What was the deal with the Dark Dragon anyway?

Panzer Dragoon
1

Yeah yeah… I’ve been MIA for like… forever… but I came back because while I was listening as usual to the soundtracks of pretty much all the Panzer Dragoon games on my phone at work… it got to that track where you’re fighting the Dark Dragon over the desert in the original. I forget the track-name…

… but it just set me thinking. My memory doesn’t serve well for background details at the best of times… but just what was the origin / purpose of the Dark Dragon again, besides being somehow opposed to that of the Heresy Dragon?

(That reminds me, I still have to track down and watch the Panzer Dragoon anime, however short and silly it might have been.)

2

DD is a weapon / agent of Sestren, the (semi) sentient system connecting and controlling the Towers, and therefore much of the world’s nature. Presumably it was either activated as a part of the PD1 Tower being disturbed by the Empire, or more likely it was in reaction to the Dragon showing up in the area. But it seems clear enough it’s immediate mission is to eliminate the “impurity”, which is possibly even more to do with the Divine Visitor or it’s vessel, rather than the Heresy Dragon itself, as that could provide an explanation for why it didn’t pursue after nailing the Sky Rider in the opening.

But basically yeah, it’s opposing the threat the Dragon represents, and evidently receives a directive to rendezvous with the Tower perhaps both as some sort of key, but also to become more powerful. It’s entirely ambiguous in the game, and barely explained any better in subsequent material, and I remain convinced that some of the details were either non-existent or modified later. But the basics seem solid enough.

3

From the Old Diary:

It would seem that the Dark Dragon was the guardian of the Tower in PD1. Presumably the Dark Dragon was sleeping in another location until the Empire unearthed the Tower. He then flew to the Tower so that he could become the big dark dragon and defend it better.

4

I don’t like to dwell too much on that 1-Dragon:1-Tower notion after Kimimi’s translation suggests it a little different. As it’s somewhat ambiguous there anyway, and makes things complicated when the Tower of Uru didn’t have a guardian dragon, as such - the role doesn’t fit with Craymen’s explanation for Azel/Atolm. Even if it’s technically the English canon, it’s trivial enough to just sort of… set aside. For me at least. :wink:

Even so, it’s likely enough the Dark Dragon had some link to that Tower regardless. I got a little carried away bringing up the Divine Visitor angle again there, not at all pertinent, but I’m not sure the idea had ever clicked quite like that before. And since it got me thinking, even without trying to pin down the DV, there’s a very good way to explain that mystery:

There is a very clear inference that even the Heresy Dragon can’t get much done without a rider. So if we assume the DD either intercepted the Blue Dragon or was intercepted by it, it’s still perhaps more the case that BD was already chasing DD at that point. DD is fighting for it’s own life as well, even though the view we get of the fight seems to suggest Blue is on the defensive. But let’s suppose, even after killing the Sky Rider, DD/Sestren has made the assessment that it cannot actually defeat the Dragon outright, only disabled it as an immediate threat, and understands that it’s useless to make the attempt until it gets… reinforced.

5

Good point. I’ve come to have very few beliefs about what is true regarding the plan of the Ancients. Nevertheless, we can speculate by comparing pieces from different translations. In the previous paragraph of Kimimi’s translation it says “From inside the womb of [Uru] the fountain of the world, the guardians of the Tower were the strongest “Living Weapons” ever developed. 4. That was, the Dragons.” So, although there might not be a 1:1 correlation between Tower and guardian, this does suggest that the dragons - in general - were created to guard the Towers.

But even if every Tower does have a guardian, I agree that Atolm doesn’t necessarily fit the description of the Uru Tower’s guardian. More likely, it seems to me, that the Uru Tower was protected by Mel Kava on the outside, and the Twin Guardians inside.

[quote=“The Ancient”]Even so, it’s likely enough the Dark Dragon had some link to that Tower regardless. I got a little carried away bringing up the Divine Visitor angle again there, not at all pertinent, but I’m not sure the idea had ever clicked quite like that before. And since it got me thinking, even without trying to pin down the DV, there’s a very good way to explain that mystery:

There is a very clear inference that even the Heresy Dragon can’t get much done without a rider. So if we assume the DD either intercepted the Blue Dragon or was intercepted by it, it’s still perhaps more the case that BD was already chasing DD at that point. DD is fighting for it’s own life as well, even though the view we get of the fight seems to suggest Blue is on the defensive. But let’s suppose, even after killing the Sky Rider, DD/Sestren has made the assessment that it cannot actually defeat the Dragon outright, only disabled it as an immediate threat, and understands that it’s useless to make the attempt until it gets… reinforced.[/quote]

The Dark Dragon’s mission was to reach the Tower as fast as possible. After defeating the Sky Rider, the Dark Dragon had a window of opportunity to get ahead of it’s rival. Presumably the Dark Dragon could have tried to defeat the Blue Dragon after the Sky Rider was defeated - but that would be risky, since the Blue Dragon was of comparable strength. By turning into the large Dark Dragon the chances of defeating the Blue Dragon, even with a rider, would be greater. I’m also assuming the Dark Dragon did intend to defend the Tower, not just use it, so could not afford the risk of being defeated by the Blue Dragon after killing the Sky Rider, since then the Blue Dragon would be opponent-less in his mission to destroy the Tower.

6

It’s a nice idea that the DD saw the blue dragon as neutralized the moment his rider was dead… because his rider was the Divine Visitor…

No no lol. But because the drone riding the blue dragon was the bigger threat, which is probably true.

7

Didn’t one of the documents from Saga suggest that there were absolutely only 2 dragons at any one time, the Heresy Dragon and the Dark Dragon?

Which, if it had to correspond to the notion of a dragon for each tower, could only really work if it was one dragon with a different form for each tower.

As to the whole thing with the rider being the threat (which would seem odd at first glance) … Putting together the nature of the whole Divine Visitor thing and the way the games are structured, the suggestion is that while the Dragon understands its instincts on a large scale (it knows where it has to go and what to do there thanks to running on its programming), that it needs the Divine Visitor to respond appropriately and guide it around immediate stimuli.
Or to put it another way… the dragon runs on the rails of the games through the chapters, but the DV is its target-finder and avoidance system (the stuff the player controls).

That is just my hypothesis at least.

[Edit]: … And sometimes I wonder if the reason why Lagi’s “Berserk Mode” wasn’t there in the original in a story sense was that the Dark Dragon was somehow inhibiting it remotely?

8

The Dragon Rider

1/2

The most notable report about the
dragon is that there was a rider
on its back. Besides a few lesser
monsters, such as Coolias,
no creatures exhibit fond
behavior towards humans.

2/2

The identity of this rider remains
a mystery, but his amazing
reactions and advanced combat
skills indicate he’s not human.
Thus the Academy has theorized
that he is a human-shaped
creation, similar to the monsters.

The Dragon and the ‘Tower’

1/2

According to the ancient records,
the dragon and the final weapon,
the ‘Tower’, are linked somehow.
Our researchers are split between
the theories that the dragon is
the Guardian of the Tower or that
it is the destroyer of the Tower.

2/2

On Imperial Year 89, while the
Empire attempted to reactivate a
Tower, two dragons appeared, and
acted in completely opposite
manners. This created even more
confusion over the dragons. All we
can conclude is insufficient data.

From the Dragon Report, though I almost think I remember something else along those lines, but I can’t recall where it might be. Possibly even from Orta’s Encyclopedia. Regardless, most of these texts are presented as Imperial research speculation, and can be intentionally contradictory. The form even appears to carry over to the Encyclopedia. About the only info that could perhaps be considered empirical (in canon terms) is from the enemy descriptions in Saga, as they don’t usually appear to have any bias or ambiguity. As far as in-game material at least.

And I think the Heresy Dragon is much like any other dragon, designed to be “incomplete” as a combat unit without it’s rider. So again, while I have personally adopted the Divine Visitor into the way I see things, the basic premise still works either way. Perhaps if the Dark Dragon had any way of knowing the Blue Dragon could just pick up a random human as a replacement rider? It adds a whole new subtext to that inspection it gives you at the end of Act 2, like… getting owned by mangy human, does not compute! lol

Which is actually another explanation I’ve considered for the no berserk question. That there just wasn’t a strong enough bond between the dragon and Keil/Kyle yet. Or even possibly that it’s a different body than Lagi’s original form, of course that gets even more complicated.