Warning, very long. Approximately 1742 words.
Now that Season of Opulence has been released, we have two new lore books. One of them called “The Chronicon”, is probably the most important piece of text that Bungie has ever released. It gives us a vast description of Calus’ history and future, which is connected very closely to ours.
It starts with the first book I. I am assuming that the titles of the books are Roman Numerals.
Stating that:
“The following pages are a true and authentic publication of the incredible deeds and remarkable discoveries of the Emperor Calus, greatest emperor of the Cabal, witnessed by his most loyal allies and recorded by his most trusted scribes.”, the book gives us a clear message that this book is true, or at least they want us to think that. It talks about how Calus started the Chronicon, after he was betrayed by his allies. Calus was originally going to be killed, but from popular choice, he was exiled instead, in a prison barge called the Leviathan. Unrelated, but this pretty much proves that there is no relation between the Leviathan in the Books of Sorrow and this Leviathan. He was sent on a unchangeable course away from the Cabal home planet, Torobatl. Calus makes a speech, and leaves, taking his advisors and scribes, which are the narrators of these books.
The second book, is called DLXXVIII. This is 578 in Decimal, so it is probably a long time after the first, although it does say many days after launching, which could mean that Calus is using a different form of Roman Numerals, or another system altogether, however, in It Stared Back, Calus says that it was years, or millenia, since they had departed and until they reached the wall of infinite black. However long it had been, something happened. I’ll let the book describe it.
“It was as if the ship had been plucked from the cosmos like a berry by some gargantuan hand, rolled between forefinger and thumb, squeezed and tested for ripeness, and then, having been found satisfactory, slung backward in an unknowable direction toward an unknowable maw.”
Something had been done to the ship, and then it was thrown in a direction unknown to the passengers. Soon after, I’m assuming it stopped, as Calus got out of the ship in a pressure-gel suit, to “see the destination of my banishment in private." Twelve hours later, Calus returns.
He returns in book DLXXIX, 579. The part that happens here as been talked about in other sources, such as the Leviathan raid weapons. The scribe describes what Calus said here:
“Outside the ship, the Emperor looked over the edge of the universe, and saw nothing. That is, it wasn’t that he saw nothing unusual, but he saw Nothing: the absence of light, dark, life, death, the absence of anything, even of absence itself. And out of the Nothing, there came whispering in a dark language, which filled his head so loud that he forgot for a moment his own language, and suddenly the Nothingness dispersed to show Something, which was a fleet of foreign ships. He saw next the destruction of a great many worlds and creatures, including all his enemies, and himself, and he saw the rot and fragmentation of his own corpse and skeleton. And last, before he was released, the whispers grew louder and granted him the honor of spreading the news of the end.”
This is clearly the tetrahedron ships from the end of Destiny 2’s campaign. Another
quote is “Death is coming, and It has made me Its herald. The end will eat everything.", so clearly describing a cataclysmic event in the future involving the tetrahedrons.
Not much happens in DCII, 602, except a small description of his Shadows.
In DCV, 605, Calus talks about a failed assassination attempt on Ghaul, and how he had “spoiled the whole batch [of Shadows]”
It starts to really get interesting in DCCII, 702. Calus starts by meditating on the failure of his Shadows, until a messenger tells him of the Guardian killing Ghaul in the Sol System. What might have been a boring bossfight for us was a huge event for Calus, because he immediately started making plans to go meet the Guardian. He also tells his advisors to build robotic clones of himself, which are the original Leviathan raid boss.
In DCCLXXXIX, 789, Calus writes the Guardian a love letter. It is unsent however, because he was probably too embarrassed to send it to the Guardian. Here is the link because it is quite long:
In DCCCVII, 807, we start to step into the future. This future was shown to Calus at the edge of the universe, by the tetrahedron ships perhaps.This could be near or far, we don’t know. The Hero of the Guardians becomes a Shadow, and they have a huge banquet. Calus speaks to the Guardian, saying: “You represent the dawning of a new era. The last era before the end. I will have you at my side as this petty world meets Death.”
MCXII, 1108, starts with Calus asking the Guardian, the Shadow of Shadows, to find an army of Shadows. THe Guardian looks throughout the Fallen race, picking Mithrax to become a Shadow who, partnered with the Guardian, killed all of the other Fallen, a surprising twist from seemingly peace loving Mithrax. The Guardian offers Shadowship (?) to the Queen Mara Sov, who had appeared with the title Shipbreaker. This might mean something but I don’t know much about Mara’s lore. She, however, rejected the Guardians offer, so she was murdered by the Guardian in that moment, on her throne. Petra Venj joined the Shadows though, and then Petra and the Guardian exterminate the other Awoken, very very surprising considering Petra’s loyalty to her race. Calus welcomes them as Shadows.
MCXVII, 1118, hasn’t got much, other than a description of the Shadows breaking into the Inner Sanctum, revealing hundreds of years of lost knowledge, as well as the Aphelion, being spoken about in Dreaming City lore, who are the most powerful being ever, having the power to destroy entire planets in the blink of an eye. Mithrax was killed in a battle outside the Sanctum. He didn’t last long.
This next page, MCXX, 1120, however, is the most pivotal point in the entire book. Rasputin and the Vanguard respond to the growing strength of Calus and the Shadows, and contacts Calus to remove his forces from the planets and moons, or they would respond with deadly force. Calus didn’t want to, because he didn’t fear the Vanguard and Rasputin, but he allowed the Guardian to have a meeting with them. The Guardian spoke well of Calus, but the Vanguard decided to start a war. The Guardian reacts pretty interestingly, with:
“Who do you think I am? Without me, you have only a dwindling army of ambivalent soldiers. I am the Young Wolf. I killed the Taken King. I defeated Ghaul, I roused the Traveler, I silenced the Moon, I stopped the invasion, I broke the curse, I broke the Houses, I killed the queen! I am the Shadow of Earth!”
I really love this quote because A) We are finally saying something, and standing up for ourselves, and B) We finally get recognition of what we’ve done. BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT PART IS: “I broke the curse.” At some point, we do indeed break the curse on the Dreaming City. It will happen! One other notable thing is “I stopped the invasion.” I don’t know if this is referring to something that has already happened, or will happen. Either way, this is pretty important.
The Guardian then attacks Hellas Basin and Rasputin, “ that left the War Machine in cinders. The Vanguard surrender and beg for mercy, but the Guardian denies their pleas.
A lot of you are going to be disappointed in this next chapter, because it reduces all of the hyping up thats been happening to zero. In chapter 1125, Savathûn enters, in the most boring way possible. In the inner parts of the ship, a Hive rift was opened and out came Savathûn and her horde. Another very important thing to not here is this quote by Calus:
“But the great Emperor Calus had seen Death at the edge of the universe and was not afraid, for this witch and her spawn were not Death.” Savathûn is NOT related to the tetrahedron ships. Then the Guardian just kills her. Calus sends them, and they SINGLEHANDEDLY kill every single one of her hive, and as she slipped back through the portal to her Throne World, the Guardian follows her in and kills her, as her final death. A very boring ending to her very long story.
Chapter MCXXXV, 1135, doesn’t have much going on. A monument is built to Calus where Rasputin was, and they eat a lot.
POTENTIALLY THE MOST IMPORTANT CHAPTER OF THE BOOK, MCXLII, 1142, describes the end of everything. This occurs 118 years after the Shadows conquer the Sol system. This is also quite long, and I don’t want to just repeat the text, so you can find it here:
https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/mcxlii#book-the-chronicon. Sorry I’m so lazy.
The lore book ends with chapter MCVLIII, 1198 another love letter from Calus to the Guardian, saying about how we were the last by his side, and how much he cherished his time with us. I don’t know how Calus survived longer than the Guardian did if we were so close together. Anyway, that rounds up the greatest lore book of all time.
There are some very important questions to think about.
-Is this true?
-Why did the tetrahedron ships show Calus this?
-Why did Calus survive?
-Why did Mithrax and Petra have such huge personality and ethics changes?
-Is this going to happen in the game?
-When?
-Are there alternate meanings to this?
For example, perhaps the part of the chapter MCXLII, where a great darkness was everywhere means the end of Destiny as a game.
There are is so much potential for this, and the writers of it have a nice back door if these predictions don’t come true, because they could say that the tetrahedron ships were lying.
I just vomited this out over the course of a few hours, so sorry if there is bad spelling or grammer.
Also apologies if I have missed anything or gotten anything wrong.
EDIT:
YOOO CAYDE-7 IS COMING BACK!
(https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/opulent-scholar-bond)
EDIT 2:
Apparently the Shadow of Earth, the Guardian killed a whole bunch of other people as well. I’ll just list off the names:
-Toland
-Ghost
-Variks
-Uldren (so many times)
-Cayde-7
-Dredgen Hope (The Drifter)
-Failsafe (Then put her into an Exo body, which killed itself)
-Zavala
-Amanda
-Ikora
-Osiris
Source: The Opulence Armor
EDIT 3: Sorry, but it seems like we were misled. There is evidence pointing towards not Calus writing this, but his Psions, who just wanted to make him happy (or they would be killed probably). So take this all with a grain of salt.
It is still very interesting fanfiction though.
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