After a week now, most of us are keenly aware of a monstrous ship in Nessus' orbit. Emperor Callus' Leviathan is host to Destiny 2's raid, and obscenely opulent palace.
The Raid's name, though, was leaked before Destiny 2 even released. Upon hearing the name 'Leviathan,' many speculated this to be the same Leviathan referenced in The Books of Sorrows. I myself, lead the charge in propagating this theory. Even after the game launched, though, no one knew where this colossal ship had come from.
Further evidence from concept art included with Destiny 2's Collector's Edition seemed to indicated that it was, in fact, a dead monster:
Unfortunately, this is not the case. The truth, while its own vein of strange, is far more humble. Or as humble as a planet-eating spaceship can be.
According to captions from Dorje Bellbrook's ArtStation page, the Leviathan is an entirely artificial spaceship that was created by Emperor Calus. Pick up your broken dreams of space-monsters though, because he elaborates, with something interesting:
"I thought it would be cool if Emperor Calus was inspired to make the Leviathan from a creature native to his home planet, a huge land whale that would slide across the plains and devour anything in its path."
So, Calus was inspired by colossal landwhales from the Cabal home world. From the images, it's clear that these Landwhales were a plague on Cabal cities, crushing their way through walls and buildings. It's not hard to imagine the creative process: Calus needed a machine that could eat its way across the Galaxy.
The Leviathan has been a source of much intrigue, and while we still know little of how it operates, or even Calus' Odyssey to the deepest reaches of space and eventual encounter with The Darkness, it's interesting to know what inspired its unique design.