Post by TRUE EB0LA on Sept 1, 2016 9:34:39 GMT -5
ALL CREDIT FOR THIS THEORY GOES TO u/Flatnic86
Hello everyone!
Today I’m going to set out on a daring adventure, and try to make some sense of where our beloved Last City on Earth, might have some of it’s roots planted in real life. This is not a theory claiming to reveal the location of the Last City, I’m only trying to shine some light on a possible source of inspiration, and to answer a question that has bugged me for a while.
What is that city doing over there?
I’ve previously launched this theory in the Destiny Ghost Stories Fan Slack, and that is where this theory even got its beginning, thanks to the exploratory minds of the hosts and the other fans in the chat. It’s a great community for anyone interested in the Lore.
Throughout this theory I will be referring to the city (lower case c)=the city visible from the Cosmodrome, and not the City (upper case C)=The Last City, the one we observe from our Tower. Just to be clear.
The Cosmodrome location and orientation
Okay, so to start off, I just want to establish the location of our in-game Cosmodrome, for anyone who might be uncertain or never looked into where it might be.
Here’s a map of the area surrounding the believed location of Destiny’s Old Russia Cosmodrome
Now, in this map I want to point out three specific things:
Article from IPS News on the Aral Sea Crisis
Article from The Daily Mail, showing satellite images of the area from 2000-2014
It’s also an interesting sidenote that the Forgotten Shore was named “Dry Sea” pre-launch, as shown by this early picture of our Cosmodrome.
To quickly tie the Aral Sea and the Forgotten Shore together, here are some pictures for comparison:
Abandoned boats as the Aral Sea shrinks, and screenshots from the Forgotten Shore
Now, the Aral Sea in real life has never been, in recorded history at least, big enough to reach all the way over to where the Cosmodrome is located.
But by looking at Earth in the Destinations director
you have a top down view of the planet. And by the looks of it, the North Pole and all of the ice that once covered Greenland, seems to have melted. By observing the South Pole from the Moon, it looks like most of that has melted as well. This would make for a whole lot of extra water being present on our planet. Estimates made by other people, suggest that water levels would rise by approximately 70m (230ft) if everything where to melt. With the Cosmodrome located at an altitude of 90m above current sea level, that would put the Aral Sea a lot closer than it is at present time.
Of course, the view of the area in question is very obscured, almost impossible to make out, but it might look like at least the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Caspian Sea has merged into one body of water. This would indicate a rise in water levels. But then again Greenland is now connected to Canada via a mysterious land bridge so.. Kind of difficult to say.
The city in the distance, Tashkent
So a while back I heard about this city you could see from the Cosmodrome. It’s clearly visible from the Skywatch, outside of the wall where you first get resurrected by Ghost, or best of all, from up in the launch tower or Colony ship you climb in the mission Cayde’s Stash.
The city in question
It has puzzled me for quite a while why there is a city (and mountains for that matter) visible from the Cosmodrome in the first place, given its location, far from anything. So one night, as we where sitting up there, at the top of a Colony Ship, I threw the question out in the DGS slack chat, “What is that city?”, and after a google search from GabbleRatchet, the answer came back as “Tashkent, maybe?”. I can only say “thank you”, my work started from there.
These pictures of a Beta Build map of the Cosmodrome
and this concept art map by Jesse Van Dijk
shows the direction of the Aral Sea to be West by North-West (not Kanye’s daughter) in accordance to the Forgotten Shore. That would make it a fair assumption that the city we observe is located in the same direction as Tashkent is in real life, South East.
I know, distance in real life should make it impossible for us to see it at roughly 700km away, but I put that down to artistic freedom and the makings of a game world. We shouldn’t be able to see mountains either, as they would be even further away from the Cosmodrome, but we do. So there you go.
Now onto the subject of the matter, Tashkent
Tashkent is the capital city of Uzbekistan, it has about 2.3 million inhabitants, lies to the South-East of Baikonur at an altitude of roughly 500m above sea level (1600ft), so it would theoretically be safe from any rising water. People have previously speculated on the size of the Last City, and although we have no hard facts to rely on, some estimates I’ve heard has been in the 2-3 million range. Now those are just rough estimates based on the size of the area it covers and size of the buildings. We don’t have enough information about it, therefore I mention it, but I’m not holding it up as any kind of evidence, just as a curious observation.
It’s the closest major city to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in any direction, and it lies close to the mountains in the East. Now, it’s interesting to note, that these mountains is the starting point of where a pretty famous mountain range begins to rise up from the Western Steppe Lands. Although the specific range (The Altai Mountains) do not bear its name, they lie just north of, and connect to, what’s called the Punjab or Western Himalayas. Did you just gasp for air? No? Nothin’? Seriously..?
Okay, enough about mountains for now, let’s get to the juicy part of this, Tashkent’s history:
The Gates of Tashkent
This is the tale of the 25km (12mi) long wall that was built around the city to protect it, as it was an important hub on the notorious Silk Road. The story tells us there were twelve gates in total: Labzak, Takhtapul, Karasaray, Sagban, Chagatay, Kukcha, Samarkand, Kamalan, Beshagach, Koymas, Kokand and Kashga. Each gate had a gatehouse for a tax-collector (Zakatchi) and security guard(ian)s (Darvazabons). Does that sound at all familiar? I haven’t found any other interpretation for Zakatchi or Darvarzabon (Prob. “Gatekeepers”, read edit below), but if any of you out there has an opinion, shout it out in the comments.
I did however stumble upon this little town in Turkmenistan, that lies approximately the same distance from Baikonur as Tashkent, in a South-East direction. It’s called Darvaza (see Darvazabons/Guards up above), or Derweze in Persian, which happens to mean “The Gate”. And the town hosts a pretty remarkabel tourist attraction, The Door to Hell. Fun fact, if anything
Now they weren’t very good at protecting their city, but that’s beside the point. Anyways, each gate was locked by a Golden Key, however relevant the Golden key might be, but the number is the important thing for later on. 12.
Given all these physical and peculiar historical factors, I would say it’s a fair bet to tie this city directly to our own Last City as an inspiration. I, personally, would not put it past Bungie to be the first to give them a proper homage if that was the case. And what better way than to actually put it in the game, visible from one of our patrol zones? I don’t know guys, what do you think?
If you are happy, or completely disagree, with my conclusion, you can stop reading right now. Thanks for getting this far! Hope you liked it!
The next part is far out there, and the Spinfoil, crazy bells are chiming in every direction, so you might be best off leaving it here, if only for my sake.
Ladies and Gentlemen, don your favorite Aluminium creations, and get ready for some proper spinfoil
You have been warned
Now, with the Rise of Iron coming this fall, the Iron Lords have become a little more interesting. And so have the mountains that we can see from the Cosmodrome, as we are about to start climbing one. Now if my theory about the location of Tashkent and the Cosmodrome holds water, this is an indication that we’re starting to climb up nothing less than the Western Himalayas (or at least very close to them). Now I feel that Bungie wants us to know that, by releasing concept art like this.
Be it Fallen banners or not, it still gives me a very clear association to the Himalayas. And since I’m in spinfoil mode, I’ll allow myself to speculate.
Felwinter Peak is, in the trailer at least, clearly visible from right outside the wall.
Now we haven’t found any mountain that looks anything like it yet, or is anywhere as close as it looks to be in that trailer, but here are some pictures with the three closest ones in the same general direction.
Don’t dwell on it too much, that area will most likely be changed in the new Patrol Zone, but it’s nice to know how it looked.
Enough mountains. Over to some Iron Lore.
As of right now, we have accounted for 9 original Iron Lords by name.
If we do the sums on that, it leaves us with a total of 11, supposed, Iron Lords (not counting the Iron Wolves, as they are not concidered lords).
Then there is this cryptic message hidden in Cayde’s Treasure Island Book,
that has been a hot topic. In my opinion it more than points, pun intended, towards the possibility of there being 11 Towers, all with a tree like the one in Bannerfall
and our own Tower.
Again, this is no officially recognized theory, but bare with me, we’re speculating here.
Remember the number 12?
From Bungie’s own promotion on bungie.net, Become an Iron Lord.
Wouldn’t that in fact, following my logic, make us the 12th Iron Lord?
And then at last, a picture from our new Social Area. The last, or maybe we should say the first, ”Tower”,
protecting mankind and overlooking the Cosmodrome, Felwinter Peak.
With it’s own tree and everything, the 12th one, dead or not (maybe us becoming an Iron Lord brings it back to life?).
Now if that isn’t a speculative connection, I don’t know what is. What the implications might be if I’m right, I have no idea. But sometimes it’s fun to spin for a bit, and maybe it might be connected? Who knows if no one raises the question, right?
Thanks for reading, and like I said, you probably should have stopped up there, while things still made sense!
Source
Hello everyone!
Today I’m going to set out on a daring adventure, and try to make some sense of where our beloved Last City on Earth, might have some of it’s roots planted in real life. This is not a theory claiming to reveal the location of the Last City, I’m only trying to shine some light on a possible source of inspiration, and to answer a question that has bugged me for a while.
What is that city doing over there?
I’ve previously launched this theory in the Destiny Ghost Stories Fan Slack, and that is where this theory even got its beginning, thanks to the exploratory minds of the hosts and the other fans in the chat. It’s a great community for anyone interested in the Lore.
Throughout this theory I will be referring to the city (lower case c)=the city visible from the Cosmodrome, and not the City (upper case C)=The Last City, the one we observe from our Tower. Just to be clear.
The Cosmodrome location and orientation
Okay, so to start off, I just want to establish the location of our in-game Cosmodrome, for anyone who might be uncertain or never looked into where it might be.
Here’s a map of the area surrounding the believed location of Destiny’s Old Russia Cosmodrome
Now, in this map I want to point out three specific things:
- The location of Baikonur, where the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Russia’s well used Space Launch Facility (and widely believed to be the inspiration for our in-game version), is located, at an altitude of 90m above sea level (300ft)
- The city located to the South-East of Baikonur, Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan
- And the location of the two lakes to the West of Baikonur, which actually is the remains of the Aral Sea, a lake that has a very interesting history, known as the Aral Sea Crisis (See links and articles below for further info)
Article from IPS News on the Aral Sea Crisis
Article from The Daily Mail, showing satellite images of the area from 2000-2014
It’s also an interesting sidenote that the Forgotten Shore was named “Dry Sea” pre-launch, as shown by this early picture of our Cosmodrome.
To quickly tie the Aral Sea and the Forgotten Shore together, here are some pictures for comparison:
Abandoned boats as the Aral Sea shrinks, and screenshots from the Forgotten Shore
Now, the Aral Sea in real life has never been, in recorded history at least, big enough to reach all the way over to where the Cosmodrome is located.
But by looking at Earth in the Destinations director
you have a top down view of the planet. And by the looks of it, the North Pole and all of the ice that once covered Greenland, seems to have melted. By observing the South Pole from the Moon, it looks like most of that has melted as well. This would make for a whole lot of extra water being present on our planet. Estimates made by other people, suggest that water levels would rise by approximately 70m (230ft) if everything where to melt. With the Cosmodrome located at an altitude of 90m above current sea level, that would put the Aral Sea a lot closer than it is at present time.
Of course, the view of the area in question is very obscured, almost impossible to make out, but it might look like at least the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Caspian Sea has merged into one body of water. This would indicate a rise in water levels. But then again Greenland is now connected to Canada via a mysterious land bridge so.. Kind of difficult to say.
The city in the distance, Tashkent
So a while back I heard about this city you could see from the Cosmodrome. It’s clearly visible from the Skywatch, outside of the wall where you first get resurrected by Ghost, or best of all, from up in the launch tower or Colony ship you climb in the mission Cayde’s Stash.
The city in question
It has puzzled me for quite a while why there is a city (and mountains for that matter) visible from the Cosmodrome in the first place, given its location, far from anything. So one night, as we where sitting up there, at the top of a Colony Ship, I threw the question out in the DGS slack chat, “What is that city?”, and after a google search from GabbleRatchet, the answer came back as “Tashkent, maybe?”. I can only say “thank you”, my work started from there.
These pictures of a Beta Build map of the Cosmodrome
and this concept art map by Jesse Van Dijk
shows the direction of the Aral Sea to be West by North-West (not Kanye’s daughter) in accordance to the Forgotten Shore. That would make it a fair assumption that the city we observe is located in the same direction as Tashkent is in real life, South East.
I know, distance in real life should make it impossible for us to see it at roughly 700km away, but I put that down to artistic freedom and the makings of a game world. We shouldn’t be able to see mountains either, as they would be even further away from the Cosmodrome, but we do. So there you go.
Now onto the subject of the matter, Tashkent
Tashkent is the capital city of Uzbekistan, it has about 2.3 million inhabitants, lies to the South-East of Baikonur at an altitude of roughly 500m above sea level (1600ft), so it would theoretically be safe from any rising water. People have previously speculated on the size of the Last City, and although we have no hard facts to rely on, some estimates I’ve heard has been in the 2-3 million range. Now those are just rough estimates based on the size of the area it covers and size of the buildings. We don’t have enough information about it, therefore I mention it, but I’m not holding it up as any kind of evidence, just as a curious observation.
It’s the closest major city to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in any direction, and it lies close to the mountains in the East. Now, it’s interesting to note, that these mountains is the starting point of where a pretty famous mountain range begins to rise up from the Western Steppe Lands. Although the specific range (The Altai Mountains) do not bear its name, they lie just north of, and connect to, what’s called the Punjab or Western Himalayas. Did you just gasp for air? No? Nothin’? Seriously..?
Okay, enough about mountains for now, let’s get to the juicy part of this, Tashkent’s history:
The Gates of Tashkent
This is the tale of the 25km (12mi) long wall that was built around the city to protect it, as it was an important hub on the notorious Silk Road. The story tells us there were twelve gates in total: Labzak, Takhtapul, Karasaray, Sagban, Chagatay, Kukcha, Samarkand, Kamalan, Beshagach, Koymas, Kokand and Kashga. Each gate had a gatehouse for a tax-collector (Zakatchi) and security guard(ian)s (Darvazabons). Does that sound at all familiar? I haven’t found any other interpretation for Zakatchi or Darvarzabon (Prob. “Gatekeepers”, read edit below), but if any of you out there has an opinion, shout it out in the comments.
I did however stumble upon this little town in Turkmenistan, that lies approximately the same distance from Baikonur as Tashkent, in a South-East direction. It’s called Darvaza (see Darvazabons/Guards up above), or Derweze in Persian, which happens to mean “The Gate”. And the town hosts a pretty remarkabel tourist attraction, The Door to Hell. Fun fact, if anything
Now they weren’t very good at protecting their city, but that’s beside the point. Anyways, each gate was locked by a Golden Key, however relevant the Golden key might be, but the number is the important thing for later on. 12.
Given all these physical and peculiar historical factors, I would say it’s a fair bet to tie this city directly to our own Last City as an inspiration. I, personally, would not put it past Bungie to be the first to give them a proper homage if that was the case. And what better way than to actually put it in the game, visible from one of our patrol zones? I don’t know guys, what do you think?
If you are happy, or completely disagree, with my conclusion, you can stop reading right now. Thanks for getting this far! Hope you liked it!
The next part is far out there, and the Spinfoil, crazy bells are chiming in every direction, so you might be best off leaving it here, if only for my sake.
Ladies and Gentlemen, don your favorite Aluminium creations, and get ready for some proper spinfoil
You have been warned
Now, with the Rise of Iron coming this fall, the Iron Lords have become a little more interesting. And so have the mountains that we can see from the Cosmodrome, as we are about to start climbing one. Now if my theory about the location of Tashkent and the Cosmodrome holds water, this is an indication that we’re starting to climb up nothing less than the Western Himalayas (or at least very close to them). Now I feel that Bungie wants us to know that, by releasing concept art like this.
Be it Fallen banners or not, it still gives me a very clear association to the Himalayas. And since I’m in spinfoil mode, I’ll allow myself to speculate.
Felwinter Peak is, in the trailer at least, clearly visible from right outside the wall.
Now we haven’t found any mountain that looks anything like it yet, or is anywhere as close as it looks to be in that trailer, but here are some pictures with the three closest ones in the same general direction.
Don’t dwell on it too much, that area will most likely be changed in the new Patrol Zone, but it’s nice to know how it looked.
Enough mountains. Over to some Iron Lore.
As of right now, we have accounted for 9 original Iron Lords by name.
- The three Hunters Efrideet, Gheleon and Perun
- The three Titans Jolder, Radegast and Silimar
- And the three Warlocks Felwinter, Skorri and Timur
- We also have a Warlock Artifact called Segoth’s Head. It’s a Titan’s Helmet and it quotes one of the original Iron Lords, Gheleon, and strongly allude to the fact that Segoth also was part of their order.
- And then of course, we have our new favourite axe wielder, Saladin Forge, up until recently called Salad Face by most, the last remaining Iron Lord (self-proclaimed or not).
If we do the sums on that, it leaves us with a total of 11, supposed, Iron Lords (not counting the Iron Wolves, as they are not concidered lords).
Then there is this cryptic message hidden in Cayde’s Treasure Island Book,
that has been a hot topic. In my opinion it more than points, pun intended, towards the possibility of there being 11 Towers, all with a tree like the one in Bannerfall
and our own Tower.
Again, this is no officially recognized theory, but bare with me, we’re speculating here.
Remember the number 12?
From Bungie’s own promotion on bungie.net, Become an Iron Lord.
Wouldn’t that in fact, following my logic, make us the 12th Iron Lord?
And then at last, a picture from our new Social Area. The last, or maybe we should say the first, ”Tower”,
protecting mankind and overlooking the Cosmodrome, Felwinter Peak.
With it’s own tree and everything, the 12th one, dead or not (maybe us becoming an Iron Lord brings it back to life?).
Now if that isn’t a speculative connection, I don’t know what is. What the implications might be if I’m right, I have no idea. But sometimes it’s fun to spin for a bit, and maybe it might be connected? Who knows if no one raises the question, right?
Thanks for reading, and like I said, you probably should have stopped up there, while things still made sense!
Source
