This topic came up on Discord yesterday. Wildman, the creator of the upcoming Panzer Dragoon Voyage Record, had some interesting things to say on topic, based on information from Sega Ages manual and the PDS guidebook.
This is quite an interesting theory. @000 has also made a Google translation of the PDS guidebook pages which discuss the possibly of Craymen being an older Kyle Fluge:
Some further observations of mine:
In Panzer Dragoon, Craymen’s initials are “K F Craymen”. His full name could be “Kyle Fluge Craymen”.
Kyle is the right age to be Craymen. If you look at the official timeline, PD1 takes place in 89 A.F., PDS in 119 A.F. Craymen was 47 in PDS (according to Team Andromeda’s website), so he would have been about 17 in the time of PD1.
In the 1998 Developer Interview, Kusunoki states “One of the features of the Panzer Dragoon series is that in the games, we only reveal 1/5 of the total world we’ve actually created. That is to leave space for players’ imaginations, and to allow players to enjoy talking with each other and comparing the different experiences they’ve had. Player’s opinions are bound to diverge, and that’s a good thing. We think it’s an important part of making the world of Panzer Dragoon feel more real.”
Also, in the same interview, Futatsugi says: “Craymen is a very memorable character for me, for a number of reasons. He’s my favorite character, but I also feel he’s the character we left most unfinished. It’s more like we originally had a great deal more scenes planned for him. We wanted to show more about his past, and the reason why he rebelled against the Empire. However, we calculated that adding all that would have filled nearly the entire first disc, so we had no choice but to cut it all. That’s why Craymen has no scenes between his early appearance and the second half of the game. He has the most thematic presence of all the characters, so it’s all the more a shame.”
In the intro to PD1, Kyle and his companions discuss the airship and ask “Is it one of ours?” It’s possible that they were actually from the Empire and Kyle was forced to fight his own people who wanted to capture a dragon at all costs.
Another Azel guidebook translation that we did states: “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 fits, then, that one of the riders would have chosen to will of the Preservation Faction. If Kyle was Craymen, then he would be a dragon rider who chose the will of the Preservation Faction. Based on Lundi’s journal, he chose the will of the Destruction Faction. Finally, Edge had to choose between the two philosophies.
What do you think? Was Craymen an older version of Kyle Fluge who wanted to control the destructive power of the Tower he witnessed on his journey 30 years earlier?
Wow, some wonderful info and reading there. It makes sense and sort of reminds me of Star Wars for a plot twist. Such a shame Saga didn’t sell better and we may have got answers in a game
Also, you’ll see that the text more or less confirms that the Sky Rider was a drone - a “person of the old century” - another big theory. Of course, Team Andromeda may not have finalised the concept of drones at that point, but it fits with why Kyle Craymen would be researching drones - after meeting two of them in his adventure with the armoured Blue Dragon.
Is it just me, or does the music from Panzer Dragoon’s Intro when we see the “hero shot” of Kyle riding his coolia remind you of “Noble Rebel Army” from Saga’s OST?
It’s interesting that Team Andromeda would deliberately mention that there have been no sightings of Kyle since the war on a Panzer Dragoon Saga page. Kyle isn’t actually mentioned in the game (at least, not in the English translation), but here he’s mentioned together with other topics, all prominent in Saga.
To go off on one. It’s just me here, but I’m sure the Sega GT 2002 team used the dragon cry sample when the dragon rider is shot dead, for the break screeching in Sega GT 2002 LOL
