The Books of Sorrow and the Taken King’s story

By now, you have probably collected a large number of the 50 calcified fragments if you wish to obtain one of Destiny’s newest exotic weapons, the Touch of Malice. With each calcified fragment, you open up another chapter in the Books of Sorrow, a collection of stories that detail the origin of the Hive and Oryx, the Taken King. In short, the Books read thus:

• The Traveler was once a moon (one of 53) of an enormous planet. This planet and its many moons were homes to many species, one of which was the krill. The krill had lifespans that lasted around a decade, in exchange for a relatively fast rate of evolution. Unfortunately for the krill, a war broke out between them and another (similar) species, and all hope was seemingly lost for the krill. On top of that, the Traveler planned to align every moon to cause an enormous tidal wave that would destroy all life on the planet.
• The three daughters of the king of the krill thus took a ship that penetrated the planet’s surface in an attempt to reach the core, taking the advice of a seemingly dead worm that the king obsessed over. Upon doing so, they met giant worms, likely physical manifestations of the Darkness and thus the intended target of the Traveler’s moon based destruction. These worms persuaded the sisters, and the krill, to host parasites inflicted upon them by the worms in exchange for everlasting life. Thus the Hive came into existence.

• The Traveler soon fled, coming into contact and aiding a species that is likely (but unconfirmed to be) the Fallen. The Hive, now under the control of the worms, wage war to exterminate all other life so that the Hive (or more accurately, the parasites inside them) may continue to live. Naturally, the Hive come into contact with this species that is assumed to be the Fallen and almost wipe them out, causing the Traveler to flee.
• One of the daughters transforms into Oryx as we know him. Soon, Oryx kills one of the worm gods and his sisters and becomes the Taken King, granting him the ability to seize control of living beings. Furthermore, the secrets of death itself are plundered by the Hive, allowing them to essentially have a physical death, and a true death in their own dimension. Death itself powers the greater Hive beings, as lesser Hive (such as Thrall) give tributes of death up the Hive hierarchy.

• Crota inadvertently rips a hole in reality that allow the Vex to invade the Hive royal court. Oryx shows up to destroy the Vex, but not before the Vex simulate Oryx as he was when he was a krill. This simulation is horrified at what Oryx has become, though Oryx is unfazed and takes the Vex. The Hive continue their pursuit of the Traveler.

At this point, the Traveler arrives in our solar system and grants us a Golden Age. It is at this point that the Grimoire alludes to the Traveler attempting to flee again when all hope was lost, if it weren’t for Rasputin’s last ditch effort to protect humanity by turning all of humanity’s weapons on the Traveler to cripple it. This unleashed the Traveler’s Light, the Ghosts, and created the Awoken, explaining why Rasputin and the Awoken (of whom the Prince and the Queen are likely to be alive, though in hiding) are less than cooperative with the Guardians.

So what’s next for Destiny?

The Cabal empire, another extra-solar power, will possibly play a large role in the next chapter of Destiny, as many of it’s commanders have perished but not before sending various messages back to the emperor himself. Perhaps even the Ahamkara (also known as the space dragons), implied to be the counterpart of the Hive worm gods, will receive some more backstory.

However, despite all the problems that The Taken King DLC fixes, the one major problem that remains unaddressed is the lack of any in game way to access the now rich Grimoire. Perhaps a future DLC or update will fix this, but for now the majority of the story is locked behind collectibles and use of the app or website.