So you know in the Aurora concert, there's a battle scene in the Battleground?
One thing that's always puzzled me is why are there a bunch of mantas at that battle? Mantas aren't naturally aggressive and based on the Shattering memories I thought they would have fled when things got bad. But then I realized, mantas are used as mounts--
--By the manta racers. So what if at the end of the kingdom when the dark dragons were encroaching on the realms, the manta racers were conscripted as soldiers? Soldiers that can fly on mantas and throw spears or use bow and arrows could be very useful against the dragons.
Who are the manta racers?
Manta Whisperer/Migrating Manta Whisperer, Bowing Medalist, Proud Victor, and Warrior of Love.
Just imagine spending your life being a manta racer, traveling the realms, competing in races for riches, glory, and the love of the race but then suddenly as a desperate measure, are ordered by the realm elders or even the king themself to become a soldier. You get sent away for training and then deployed to the Wasteland to help defend against the dark dragons... and we all know how that went.
WAIT STOP. THIS IS GIVING ME A THOUGHT
so i was always so, so confused about how the citadel got it's name. a citadel is a mountain fortress, and the valley is about entertainment, so why is there a base for soldiers??
but THIS could explain it. maybe it wasn't always a citadel! given the number of memories we see here that involve racing, this could've been a flying track. maybe a practice one. or perhaps they just kept the mantas there and it was an enclosure
and then maybe somewhere along the line, when they had to start retraining for war, it stopped being whatever it had been and became a citadel. a place for war and soldiery on a mountainside
It would also make sense why Bowing Medalist and Proud Victor are wearing regular soldier armor like the soldiers in Two Embers area. Maybe they were soldiers first and then became manta racers and were on standby or something in case things got bad and they were needed for battle.
could be another option for what the citadel was. orrrrrrrrrr maybe it was a fortress dedicated to training soldiers for manta cavalry duty! since the valley specializes in Things Going Very Fast, the wasteland could've sent soldiers over there to train their own soldiers. the implication of a potential partnership between the valley and wasteland is FASCINATING
AAAAA That's such a good idea! I love it! Also, remember in the Aurora concert for the Warrior of Love song, the whole story was about wild mantas being trapped and caged... maybe they were collecting mantas to be soldier mounts.
Oh FUCK yes itâs my favorite part of Sky lore. The potential connections between the war, industry, and how Valley and Wasteland both fit into it have been rotting my brain for the past 3 and a half years
Fun fact: Valley and Wasteland spirits are seen hanging out together in the Slouching Soldier memory, which definitely supports the idea that Valley athletes could have been soldiers working together with Wasteland. I have my own theories about how that partnership might have changed, but I think itâs fair to say the two realms were probably close, at least for some time.
Given what weâve seen about the darkstone manufacturing process, and then what happened in the Two Embers, I think the mantas in the concert scene might have been captured forâŠother reasonsâŠ
(screenshots from @abyssal-debonair)
All Iâm saying is, being used for racing or military mounts might be the *best* case scenario for those mantas.
Another thing: When you see people and mantas on the battlefield in Wasteland in the Aurora concert, the song they chose was âThe Seed.â You know, the song protesting corporate greed and environmental destruction. My headcanon is that the workers in Wasteland got fed up with their realm being poisoned, started a rebellion, and some of the light creatures may have joined in. Valley, being the wealthiest realm and highly dependent on Wastelandâs darkstone technology, fought back. So what started as a partnership to get the darkness under control and maintain the status quo devolved into a full-blown civil war over the future of technology, the environment, and the class system.
Why am I going on this tangent? Well, to go back to the original post:
Just imagine spending your life being a manta racer, traveling the realms, competing in races for riches, glory, and the love of the race but then suddenly as a desperate measure, are ordered by the realm elders or even the king themself to become a soldier. You get sent away for training and then deployed to the Wasteland to help defend against the dark dragons...
âŠonly to find out that youâre actually defending a corrupt system that exploits workers, harms animals, and is currently destroying the realm youâve been sent to âprotectâ. And up until now, youâve been spending your days racing through the gilded streets, blissfully unaware of exactly how bad it is down below. And then you have to figure out what to do with that information.
