Forum:Shin'ra, the Sorrow-Maker
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| Forums: Index → Fan Fiction → Shin'ra, the Sorrow-Maker | 
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| Shin'ra, the Sorrow-Maker | |
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| Biographical information | |
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Other name(s): |
Setak (formerly) |
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Species: |
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Faction: |
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Gender: |
Male |
| Combat information | |
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Mission: |
Seeking the Seeker (briefly) |
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Weapon(s): |
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Abilities: |
High Durability |
- "Oryx was felled due to his own curiosity. Savathûn excommunicated for heresy. Xivu hides in the shadows like a coward.
This was not the legacy I sought for the Osmium lineage.
Perhaps I should make my own."
Shin'ra, the Sorrow Maker is a Hive Knight and founder of the element known as Corruption. Acting as the Hive's weapons master, he commands a Hive Brood devoted to his craft of the Weapons of Sorrow. He also possesses untold power over the Darkness and the Black Fleet through the creation of Corruption. He acts as a reoccurring antagonist in Destiny 2 and is most notable for his major roles in Season of Sorrow, Season of the Wish and Into the Light, along with minor roles in Season of the Deep and Season of the Witch.
Biography
Origins
Osmium Advisor
- "I am Setak, great advisor to the Osmium King and his court. I watched as the endless storms raged against the Fundament. I bid my time by training the youngest of the King's daughters to hunt the Bait Stars that sought our frail forms."
- — Setak
Shin'ra, born as Setak, was a proto-Hive Krill on Fundament in the Osmium Court. He was nothing more than a mere scribe and advisor to the Osmium King. He would be a secondary teacher to the daughters of the Osmium King and favored the youngest, Xiro, as she would become his prized pupil. He would help to teach her to catch the Bait Stars that threatened the weak Krill with his own special form of cunning, and that be to study and strategize the enemy's movements.
When the Osmium King reached the end of his ten-year lifespan, Setak sought to study his madness by navigating the royal orrery and understand the words of the dead Worm familiar. He would fall into the influence of the same lies of the Witness, believing that a great cataclysm would befall the Fundament, the Syzygy. Though he had been driven mad by the whispers of the worm familiar, he would still assist the Osmium daughters by readying the craft that they would escape on. Shortly thereafter, Setak would flee from the Osmium Court towards Kaharn Atoll to find the means to escape the Fundament.
Prior to the Hive's emergence in the Fundament, Setak would reach the end of his ten year lifespan and had grown senile, much like the Osmium King before. Called a mad hermit by those at Kaharn, he still held onto what little remained of his sanity, believing that there was still a fragment of hope left for his people to survive.
Serving Auryx
- "I live to serve you King Auryx, as I always have.
Then you must take this worm and be reborn.
No longer will you be Setak.
You will be known as.
Shin'ra" - — Auryx offering Setak on of the Worm larvae
Eventually, when the Hive arose from the depths of the Fundament, many tried to flee to Kaharn as a means to escape, Setak among them. However, when the Hive reached Kaharn, many of the proto-species fell to the power of Auryx, Savathûn and Xivu Arath. Being the last survivor and at the height of his madness, he begged Auryx to convert him into one of them. Holding sympathy for the one who helped his sisters to escape the Helium Drinkers, Auryx offered Setak one of the Worm larvae, which the Osmium Advisor would ingest and take his morph and new name, Shin'ra.
Setak, now Shin'ra, would live to serve Auryx and act as his advisor when invading the rest of the Fundament and its many moons. When Auryx first invaded the Ammonites, he sought amnesty with them. Shin'ra saw this as weakness, allowing Savathûn to kill him. In his time in the Ascendant Plane, Shin'ra made it his mission to conquer the Ammonites and sought to gift the corpse of the Leviathan as tribute to the Worm Gods. He earned a reputation during this campaign with many Darkblades bearing war paint based on Shin'ra's own appearance.
When Auryx returned from death, Shin'ra would learn of the Ascendant Realm from Auryx and its ability to survive death in the mortal plane. Shin'ra would construct a Throne World of his own, the High Forge, seeing it as his vision remaking the universe in his own image. He would take the moniker as the Hive God of Forge, seeking to construct and build new weapons for the Hive to wield in order to conquer the stars.
Campaign of Conquest
Fall of the Nadheal
- "Acaeleon of the Nadheal proved himself a champion to his people. They in turn were blasphemous and turned against one another against its practice. Acaeleon was one of them who fell to such praxis."
- — Shin'ra
The Nadheal were a highly advanced race of bipedal arthropods that were once graced by the Traveler's presence. Their technological prowess exceeded Golden Age Humanity, establishing colonies across their home system and even beyond. Shin'ra made it his mission to corrupt the Nadheal from within, similar to how Savathûn had done to her many victims. Shin'ra would begin to spread the seeds of doubt within the governing body of the Nadheal species by the time the Traveler had left their home world.
His actions would create a death cult under the command of his vassal, Acaeleon. This death cult would begin sacrifices as a means to return the Traveler back to the Nadheal, however this was only a clever rouse by Shin'ra to tithe their deaths to him instead. This death cult would persist through several years as the God of Forge slowly began to reveal himself to Acaeleon, promising to offer a greater power than the Traveler ever could.
Fully under the thrall of the Hive God, Acaeleon would instigate a galactic scale civil war in the Nadheal home system. Their various colonies burned and destroyed and their capital in ruins with all that remained of their civilization forced to live on large cruisers for survival. Even under the control of Shin'ra, Acaeleon doubted his own actions and the destruction of his people. His doubt invoked Kuldax to appear before him, declaring that he was unworthy of the power he sought to gift. He would then stab the weakened Nadheal with his blackened blade, and the power of the Hige corruption spread throughout his body, leaving it as a shriveling corpse. Shin'ra would have his followers destroy any that remained of the Nadheal people, including their home world.
Destruction of the Ussatan
- "The Ussatan were a tribal race, worthy of the logic. Their recantation of it proved to be their undoing."
- — Shin'ra refers to the fall of the Ussatan species
The God of Forge would come across another species, the tribal Ussatan. They were known to have worshipped the star of their home system which was their source of sustenance and worshipped it as their god. They were a warrior race separated in tribes and followed a caste system, with the leaders of each tribe being their mightiest warriors.
When Shin'ra descended upon the Ussatan home world, he would blot out the planet from its star, starving the species of their crops and resources produced by the star's light. After several days, he launched Seeder Ships onto the planet to not only destroy the landscape and devastate the tribal homes, but to launch a ground invasion by unleashing the stowed Hive from within the Seeder Ships. The conquest would only last a day as the Ussatan did not last against Shin'ra's strategies and the power the Hive held.
Hunting the Leviathans
- "The Leviathans.
They will be hunted down to the very last.
And I will bask in that glorious victory and drink from their blood" - — Shin'ra's command to hunt the Leviathans
In between the years of conquest of the Ammonites and the Harmony, Shin'ra tasked himself with hunting down any remaining Proto-Worms or Leviathans that remained from the Fundament's bloodbath. He tasked his Celebrants to hunt down these traitors by plunging into the depths of various worlds to root out any remaining Leviathans. Many Leviathans would be slaughtered and offered to Shin'ra for tribute to satiate his hunger for the hunt. Using the various Worm corpses, Shin'ra would meld them together, forming a monstrous Tomb Carrier he would call the Nephilim. He would use the Nephilim to continue his conquests across the universe and return back to the service of Auryx and his sisters.
Greater Truth
Understanding the Deep
Shin'ra would be present in the Hive's war against the Harmony, destroying their many vessels and successfully conquering their Wishful Bishops compared to Xivu Arath who struggled against them. When Oryx toppled the Gift Mast and offered its pieces to his broods, Shin'ra would take one of these fragments for study. He would use the fragment as a basis for what would later be known as the Weapons of Sorrow, while the shard itself would become known as the Lucent Armament, the basis for the Weapons of Sorrow's antithesis, the Weapons of Hope.
Along with creating the basis of both the Weapons of Sorrow and Hope, he would eventually learn to master the former's corrupting potential, and being the first to fully master the newfound Darkness element, Corruption. His studies of the Light and Dark would bring the attention of the Witness to Shin'ra, who would believe that the Maker was worthy to look after the Darkness progenitor, the Veil. Shin'ra would place the Veil deep within the Nephilim's vaults, believing that its intense Darkness would fortify his ship from the inside, and he could continue his studies of the paracausal.
Studies of the Veil
In various attempts to study the Veil, Shin'ra sought to outright take the information directly from it, leading to grave consequences. In a similar instance to what it would do to the Ishtar Collective centuries later, causing instant brain death to those that made contact with the Veil. In order to properly interface with the paracausal object, Shin'ra developed a "meta concert" of the various Hive minds to be joined together into a singular entity.
The meta concert did come with a great cost, as the joining of minds had released an ontological being that referred to itself as the Scarlet King, later to be revealed as Mallum. The process of the meta concert would merge the unknown biology of Mallum and that of the Hive, inadvertently creating the monstrosities known as the Tarnished. The release of the Tarnished would lead to a war deep within the Nephilim, with many of Shin'ra's own subjects to be converted into the undead servants of the Scarlet King.
In a last ditch effort, Shin'ra would use the Veil and Corruption to conduct one last experiment in order to banish Mallum from the material plane. By using the meta concert of both powers, he would construct a massive spire on top of the region from which the Tarnished began their invasion. The massive energy it conducted would banish the undead Hive within the research facility and Mallum would be cast out into the void, unable to manifest in the material plane. Shin'ra would return the Veil back to the Witness, declaring that he had studied what he could from it and no longer desired its primordial Darkness it exhumed.
Sol Incursions
Initial Intentions
For recompense by unleashing Mallum and the Scarlet King, the Witness would revoke Shin'ra's attempts to enter the Sol System during the events of the Collapse and leave him behind outside of the Sol's borders.
It would only be until the Black Fleet's return to the system that Shin'ra sought to make his move. He would station the Nephilim on the borders of the Kuiper Belt and begin his plans to corrupt the system's denizens with the power of Corruption. He would successfully tempt remnant members of the House of Dusk to board his Tomb Carrier with the roused promise of Corruption.
After the Traveler successfully healed itself and ceased the Witness's efforts to fully consume the Sol System in Darkness, Shin'ra would send of his Wizards and supposed daughter, Ir Naziith to the Cosmodrome to claim the light of the newly risen Guardians. She would act as one of his emissaries to claim control over the Cosmodrome Hive, gaining a reputation towards the newly risen Guardians, who were attempting to scour the region for loot and potential info.
Shin'ra would learn of Naziith's conquests and failures against the Guardians, becoming infuriated after she had failed to call forth more champions to lay siege to Earth and the burning of various broodholds. She would eventually die after being cornered in a final stand and be recalled to Shin'ra's Throne World. There, the Hive God would brand his spawn with the symbol of failure and cast her from his domain, similar to how Oryx did to Crota, to "come home victorious, or die forgotten," declaring that she must make up for her failure to end the New Lights.
Season of Sorrow
Personality and traits
Much like the Oryx and Savathûn, Shin'ra is seen as subtle and confidant in his tactics of conducting war and conquest when compared to Xivu Arath's more bloodthirsty tactics. He actively lets events play out rather than intervene, believing that corruption exists everywhere, even in the most uncommon places. Whenever he does act out on his own accord, he tests those against his own cunning nature, studying the moments of others to determine their next move. The mixture of his cunning and knowledge on war has led him to a multitude of successful sieges across the universe and the vigorous hunts of the Leviathans.
He has also determined that through his connection as the Hive God of Forge, those that conduct war and conquest, they feed him tribute and worship him with the very weapons they wield. He has proven this with his campaigns against the Nadheal and the Ussatan by turning their own weapons against them. He had even claimed that when the Guardians had killed them, they had become his mightiest worshippers and devote students of the Sword Logic. During the events of the Temple of Exultation, he proclaimed to the Guardians that their actions would continue to fuel himself in his future schemes and if they would fail, they would have to suffer the loss of their City by his hands.
His overconfidence however has proven to be one of his weaknesses, as seen in Season of Sorrow, where he believed his power would inevitably lead to the corruption of the Guardians, only for his ambitions to fall short when they managed to channel the dark powers of Corruption for themselves. He would show his desperation for conquest when he tried to assist his Warpriest, Jirgâth, before his own demise. When he had failed, he funneled his resources to Zâtrox's scheme to resurrect the dead Court of Sorrow to reignite the conquest, proving to be yet another failure. He would show his frustrations when the Guardians would assault his forces when they slaughtered his Hive during his communion with the Abhorrent Brood, which caused him to lose not only the alliance, but a great deal of tribute.
Gameplay
Seeking the Seeker
Shin'ra is initially seen at the end of the Seeking the Seeker mission where he attempts to rally forces of the Hidden Swarm under his control. He does not attack the player and has a permanent immunity shield. He eventually flees the scene, not before summoning Sorrow's Eye, Seeker for Shin'ra.
The Warpriest
Shin'ra is encountered again at the end of The Warpriest mission where he attempts to empower Jirâth with more corruption. Much like in Seeking the Seeker, he does not attack the player and has a permanent immunity shield. He will eventually flee the scene and escape to the Jade Citadel.
The Sorrow-Maker
Shin'ra serves as the final boss of The Sorrow-Maker mission where his might in combat is shown at full force. Much like Zulmak, he wields a mighty Hive sword while keeping a distance away from players while firing 
Corruption Blasts at them. He will occasionally taunt the Guardian and swing his sword upwards, sending a wave of Corruption towards the players, causing massive and lingering damage. He will occasionally summon in Hive and Taken reinforcements to batter down the Guardians while he continues to fight them from a distance.
In his second phase, Shin'ra's helmet fallen off, revealing a Darkblade-like face with the green glow of Corruption flowing through him. He will change tactics by charging at the players and slamming his sword at them, leaving lingering pools of Corruption behind him. There he will exclusively summon in Cleaver wielding Knights and Taken Knights to back him up until he dies.
Trivia
- Shin'ra's name is likely derived from Shinra Myōjin (Japanese: 新羅明神), a Buddhist god associated with the Jimon branch of Tendai, a school of Japanese buddhism.
- It is possible that the Shin'ra himself is one of the Disciples of the Witness due to his strong connection and influence with the Black Fleet as seen with the shackled servants of the Witness.
- While he knows much of the history of the Hive, Shin'ra however does not know the origins of Wizard and sees her as an anomaly in the Hive history.
List of appearances
- Destiny 2: Beyond Light (First mentioned)
- Season of Sorrow (First appearance)
- Season of the Risen (Mentioned only)
- Season of Plunder (Mentioned only)
- Season of the Deep (Voice only)
- Season of the Witch (Voice only)
- Season of the Wish
- Into the Light
- The Final Shape (Mentioned only)
- Dread