Red War

"Your journey ends... here."

— Dominus Ghaul

The Red War is an ongoing significant, crucial system-wide conflict between fought the crippled Guardians of the Solar System and the forces of Dominus Ghaul and his Red Legion.

After years of fighting against the forces of the Darkness and emerging victorious, the Guardians of the Last City find themselves outmatched when the Cabal Red Legion launches a surprise attack on the Last City itself, destroying the Tower and isolating the Traveler. The attack left the Guardians without their powers and their home destroyed, forcing them to flee and find a way to counterattack in order to save their order and legacy from Ghaul.

Belligerents

• Cabal

• The Last City

• Vex

Events

Prelude

The threat of the Red War began years ago during the final segments of the Taken War after the Skyburners Legion failed in their mission to assume control of the Hive Dreadnaught and find a way to defeat the Guardians. With their leadership dead, the remaining Cabal forces attempted to send a distress signal to the Cabal Emperor, informing him of their recent and crushing defeats at the Guardians hands.

Though the Guardians intercepted the Cabal forces, they were nonetheless successful in sending the message to its recipient. In addition to this, many officials in the Last City feared an attack as a result to all their successes, as a New Monarchy agent explained that with so many officers, field commanders and Primus' dead or on the run, the Cabal Empire would have no choice but to respond.

Surprise attack

During a time of quiet, the Vanguard discovered that all of their outer defenses and outposts went dark and in the cover of a storm, the Cabal Red Legion approached the outer territories of the Last City unnoticed. At the time, the Vanguard were having a meeting, when Zavala quickly noticed the approaching warships, forming a Defender bubble to defend the Vanguard. In one swift attack, the Red Legion severely devastated the Tower, but the Vanguard leadership survived and aided in the fight against the Red Legion troops. As the Legion's fleet assaulted the City, a massive aircraft latched onto the Traveler, encasing it in a force field, cutting the Guardians off from the Traveler's Light, effectively crippling them. During the chaos, the Speaker disappeared, leaving the City and its Guardians questioning his whereabouts.

Despite Ghaul's success in attacking the City, the Guardians refused to give up the fight, and after setting up a camp in the European Dead Zone, they seeked out to gain new powers and began developing a counterattack against the Red Legion.

Red Legion occupation

Ghaul began to establish a massive ship outside of the sun, which projected a mysterious beam of light directly into it. Additionally, on Nessus, Ghaul sent his Red Legion forces to Nessus in order to occupy the planetoid and begin drilling into the Vex ruins that lied there.

List of appearances

• Destiny 2 (First appearance)