Here is proof that that Ancients were human:
“The wondrous civilization of the Ancients had long since passed, and the REMAINING human population was scattered into a thousand tribes, each seeking out a marginal existence on the barren land.”
Depending on how you read that quote, it’s more than enough proof that the Ancients were, indeed, human.
This source material comes from the Panzer Dragoon Orta manual.
The problem is that, like all of the other English-language references that define the Ancients as being human, this is just something that has been changed / added / assumed in translation. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, this confirmation of the Ancients’ identity never existed in the original Japanese games of the series.
Instruction manuals and blurbs on boxes are also notoriously inaccurate. The PD1 manual and box casually bill the Panzer world as being set on Earth, and also as being “1,000 years into the future”, which was completely added in translation. The PDS manual describes the whole Black Fleet as being called “Craymen”, not the individual, which reads as a blatant mistake.
Remember that, like the PDO manual, these were almost certainly not translated by the people who translated the game itself. These kinds of things should be viewed with extreme scepticism, as it’s rare that they contain an undamaged truth.
It’s possible that humans coexisted with the ancients, which means that for all we know the ancients could have died and the humans that coexisted with them rose up.
So no, your theory, while applicable, isn’t 100% true.
Plus it doesnt mean those remaining humans were the Ancients descedeants, might as well have been their slaves that were “freed” and became the dominant intelligent race when the ancients’ reign was over 
The meaning can change totally by the way you chose to read it really, and with japanese to english translations we can never be sure that the initial impression it gives off is the correct one when it’s written in this fashion…
Edit: Neil got it first 
I need to stop multitasking and just post before more replies are done by the time I end up posting my own
I think the ancients lived among humans. The ancients could have been differently evolved, like how people are “above” apes, they would be “above” us.
Humans may have been in a once flourishing society, but they weren’t the ones who controlled everything.
That’s just what I think though.
Even you admit that “depending on how you read that quote” it can mean different things. Given that tidbit, can you really claim that this is “proof” that the Ancients were human? That’s not very scientific.
This quote can be read one of two ways (at least):
The Ancients were human, and the surviving humans were scattered throughout the world.
The Ancients died off, and the humans that were left behind were scattered throughout the world.
I must admit, I felt like strangling Abadd at the old forums when he confirmed that any references to the ancients being human in the English Saturn Panzer Dragoon trilogy was a distortion of the truth. Everything we had learnt about the ancients was basically a lie. Still, not knowing who the ancients really were further mystifies the foundation upon which the games are built.
I’m curious though: the English translation of Panzer Dragoon Saga seems very professional and I’m wondering if the erroneous background story prevalent in the first two shooting games was kept alive deliberately in order to ensure some semblance of consistency.
The truth is human beings were at least present during the downfall of the Ancient Age and were the focus of the Towers’ wrath for a reason. Humanity was too much of a threat to the environment to be given the freedom to spread. Why exactly pure type monsters are enraged by the mere presence of humans is something else worth considering.
It’d make some kind of logical sense, I guess. If western gamers are never going to play the Japanese games, but they are going to have played the earlier western translations, what are they going to notice the continuity errors in? It’s certainly one explanation.
Slightly odd question, but where is this confirmed, exactly? I’d gathered that all accurate descriptions of humans existing in the Ancient Age were added in translation. If this was in the Japanese games, where was it stated?
I’m drawing my conclusions from the fact humanity was targeted for termination by the Towers (or perhaps I should say “population reduction”). Someone obviously had no love for humans.
As for pure type creatures becoming enraged by the presence of humans:
“However, if a human approaches, these creatures will spring to life and will not cease until destroyed, or their targets are destroyed”.
Perhaps this description of pure type monsters (from Panzer Dragoon Orta) is a little vague, as they could respond likewise to any non-pure type creature that stumbles on them.
I’ve never really felt that the Towers targeted humans specifically (although they certainly were keeping humankind repressed): it seemed likely to me that the Towers would try and “deal with” anything that threatened the environment that they were trying to repair.
As humankind’s presence was doing the environment no favours, it’s certainly possible that they just attacked human populations indescriminately because of this. If the humans had been aliens or super-intelligent cybernetic cows, I expect that the Towers would have done the same: act in a hostile fashion to keep them next to extinction. That way the safety of the environment could not be jeapordised.
What Craymen said about the bio-weapons being churned out by the Towers to protect human beings from themselves by preventing them from raping the world of its resources, and what the Heresy dragon said about breaking the spell of the Ancient Age and giving humans control over their own destiny leads me to believe humanity was a specific target, or at least a priority target. I don’t suppose Sestren would hesitate to wipe out anything that threatened the environment it was created to guard, but then Gash said that humans weren’t really living, but being forced to live/kept alive.
Then, of course, there is the Zoah bible, which states that the Gods’ fire burnt the earth and that monsters were taught to devour human flesh.
But can we really know what these sources of script and dialogue implied before translation? The idea of the Ancients being human is adopted entirely in the English versions of the Saturn games, so It might be hard to guess where the “accurate” translations stop and the reworking begins.
It’s a pity that we don’t have an enthusiastic linguist on the forums who could answer all these questions for us…
It is impossible to say what is accurate and what isn’t without playing the original Japanese games ourselves. Still, I think the translation of Panzer Dragoon Saga was more or less accurate apart from the fact the ancients’ identity was meant to be shrouded in mystery, and the addition of Azel’s declaration of love for Edge.
All this discussion just makes me more pissed at AV if they don’t make another PD game…
Some forum member or guest knows japanese or panzerese to help to illuminate our souls with the original truth of the japanese games?
The PD story only shines when you assume the ancients to be human beings.
Ooh ooh!! I do I do!
[quote=“Abadd”]Ooh ooh!! I do I do!
:D[/quote]
Any idea what the original Japanese version of Old Diary says about the Towers? That book is one of the most important resources from PDS regarding the Ancient Age, yet the English version is bound to be full of translation errors.
[quote=“Solo Wing Dragon”]
[quote=“Abadd”]Ooh ooh!! I do I do!
:D[/quote]
Any idea what the original Japanese version of Old Diary says about the Towers? That book is one of the most important resources from PDS regarding the Ancient Age, yet the English version is bound to be full of translation errors.[/quote]
I don’t think so. Excerpts from the diary of Skiad Ops Endow and the Zoah bible were used to introduce the background story for Panzer Dragoon Orta at www.sega.com
[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]
I don’t think so. Excerpts from the diary of Skiad Ops Endow and the Zoah bible were used to introduce the background story for Panzer Dragoon Orta at www.sega.com[/quote]
But that mini-site itself was littered with inaccuracies and translation errors. I’m not sure if it was put together by Smilebit members or not, but it had either been translated in a non-canonical way, or it had been put together by a person (or people) who were only generally familiar with the PD world.
The fact that whoever made the site chose to use the English translations of those things doesn’t really mean that they were necessarily accurate translations… it was an English-language site after all, so these versions would probably be used regardles of how faithful they were to the original Japanese.
And if I remember correctly, that book did say some things that seemed odd in context…
Which sega site exactly? American, Japanese or European? The link you posted is the site selection page, not any specific site…