The ghost of Lagi in Panzer Dragoon Saga?

Panzer Dragoon
21

The Heresy Program was responsible for Lagi’s growth / evolutionary morphing, by the same manipulation of his genetics that resulted in him growing wings and a Bioluminary Oscillator in the first place. The fact that it can morph into the Dark Dragon in Saga clearly shows that two beings can be genetically manipulated into the same physical form without originally being the same creature. As I’ve said before, the unknown events leading up to PD1 enable any number of explanations regarding how the Heresy Program got a new body and brought it up to the Solo Wing level again.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how innaccurate and badly translated that timeline is, Geoff. Much information in the games flatly contradicts it: in this case, Tower Report 1 from Saga. It confirms that the Tower was discovered on the 18th day of the 2nd month, Imperial Age 89; and several other places in the games (like the Dragon Report) confirm year 89 as the time that PD1 took place. The text of the Tower Report does not suggest any massive period of time between the Tower’s discovery and the appearance of the dragons, either.

I have more than “doubts” regarding the accuracy of the narrative and dialogue in PD1 and Zwei :slight_smile: However, I expect we can both agree on what the two big innacuracies in that passage are meant to mean:

"With a desolate future, the people look to their past for a glint of hope. Excavations at an ancient Tower have provided the people with a deadly arsenal, now turned upon their foes.

The PD1 Instruction Manual expands on this somewhat. These sources seem to cite those excavations of the Tower as the only (or first) source of the Empire’s technology, though we know that this is not the case. It should obviously be referring to the Empire’s past excavations, which are what actually gave it its power over monsters and people.

“This power created strife amongst surrounding nations, all struggling against each other and the evil forces of the Dark Dragon.”

This obviously just means “living weapons”, “bio-weapons”, “monsters” or something similar, becasue it is clear that the mysterious Dark Dragon was not in control of any “forces”, and had only recently appeared in the world. “Evil creatures like the Dark Dragon” would also make sense.

Whether these were simple mistranslations, or story elements rewritten at a later date, is unclear; but thankfully their (currently intended) meaning is.

I strongly feel that you’re mistaken about this Geoffrey, and I’ll explain why. First off, consider the information given in Sestren’s memory orbs:

“Impurity located… Activate Shelcoof…”

Shellcoof - presumably the nearest Tower to the dragon’s birth at Elpis - was activated, and immediately went and annihilated the whole village, clearly in an attempt to destroy the being containing the Impurity.

“Impurity reacquired… Eliminate it once more… …Activation of D Type 01… confirmed…”

The Dark Dragon was next to be activated, again in a clear attempt to take down the dragon containing the Impurity. Its first mission was to get to the PD1 Tower - which it managed to do - and thus recieve all that extra grafted-on armour and weaponry which would - presumably - have then guarenteed it victory over the Blue Dragon. It is clear that the Tower was merely activated as a part of this plan to eliminate the Impurity, and also to produce all those extra monsters with which to defend itself a bit better against the oncoming dragon.

When you look in detail, Sestren couldn’t seem to care less about the Empire. The elimination of the Impurity (that is, what we call the Heresy Program) was always its goal. As the Empire said themselves that they could get no response out of the Tower whatsoever, they clearly weren’t posing a threat to it or anyone else anyway. They also observed that the Tower’s activation coincided with the dragons’ approach into the region, which supports the above.

Yes, that would explain the low levels of energy, and I am honestly unsure what to believe. My reasoning was that the Empire’s capital had clearly been on that coast for many years - probably decades - and so it would be very strange if they had only noticed those energy readings at that point, if they had indeed been there all along. (Their lack of noticing the Tower itself would make sense, as it was clearly far over the horizon, and they would have little motivation to fly ships out over empty sea.) My reasoning was that the faint traces of energy were just the Tower “warming up” prior to its full activation.

22

Excerpted from dragon book 3:

“Losing Lagi has left me numb,
and the vision has left me
overwhelmed. When he destroyed
the ship, he entrusted me with
his secret. The secret of him,
and of the world”.

Lagi, the dragon, entrusted Lundi with the secret of his existence. Here, Lundi regards Lagi as the inner personality of the dragon – not merely its shell.

Excerpted from the same book:

“In the center of the airship,
Lagi laid still, his power
completely exhausted. Lagi’s body
was stone cold, but I knew he was
still alive. At least, deep
inside of me, I believed so’”

“I knew he was still alive”, condradicts what Lundi later writes but is nonetheless valid and more than relevant when separating facts from ideas, and especially when considering what the creators originally or ultimately planned.

Excerpted from the Old Diary written by Skiad Ops Endow:

“The dragon you ride has
inherited the soul of my old
friend”.

We have no way of knowing if Lundi regarded Lagi as the soul of his dragon, as he believed before (and written in the above passages) and if “Heresy dragon” was just another name for him. Lagi and the Heresy dragon were essentially one entity (according to Smilebit) until they split.

Excerpted from the same diary:

“By destroying the Tower of the
Sky, Shelcoof, our journey came to
an end. Exhausting all his power,
he discarded his body, and entered
a deep sleep. I assume he has now
reemerged with a new body, and
chosen you as his rider”.

The only part of this passage that doesn’t contradict what Lundi wrote/believed in his previous journal entries is the part about Lagi entering a deep sleep, as opposed to dying. In the third dragon book Lundi believed “Lagi” was still “alive” even after destroying Shelcoof. Of course “alive” can be interpreted in different ways when in it comes to describing the Heresy dragon, but who are we to argue with Lundi? :slight_smile:

As soon as I find that interview with Smilebit, I’ll post it here.

23

What Lundi wrote is mostly inconsistent with the Zwei endings, which should by all rights be taken as fact. I think Lundi’s journals can be interpreted differently and the interpretation I glean from them is that Lagi didn’t die. Lundi merely assumed he had “discarded his body”, but how could he be certain when the crest he beheld inside Shelcoof containing Lagi was beyond his reach?

Panzer Dragoon Zwei and Panzer Dragoon Saga were developed at the same time, so the storyline in each would at least be consistent with each other.

24

The timeline is actually official:

"85 A.F.
The Tower is discovered. The Empire’s investigation begins. The result of this investigation identified that the ancient ruins had a deep connection with the Dragoon. The investigation continues.

PANZER DRAGOON I

89 A.F.
Experimentation on The Tower begins. At the same time, there is a 2nd encounter with the Dragoon. Immediately, the Empire’s Space Battleship is dispatched but defeated. In response to the dragoon, the Invading Creatures appear from the Tower, and the city is engulfed in flame. Deathbed of the Empire".

Now unless the Empire discovered the existence of Towers themselves in the Imperial year 85 A.F. then I don’t see how we can reconcile the timeline with the Imperial Tower report.

As for the Tower itself, one of Sestren’s primary duties was to reduce the human population to numbers approaching the brink of extinction. Sestren would not want human beings controlling one part of the planet’s immune system. Sestren’s purpose was by no means limited to exterminating the Heresy dragon. If that was the case, the Tower outside the Imperial capital wouldn’t have unleashed its minions on the nearby capital as soon as it was fully activated, and the Tower of Uru would’ve focused all its resources on exterminating Lagi rather than securing the area and attacking remote Imperial cities and outposts.

If the Towers were partially active – active enough to keep the environment in check even in a dormant state which they all were, then they would still emit detectable levels of energy. The Towers weren’t completely deactivated, otherwise the world would’ve begun reshaping itself earlier, even in the Ancient Age when the Towers were supposedly “terminated” by dragons, instead of after the Great Fall when the Heresy dragon did in fact initiate a proper shut down procedure.

So, Sestren would have been extremely concerned if human meddlers had claimed one of its terraforming ruins as their own, and sought to stop them by any means available. The Dark Dragon didn’t fly to the Tower outside the capital merely to acquire the power necessary to stop the Heresy dragon: it was sent to activate the Tower. The Tower couldn’t be activated without the presence of the drone, so how could the Tower begin powering up before the Dark Dragon and its drone arrived?

25

It was admittedly pretty huge, but not on the immense scale of the Tower of Uru or Shellcoof. Though I know we can’t be sure of size, check the first shot in the PD1 introduction: one of those Imperial boats goes very close to the Tower, and they can’t be much bigger than a normal airship.

It would also be quite out of proportion with the other Towers if it did not continue beneath the water as an obelisk. It wouldn’t really be a “Tower”, just a kind of blunt snub of a structure. If I recall correctly, the Empire detected that energy as coming from “inside the ocean” - is that right? - which I assume means beneath the water. This would indicate that most of the Tower was submerged.

Maybe the Empire didn’t bother checking too much afterwards? If none of the Tower was left above the waves, and it was no longer putting out an energy signiture, they probably just assumed that it was gone. I expect that they were too busy rebuilding their capital city and decimated army at the time. But I guess we can’t be sure either way.

I think the implication was that he did. I accept that we don’t actually see him go in, but the explosion bursts out from the exact centre of Shellcoof in exactly the same way, indicating that Lagi flew into it in the same manner. Lundi does find Lagi’s body in the centre of the ship, too (though whether that would be the Dragon Crest room or not is debatable.) So it seems likely that those two acts were more or less identical, in both executuion and effect.

26

http://www.panzerdragoon.net/extra_images/tower_01.jpg
http://www.panzerdragoon.net/extra_images/tower_02.jpg

Even the tip of the Tower is relatively huge compared to the Imperial warships. The fact that no trace of the Tower or the tip of the Tower remained after Lagi entered it leaves us with the impression that it was vaporised.

Shelcoof was already sinking before it exploded; I’m wondering if Lagi needed to enter it after destroying its engines. But I suppose he would have no choice given that Lagi and Lundi didn’t destroy anything in the ship that might lead to the explosion.

27

OK, in regards to various points you raised in this post:

No, Lundi does not differentiate much between Lagi’s body, Lagi’s spirit and the Heresy Program, though we know that all three had to be present. Presumably this is because Lundi had not had too much time to reflect on things in the past diaries, and was being quite brief in the Old Diary. I don’t think that he’s actually contradicting himself, though: all he’s saying is that Lagi’s body died, and that whatever was inside it would live on. That’s what I’m trying to point out; there is no implication that Lagi’s body will live.

I am convinced that Lagi’s “spirit” was what entered into the dragon crest, and that what we call the Heresy Program was what went on to become the PD1 dragon. To my senses of reasoning, this is the way that the events best make sense.

It is important to note that Lundi is discussing Lagi in the Dragon Books, but the Heresy Dragon in the old Diary. Though we can’t be sure exactly what he means by each term, this could help explain some of the “contradictions” you see. I’ll look into it more carefully soon, and post more…

If you can find this evidence, please do. I’m the kind of person who is more interested in learning the truth than being right, if you know what I mean :slight_smile:

28

It’s not really inconsistent, it just gives us more detail regarding both the endings and the events of the game in general. The Zwei ending is not contradicted, just vastly elaborated upon. From the amount you’ve evidently studied the Zwei endings, you should know as I do that, though they may be “fact”, it is very hard to extract any actual facts out of them :slight_smile:

Am I right in guessing that this is related to your earlier point about “is the dragon crest Lagi’s body?” Well, I covered that exact same topic while writing up that theory that Solo suggested I do, so I’ll just quote myself if that’s OK:

"It should probably be pointed out that, although it has been suggested that the Dragon Crest within Shelcoof was itself the body of Lagi that Lundi wrote about, several things show that this is not the case. Primarily, descriptions in Panzer Dragoon Saga confirm that the relic was just a ?Crest in which an image of a dragon is engraved?. As Edge had the crest in his possession when he transported it to the Red Ruins, he would have surely noticed if the truth was otherwise. A detailed image of the Dragon Crest on the ?save game? menu in Panzer Dragoon Saga also shows that it is merely a carving. In addition, Lundi recorded in his diaries that Lagi?s body was ?stone cold?, meaning that he must have touched it. Given the massive scale of the Dragon Crest room, it is very unlikely that he could have climbed up to that item, though. It would also ? to perhaps state the blatantly obvious ? be very strange for a dragon?s dead body to be stuck halfway up a wall in the exact centre of a carved emblem in the first place. It is clear that Lundi must have discovered Lagi?s dead body after finding the Dragon Crest; that is, after the ending sequence that we see."

If you want me to elaborate on any of that, just say the word.

It’s worth pointing out that some of the “potential” dragon crests - that is, the non-Solo Wing ones that you can see in the non-abbreviated ending sequences - do indeed look quite like bodies, and not carvings. However, the Solo Wing one is apparently the “true” one, as that is the one that you find in Saga: that definitely does not look like a body, and is described as such.

(Though non-Solo Wing crests are used both in Sestren’s memory orbs and in the PDO version of the ending, that’s clearly because they are based on one of the non-abbreviated sequences. Team Andromeda (and Smilebit) evidently wanted to show the bit where Lundi goes inside the ship in these cases, and so they just edited that one sequence and apparently didn’t change the crest. The Solo Wing crest is shown in the flashback sequence when Edge first meets the dragon, however, and the fact that it is used in the game itself shows that it is the intended crest.)

Well, they started development at the same time, but Saga continued on for two years after Zwei. A lot can happen in two years; an entire game can be made in two years, and certainly ideas can change. There are numerous mild continuity errors between the games as it is, which I’m sure you’ve noticed. For instance, the Tower of Uru and dragon that Lundi sees in the Zwei ending aren’t quite the Tower and dragon we know, just close approximations. Similarly, when we see Lundi fighting the Guardian Dragon in Sestren’s memory orbs, his gun doesn’t look right, and the time of day is totally different (i.e. not that glorious morning backdrop). Shellcoof in Saga is obviously not to scale, either. There are many other things besides…

For an even better example, take those two things from the PD1 intro sequence that I discussed earlier. Those aspects were clearly expanded upon, clarified and even - though it may sound harsh - twisted later on for the good of the greater narrative. I suspect that the events of the first two games were left so deliberately vague or open just so that they could be worked into whatever overarching plot Team Andromeda eventually decided upon. I’m just glad that they settled on such an excellent one.

29

I’m aware that it is actually official Geoff, what I’m pointing out is that it is actually wrong :slight_smile:

Seriously, much of the information that it gives in connection with the games is inaccurate, even after you allow for translation errors. It’s clear that although Team Andromeda drew up this timeline, they (and later Smilebit) didn’t exactly adhere to it when it came to deciding on final information to be put in the games. The Tower Report is one example; and to be honest I have no problems in accepting that as correct over this timeline, as that information is actually available in the games, and this is not.

(By the way, if you want me to post the other inconsistencies I found, just say. I’ve kind of given up on that timeline after seeing that, upon inspection, the details are just wrong.)

This is true; but as I pointed out, the Empire were in no danger of turning the Tower on, let alone controlling it. It still seems that the Tower was activated in response to the dragon, just like Shellcoof was before it, as I’ll explain below.

I agree with you totally on all this. However, wouldn’t it seem weird if the Empire had been living in that city for decades without previously detecting those readings? It does make me wonder when exactly those specific energies began, and whether or not the Tower’s normal “low operation” energies were even detectable.

I hate to have to point this out, but you’re forgetting that the Tower was activated without the presence of the Drone; it was active ever since the beginning of PD1. I’ll include the relevant quotes:

“Unit 01, activated. Unit 02, activated. Commence final program sequence.”

At the beginning of the game, the Tower confirms the approach of the two dragons, that its scanning or radar functions - which are clearly active - designate Unit 01 and Unit 02. (Unit 01, as is later shown, is clearly the Dark Dragon.) Compare this to the Inactive Tower of Uru, which was nowhere near as “functional” as this.

“Instructions from Unit 01 recieved and confirmed. All ground units mobilized, initiate operations and secure the area.”

Between Episodes 5 and 6, the Tower - again, clearly active - is prompted by the Dark Dragon - not Sestren itself - to release those monsters, in order to simply secure the area. Obviously this would both make life easier for the Dark Dragon, and it would help wear the Blue Dragon down a bit. General control of the human race is not indicated, nor is it likely that the Dark Dragon was concerned with such things at the time. This correlates with Saga, where it is only possible for the monsters to be released after activation.

“Unit 01… Confirmed. After rendezvous, take Unit to full strength.”

Just before the Last Episode, the Tower goes fully active - still before the Drone reaches it - opens up, and “takes the Unit to full strength”; that is, grafts all that extra armour and weaponry to the Dark Dragon. Clearly, this was why the Sky Rider wanted you to stop it from returning to the Tower.

From the above, it is clear that the Drone did not activate the Tower. Tower Report 1 also confirms that the Tower went active while the dragons were still out in the Frontier; that would be at the beginning of the game, correlating perfectly with the events we see in the cut-scenes.

Also, you’re forgetting that Shellcoof was activated directly by Sestren, with no Drone implicated.

As I pointed out above, the creatures unleashed by the PD1 Tower weren’t released by Sestren. Similarly, Sestren did not even turn the Uru tower on; Azel did. Those monsters seemed to be released automatically, and appeared to be doing just what they were designed to do; not particularly Sestren’s bidding, just their pre-programmed purpose (i.e. “attack all life around the Tower.”)

I hope you see my point now.

30

The Tower was only partially active at the beginning of Panzer Dragoon and yet came to life when the drone entered communication range. If not, then it would’ve directed its minions to invade the capital sooner (the Towers were built to breed and employ bio-weapons after all and there was no shortage of them in the surrounding area). The drone wouldn’t necessarily need to interface with the Tower directly to synchronize with it.

Before Episode 6 starts, we hear an electronically charged voice emanating from the Tower:

"Instructions from Unit 01 recieved and confirmed.

All ground units mobilized, initiate operations
and secure the area".

The Tower began securing the area only after receiving instructions from Unit 01. If the hordes of bio-engineered creatures rising from the Tower were to aid in the Dark Dragon’s defense, exclusively, why invade the capital?

The Towers were built to eradicate any threats to the environment, especially human beings who have an unparralelled tendency to rape a planet of its resources all too quickly for their own long term good. The Heresy dragon was activated to bring this policy of extermination to an end, but Sestren’s purpose always remained fixed on protecting the environment and destroying anything that stood in its way, the Heresy dragon included. The sole reason for Sestren’s existence wasn’t to kill the Heresy dragon.

At the end of Episode 6, the same voice permeates the airwaves around the Tower:

"Unit 01… Confirmed.

After rendezvous, take Unit to full strength".

We know this is the voice of Sestren, because in Sestren’s fifth memory orb Sestren shouts the words “D-Type 01 confirmed” when the Dark Dragon reaches the Tower.

The Sky Rider wanted Kyle to stop the Dark Dragon from reaching the Tower for the sake of preventing its reactivation, not from preventing the Dark Dragon from acquiring the power to kill his dragon.

Sestren controlled all the Towers – this isn’t even open for debate – but because they went dormant for one reason or another, this became an impossible task. Pure type creatures are said to become enraged in the presence of humans, which falls in line with their original design, but a AI would be required to coordinate their attacks. How would they know to attack “remote Imperial cities and regions” under contrasting circumstances?

“Imperial Age 89, 18th day of 2nd
month. Very low traces of energy
were identified inside the ocean.
An investigation has indicated
that we’ve discovered some ruins.
By our calculations, it may exceed
the power of anything we’ve seen”.

The Empire may have been randomly searching for ruins when it detected low levels of energy, rather than being drawn to trace amounts of energy detected by instruments back in the capital. This passage isn’t specific but this Tower, like the other ruins, wouldn’t have been completely drained of power or shut down forever until Sestren was destroyed.

"Once the Tower was successfully
unearthed, a full scale
investigation began. But the
missing elements needed for
reactivation eluded us. We
continued testing, but no apparent
reactions have been noticed.

What finally broke its stagnant
state was something coming from
the frontier. A pair of dragons
were seen approaching the Tower.
We now believe they are what
triggered the Tower’s reaction".

Now you could argue the Tower began warming up, but by now both dragons were closing in on the Tower. Limited communication was far from impossible. A weak signal that couldn’t quite synchronize with the Tower is probably what was causing the sudden yet not sufficient rise in power at this time.

I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on all the dragons not being the same. I was never convinced the crests in Zwei were Lagi (I always thought they were creepy symbols left by the ancients), though the possibility was always there. The green energy cannot be easily explained away either. I totally dismissed the primary endings until Lundi’s journals made references to the events therein. However, the true crest and the true ending don’t preclude Lagi hibernating in Shelcoof. Where would he find a new body, especially if the crests were nothing more than engravings? The one in Shelcoof wasn’t, obviously, but it was already inhabited, so where would the soul of Lundi’s dragon find a new body? It just doesn’t make sense to leave it after going through all that trouble to acquire one.

Lundi also refers to the soul of his dragon, or the one who entrusted him with his newfound knowledge regarding the ancients, as Lagi. Lundi thought Lagi was the Heresy dragon. I believe Lagi “entered a deep sleep” and that Lundi assumed Lagi had discarded his body (which doesn’t necessarily mean he had died) and would re-emerge with a new one.

31

Well, the Empire record that it “came to life” at the beginning of the game, yet its “power output increased dramatically” just before the “massive horde of monsters rose from the sea.” When the Dark Dragon entered the Tower, then it became “fully operational” (all quotes from the Tower Report).

Perhaps not, but I’m just pointing out that the Drone didn’t just activate the Tower when it got there at the end of the game, which I though was your previous point. My appologies if I was mistaken.

My reasoning was, because the Capital was full of the entire remainder of the Imperial Army, which obviously posed some kind of physical threat to the dragons. Plus, as you said, the general purpose of a Tower’s Pure Type Monsters was to wipe out human life.

I’m really not saying that it was; but the memory orbs in Saga do indicate that it was trying to do just that in PD1. Of course, that would make perfect sense, as Sestren knew that the dragon’s intention was to destroy the Towers. This would obviously interfere with its general purpose of maintaining the environment, and so stopping it from wiping out this Tower would be a vital priority.

But why would Sestren need a Drone to activate this Tower if it turned Shellcoof on manually? We also don’t know if a Drone could activate a Tower without being inside it; and the Tower is active at the beginning of the game, even if not at full power. We also don’t know if the Dark Dragon’s Drone was even capable of activating the Tower, as this seemed to be a purpose unique to Azel, who was clearly a very unique Drone. It is also unclear whether this was even her intended purpose, or something programmed into her by the rebels that stole her. However, we do know that Sestren just activated Shellcoof on command. This is why the theory I’ve put forward seems to me more likely, though I accept that yours makes lots of sense.

A good point. My guess is, if Sestren wasn’t directly responsible, it was just programming routines communicated to them automatically by the Tower. The thing is, if Sestren was personally bothered about the “remote Imperial cities and regions” as you’re suggesting, wouldn’t it have just activated the Tower itself and wiped them out long ago? The fact that those monsters spring to life as soon as Azel’s (completely unplanned) activation of the Tower takes place suggests that it was instead just an automated process.

This had actually occured to me since my last post, and I do agree with you. The Empire must have been surveying the ocean region beyond the Capital, which lead to the discovery of the Tower.

Fair enough. I just think it’s interesting exploring all these different possibilities, especially the ones for which there is a fair amount of evidence for both standpoints.

My first impression - that is, when I first saw the ending - was that it was a prophetic carving made by the Ancients, who somehow knew that the destruction of their “Ancient Ship” at the hands of the dragon was inevitable. I thought it was creepy too; mainly because I saw it as the Ancients being so sure of the future that they knew exactly what form the dragon would be in when it destroyed the ship. (The creepy bit being that they bothered to build the ship anyway, and were eventually crushed by fate.) Sorry, that’s pretty irrelevant - and of course I don’t believe in that theory now. I just thought I’d randomly share it :slight_smile:

32

I’m just saying that if the Tower was already activated at the beginning of the game, it would have launched an attack on the capital sooner. If Sestren could simply activate all the Towers at will without the help of drones, it wouldn’t hesitate even for a moment to bring them all to life. We don’t actually know whether a drone was required to activate Shelcoof or not. We can’t rule out the possibility just because we didn’t see it happen ourselves.

That nicely summarizes my thoughts and feelings on the subject. I’m not certain what the truth is, however.

33

I can see your point, and to be honest I don’t think either of these two theories makes 100% sense, due to the largely unknown elements involved. PD1 is also a notoriously “questionable” translation of an extremely small amount of text, so drawing solid conclusions from it is hard anyway.

I actually suspect that Team Andromeda hadn’t come up with the idea of Drones as “Tower contollers” back then, or possibly even the idea of Drones in general. It does seem that they have made an effort to write the Sky Rider and the Dark Dragon rider into the greater plot though, as they are obviously Drones given our current knowledge - PDO’s Encyclopedia more or less confirms this. In support of your theory, this could explain why it sounded like the PD1 Tower was receiveing instructions from the Dark Dragon rather than the Drone that rode it - because that script was written before these details were finalised, in much the same way that there are those two errors in the PD1 introduction sequence.

I’d like to point out, though, that Sestren may not have been as eager to annihilate all humankind as you are suggesting, even if it did have the power to do so. The Towers and Sestren were created to keep the world in a balance, however twisted that balance may seem to us. Though their purpose was clearly to keep human populations low via a steady trickle of bio-monsters, they did seem to be doing that anyway. What we see in the mass releases of monsters in PD1 and Saga, however, seemed to be the complete extermination of nearby human life. This is why it struck me as being some kind of a “special effort”, with the purpose of totally securing and reclaiming the area around the active Towers - rather than a part of the Towers’ normal processes, or Sestren’s general programme.

But honestly, I don’t think that we can be sure either way.

34

I agree, Sestren wasn’t supposed to annihilate humankind, in fact it made sure they would survive. This dialog from Gash in PD Saga can be found in PD Orta’s memory cells:

*“We?re not really alive. We?re just being forced to live.”

“The Ancients? spirits are making sure of that.”*

There must be some truth to this. Perhaps the Ancients only preserved their consciousness in Sestren and wanted to return to the world in the same way the Divine Visitor did…

35

No, Sestren sought to reduce the human population to a manageable level. This is exactly why Craymen wanted to activate the Tower of Uru: to ovethrow the self-destructive human empire. The Seekers themselves wrote that if the Towers returned to their normal operational status “the number of humans would have to be severely reduced”. The Tower of Uru attempted to do what all the Towers were built and designed to do.

The third Tower report actually states that the Towers had worn down over time, even though Gash (who would have inherited some of Lundi’s knowledge) says that dragons terminated all of the active ruins and Towers. I don’t know what to believe, but we know the Towers were at least partially active, otherwise the environment would’ve collapsed in on itself sooner.

36

Btw, I don’t think all the differences between the English and Japanese games can be discounted altogether, especially the references to humanity’s civilization being destroyed at the hands of its own bio-weaponry. Although the original games weren’t supposed to make those references, every piece of information should be taken into account. The English Saturn Panzer Dragoon trilogy almost tells a different story.

37

If you guys channeled as much debating energy into politics or philosophy as you do panzer dragoon you’d probably go down in the history books.

38

Who knows? It’s good training.

39

Well to do that they would have to decrease the length of their speeches to the crowds! :stuck_out_tongue:

God I hate long posts…

40

I wanna be in a history book, dammit! starts writing speeches