The Golden Age

"The Traveler kindled the Golden Age. But we built it. We remember this with pride, even after so much else has been lost. We settled our solar system and filled it with our work."

— Grimoire Description.

The Golden Age was a centuries-long era in history when the human race had achieved a very prosperous existence, having colonized the entire Solar System. While the exact length of the Golden Age is unknown, it did persist for at least a few centuries.

The Golden Age ended at the start of the Collapse.

Overview

"We know that humans lived longer, flew further, and knew more. We know that countless ancient diseases and hatreds were extinguished forever. Human aspiration gives birth to vast engineering projects, sweeping social movements, and even new forms of life."

— Grimoire Description.

The Golden Age was sparked by the arrival of the Traveler during the late 21st Century. When it arrived in the Solar System and began terraforming the different planets, humanity reached out to the Traveler on Mars and made first contact. It taught humanity new powers and mystical technologies that led to this age. Now that most of the system could support human life, and armed with the incredible new technology to reach beyond Earth, colonization of these worlds began. Many corporations and research groups existed during the Golden Age, such as Clovis Bray or the Ishtar Collective. The Exos were created during the period, and the Ahamkara appeared.

Despite the advancement brought on by the Golden Age, many aspects of technology and construction lagged behind greatly, especially on Earth. Pre-Golden Age architecture remained standing well through the Golden Age in what is now the European Dead Zone, and many motor vehicle designs failed to change very much from before the Golden Age as well. Also, in spite of the advanced weapons that were developed by the likes of Clovis Bray and the Black Armory, conventional militaries were left with weapons like the Khvostov 7G-02, whose basic design resembles a weapon originally developed in the mid 20th Century.

Most of the new discoveries humanity made were geared towards the colonization of the system and other vital technologies such as AI or medicine. Other technologies, and Earth itself, developed more slowly. The technology of the Golden Age has not only attracted the attention of human survivors, but also the alien races who now occupy the system. The Fallen seek to loot Venus' grand Archives, the Hive sought to use Rasputin on Earth for their own purposes, and the Cabal intended to claim the Dust Palace on Mars for themselves.

The Golden Age came to an end with the arrival of the Darkness, which began to attack humanity, and drove it back to planet Earth. The Traveler defended what was left of the human race, and through some means sacrificed itself to save humanity. The survivors of the conflict banded together and built a city underneath where the Traveler hung over the Earth. Humanity had been saved, but its golden age was over. Approximately seven hundred years from the present day, enough time has passed since the Traveler's final stand that many details about the Golden Age and how it ended, such as what, or whom, attacked and exactly how the Traveler saved humanity have been forgotten or have passed into legend.

Events

21st Century

• Earth becomes overcrowded.

• Present Day—Humanity detects and tracks the Traveler as it enters the Solar System and terraforms Mercury, Venus, and the moons of Jupiter. When it reaches Mars, the multinational Ares One mission is launched to make contact with it.

• The Traveler promises humanity the universe and imparts its vast knowledge to the species, spurring the colonization of the Solar System.

• The Golden Age, a centuries-long era of widespread prosperity and technological miracles, begins.

Early Golden Age

• Fifty years after the Traveler's discovery, at the age of ninety, Commander Jacob Hardy records his experiences from the Ares One mission in his diary and explains how the Traveler's dramatic impact on human well-being and civilization changed everything while in the midst of studying the properties of Light-influenced terraforming.

• The Cloud Walkers lead the first Exodus.

• The first off-Earth colony is established in the Ocean of Storms on the Moon and an exobotany laboratory is built in Mare Cognitum.

• The city of Freehold is founded on Mars with the support of Clovis Bray. It becomes known as one of humanity's greatest achievements.

• The Hesperonauts first descend into Venus boiling mists and place terraforming engines in caldaras, beginning the planet's transformation into a habitable world. They were later remembered by the Last City and the Guardians through a set of armor forged in their honor.

• During the initial exploration of Venus, ancient Vex ruins are discovered. Early Vex research outposts like Campus 9 attract Earth's brightest minds, leading to a colonization rush on the planet. The researchers found the Ishtar Collective and the Ishtar Academy.

• The Warminds are built alongside an array of various defense constructs as a deterrent against possible extraterrestrial threats.

• A copper box with a red lid is discovered, its lid dented, one hinge shattered. Inside is a small quantity of the finest, driest powder, more brown than gray, more blue than green. The powder is weighed by the grain, studied close. One hundred billion bits reside inside, all of them tiny and nearly spherical, and etched with the outlines of continents and islands and icecaps. Each sphere represents a planet. One is found of Earth, Mars, and Venus. Many studying presume that the box is a message of how minuscule all of creation is, and some wonder who delivered this message, and why.

• A father on Venus shows his son a representation of what their world used to look like before the Traveler arrived.

• Human life spans increased dramatically, maybe as far as tripled in length.

Mid-Golden Age

• Human settlements are established in the Asteroid Belt, subsequently becoming a treasure trove of industry.

• A currency known as Silver is developed, and is later used by the Reef post-Collapse.

• Jupiter and its moons become a cornerstone of human civilization, lunar cities buried deep in ice shelves and within subaqueous oceans.

• The first Exo are built to aid and protect humans.

• Dr. Willa Bray develops the first engram matter-encryption techniques based on relic crystals' unique datastatic properties. Glimmer is presumably developed as a byproduct and used as a source of power.

• Information about Plutarch's writing on Fabius Maximus was encoded onto an engram. The engram includes the type of warfare termed the 'Fabian Strategy' - the strategy involves attrition tactics and avoiding direct conflict until an enemy makes a mistake.

• The Ishtar Collective captures a live Vex specimen and nearly go mad until a Warmind intervenes. They send a group of two hundred twenty seven proxies into the Vex ruins to explore the Vex network.

Late Golden Age

• The Future War Cult is founded by Maya Sundaresh at Lhasa after experimenting with Vex technology. The group disbands, however, after many of its members either go insane, commit suicide, or leave out of ethical concerns. Maya Sundaresh is among them.

• The Kestrel, an experimental long-range jumpship, is prototyped.

• An unidentified anomaly is detected in deep space. This information manages to be relayed to Henriette Meyrin, who predicts the possibility of the Collapse and later goes on to found the Black Armory with Helga Rasmussen and Yuki Satou.

• A pilot designated SABER GREEN piloting the ship Secure ISIS communicates with ICE MINARET. Civilian launches are not scrubbed and colonization efforts are being pushed beyond schedule to preserve secrecy. They are carrying an antimatter payload of one annihilation-pumped caedometric weapon codenamed RIGOR, and two other unknown devices codenamed SKYSHOCK and APEX. ICE MINARET remarks that they both know where the order came from.

• Clovis Bray begins developing technologies geared toward the colonization of the Solar System in the form of SIVA and Transmission. After going through several prototypes, SIVA is approved for deployment.

• Sometime later General Chen Lanshu glides around the Cosmodrome and converses with submind Malahayati about the possibility of invasion and speculates whether or not the Traveler could have been an enemy. Shortly thereafter, Chen Lanshu speaks to Willa Bray about the possibility of accelerating the colonization programs, and whether SIVA could be used for military purposes.

• Site 6 is constructed.

• The Exodus Black, laden with SIVA and carrying the Black Armory's Gofannon and Izanami Forges, is sent to build new homes and ships for humanity on Kepler-186f but instead crash lands on Nessus.

• The Traveler begins terraforming Io.

• Members of the K1 project, undercover as members of the First Light colony, investigate the tunnels beneath the Moon. They discover the Worms and the Hive nesting deep within, but do not survive to tell the tale.

List of appearances

• Destiny (First mentioned)
• Destiny 2 (Mentioned only)
  • Season of the Dawn (Mentioned only)
  • Season of Arrivals (Mentioned only)