Destiny 2's Seasonal Storyline Ends With A Major Change To The Status Quo

thegamer.com:

Operation Elbrus came to an end this week, and what a hell of a finale it was. The four-week seasonal campaign tasked us with hunting down and kidnapping Savathun’s Lucent Brood in order to probe their minds to uncover their plans - something Crow was explicitly not on board with. This week, we discovered the Hive plot and managed to stop our enemies, as expected. What wasn’t expected was what happened next: a betrayal that caused a key character to leave the Vanguard, possibly for good. Operation Elbrus was a pitch-perfect follow-up to The Witch Queen campaign that leaned into the kind of moral ambivalence that has become core to Destiny’s story over the past year. If The Witch Queen was a big moment of payoff, then Operation Elbrus sets the stage for what’s to come.

For several weeks, the Vanguard has been working with Caiatl’s psions to track down Hive Lightbearers, bring them back to the H.E.L.M., and dig around in their minds for clues about the Hive’s plans. Keeping our enemies in a state of suspended animation in order to do brain experiments on them is something you or I might call ‘doing a war crime’, and it hasn’t been sitting right with Crow either.

A few weeks ago, we witnessed an argument between Crow and Lord Saladin that outlined the ethical dilemma. Crow believes the psychogenics program is beneath the Vanguard, and that we have no right to victimize our defenseless adversaries in this way. Saladin argues for the greater good; the Vanguard has a responsibility to protect Earth and her people no matter the cost. Saladin warned Crow of the consequences of showing mercy to your enemy by relating a story about a young thief he let go only to find her again years later leading a violent cell of bandits. The