Destiny players may have started to notice some strange goings-on in the galaxy. A number of players’ characters are wandering around the world with a strange colored swarm above their heads.
Originating with a popular Twitch streamer, SayNoToRage, these viruses have begun to spread through the playerbase of Destiny by simply interacting with someone who already has one of the viruses. A number of ways have been confirmed so far, and players have reported a boost to reputation and experience once they have been infected. But what could these Owl Sector infections mean?
Most likely, it has something to do with Destiny’s upcoming expansion, Rise of Iron. Both House of Wolves and The Taken King saw new both Wolves and Taken appearing in the world before the DLCs. However, it appears that these viruses- Brilliance 3.2, Glory 2.1, Splendor 2.6, Magnificence 2.0, and Fortitude 3.1 – are unlocking additional details to the lore of Destiny.
Owl Sector appeared as a subpage on Bungie’s website last night shortly after SayNoToRage noticed he had contracted the virus. Heading over to the page shows a world map with an increasing amount of colored nodes on it. Each of these nodes may well represent a player’s location whose character has been infected by one of the viruses. These different colors correspond to the five different viruses previously mentioned. Ever since the initial outbreak with SayNoToRage, each infection has led to more and more information getting released through chat logs of Destiny’s characters studying and discussing the viruses themselves.
From what can be gathered from some parts of the chat logs, it looks like the viruses, along with SIVA, were developed on Mars in the Dust Palace by the exoscience group, Clovis Bray. Considering how this seems to be shrouded in the technological element of Destiny’s lore, it’s hard not to see SIVA involved in all of this somewhere. What’s more, the look of these new buffs strike a resemblance to the SIVA swarms we’ve seen before, further suggesting both of these may have originated with Clovis Bray.
Considering Rise of Iron tells the story of a lost SIVA plague which took over an area of the Cosmodrome, it further suggests that these buffs are simply a nod toward the adventure that Guardians will embark on in a few days time.
This then raises the question of whether or not these viruses are simply going to only provide these buffs in the future. Any sort of relation to SIVA would suggest that there could be some sort of negative effect to Guardians in contracting these viruses, though players have not reported any issues following contraction of the virus so far.
As for Owl Sector, it appears that they’re a reconnaissance group responsible for looking over these kinds of outbreaks. This would tie into the Owl Sector Twitch account’s message that was in SayNoToRage’s Twitch stream when he first contracted the virus. The message read “We’ve detected an unidentified foreign intrusion into your systems, Guardian. Stay calm, we will investigate.”
In short, these Owl Sector infections look to come as a warning and a precursor to what danger lies in store for Guardians in Rise of Iron. Whether or not those infected have anything in particular to worry about or not remains to be seen, as does the extent to which Owl Sector and these new viruses will play in Rise of Iron. At least it’s not too long until we find out, Guardians.
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