I am doing research on a book and I can’t find much other information on the planets and moons that humanity colonized during the golden age other than the ones seen in game. Even then I’m a little limited in knowledge on the lore behind some of them. I would also like to know in what order they were colonized if that is even known. I would really appreciate someone’s help in finding the right grimoire cards to read so I can find the information that’s out there.
Well, all I really know is that Mars was colonized first. This is just a must as in the intro sequence we see the Taikonauts first find the Traveler.
(From what I know they are Taikonauts, from both the helmet and what they look like in the game.)
There’s in-canon speculation that Luna was host to the first off-world colony. From the The Ocean of Storms card:
The support base centered here marks what most believe was the first off-Earth colony.
The Jade Rabbit card also mentions “Luna settlements.”
We also see colonization efforts on Mars in-game, especially in relation to Clovis Bray. There’s a line in Glory 2.1 that implies Bray was the main source of off-world colonization:
SHU: Clovis Bray brought us off-world for good, back in the Golden Age. They paved the way for cities and colonies. They raised Earth children on alien planets. You might have been one of them.
(If you’re interested, all of the Owl Records are an interesting read re: SIVA as a way to speed up off-Earth colonization.)
Venus is another planet we see colonized in-game, mostly involving the Ishtar Academy.
There’s also the possibility that parts of Jupiter were colonized during the Golden Age. From the Jupiter card:
Lord of worlds, massive Jupiter and its moons must have been a cornerstone of Golden Age civilization. But the nature and extent of human presence there is now unknown. Old records refer to cities in ice and world-spanning oceans, but perhaps this is only poetry.
And we see Titan as a previously-colonized moon in Destiny 2. Utopia gives us much of what we know about it:
Welcome to New Pacific Arcology, the bright future of space colonization in the shadow of Saturn.
Thirty four percent of Titan’s citizen’s hope that the Traveler will terraform the ocean-moon soon.
According to this, there were civilians on Titan alongside the research facilities, which matches what we see in-game.
We also know that Humans had some presence on Mercury, at least in a scientific capacity:
The Golden Age technology at this location remains intact, harnessing energy from the sun and converting it to Solar Light.
It’s also referred to as a garden world and a “paradise,” so an argument could probably be made that it was somewhat colonized.
A lot of the information regarding colonized planets and moons is scattered throughout the game (mostly d1 grimoire that served as worldbuilding). I don’t know of any concrete timelines that exist regarding the colonization efforts, unfortunately. This Destinypedia page has a few places I didn’t mention here, such as Hyperion. It may be a good jumping-off point, since all the information is more centralized.
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Knew that, but thank you for your help, I really do appreciate it. I am more concerned on what planets and moons were colonized more than when anyway. I know for a fact that Mars, Earth’s moon, Venus, Mercury, Titan, and Hyperion were all colonized but I’m not completely sure that Europa was or wasn’t, but I keep hearing it is.
In terms of lore I know that Mercury was a garden world, Venus is where the Ishtar Academy is and the Ishtar Collective studied the Vex and Vault of Glass, and I know that some if not all of the members of the Ishtar Collective lived on Hyperion.
Thank you, very helpful information.
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