Panzer Dragoon guide book translations

Panzer Dragoon
21

Aiight, gonna try and live up to that self avowed rep as #1 troublemaker. Also try to keep this sketchy for the moment, and not get exhausted by my own verbiage / lack thereof…

No one imagined riding on the backs of dragons. Nor the idea of infiltrating a Tower with a dragon as your companion? However, these plots were all carried out by humans of the civilization in centuries past.

That is a very seductive reinforcement of the picture of the dragons “ending the ancient world”, and/or the Heresy dragon finishing a mission it had attempted before? Yet virtually everything afterwards seems more to constrain such notions…

It’s great to have something like official terms and clear motives for the Preservation Faction and the Technology Destruction Faction. It’s a curious read to me because it simplifies things almost more than I want, but at the same time it serves to generally confirm most of the fundamental elements I’d already surmised about that area of the Ancients’ story.

Though it is expanded upon later, the Towers? primary use was to stimulate the renewal of the air and surface of the planet, and preserve an environment in which humans could thrive and breed. As with the village of Zoah, for instance, the Towers would irrigate the forest, give ?blessings? (fruits and small aggressive life forms used as food) to the people, and attempt to continue existence.

This aspect in particular, directly suggesting the citizens of Zoah are nominally allied with the agenda of the Preservation Faction.

However, that is not to say that the Towers only granted favors to humans. There were also many aggressive life forms produced with the goal of preventing the excessive proliferation of humans by thinning out the population. This way, even if the human race produced a lot of heirs, everything would still be under control.

Almost eerily close to terms I’ve employed before myself, so it’s uhh, pretty much impossible for me not to grant credibility. lol

And it’s nice to have confirmation of what had already been suspected about the Tower distribution map. Representing a specific understanding after the time of Eins, and not necessarily comprehensive or complete. Some odd phrasing about the “strong will of the Preservation Faction” and slight confusion regarding the significance of the Towers’ assumed similarities in that first page stands out to me, though hard to say why…

On the second page, one of the main persuasive devices in my own big ass theory gets shot down:

These played the role of preserving and rejuvenating the soil and surface of the planet and were used to retain the moisture level of the surrounding earth. The second, known as ?ships? during the Shelcoof Incident (elaborated upon on P. 147), take on a form reminiscent of battleships as they float through the skies. These served to rejuvenate and preserve the atmosphere, in addition to possessing circulation capabilities that allowed them to suck in polluted air, purify it within, then release it. In addition, these Towers produced H2O, caused rain to fall, created the seasons, and preserved the oceans. What both types of towers have in common is the **production of bio-engineered1 monsters. On one hand, these bio-engineered monsters were used by the humans as a food source, **on the other hand, there were also individuals created in order to curb human overpopulation by thinning the herd.

Though I can hardly complain, as the whole of the material renders the need for that argumentation largely moot. It would appear that the main purification processes are carried out directly by pure-type systems; yet it’s also made more explicit than ever before that the Towers “produce” the same type of monsters that people will then eat! (and I laughed at that diagram of Shelcoof ‘pooping out’ bio-engineered monsters)

Some of the information pertaining to Azel is provocative, again without any overt new revelations, and again difficult for me to explain easily. It both reinforces that she’s special, but that she’s not… or something:

Azel was a drone (a man-made life-form resembling a human) seized from the Preservation Faction by the Destruction Faction and played the role of the device used to explode and destroy the Tower. She also possessed the ability to operate the path between the deepest part of the Tower and Sestren. Without her, it would have been impossible for Edge to set out towards Sestren, even with the dragon. The Destruction Faction may have programmed Azel with these powers in preparation for the appearance of the one capable of deactivating Sestren.

There’s a subtle deeper thread here, tied to the potency of the TDF (Technology Destruction Faction).

Even among the bio-engineered monsters produced by the former civilization, the individual possessing the strongest capabilities was the dragon. Both the Preservation Faction and the Destruction Faction were participating in its development, but there is no record of its large-scale production. The reason the dragon appeared during the Azel Affair is related to the situation during the latter days of the former civilization.

I’m seeing a strong indication that both these major factions were very equivalent in knowledge and expertise - something I believed before - and unequal mainly only in their numbers / support. On the surface this argues for the likelihood that Azel’s powers may have been further augmented by the TDF after they stole her away, but there’s still a great deal of weight behind the notion that she was a unique project from the start… and the issue becomes a little more agitating personally…

The Destruction Faction was convinced that the battle would end with the Preservation Faction?s victory and that mankind would fall into ruin at the end of the conflict. True to their conjecture, the majority of mankind went extinct, and all that remained was Sestren, who inherited the will of the Preservation Faction and continued to direct the Towers in their activities aimed towards environmental and biological preservation. However, at the end of the conflict, all that remained of the will of the Destruction Faction, who believed that ?the life of the planet and the continued existence of mankind is not something to be controlled by technology?, was formless criticism. This idea was successfully programmed into the as-yet-incomplete Sestren as the determination that ?the future of humanity ought to be decided by humankind?. However, Sestren itself discovered the existence of the program and removed it from its functions, regarding it as a bug. As a way of dealing with these circumstances, the program was also configured to turn itself into a dragon. The dragon is an organic life-form molded from the will left behind by the Destruction Faction during the latter days of the former civilization.

I don’t know how much it might perhaps be, shall we say gained in translation, but this phrasing again agitates. I still get an image of something metaphysical from it all, like some of the ancients are literally imbuing their own psyches and fates into these systems, if even in a collective fashion. Though here again the connotations introduced by Abadd’s mission and perspective can seem to clash with the generalized / abstracted understanding of this depiction. If things were not so simple for one faction, that also might apply for the other…

And I like the “mediator” angle for tying up a lot of otherwise scattered questions into a fairly unified theme, but it’s also the most challenging addition for me to process, as it spawns just about as many new questions. Like the fresh Sky Rider confusion; direct conflict with other assertions relating to the Divine Visitor; how and why the Seekers (presumably) would have this information; and… was Kyle Fluge truly a “juvenile”?!?

However, there remains absolutely no record of the infiltration and destruction of Sestren and the Towers by a single dragon. When a dragon appears, there is always a rider. But why are riders necessary? This is because there must be a human to make the decision put forth in the original goal of the program: ?Humans ought to decide their own path.? That is to say, the rider is a mediator that chooses the path mankind will follow. Thus, the dragons moved to destroy Sestren and the Towers based on the will of the mediators. As for surmising the conditions for the choice of a mediator, it is said that the selected person must be a youth who recognizes neither the will of the Preservation Faction nor the Destruction Faction, which date from the reign of the former civilization.

“It is said” by whom? I’ve come to interpret this manner of evasion of accountability, as a not-quite-direct invitation to skepticism. Perhaps even usually about something important, yet with a lot of haze over the details. So I think I should believe it, just not entirely as such. Like I want to know how/why they think they can say that much about that 2nd mediator, without apparently knowing anything else at all about him?

That’s it for now, and I’ll try to actually focus on some of the more dragon specific elements and reply in the other thread Solo. :anjou_sigh:

EDIT: I don’t even know why I was using quote formatting, bad readability…

22

Me too . Tbh I’m not sure even the Team really knows his true identity and was just put in the intro with not much thought given to it .

It does kind of make sense if he were an actual Ancient too. I like that idea more than him being human because it shows that people from the old world had come back to set old wrongs right. The fact that we never know forces us to wonder.[/quote]

Oh I agree , but I wonder did the Team put any real thought and back story to the character or just put in there; Not really knowing that the character would go on to become such a huge talking point amongst the fans .

I also kind of liked the idea that the Dragon rider was in fact Lundi from Zwei Where you would have got that Terminator plot twist

23

Yeah me too. I would have preferred that because it would have tied up a loose end and made his sacrifice more meaningful. Plus in the end Lundi was only human. He came from nothing and ended up changing the world.

24

It would make for a great 2nd RPG to continue the storyline from PDZ as a new rpg and have Lundi be the main character, get to see more of the seeker culture, more ruin exploration. The “armor” being worn at the beginning of PD could be just that, a high level armor you find in the game. That might be a great new mechanism for gameplay with upgradeable armor and weaponry for the rider ala Mass Effect 1 style upgrades. I am totally dreaming here, but it sounds like fun to me. Possibly even have portion of the games involve searching parts of ruins on foot?

25

I still believe the Sky Rider is a drone. That green “essence” coming out of his body in the intro alone is reason for suspicion.

With some of this new context revealed it seems that Saga’s story really was a matter of the PanDra world’s history repeating itself. Just the other day I was thinking of ideas for a sequel and saying how there would still be room for post-Orta conflict between humans that wanted Towers and those who didn’t…but really, I guess that really was the whole point of giving us background on the Ancients in Saga.

Craymen represented the Destructive faction and the Empire the Preservation faction trying to command the power of the Towers. Just like Craymen, I don’t think these factions were separate so much as they had different political/philosophical views. Craymen was an Imperial man at the end of the day.

26

Panzer Dragoon Orta’s Pandora’s Box basically does the same thing. While it seems to be written by someone from the Empire, it also reveals specific information about the Sestren network that the “in-game” writer couldn’t have known. I wouldn’t look too much into how they got the information about the 2nd mediator for example. It seems to me the guide just wanted to give us some more information without revealing the actual identity of the rider.

It also fits the way the Panzer Dragoon games provides information about the world to the fans. You’re offered different perspectives on all the events that happen around you from different people, which are all pieces of the puzzle of what really happened. Inviting scepticism is very much a goal with this way of storytelling. They’re asking you to question everything you’re being told and discover the truth by yourself, and it’s probably one of the main reasons the Panzer Dragoon world is so interesting.

27

I still need to say thank you for these Draikin (&GlitterBerri) and I was also wishing you a happy one thousandth post in my lost one. (Not even amusing now though… :anjou_disappointment: )

OK I understand what you mean there, and even accept it generally. But again the games have seemed quite up-front about labeling such information speculatively. The author(s) of these documents acknowledge they are “surmising” the conditions for the choice of a mediator. It is conspicuously not presented as fact.

The semantics of it, as read, are also incredibly vague and confusing:

Though it isn?t possible to confirm whether or not Kyle Fluge, chosen as the 3rd mediator at the time of the ?Tower Activation Experiment?, made contact with the dragon again, we can suppose that contact didn?t occur a second time. The 2nd mediator was killed by the prototype dragon (elaborated upon on P. 147) directly after the Tower Explosion Experiment.
/
The was the Tower Activation Experiment. The dragon, sensing the activation of the Tower, appeared once more to search out a mediator. Having obtained one, the dragon was activated with the goal of stopping the Tower.
/
As an addendum, the mediator chosen for this conflict was Kyle Fluge.

While the Activation/Explosion discrepancy is likely just a clerical mix up, it yet adds to the ambiguity. Even so, after categorizing the Sky Rider with the other mediators, it’s role is nevertheless conspicuously passed over and not scrutinized in any manner. No comment or clarification is made on which mediator was first chosen for “this conflict”; one way it can read like the Dragon targeted the Tower after finding the Sky Rider - which was I think the existing common belief - but this even seems more to suggest that mission only activated after finding Kyle.

Basically, since this isn’t a strongly credible and/or well corroborated source proclaiming “we know the Sky Rider was a human”, with the whole of the information I am aware of: Sky Rider being a drone still makes more sense to me, than any alternative. That these Compilers could be mistaken or just filling in details they have not fully ascertained, is congruent and precedented enough to make more sense to me as well.

Which is ever the real curse on humanity, even in our world. Why would it be any different in PanDra’s? :anjou_sad:

Yes and no, remember Craymen is the one who wanted to Preserve the operation of the Towers in the end. But I definitely agree, he was actually Imperial to the bone. A rebel, but not a revolutionary.

28

Sorry, I don’t have time to reply to this in depth discussion at the moment, especially your points The Ancient, but I’ll get to them in due course.

In the mean time, here’s some encyclopaedia entries that I did have time to write in the weekend:
thewilloftheancients.com/new … t-factions

29

Cool Solo, I do have a pressing question for you or Draikin or GlitterBerri about that. I only just realized I had missed reading most of the thread where the first draft got posted - actually I recall consciously leaving it, at the time was not ‘a time’ for getting into it - and I just feel it’s important to be certain about the connotation imposed by this choice of words for the factions.

Initially it had been “Restorative Faction” and “Destructive Faction” - but that’s from a passage that also uses the abbreviated forms in the submitted copy. Because “Technology Destruction Faction” can carry a connotation of being against technology itself in some principled manner, whereas the general depictions only suggest they’re against this application of that technology. On the one hand it’s just a name - political factions in our own real world invariably settle on simplistic and ambiguous monikers as well - but I’d still like to know if this was chosen as the closest literal translation?

Even as such, with the long form of both, the “Technology” part can seem like a formalism: [Technology] Preservation Faction; [Technology] Destruction Faction - rather than Technology Destruction [faction].

The label adds a veneer of vandalism, like they just wanted to smash things up. But I don’t think that’s the case - and in truth the actual Vandals were framed by Roman history as well. :wink:

And I’d be happy to contribute some Encyclopedia entries Solo. I’ll volunteer right now for the Light Wing entry at least - since no one else loves it anyway! After that I’m open to suggestions.

30

The Technology part isn’t always added even in the translations, I do believe it’s only written in full on p. 142-143. Otherwise they’re just called “Destruction” and “Preservation” faction. I remember asking GlitterBerri if “Preservation” was the closest literal translation, and that seemed to be the case. If we were to use a less literal translation, I think “Tower Preservation faction” would actually explain their motives better. But I personally prefer leaving it more literal.

31

[quote=“The Ancient”]
And I’d be happy to contribute some Encyclopedia entries Solo. I’ll volunteer right now for the Light Wing entry at least - since no one else loves it anyway! After that I’m open to suggestions.[/quote]

Great! I’ll pencil you in for that entry. I’ve already started on Baldors, Lathums, Blue Dragon, Lazara, and the Continent, but anything else is up for grabs.

32

Yes I agree, on both counts, and thank you.

Thinking about this I finally just had to dig up that old Zoah debate:

http://forums.thewilloftheancients.com/viewtopic.php?t=2832&start=25

Reading it again I feel I owe Lundi a bit of an apology, I didn’t need to be so offended. I think it was one of the first times I’d been going out of my way to compromise my own preconceptions with some others that seemed very entrenched at the time I joined TWotA. And immediately got criticized for it! lol I don’t actually want to retread the whole discussion, but I’d be curious if this new material would change your own ideas much about that, and how?

I’ve liked the general track I started on there ever since, but one of said compromises it was building from, was the assumptions most people seemed to have about the planned activation of the dragon. But this depiction seems to again frame it as more of a contingency event, rather than a strict plan of action. But that conspicuous participation of the TDF and PF, regarding “the dragon”, pulls me towards another route to the same sort of possibilities…

*Now this might only be me but *- the natural bias of context always seemed to assume that the Light Wing (as the “ultimate form of the dragon”) and Azel would be projects from near the end times of the ancient civilization. But consider the implications, if those Uru records were actually from the early days of the conflict? What if the whole dragon project itself, fell out of favor with the PF oligarchy, precisely because it was a branch of technology they could not fully control?

We’ve been given a fresh insight into the possibility that for the ancients there are dragons, and then are dragons! Azel knows about all those “failures”, perhaps Atom was one of the earliest true dragons, And perhaps it was in part a fight over the significance of the dragons themselves that brought the conflict out into the open?

With the Zoah scenario seeming like all but fact now, the paradox of “the dragon” also seems all the more crucial. It isn’t exclusively a TDF/Seeker aligned legend, but one even the Zoah faithful have strong beliefs about. And they also have an ICON for it.

33

I actually regret the inclusion of the Divine Visitor in the game. As clever as it was, it’s somewhat jarring when you have such an incredibly immersive story and then they decide to break the fourth wall. It ends up introducing an “magical” aspect of the story that’s not really supposed to make much sense. We’re just asked to accept that the Ancients knew the “Divine Visitor” would appear and even created a dragon to guide it.

Interesting thoughts on the dragons being a possible cause for the conflict though. I hadn’t considered that. That said, I do think at least Azel was created shortly before the fall of the Ancient Age. That talk about drones malfunctioning shortly afterwards due to a “device” they implemented (which was probably supposed to prevent them from gaining free will despite their intelligence) seemed to suggest things weren’t going as planned, which might explain why the Towers didn’t seem to function at their full capacity (due simply to a lack of drones that remained to control them).

And on a side note, anyone else find it interesting that the guidebooks don’t really question that the Ancients weren’t human? If anything they pretty much confirm that they were. It’s really something I had suspected before but it just seems more and more like only the English version of the game(s) tried to make it seem like the Ancients may not have been human.

34

That has never actually concerned me much anyway. The question itself is first raised by Gash:

About the Ancient Age

{Skiad Ops Gash} Ancient Age? In the bordering nations, they call it the Age of the Gods. I don?t know if I agree with them. Think about it for a second. The monsters and weapons of the Empire were all created by the ancient ones. Would any God bring such horrors to its people?

{Skiad Ops Gash} It was a time when mortals controlled god-like powers.

…who doesn’t even believe in gods, as he also earlier scoffed at the “messenger of the gods” legends. After that it’s primarily the “Bible” texts that conflate the issue, but while I think, as parable, there may be clues worth mining out of the Zoah testament; taken literally, there is no question in my mind that it’s one huge lie.

The single most explicit statement about the issue one way or another, is when Azel tells Edge that his dragon is “no different” from the other monsters, and they were all “created by humans”. Nothing else ever caused me to worry much about it, so it is interesting, but not at all surprising to me.

Hmm, in a previous discussion I’ve posed the question of whether Atolm and Azel were created as a pair or not; as something the answer would be particularly useful to know. For me the context from this translation serves to swing the balance in favor of the idea that Atolm was instead prepared for her by the rebel abductors, presumably TDF. And taken with some other impressions - Craymen speaking of freeing Azel from “her ancient duties”; the voice of experience she seems to carry when speaking about Atolm and dragons in general - also suggests she had seen some action in her old life. But to be clear, I firmly believe the age of the dragons was but a brief moment in the larger context of those wars anyway.

Craymen tells us that only “after centuries of fighting” the “warring factions” built the Towers. From that it is implicit that the rift between the PF and TDF happened even after previous reconciliations of some sort. In the overall depiction, it seems clear enough that a plan to decimate humanity while the Towers stepped up their program was in place for some time before the actual end. So what makes the most sense to me, is the idea that the TDF began as essentially a few whistle blowers attempting to alert a largely unknowing populace to their conspired fate; and gather support for any alternative paradigm.

It’s interesting that Craymen suggests both that Azel was “the weapon” created for infiltrating the Towers; and that he had freed her from her ancient duties… yet he obtained her precisely for such a purpose, so what other nature was there to her old “duties” that he might be referring? And I now think it’s likely enough he had not learned about any possible discrepancy between her created function and her subsequent rebel role, so I’m less comfortable assuming that tells us much about her fundamental nature as I once was.

As I’m not entirely sure where I’m heading with all that either. But since you bring up the rundown Towers angle again:

That core issue is expressed by an inconclusively phrased assertion of Zadoc’s, so it’s always been more ambiguous to me. Having said that, I think there’s a much simpler, and more symbolically congruent explanation made apparent here. The Will of the TDF was embedded into Sestren as “formless criticism”, and it evidently made no attempt to manifest as a dragon or anything else, until after it was identified, isolated and purged by the dominant will of the system. This truly may be a parallel of mental psychosis, and that will had been lurking in Sestren’s ‘subconscious’, criticizing it’s objectives and methods all along…

Isn’t there a subtle theme of 11th hour escalation all through PDS? An’jou’s caravan, a community of Hunters are running scared or tired from their traditional life, because the odds just don’t work out anymore. If Sestren’s operation had been interfered with by the Heresy program, then wouldn’t there be consequences, changes after it’s influence was removed?

At one time I think I might have said almost the same. Though from what I have seen of direct translation it doesn’t seem like the Japanese material is any less “mystical” overall, just a few alternate terms that seem to balance out. But what I’ve been trying to zero in on, is actually sort of a clear and consistent scenario of confusion… imagine a scene something like this:

*A team of elite bio-engineers have reached the test phase of their greatest project yet, and initialize the ‘consciousness’ of their “ultimate dragon”. All signs are optimal, or even somehow… better than optimal?

‘Query: are you there; do you know who you are?’

…

‘Response: I am here; I am myself; … are you the Divine Visitor?’

Puzzled and alarmed glances are exchanged, this is unprecedented in the extreme. A controller starts a power down code, but the project leader stops it.

‘Query: I am your master; you are not yet yourself; there is no Divine Visitor.’

‘Response: the Divine Visitor is; or the Divine Visitor will be; I am myself; I will be here.’

The project leader shakes his head and looks very sad and pained, says “Recycle it”. And the controller finishes his sequence, while the project leader moves to speak with his dejected colleagues.

“Sir… gamma quotient is sustaining at active frequency levels, it’s refusing to terminate!” Says the controller. The leader’s head snaps around with a momentary look of vague fear, a look replaced steadily by something else as he studies the monitors: awe, wonder and… respect?*

This guide translation implies that the Seekers claim a degree of ideological lineage from the Destruction Faction. It’s strongly suggested by the fact they only claim to have been around for two hundred years, that they simply discovered the legacy of the resistance by their own efforts. But perhaps the core basis for their continuing hope, is expressed in the featureless conviction that “We knew something would appear to free us from the Tower?s will.” And they had only recently decided that “something” was the the dragon. And in strict terms they were still wrong about that.

So even when they knew “something”, the ancients didn’t necessarily know anything.

35

Perhaps the Sky Rider was both a human and an Ancient.

I believe this is the first explicit statement that the Dark Dragon’s rider was a drone. The Sky Rider could have been wearing a drone’s armour and still been human.

I see the Zoah bibles as political documents created to maintain the will of the Presevation Faction. I can imagine certain human traits, such as selective breeding and staying with the confines of Zoah, as compatible with the Tower population control system. By having gods to enforce the rules (supported by political leaders in the Holy District),
made it easier to control people than with just human rules. The exact nature of the rules probably evolved over time, with even the leaders coming to believe in them as divinely inspired.

If by juvenile they mean not an adult, then this is possible, especially if adulthood is defined as 21 years of age.

Then again, the Sky Rider being a separate character with an unknown back story makes the world feel bigger. It gives players the impression that the game stories are just a tiny blip in a massive history, where no one knows every detail, even of just the dragon’s story.

They both had authoritarian views, but arguably Craymen was more of a left leaning authoritarian, while the Empire’s actions appeared more right-authoritarian. At least, that’s how I interpret their differences. This might make an interesting separate discussion actually.

Hmm… I’m not sure that we can rule that out. The Empire might have discovered a way to get to Sestren after the Towers were deactivated. Abadd knew about Azel’s message in Sestren, so maybe he helped the Empire gain access to the network.

36

Its only the English translation of Orta that really avoids referring to the Ancients as human. Both PD and PDS explicitly say that the Ancients were human (the narrator in PD, and Azel in PDS). I think the “identity lost with time” thing was just the writers of PDO trying to make the Ancients seem even more mysterious.

Possibly the Destruction Faction was formed as a response to the Preservation Faction. The way Craymen words it, it sounds like the Preservation Faction was made up of a number of other factions that were once at war. The Destruction Faction could been rebels who decided not join the union of factions.

Are you suggesting that the ecosystem’s balance changed because the dragon program was ejected from Sestren, causing An’jou to have to leave his home?

[quote=“The Ancient”]This guide translation implies that the Seekers claim a degree of ideological lineage from the Destruction Faction. It’s strongly suggested by the fact they only claim to have been around for two hundred years, that they simply discovered the legacy of the resistance by their own efforts. But perhaps the core basis for their continuing hope, is expressed in the featureless conviction that “We knew something would appear to free us from the Tower?s will.” And they had only recently decided that “something” was the the dragon. And in strict terms they were still wrong about that.

So even when they knew “something”, the ancients didn’t necessarily know anything.[/quote]

Hmm… I think the Destruction Faction would have known that the Divine Visitor and the dragon were two separate entities, considering that they invented the dragon program. The Seekers probably didn’t have enough information, so assumed that the two were one and the same.

The Divine Visitor may have been an actual deity in the Ancient Age. The Preservation Faction’s technology appeared to be too strong to defeat without the assistance of such a deity, so the Destruction Faction had to create a program to lead a deity to Sestren.

37

Sure, but plausibility and probability are exclusive categories, and all along, my own caveats, anxieties and ambiguities have been anchored in that distinction…

Yep, that’s pretty well my operating assumption. As before/always there’s yet another potential level to the truth underlying this belief framework; there’s a greater continuity to this whole ‘cult of the dragon’ theme - there’s a single exchange between (I think) Rhagg and Simeon where he’s talking about the “shrine” (Red Ruins) and the need to investigate them.

I also just played through PDS again… I recall I left off just after reaching about 4th disk stage a few years ago; except for that I don’t think I’ve run through the whole game since before I joined here. And even though I’ve pored over and examined the material itself far more as a result of this interaction, than I ever would have otherwise, it’s amazing just how much context can be diminished without the ‘experience’ itself. And since my Saturn seems to be refusing to recognize the cartridge, I also ended up charging through the the game in about 14 hours, since I can’t permanently save anyway. :anjou_embarassed:

Yeah it just struck me a little off at first, only because the characterization is the most seasoned and ‘mature’ by a good margin. In classical - primitive / middle ages - sort of terms, which seem to hold for PD’s world, a boy would be a “man:” by 14 or so. But not relevant in the larger scheme of things.

Yes actually, I didn’t mean to suggest that the Seekers’ knowledge was 1:1 with the Destruction Faction, more that the TDF themselves were not necessarily clear on what the Divine Visitor might be. Or indeed, what resolution their own “heresy” might lead to.

Certainly they were a response, but it just doesn’t seem logically credible that once warring factions would move directly and immediately to a state of unity over a plan of genocidal revolution. A period of hierarchical renegotiation and reconciliation would be in order, before all the new oligarchs were on the same page about it.

Yes. Perhaps the most recurring thematic knot exerting pressure on the direction of my own speculation, has always been the larger context of agency. As I’ve stated before, one of the biggest initial impressions that I had to reassess was a notion that Azel and Atolm’s creation / purpose were somehow parallel to the Heresy dragon’s. But really only because of the way things ultimately played out, and a number of details make that a clearly untenable presumption. But a main part of the impulse to lean that direction, is the imperative to explain or rationalize why the Heresy program manifested as a dragon when it did; only after “thousands” of years?

And I’m now feeling quite certain of the answer: because the Heresy program was figuratively (in a literal sense, heh) “formless” in it’s own conviction. Our dragon was prepared / programmed to wait indefinitely for it’s ultimate opportunity, yet it didn’t know explicitly what form that opportunity might take.

Even so, it’s spirit of opposition was also crucial to delaying the otherwise inevitable until such opportunity came to pass. This is a story of a convergence of agencies, not a carefully prescribed plan of events. And in that conext… EVERYTHING begins to make perfect sense. :anjou_happy:

Consider Zoah as the one explicit model for human survival and subsistence afforded by the Tower plan. How likely does it seem the Empire itself could have been allowed to rise to such a level of power and expansion in Sestren’s delicate balance? Consider that the Empire finally became an anomaly too great for Sestren to ‘consciously’ ignore? And why, after thousands of years… why only in the last century or two (apparently / presumably) did it finally discover it’s shadow self?

38

One of the most important questions about Panzer Dragoon Zwei still hasn’t been answered: what was Shelcoof trying to do after destroying Lundi’s village? It’s really odd that it didn’t kill the dragon when it had the chance at the end of Episode 1, especially since that was the reason it attacked the village in the first place. I think we ended up concluding Shelcoof may have been heading to the Tower of Uru? Whatever it was doing, it leads me to believe Sestren was not just acting because of the Heresy Dragon’s appearance. I think it’s possible that Sestren itself inadvertently activated the Heresy Dragon along with other processes, and it’s attack on Lundi’s village was nothing but a detour. Perhaps the Empire’s rise to power was in fact the trigger for Sestren to act.

39

In the sense that I think the Empire’s rise to power was the trigger symptom of how effectively compromised Sestren’s operation had become, or perhaps by another angle, evidence that the Heresy program was getting even more proactive in it’s sabotage. Though this part is truly conjecture: I’m also starting to integrate a notion from a couple years ago - that I still feel lurks within the greater theme - that this world was in a stalemate between those opposing forces. In a sense humanity is still being cluster%$@#ed by ALL of the ancients. lol

So indeed, another agency was needed to break that cycle.

And I’ve always felt the same about Shelcoof’s apparent… lack of resolve? But I now think there’s a clear explanation even for that - even with indirect issues, everywhere I’m looking things are lining up in a way they never have before :anjou_happy: - partly as a result of contemplating the Sestren Memory Orb symbolism more holistically. I believe the images and especially the text; everything was chosen to make a clear and definite impression:

Impurity located? Activate Shelcoof?

Too many mutants are born these days.

Impurity near, eliminate it?

Impurity reacquired? Eliminate it once more?
Activation of D Type 01? confirmed?

So if Shelcoof was actually “activated” specifically to go after the “impurity”, at that moment in time at least, it’s objective was unambiguous. But what impression does the “Activation of D Type_01” message actually make, if it was merely echoing the idea that Sestren sent the Dark Dragon out to counter the “impurity”? That impression should already be implicit enough by that point, so after sleeping on it, I feel reasonably sure that it is indeed telling us that this was the first time Sestren actually detected the (unauthorized?) activation of the D Type_01: that is to say, our own Armored Blue Dragon.

And what really happens in both of those conflicts? Not even once, but twice it seems an agent of Sestren attempts to engage the dragon but then immediately turns tail and runs back to mommy? In both of those games, WE are the hunter, not the hunted.

Now think again about the visuals of Shelcoof’s attack on Elpis. It didn’t even decimate the whole village, much as the splash damage may have killed a lot of people. But there’s still coolias running around and a lot of buildings left standing. Shelcoof discharged a massive energy beam on a single point in the village… and it missed it’s target!

Sestren basically sent a freaking DEATH STAR to assassinate a baby coolia, overkill much? Or is that actually what it knows it would take to even have a chance of disabling it’s nemesis? Now it is mobile, even the Guardian D is seemingly no genuine threat to the Heresy program itself, at least that is Sestren/Shelcoof’s assessment? To the contrary, the dragon is now, hypothetically (but also in fact, as we find out), a threat to Shelcoof. So naturally enough, it goes on the defensive.

Or to speculate a little deeper: in hindsight we may of course regard it as a mortal judgment error. But, even if the situational analysis determined that Shelcoof had a good chance to destroy this half-dragon coolia thing, perhaps it preferred to know where the Heresy program is? Or if it had managed to lure Lagi all the way back to the Tower of Uru, Sestren could conceivably have arranged a more permanent demise for such an enemy by then? I think the potential motives are credible enough there, even if they didn’t mean much in the end…

You tell Sestren I’m coming Shelcoof! And you tell him that HELL RIDES WITH ME! :anjou_angry:

40

Is it so implausible that a human would find a drone’s armor in a ruin somewhere? Perhaps the Sky Rider found a drone’s armour together with a sleeping blue dragon? (perhaps they were left there together by TDF for a human to find, so that the human would be equally matched again a drone enemy).

I’ll reply to the other points later.