(x-post from r/DestinyLore and r/DTG)
Two cards in particular have stood out to me.
THETA // NINE // SEVEN // RED // DELTA High Priority Message – Commander’s Terminal EYES ONLY // TWILIGHT PROTOCOL —- Recon groups A, J, and T returned to TOWER ACTUAL at 03:00 local time.
No casualties. Light injuries across multiple members of J and T teams.
Full debrief to follow. —- Breaking mission topsheet protocol, Commander. I want you to understand the scope of what we’re looking at here.
As the fireteams fanned out across the region, the Devils rushed to meet them. Our forces dealt with some post-SIVA pockets of Splicer activity, and every once in a while the Kings popped their heads up and scared the hell out of everyone. In other words: situation absolutely normal.
That’s a lie. The Fallen are abandoning the Cosmodrome.
Hawk fly-overs confirm. The House of Devils forces are simply not there anymore. They’ve been disorganized for the last few years, but there’s never been a shortage of ground troops whenever we staged a significant sortie.
Intel source GREENRAVEN was right. And, for the moment, it’s worth assuming their report on the House of Exiles, House of Winter, and House of Wolves are also accurate. We’re fact-checking against independent fireteam reports from the field.
The kid all the SRL fans talk about — Marcus? He was in one of the fireteams out at the Cosmodrome. He pulled me aside, and said it to me straight: the Fallen Houses are gone. The siege is broken.
The stalemate we’ve had with the Eliksni for what, a hundred years? It’s over. We won.
Commander, I’m not even sure they’re flying the banners anymore.
The teams found huge mounds of burnt cloth and armor, ceremonial piles, in several of the most hardcore Fallen holdouts.
What’s changed? Where have the Fallen gone? Why have they burned their banners?
I’m drawing up a plan to coordinate forces from the Queen’s Wrath, Felwinter Peak, the Warlock Orders, and more non-traditional outfits to follow up on these reports.
I believe your wisdom will guide us through the trials ahead.
He let his captors drag him through the dirt.
His arms ached. Two hands wrapped around each bicep like iron bands. He slumped, and the toes of his scuffed boots bumped over the stones and left trails in the dust. He kept his eyes low, a ragged and stained cloak hanging over his face. It was not a position to which he was accustomed.
They debased him. They abused him. He bit the inside of his cheek until the blood filled his mouth. He struggled not to resist.
They needed to believe he was broken. That he wasn’t a threat.
It was the only way they would bring him before their kell.
He’d spent weeks weaving the illusion that led the Fallen to him. He’d left bits of his trail where they couldn’t help but find them. He skulked from planet to planet—Mars, then Venus, then Mercury, then back again—following rumors and whispers. He’d hid from the Guardians, from his own people. He’d let everything they had built fall apart, while those still loyal to him searched every inch of this forsaken system.
Now it was time to stop searching and start building.
He would need soldiers who answered to him and no one else. Bodies to shape with will and magic and tech to his needs. These would serve.
He thought they would take him to a ketch. But they were deep underground. Not near the Cosmodrome, but… it didn’t matter. He’d never been particularly concerned with the geography of this blasted world. It was not his home.
So he bent his head low, and listened to the guttural string of hisses and clicks issuing from the maw of a would-be king in yellow. A broken ruler of a broken house, and the last of his kind.
They were more alike than he cared to admit.
When the creature’s anger had burnt itself out, he raised his head to look at it. He did not need to speak.
One kell rises, and another bends its knee.
And the prince felt the little hum of starlight ripple through him.
The one that let him know she would be pleased with what he had done.
So the Fallen have all pulled out their areas of influence. The Exiles have abandoned the Moon, the Wolves have left Mars, and Winter has stopped rooting around in the Ishtar Archives. The Vanguard will understandably be put on high alert, especially with all of the stuff that has happened. Could be a prelude to another Twilight Gap, initially. That would be their fears.
Now we have this. Uldren Sov has apparently found his sister, if not in spirit only, and has deceived his own people including the Crows to not be found. Disguizing himself as a Fallen he used that to gain an audience with the Kell of Kings – the only House not weakened by Guardians and the Awoken.
For what?
I believe that the Kell of Kings has agreed to ally with Uldren Sov, and has called for the Houses to unite together. According to the Last Call teaser the Cabal have attacked the City. Without the Awoken there to take the brunt of the attack, and Oryx’s Dreadnaught not serving as a threat, and who knows what the Nine are doing, Uldren knows that the City is going to fall. Wherever the Queen is, she has sensed their arrival, and contacted him to meet with the Fallen to arrange an alliance to help defeat the Cabal, or at least stem their advance while the City prepares. This is spinfoil here.
But one thing is certain, the Queen is very much still active and working through her brother. The plan Eris mentions in the last TTK story cinematic is going to be set in motion, or at least going to be started.
The Empire is coming.