Oh we got ideas about it, everyone speculates. And not too long ago we found a lab under Mars' ice cap that had a few answers, but nothing concrete.

[This is a lie. Cayde probably knows more than most about the truth behind the Exo project ... but nobody's going to get a word out of him about it.]

As for the Collapse, well that would be when an ancient evil called The Darkness swept through the solar system and destroyed nearly every thing and killed nearly everyone.