Okay, so it should be no surprise to any of my followers that I love the Cabal. The common census is that the Red Legion are traitors to the Empire and while I can understand the sentiment, I personally disagree and here’s why.
The two things to keep in mind are loyalty to the leader and fear of exile.
The Broken Legion disobeyed direct orders and got exiled, classed as enemies to the Empire, and were basically made an example of why you always obey your superiors no matter what.
So the Cabal on Mars. We don’t know why they’re here but I can pinpoint when they arrived. Destiny’s timeline has no concrete dates but we can confirm that the Cabal on Mars were deployed during Calus’s reign.
How do we know this? Simple. One of the early grimoire cards for the Cabal is a Ghost’s recollection of hiding in a Cabal outpost where they say it feels like the cabal are running from something.
For all their might and strength, for all that they have dug into Mars and flung up battle walls with the bureaucratic grimness of conquerors, I suspect they are fleeing from something. That within their hard shells and thousand-folded shields is a sharp seed of terror. But of what? Does something follow them? Should we fear it too?
The card “Ghost fragment: cabal” talks about disputes between Cabal, some pledging allegiance some not.
We can dismiss these are low morale troops questioning their superiors, or, we could take it as a hint of foreshadowing.
Ghaul replacing Calus as leader has some big ramifications that would make their way to the troops and here is where we see the Cabal arguing, here is where we see the seed of terror.
It’s only out on the front line, far from home, where they can safely voice their dissatisfaction with the change in power and the change in leadership style. Calus as far as we can tell is like by his people while Ghaul rules by fear.
This leads to the Red Legion.
Imagine you’re a soldier, the leader of your country is a tyrant ruling by fear from a position taken illegally. You cannot voice opposition to him because your commander is with them. You voice opposition and you risk being deemed a traitor, the worst possible crime. What do you do?
If it was just you, maybe you’d be brave enough to stand up. But what about your friends? Your family? If you’re classed a traitor what will happen to them?
So you bide your time. You hate the commanders and you sense everyone else is in agreement with you but you don’t dare stand up. It goes against everything you’ve had ingrained into you from childhood.
Your loyalties don’t lay with the current leader but you have to follow to survive.
The Red legion are not loyal to Ghaul, they only fight for him because of social conditioning and fear. Their true loyalties lay with Calus and how do we know this?
After Ghaul dies the Red Legion get a message from Calus, it’s the mission where we learn that he wants Nessus ground up for a drink. The Legion oblige without hesitation. He is their leader, it’s with him their true loyalties lay.
Those on Mars know this, they may not agree but when you’re so far isolated from the issue it’s easy. You’re on the outside looking in. When the Red Legion breaks and crumbles, they know they need to keep fighting. Because those on Mars understand why the Legion acted as they did, they don’t see the Legion as traitors. Some do, many don’t.
Those on Mars had to follow Ghauls orders too, they know what it’s like to follow a false leader. This is why I think the Red Legion would be welcome into the folds of the martian soldiers.
Okay, so, I hit up destinypedia for the first time since d2 dropped for the new lore on the cabal. I’ll break this ask up into sections.
Firstly, the Cabal and Psions aren’t the only two races in the empire. The number of species in the empire is supposedly “beyond reckoning” but the reference link doesn’t exist so oof. We know there are the Cabal, Psions, then a third race that got mentioned briefly in passing once in flavour text and never again because Bungie are cowards and weak.
Secondly, I hate that we haven’t been given the cabal’s proper name. Am I the only one to be annoyed with this? They cannot call themselves the Cabal, they simple cannot. And if Bungies tries to tell me they are, they are objectively wrong and are welcome to fuck right off with that shit.
Thirdly, to get to the ask, these are all canon unless I state otherwise because Bungie couldn’t write good the Cabal well if they were given the writing on those sheets you give children to trace over letters.
Psions originally didn’t have much in the way of any religious beliefs. Some societies may have had some superstitions but nothing really in the form of organised religions. In their early days, sure maybe they had some religious beliefs, but I think those would have been shrugged off with the creation of the OXA machine, a clairvoyant device.
The Cabal themselves, many deities. Lots of them. Maybe not as many as ancient Rome but still, more than one. Destiny Lore states that in Cabal mythology the first Emperor allegedly took the sun, his name is Acrius by the way.
Since this is mythology in Destiny lore, something that is accurate until it is inconvenient, I’ll do you a favour and say this is fact. This is Cabal Mythology. The story got embellished, I don’t know how, but the myths around Acrius are based to some extent on true historical events. He is their big daddy god.
Acrius would be the god of prosperity for the empire as a whole. There’d be separate deities for things like childbirth, war, crops, etc. With the introduction of more species in the Empire, there are likely more religious beliefs which have mingled and changed Cabal religion itself.
Much like we have multiple religions, the Cabal Empire has the same with some funky fusions of their religions where things seem to fit.
Guess what? Because you’re awesome and put up with me bitching about Bungie and mostly seriously talking about claiming the Cabal as my own, you get some extra good shit.
The Tusking Ceremonies. What are they? Nobody knows.
Syke!
I’ll tell you what they are!
Much like christmas it’s origins were religious but has since grown into more of a celebration than a purely religious affair. Unlike christmas it’s not the birthday of a man who was nailed to a cross for talking about how nice it would be if people weren’t dicks to each other.
The Tusking Ceremonies were originally a celebration of the Cabal’s strongest women and this was done by a sort of gladiatorial combat where contenders would fight without weapons. These fights would normally be non-fatal, but injuries weren’t uncommon. Women could also challenge women to fights to the death if they felt it was necessary. E.G. A woman thinking they could do a better job than Umun'arath could challenge her to a fight to the death over it.
The Ceremony was not only a celebration of strength, and sometimes a bloody way of settling disputes (if the Emperor allowed the fight), but a celebration in honour of whichever deity(ies) the Empire believes gives them strength, or possibly even to Acrius himself. But yes, the Tusking Ceremonies are specifically for women since they’re the only ones who have tusks and it would be silly for the tuskless men to participate in the Tusking Ceremonies.
I hope this is what you wanted, thank you for asking, and stay awesome.
So, to fully understand the Bone Crushers you need to understand the standard operating procedures for the Empire’s territory acquisition.
On Mars the largest Legion is the Sand Eaters. The Dust Giants are, according to destinypedia, a subdivision of this legion. To that I say no, they were a subdivision. Since their founding the Dust Giants have become their own Legion.
Amongst the Dust Giants is a subdivision called the Siege Dancers. These yellow and blue beauties are basically storm troopers whose job is to secure new territory and erect fortifications.
So on Mars the Cabal’s procedure is pretty straight forward. Sand Eaters defend the area calling in for Dust Giants when they need back up. When lines have been lost or an opportunity arises, the Seige Dancers will go forward and reclaim lost or new ground. Though in the time period between the Taken King and the Red Legion arriving, I can see this happening less with the Cabal’s reduced numbers, with the Seige Dancers helping hold positions rather than fortify new ones.
The tl;dr is that basically the Cabal have an assault group that goes and gets ground and fortifies, and a defensive group who holds these positions.
However, not all combat is in open spaces like Mars, and this is where the Bone Crushers come in.
The Bone Crushers are a specially trained Legion for fighting in urban and heavily built areas. They would rely less on vehicles like interceptors and tanks because of how much of a target the can be for ambushes. For example, if a column of tanks is advancing up a road in a city and the leading one is destroyed, that kinda clogs up the road a bit. And this is assuming the roads are big enough for these vehicles. Instead they often work on foot and use vehicles like the one on the right (please ask me about them because I won’t go into details here to save time).
But yes, the Bone Crushers are specialised Legion for fighting and securing built up areas. I will give you more when it comes.
Cabal troops get to send messages home. These personal messages are collected and then regularly sent back to the Empire. These messages get scanned before being sent to the recipients.
The recipients are usually family (or the closest cabal equivalent since im still working out my hc for that stuff) or friends.
This post, like many, is an opinion piece. I will back up claims and ideas where I can and I’d suggest people who disagree to respond with sources and reasons too.
To be blunt, the Cabal have been poorly portrayed.
From the description we are given when we first land on Mars we’re expecting trouble.
“No one gets through their Exclusion Zone.”
This is followed by us repeatedly wandering around their Exclusion Zone, Vex running rampant on the front lines, and later the broken and desperate remains of the House of Wolves getting pretty far into the Zone with seemingly little difficulty.
“Here's what I have on the Cabal: 800 pounds and highly militarized. They blow up planets and moons just for getting in their way. Just so you know what we're dealing with.”
This in particular and the Ghosts desire to avoid direct conflict gives the impression that you don’t want to fuck with these guys.
We, of course, proceed to lay them all out with no particular difficulties.
Yes, we are a Guardian and are substantially harder to permanently kill than anything else, but it seems to take the piss. I understand the balance necessary between making things challenging for the player but not too challenging to exclude the more casual or less experienced fps player. But throughout Destiny 1 the Cabal are brushed off without as much as a second thought.
Bungie wants us to believe that a highly militarised army can be outmanoeuvred by a much smaller, less organised, force?
I am, of course, talking about House of Wolves. After the capture of Skolas and the collapse of the House of Wolves, survivors flee to Mars. Bare in mind that the Eliksni are most likely malnourished to an extent with a shortage of Ether.
Those who made it to Mars were desperate, unorganised, and possibly fatigued from lack of nutrition. But we are expected to believe they drove the Cabal out of the Iron Line and were able to hold it?
Sure, the Cabal have Vex to worry about as well as Guardians, but the fact that we have to go out and destroy the remains of the Wolves is to me, a piss take.
It feels as if the game is telling us that the Cabal are not competent enough to deal with a small group of enemies invading their territory.
Yet, only months later we’re expected to believe that a Cabal bulkhead has been formed on the Dreadnought and the Cabal didn’t collapse under the Hive immediately?
This narrative we’re given is inconsistent. They’re either highly militarised and a dangerous force which are competent and capable enough to hold territory, or they’re not. You can’t have it both ways.
In Destiny 2, I feel it gets worse.
Bare in mind that I was excited as all balls when I heard the general plot for the vanilla. The Cabal attacking the City was a great premise and was a logical step for them to take.
After all, if they can find out where we’re all coming from and they can kill us at the source, then that’s a benefit to the Cabal Empire. I believe I have spoken before about the Cabal’s desire to obtain methods of permanently killing Guardians. If I haven’t please let me know and I can rectify this.
I was so excited for the Cabal to be the forefront of D2 that I bought the collectors edition for the additional lore.
This is where it starts to go downhill.
The idea of Ghaul being the result of a coup that went out of control is great. The motives behind Calus’s usurping made sense and the idea intrigued me. I hoped this would be the start of an arc surrounding the Cabal Empire.
Live in hope, die in poverty. The phrase fits well here.
My biggest issue is with Ghaul himself. Setting aside the deus ex machina that allows him to speak perfect English, there is one outstanding flaw in his character.
He thinks the Traveller’s Light belongs to him.
I have combed the Ishtar Collective website for any mention of the Cabal being aware of the Traveller and have found nothing.
There is no mention of the Cabal being aware of the Traveller’s existence, so how has Ghaul been brought up to believe it belongs to him?
The answer of course, is poor story telling. There’s no explanation as to why the technology to trap the Traveller and its Light works, no explanation as to how Ghaul knows of the Traveller, no explanation, and no indication they know it exists.
This gave me whiplash.
The closest we can get to Bungies conclusion is that after the Flayers learn of the Hive’s “unconventional counter-Dead Person capability“ they learn about Light and the Traveller on the Dreadnought. But there is no clear indication of this happening.
A more logical plot for the Cabal and the City would be that they raze it to the ground.
Ghost fragment: Cabal 4 is possibly one of my favourite grimoire cards of Destiny 1.
A series of Skyburner reports on activities on Mars. These reports often mention Guardians and “Dead persons” and offer possible methods of countering the Guardians anti-attrition capabilities.
The first theory suggested is saturated bombing, however the Gurdians refusal to gather in large groups and ability to transmat frequently hinders the effectiveness this could have.
This information is great because it gives a reason as to why the Cabal may attack the City.
Larger groups of Guardians in one place and, with the element of surprise, the chances of a significant number of Guardians transmatting away is reduced.
Now obviously, the Cabal could just destroy the whole planet and the result would be the same, but as a game this would be bad. as it would be a large and significant change that would affect the game depending how far into it you had gotten.
To bring this back to my earlier point, there seems to be no explanation as to why Ghaul thinks the Traveller and Light belong to him when there’s no evidence indicating they know Light exists.
This leads to my second issue with the Cabal’s portrayal in Destiny 2.
The Red Legion’s technology should be better than the Cabal we fought in D1.
You would have thought that a group who are new here would be better equipped than a group who have been here for 300 years. Except they’re not.
In D1, the phalanxes shield was pretty much impenetrable. you take a weapon that doesn’t do explosive or armour penetration damage and you shoot the shield and nothing gives.
In D2, they’ve conveniently switched to energy shields with a big old weak spot lit up and easy for the enemy to exploit. The Incendiors are embarrassing too. You would’ve thought that a highly militarised force would know not to leave an exposed and lightly protected canister of highly flammable chemicals on their back where it could get hit.
Yes, the Incendiors are a cool idea but the weaknesses stand out like a sore thumb. This super advanced highly militarised army can’t even cover weak spots in their own equipment, yet are supposed to be better than the ground troops we fought in d1?
This actually brings me to the third and final point.
What the fuck happened to the Cabal on Mars?
Did Bungie forget they were there? Did Bungie forget the Cabal had an interest in the Warminds?
The Red Legion turned up and did their thing but there’s no involvement of other Legions? Did the Red Legion redeploy after they lost the City to support the weakened Martian fronts? No idea. This is something I wish to talk about in a later post.
And while we’re on the topic of Cabal on Mars, and because I am still absolutely bitter about this, I would like to know who exactly thought making the Hive the main enemy in Warminds was and I would like a clear, concise, bullshit free explanation as to why the Hive were there and not the Cabal.
This post has been pretty rant filled and has digressed. But to summarise, a lack of continuity has plagued the Cabal from Vanilla of Destiny 1,whether this has been in their proficiency or their motives.
Bungie, amongst other things, needs to keep their story line and their world building in check and give reasons or at the very least, clues and cow tools as to why things happen, otherwise you end up with messes like the Cabal.
Let’s talk logistics. Where are the Cabal coming from?Before I begin I will point out I am not going to tell you how far away, or where, the cabal empire is based. This information is unavailable.
What I will do is use a series of assumptions given by what we know to estimate how far away the Cabal are from us.
To do this we need to take into account several factors:
1: The Cabal do not have faster than light travel.
2: Their communications cannot travel faster than the speed of light.
3: The time jumps in the time line are not accurate to the day and there is some leeway.
With these three factors at our disposal, let’s look at what the game tells us.
According to Destinypedia.com, the Red War occurred two years after the events of the Taken King. I am aware, that the statement they give could be interpreted in two ways.
The statement is as follows:
Two years after the Taken War, the Cabal Empire's would respond to the losses suffered at the hands of Guardians by dispatching the Red Legion, led by Ghaul, to launch a major invasion of Earth.
This could mean that it took two years for the message to go out and for the fleet to respond or it took two years for Ghauls fleet to Launch.
Working on the assumption that it took two years for the message to go out and for Ghaul to arrive, we can deduce a simple limitation.
The Cabal can be no more than one lightyear way from our system.
The other alternative, is that it took two years for the message to have reached the Cabal and for them to launch a fleet. Using factor 3, we can safely assume that it is unlikely that Ghaul launched his fleet exactly two years after receiving the message. If we assume that the message took two years to respond then the cabal can be no further than two lightyears away.
Personally, I am more inclined to believe the first interpretation to be correct and would set the cabal to be no further than a lightyear away from our solar system
