Lorecast: Destiny - Age of Triumph/Destiny 2

This may become a new feature, so feel free to comment on it.  This particular sort of feature goes into the addition of lore into a game and what hints it might be making for future content.  Since there's a live stream coming up on March 8th introducing the next (and probably final) live event, I figured this would be a perfect time to cogitate on what may be in store for players of Destiny, specifically relating to some lore and an item that was picked up during "The Dawning" live event.
Some players have observed that for those who picked up the "secret" Sparrow named Lysander's Cry, the item shows up as "Classified" in the Destiny app.  There's a mention that during The Dawning, the app hid most of the details about the vehicle with the line, "All will be revealed, padawan," an obvious Star Wars reference that has become a common admonishment to remain patient.  However, the event's been over for almost two months at this point.  The item is still showing as "Classified."  And therein, I suspect, lies an as-yet untold tale.

The App

The first thing to consider is the app itself.  The app pulls data from Bungie's database, rather than storing absolutely everything about the Destiny universe on your mobile device.  If you decide to go looking at the specs on your favorite weapon or want to see how far you've got till you unlock that last bubble on the latest piece of Exotic armor, the app is putting in a database query to show you that information.  It stands to reason that when you're seeing "Classified" for Lysander's Cry, you're seeing either what data has been flagged as visible, or you're seeing a redirect to a generic database entry based on a flag in whatever table the information for Lysander's Cry sits on.

If the data was missing entirely, you'd be seeing some sort of error message, possibly a timeout, but more likely something along the lines of "sorry, we can't find that."  By the same token, if somebody had NULL'd out the information for Lysander's Cry, a similar set of outcomes would occur, though the error message might be something along the lines of "unexpected NULL value found."

Finally, from a programming and database maintenance standpoint, there's absolutely no reason to be using the word "Classified."  That particular term has very specific connotations and denotations.  You're not going to be putting that designation into a database unless you've got some kind of security clearance logic going on in the database schema.  And you're not going to be putting it in a companion app to a video game unless it's something you're trying to hold off on showing for some reason.  Arguably, it's possible that some DBA at Bungie has basically been slacking off and forgot to update the row where Lysander's Cry is listed.  But after this much time, it's unlikely.  Unless Bungie's support staff is hideously overwhelmed, there should be somebody checking this sort of thing out as part of a routine maintenance process.  Somebody should have found it, updated the row, and gone about their merry way by this point.

The Site

You may be thinking that this all very explainable by the fact that Bungie simply hasn't updated their app since the end of The Dawning event.  To this argument, I submit two pieces of evidence.

The first is Bungie's own Destiny Armory site.  This site presumably accesses the same database that the app does and provides the same information.  If you look through the list of Sparrows, it will show you pretty much every Sparrow out there, helpfully listed in alphabetical order.  Lysander's Cry is very clearly missing.  Admittedly, this could be explained by Bungie simply deciding not to include a link for the data on the page itself.  However, if the page is being generated automatically from the results of a database query, why wouldn't that entry show up?  The only reasons I can think of are that the row for Lysander's Cry has been removed from the table that would hold Sparrow information, it's being essentially commented out, or there is a flag being read which tells the API call "do not display this information" when the page is being generated.

If that last scenario is what's happening, it makes the second datum more understandable.  There are a number of web sites out there which use the Destiny Companion API to generate everything from group finding tools to websites which tell you specifically where the vendor Xur is located.  Each and every one of those sites which has the ability to generate a full list of Sparrows fails to show Lysander's Cry.  Since every web site is using the API, it would be passing along calls to the database to retrieve information.  And if the data is flagged not to be displayed, nobody would be showing it.

This does beg the question of why it shows up as "Classified" on the actual app, but doesn't appear at all in the web site.  I would surmise that it has something to do with the way that the Android and iOS apps handle the data calls, since using Firefox on my own phone shows that same lack of information it does on my home computer.

Pop Culture

Given the earlier Star Wars reference, it's possible that Bungie was simply being flip about the whole thing and making a passing reference to a vaguely similar setting with its own space wizards.  They might have been flashing their geek card while saying, "be patient, we'll show you all the goodies when we're ready."  However, it's also possible that they're planning on hitting another pop culture touchstone, this one being Lord of The Rings.

One of the taglines for Peter Jackson's version of Return of The King was, "There can be no triumph without loss.  No victory without suffering.  No freedom without sacrifice."  Interestingly, the name the upcoming Destiny live event is "Age of Triumph."  It may be a bit of a stretch, but it's possible that what we're going to be seeing here is more than just updated versions of the Year One raids and a whole new record book.  It's possible there will be a new and potentially cataclysmic storyline that will involve significant loss to the City, if not the loss of the City itself.  And given the lack of data about Lysander's Cry, combined with the references to Lysander and the Concordat in one of the story missions to obtain the Year Three version of Gjallarhorn, there's a distinct possibility that it will involve the return of Lysander, not exactly the sort of "king" that the City or the Consensus necessarily want to come home.

Conclusion

Bungie appears to be hinting at a storyline involving Lysander.  What that storyline's particular beats are, it's difficult to say at this point in time.  Whether there will be more Lysander-related or Concordat-themed items in this update is equally difficult to say.  As of this writing, there is no information on any items of any sort containing elements of "Lysander" or "Concordat."  As for when this hypothetical storyline will be introduced, it's equally difficult to say, but given Bungie's recently avowed awareness that stringing things out too long only irritates gamers, the soonest we could expect this storyline to occur would be during the Age of Triumph live event.  It's also possible that this event will simply tease the initial storyline for Destiny 2, setting up the pieces so that players know what happened right before that game's launch later this year.  Regardless, there is method to the madness.  To what end, we'll have to simply wait and see.