I forgive you.
Aye, not necessarily “from” the Ancient Age in a literal sense, but the records suggest that the concept of the Divine Visitor originated or at least existed in the Ancient Age. What doesn’t make sense is how the Ancients knew about “You”, the player, when you hadn’t entered the world yet. The only explanation that makes sense to me is this concept of the Divine Visitor did not have an identity yet, or (in the Ancient Age only) the words “Divine Visitor” were referring to someone/something else entirely.
[quote=“Heretic Agnostic”]Report regarding the Light Wing. We have at last succeeded in developing the ultimate form of the dragon. But it is more than a dragon. It is a being far different… Something… perhaps even superior to ourselves… A messenger of the Gods.
1- In general I don’t think it matters, but I vaguely enjoy the idea this has all come through the dragon, somehow…[/quote]
Do you mean the people who created the Light Wing may have thought of the dragon as a messenger of the Divine Visitor?
“I exist to lead the Divine Visitor, to break the spell of the Ancient Age, and to give humans control of their own destiny.”
Sounds like a plausible scenario. It doesn’t tell us how the Ancients knew of the Divine Visitor, but then, no explanation does that either.
Solo, as I’m always of the best laid plans turn of mind, about nearly everything to do with PD’s back story… of course I agree there’s a likelihood of confusion between the Ancient Age conception of the/a Divine Visitor, and the one we turned out to be. I think we’re representing mostly the same thing, just from different perspectives. I wont try to ask “how did the Ancients know about me”, that’s like, if a tree falls in the forest crap, profitless. So it’s in that sense I agree with Al3x: we are the DV, there’s no disputing that… but it’s also irrelevant to any story discussion.
So we are divine, a god basically. (English translation vernacular only of course)
And a prophecy is, almost by definition, from divine source.
If the ultimate form of the dragon is like a messenger of the gods… what sort of messages would one expect?
So this is a very roundabout answer to all of that, but that’s part of my point… we can’t really know any of these answers, but the whole issue seems to conform to the expected cliche for prophecies. And it rarely matters who or what the conduit is, if it’s assumed to be true, then it’s assumed to have been sent by gods/spirits/the cosmos… whatever.
But a part of the cliche is also that, this sort of information is always vague and doomed to be misinterpreted. There’s no direct line to be drawn between any of my ideas about it, and I have no interest in trying… I just see it fitting with the theme of the Dragon’s awareness of it’s own future. And also the (perhaps subjective and imagined) theme of the dragons being something the Ancients never fully understood or controlled in the first place.
Perhaps those Light Wing engineers couldn’t bring themselves to destroy it, because they had seen in it’s message, that it would one day play a part in saving humanity from their own folly?
It’s relevant, but only in situations where characters within the Panzer world know who the player is. Lets put aside the Ancient records and potential prophecies for a moment - as you say, these definitions of the Divine Visitor may not be entirely accurate/representational of what the Divine Visitor turned out to be.
There is one situation where a character in knows not only that the player is the Divine Visitor, but also, what the player’s name is: the ending of Panzer Dragoon Saga. Since the game confirms that the player is the Divine Visitor, via the dragon, there needs to be Panzerish explanation of how the dragon knows not only of the Divine Visitor, but also how it knows that the player is the Divine Visitor.
I can think of a few explanations to how the dragon knows the player’s name:
- The dragon obtained the player’s name from data that the player entered and stored in Sestren at the start of the game. This information may have been accessible only after Sestren was defeated and the dragon took control of the network.
- The gods, should they exist, told the dragon the player’s name since they are all knowing.
- The Ancients somehow knew the player’s name.
- The dragon itself is all knowing/god-like.
I’d say the first option is the most likely. This still, however, leaves us with the question of how the dragon knew that the player was the Divine Visitor. We didn’t tell the dragon after all, he told us.
Lets look at the options:
- The Ancients knew of the Divine Visitor’s identity, and the dragon inherited this knowledge from them. As you mentioned above, this idea is hard to grasp - how could the Ancients possibly know about me?
- The Ancients and/or the dragon knew of the characteristics of the Divine Visitor, but didn’t know exactly who the Divine Visitor was. For example, the Ancients or the dragon could have known that Divine Visitor was one “from the outside world” and the dragon put two and two together when he encountered the player.
- The dragon obtained knowledge of the Divine Visitor’s identity from the gods of the Panzer world, if they exist, since they’d be omniscient.
[quote=“Heretic Agnostic”]So we are divine, a god basically. (English translation vernacular only of course)
And a prophecy is, almost by definition, from divine source.
If the ultimate form of the dragon is like a messenger of the gods… what sort of messages would one expect?
So this is a very roundabout answer to all of that, but that’s part of my point… we can’t really know any of these answers, but the whole issue seems to conform to the expected cliche for prophecies. And it rarely matters who or what the conduit is, if it’s assumed to be true, then it’s assumed to have been sent by gods/spirits/the cosmos… whatever.
But a part of the cliche is also that, this sort of information is always vague and doomed to be misinterpreted. There’s no direct line to be drawn between any of my ideas about it, and I have no interest in trying… I just see it fitting with the theme of the Dragon’s awareness of it’s own future. And also the (perhaps subjective and imagined) theme of the dragons being something the Ancients never fully understood or controlled in the first place.
Perhaps those Light Wing engineers couldn’t bring themselves to destroy it, because they had seen in it’s message, that it would one day play a part in saving humanity from their own folly?[/quote]
This all makes sense. Though, if there was indeed a divine - as opposed to a scientific - reason behind the purpose of the dragon (to lead the Divine Visitor), this means we’d need to start looking at some of the other questions about the dragon from a much more different angle. For example, what is the impurity in the dragon that Sestren mentions (is a man made impurity?) and the mechanism with a defect mentioned in the Uru records - could this also be of divine origin? To be honest, I don’t like the idea of all the major questions being answered with a “God did it” explanation, but it may be worth revisiting some of the dragon-related questions with this angle in mind.
Well again, since I’m the *DIVINE VISITOR biach! * Whatever I decide it is, must be true…
Which is of course why I say that can’t be relevant. 
But here’s a random hypothetical: The Ancient Masters, were in various stages of transcendence. They did style themselves as gods apparently. Clearly they were not all of one mind about things, and perhaps some were much more transcended than others. One Idea I’ve had is that The Will of the Ancients could be very literal, it is their actual psychic identities that anchor the core of Sestren, and therefore held Sestren Exsis in thrall to their will. It would work as an explanation for both why the Heresy entity had to break the whole system - since it knew it would also become a slave after taking over the Exsis role - and for why Abadd could not revive them.
But isn’t it likely there were other equally powerful Ancient Masters? Well, I think one of them left PD’s world… incarnated as myself… and then used my Saturn to interface with my old home again and set things right!
We are the Ancients… we just don’t know it yet.
The Saturn is clearly a time machine used to connect us with a future version of our world. The only way to save it, is to influence it by pushing a button, all before this future version of the world even exists.
I hear that the construction of a second moon is already on the drawing board.
[quote=“Solo Wing Dragon”]
… and then used my Saturn to interface with my old home again and set things right!
We are the Ancients… we just don’t know it yet.
The Saturn is clearly a time machine used to connect us with a future version of our world. The only way to save it, is to influence it by pushing a button, all before this future version of the world even exists.
I hear that the construction of a second moon is already on the drawing board.
[/quote]
=D
Sorry I don’t have anything introspective to contribute, that just made me laugh. 
Sometimes I almost resent this site, and that includes everyone here!!!
OK, not really. But I just flashed back to when I first joined, and all these theories and discussions started making me think about all these things I was content to just sort of… know, before. Because I suddenly realized this is one of the rare remaining subjects I hadn’t totally examined already… the death of another dream. 
Anyway, obviously I love it! So here’s some more:
Solo, my thoughts have fallen into a little better arrangement, so I have some further elaboration on your questions and my ideas in general. I’ll also agree with you on that “God did it” angle, I find it distasteful in those terms as well. However, I use such vernacular a little cavalierly I guess, precisely because our own understanding of what the character of the* Ancients’ understanding of the divine* may be, is so limited and undefined. As reflected in my big theory, I do consider the very “dragon souls” to be an artifice of the Ancients, and as such, suggests divinity is a relatively tangible realm for them.
On the other hand, I believe there is at least some distinction between the Ancient Masters (who may* or may not* have claimed a kind of godhood in their own time, that itself is unclear) and their sense of yet greater forces affecting their own destinies and ambitions. As example: the Light Wing engineers must have been a part of the pantheon of Ancient Masters, in some general sense at least. So the “Gods” they refer to there are still something outside their own influence.
Which has always seemed odd to me anyway, the passage has a very simply superstitious quality at face value. But that’s part of the reason I interpret it as evidence these scientists aren’t operating from a purely “mundane” perspective, I don’t think they even perceive a strict separation between the life they create and the divine… so in a sense they are even more aware of the limits of their own reach.
So what I’m really trying to get across, is that I myself am not assuming a clear distinction between a “scientific” or “divine” explanation when I’m throwing these ideas around.
It’s interesting you mentioned that Gash is the only other character who speaks of the Divine Visitor… perhaps the reason he is searching for it, is because Lundi believed it was important… which could again suggest it came from the Dragon.
I’m probly not done, but I need to do some laundry, and I’ll probly be mulling this over while I’m doing it… 
Alright… I think one of the things I’ve been trying to communicate, and this has run through much of everything I’ve ever posted, is why I perhaps let this whole science vs mysticism thing remain a lot more blurry than most.
As exceptional as Panzer Dragoon is, not just as a game but also relative to the standards of Japanese pop-storytelling… it’s still very Japanese in some fundamental ways. Relative to contemporary western culture, Asian fiction in general seems a lot more preoccupied with the spirit world and occult themes, and the Japanese tradition of explaining everything in a context of spirit impulses is particularly entrenched in their popular fantasy.
Ghost in the Shell is one of a very few examples of Japanese popular fiction, that may be considered speculative or hard science fiction. And one of it’s central themes is still the issue of soul or spirit… or ghost. Presuming a future when the higher consciousness has been in a sense quantified, perhaps in the sense of quantified as unquantifiable, but even so.
So I’ve never seen Panzer Dragoon as fundamentally exceptional to that general trope, and it is in that spirit I find myself approaching all this.
[quote=“Solo Wing Dragon”]There is one situation where a character in knows not only that the player is the Divine Visitor, but also, what the player’s name is: the ending of Panzer Dragoon Saga. Since the game confirms that the player is the Divine Visitor, via the dragon, there needs to be Panzerish explanation of how the dragon knows not only of the Divine Visitor, but also how it knows that the player is the Divine Visitor.
I can think of a few explanations to how the dragon knows the player’s name:
- The dragon obtained the player’s name from data that the player entered and stored in Sestren at the start of the game. This information may have been accessible only after Sestren was defeated and the dragon took control of the network.
- The gods, should they exist, told the dragon the player’s name since they are all knowing.
- The Ancients somehow knew the player’s name.
- The dragon itself is all knowing/god-like.
I’d say the first option is the most likely. This still, however, leaves us with the question of how the dragon knew that the player was the Divine Visitor. We didn’t tell the dragon after all, he told us.
Lets look at the options:
- The Ancients knew of the Divine Visitor’s identity, and the dragon inherited this knowledge from them. As you mentioned above, this idea is hard to grasp - how could the Ancients possibly know about me?
- The Ancients and/or the dragon knew of the characteristics of the Divine Visitor, but didn’t know exactly who the Divine Visitor was. For example, the Ancients or the dragon could have known that Divine Visitor was one “from the outside world” and the dragon put two and two together when he encountered the player.
- The dragon obtained knowledge of the Divine Visitor’s identity from the gods of the Panzer world, if they exist, since they’d be omniscient.
[/quote]
I’ll reinstate the “best laid plans” principle, as well as my it just doesn’t matter sentiment, as a qualifier for saying… all of the above?
Since I believe Sestren exists within some portion of the continuum that may include the context of Divine in question here, where and how the Ancients/Heresy/anyone else found out about the DV doesn’t seem that critical to me. It’s essentially explicit that, as you say, Heresy knew our name because we told the world at the beginning of the game. For myself it works fine to think of it as interfacing with an aspect of the Sestren continuum, that’s the Panzerish rationale.
Another prophecy cliche, is that there’s always someone trying to stop the prophecy from coming true, right? Perhaps just as likely, different factions may have different interpretations, and try to subvert the prophecy to their own ends. If the Divine Visitor figures at all prominently in those ancient records, it could have been a misinterpretation of the Ancients’ propaganda about their own return; or it could have been what inspired them to construct a faith structure around their plans; it could even have been a part of the plan, that itself got subverted along with the Heresy entity?
So that’s what’s intriguing me about the idea Gash got his mission from Skiad Ops Endow. We know the messages Lundi got from the Dragon were not very precise or detailed, that’s why he was so compelled to continue searching for knowledge. Perhaps it was Lundi who thought Lagi must be the Divine Visitor, after learning about this prophecy and seeing so many elements that matched up with his visions?
It’s an interesting thing to consider isn’t it? As fans, we’ve even come up with the name “Heresy Program” to describe what is often assumed to a program, controlling or guiding the dragon creature towards Sestren. Yet, the question as to whether Sestren and the Heresy Program as simply systems created by humans or something more spiritual, remains unanswered. I’d like to think that the Heresy Program had a will of its own to some extent.
Gash also mentions that the Ancient Age was known as the age of the gods. I wonder if this description actually originates from the Ancients themselves, rather the people who came after who may have believed the Ancients were literally gods (such as the people of Zoah seemed to).
Perhaps the Ancients tapped into the spirit world when they created Sestren. Zadoc says that “The ancient records speak of a group of astral passages beyond our world that connects all of the Towers. These Towers are controlled by Sestren.” An astral plane is traditionally a plane of existence that one crosses before birth and after death, something that you could attribute to both the dragon and Edge (this is assuming Edge died at the start of PDS and the Divine Visitor was merely keeping him alive). The Heresy Program left Sestren before birth, and returned when it was time for the Divine Visitor to destroy him. Edge getting shot at the start of the game may have some connection to this theme of the dragon returning to the astral plane.
This seems likely. Once again, it all seems to originate with the dragon.
This recent discussion, and directly dipping into the realm of PD again the last few days, brought several memories together for something of an actual theory…
Even though it was just a joke about being a reincarnated Ancient, some elements of that theme nudged in this direction. Although I didn’t remember it at the time, I have no doubt the notion was also influenced by reading Geoffrey’s own Divine Visitor Theory (EDIT:thank you!) And his theory makes a really good case for some of the same issues of the theme I’ve been on in this topic, such as how you actually appear to be in Sestren when you enter your name at the beginning of Azel…
I also remember reading a debate over the idea that, the green light leaving the Sky Rider is representing the Divine Visitor as well. It seemed to conclude with a consensus that it doesn’t necessarily mean anything, since green light represents the power of the bio-engineered systems in many other ways. Which I basically agree with, and never thought about it much beyond that. But the questions and ideas in this topic, and watching the PD opening cinema, really got me thinking - and this may even be close to what was behind your own non-suggestions already Solo, but I can’t very well know. 
This is the end…
That voice… the Dragon?!
The remains of the Ancient Age ruins,
Everything, is now with me…
So, now I must finish things with2 the [Divine Visitor3]
…I returned because of them
Divine Visitor? Isn’t that the Dragon…
It is not…
What does that mean?
I could not exist without the Divine Visitor
Released from the spell of the Ancient Age,
The ability to reset this world lies in that persons hands,
Though the outside world was led by a Dragon…
[Insert file name here] you are
The Divine Visitor…
The world must be returned to the hands of the people
The time has come for the journey to begin again…
However, that task will take thousands of years
The end is near
Ah, the experienced button presser
Boy, who resides in Edges soul…
[Insert file name here]…
Again, for allowing4 everything to begin again
…Thank you
…And …goodbye
I see, you were inside me…
Then you’re the Divine…
END
Kimimi’s translation from the Azel ending may be a useful contrast here: although the difference between “I exist to lead the Divine Visitor” and “I could not exist without the Divine Visitor” is quite jarring, they both imply a similar notion - albeit the original a little more directly… that either way the Heresy Dragon’s very purpose of existence is inextricable with that of the Divine Visitor’s.
Her translation also appears to state that the DV was “released from the spell of the Ancient Age”, if that comma isn’t misleading us anyway? So this truly seems to be developing into a picture of DV and Heresy being intended to work as a team from the inception of whatever plan they are a part of. By that token it would mean that the DV’s own role was indeed planned… somehow.
Thus… with these parameters in place, the notion that the player is the Divine Visitor for every game, becomes not only plausible, but perhaps almost inescapable? However, getting too hung up on that angle as a literal element is neither fun nor profitable, for me at least… because this is the part I find the most fun: what’s with the freaking Sky Rider then?
Is it possible that the dragon may only accept the Divine Visitor as a rider? I really like the idea, because it gives me a way to dust off a notion I’d mostly abandoned, but still have a lot of sentiment for: that Sky Rider was indeed a drone prepared for the dragon in the Ancient Age, just as Atolm was prepared for Azel… but maybe this drone was defective, or also incomplete, or simply not a suitable enough host for the Divine Visitor?
The scenario would go something like this… it was not intended for the DV to have to use a human host, for one because it can’t completely override their own free will. But the drones either aren’t sophisticated enough to receive the full benefit of DV’s consciousness and faculties; or the Sky Rider had been damaged; or perhaps DV isn’t actually able to grant faculties the host doesn’t already possess. But for whatever reason, Sky Rider clearly wasn’t good enough to get the job done, it seems.
Off topic:
for some reason i thought Gash’s face was scared from torture similar to what edge suffered?
I might have just made that up myself though! I wonder where i got that from…
*“Off topic:” …*were you being at all ironic there Scott? :anjou_embarassed:
But I remembered that from this topic:
http://forums.thewilloftheancients.com/viewtopic.php?t=2125
LC acknowledges it’s not literal later on. It seems there is no direct illustration of the subject anywhere, and the other implication I was trying think of earlier is just from when Gash says this:
Edge, do you remember the village
we visited, shortly after we met?
[Yeah?]
We, the seekers are…
the survivors of the villages
attacked by those monsters.
I think that’s the only reason I initially had the impression monsters did it. There is one other little problem with the whole issue though, if Skaid Ops means Shadow Eye, and Lundi/Endow was also a Skaid Ops, then it could imply it was self inflicted somehow… or even a piece of an ancient system grafted to his eye socket, something that helps him detect other bio-engineered technology?
It seems unlikely, there’s nothing else to suggest the notion. But it could rearrange the context of “deception is our way, no one would expect someone like me to lead anything” to mean the mask is something people identify as hiding a badly scarred or deformed face, bit it’s actually hiding his real secret.
Regarding the Divine Visitor being in all three games… maybe. I like to think of the Divine Visitor merely being along for the ride in the shooters (perhaps with some degree of control), while taking full control of Edge in Panzer Dragoon Saga. Perhaps only a dying human could become a host for the Divine Visitor (rather than a dying drone), which could explain why the Divine Visitor just let the Sky Rider die, while Edge was kept alive.
I do like the idea that - for whatever reason - the dragon could not exist without the Divine Visitor, as seems to be implied in Kimimi’s translation. It’s interesting that the player is “watching” very close to Lagi’s birth, and is also present at the Heresy Program’s death/deactivation, the very start and end of the Panzer Dragoon trilogy (in chronological order).
It’s also interesting that Kimimi notes the literal translation as closer to “Definite” or “Absolute” rather than “Divine”, the one instance of an added mystical flavoring, rather than subtracted… which makes my earlier Messenger of the Gods argument less direct.
[quote=“Solo Wing Dragon”]Regarding the Divine Visitor being in all three games… maybe. I like to think of the Divine Visitor merely being along for the ride in the shooters (perhaps with some degree of control), while taking full control of Edge in Panzer Dragoon Saga. Perhaps only a dying human could become a host for the Divine Visitor (rather than a dying drone), which could explain why the Divine Visitor just let the Sky Rider die, while Edge was kept alive.
[/quote]
Hmm, in a sense I think the DV is mostly just along for the ride in Edge as well. Consider this, the change that all the dragon riders seem to notice, is - at least in part - from the Divine Visitor? Or how I’d think about it, is that it’s the DV enabling the “synchronizing” between a normal human and the dragon in the first place. In a way the SoA translation becomes more pertinent: Heresy exists to lead the Divine Visitor, not the other way around? Perhaps that could explain why another very special drone wasn’t prepared for the dragon, it’s purpose is just the means to an end, getting the other to where it can fulfill it’s singular purpose.
This has been reminding me of other sticky issues in the story, here’s part of Craymen’s lecture to Edge in the Tower of Uru:
After centuries of fighting,
…the warring factions built this.
It’s nearly impossible to destroy the Tower from the outside.
But it is possible to break inside, and take control of it.
Especially if the intruder was one of those monsters.
…Azel was the weapon created for that purpose.
The Emperor discovered this and searched for her.But I found her first.
Yes, she is the one.
I freed her from her ancient duty and gave her a new objective…
I hadn’t thought about it in a long time, but I think it’s that dialog that at one time - before finding TWotA and things got so complicated - supported my belief that Azel and Atolm were created as part of the same initiative as the Heresy Dragon. And therefore why the other drone(s?) mentioned in the Uru records could also be the Sky Rider.
The big obvious problem with all of that, is that the Uru scientists who made Azel and Light Wing, don’t come across as conspirators or traitors, to go by the little we have:
The Institute, which considered the development of the Light Wing, a renegade project, has ordered us to delete all records regarding the Light Wing… But we have decided to record and seal all data regarding the Light Wing into one memory plate divided into 12 pieces called D Units,
and scatter them throughout the continent… hoping one day a later
generation would inherit our work…
The whole subject is very confusing no matter what… for instance, it’s clear enough that Uru is a central location to the whole faction, why would the masters of the Towers be designing a drone specifically to “break inside” their own fortress? It’s possible it was an ambiguity of the idea Azel was given that purpose by her abductors, or another translation mix up. Regardless it’s things like this that have since caused me to view the subject as too complicated to resolve, but also supported my belief the Ancient Age’s ending was indeed very* complicated* as well.
This DV angle seems solid enough, for me, to possibly give extra backing to place the other pieces of the puzzle on… to be continued:
[quote=“Scott”]Off topic:
for some reason i thought Gash’s face was scared from torture similar to what edge suffered?
I might have just made that up myself though! I wonder where i got that from…[/quote]
That was the original discussion, but since then this has evolved into a discussion about the Divine visitor, a very good one i must say.
Its beeing a pleasure to see all these different ideas/theories.
Well don’t be shy if you have some ideas yourself windrider, this is all for fun, and fun for all!
You referenced this earlier Solo:
Gash: The dragons ended the Ancient Age by terminating all of the active ruins and towers.
Gash: The ‘Divine Visitor’… is the dragon itself!
And it’s always been one of the single most vexing quotes in the game to me. So much so, that I almost have to assume it’s a particularly bad translation. There’s no other hint, anywhere, that “dragons” were terminating the Towers during that fall. - I actually hope it’s not a complete mistranslation, because it’s also the only thing to support my idea that Sestren Exsis was itself an invader of the Towers - But for the purpose of this issue, the fact Gash’s thought that the dragon is the DV, leads from the first sentence, may again reinforce the likelihood that those Ancient records do refer to a Divine Visitor that was somehow instrumental in the fall. Which dismantles the prophecy characterization somewhat, without actually precluding it.
So assuming something along those lines, if the DV made a splash at the end of the Ancient Age as well, and it always had a symbiotic relationship with the dragon, it opens up some very interesting possibilities for the two major Heretic nature schools of thought: for if Heresy was a schism from the Tower plan, then it seems more likely that schism was known about long ago, when the DV and dragon made their first showing; or if they were a rebel or rogue plot, then it becomes similarly likely that the mission we carried out in the games was originally supposed to end in the Ancient Age. It kind of brings both options closer together even, since either way, it’s all the Divine Visitor’s fault!
Though not really… whatever the DV is, it’s responding to a plea from someone in this world. If my previous hypothesis about the Light Wing were at all close, and the Uru Masters were also actually working on some kind of insurgency weapons - which could then include Azel as well as what I call the proto-dragon - then Light Wing would become a very plausible culprit for where the “impurity” originated. Though this is again all tied to the assumption Sestren Exsis is also a dragon, and so directly related to the same research project.
I’ve played with a sort of double-cross scenario before, but within this train of thought it seems even more like the only way to make sense of things. This is a crazy idea, even to me, but what if Sestren Exsis was something that was created in an emergency after they lost Azel? Another hypothesis I’ve previously made is that the Towers may have been built by many sub-factions or nations originally, but regardless of such details it seems clear that there was a period of relative chaos some time before the fall. So maybe Azel was intended as another weapon for bringing Rogue Towers back into the fold?
I’m just touching on as many bases as I can find here, but some variation on this theme at least starts to arrange the contradictory little scraps into some sort of harmony. IF it’s at all correct that dragon’s ended the ancient age and terminated Towers, then:
A) there were even more Towers at one time;
B) most of the Towers have been completely inactive, which fits pretty well with a lot of other theories;
C) some combination of A and B, and it was all a part of the unification of the Towers - as per my proto-dragon scenario;
D) it was an ultimately failed offensive, and the Towers were still reactivated, though perhaps damaged, which may lead into the rundown Tower school of thought.
The problem I have with just accepting option D, is that Sestren clearly had some options of it’s own, and I can’t quite see it going ahead with it’s operation in a state it could never hope to complete things with. And in general, it doesn’t seem to explain how it was dragons that ended the Ancient Age, if the plan went ahead as planned, more or less. So even if it’s just that one turn of phrase (which could easily be a mistranslation) I still want to believe that something specific happened involving dragons - or perhaps one specific dragon - to precipitate the planet wide lockdown.
So… I keep finding myself attracted a circumstance of betrayal, like maybe the Divine Visitor was itself betrayed the first time it tried to break the Will of the Ancients? Or that Sestren Exsis itself represents a betrayal of the original mission of uniting the Towers. Or what seems most likely to me, that the uniting of the Towers was a betrayal to other factions, and the Divine Visitor left some sort of message to the effect of “I’ll be Back!” drifted off in disgust…
I’m losing focus here, and indeed this has been mostly a running tangent. More to come when the possibilities have settled again.
Bleh, too much diffuse exposition there, just unraveled the thread I was trying to follow… but I’m glad you also quoted Zadoc’s response about the Divine Visitor earlier:
{Zadoc} We knew something would appear
{Zadoc} to free us from the Tower’s will.
{Zadoc} It wasn’t until recently that we
{Zadoc} discovered what would save us.
{Zadoc} Your dragon is our salvation.
OK, I think that actually seals the deal on where the dragon misconception came from. It makes perfect sense that the recent influence of Lundi’s story on the Seekers is when they decided their salvation would be the Heresy Dragon. And of course, to all practical intents and purposes they’re right, and the Seekers in Orta’s time probably still think it was the dragon. But the question of why they thought it was the dragon is now answered, which is useful because it leaves the question of why would that cause them to think it was the dragon?
The obvious common denominator is that Lundi knew of Lagi’s drive to destroy the Towers. So from that I think we can be certain the prophecy (or whatever) about the DV cast it as also a destroyer of Towers, in some manner. Which then means the DV had indeed already destroyed some Towers in the Ancient Age, or at the least it’s intentions were explicitly known to some of those Ancients, if not actually planned by them. That feels pretty solid to me now, and so I think we can regard the Divine Visitor in a pretty tangible fashion.
So that’s 1
Then there’s Azel and Atolm… we know they were created for a very specialized role, and if that role is anything close to the explanations that we have been given - to infiltrate / control / commandeer the Towers - then one way or another, the Uru Masters expected to have to take a Tower by force, at some time. And so the only direct answer that seems to make any sense, is that not all the Towers were under their control at that time.
The only other possibility I can see, is that originally she was intended only to take over the Uru Tower. In which case the sinister dimensions of her abilities imply an intent to deny that control to others at the same time, hence the double-cross scenario. In addition, the fact she was never replaced would mean that version of the plan never came to pass… which would mean something else happened instead.
The common denominator of both options, is that Uru’s Ancient Masters were definitely not in complete control of their situation. And indeed, if the location Azel was found was actually a stronghold of rebellion, it’s explicitly an enemy at the gates scenario here. Was Azel then created because the Uru Masters couldn’t trust all their subordinates? Were the others rebelling because they knew they couldn’t trust the Uru Masters?
That’s 2
Then we have a little town called Zoah, which despite being in the shadow of Uru, and arguably under it’s protection in a roundabout way, is also still waiting for a dragon to save them. I think Zoah’s connection to Uru is solid as well, their sacred forest is patrolled and aggressively defended by agents of the Tower, and they use technology even the Empire doesn’t know anything about. And whether their Bible is some derangement of unused lore, or a deliberate form of subjugation, the common denominator is the dragon. Their culture must have it’s roots in the Uru faction, yet they are also expecting a divine herald of some sort, the return of an Ancient god.
That’s 3
Then of course Sestren, whom I firmly believe is a dragon soul, and who definitely appears wearing the skin of a very particular dragon. That dragon is also arguably the herald those residents of Zoah might be expecting to see, it appears on every dragon crest we know of, including one deep in their forest of blessings. Whether dragon or not, the common denominator with the Heresy Dragon is that they’re both intensely powerful entities with origins in the system…
That’s 4
Light Wing… what were those Uru scientists trying to create when they got the Light Wing? And maybe more importantly, why were their masters afraid of it? They labeled it a rogue project, so does that really mean the Light Wing itself was rogue, they knew they would have no way to control it? They wanted to create an ultimate dragon, and apparently got more than they bargained for… but perhaps some part of it’s spirit carried over into their next revision of the project? The common denominator I see is that there was undoubtedly another ultimate dragon created… 5
Everything always connects back to Uru, it’s almost incestuous, and the only immediate conclusion is that the Ancients were just insane. (probably were anyway) But there’s got to be a pattern. Sometimes the simplest answer is the best, and my earliest impression of the Heresy Dragon as a recessed gene in the system keeps looking good again. But it’s the how the when and the why that seem even more important once the Divine Visitor is a part of the equation.
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We’ve got a known variable, something from outside the system, that wants to take down the Towers.
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A paranoid faction developing weapons to seize control of Towers.
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A town of zealots living in the shadow of a Tower, that expects a dragon to return and bring back an Age of the Gods.
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An entity that looks suspiciously like a dragon, that now controls every (active?) Tower in the world, yet was presumably created by the same Ancients that also created Azel.
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An Ultimate Dragon that had to be scrapped because… that horse couldn’t be rode??
And then of course our true Ultimate Dragon… that’s also got it in for the Towers. As it seems everyone and everything wants a piece of those Towers. Where do all the agendas meet? I know where I want them to, but I feel so close to filling in the details… and not quite there yet
Well, even if I’m just muttering to myself here, I’ve got to etch my thoughts somewhere…
Focusing on just the Divine Visitor and the dragon riders for a moment: Solo’s Fourth Rider Theory covers a lot of the bases, including reasons the Sky Rider was likely a drone prepared specifically for the Heresy Dragon in the Ancient Age. The only part that seems very unlikely to me, is the assumption it would also have Azel’s ability to control the Towers. In Azel’s case, she is the counter-Tower weapon, and Atolm is her support. Whereas the Heresy Dragon is itself a counter-Tower weapon, and Sky Rider appears to be a more standardized model, if the Dark Dragon’s rider is also a drone.
There is a very conspicuous pattern here: whatever the other nuances of it’s nature, if we may take it as gospel that the Heresy Dragon can’t exist without / exists to lead the Divine Visitor - which I think we can, I mean, it wouldn’t misunderstand itself there would it? - the fact it still always has to find a rider whenever it needs to get something accomplished is telling.
I don’t think there’s any way of getting around this now: the dragon needs the Divine Visitor; the dragon needs a rider; the Divine Visitor definitely possesses ONE of those riders… so the Divine Visitor needs a physical host in order to complete the combat unit.
Done deal for me… so now how best to make sense of each rider’s circumstance? One of the ideas that has previously turned me off to the whole subject is the zombie Edge scenario. I don’t like to think of him as already killed, and just a husk being reanimated by the DV. But the general context of death has some use, it does give us a very plausible explanation for why Edge perhaps became the best vessel for the DV, as Solo Wing suggested before. Though I will prefer to think of it more like a near death experience.
So here’s the outline of just the Divine Visitor in the Games part so far:
When the Heresy entity first activates/reactivates and gets noticed by Sestren, it may have also brought the DV back into the Panzer world. It’s “impurity” was detected though, and whatever it’s operation was supposed to be at that point, it was intercepted by Sestren Exsis (or possibly the Dark Dragon soul) and had no choice but to try to escape Sestren completely. An intriguing idea now, is that perhaps Heresy’s escape was also aided by the DV? Was Heresy’s own ‘life’ saved after it lost that fight? Regardless, it may have laid low for a long while after that, looking for another way to manifest, searching through the back alleys of the system for something it can make use of…
There! A dormant chromosome in a bio-engineered creature far away from Sestren’s gaze, a breed graciously left to the devices and domestication of the wild humans. We can’t do too much now, but maybe just enough… and if one can survive just long enough…
NO! Hey there little guy… you don’t really want to kill us do you?! We’ve got WINGS! NO KILL! NO KILL!
YES! Maybe we can work with the kid too…
So the Divine Visitor could have been working on Lundi for a while, as I think Solo already implied. Not the ideal arrangement, but as long as the basic dragon-rider circuit can be closed it’ll work, for now…
Which leads to a question I’m not sure I’ve ever even seen asked before: why did Lagi never return to Lundi after that? It is certainly possible Lundi was very old, or even gone by the time period of Eins, and that was probably the next time the dragon emerged. Even so, in the larger theme it seems very likely that the Heresy/DV duo actively looked for a better option. or perhaps even the ideal arrangement. But one way or another, they found a drone that fit the bill.
For me, there is in this yet another big question though, for how could the dragon have got to that drone on it’s own? It seems to go on the defensive whenever it’s without a rider, staying invisible and essentially creeping around. So there’s only one possible corroboration I can think of, the drone tribes mentioned in Orta’s Encyclopedia. And if the Heresy Dragon’s own rider was itself a heretic drone, it could perhaps make sense that there’s a group of drone fugitives somewhere.
There is also the established theory that the Sky Rider was stolen and reprogrammed by rebels, similar to Azel. But I don’t think it’s likely, mainly because I also don’t think it’s likely the Heresy Dragon was ever “stolen” in that sense. However, if the Sky Rider was actually in ‘storage’ somewhere, it then suggests a larger alternative: both the Sky Rider and the Armored Blue Dragon could be the OEM kit. (meaning Lagi’s original body was indeed “discarded”) And the Heresy entity found another astral way to reach them both, perhaps after taking over Shelcoof.
The only real problem with all of this, is if the dragon deliberately sought out the intended host for the DV, then why did things turn out so badly? I gave some options earlier, and maybe it’s just bad luck… or perhaps their duel with the Dark Dragon was the culmination of a much longer and more grueling battle than we ever realized? For all we know Lagi could have been raising hell a half a continent away, and destroyed a dozen Towers already…
But all we really know is that it happened, the Sky Rider got taken out, and - perhaps literally with it’s last life, it was the Sky Rider willing the connection to be made there - it gave it’s dragon to a Hunter who just happened to be in the place at the time. Which may give us one of the most plausible answers for why the dragon is technically less powerful than it even became by the end of Zwei. Or at least, not as versatile. Perhaps it was a very stressful alliance, having to maintain synchronicity with this random human. And once more, an alliance not worth perpetuating beyond the immediate crisis…
And so, we’re finally back to Edge. A boy guarding a ruin that houses yet another monster created for the purpose of giving the Towers nightmares. There can be no question the dragon was there because of Azel, and where the dragon goes, so goeth the Divine Visitor…
I find myself subscribing to another cliche here, I believe the Divine Visitor made a sort of bargain with Edge. *Do you want to live? YES? Then I get to rearrange you for my own purposes… * The DV is an outsider to this world, even if it were an Ancient that let go it’s bonds to this particular mortal coil, or if it’s truly just the player. The reason it’s the only one to break the spell of the Ancient Age, is because the Ancients themselves changed the rules, they interfered with the free will of the inhabitants of this realm.
The Divine Visitor cannot break those rules either, hence the need for a bargain. But it’s because the Ancients already managed to break them that it can impose it’s will on their distortion of the coil, if given the chance. Because it was never made subject to their rules.
Okay! I think I like it, even if it’s not an entirely substantiated theory, it all seems to at least work. Any comments?!?! Is anyoooone theeeeree?
Supposing Azel was created with the ability to break into the Tower from the start (supposing this was not something that the rebels added to her), this gives her significant importance not only in the story of Panzer Dragoon Saga, but in the plan of the Ancients too. It may be indeed that the towers were always meant to be shut down after a certain period of time, and Azel could have been created for this task. The scientists speak of Azel not being complete when she was stolen, so perhaps further control ‘mechanisms’ were planned for her so that she could only destroy the Tower/open the gate to Sestren at a certain time. Or perhaps, she simply would have had less free will/more loyalty to the Ancients (like Abadd), preventing her from wanting to go against the will of the Ancients.
[quote=“Heretic Agnostic”]Gash: The dragons ended the Ancient Age by terminating all of the active ruins and towers.
Gash: The ‘Divine Visitor’… is the dragon itself!
And it’s always been one of the single most vexing quotes in the game to me. So much so, that I almost have to assume it’s a particularly bad translation. There’s no other hint, anywhere, that “dragons” were terminating the Towers during that fall. - I actually hope it’s not a complete mistranslation, because it’s also the only thing to support my idea that Sestren Exsis was itself an invader of the Towers - But for the purpose of this issue, the fact Gash’s thought that the dragon is the DV, leads from the first sentence, may again reinforce the likelihood that those Ancient records do refer to a Divine Visitor that was somehow instrumental in the fall. Which dismantles the prophecy characterization somewhat, without actually precluding it.[/quote]
Interesting point. I imagined that the dragons ending the Ancient Age point was part of the plan of Abadd’s masters. By terminating/shutting down the active Towers, the life support system of the planet would have been shut off so that the birth of a new world could begin, created for the return of the Ancients. I base this idea largely off Nausica? of the Valley of Wind. Of course, Nausica? and Panzer Dragoon are two different stories (the former of which has no Divine Visitor equivalent), so the Divine Visitor’s involvement in the downfall of the Ancient Age may well have been relevant.
I think betrayal of some sort of likely too. If Craymen is correct, and the warring nations built the Towers together, it may be that an elite few were selected to be part of the plan, while the rest were excluded. I can imagine a scenario where the world is overpopulated and humanity has almost consumed every natural resource on the planet. The leaders of one or more nations decide that the population must be reduced, and the world restored, and so a period of annihilation (the downfall of the Ancient Age), and then then healing (the years after where the Towers control/create a habitable environment) take place. The Divine Visitor could, in this situation, be the will of the excluded people, an anti will of the ancients if you like.
Yeah, that’s one possibility. Another is that the Heresy Dragon was originally meant to be part of the plan of Abadd’s masters. If the Heresy Dragon was meant to destroy the Towers as part of the plan of the Ancients, the dragon mentioned in the Dragon Bible could refer to the Heresy Dragon. This is also assuming that the end of the Towers cycle would coincide with a new Age of the Gods (the return of Abadd’s masters).
I’m not quite convinced on this one. The other dragon/rider pairs, (e.g. Azel and Atolm) do not, as far as we know, require another entity to complete their combat unit. I think the Divine Visitor was necessary for the completion of the mission (freeing the world from the will of the Ancients), but perhaps didn’t need to be there for all of it.
Panzer Dragoon Saga is the only game in the series where we, the player, have direct control of Edge’s movement off the dragon. I’m convinced this has something to do with the Divine Visitor. The concept of a zombie Edge doesn’t appeal to me either, however more control or perhaps just guidance over Edge than the other dragon riders may be the case here. Perhaps the Divine Visitor didn’t/couldn’t save the Sky Rider’s life because it wasn’t yet time… a time that came when Azel was unearthed and the dragon was on the final path to completing his mission.