and the Guardian, he has also forged Deathbringer, an exotic rocket launcher which repurposes a captured Deathsong.

Biography

Descent into the Hellmouth

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"They want to know what you know."
"Yes. And I will tell them, but they will never understand. I'll greet them with a smile and welcome them in. I will learn how we can benefit from their ignorance."

— Guren and Toland, when Eriana and Eris approached him about the knowledge how to destroy Crota

Many of Toland's discoveries survived him via fragments of his journal and the memories of dead Ghosts. A whole copy of the journal was kept by Eris Morn. His studies led him to conclude that the Darkness was the evolutionary endpoint of the universe and that its campaign of destruction was to ensure that nothing could ever rise to challenge it. He had a fascination with Hive rituals, particularly the Deathsong of Ir Yût.

Years after Toland's exile and in the aftermath of The Great Disaster, the old Warlock was visited by Eriana-3 and Eris Morn, who were seeking a way to destroy the Hive Prince Crota. He revealed to them that Crota could be killed if they were to enter the Ascendant Realm and slay him within his throne room after defeating his champions. Toland warned them of the many dangers they would face and spoke of the mysterious song sung by the Deathsingers that he wished to understand. Toland decided to join them in their quest to end Crota in order to learn more about the Hive, and they recruited three other Guardians to their mission: the Titan Vell Tarlowe and the Hunters Sai Mota and Omar Agah. As they prepared for their mission, Toland imparted what he knew of Hive lore to Eris, including his knowledge about the Ogres known as the Might of Crota, which would be unleashed when Crota's will was challenged. Eris questioned how he had come by this knowledge, and Toland claimed to have learned it from the Darkness itself.

His fascination lead him to attempt to "identify [him]self a friend" in Ir Yût, the Deathsinger. Though the Deathsinger's song destroyed his body, it "redefined him" and enabled his consciousness to survive in the Ascendant realm as an Ascendant soul itself.

Journey in the Ascendant Realm

"You fools! You disastrous, bumbling squanderers! It's not right! Who now shall be First Navigator, Lord of Shapes, harrowed god, Taken King? Not you! You might have been Kings and Queens of the Deep! But you have toppled Oryx and you have not replaced him! There must be a strongest one. It is the architecture of these spaces. Why are you leaving?"

— Toland.

He watched the Guardian's progress in their war against Oryx, aiding them indirectly through his messages yet regarding their victories as simply an extension of the Sword Logic. He was infuriated, however, when the Guardian defeated Oryx but refused to take up the mantle as the new Taken King. It is possible that the reason Toland was so upset about the Guardians refusing to take Oryx's place was that he became a firm believer in the Sword Logic and the nature of the strongest ruling. With the Guardians freeing the Light, not Taking it and leaving Oryx's throne vacant, it was obvious Toland felt the Guardians squandered the chance to take Oryx's place, and more so that the Sword Logic failed and was now broken. This in turn left Toland's deeply held beliefs and his years of studying the Hive all for nothing.

Toland's voice can be heard in Destiny 2 during the Voidwalker subclass mission. He will recount some of his discoveries about the Hive and the Darkness, and how he entered the Ascendant Realm.

In The Depths of The Dreaming City

"Guiding the uninitiated toward a final battle of spectacular futility used to be my specialty, you know. Forgive me if I'm a little rusty."

— Toland

Toland still journeys through the Ascendant plane between throne worlds; it is also revealed that he created a small worldlet for himself. After her death to Oryx, Toland held an encounter with Mara Sov on her journey to Eleusinia. When he questioned her, Mara temporarily drove Toland out of his realm and used it as a resting point for her trek through the Ascendant plane.

In Forsaken, Toland appears as a floating ball of light in the Ascendant Realm within the Dreaming City. Upon encountering him, he reluctantly agrees to lead the Guardian out of the Ascendant Realm. Toland can also be found in the Ascendant Realm in certain spots during an Ascendant Challenge. Once approached, he will disappear and briefly monologue about the Taken curse within the City.

Restoration of the Bad Juju

"Inflict your desires upon reality, Guardian. One good death deserves another."

— Toland guiding the Guardians

After Gahlran, the Sorrow-Bearer went insane, the ensuing Hive corruption tore part of the Leviathan between normal space and the Ascendant Realm. Emperor Calus located the Bad Juju sometime after this hoping to lure out Toland, unaware that his physical form had been destroyed. A month later, The Guardian discovered the place aboard the Leviathan where Calus had left the Bad Juju, whose Ahamkara essence had gone out of control and affected the distorted parts of the ship.

Within the Ascendant Leviathan, Toland travelled to the epicentre of the rampaging essence, where a crew of Loyalists were engaged in a deadlock against Taken originating from the Hellmouth, to taunt the Cabal for tampering with his keepsake. All of the Taken and Loyalists in the realm were eventually slain, and their deaths used to seal the Ahamkara essence back into Bad Juju, restoring it and leaving the Guardian to claim it for themselves. After this, Toland ominously warned the Guardian of threats superior to the likes of the Hive's strongest individuals.

Reunion with Eris

Toland's journal the Guardian finds for Eris.

"I will teach you what I know. Executions are so much more fun when the martyr thinks they have a chance against the lion."

— Toland, the Shattered

When Eris Morn became trapped in the Ascendant Realm, Toland reunited with his old fireteam member, despite her initial suspicions after surviving an encounter with the Witch-Queen. As they both reflected on their experience with their tragic descent into the Hellmouth, Toland brought up the idea that something greater was at play and how Savathûn was previously goading Eris into looking into. He last warned her of the dangers she was treading into before she was warped away to the Dreaming City.

After Eris had accidentally triggered the appearance of the Nightmares, Toland turned his attention to the Moon. While monitoring the Hive's activity, he began sharing information with Guardians willing to listen. When Eris sent the Guardian on a quest to harness the Hive's Deathsong, Toland decided to aid them out of curiosity. He guided the Guardian to different components needed to access the song and watched as they slew a new choir of Deathsingers gathering underneath the Moon and used their remains to create the Deathbringer.

Saint-14 and Osiris discussed the whereabouts of Toland after his assistance on Luna, apparently researching the Hive in the Dreaming City before the Black Fleet arrived and Xivu Arath had unleashed the Cryptoliths and Wrathborn in the Sol System.

Personality and traits

"Life is pain. Pain is power. And power is life."

— Toland

Toland was described as one of the chief experts on the forbidden arcana of the Hive but he grew obsessed with their secrets, which ultimately led to his exile, as the Speaker believed he posed a danger to the Last City. Toland himself admitted he might be mad in one of his reports. Through his intense research of the Hive and the Darkness, somewhere down the line he started to believe in the Sword Logic and see it as the force ruling the cosmos, and it infuriated him that he could not make others understand it.

His main motivation and driving force always seemed to be curiosity. He possesses a deep hunger for knowledge and secrets, even willing to risk his very being to learn them; Eris remarked that made him predictable, regarding his earlier appearance in Mara Sov's throne world. He takes joy in preaching his beliefs and findings, and feeling his words are falling for deaf ears irritates him greatly. He seems to be enjoying his role of a foul guide, laying out a trail of breadcrumbs and watching others follow it. Even his bitterness towards the Guardian would in time be defeated by this - in A Hum of Starlight he angrily remarks he will not be our Virgil guiding us through the dark, and when we meet him again on the Moon in Shadowkeep, he proceeds to do just that.

Toland often speaks in lofty, sarcastic tone, deriding his listeners for being boring and foolish - all the while clearly relishing every opportunity he has to preach his agenda. His writing is full of poetic language and convoluted metaphors, and Ghost even notes that Toland must not have been "fun at parties" after hearing an entry from his journal.

His relationship to his fireteam was a complicated one, as they valued the knowledge he possessed but were distrustful of his secretiveness, Eris even accusing him of "holding [his] secrets like weapons" in order to doom them. Eriana blamed him for the fireteam's tragic end, and her Ghost Jax urged anyone listening not to trust Toland in its last transmission.. Eris herself seems to have conflicting feelings about him, feeling as if she should not miss him yet listing him among her friends and arguing that "a fireteam's bond are not so easily undone".

Toland himself admits to having always respected, and still respecting, his fireteam members. When Eris met him in the Ascendant Plane, he expressed genuine concern about her wellbeing and warned her of the threat the Witch-Queen posed. He does not think too highly of the Vanguard, believing them to be small-minded, and calls the Speaker a "masked hypocrite". At one point he vocalizes his respect for Wei Ning, noting that he admired her directness.

Quotes

Guren, Toland's Ghost quotes

• This is the final transmission of Guren, Ghost of Toland whom you call the Shattered. He goes to hear the song of death.
• Nothing will deter him. None of you can stop him. Not anymore.
• Toland will hear the deathsinger's melody. He will redefine death, escape the Traveler's blunt samsara.
• He will sound the depths of the powers you so myopically fear.
• My only regret is that I will not live to see his triumph.

Taken King quotes

• A Dreadnaught shields the Hive from the Traveler's Light. Were we to pass through its deepest layers, our Light would be as a dying sun.
• It has long been my belief that the binds which hold the greatest Hive terrors could be lifted by releasing the energy stored within their tomb husks.
• These stones. Always in their combat arenas. Do they have a strengthening function? Or are they mere legacy of a forgotten time and realm? The Hive never stopped honing their strength. They missed the point of being dead! Haha, ahh, I've heard it said that 'that which does not kill you makes you stronger', but what does that mean in the face of immortality?

Item Description quotes

• If you believe your weapon wants to end all existence, then so it will.
• Knowledge is its own end.
• As the thorns tear your skin, so Oryx tears your soul.
• Ha! You should have let it feed unchecked, dear squanderer.
• They'll believe you are one of their own. And that is the only way.
• Drown in your wishes, dear squanderer
• At the overlook's edge, the garden grows onward.
• Crush the first queen's crown beneath your bootheel.
• They call it a 'rest,' but it is more truly a haunt.
• Starlight, star bright, first untruth she'll craft tonight…
• Climb the bones and you'll find your ruin.
• The insatiable Void growls in anticipation.
• The Void is never satisfied.
• To inflict your desires upon reality.
• To completely know, and then completely destroy, another being.
• To subsume another's will in your own.
• To bind another being, cell by cell, to your will.
• Eriana's Light burned so bright in that last fatal assault.
• I could flense you apart, molecule by squirming molecule. It is within my power.
• The Hive are a festering sickness. A living plague of bone and suffering. But there are methods through which their affliction may be turned against them.
• The skull is silent, but its hollowed bone hides secret knowledge. The channels etched within its hard palate and jaw were engraved over centuries by her terrible song, like water carving stone.
• Gather wicked bone to serve as the conduit for your wretched symphony. Through the fetid marrow, new frequencies will be discovered—new horrors… And you… their willing conductor.
• The Singers' melody, sung through gnarled throat from cracked lung, is but a weapon like any other—nurtured by the will of a sinister witch. Sever the head of the High Conductor, whose temporal bone is a dark mirror of the Singers' carved palate.
• And with their screams, we shall map the language of pain and scrawl a new masterpiece—the vile sheet music of damnation, a strange, new song of bloodied ear, carved flesh, and shattered bone, so that their symphony of torment may be turned against them.
• The wicked one who would see the Deathsingers' Choir reborn has been heard in the depths. It is her song—unique in its sorrow—that will complete your mastery of symphonic arcana. Survive the Aria. Survive the depths and her wretched melody, and then collect one final instrument: the Singing Skull of Ir Airâm.
• The skulls have been gathered, and the final instrument set to join your symphony… the eroded grooves upon their jaws, cheeks, and palates providing the secret frequencies of the hallowed Deathsong. Its mysteries are now ours to bind and enslave. Its power is now yours to inflict at will. You are choir and conductor. You are, as ever, death.

Toland's Journal quotes

• The Court of Oryx. The most powerful of his army. He would hold the Court in reserve. Allow the mass of the Hive to tear down a world. Then, he would open the gates and unleash the Court upon a weary and battle-scarred race. Fear is a powerful weapon, and one the King uses all too well.
• I do not fear death. I have already met her and walk again in the Light. I know she and I will meet again in time. Rather, I fear what she leaves behind. Loss is like the Darkness. It corrupts.
• I have left searing footprints on the dark side of the Moon. I have stood on the spires of Mercury, chilled by the solar wind. I have stretched my wings, and I have flown. That is what is possible when you understand the Sun's song.
• The Void is not the Darkness. The Darkness is what it is. Void energy is like all things of this universe, it is Light seen through a prism. A fundamental force, the vacuum between the stars, the absence of everything else. Just try explaining that to someone who has never walked the Void.
• As the Cabal rushed the line, the Warlock raised his hand to the sky. The sky came down to meet him, and we felt the Light touch our hearts.
• Life is pain. Pain is power. And power is life.
• A terrible bargain, a terrible curse...that was the way it began.
• Hunger is a terrible curse, but if it serves to motivate, to inspire, to urge, can it not also be a blessing?
• Could it be possible to tap into the power of that dreadful bargain from so long ago? And if so, what would it cost?
• The Famine, the Feeding...and always the Deathsinger's shroud covers all...these are the keys. These are the keys...
• Guiding the uninitiated toward a final battle of spectacular futility used to be my specialty, you know. Forgive me if I'm a little rusty.

Shard of the Traveler quotes

• This is the shape and the point of the tooth: nothing has ever lived that will not die. Now I fly between green-black suns in the labyrinth beyond Crota's god-star. This is the Overworld, the Sea of Screams, where the throne-universes of the great Hive fester in eternal majesty. I move among them. I map the shapes and connections of this world.
• I want to appear in the Tower and taunt them, lo, lo, I never sleep, I dance in light and shadow, I never sleep, I will never die. I will never die. I want to ask them: if you followed your laws here, to this trembling fearful place, of what use were those laws? But I have work to do. I shout into deep places. Osiris! I call. Osiris, Osiris! Can you hear me?
• The Traveler came out of the void that surrounds all things. Thus we know that the void is full of power. Thus we enter the void without fear. Small minds will call your abilities blasphemous. They will compare you to the abominable Wizards of the Hive.
• But you will not be held back. Gifted with the Traveler's Light, armed with the secret physics of a lost age, you will tear reality asunder. You will fear nothing, and nothing will not fear you.

Dreaming City quotes

• YOU! Why would you come here? There is no place less suited for the likes of you, walking in the dreamland of your enemies.
• And what, am I to be your Virgil? A guide, a shepherd? [chuckle] No, no, no...
• There are no guides here. It is a place of scheming queens and traps unsprung.
• "The dreary plain, forlorn and wild, the seat of desolation, void of light!" Ha!
• You walk blind above an abyss, full of trust for a friendly voice. You're playing right into her hands.
• Leave the Dreaming City while you still can, dear squanderer.
• Quickly.
• Show her your nerve exceeds your grasp.
• I leave you here.

Shattered Throne quotes

• The rules of Ascendance have changed according to the wish of the dragon.
• Imagine three great nations under three great queens. The first queen writes a great book of law and her rule is just. The second queen builds a high tower and her people climb it to see the stars. The third queen raises an army and conquers everything.
• We fear the Darkness because we believe it is wrong. Evil. No, no, no. There is one reason to be afraid: the recognition that it is RIGHT.
• Listen! Listen. Death, true death, is both failure and liberation. Liberation from a race you had no hope of winning. To kill, then, is a terrible sort of compassion, a dreadful kindness.
• Delve deeper. Make yourself known. They'll believe you are one of their own. And that is the only way.
• Do you know the Awoken bury their dead in open-air crypts? It's a tradition born of a dreadful kind of optimism. Foolish, if you ask me.
• I could flense you apart, molecule by squirming, molecule. It is within my power.
• Guiding the uninitiated toward a final battle of spectacular futility used to be my speciality, you know. Forgive me if I'm a little rusty.
• I destroyed my Ghost, when I was like you. You should consider doing the same. Little good it does you.
• When a god's will is met with force, its might will be unleashed in the form of... hahaha.. trickery.
• Do you like it here? It's scenic, I will say that. The sisters did not do much redecorating when they moved in, but I say, give them time..
• Follow the screams
• Knowledge is its own end.
• Oryx would look on all of this and laugh - he would laugh so deep and true...
• This curse is a prototype, I'm sure. A step to something far more cunning.
• Have you unraveled the pattern?
• Come now, you'll have to be cleverer than this to break through. Sharpen yourself. Make ready.
• Study everything. Absorb the pattern. Transcend it.
• The witch-queen's deception runs far and deep. Question everything. Question even me.
• Mara is right about one thing: A second Collapse is on the horizon, and this time, there will be no crawling out of the trash heap of humanity.
• Why do we have atoms? Because atomic matter is more stable than the primordial broth. Atoms defeated the broth. That was the first war. There were two ways to be and one of them won.
• Belief in the Light is a thin pane of glass between you and the truth, and if you don't shatter the glass yourself, I will shatter it for you.
• Were you tricked by the worm that chased the Warmind? Did you truly believe you'd fought one of the beings that the Hive call gods? Ha!
• This is the shape of victory: to rule the universe so absolutely that nothing will ever exist except by your consent.
• What is it they say? "The only way to win is not to play"? Impossible. I call is a game, but it's not; it is the nature of the universe. To exist is to throw your hat in the ring.
• "A shape which depends on nothing but itself." Do you see the profundity of that concept?
• Ah, my foolish friend, you walk the spine of an ouroboros. Find another way.
• Delusions of purpose, heroism, hope... these are what stand between humanity and true understanding.
• Whenever in our passage we find ourselves in need of power – remember that the greatest authority here is a blade made keen by eons of use.
• There is only one end to the universe, only one conclusion - what the gods of this place call "The Last True Shape."
• This is the world the Hive craves: a universe creased by the edge of the sharpest sword.
• Paracausality! What a trip. If you believe your weapon wants to murder all existence, then so it will. Call it a little bad juju, if you please...
• Sharpen your intentions. When life is strength and strength is death, what is death, if not hope?
• The curse itself is how the deceiver manifests; she has learned from her brother's death. Clever girl, clever girl...
• Sickness, weakness, bad luck, pestilence - that's the old idea of a curse. This repetition is an innovation purpose - built for Guardians.
• Banish every memory of what you believe is true. Unshackle yourself.
• Will you ever do anything that screams down the millennia? Will you ever hammer your will on the universe until it rings and rings and rings?
• Death is just a word, isn't it? A catch-all term for the failure to go on – nothing spiritual, nothing with its own quiddity.
• Come back to us, Eris. Come back. I have seen your future; you are, as ever, fated to be misunderstood, maligned, ruined on the rocks of tragedy...
• Sympathy and study do not breed alliances. Don't mistake me.
• You are a brave light, but a stupid one, too.
• Are you the truth? That is the question now as it was before.
• This is the shape and the point of the tooth: Nothing has ever live that will not die.
• Lo, lo, I never sleep, I dance in light and shadow, I never sleep, I will never die.
• War above and trickery below, all within a city built for navigation. The unholy trinity.
• Quria is the key. The Mind simulates Oryx, and thereby masters the power to Take. But of course, Quria is no power unto itself.
• The Shape needs no followers; no one to enact it, to preach it, to practice it. It is, and will be. There's nothing else, Hive or no Hive, the end is still the same. So why are you here?
• Listen! Do you hear them respond to your presence? Commands echoing through the dark, fetid caverns...
• Now conscience wakes despair that slumbered - wakes the bitter memory of what he was, what is, and what must be worse...
• The idea of that final shape – it slices, razor-sharp, snicker-snack, through the pretense of civilization.
• Eris – my dear Eris. If only you could see us here; if only you had not turned away toward your selfish purpose...
• This is the queen at the end of time, whose sovereignty is eternal because no other sovereign, can defeat it.
• They'll carry out their orders with grinding stone and squeaking claw, skittering thrall and blade against bone.
• Some terrors you defeat. Some, you become.
• Eir. Ur. Yul. That is the cry now, that is the cry now that the littlest worm has shamed its kin...
• The Last True Shape is not a belief. It has nothing to do with faith. It's pure logic. Self-evident, self- proving.
• The curse cannot be unraveled. You're so deep into the web of her will.
• You are a misshapen puzzle piece. You perplex me. You defy the logic which cannot be defied.
• What will you do here, in this world on fire? You could carve your name into the fabric of reality, but you lack the imagination for that, don't you?
• Do you carve finality, my friend? Listen to the screams on the wind. Let them beckon you. Let them teach you.
• Osiris! Osiris, Osiris, can you hear me?
• You will never meet the deceiver.
• Inflict your desires upon reality, Guardian.
• The song is death. To hear it is to die.
• Yet from those flames, no light - but rather, darkness visible...
• A dreamer set adrift, caught between schemes - a pleasant pawn for murderous queens... hahaha.
• That which does not kill you makes you stronger, but what does that mean in the face of immortality?
• Tell me, Guardian: Do you trust me? Do you believe I am an ally of the Light or a servant of the Darkness? What if I told you I was neither?
• The beauty of the con before you is simply breathtaking. On one hand, a war of endless attrition. On the other, certain defeat.
• Do you ever pause, dear listener, to consider who benefits from all this heroism you commit?
• The gates of hell are open night and day; smooth the descent, and easy is the way...
• Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven
• We all died once, and it did not prove insurmountable.
• Eris, Eris, what a name, a name for discord a name for far cold orbits where no living thing should dare to go...
• If you're looking for the heart of the curse, you will not find it here. It is smuggled away, secret and safe...
• Listen - death is the last part of living and life is learning to die. The song is the same as the singing; the last truth commands me to eat all the light in the sky.
• What does it mean to die so many times, at the hands of so many enemies and allies? What has death taught you, Guardian? How has it shaped you?
• To perform a ritual of sacrifice is to tempt a god's hunger. Your very presence here is a kind of ritual. You present your Light so freely...

Moon Patrol quotes

• I shall be your Virgil once again...
• Will you be prepared? Or will you be... boring?
• Listen, listen...
• Come, opener of vacancies.
• Come, sharp one.
• Come slayer of Oryx. I have words for you.
• Will you listen? Or will you be like your Vanguard?
• Greetings, pawn of the Queen.
• You have wandered far. From one enemy's dreamland to another.
• Words are weapons, thoughts the art of wielding them. Listen well.
• I have decided to impart upon you some of my knowledge. Listen well.
• Let me teach you. The coming clash will be so much more entertaining if you are prepared for it.
• There is something you must see. Carry your thinking-machine to the place I send you.
• Sharpen yourself with knowledge before the true battle begins.
• Go where I send you. I have knowledge for you.
• All is not lost; the unconquerable Will, And study of revenge, immortal hate. And courage never to submit or yield. And what is else not to be overcome?

Active Patrol quotes

• In the Hive, the vanguard face a new threat they didn't understand. So they did what they do best - they shot at it. And to their detriment, it shot back. Death was delivered the day of our Great Disaster.
• Arrogance is little more than a by-product of hubris. And hubris destroys most of us in the end. Hundreds of Guardian souls shattered against the edges of Crota's blade the day of the Great Disaster, their Light consumed by his ambition.
• So many wonders of the age, so many sciences still used, conceived of here, in silence and secrecy. What inspired them? What did they find in this desolation?
• Serenity. Tranquility. Fertility. It seems a fine place for investigating alien life. Yes, but what of Storms? What of Cold? What of Crises? When does a sanctuary become a prison?
• How long were the Hive on the Moon? How did they arrive? How patient they were, listening to invaders scrabble across it surface. But I do not think they were hiding. They awaited a sign.
• Had the Traveler not come to our fragile home, humanity would've carried on as it always had. Reaching blindly into the dark. We likely would've extinguished ourselves before the Hive took up the task. So I ask: Are we fortunate? Or unfortunate?
• We were destined to be found by this ageless expression: the pursuit of a last true shape. If not the Hive, some other adherent. Slay every living disciple of sword logic, but the logic itself - as any hard-coded feature of the cosmos - will simply await rediscovery.
• Exploration and discovery are pleasant but thin euphemisms for conquest. This was as true in our history as in any you'll find. Our first steps into the inky dark were no different. Lest we forget: The Hive's lunar settlements predate our own.
• For millennia, humanity gazed at the Moon and envisioned visiting it. Yet, no one dreamed it a trespass. The Hive is not a welcoming host, as you well know.
• They told others their mission was exobotany, but this fig leaf could not hide their desire. They wanted knowledge the Traveler would not give them. Nothing is sweeter than forbidden fruit.
• All great journeys begin with a single step, but not if you stand at the precipice. How does one tell the difference between the horizon and an abyss in a place like this? They couldn't. Are you certain you can?
• Before we could leap from planet to planet like fleas, we had to crawl through the void like worms. The Accelerator flew humanity's necessities on swift wings, flitting them from the Moon to the colonies like starlings. But worms do not survive flights with birds
• Dark the Moon. Dark the night. Hush the station. Hush the Hive. Gone their leaders. Gone the Light.
• Just think of the old colony ships, lumbering toward some distant planet loaded with bodies. And then some soulless cargo package flashes by, shot from this Accelerator and piloted by an AI. It weighs you down, life
• Tragic. Casting a line out into the ocean of space, ignorant of what swims out there, waiting in the depths. If they had known the truth, even the barest inkling, they would shrunk away from its shores in terror.
• You feel it, don't you? The hunger that cannot be sated. What's next? What if? Why? It eats at us, what we don't know. It always has. Ignorance has never been bliss - not once you've learned you lack the truth.
• Hubris blinded us to the realities of this place. To the hidden power pulsating throughout. One many shades darker than the Hive. Crota sat at the forefront of our story, and so we turned a blind eye to the very idea of puppet masters in the shadows. Darkness incarnate.
• Though many souls were silenced at the Great Disaster, their memories lingered. A fire was born in the heart of the Praxic Warlock Eriana-3. She fought the day of our disaster, lost one of her closest friends, and retreated alongside the survivors. But her Light remained. And she vowed vengeance upon Crota
• Vell Tarlowe was the first of us to fall in the dark below. Assaulted by both his pride and the Wizard Verok. I warned Vell of the dangers posed by the Hive. Being headstrong, I said, was not going to keep him alive. Overwhelmed and smothered by Thrall, his Light was snuffed out. If only he'd listened. What a waste.
• In the quest to fell Crota, we brought us the desire for vengeance. We brought ego. But with me, I brought curiosity. Reverence. Fascination. And as such, here I sit, my soul still bound to existence. With the exception of Eris, I can't say the same for the rest
• If you'd asked me long ago what I thought of Eris Morn, you'd have learned kindness does not flow through my veins. But I have since gained a reverence for Eris. I thought her broken. Foolish. But I was the fool. Eris was the best of us all... and still is.
• Eris - at the time, unbroken - together with Eriana-3 sought vengeance upon Crota. And they formed a team of powerful Guardians to aid in executing him. Vell Tarlowe, Sai Mota, Omar Agah... And of course, the only one who could truly guide them, me. All of them, so foolish. They passed through this canyon, naiveté at their side, toward their inevitable doom.
• Omar Agah entered these depths with his own unique faults: disbelief and distrust. But beneath it all was his truth: fear. The Hive fed off this very fear. Poor Eris had to watch as his Light was stripped from his soul and his essence used to strengthen the Hive.
• Though Crota would ultimately face defeat, he was still able to plant the seeds of the Hive within our very home. It was from here that the Hive was launched in Seeder Ships to Earth, spreading Crota's brood beyond the simple reaches of Luna. Crota may be gone, but the Swarm lives on.
• The Fallen's obsession with Luna has cost them much. They come to pillage the remains of human innovation and pick at the Hive's arcana. But I have yet to understand what drives them to take such a risk when here are other worlds more easily scavenged.
• Before Crota's death, the Hive viewed the Fallen as nothing more than an annoyance. But now, as they struggle to regain their purpose, the Hive have no patience for distraction. This has led to a renewed conflict as both fight to survive in the face of sustained Guardian aggression.
• There was a crew of Fallen who took to the Hive's sword logic. They are all dead now - by their own hands. They sought Ascension, but understood nothing of its meaning. I watched as they slaughtered one another over the course of months. The last of them, with no crew left to lead, walked to Hellmouth's edge and cast himself into the depths.
• All the Guardians lost here on this dead orb. All the Hive destroyed by our push against their dark will. So much loss on both sides. And always the Fallen, there to pick at the carnage, the scrap - surviving, thriving on the waste of this unending war we call existence.
• I offer no set conclusions, but it is my belief that the Fallen dare plunder the Hellmouth's depth. They know the value in mastering the strange science of their enemy - be it Hive, Human, Vex, or Cabal. They risk much to steal pieces of understanding from us all, until that time when they no longer fear extinction... but inflict it.
• How many crews have called this Ketch home? How many worlds has it plundered in the name of Fallen Houses that have since crumbled? Now the grand houses, like this Ketch, are broken things - shades of old glory, like poor Luna. Once majestic, once an inspiration, now nothing more than a shattered relic of glory days beyond reclamation.
• It's unclear to me... are the remaining Fallen less because they have shed the dead ways of Kells and Archons, or are they more? Is the shedding of their societal chains and the dissolution of their faith their end? Or an evolution? I fear the scattered Fallen of today are forebearers of a terrible threat yet to come.
• The question I ponder when considering the Eliksni and their fractured society is how we, the supposed heroes we claim to be, react to a species on the brink? As we are. To my mind, we must be cruel. End them now, while they are on the brink, or risk whatever it is they will one day become.
• The House of Dusk is not the future of the Fallen, but it is a sign of their evolution - of a future yet to come... No longer the desperate fools clinging to a lost history and misguided faith in machines. I am curious as to what the Eliksni will become on the far side of their current struggle.
• The pirates came in wake of our Collapse to pick at our bones. I have no answers as to whether it was bravery or desperation that drove them to scavenge at the edge of the Hive's most hallowed ground. But the Hellmouth has been rich in its bounty. And many Fallen crews made a name among the old Houses for the treasures stolen from this dead rock
• In our own time of need, we failed ourselves. Crota struck us down en masse and destroyed much of what was built here. Moonbase included. The Traveler had come, it had brought us into a Golden Age. And yet little from that era mattered in the shadow of Crota.
• The Brays were here. How fine their avarice, how grand their hubris. Such great spirit echoes through time and space. It lives on long after any mortal form. Are they all gone? I wonder...
• Those who worked here sought knowledge, despite dangers, heedless of consequences. Some seekers find reward. Others, ruin. Which shall you be?
• The study of alien flora concealed stranger sciences, but it was not without its own merit. They learned much here that has since been lost.
• Beyond that day, the Vanguard would learn the true power of Crota's Will. Of realms between reality and the great beyond. Of Ascendance. I would be their guide. They would learn these things from me. And in them, they would find truth and power.
• There were those who believed that in Crota, the end had come. From the Moonbase, they cried out for help. Their message beamed far and across the system. It would land with those who would not respond. Deemed to be only "affairs of the City."
• The Hive know no limits when it comes to ambition. Nothing remains sacred within the darkness of their ritual halls. In the summoning pits, that was truer than ever. A horrifying abomination - Phogoth, the Untamed - was created within.
• A series of unfortunate Guardians met their end under the weight of Phogoth's might. He strew them across the battlefields of the Moon and, together with Crota's brood, gave the Great Disaster its name.
• The origin of many Nightmares can be traced to this exact location. Here the Hive bred fear itself, enduring and true. Slay as many abominations as you like; the impressions they leave upon you will remain. We carry every fallen foe with us. Always.
• Not even Corta's brood could fully contain the rage of Phogoth, the Untamed. His power was nearly unmatched. But in the end, the Light overpowered Phogoth, and he was slain by your hand.
• The Pyramid hasn't always held residence on the Moon. Like anything foreign, it arrived here somehow. That chasm would suggest a fall and a crash. And it is as such. Only a single question lingers: Why? The collapse largely remains a mystery.
• This place reeks of death. This could be said of any structure on the Moon, but this hall is... especially saturated. You yourself carry painful memories of this place. Discard them. Their only use is to weigh you down - and to empower your enemy. I wish Eris could see it this way. But she is bound irretrievably to her pain
• The Moon is fragile. Even more so now than before. Look no further than the oozing schisms brought forth by the Pyramid. May they serve as a warning: The Moon has been carved out, far beyond imagination. Fetid miasma rises. It belongs to the Hive now.
• New voices reverberate through the lunar formicary. Heresies whispered in the dark. Below your feet, the Hidden Swarm are acquainting themselves with deeper magics beyond their reckoning. To say nothing of ours.
• The Hellmouth: the foundry of Crota's deepest dreams.
• The fissures appeared when the Pyramid stirred. They quake and belch, setting loose the potent energies that have long simmered just below. Should they be allowed to continue, the Hidden Swarm will make further outgambles to the surface. This is but a taste of the change to come.
• Behold: causation in all its exquisite majesty. Your persistence reshapes the Hidden Swarm; in turn, the Swarm reshapes the Moon. Their adaptations will only become more profound, the effects more pronounced. They have you to thank for this.
• In a nest left untouched, the Hive pulse beneath the surface of the Moon. Their influence grows. Their presence spreads. What you see rising from the schisms is the very essence of the Hive themselves. For there is naught else within the Moon's core.
• I entered the Hellmouth with a sense of fateful inevitability. We would all die, or worse. I knew this to be true. Woefully unprepared was what we were. I stand by that. But it doesn't mean I didn't respect them. I did then, and I always will.
• Oh, Eriana - vengeful Eriana. Crota may have taken her light, but she left her soul on the battlefield. She had a death wish long before she approached me. In the end, of course, she blamed be for what happened. Pride begets death.
• Eris torments herself for her erstwhile fireteam and the fates we marched into together. An appreciated but needless penance. Our struggle is a grand dialog. We exchange blood for understanding. It is not tragedy; it is simply the price, and ours to pay.
• Deep below, the rudderless Hidden Swarm seek guidance. Order. They won't find it. Because of what you did - what you didn't do. It should've been your hand guiding them in Oryx's stead. Yet you disrupted a glorious engine. You: the arrogant, anomalous variable.
• Few perils in the cosmos are as dangerous as an idea. And few ideas are as dangerous as the heretical notion festering in the Hellmouth.
• Fools look at the Hive and see mindlessness. But they bear deep wounds - and they do not forget those who wounded them. Crota. Oryx. Omnigul. Each death shook the Hellmouth to the deepest pit. But as we was: That which doesn't kill you, et cetera. Just ask Hashladûn. Or her slaughtered sisters.
• Countless Guardians perished not just on the battlefields of the Great Disaster, but within the lair of the Hive as well. Having lured them in, the Hive had a plan. It was domination and death. For Guardians, there was no escape that day.
• Crota claimed innumerable souls in this pit. The wages of our heroism were countless corpses and a strengthened, emboldened enemy. It's no wonder the Hidden Swarm see Guardians as their great whetstone: ever eager and willing to sharpen their blade.
• From this pit, despair rose to power. Crota climbed out, and we all paid the price for not immediately noticing. We blame him for what happened, refusing to take responsibility for our own ignorance. Knowledge was our only true path to power, and we chose guns blazing instead.
• The Moons sits lush with schisms. The result of Eris's curiosity. A Pyramid of pure power with the ability to terraform. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? If the Traveler is a god of Light, then what does that make the Pyramid who spews our tragedies back at us? We must always question the unknowable, for that is the only path to knowing.
• There is much history in the dust here. Grasp a handful and you will hold Light now extinguished. You will hold power misguided. These grounds are covered in the madness of days gone by. Of Guardians and Hive alike. History haunts this place.
• In the absence of the ability to bring Nightmares forth, the Hive manipulates ours, worshipping and even dying for them. No doubt they have plans for the Nightmares. The Hive adapt. They evolve. And they do it quickly.
• The Hive and their rituals. Like moths to a flame, they know no other was. They try time and again to revive the souls of the dead. Or even to bring forth something new. An abomination. A god. And now, our very own Nightmares.
• Eris was the first to bring the Pyramid to life... Was it of her will? Or the Pyramid's? The Hive must hate her for it after trying for so long to do the same and failing. Or perhaps it's relief they feel. After so much time, they can finally pursue its power, whether it wants them to or not.
• I could tell you that the Pyramid hid from me as it did from you. But I would be betraying the truth. In this form, sight extends beyond the borders of certain realities. Though the Pyramid came into view, I could not see inside then nor now. But oh, how I wish I could
• For eons, the Pyramid sat hidden beneath the surface. The Hive, however, knew of its presence. For how long, I do not know. Their lust for power kept it secret. That we know of it now only makes me question whether it's due to coincidence or design.
• One wonders the effects of the Pyramid on the Hive. If they've existed in its shadow for so long, have they ever communed with it?
• The Hidden Swarm's aberrant behavior sprung from a simple conjecture: What if Oryx was meant to die, so that he might be reborn? Ludicrous, teleological thinking. An affront to everything he held dear. Unfortunately, Oryx is not here to correct them.
• Cloistered in their Keep, the daughters of Crota labor to architect a future renewed for their Swarm. They refuse to accept a world in which Oryx was struck down but not succeeded. They seek to correct that which you left undone.
• When Oryx fell, Crota's brood rallied around the strongest of his children, reaffirming their faith in the logic, accepting their loss. But deep in the hearts of four of Crota's daughters - Besurith, Kinox, Hashladûn, and Voshyr - a seed of doubt quietly took root. They resolved to lead their leaderless Swarm toward a new dawn and slaughter all who stood in their way
• Leaderless, the Hidden Swarm have sought a replacement. Sword logic dictates the violent removal of oneself in favor of the powerful. Never under estimate the machinations of the Hive. In the absence of guidance, they are always in search of it.
• Sword logic demands that which dies remain dead. Hobbled and wounded by the loss of their leaders, the Hidden Swarm no longer agree. They've unmoored themselves from the foundational tenets of the logic. Until this affliction is snuffed out, it will only spread.
• Does it burden you, Guardian, to know that your presence here was not simply expected, but desired? That you were summoned? It is no mere coincidence that you, the slayer of Oryx, have been drawn to this place. The Pyramid can't conjure Nightmares from Hive minds. They require a human psyche - anguished, burdened, Lightbearing vessels
• The heresy was born here, in the Keep, where the daughters of Crota first began their experiments with Nightmares. It was here their priestess asked the question that her sisters would not: If Oryx cannot be resurrected, can he be remade?

Moon Quest quotes

Choir of the Damned, Symphony of Death

• Welcome, once more, to the edge of oblivion, hero. You have faced much – enough to impress the easily impressed – but the melody we seek to cage may be more than you can overcome.
• My concern extends only to all we gain to learn from what comes next. Succeed or fail, Guardian. Either way, new understandings will be gleaned from your courage.
• Beyond, the choir awaits. Quiet the Aria before they shred your mind and rend your flesh. The song's embrace will be harsh, but remember… Every note you endure will lead to the Hive's undoing.
• Here, Guardian. I came to the Moon with Eris and other lost warriors not to end the Nightmares, but to meet them – understand them. From that understanding, I expected to conquer their horrors and safeguard our past, present, and future. But the Hive are not simply waking terror. They are a dark mirror – a reflection of all we fear to face in ourselves. Crota, Oryx, the Worm Gods, the Ascendant Plane… they are so much more than enemies and the unknowable. They are teachers. The fear they sow: a lesson – a path toward an evolution. We must tear every instrument of death they wield from their hearts, minds, and hands and remake them to inflict our will.
• The pain of her song. Even removed from your plane, I can feel its reach. Silence her!
• The Deathsong is yours to command – a new chorus to serenade your enemies with suffering. The final instrument is yours. Take the Deathsinger's skull to Eris; complete the weapon.

Faculties of the Skull, Symphony of Death

• The siren call of the Deathsingers pervades the minds of those with little strength. Step beyond the threshold and display your power.
• The skull of the devoted belongs to you now. There is great power in it… should you find a path to wield it.

List of appearances

• Destiny (First mentioned)
  • The Dark Below (Mentioned only)
  • House of Wolves (Mentioned only)
  • The Taken King (First appearance)
  • Rise of Iron (Mentioned only)
• Destiny 2 (Mentioned only)
  • Curse of Osiris (Mentioned only)
  • Forsaken
  • Season of Opulence
  • Shadowkeep
  • Season of the Undying (Mentioned only)
  • Season of the Worthy (Mentioned only)
  • Season of Arrivals (Mentioned only)
  • Beyond Light (Mentioned only)
  • The Witch Queen (Mentioned only)
  • Season of the Witch (Mentioned only)
  • Into the Light (Mentioned only)
  • The Final Shape (Mentioned only)
  • Episode: Echoes (Mentioned only)