Speculation Saturday #9: The Cabal *SP* (Destiny)

by General Vagueness , The Vault of Sass, Sunday, September 07, 2014, 00:16 (3730 days ago) @ Ragashingo
edited by General Vagueness, Sunday, September 07, 2014, 00:55

- Everything we see from the Cabal is militaristic. Even their buildings are militarized. This raises quite a few questions:

Are the Cabal always this militaristic or are we just seeing... you know... their military in action? You get the sense from the Vex, Hive, and Fallen that what we see is all of what they (now?) are. Might the Cabal be our one enemy who isn't inherently evil, merely expansionistic?

I don't think any of the races will turn out to just be straight-up evil or even just completely hostile because that's boring. In particular, the Fallen and the Hive both also struck me as being expansionistic, it's just the Hive are creepy and do questionable things to the places they expand to and the Fallen are fragmented.

Presumably we aren't fighting the entirety of the Cabal military on Mars. Are they engaged in battles elsewhere? If so, who are they also fighting? One would think their intense militarization didn't happen out of the blue. Could the space pirate-y Fallen have harassed them in the past? Or the Hive? Or the Vex?

Having some (or all?) of the enemy races have encountered each other (and fought) before would be a nice story bit, I think; some reason for them to fight-- or not to fight.

Why did the Cabal move Phobos closer in its Martian orbit? Are they using it for a military base? Could moving the moon closer have some sort of environmental effect on Mars they find desirable? Did they do it because it is pretty hanging so close in the sky? Did they do anything similar with Deimos?

That's a really good question, and I think answering it would tell us a lot about their capabilities and maybe give a better, if broad, idea of what's possible in this universe.

- We know we are not in communication with the Vex and it seems unlikely that the Hive or Fallen are returning our calls, but what about the Cabal? As a professional military organization are they open to peace negotiations? Cease fires? Surrenders? It'd be nice to communicate with the aliens attacking us after Humanity's 30+ years of no communications with the Covenant in Halo.

I know if I was a human living in that setting I'd want that and I would be relieved and excited if it was achieved. Communication is the first step to... everything, basically.

- The Cabal have brought large "planet cracker" explosives to Mars. Are these to literally crack the planet... destroying it? Or are they nothing quite so dramatic and are only using power explosives for excavation? We know there are some Vex structures buried beneath Mars. Could the seemingly important Black Garden also be underground?

That's a good question just like the one above.

Have the Cabal been touched by The Darkness? The Hive obviously have been, but so far we haven't seen much to link the Cabal to The Traveler's ancient enemy. Maybe the Cabal fight us because we happen to be in their way and no other reason? Perhaps some sort of alliance can be formed with them once The Darkness does arrive?

I think if push comes to shove the Cabal, the Fallen, the humans, and the Awoken (whether they're allied with the humans currently or not) will team up against the Darkness. I'm iffy on the Hive and the Vex because they seem more strange and inscrutable and I question their motives and origins more, in particular I the think the Hive are in league with the Darkness. It would be really interesting to have the Darkness turn on the Hive and/or Vex and have them team up with us. We had that in Halo but only for a while with the Elites and barely even a taste of it with the Flood, I'd be interested to see Bungie take another stab at it.

- Could the Cabal have already stood against The Darkness? Maybe they want The Traveler for good reasons instead of bad ones? It would be neat if Humanity was hurting the greater good by desperately clinging to its safe, protected position in The City when giving up The Traveler to the more experienced Cabal might actually be the best option. If that were the case though surely the Cabal would try to tell us instead of fighting us, right?

Maybe they did, or they tried, and we didn't respond like they wanted. Maybe things got off on the wrong foot. Maybe they're as militarily-oriented as they seem and they're following protocol.

- Maybe this should have been asked about each race, but what do the Cabal call themselves? "The Cabal" somehow doesn't quite sound like a name they would take willingly.

That's what I thought about the Future War Cult, but they accept and use that name with no apparent hang-ups. I think as part of the fantasy influence and maybe also the retro sci-fi influence Bungie is using the old or original meanings of words. For "cult", I think they're getting at this, or something like it. The word "cabal" seems to be more restrictive in meaning, in modern times and going back a way. It has do with secrecy and scheming, but it originally comes from Kaballah, and has been used with occult and religious connotations (kind of like "cult", actually), and it also can refer to a united, unified group or movement that's not (necessarily) secret or secretive. It has been used, and in fact is increasingly used, even more loosely than that, basically just meaning a group of people.
Hmm... going with that thinking, "travel" came from the same root, and might actually be a variation on the same word, as "travail", as in "trials and travails", meaning toil or labor, and then meaning a laborious journey. What did the Traveler have to do to get here...?