What is Veil Containment (and why you should care about it) in Destiny 2
Veil Containment is a new weekly lore drop added to Destiny 2 to help answer the question “What is the Veil?”. The Lightfall campaign left us with more questions than answers and through Veil Containment, Bungie look to be giving us hints as to the next steps in the Destiny 2 story, for the upcoming Final Shape expansion, plus what comes next. Today I’m going to have a closer look at Veil Containment, why you should care about it, how to access it, and what the latest message means for the story in Destiny 2.
Parting the Veil
Before we talk about Veil Containment, I want to have a quick look at Parting the Veil. This was a quest dropped in Season of the Deep, and at the end we got a new hand cannon called Epocal Integration. This is a decent reward in it’s own right, but the lore along the way was also good if you are a fan of the story in Destiny 2.
In this quest we interact with a terminal, which revealed more details about the Veil narrated by Osiris and Nimbus. It details the story of Chioma Esi, an Ishtar Collective Researcher, and one of Neomuna’s founders. Once you have completed the quest you can return to the terminal to get more audio logs explaining Esi’s and Maya Sundaresh’s studies of the Veil, the Vex and the history of Neomuna.
In Parting the Veil’s quest, we had important details reiterated from the Lightfall campaign and Root of Nightmares Raid. This includes Nezarec describing Savathun bringing the Veil to Neptune. I would imagine most people completed the Parting the Veil quest at the start of Season of the Deep, but if you didn’t, then go and have a chat with Nimbus on Neonmuna. There’s a few rewards here including the Epocal Integration, a new strand aspect, plus access to the weekly lore drops.
What is Veil Containment
At the end of Parting the Veil, Osiris said he needs time to crack into Esi’s encrypted logs which are protected by a Vex Algorithm. The weekly lore drops via Veil Containment are the product of Osiris working through the audio logs and releasing them week by week. To get access to these audio logs you have to check out the Neomuna map via the Director, and select the Veil Containment node.
If you are interested in the story of Destiny 2, then Veil Containment is going to be an important location to check into week over week as we head towards The Final Shape, likely to release early in 2024, which is the final chapter in the Light vs Darkness Saga. As well as dropping hints for the Final Shape, these audio logs could be pointing towards where the story could be heading after the Final Shape and the next major saga in Destiny.
Latest Veil Containment
This week talks Laksmi-2, who was the Exo leader of the faction Future War Cult. This audio log provides a definitive link between Maya Sundaresh and Laksmi-2. Maya created something called ‘The Device’ all the way back in the Golden Age. The Future War Cult had a Device that allowed for visions of the future, it was a literal device you’d put on your head and plus yourself into, however the visions were horrific and showed a dark future.
Lakshmi-2 ended up going mad, being corrupted by Savathun’s song in Season of the Splicer, and she died at the end of that season. Previously Maya had been linked to Lakshmi, although it’s never been this concrete before. Here in the audio logs we hear about Maya imprinting herself into the mind of an Exo, Lakshmi-2. Maya and Esi escaped during the first collapse and discovered Neptune, and it’s likely the Exo that became Lakshmi-2 was onbaord their ship. Later Maya would go onto download herself into an Exo, then go back to Earth to lead the Future War Cult.
It feels like the story of Maya Sundaresh, her experiments with the Exos and research related to the Vex is going to be very important for future stories in Destiny 2, so I think it’s worth paying attention to the Veil Containment releases each week.
There’s an interesting quote found on the Wiki page for Maya Sundaresh, and it reads as follows:
“In various Indian religions, there is a concept known as Maya, which has a variety of meanings generally relating to the illusory nature of reality, or the ability to turn ideas into physical reality. In some contexts, Maya is described as a “veil” hiding the true nature of the universe. Additionally, Maya is an epithet for the Hindu goddess Lakshmi. Collectively, these ideas may be alluded to by the story of Maya Sundaresh’s experiences with the Veil, and her creation of Lakshmi-2.”
Future Stories
Bungie recently held a roundtable with press, talking about the future of the story in Destiny 2.
“I think once Final Shape concludes, the Vex might be in a position to do some more stuff.” Nikko Stevens, Senior Narrative Designer
“We’re trying to bring the Vex in a little bit more of a personalized way right now and in a way that connects with the Witness’ story via the Sol Divisive. These were Vex that went all the way back to Destiny 1 with the Black Heart. They’ve kind of been expanded through piecemeal drops here and there up until Spire of the Watcher which was a really big insight into the Sol Divisive and how closely aligned they actually are with the Witness.”
Therefore it sounds like Bungie has big plans for the Vex and the future of Destiny 2. You maybe asking why – we’ve been fighting the Vex since 2014, we’ve had The Vault of Glass, The Curse of Osiris, Season of Undying just to name a few. Aren’t we done with the Vex?
Well, the Vex are interesting because they cannot be reasoned with. In the Light vs Darkness Saga we’re battling against The Witness, The Darkness fleet of Pyramid Ships, and have allied with factions of the Cabal, Eliksni and perhaps we could even ally with The Hive coming soon with the potential return of Savathun next season. The Vex are different. The Vex are a cyber-organic species that are ancient as the Universe itself. Enigmatic and inscrutable, they work ceaselessly to convert planets and other celestial bodies into vast machines, and are hostile toward any life-form that gets in their way. Their technology is among the most advanced ever encountered by humanity, enabling incredible feats of material and spacetime engineering and even time travel.