Hello everyone, today I will cover the traits, goals, and brief histories of all 3 Guardian races. Hope u learn something, and keep your eyes open around Halloween, I’ll be posting a couple short stories and maybe even another lore post. [b]Humanity:[/b] Curious, adventurous, innovative, stubborn. Humanity has never been comfortable just sitting around at home and waiting for things to come to them; mapping the unknown and seeking answers, humanity has always had an urge to fill their thirst for knowledge. They are survivors, and won’t go down without a fight. I’m gonna skip the origin story here because we should all know it already. If you don’t, pay more attention to the teacher than your phone in school. So after all that boring history of war and disease and all the other junk humanity dealt with, we get to the year humanity detected an unknown object enter the solar system and begin changing our worlds. So they sent a ship with a team of 3 led by Captain Jacob Hardy. They discovered the Traveler, and with its help humanity shot into its Golden Age. The human lifespan inexplicably extended to around 300 years old instantly, in Hardy’s lifetime, before healthcare could even have improved by much. The nations united, colonies were made on the Moon and then other worlds, we created technology to manipulate antimatter and accomplished countless other technological feats, and we created AI, Warminds being the greatest amongst them. You’ll recognize a lot of remainders of our Golden Age in Destiny: SIVA (the nanotech that could build cities), Glimmer/Engrams (programmable matter that can be turned into parts for anything and from there even be turned into a solid block of code-locked Glimmer), warp drives (get places fast in space, ‘nuff said), Rasputin (greatest of Warminds and owner of nukes beyond imagining), and even a cool helmet that used to hold up an entire floating island. But nothing lasts forever, and the Golden Age fell with the coming of the Darkness. The Vex had sprung up in peaceful clusters as humanity explored the system, but as the Collapse began they became hostile and conquered many worlds in open war. Contact with the Moon was lost shortly after the discovery of giant Worms burrowing tunnels where boards of eggs were placed to hatch. Rasputin launched colony ships holding fleeing humans and at least one carrying tech like SIVA, but no known ships escaped; most were caught in the Asteroid Belt, forming the Reef. Reports from Rasputin and a Titan science center launch tell us that an anomaly entered the system, and Rasputin fought it together with the Traveler (note that Rasputin had weapons pointed at the Traveler in case it tried to flee, but the old Warmind himself told us that the Traveler chose to stick around so was not fired upon by humanity). All the Warminds were destroyed aside from Rasputin, who went into hibernation, and the Traveler was damaged in a last push that repelled the Darkness from our system. Humanity was laid low, and the survivors barely had anything from their once advance civilization left. But they worked on, building towns and salvaging what they could from their Golden Age. Of course, the Fallen appeared at this point and joined in on the scavenging. Guardians appeared at this time too, although they wouldn’t be called by that name until years later. Warlords rose amongst those revived by the Light, becoming tyrants over the wilds of Earth, but they were soon put down by the Iron Lords (the first true Guardians). Humanity found protection under the Lords, and began to gather beneath the Traveler to rebuild. The City and its walls sprung up, and Factions formed. Conflicting views led to the Faction Wars, which ended when te House of Devils attacked in the Battle of Six Fronts. After that, the people of the City united and formed the Consensus and Vanguard to lead them. The Great Disaster and Twilight Gap passed by, and even now people live outside the City’s walls, but humanity as a whole still works together to survive. [b]Exos:[/b] Identical to humans in every way aside from physical traits and mental integrity, the Exos are the link between humanity and the technological world, always seeking the answers to their past. During the Golden Age, the means of obtaining immortality came into realization. It started with drones that you could link your mind to and control from long distances as if it were your own body, but they could only handle all the information for so long before needing a data scrub. The first Exos came as a result of scientists studying the Vex working together with these seekers of immortality. The Exo was built to better resist the Vex influence on the mind and body (Vex cells are infectious and harm both mind and body), and as bonuses never grows tired or hungry and can survive damage that would be fatal to a normal human (losing an arm, for example, isn’t a real problem as long as u know someone who can rebuild it). I say “normal human” because Exos actually are human minds transferred permanently into these machine bodies. Should also point out that they get mind wipes to prevent scarring memories from effecting performance; this is both a throw back to the memory scrubs of the original drones and a pointer to the fact that they could be easily manipulated by erasing their memory. [quote]I am a war machine, built by human hands; and you are a survival machine built by the engine of evolution[/quote] As the Collapse hit, volunteers and even those who owed debts to the wrong people (looking at you, Cayde) were put into the now mass-produced Exos. Most were put on the front lines against the Vex, their resilience to the aliens and physical superiority allowing them to hold out much better. Still got their butts kicked. After the Collapse, all knowledge on how Exos worked was lost, including how to build or even repair them. All we have are their fragmented memories, which include a supposed “birthplace” of the Exos called the Deep Stone Crypt. In fact, most people of the City (and even most Destiny gamers) now believe that Exos are just machines meant to mimic humans. [quote]If I am a machine then so are you. If you are not a machine then neither am I. Exo minds are human.[/quote] Exos are not like Dell computers: no special buttons or pop-ups in their vision display, no battery charge, no downloading fighting styles, no infrared, and no scanning things. They work exactly like humans, only physically better [b]Awoken:[/b] Like Exos, they share all the traits of humanity, only with some space magic and mystery added in. The Awoken are beings of balance wreathed in cosmic power. Most of them are interested in keeping their own people alive, but have proven themselves allies to the Light repeatedly. [quote]My soul lay between those two entities. And that’s how I am still: The boundary, the seam. The friction.[/quote] When the Collapse drew to a close and the Traveler’s rebuke sent the Darkness back, the power of the two great forces mixed. Where these energies met, we understand that somehow drifting spirits were able to latch onto either dead or dying and share the vessel with the still lingering human soul. They really liked singing, apparently… But anyway, many of these mixing souls lead to the Awoken mind forming and becoming the balance between the human side and the other side, reforming the human as an Awoken with two souls entwined into one. Naturally, most of them appeared in the Reef due to the facts that the stocked colony ships were there and that it was the last place the Light was able to touch. They united under the Queen and built the Reef using the ship scraps and their own ingenuity. Those on Earth gathered under the Traveler like everyone else, and some Awoken even left the Reef to live in the City. Awoken who left the Reef or weren’t born in it aren’t particularly welcome in the Queen’s territory. The Awoken of the Reef managed to keep themselves a secret up until Twilight Gap. When House of Wolves was passing through to join the other Houses, the Awoken revealed themselves to save the City and initiated the Reef Wars against the Wolves. The Awoken won and the Wolves were either imprisoned or made to serve the Queen. We don’t know much about the activities of the Awoken other than the protection of their home and their tenuous relationship with the Jovians/Nine. Queen Mara Sov’s plans in particular are a mystery, such as the plan she made with Eris and Osiris in which she sacrificed the entire Awoken fleet to stop Oryx. The Fallen refer to the Awoken as “sterile” and as having two souls, so we know the Fallen have a decent understanding of how the Awoken came to be. The sterile part is uncertain, because the Awoken grimoire mentions “descendants” and Earthborn Awoken. The current condition of the Reef is unknown, but it’s likely the Red Legion paid them a visit. Mara Sov and Uldren Sov are also outside of our reach, with Uldren being somehow involved with the Fallen and Mara being MIA. [b]Overview:[/b] The three races all work to keep our system out of the hands of Darkness, even if not all work to keep the Light alive. That’s really all there is to say about these three races; if u have any questions or comments I would love to hear them More lore and stories in my Archive: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/217384398/0/0