Osiris is many things to many people, it’s a name steeped in history, so when Bungie named a faction Osiris I thought “at least it’s a short list of people it could be named after”. From what I can tell there are only two real options as far as actionable material by the name of Osiris unless they've based a part of the game on Osiris shoes (which I’m sure are great... but I doubt the Caswell VLC, as comfortable as it is, was the catalyst) . For the sake of this article I’ll just go ahead and focus on the first two. There is, of course, the Egyptian god but there is also a lesser known planet by the same name. I’m not suggesting that Bungie has copy-pasted ancient history directly into the game, but if Bungie saw fit to name a faction as well as an NPC Osiris it might give us a bit of insight into the characteristics, or a feel for what is coming down the pipes. Look at it this way; if I’m way off on this we’ll all have learned some random facts that will invariably resurface in 20 years when we’re all old and watching reruns of Jeopardy. For starters I’ll go to the beginning of where this all started for me. We had only just learned that there were five factions, I was pouring over the logos for each trying to figure out which I liked more. Dead Orbit stood out like a sore thumb, I like the simplicity of it, and Osiris looked unfinished. It just looked coarse compared to the stylized logos of the other four. While I stared I wondered if the eye had anything to do with Osiris and punched it in on Wikipedia, that’s where I got interested. There is an eye glyph in hieroglyph that represents Osiris, it can be used in relation to vision, or “to do”, or “to make”. That didn't really jump out at me but the image of Osiris cried out. His skin color was similar to that of the Awoken. If you Google images of Osiris you’ll find a whole host of pictures which depict him in a whole variety of greens, and black. It was too late, I was sucked in and I spent the next couple of hours digging around and reading up on Osiris. Let me save you the trouble. Osiris was a central god in Egyptian mythology/religion. He was the god of the afterlife and the underworld. He was the king of the land of the dead. The abridged version of his story is that he married his sister (Isis), was betrayed by his brother (Set) who killed him. Isis brought Osiris back to life long enough to conceive his child, the magic wore off and he turned into a pumpk... died again. There are a couple of different accounts that describe when Osiris was dismembered and strewn about the desert, but it’s universally told that he got hacked up, and his “phallus” was lost or eaten by a fish... then eventually replaced by a golden one when he was reassembled (if you've got it, flaunt it!). So now Isis has gone and put together a Franken-deity, and all of the other gods figure she’s put in the effort the least they could do is resurrect Osiris one more time. They went one step further this time, and on this third coming they made him the ruler of the underworld, and the after life... and resurrection (I guess they figured that it would be easier if he could just do it himself from now on). Osiris’ son was Horus. Horus and Isis avenged Osiris and killed Set. Okay, that’s the bulk of the heavy lifting, from here it’s all easy. Osiris, as god of resurrection, was very much an agricultural god and was linked to the growing cycles, as well as the burial rights that would assure a Pharaoh’s passage into the underworld (which was thought to be in the west). When he was depicted in paintings associated with rebirth or resurrection he was green, and black for death (and fertility referring to the nutrient rich, dark soil along the Nile). My first thought was that the Awoken must be somehow associated with Osiris (the faction). Originally because of the similarity in color, and then as I thought about it I thought there was also a similarity in implications between the terms Awoken and Resurrected. The next piece of the puzzle that caught my eye was in the mail sac titled “When You Wish Upon A Mail Sac”. About a quarter of the way down the page I read a question that grabbed my attention. [quote][b]Player3Thomas[/b]: Would you please name a NPC after me? [b]DeeJ[/b]: Only if you change your name to Osiris. Or, Uncredited Robot #7.[/quote] I don’t know about you, but that doesn't seem to leave a lot of room for error. That pretty much comes out and screams there’s someone named Osiris in Destiny. From the bits and bobs I've read about Osiris I was wondering what was likely to be used and what would be out of place. For example I doubt that Bungie thought “you know what you don’t see in a lot of games these days? Inbreeding! We could be the first!”. Compelling story elements could be drawn from Osiris' betrayal by his brother. His resurrection (heh... bet you can’t guess what auto correct just tried to spell) also fits in nicely with the science-fantasy genre. Much more speculation than that is really reaching, but it’s easy to imagine where they could go with it. There’s one more thing I’d like to look at before I wrap this all up. It doesn't necessarily have to do with Osiris, but it has everything to do with the Egyptian connection I've been staring at for so long. There is one piece of concept art that grabbed my attention early on. It stands out, it looks awesome, and it’s everything I want out of a science-fantasy world. Something that looks cool, magical, and high tech all at the same time. It’s the image of Onyx Pyramid ships rising through what look to be clouds that are floating in space around a planet. In that same mail sac I mentioned before there had been a question about what was their favorite sky box in the game. A couple of the locations had been [redacted], and it got me hoping that the planet in the clouds might have made it into the game. My efforts were fruitless in that regard, I thought the planet looked a bit like mars or Venus (it still could be either); however, while I was looking at the concept art I finally made the connection. Egypt. There is a faction and an NPC named after and Egyptian god, and there are giant Pyramid space ships. I thought the connection was good enough to look a little deeper, and began to look into any connections Osiris may have with a planet. And you'll never guess what I found.