Leviathan (ship)

The Leviathan
Production information
Manufacturer:	Cabal
Technical specifications
Armament:	Planet Consumption Device
Crew:	Loyalist Cabal
Usage
Role(s):	World-Eater
Affiliation:	Emperor Calus

This article is about the personal ship of Emperor Calus. For other uses, see Leviathan.

“

The world-destroying flagship of the former Cabal Emperor, Calus.

”

The Leviathan is a massive Cabal space vessel which previously served as the personal pleasure craft of the exiled Emperor Calus and his Loyalists.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] It is the setting of the Leviathan and Crown of Sorrow Raids, as well as the Eater of Worlds and Spire of Stars Raid Lairs. The former takes place exclusively within the palace atop the ship, whereas the latter take place deep within its interior and around the tower situated on the top of the ship, respectively.

Overview

The Leviathan is a gigantic spaceship, which is used by the Loyalists to eat planets and process them into a thick, purple "royal wine". When a desired object is targeted, Cabal soldiers are sent to gather data on its geology to find out how to grind it up. The resulting rubble would be refined and mixed with "royal nectar" to produce the royal wine for Calus' consumption. A large palace where Emperor Calus and his servants reside stands on the head of the ship, and two small artificial suns hover in place above the highest tower.

The Leviathan is formidably armed, carrying laser weapons, missile bombardments and fusion missiles powerful enough to destroy Cabal warships in a single direct hit. These weapons use an unusual, immersive targeting system that may involve psionics, there is even an energy that courses through the ship that can be utilized by certain items obtained.

History

Construction

"Her ruling days were coming to a close. But the Praetorate, those canny slavemongers, they wanted her to remain on the throne so they could avoid the chaos of a succession. They put her on a ship modeled after a landwhale. Its mouth was a scoop, so it would never have to stop to refuel."

— Beloved: I am seven years old

The Leviathan was constructed by the Cabal Praetorate at some point prior to Calus's reign as Emperor, when he was known as the Prince Designate. While the Leviathan was initially made to resemble the Landwhales, it was designed to be in the shape of a scoop to consume planets so that it did not need to refuel. The Praetorate would then use the ship to careen the previous Empress of the Cabal around the corners of the Empire so that they would not have to deal with chaotic successors.^[5]

Calus's Exile

"This Leviathan. This prison ship. I will remake it, as I have been remade. No longer will it represent a mythical beast from the dreams of worms. It will serve as an icon for my newfound gluttony."

— Emperor Calus

On the night of the coup that deposed him, Emperor Calus was arrested and quietly ushered aboard the Leviathan, where Dominus Ghaul and his co-conspirators intended him to remain in exile in perpetuity. The Leviathan's navigation system was locked onto a course that would take it far from the Cabal Empire's domain.

After many centuries, the navigation system failed and the ship came to a halt; it had come upon a great expanse of utter nothingness, and could not plot a course through it. It was here that Calus claimed to have encountered something that overawed him, later revealed to be the Witness and its Black Fleet, and resolved to become its herald. With the navigation system unlocked, Calus charted a course back to Cabal territory, collecting Shadows from various alien races along the way to enact his revenge against his usurpers.

Post Red War

"The Cabal seat of power now resides in orbit 'round Nessus. In a giant fish."

— The Drifter

Following Dominus Ghaul's death during the Red War, the Leviathan arrived in the Solar System and began consuming the planetoid Nessus.

Some time after the Leviathan began consuming Nessus, it sucked up a powerful Vex mind: Argos, Planetary Core, which projected a shield to protect itself, while simultaneously clogging the Leviathan. The Vex mind was only removed through the intervention of a Guardian fireteam. After the death of Xol, Will of the Thousands, the Red Legion, led by Val Ca'uor, attempted to take control of the Leviathan and kill Emperor Calus, only to be stopped by another fireteam of Guardians.

Forsaken

The Reef armada regularly performed fleet maneuvers near the Leviathan as a show of force. Though target locks were established, no fire was exchanged on either side.

A Shadow Gone Mad

Wanting a Shadow to command the Hive, Calus bred Gahlran to wear a Hive artifact known as the Crown of Sorrow. However, Gahlran was driven mad by the Crown's power, as it was a trap laid by Savathûn, the Witch-Queen. Under the control of Savathûn, Gahlran summoned a massive Hive infestation, killing many Loyalists, and took control of the depths of the Leviathan's Menagerie. Now wanting his former Shadow put down, Calus called upon the Guardians once more, offering more riches and rewards upon their success. After a grueling struggle against the mad Shadow and the Hive's magic, the Guardians succeeded in killing Gahlran and retrieving the Crown.

Calus later honored the Guardians with a Tribute Hall established aboard his ship, and made them an offer to become his newest Shadows.

Beyond Light

Sometime after the arrival of the Pyramids in the Sol System, the Leviathan mysteriously vanished from the orbit of Nessus. Osiris investigated its disappearance, but found nothing hinting as to why the Leviathan left or where it was headed. Logs found aboard the Glykon Volatus suggested that the Leviathan had simply hidden at some location in the System while Calus performed his experiments.

In reality, after returning from the Glykon, Calus had driven the Leviathan into the anomaly left where Mercury had once been, as the Voice had suggested through the Crown of Sorrow. Though he feared it would be torn like the Glykon, the Leviathan survived, and though it came out mutated, it was still capable of space travel.^[6]

Season of the Haunted

"The Leviathan is growing, changing, transforming. You are witnessing the death of one state of being... and the beginning of another."

— Emperor Calus

The Leviathan infested with Egregore.

Two years after its disappearance, the Leviathan returned to the Sol System in orbit of Luna, having become derelict, dilapidated and heavily overgrown with Darkness-enhanced flora similar to the Glykon Volatus; the latter where Calus sacrificed countless Scorn to feed the extradimensional fungi. Calus had also forged a psychic connection from his ship to the Lunar Pyramid beneath the Moon, turning the Leviathan into an extension of the dormant structure's influence and rousing the Nightmares to haunt his derelict vessel. Undead hordes of Scorn that Calus previously experimented upon would also infest the Leviathan and ally with the Loyalist Cabal. The Leviathan also changed in some yet unknown ways, as some hull parts can be found inside the ship, and Calus seems to say that now it is somehow alive. This was confirmed later by Calus when he admitted the Leviathan was once his prison, but he was now one body with the ship, able to feel the beings within the ship "wriggling through my innards".

Though the Guardians worked with Caiatl in severing the connections Calus was forging with the Lunar Pyramid, conquering the personal nightmares of Crow, Zavala and Caiatl herself, the former emperor nonetheless succeeded in his intent of entering the Pyramid and become a Disciple of the Witness. The Guardian and Caiatl, however, were able to prevent Calus from assuming control over the Lunar Pyramid and merging with its power, pushing the former emperor back. Nonetheless, Calus had given himself over to the Witness, thereby becoming the herald of the Second Collapse. Since then, the signal the Leviathan was giving would go silent and Eris would speculate that it would take months to clear out the Nightmares that continue to haunt the massive vessel.

Locations

Unlike previous raid locations, areas within the Leviathan are not given unique names as they load in. However, as with locations within a Crucible map, certain rooms and areas have a unique name that is displayed beneath the player radar. However, this was changed in Season of the Haunted upon the return of the Leviathan where the regions of the Leviathan do appear as loading zones.

Menagerie
- Menagerie Depths
Statue Garden
- Celestial Observatory
Prison Barge
- Emperor's Respite (Crucible map)
Tribute Hall (Landing zone)
- The Descent
- Ever Downward
  - The Depths
Castellum (Landing zone)
Leviathan's Underbelly

Activities

Raid

Raid Lair

Crucible

Emperor's Respite

Arena

The Menagerie

Miscellaneous

The Tribute Hall

Derelict Leviathan

The Derelict Leviathan Patrol space was added as part of Season of the Haunted. It was slightly different than other spaces.

The only area where a public event occurs is the Castellum, the main landing zone, which features the Nightmare Containment activity. In the other two locations, the Royal Pools and the Pleasure Gardens, no Public Events occur. Instead, there are a number of Ultra Nightmares constanly spawning as a sort of World Event. There is a chance that one of these Nightmare spawns be changed with a different World Event, such as a High Value Target. Some of these World Events are also announced by the lighting turning dark for a couple of seconds, with a sound playing, like a Public Event is signaled in other locations. Finally, a Haunted Alcove can also become active, which is a hidden location in the area that features a powerful Nightmare.

Public Event

Nightmare Containment

Missions

Dungeon

Duality

Trivia

The name of this ship is a reference to the mythical creature in the Bible, a sea creature of enormous size.
One idea for the Leviathan's origin, according to artist Dorje Bellbrook, was that the ship was inspired by creatures native to Calus' homeworld resembling large "land whales" that would travel along the ground and swallow anything caught in their path.^[7]
- This would be partially confirmed in Beloved, which explains that the Leviathan was designed after the Landwhales, with its mouth serving as a scoop to consume planets.
The Leviathan is the first Raid location featuring multiple, separate Raid activities.
The Leviathan is probably not as large as it seems as the planetoid that it is swallowing, Nessus, is only about 50km in diameter. Since the Leviathan is only a little bit larger than Nessus, it's assumed the Leviathan is meant to eat moons and planetoids, instead of entire planets. Although, Nessus may have been altered as it is more spherical and has a horizon when on the surface. However it should also be noted that considering the mouth is consistently shown to be twice as large as Nessus at a bare minimum, the Leviathan would have to be at least one hundred kilometers in size. When seen again orbiting Luna, the Leviathan is nearly overlapped by the Earth's Moon, which is 3,475 km in diameter, further showcasing that the Leviathan isn't as large as initially believed.
The Dungeon Duality starts in The Tribute Hall.
Since the raids and raid lairs tied to the Leviathan were sunset with the release of Beyond Light and since the patrol destination of the Derelict Leviathan is no longer accessible with the release of Lightfall, it can be considered that the Leviathan is the only destination that has been vaulted twice in Destiny 2's lifespan.