The recently formed United States Space Force has officially announced that their enlisted and commissioned members will be called Guardians (no, seriously), and Bungie-developed looter FPS Destiny is having a field day with the news. After an entire year of deliberating with the help of both public and professional opinion, the USSF has settled on exactly what Destiny calls its own fictional space heroes. Coincidence? Probably, but Destiny 2 fans and the game's developer don't need a year to point out the obvious similarities.

In Bungie's multiplayer spacefaring FPS, originally released in 2017players step into the role as Guardians of humanity's last city on Earth, and wield the power of Light to defend it against the Darkness and hostile alien races. Meanwhile, the United States Space Force, originally established in 1982 as part of the US Air Force but reimagined as an independent military branch in 2019, will task its own Guardians with defending the US and its allies against aggression in, to, and from space, among other core responsibilities and competencies. The term "Guardians," which already has a lengthy and diverse history of usage elsewhere, was settled upon by a combination of public submissions and professional research. It was officially announced by Vice President Mike Pence yesterday to honor the branch's first birthday.

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Bungie and the Destiny 2 team were just as quick to jump on the coincidence as their fans, pointing out that both the game's main characters and the members of the new branch are both known as Guardians and tasked with protecting against threats from space. The game's playerbase was more keen to point out the blatant similarities between the two, whereas the Destiny 2 team's appraisal of the situation was a little more tongue-in-cheek on Twitter:

It's highly doubtful that the Space Force chose the term because enough members of the committee tasked with that decision were Destiny 2 players, but it shouldn't be discounted that there probably were some fans of the series who submitted it for consideration since public submissions were part of the process. Guardians of the Galaxy comparisons have been pretty apt, as well, but the military theme that runs through Destiny 2 makes it the more appropriate choice. (Also, the jurisdiction of either doesn't extend past the Solar Sytem.) This is especially true considering that the US military and the term "Guardian" have a shared history of projected grandiosity, of a higher calling, and of personal sacrifice for some greater good.

That shared history is ideal fodder for video game storytelling, especially in a game literally called Destiny, which is about as on the nose as it gets.  The USSF has yet to confirm whether Guardians will be categorized into Hunter, Warlock, and Titan classes, but optimism remains high.

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Source: Destiny 2