Hey, how's everybody's week been? Mine has been pretty great, with moving back into college, getting snowed in my dorm with practically nothing to do, classes starting again with shenanigans abound. I certainly missed the friends, the laughs, and the debates. Ah, college debates. Nowhere else can you find a conversation filled with pseudo-intellectualism and ill-conceived rhetoric. I had one such debate with a friend of mine just a few days ago about the game Destiny and space magic.
For those of you who don't know, Destiny is a MMOFPS (massively mutliplayer online first person shooter), set in the long years after the Collapse of humanity's Golden Age. This period of great advancement, peace, and exploration was brought on by a mysterious celestial object known as the Traveler. Now, the Traveler helped out humanity with all this growth and development, but it also brought behind it the Darkness, an onslaught of alien races bound and determined to destroy the Traveler and the humans in it's care. In a last ditch effort to save mankind, the Traveler used the last of its life-force, Light, to create Ghosts. These Ghosts (little NAV robot eyes) would search for the bodies of long dead warriors who could wield Light as a weapon, and revive them as Guardians.
That's just the back story for the why everything has turned to sh-- in this world, and offers up why the player can perform cool abilities and come back to life after getting beaten, shot, stabbed, crushed, scorched, and when they accidentally fall off the map. It also allows for some melodramatic lines about pushing the Darkness back and bringing the Light to places.
By now, you're probably thinking "that's nice and all JD, but you mentioned 'space magic' like a paragraph ago and have yet to bring it up again, you know that's what I fixated on in the title, just get to it already." Whether you thought that or not, I'm going to assume you did. The weird thing about Destiny is that it looks like science fiction game -space ships, aliens, guns, robot people, and what have you- but it's actually not. That's right, Destiny is a space fantasy. Before you start think about Legolas as an astronaut or yelling at your screen that I still haven't mention space magic though, let's get into the space magic.
For the fighter- and rogue-style class in Destiny (Titans and Hunters, respectively), the abilities seem pretty much sci-fi. Throwing knives, grenades, dome shields, and explosions all the fit the bill of super-science stuff, and I'll concede that. That's where space magic comes into play. The third class is the Warlock, or the magic user class, and they use magic. Like, straight up magic. they fly around the battlefield, throw grenades that are essentially just fireballs or lances of energy, and channel thunderstorms or the Sun to wreak havoc and destruction on their foes. The official explanation for how they do this almost perfectly mirrors that of a Dungeons & Dragons wizard! A Warlock studies the Traveler to master its arcane energies (arcane meaning magical), and a wizard studies magical tomes for their knowledge, pulling from arcane sources to cast spells. And if you still don't believe me, then believe Bungie (the company that made the game), who said the Warlock is meant to be a "space wizard" like a Jedi or Gandalf.
But one wizard a fantasy does not make. There are still some other things that must be proven before we can conclude whether Destiny is in fact space fantasy. Like classic fantasy enemies: orcs, pirates, necromancers, evil dark princes, cults, and things of a similar nature. These can all be found in Destiny, just with a space twist on them. The Fallen are essentially pirates, with enemies called Captains, Vandals, Sharks. The Hive fit the bill of space necromancers, with the sickening green aesthetic, Thrall, Ogres, and Wizards (never mind the fact that they try to revive the soul of their old leader). The Cabal take on the role of the Orc, an army of strong and brutish warriors that always run forward and die faster than you'd think. The Vex, while robots, do worship the Black Heart with a cult-ish fervor, and make up for their robot-ness with names like Goblins, Minotaurs, Hydras, Harpies, and Hobgoblins. As for evil dark lords, Oryx the Taken King has got all the traditional characteristics: massive fortress, bat wings and horns, a twisted looking sword, and a title like the Taken King.
While I could go down the excessively long list of similarities between Destiny and the standard fantasy setting, that would take too long and even wouldn't read it, let alone write it, so instead I'm going to jump straight to the last point I'd like to make: the difference between science fiction and fantasy. In both genres, amazing and fantastical things happen, but what causes them is the differentiating aspect. Sci-fi uses super advanced technology (and mediocre science) to explain it's wondrous events, while fantasy throws magic at every problem like it's duct tape. So, what does Destiny do? There is never any scientific explanation for how a robot can summon a gun made from the Sun's light, or how a human can temporarily shut down gravity around themselves to float up and hurl an explosive bolt of space energy at the ground. It's just written off as the powers of Light, and given no second glance.
In the end, this whole space fantasy isn't a new concept, and it's been done time and time again, but it's the first time in my experience that space fantasy has been the basis of a best-selling video game. Sure, Destiny has some problems like it's really repetitive and forces you to interact with other humans (even though grinding and whoring for teammates is a stock and standard of the MMO genre), but it's nice to know that space fantasies are finally getting their turn in the spotlight. Could this turn into the advent of a new age of movies, games, and books? We shall see.
For those of you who don't know, Destiny is a MMOFPS (massively mutliplayer online first person shooter), set in the long years after the Collapse of humanity's Golden Age. This period of great advancement, peace, and exploration was brought on by a mysterious celestial object known as the Traveler. Now, the Traveler helped out humanity with all this growth and development, but it also brought behind it the Darkness, an onslaught of alien races bound and determined to destroy the Traveler and the humans in it's care. In a last ditch effort to save mankind, the Traveler used the last of its life-force, Light, to create Ghosts. These Ghosts (little NAV robot eyes) would search for the bodies of long dead warriors who could wield Light as a weapon, and revive them as Guardians.
That's just the back story for the why everything has turned to sh-- in this world, and offers up why the player can perform cool abilities and come back to life after getting beaten, shot, stabbed, crushed, scorched, and when they accidentally fall off the map. It also allows for some melodramatic lines about pushing the Darkness back and bringing the Light to places.
By now, you're probably thinking "that's nice and all JD, but you mentioned 'space magic' like a paragraph ago and have yet to bring it up again, you know that's what I fixated on in the title, just get to it already." Whether you thought that or not, I'm going to assume you did. The weird thing about Destiny is that it looks like science fiction game -space ships, aliens, guns, robot people, and what have you- but it's actually not. That's right, Destiny is a space fantasy. Before you start think about Legolas as an astronaut or yelling at your screen that I still haven't mention space magic though, let's get into the space magic.
For the fighter- and rogue-style class in Destiny (Titans and Hunters, respectively), the abilities seem pretty much sci-fi. Throwing knives, grenades, dome shields, and explosions all the fit the bill of super-science stuff, and I'll concede that. That's where space magic comes into play. The third class is the Warlock, or the magic user class, and they use magic. Like, straight up magic. they fly around the battlefield, throw grenades that are essentially just fireballs or lances of energy, and channel thunderstorms or the Sun to wreak havoc and destruction on their foes. The official explanation for how they do this almost perfectly mirrors that of a Dungeons & Dragons wizard! A Warlock studies the Traveler to master its arcane energies (arcane meaning magical), and a wizard studies magical tomes for their knowledge, pulling from arcane sources to cast spells. And if you still don't believe me, then believe Bungie (the company that made the game), who said the Warlock is meant to be a "space wizard" like a Jedi or Gandalf.
But one wizard a fantasy does not make. There are still some other things that must be proven before we can conclude whether Destiny is in fact space fantasy. Like classic fantasy enemies: orcs, pirates, necromancers, evil dark princes, cults, and things of a similar nature. These can all be found in Destiny, just with a space twist on them. The Fallen are essentially pirates, with enemies called Captains, Vandals, Sharks. The Hive fit the bill of space necromancers, with the sickening green aesthetic, Thrall, Ogres, and Wizards (never mind the fact that they try to revive the soul of their old leader). The Cabal take on the role of the Orc, an army of strong and brutish warriors that always run forward and die faster than you'd think. The Vex, while robots, do worship the Black Heart with a cult-ish fervor, and make up for their robot-ness with names like Goblins, Minotaurs, Hydras, Harpies, and Hobgoblins. As for evil dark lords, Oryx the Taken King has got all the traditional characteristics: massive fortress, bat wings and horns, a twisted looking sword, and a title like the Taken King.
While I could go down the excessively long list of similarities between Destiny and the standard fantasy setting, that would take too long and even wouldn't read it, let alone write it, so instead I'm going to jump straight to the last point I'd like to make: the difference between science fiction and fantasy. In both genres, amazing and fantastical things happen, but what causes them is the differentiating aspect. Sci-fi uses super advanced technology (and mediocre science) to explain it's wondrous events, while fantasy throws magic at every problem like it's duct tape. So, what does Destiny do? There is never any scientific explanation for how a robot can summon a gun made from the Sun's light, or how a human can temporarily shut down gravity around themselves to float up and hurl an explosive bolt of space energy at the ground. It's just written off as the powers of Light, and given no second glance.
In the end, this whole space fantasy isn't a new concept, and it's been done time and time again, but it's the first time in my experience that space fantasy has been the basis of a best-selling video game. Sure, Destiny has some problems like it's really repetitive and forces you to interact with other humans (even though grinding and whoring for teammates is a stock and standard of the MMO genre), but it's nice to know that space fantasies are finally getting their turn in the spotlight. Could this turn into the advent of a new age of movies, games, and books? We shall see.
Space magic.
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