The Dragon Unit info

Hey, sorry if this sounds stupid or anything. You see, in the last two paragraphs of the Dragon Unit, it said that during the Great Fall, there was a fierce battle between dragons. Then it said afterward, there was only one of each existed. Did that mean there was more than one of Lagi or something? Also, it said that the dragon units were prototypes. What are they prototypes for? I mean, if you look at the four main dragons in the games, excluding the extra forms, it seems that Lagi was slowly evolving by itself. Please help me out here? Thanks.

Welcome to the forums, panzerraptor. :anjou_happy:

The battle between the dragons around the time of the Great Fall was probably referring to the battle between Lagi and Atolm. However the fact that it says “a decade ago” is strange as the Great Fall happened a lot longer before then (Great Fall 119 AF, PDO 156 AF).

I think the “one of each dragons” comment was referring to different types of dragons… the Guardian Dragon, Atolm, Type 01, Type 02, etc. From what we’ve seen of the Saturn trilogy, there is a different looking dragon outside of each Tower. Again, this is a little strange since Lagi also morphed into the Type 02 (the Dark Dragon’s form) as the Solo Wing Spiritual Class. Mind you, Lagi could be an exception to the rule. The passage could have been talking about Ancient Age dragons in general, in which case, it remains consistent with the Saturn Trilogy.

About the last comment… I believe Lagi can adapt himself to his surroundings to a certain extent. For example, he may have learnt how to morph into the Attack, Spiritual, Defense, and Agility forms on the fly by watching the Gigra which also changed into various forms. Just a theory.

Oh yes, and about this one… it’s a damn good question. I wonder what the Ancients had planned, exactly.

Prototypes for the Light Wing maybe?

And yes it would make sense the dragon acquired the ability to morph by watching the Gigra.

Id have to check PDO’s Pandra’s Box agehn in order to answer you PanzerRaptor.Welcome btw :anjou_happy:

Hey, welcome to the forums.

About the “prototypes” thing: I suspect this is just a reference to the unique nature of each dragon, rather than an implication that they’re each the first in a new line of creatures. Each dragon is definitely a new, unique and singular creation (a literal “proto type”), but I’m guessing this is all we’re meant to assume; the part of the passage that says each dragon was “designed around a specific mission or a specific rider” seems to correlate with this.

(This sort-of ties in with another odd use of the word “prototype” in the series, as the Dark Dragon from the first game is referred to as the “Prototype Dragon” in Panzer Dragoon Saga and Panzer Dragoon Orta. Now, the Dark Dragon’s “title” in the Japanese scripts was D Unit 01, which is presumably short for Dragon Unit 01, and this also appears in the English scripts a bit, sometimes as D Unit 01, and sometimes as D Type 01. As far as I can tell, though, it looks like “Prototype Dragon” is just a translation of this term: “Proto” means “First” which equates to “One” or “01”, so any names like “Proto Type Dragon”, “Dragon Type Proto”, “Dragon Type 01”, “D Type 01” or “D Unit 01” would be a valid way of translating that term into English. Unfortunately, “proto type” has other connotations in English (i.e. “the first of many”), so it’s probably ended up being a bit misleading.)

You know, I’d never noticed that before. You could always imagine that the encyclopedia entry was written thirty years before the game takes place… but I’m guessing it was just a slight slip-up. =)

Don’t know if I mentioned this, but I found out that Pandra’s Box actually is called Pandora’s Box in the Japanese version of Zwei (just as it’s called Pandora’s Box in all versions of Orta). I’m guessing it was just changed to make the whole Pandora > Pandra > Pan Dra > Panzer Dragoon link more obvious for us Western gamers.

W00t!!!My life as I know it has changed forever!!!faints :anjou_disappointment:

I didn’t know that.Thanks for pointing it out.

Yeah, I’d wondered about that as well… thanks for that, Lance.

I still think the word “Pandra” sounds better. It feels like it could be the name of someone in the Panzer Dragoon world.

Thanks guys for the replies. Though I still have one more question for this post. You guys are saying that Lagi may have learned to morph after watching an enemy target called a Gigra. Exactly what is that? Is it a dragon like Lagi or is it a different kind like the ‘Guardian Dragon’? When was it encountered and what purpose did it have?

It was a boss in Panzer Dragoon Saga =)
Did you ever play it?

Scott’s correct - it was the boss creature you fight after leaving the Garil Desert with Gash, in a subterranean cavern. It was a flat creature akin to a manta-ray (except that it floated, was carapace-sheathed, spat hailstorms of spines at you and was giant… :stuck_out_tongue: ) which could shift its body into different configurations. After defeating it, it revived - but instead of being obliged to fight it a second time, you were treated to an ingame cutscene where Lagi learned how to morph, switched to defence-orientation to resist all of the new ordnance being hurled at him, before changing to attack-orientation and Bezerking the debased mutant monstrosity into oblivion.

Personally, I don’t think that it was observing the Gigra which enabled Lagi to morph - a dragon being able to change his forms is one of the fundamental aspects of his function (as seen in the Dark Dragon in Eins, and the fact that every time you faced Atolm he returned with a few new augments). It was just a case of him finally acquiring enough strength to access this higher power.

Hmm, I’m not so sure about the Dark Dragon / Atolm comparison: their different forms essentially just involved different amounts of armour and weaponry being attached to their bodies, whereas Edge’s dragon goes through a physical metamorphosis when it changes. (e.g. the Dark Dragon’s ultimate form was really just a whole load of bio-armour with the normal Dark Dragon still inside it, and the Guardian Dragon’s and Atolm’s transformations seemed to be similarly superficial.)

Aha, some great revelations here!

I had never thought of it that way. :anjou_wow:

^ I just had to reply to this since I really like that idea as well Solo Wing. ^

I had never thought of that either, but it does seem conspicuous that your dragon first learns to morph into different battle modes on the fly, after fighting the only full-organic (or at least seemingly self contained and and non-modular) enemy ever faced that acts similarly.

It’s easily the closest thing to a specific rationale for why/how ‘Lagi’ would suddenly recieve this powerful ability he never evidently had before. And cetainly Orta firmly introduces the concept of the dragon being able to upgrade itself from defeating enemies, albeit in a less than literally satisfying context at times… (why exactly is the genetics off a couple of imperial fighter ships so useful? how is it gene-bases from multiple clone dragonmares be accumulative in effect? lol)

How come Lagi morphs into attack mode to do a berserk attack?

Arcie, I believe the berserk used in that battle is actually (at least similar to) one of the later attack school berserks? It’s a lightning attack.

Yes, that’s true, but berserk attacks are more powerful in Spiritual Class.

I wish I had ever earned a berserk as powerful as that particular attack was, spiritual form or not. :wink: