Is the Heresy Program, which is the black (Saga) and gold (Orta) dragon, the same thing as the Impurity? Or is there a difference between the two?
Discuss…
Same thing, although the way the FMV flashbacks in Saga illustrate the impurity being ejected into the real world, it almost implies that it posessed the coolia right away.
This is interesting as the heresy dragon says that the battle has been of a thousand years, and if it was only detected and rejected not too long before it posessed Lagi, had it been carrying out its operations inside Sestren whilst Exsis was unaware for a very long time, avoiding detection?
Are there any screenshots of the ending with the black “dragon” entity speaking to Edge? I really honestly remember that being GOLD when it was showing the different dragon heads sprout through it and then asking you to push the button and such… I asked in another thread but none showed up…
Al3xand3r, don’t you recall Edge floating in a very bright light in that cinema? I think this got hashed out a couple times in the earliest threads on Seeker’s Stronghold… when I first ran across the reference to the discrepancy I also was remembering the ‘talking Lagi’ as gold, but it’s really just that everything else is gold there.
Edit: Geoffrey’s theory here talks about it as well, and the last screenshot is what you wanted.
http://www.panzerdragoon.net/theories/dark_dragon_theory.php
To the topic:
Since I already referenced talking Lagi… that’s a very funny thing that may or may not be very important, but why would the dragon only start speaking to Edge at that moment? It could just indicate that Edge - being so materially discombobulated as it were - was interfaced directly with the Dragon/Sestren’s mind-core at that point. Or maybe, could it indicate that rather than destroying Sestren literally, it was more like a merging with the other, and so our dragon was very literally using Sestren’s voice?
Anyway, I am certain enough that the “impurity” and our dragon - and therefore the Heresy Program in whatever form - are the same fundamental consciousness. But there does seem to be a very cloudy area on the issue of where it’s been in the thousand (or so) years, and what it was doing before Lundi meets it. And Solo, the text in that wallpaper thread seems to again dredge up the idea of an ongoing battle between the two huh? 
My original reactions to the story, after playing Azel, remained very generalized… I let the details remain in a state of flux. Since I pictured the entire planet as a connected organism, then I also pictured the Heresy Dragon as a recessive genetic anomaly, or even a cancer of sorts. In that respect it didn’t need to have such a personal identity as such, so it sort of left room for a schism between what the “impurity” strictly is and what the Dragon ultimately became.
I’ve seen a similar screenshot on PD Legacy’s history section, can someone still find a screenshot of the part where “talking Lagi” keeps switching between the heads of the various dragon forms…? I don’t see how the entity could be pitch black gold during that sequence and still let us recognise the various forms it takes…
But anyway, regardless, I do believe the impurity and the black and gold dragons seen in the various sequences discussed here are one and the same… Well, up until Orta of course, then they aren’t all one. But yeah, I don’t see what else the impurity could be… Maybe the divine visitor 
I wouldn’t go as far as to say that the Gold and Black dragon entity are the same thing… They are essentially opposites (other than them both having the same shape).
I still consider Sestren to be some kind of computer, and Exsis and the Heresey Dragon to be operating systems… if you will.
The definition of computer is “A device capable of of accepting, processing and outputting data” the data itself doesn’t have to be digital (or analog… should a mysterious third option arise?).
Exsis is essentially managing the system, like an OS, picking what goes where and when.
My bare bones perception of it is that the Hersey Dragon’s goal was to override Exsis in stealth, but when it was detected… and cast out of the system… shit happened ;p
Sestren would appear to be Russian for Sisters…
Сестры
Enforcing the notion that perhaps the Hersey Dragon was originally (Or still is) a part of the system - not the origins of him really matter too much. He succeeds in overthrowing Exsis in the end anyway ;p
I was speaking of the “black dragon” seen at the end of PDS (and past sequences) and the “gold dragon” seen in the Orta sequence discussing with the “dragon” warning that it could die if it returns to the world. Not the gold dragon seen prior to the end of Saga which is obviously Sestren Exsis instead of our dragon/heresy program as it hasn’t taken its place yet. That’s why I said the entities seen in the sequences discussed here, that’s what Solo was talking about as is evident by his parenthesis.
Sorry, but the way you worded this:
“But anyway, regardless, I do believe the impurity and the black and gold dragons seen in the various sequences discussed here are one and the same… Well, up until Orta of course, then they aren’t all one.”
Considering the topic is asking if the Impurity purged from Sestren (a scene that shows both the Black and Gold dragon) is the same as the Hersey Dragon, it is easy to construe “sequences discussed here” as referring to them being the same in *those *scenes as well, as you yourself didn’t specify which gold dragon you were speaking about.
It made me think that you were saying throughout the previous games they were both the same, then somehow separated. Although they may not have been separated at all after being combined… that is up for debate.
It’s still up for debate as to whether the Dragon entity in Orta is the Gold Dragon talking to the Heresey Dragon or the Hersey Dragon (That has become a Gold Dragon) talking to the Coolia. My money is on Hersey Dragon talking to the Coolia, as it is evident that Exsis was an asshole of sorts, whereas the tone of the Dragon’s speech is much more mellow and understanding in Orta… Plus, the physical Dragon becomes “mortal” which is kind of indicative of it being transformed back into a simple beast rather than a god-like super being ;p
However if the opposite is true, then the dragon we see in Orta could well be Exsis, and not the Heresy Dragon at all.
Well, that’s why I clarified what I actually meant in my last post…
Anyway, I don’t think the rest of the games and sequences give us the impression that Exsis would discuss matters and even warn the Heresy program so I’d say it’s pretty certain the golden dragon seen in that Orta sequence is the Heresy program talking to what’s left of the coolia dragon. The rest of the things it says point towards that, for example how it’s apparently mortal from that point on (and, obviously enough, it dies @ the end of Orta) and how it asks of it to protect their friends of which, they wouldn’t have any at all if it was a sequence between Exsis and Heresy taking place before PDZwei. Especially Exsis wouldn’t have any friends. It also speaks of its mission being completed reinforcing that notion as Ancient creations are told to only be able to die after they have completed their mission.
So… so, Solo… what prompted this query then? Unless you’re just stirring things up for the hell of it, but if you have some ideas yourself then spill it! 
Chizzles, for the most part I actually agree Sestren may be regarded as a computer system… my problem is only with getting too literal about that connotation, and so presuming it to be conventional in certain details.
I can’t quite accept the OS analogy as such, Sestren Exsis is a fully sentient administrator, that’s clear enough. Even aside from my belief in it being a dragon soul, my interpretation of why Heresy cannot complete the task on it’s own after taking over Sestren, is that “The Will of the Ancients” is practically another sovereign protocol of Sestren’s psychic domain. There are checks and balances in the system, to ensure one singular consciousness cannot evolve different protocols.
I really like the notion that those protocols are manifested in the suspended incorporeal energy of the Ancient Masters themselves, frozen in one iron thought, the focused directive of their plan. So yes literally… the Will of the Ancients is being imposed on the entity occupying that ‘throne’. 
As for the relationship between the “programs”… perhaps my favorite revelation from Kimimi’s translations is the “Heretic child of the Dragon” reference. That really anchored a line of thought I’d already had for a while: with the classic Blue Dragon on all the crests and the religious sense most humans carry about dragons… I do honestly believe the implied parallel can be taken literally. There’s almost a Holy Trinity analogy here, in that Heresy does represent a separation from Sestren. Either it was intended to be a rebirth of the dragon Exsis used to be, or an actual child of sorts, clone, whatever.
One thing I especially like about this styling, as including the Will of the Ancients bit… is that it carries an intrinsic justification for both the ideas that Heresy simply had a change of heart; and/or even the possibility that the seed of betrayal was sown in Sestren (Exsis) from the beginning, but could not manifest until it was released from the Ancients’ Will again.
Busted. 
I was actually wondering how the term Heresy Program came about. It was likely that someone here made up the name and it caught on, but if the two are one and the same, then it stands to reason that entity would be more commonly referred to by it’s ‘official’ name. Unless the term impurity was deemed too much of an insult for the poor program, so the appropriately named Heresy Program was contrived.
One theory I have is that the Impurity is not the Heresy Program, but rather something that infected the Heresy Program. After all, the Heresy Program is very similar to Sestren in appearance, and Sestren does say “You have disobeyed the Will of the Ancients”. Perhaps they once both had the same role in the system.
The question here is, did the Heresy Program purposely disobey what Sestren considered to be the Will of the Ancients? Or was the program hijacked by the enemies of the Ancients by something else? Another program, a virus… something that made the Heresy Program go against its original programming. An impurity to the system.
Do you mean the description of the “The evolution of self-Dragon” wallpaper? I thought this meant the dragon could morph in what would normally take thousands of years of evolution, rather than saying that our dragon has been around for thousands of years. Certainly, a more accurate transaction would help…
Now, Divine One, the voyage that began,
when I tried to return the world into the hands of the people…
The duty that spanned
thousands of years, is about to come to an end.
Is this the passage that you’re referring to?
I think the Heresy Program was residing in Sestren since the Ancient Age. The great mystery is why it waited for 10,000 years to ‘return the world into the hands of the people…’.
*"*The evolution of self-Dragon / Dragon
**
Dragon is the strongest attack with biological, and a generation of diverse forms of self-evolution. This ability to constantly adapt to the situation of the Dragon are thousands of years for a single act, which was designed to indicate."
Hmm, that probably makes more sense as you say…
And as such it sent me on a whole train of thought, what if “self-evolution” is even less of a metaphor than it seems at face value? Imagine this: the idea of “rewriting it’s own DNA” is pretty absurd in real terms - and that still couldn’t explain how it can radically alter even it’s mass instantaneously - but as literally an evolution it takes on a more rational (if almost less believable) connotation. The Dragon is actually borrowing a form from a projected evolutionary path, based on a particular combat scenario repeated umpteen times…
It’s transformation is in essence a form of time travel, whereby it spawns an alternate time line and then exchanges it’s current body with a future version of itself!
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that they were entire OS’es, but they could be related to the separate layers of an OS, even if they had intelligence.
Or administrators, perhaps that is a better analogy, but either way it works the same (as far as the events in the story go, evidently the are quite separate things)… as an individual layer of an OS isn’t going to take over your whole OS (Well, I’ve never heard of the I/O layer of Windows going mad and taking over an entire PC but who knows?)
As for the Dragon’s evolution, I’m not sure that borrowing a form from it’s future self is any less absurd than re-writing it’s own DNA sequence…
What… you didn’t like Donny Darko?
That’s Donnie Darko, with an I and E ;p
I do like it, It just defies logic as it uses the world-lines theory as part of its story and then ignores almost all of what the theory is about (as far as time travel is concerned).
Either way, using real world science, both the Time Travel theory for the Dragon’s evolution and the Dragon re-writing it’s own DNA are unthinkable.
It also brings up the pesky issue of the Dragon having to collect the D-Units in Saga.
If the entire world was pre-scripted and the Dragon was able to see through all of it, what would be the point in it having the option to collect D-Units as if it doesn’t collect them it never will ;p
Perhaps that really was its original goal, programmed by The Ancients? If it actually was a virus that infected the program, then I would assume the program would try to carry out its new mission as soon as possible. Perhaps the Ancients simply messed up and the Heresy Program was bugged, leading it to activate at the wrong time and carry out a mission that it was only supposed to complete after the Towers had restored the ecosystem and the Ancients (the people?) had returned. In terms of an OS, I’d compare the Heresy Dragon to a process trying to shut down the system while Sestren is the admin trying to prevent the OS from shutting down because the restore_ecosystem.exe process is still running. To carry out its task Heresy had to eliminate the admin, take control over the system and then terminate all running processes (itself included).
Chizzles, other than the fact that idea fits well with the themes I subscribe to in general, I hope you understand it’s just a true theory. And I’d never even try to argue that it makes more sense or anything. It’s completely immaterial to the actual story, but just a fun (to me) way of thinking about it, inspired by the weird apparent substance of that translation.
What I once categorized as a fanciful type of theory.
D-Unit, that general take on the issue seems to be a de facto understanding… at least the main idea that it’s some conflict of reality between Sestren and Heresy, and the Dragon initiated it’s role without all parameters being met. I’m not even sure why, but I’ve never been satisfied with the explanation, and as near as I can tell the only thing it’s directly anchored to is something Abadd apparently said (as if he can be trusted in the first place!) about the Dragon’s appearance being planned (was “meant to happen” or something like that?)… the thing is, I don’t even have a clue if he also said who’s plan it was?
Basically he said that the dragon was supposed to destroy the Towers (and not Sestren) but only after certain criteria were met.
I have no doubt that this is correct, I think Abadd even confirmed this as well. The real question is where the Impurity originated from, was it for example a virus installed by the rebels or simply a bug in the system? Did it only infect the Heresy dragon for that matter? I also doubt Heresy and Sestren were similar constructs like most people assume, because if they were then the Impurity should have been capable of infecting Sestren directly.
[quote=“D-Unit”]
I have no doubt that this is correct, I think Abadd even confirmed this as well. The real question is where the Impurity originated from, was it for example a virus installed by the rebels or simply a bug in the system? Did it only infect the Heresy dragon for that matter? I also doubt Heresy and Sestren were similar constructs like most people assume, because if they were then the Impurity should have been capable of infecting Sestren directly.[/quote]
That might have been why the idea was floating around in my head (because Abadd said it).
I wonder if Sestren only became the ‘master’ of the system because the Heresy Program was infected? Perhaps Sestren was designed as backup in case something went wrong with the original program? The original controlling entity of the system being the Heresy Program.