Just about each week brings one thing new to Destiny 2, whether or not it is story beats, new actions, or fascinating new mixtures of components that allow gamers devastate one another within the Crucible. Iron Banter is our weekly have a look at what is going on on on the earth of Destiny and a rundown of what is drawing our consideration throughout the photo voltaic system.

Season of Plunder is not the primary time Bungie has introduced some swashbuckling into Destiny 2, and true to kind, the pirate-themed season has its hull stuffed with pirate-themed puns. In the season’s first mission, you recruit a pirate crew from the Forsaken enlargement’s crime lord quest-giver, the Spider, who you may name on in missions that can assist you face the Pirate Lords you are tasked with sending to Davy Jones’s Interstellar Locker all through the season.

Early within the season, although, there was one thing about these alien pirates I could not cease puzzling over, and it turned out to be extra irritating than a peg leg coated in splinters. It was my crew’s names, every clearly a riff on some privateer parlance. Each of the pirates you recruit is an Eliksni character, an alien race whose members are inclined to have names that finish with seems like “siks” or “raaks”. Thus, the crew who joins you in your missions consists of the venerable house sailors Flotsiks, Jetsiks, Ransiks, and Halsiks.

The jokes behind a few of these names are fairly apparent. Flotsiks and Jetsiks are a play on the time period “flotsam and jetsam,” a ship’s booty misplaced overboard at sea. My rapid assumption for Ransiks was that it was a play on “ransacks,” though others I consulted steered “ransom” would maintain higher with the sample established by flotsam and jetsam. Both are unwholesome actions buccaneers have been recognized to have interaction in. It all is sensible.

But then we come to Halsiks, and…nothing. I wracked my mind and consulted pirate-minded pals who spend a whole lot of their time studying historical past and/or enjoying Sea of Thieves, however nothing bobbed to the floor. I checked dictionaries for phrases beginning with “hal,” however there, too, I ran aground. I felt mired in fog as I struggled to resolve Bungie’s riddle of the notorious Halsiks.

Finally, I’d had sufficient. During a current interview with Destiny 2 director Joe Blackburn and basic supervisor Dan McAuliffe, I seized the chance to wrest the reply straight from the supply. Joe and Bungie communications director Carlos Ascencio have been, sadly, simply as adrift as I used to be. They pledged to rally the Destiny 2 writing group and return with the answer to my vexation. In the meantime, we mentioned the Lightfall enlargement’s tone and temper, and its many venerable inspirations.

Later, a message arrived within the digital submit; Carlos had spoken with Destiny 2’s writers. He knew the reality of Halsiks’ id.

As it seems, Halsiks was powerful to determine as a result of the identify wasn’t a reference to some seafaring flip of the tongue; it is a reference to an precise pirate. Halsiks is a play on Halsey, the surname of privateer John Halsey. Bungie’s writers described Halsey as a “good man pirate” who operated as a privateer in the course of the War of Spanish Succession within the early 1700s.

If you are not acquainted, privateers have been pirates who labored for the government–in Halsey’s case, he acquired what’s referred to as a “Letter of Marque” authorizing him to raid Spanish ships on behalf of the British empire. Quite a lot of well-known pirates throughout this time began the identical method, participating in authorized piracy within the Atlantic as a part of their governments’ battle efforts. And, like many pirates, when Halsey’s letter of marque expired in 1705, it did not imply he gave up the lifetime of raiding ships and stealing their cargo. Instead, he continued a lifetime of piracy with out the authorized sanction. Halsey spent the subsequent few years pirating close to Madagascar and within the Indian Ocean, earlier than he died in 1708 after his flotilla was ravaged by a hurricane and he succumbed to a fever.

In the 1728 e book “A General History of the Pyrates,” writer Captain Charles Johnson wrote this of Halsey:

“He was courageous in his Person, courteous to all his Prisoners, lived beloved, and died regretted by his personal People. His Grave was made in a backyard of watermelons, and fenced in with Palisades to forestall his being rooted up by wild Hogs.”

Nice man, apparently, for a brigand, making him a very good candidate for Bungie to attract from when naming its crew. The studio additionally confirmed one other side of the riddle: Ransiks is, in truth, meant to be a play on “ransacks,” although Carlos stated the writing group additionally favored the choice interpretation of “ransom.” And personally, I feel we should always go along with ransom for Ransiks–there is a boss gamers face in the course of the Ketchcrash missions referred to as Ransaaks, and that is only a higher tackle the pun.

These are not at all the one pirate puns in Season of Plunder, though none are practically as a lot of a thriller as Halsiks. Along with Ransaaks, there are the Ketchcrash bosses Aye-I (not Aye-1, however Aye-“i”) and Skiffiks, and along with Halsiks, you may recruit a servitor referred to as SCUR-V to your crew, together with a handful of melee fighters referred to as Skiffblades. Halsiks stands aside, however–it appears to be the one identify particularly referencing a actual pirate, which raises the query of whether or not Halsiks may need a bigger half to play this season than simply serving to snipe individuals on the bow of a ketch throughout our boarding actions.

Though it wasn’t that prolonged a voyage, the journey of uncovering the reality behind Halsiks, and the brigand taste of Season of Plunder general, has me in search of out extra pirate historical past to uncover, particularly about John Halsey. I’m additionally hoping we’ll discover extra pirate puns than simply these we have seen up to now all through the season. Halsiks, Flotsiks, Jetsiks, and Ransiks are fairly enjoyable, however actually, none is kind of so good as Destiny 2’s final pirate pun. It’s one that did not seem in Season of Plunder, however a lot earlier–back within the Goonies-inspired, buried treasure-themed Grasp of Avarice dungeon.

Like the opposite puns, this one was the identify of a Fallen enemy, an unassuming however annoyingly correct sniper shank who distressed many a treasure-seeker as they neared the X on the map. I’m speaking, in fact, about R-M80. Read it out loud.

As we’re trying towards the horizon of the remainder of Season of Plunder, the Destiny 2 GameSpot crew can also be turning our eyes to the previous. September marks the fifth anniversary of the discharge of Destiny 2, and that is acquired us fascinated with all of the methods the sport has modified, developed, and grown over time. Stay tuned for loads of content material geared toward Destiny 2’s anniversary and the voyage we have all taken with it in the course of the previous 5 years.

In the meantime, be happy to drop your finest pirate puns within the feedback, speculate on the longer term story of Season of Plunder, rant or rave about King’s Fall, or go away fascinating info about John Halsey and another buccaneers who seize your fancy.