Bungie recently launched its 13th season of Destiny 2, “The Season of the Chosen,” and it’s jam-packed with new missions, gear, and stories to discover. Season 13 revolves around Empress Caiatl, the daughter of the dethroned Emperor Calus, who has arrived to find out what happened to her father and battle the Hive.
The new season of Destiny 2 features one of the darkest stories ever told in the game’s history: the Presage mission. Presage is a new exotic quest that has players investigate a distress signal from a ship, the Glykon Volatus, that has been overrun with the Darkness. In return for help, the player is promised an exotic Scout Rifle appropriately called Dead Man’s Tale. The entire quest is unsettling, but it’s also some of the best storytelling Destiny 2 has offered in the past four years. The story of what happened aboard the Glykon is dark, both literally and figuratively, and has left players feeling eager for more content with a similar tone.
The Story Behind the Presage Exotic Quest
The main players in the Presage story are Katabasis, a Guardian Hunter, his Ghost Gilgamesh, and the disgraced Emperor Calus. The Emperor had previously made a deal with the Darkness that would see him saturated with power, essentially making him a god. However, the Darkness never made good on its promise to Calus. Frustrated, the Emperor devised a plan to contact the Darkness and remind it of what he was owed.
Katabasis was recruited by Emperor Calus to help steal the Glykon Volatus, a Cabal warship, and bring it to the Reef. Under Calus’ orders, he and Bahr’Toran, a Cabal centurion, then ventured out to capture Scorn and hold them in the Glykon to be experimented on. Katabasis originally believed that the Emperor’s plan was to recapture Torabatl, the Cabal home world, but instead he planned to use the combination of Darkness found within the Scorn and power from the Crown of Sorrow to contact the Darkness itself. Qinziq, a Psion officer, helped by conducting most of the experiments on the Scorn.
Meanwhile, Gilgamesh frequently wandered from Katabasis’ side, exploring the Glykon independently and talking to the Scorn. Slowly, the Ghost is corrupted by the Darkness. He raised suspicion among the crew several times, but not even Katabasis realized what was truly happening.
Emperor Calus Communes with the Darkness
When Calus arrived to begin the ritual, he brought the Crown of Sorrow with him. The Crown of Sorrow is a powerful artifact with the ability to connect the wearer’s mind to the Hive. Despite being dangerous and known to cause insanity, the Emperor was determined to see the Darkness fulfill its promise to him and felt he needed the Crown to do it. Interestingly, the ship’s occupants are some of the only characters who have seen Calus in his true form; the Emperor keeps himself concealed and typically sends robots in his place so that no one knows how weak he really is. The godlike strength promised to him by the Darkness is something he desperately needs.
Using the Crown and the Darkness within the Scorn, Emperor Calus tried to communicate with the Darkness. His first attempt failed and sees the Glykon infiltrated with Darkness; the strange plant growths inside the ship are the unfortunate result of this first attempt. In his second attempt, the Glykon was sucked into a dimension of darkness that caused the Scorn to be released. Calus disappeared and hasn’t been seen since. It remains unknown whether Calus managed to successfully remind the Darkness of their deal, or if he was killed trying.
Katabasis, Gilgamesh, Bahr’Toran, and Qinziq are the only ones to stand against the Glykon’s descent into Darkness. Tragically, they were unsuccessful. Katabasis has Light on his side, but it wasn’t enough against the swarms of Scorn. While Qinziq managed to get the Glykon back to the correct dimension, she died soon after, and the ship ultimately fell into the hands of the Scorn. The Scorn on the Glykon are led by one particularly powerful Scorn, known as the Locus of Communion. Little is known about the Locus, but it’s likely that he was saddled with bearing the Crown of Sorrow during Calus and Qinziq’s experiments.
The Tragic Fate of Katabasis and Gilgamesh
When the Glykon was smothered in Darkness, Katabasis was able to hide, but he was unable to escape the ship and eventually dies—only to be resurrected by Gilgamesh. The Ghost attempted to persuade Katabasis to sever his connection with the Light and join the Darkness, where he claimed they will find true salvation. If Katabasis refused, Gilgamesh swore to keep reviving him until he agreed.
The Guardian saw that his Ghost had been corrupted by the Darkness and is forced to shoot him, or else be destroyed by the Scorn and resurrected in an endless loop. In killing Gilgamesh, his Ghost, Katabasis knew he was condemning himself to death aboard the Glykon. Alone on a ship dominated by Darkness and without Gilgamesh to revive him, the odds were not in his favor.
In one final act of desperation, Katabasis sent out a distress signal that promised his rifle to anyone who could help, but it went unanswered for too long and he met his end on the Glykon before the player is able to get there. There is no happy ending to the Presage mission; the player finds Katabasis’ lifeless body strung up by tendrils of Darkness.
However, the entire mission is not for nothing. Although there is no way to extract the Guardian, players are still able to obtain Dead Man’s Tale, the exotic Scout Rifle Katabasis promised in his distress signal. The story also sheds some light on what might have happened to Emperor Calus, information that Caiatl will be interested in.
The Presage mission is creepy to play through, but understanding the story behind it adds a whole new layer of darkness and tragedy. It also comes with huge potential story ramifications. What happened to Emperor Calus, and where is he now? The Emperor is a critical figure in Destiny 2, and his fate will surely be discovered in later seasons as fans get closer to coming face to face with the Darkness.
Destiny 2 and its 13th season, “The Season of the Chosen” are available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
