It’s that time once again. Destiny 2 has launched a new season. This particular one is the last one players will receive before the next major expansion drops: Lightfall. This season will carry players through December and January up to Lightfall’s release in February 2023.
We’ll also still see the usual Dawning Festival, Destiny’s Christmas themed festival that drops around the holidays and includes baking various sweet treats for the vendors and NPC’s of the tower and other locations. To be completely honest, I’ve never really been that bothered to really engage with it, as the rewards only really range from themed Sparrows to Ghost shells. Not really worth my time as I have so many to choose from already and I’m a creature of habit who tends to stick with one I like.
Back to the main reason for this piece though, the new season!
As predicted by many YouTubers, bloggers and Destiny 2 lore-masters, the new season; Season of the Seraph focuses on Rasputin, the Warmind. For those not in the know about who that is allow me to give you a quick rundown on Rasputin, The Big Red, The Tyrant.
Rasputin is an advanced AI designed by mankind originally to aid space missions to Mars during Destiny’s history. During the ‘Golden Age’ mankind had managed to stretch out and begin colonising the galaxy, with Rasputin under the control of the Clovis Bay institute. They redesigned Rasputin to be a defense system for mankind, should it ever face alien threats.
To achieve this it required having multiple satellites launched into the solar system, all under Rasputin’s control. Each of these Warsats were armed to the teeth with various forms of defensive capabilities, turning each one into a mobile weapons platform. To allow Rasputin to monitor all these Warsats and still aid mankind in exploration and technological advancements, it split its AI mind into various Subminds, each a copy of his own program, but dedicated to fulfilling a different task. Each Submind were housed in their own bunker and placed in different locations throughout the galaxy.
Fast forward to what is called ‘The Collapse’, a time when the shit REALLY hit the fan. Mankind was attacked by the Darkness. The big bad of the Destiny universe. Mankind was nearly wiped out, but the Traveller arrived and sent the Darkness retreating. “But Lance, what about Rasputin?” I hear you cry. Well, being as advanced as he is, he discovered the Darkness approaching Earth long before it did and ran numerous simulations in which every single one he was unsuccessful in stopping the Darkness. As a result he went dark. Taking himself offline and hoping this would stop his technology being used by the Darkness against mankind. Then, once the Traveller arrived and began creating Guardians, Rasputin, distrustful of the Traveller, sent out an Exo (robot frames with the minds of humans) to interact with humans and Guardians and assess whether the Traveller was a threat or not.
However, this Exo was killed and resurrected as a Guardian. Angered by his ‘son’ being taken by the light, Rasputin created SIVA and tricked his old Exo and the group he now belonged to, The Iron Lords, into one of his bunkers under the promise of new technology. Rasputin then wiped them all out. Being the complicated soul that he is, Rasputin regretted this and faked his own death to ease the mind of others that he was still a threat. This worked for a time, until mankind discovered he was still alive and operating in secret. Follow many attempts to ask him to join the fight against the return of the Darkness, he resisted believing that as he couldn’t help before, he couldn’t help now.
However the player reactivates a relay station, putting Rasputin back in contact and control of all the remaining Warsats. During the entire length of the Destiny games from 1 & 2 many enemies have attempted to gain control of Rasputin, the most recent being the Hive in the Beyond Light DLC. With the destruction of the Hive threat, Rasputin finally permitted Ana Bray, Commander Zavala, and the player to enter his core and gain an audience with him. He announced that he would no longer allow his purpose to be dictated by other parties and that he would once more watch over our system and protect it from harm, but on his own terms. As proof of his intent, he launched a new network of Warsats, under his sole command. All was well, until recently.
Following the arrival of the Pyramid ships in our galaxy (The Darkness’ fleet) Rasputin attempted to attack them with his Warsats. It doesn’t work. In fact it goes so badly that Rasputin craps his pants and tries to shutdown again. Only this time, the Darkness attacked his systems in his moment of vulnerability, forcing Ana Bray to download what was left of his code into an engram.
That brings us finally, to the new season, Season of the Seraph. We discover that since Ana downloaded his consciousness to an engram, she’s been building him an Exo body. With the help of Osiris and us, she plans to place Rasputin into the Exo, but needs to fill in the blanks of his programming, by seeking out his Subminds (remember, the other versions of him, mentioned earlier?) and use them to plug the gaps in his program. One slight hitch though: Xivu Arath. The Hive sister of Oryx and Savathun (who we recently fought in the Witch Queen DLC) has got wind of Ana’s plan, and wants Rasputin for herself. That’s where we fit in as players. It’s our task this season to fight off Hive and recover fragments of Rasputin from his Submind bunkers. Along the way unlocking new armour and weapons that Rasputin had developed in secret.
So, there you have it. A ‘brief’ Rasputin lore rundown and description of this season’s story, and trust me, that’s brief, he has a LOT of lore.
The repeatable activity this time around, is actually pretty fun. It’s been quite a while since we’ve had the opportunity to run around inside Warmind bunkers and use the Ikelos weapons so this actually feels fresh. The new armour has an awesome new aesthetic and the newly reworked Ikelos weapons feel powerful and worth using. There are new Exotic weapons and some well hidden secrets and puzzles that we still don’t have answers for yet. Overall, a good season at this point; I approve. Much better than others we’ve had this year and I will be ranking the best and worst seasons in an article, just after Christmas, before the launch of Lightfall so keep your eyes peeled for that.
Written by Lance.
Edited by Alexx.