[i]Read the biology section! Seriously![/i] I should stop waiting so long between these; they take way less time to write than my [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/212710816/0/0]Legend Untold[/url] chapters. I decided that now would be a good time to continue with my Cabal lore posts before moving on to another subject. So, let’s get started. [b]History:[/b] Legend of Acrius [quote]“In the Cabal legend, a hero seeks to possess the sun. He succeeds. Then, he becomes Emperor. The Cabal… are not a subtle people.” -Tyra Karn[/quote] This story starts exactly where you expect: the first Emperor of the Cabal, Acrius. This is probably where their conquering of other star systems and species began, although we don’t have any specific details up until characters like Calus and Consul pop up. We do know that sometime before Calus became Emperor the Cabal conquered the Psions, although a few managed to escape capture and hide from the empire. Following the Roman theme, the Cabal incorporated many of the species into their military, including the enslaved Psions and tamed Warbeasts. The Cabal did eventually alter the governing system to have a Praetorate (military aristocracy with a council of leaders) rule alongside the Emperor. This could have made by the Emperor to help govern his empire or it could have been to make the people think they had better representation. Eventually, the Praetorate used the military to take control and used the Emperor as a figurehead. We don’t know how many Emperors there were before these changes or how long the Praetorate was instated, but we do know what changed about their society. After the Praetorate took over, their conquering ways were kept intact, but they used the Legions to maintain control over the population and inflate their own wealth. The soldiers of the Legion were denied citizenship and the citizens were bludgeoned into line. Calus himself was already Emperor whenever he performed his purge of the Praetorate, and actually led his republican/Loyalist forces against the Praetorate in a civil war to take full control of the empire. He stripped the Praetorate members and some close supporters like Consul of their wealth and tossed them to the mob to be punished by the people they had wronged. Now able to rule unchallenged as the self-proclaimed “god-emperor”, Calus began to restructure their society. He gave the soldiers citizenship and distributed the wealth that he had reclaimed from the Praetorate to the people, throwing numerous festivals as well as daily parades. Calus claims to have turned the empire’s interests to science and arts; embracing the technologies and knowledge of other species, focusing on elegance in architecture and design (such as with the remodeling of the Cabal fleet), and fighting only to preserve peace and happiness and welcome others into their empire rather than just to conquer. He moved the empire’s capital to Torobatl to be closer to the people (it’s likely a city on the home world) and he established athenaeum (basically a library) world’s where the technologies of other species were kept and studied. The Leviathan was made during these days of splendor in the image of a supposedly mythical creature called a landwhale. During Calus’s rule, the remaining free Psions began rebuilding the OXA Machine that was destroyed during the Cabal’s conquering of their home. This machine could be used to see through space and even time and its reconstruction was directed by the Psion Otzot. The Cabal moved to destroy the OXA and eliminate the Psions, but Calus instead applauded Otzot and offered the free Psions a place in the empire. But that’s Calus’s side of the story. According to Ghaul and his followers, including Calus’s own daughter and closest officials, the Emperor’s gluttony and greed were leading the Cabal to ruin. Several times it is made obvious that there is fear of the empire being crushed by outside forces due to the lack of military focus, as well as accusations of Calus destroying their society. While we have no solid evidence of what the conditions actually were during Calus’s rule, I have to admit that keeping the population fattened up and dumb on parties isn’t a good move. Anyway, Calus eventually noticed Ghaul as the champion pit fighter (a very popular, gladiator style one-on-one fight, again following the Roman theme). These pit fights had probably been going on for generations before Calus was in charge, and stayed even with all the other changes he made, likely because Calus has always enjoyed the task of finding special warriors with unmatched skills. He took the albino warrior under his wing and gave him the rank of Primus of the Red Legion, completely unaware that he had been raised by Consul for this exact purpose. Ghaul’s coup came and Calus was exiled aboard his Leviathan, where he spent at least a half a century drifting to the edge of the universe. He encountered the “black shelf”, which is supposedly the Darkness closing in to destroy all existence. This encounter allowed Calus to regain control of his cruiser and apparently gave him newfound power as well as the desire to live the last of his days to the fullest, so he began traveling through the universe in search of luxury and warriors to kill Ghaul and the conspirators. Meanwhile, Ghaul remilitarized the Cabal but kept the population ignorant of his coup and changes by maintaining the public happiness. The contents of the athenaeum world’s were either neglected or put into combat use, and all the military equipment (weapons, vehicles, etc) was reverted to the crude, tactical design of the Cabal war machine. Alien technology and knowledge became neglected as well as the arts. The empire grew once more through Ghaul’s conquest as well as the Red Legion‘s reputation and power. It’s possible that this was the time the Almighty was created, but it could have been made earlier. Ghaul destroyed entire solar systems in his conquest, and as he traveled the universe he began to study the Light and the Traveler. He became obsessed with its power and sought it out, eventually finding Earth and coming to claim it for his own. It’s not clear if the Skyburner fleet was sent to Earth before or after the coup, or if they came with beforehand knowledge of the Traveler’s presence. It was in the days right before the Red Legion was deployed to Earth that Calus’s Shadows began their assassinations on Ghaul’s conspirators, and the attempt on Ghaul’s life was committed as the Red Legion fleet was gathering outside of the Sol system. It is because Calus was following Ghaul that the Leviathan ended up in the Sol system. After Ghaul’s death at the hands of our Guardian, Calus moved in to Nessus and began trying to collect us as a Shadow. The Red Legion is still present, but has been beaten down to the point that they are no longer a dire threat. The Cabal’s history is pretty simple and consistent throughout the years, with the exception of Calus’s rule, but they have still played a pivotal role in the universe of Destiny. [b]Biology:[/b] The Cabal are large and stout-boned, built for physical strength and to endure heavy punishment from enemies as well as the greater air pressure of their home world. Cabal don’t start very big but can grow huge if healthy and muscular, and some naturally grow larger than others (Colossus and Gladiators) due to what may be a recessive gene. We know their world has greater pressure because Oryx speaks to the Taken Primus Ta’aun of how Mars’s air would suck their guts out of their face (if they had lower pressure they would be crushed instead). The Cabal’s armor and its Pressure Gel allow them to survive in a wide range of gravities and pressures as well as move freely even when they should be crushed. (Another impressive note is that their weapons are able to adjust to different gravity as well, allowing for accurate shooting no matter the conditions) It’s been made clear that Earth’s atmosphere is hostile to the Cabal, so everyone keep in mind that Consul shouldn’t be able to survive and maybe not even breathe without his helmet (we don’t know what gases they need to breathe). He’s only helmetless for character design to make him look unique. Ghaul is possibly excusable since only part of his head can explode, but only if the Cabal body is tough enough to keep his eyeballs from popping out of his head. We know from some more recent (and more naked) Cabal art that they actually have clawed hands (curled and blunt, like a space turtle’s) and feet and visibly thick hide (like space rhinos). Now, get ready to have your minds blown. Cabal. Seem to have. Tusks. Only two confirmed female Cabal have appeared in lore, and both have been illustrated. The princess Caiatl and the general Umun-arath. I examined the images very closely to be sure they weren’t just armor decoration, and sure enough, they appear to be connected to the face (like a space elephant). Intrigued by this, I remembered that Calus listed several Cabal celebrations when speaking of Moli in the Cabal Booklet. Sure enough, one of those listed was the “Tusking Challenges”. So I looked closely at males like Consul as well as just any image of typical troops that had gotten their helmets shot off. They all have a lot of extra skin to the sides of the mouth where the tusks were on the females, and on top of that it looks scarred. It is very possible that the males participate in the Tusking Challenges and lose them as part of the trial. Either that or only females have tusks. Check out my Archive for more lore as well as some fanfiction: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/217384398/0/0