The Dark Age

"No one knew what had happened to the Traveler. No one understood what had happened to the world. But they heard the whispered call."

— Ghost Fragment: The Dark Age

The Dark Age is the period that followed the Collapse when the Golden Age ended. According to Lakshmi-2, "a thousand kings" rose and fell during this age. It is followed by the City Age. Looking through various sources on the beginning of the Dark Age—which directly succeeded the Golden Age—as well as comments made by Ghost throughout most of the campaign missions, it can be assumed that the Dark Age and those that followed lasted for at least four centuries.

Overview

"The Golden Age burned bright - and the night that overtook us after the Collapse was swift and total."

— Grimoire Description.

The Dark Age was a time of vast suffering and terrible evil. Many survivors formed colonies in the wilderness in a desperate attempt to survive. Colonies tended not to last long from either alien hordes or infighting. Humanity was on the brink of extinction.

But out of it, the Awoken emerged, and the Exo appeared from the ruins with their memories broken. Furthermore, the Ghosts had begun looking for their Guardians, and rumours circulated of the haven beneath the Traveler that would one day become the Last City.

However, some of the earliest Guardians chose not to protect the world, but subjugate it. Taking over various parts of the planet, Guardians became warlords and injustice reigned. Eventually, Guardians with integrity chose to stand up to their warlord brethren in groups such as the Iron Lords or the Pilgrim Guard. Eventually, more and more noble Guardians joined the cause until an army hundreds strong was formed and the oppressive warlords were deposed.

Elsewhere in the Solar System the Cabal established a beachhead on Phobos for initiating the invasion of Mars. During the invasion the Cabal encountered the native Vex programing the Virgo Prohibition, and began a massive war of attrition following their nearly uncontested conquest of Mars. The Vex fought to protect the entrance to their "birthplace", the Black Garden, from the ever expanding Cabal Exclusion Zone, but apparently failed to halt the Cabal advance. This war was fought with little outside interference, the City busy with her own problems.

The Dark Age is sometimes noted for driving the development of advanced, but haphazard weapons typically derived from Golden Age salvage, such as the Jade Rabbit, which is a scout rifle built from lunar kinetic propulsion systems, or the Arbalest, a hand-held railgun that would later be mirrored by the linear fusion rifle class of weapons long after the Dark Age.

Events

The Collapse

• The Warmind Rasputin detects the sudden arrival and rapid approach of an unidentified entity outside the Solar System. Recognizing the entity as a threat, Rasputin assumes control of humanity's Planetary Defense Network.

• A pilot designated SABER GREEN communicates with ICE MINARET. Civilian launches are not scrubbed, threatening fleeing civilians, 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.

• Rasputin attempts to defeat the Darkness using all available weapons, but to no avail. In a last ditch attempt to stop the impending doom, Rasputin enacts ABHORRENT IMPERATIVE, and prepares to fire upon the Traveler with his most powerful weapons, thereby coercing it into a "pseudoaltrusitic" defensive action, should it attempt to leave. The Traveler, for reasons unknown, chooses to stay and fight.

• As all countermeasures fail to affect the entity and defeat becomes a certainty, Rasputin decides to enact YUGA SUNDOWN, and shuts down to protect itself, leaving billions of people to perish.

• On Mercury, Venus, and Mars, dormant Vex units reacting to the Collapse reactivate and begin terraforming several worlds. While Mercury is turned into a machine in days the Vex spread is temporarily stalled by the Traveler.

• A massive spacecraft bearing a sigil of Golden Age Earth on its prow crashes on an unidentified battle-scarred world where over two dozen Exo soldiers fight a titanic battle with the Vex.

• The Collapse—the Darkness, the ancient enemy of the Traveler, arrives in the Solar System, precipitating the Collapse and the abrupt end of the Golden Age. Earth's defenders are steadily beaten back until humanity is threatened with extinction. Humanity is saved only through the intervention of the Traveler, which sacrifices itself to stop the Darkness. With its last breath, the Traveler creates the Ghosts, to seek out those who can wield its Light as a weapon.

• At some point during the Collapse, some humans seeking refuge from the Darkness flee into deep space.

• First Fleet or quite possibly what comes to be known as the Cassini, is lost around the orbit of Saturn.

• The Cabal, encountering no meaningful resistance from human defenses, establish a beachhead on Phobos for initiating the invasion of Mars. On the planet however, the Cabal become engaged in a massive campaign of attrition with a native Vex programming called the Virgo Prohibition, who desperately attempts to protect the entrance to the Black Garden from an ever-expanding Exclusion Zone. This war will continue throughout the Dark Age and well into the City Age with little outside interference.

Dark Age

• In the aftermath of the Collapse comes the Dark Age. It is a time of vast suffering and terrible evil.

• The Fallen arrive in the Solar System in their Ketches to loot and pillage humanity's former worlds and colonies.

• The House of Devils destroy London.

• Those humans who fled into space during the Collapse become the Awoken. Many take up residence in the Reef.

• Many survivors of the Collapse gather within secret enclaves in desperate attempts to survive. Some Awoken return to Earth and the Exos emerge but their memories have been irreparably damaged. Ghosts travel among the refugee columns, seeking the first Guardians.

• Before the first Guardians appear, rangers led by the legendary Ayane Takanome protect humanity's survivors. They disappear after the Guardians become commonplace.

• The first humans to be resurrected by the Traveler become ruthless Warlords, bringing about chaos and anarchy. Having had enough at last, Radegast brings Saladin Forge, Perun, and Jolder together to end the Warlords, and forms the Iron Lords.

• The Iron Lords confront the Warlord Segoth as he travels to a secluded village. After a bloody battle, the Iron Lords emerge victorious and Segoth is gunned down by Perun as he attempts to escape.

• As the Iron Lords gain renown, Exo Warlord Felwinter changes sides, out of a desire for peace and security, and gives his mountain to the Iron Lords, who rename it the as the Iron Temple.

• Rumors circulate of a haven beneath the dormant Traveler.

• Felwinter meets with the Warlord Citan to broker peace. Citan refuses, and the Exo puts him down. As his Ghost revives him once more, Felwinter uses his Shotgun, Felwinter's Lie to terminate them both.

• The Iron Lords challenge the Warlord Rience.

• Timur and Felwinter traverse the Arabian Shores in search of the Seraphim Vault. While en-route, they are attacked by a group of Fallen before discovering an old Clovis Bray facility in the secluded wastes.

• The first Titans pledge to defend the refugees gathering to the Traveler, forming the Pilgrim Guard.

• Reports are made of a Cabal commander, Bracus Tho'ourg, who secured the Buried City on Mars with merely a fraction of the planet’s Cabal forces. The first Guardians who faced him died at some point between here and the City Age.

List of appearances

• Destiny (First mentioned)
• Destiny 2 (Mentioned only)