Craymen sought to activate the dormant Tower of Uru in the hopes of ending all wars. Even Azel deluded herself into believing that Craymen wanted to “save the world” by activating an ancient ruin built to literally regenerate and protect the environment, even if this meant wiping out a large percentage of the current human population. Craymen himself believed that the only way the stop humanity from destroying itself was by allowing the will of the ancients to go unchallenged. If someone or something didn’t control the human race, nothing would stop it from walking down a destructive path.
Was Craymen walking a fine line between insanity and genius? Did he truly have noble goals, or goals that can only be described as misguided?
Something I’ve wondered is: did Craymen really know what he was going to bring about when he set out to reactivate the Tower? Did he understand the immensely hostile nature of the Tower towards human life? Or did he just think that he would be able to control the Tower, for the good of all - in the same way that the Empire did? He never seemed to know about Sestren, for example, which is an essential element to understanding the Towers.
Was Craymen just out of his depth, and blinded by arrogance or nobility?
Craymen knew exactly what he was doing, which he indicates when he tells Edge that the purpose of the “monsters” is to “protect” humanity. In a way, the bio-monsters protected human beings from themselves by stopping them from wasting all the natural resources. We can safely assume Craymen knew everything the empire knew since his position within the Imperial Accademy gave him free access to Imperial research (he became aware of Azel the moment the Empire did).
As long as humanity wasn’t completely wiped out (which Sestren had no intention of doing), then the planet’s ecosystem could be restored without human beings interrupting the process.
Craymen is a morally ambiguous person to say the least.
The question is, how much more did Craymen know than the Empire? The Empire was very ignorant of the Tower’s true nature, after all. The Emperor would certainly not have ordered Azel to awaken the Tower if he had known that it would result in his own death and the annihilation of his fleet.
Though Craymen definitely knew of the general purpose of the Tower and monsters, did he really know that devastating swarm of new monsters was going to be unleashed upon the Tower’s activation? Or did he just think, like the Empire did, that the Tower was a massive weapon that would be under his command?
If he wasn’t aware, it would make him guilty of looking at the bigger picture rather than at the relevant details. If he was aware of just what the Tower’s reaction would be, however, it would place him in the same moral camp as Sestren itself, i guess. The belief that mankind needed to be forcibly kept in check; a complete focus on the basic survival of the species, without any consideration for the individual.
Even the Seekers knew that the Towers were keeping humanity alive, yet they still wanted to destroy them to free them from the Ancients’ will. The problem with the Empire is that they didn’t realize that the Ancients still controlled the world through Sestren and the Towers, and I don’t think Craymen knew this either. Whatever Craymen knew about the Tower, he didn’t know enough.
Maybe Craymen thought that if he could control Azel, he could control the Tower. And basically, he was right about that. Who knows what would have happened if Craymen had the chance to accomplish his goal. Sestren didn’t seem to be able to stop Azel from destroying the Tower, so I assume she had full control over it.
My thoughts are similar. It seems that neither Craymen nor the Emperor knew about the new waves of pure type monsters that would be unleashed upon the Tower’s reactivation, and which would ultimately destroy them both. Apparently - despite his advanced knowledge - Craymen ultimately saw the Tower as a weapon to be controlled, just as the Empire did.
Was Craymen really a much better candidate for Controller of the Tower than the Emperor himself? And even if he was, wouldn’t power have corrupted him in time, if he was able to take full control of the Tower through Azel?
“I’m sure you’ve grown to loathe the monsters. They have a purpose. Essentially, they act as the caretakers of the ecosystem. Their actions, all, are to protect mankind from extinction”.
Craymen knew what would happen as soon as the Tower came to life. His only goal was to awaken the Tower, not control it IMO.
“Even in your short involvement with the Empire, you must have learned their actions are nothing but an endless waste of resources, war, and death. Even if the Tower restores the world, the humans will just consume and destroy it again. Someone, or something, must take control of everything. Or we shall continue to destroy ourselves forever. This world was constructed by the ancient ones as a delicate balance”.
Craymen seems to have adopted the very same logic as the ancients themselves. The question is: do we agree with it or not? Should humanity be pushed to and kept at the brink of extinction if it means human beings, as a race, survives? We could, after all, potentially destroy ourselves, but I think we’re the ones who should decide our own fate.
I’ve given this quite a bit of thought since you brought this topic up, so I’ll explain the conclusion I’ve come to.
The backstory of PDS was Craymen going renegade, and stealing Azel - who he knew the Empire had discovered - with the intent of activating the Tower. The plot of the game then proceeded to revolve around Craymen’s race to get to the Tower and activate it before the Empire could catch up with him, steal Azel and do the same thing themselves. As we found out in Disc 3, Craymen failed - blowing up the Imperial Capital wasn’t enough of a distraction for the single-minded Emperor. The Emperor ended up re-capturing Azel, and activating the Tower as he would have anyway. Craymen’s intervention was ultimately for naught.
If Craymen had known that the Tower would release that lethal army of pure type monsters though, and did not in fact want to control it, the following question would have to be asked:
Why did he even bother to race the Empire to the Tower anyway?
If Craymen knew exactly what would happen, wouldn’t he have just left the Empire to it? He could have just got himself to a safe enough distance, and watched the Empire activate the Tower and consequently get itself annihilated. The most plausible reason that I can see to explain Craymen’s actions is that he saw the Tower as something that could be controlled, and that he wanted to get contol of it first so that the Empire couldn’t.
Regarding that quote where Craymen explains the monsters to Edge: it does show that he understands the true nature of the pure types - as caretakers - but it doesn’t literally prove that he knew of the new monsters that were to be released. I feel my above point strongly suggest the opposite.
Hmm… sorry for the long ramble. I hope you see where I’m coming from, anyway…
Well, theoretically, the Empire could taken control of the Tower, which is not what Craymen wanted. Craymen also says that the Empire wanted to control as much biological weaponry as possible. Letting the Pure Type bio-weapons within the Tower run rampant isn’t exactly conducive to this end.
Perhaps the Emperor was too eager to activate the Tower and so chose not to study it first, but it was Azel herself who activated the Tower. She didn’t control it though, because the guardians attempt to annihilate both her and Edge when they return to the Tower. The Tower had a mind of its own (so to speak).
Gash also comments on Craymen’s goals:
“You heard it from Craymen? He claims the Tower will restore this world. If the Tower ran our lives, there would be no war. But we’re not really living. Just being kept alive”.
Craymen wanted the Tower itself, or Sestren to take control of everything, including the future of the human race.
Ah, so you’re suggesting that the Emperor “fortunately” did what Craymen was going to do anyway - that is, reactivate the Tower and not control it properly - and so he ended up completing Craymen’s task for him? Yes, that would actually make sense.
So - finally getting back on topic - yes, I would also be critical of Craymen’s actions. Though he probably never knew it, he was just fulfilling the will of the Ancients in the same way that Sestren and Abadd tried to. At the end of the day, Craymen didn’t care for real people at all; only for his own view of what was “right” for the world. I’d say he was a very misguided individual, who placed too much faith in the Ancients - an outside influence that he could not expect to fully understand.
My thougths exactly. Azel wasn’t controlling the tower because she was in shock after Craymen’s got shot. I bet that, when in her senses, she was perfect capable of controlling the tower. After all she obliterated the tower into nothingness when Edge was sent to fight sestren.
My memories are fading away. I must play PDS again.
