The Four Great Civilizations

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Ivogoji
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The Four Great Civilizations

Post by Ivogoji »

Prof. Gerald Robotnik's Journal from Sonic Battle; see entry one.

In Sonic Battle Gerald Robotnik refers to the Nocturnus Clan, the creators of the Gizoid robot, as 'The Fourth Great Civilization'. This would imply the existence of three other great civilizations (indeed, he mentions civilizations, plural)- presumably they existed before Nocturne's rise to power. Although it is no where stated explicitly, I think it's a safe bet that all these civilizations had one thing in common- their greatness was derived from possessing the Seven Chaos Emeralds (which are also likely responsible for each civilization's fall from grace which subsequently paved the way for the next civilization's ascent). Here are my thoughts on the identities of the Four Great Civilizations:

Looking at pre-Sonic Battle games that make references to ancient societies connected to the Chaos Emeralds we have
The builders of the Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone on South Island from Sonic 1.
The Game Gear Sonic titles all take place on South Island, so the ruins featured in those games are the same.
Sonic CD has an ancient civilization living on the Little Planet in the Past prior to Robotnik's take over. Note that the presence of advanced, environmentally friendly technology in the Good Future of each zone suggests that this civilization actually survives far beyond modern times.
The builders of the Aquatic Ruin Zone on West Side Island in Sonic 2, explicitly mentioned as having once possessed the Chaos Emeralds in Sonic 2's Japanese manual.
The ancient Echidna empires, first mentioned in S3&K and given significantly more light in SA and Sonic Chronnicles. By inference we are meant to conclude that the ancient civilization on West Side Island was part of the same nation as Angel Island (this is definitely implied by the wording in Sonic 3's Japanese manual). Angel Island reappears many times in other games (Sonic the Fighters, Sonic Advance, Sonic Advance 2, Sonic Pocket Adventure, Sonic R). SA2 features both the ruins of an Echidna city and Gerald's recreation of the Emerald Shrine in Cannon's Core.
Chaos Emerald tradition 1, SA strategy guide.
Chaso Emerald tradition 2, SA strategy guid.
The Isolated Island seen in Knuckles' Chaotix is also explicitly linked to the Echidna civilizations in that game's Japanese manual, the connection is the reason Eggman goes to the island and sets the events of the game in motion.
Tails Adventure's Cocoa Island features the ruins of an ancient civilization that are connected to the Chaos Emeralds as well.
Sonic 3D Blast Flicky's Island features ruins of a society that apparently revered Flickies. The US manual calls them the ruins of Atlantis, though we should probably take this localization with a grain of salt.
Note the presence of Flickies on South Island, West Side Island, Angel Island, Cocoa Island, the Little Planet and this game's location. Flickies are connected to the Giant Rings that lead to the Special Zone, where the Chaos Emeralds are normally found. Flicky's Island confirmed that Giant Rings are a form of technology, because Eggman uses a machine to generate new ones at his command to hunt for the Chaos Emeralds. Since all of these islands have Flickies, and all but two of them have Giant Rings, they are most likely all outposts of the same ancient civilization.
Sonic Heroes features Whale Island and its surrounding environments, which include the ruins of the Ocean Palace, which look much more recent that the ruins seen in other games but otherwise fit the theme. Once again Giant Rings make an appearance as well.

Post Sonic Battle games introduce us to other ancient super civilizations, such as the Babylonians and the builders of the Gaia Temples, and these groups also had access to the Chaos Emeralds for a time; however, I am going to assume that the Four Great Civilizations are meant to be identified with groups introduced prior to Sonic Battle.

So, taken together we have:
The Fourth Great Civilization, the Nocturnus Clan, which created the Gizoid.
The Third Great Civilization, the Knuckles Clan, which we can infer would be the third great civilization because they were the dominant power before Perfect Chaos went on his rampage. They built the cities on West Side Island and Angel Island, and the ruins seen in SA and SA2.
The Second Great Civilization, 'Atlantis' or the group that caused Flickies to be in so many places.
The First Great Civilization, which I propose are the original inhabitants of the Little Planet, about whom we know the least.

I suggest the civilizations came about like this- the people of the Little Planet first developed the Giant Ring technology in order to explore the Special Zone, and in doing so they came upon both the Chaos Emeralds and the Time Stones. They kept the Time Stones for themselves, but shared the Chaos Emeralds with the inhabitants of Earth. At some point, they severed normal contact with the Earth's population, and 'Atlantis' came into power. Having borrowed the Giant Ring technology and the knowledge of the Chaos Emeralds from the Little Planet civilization, 'Atlantis' set about using the gems to dominate the world, colonizing many islands throughout the southern seas. They had a reverence towards birds and so built havens for Flickies to inhabit everywhere they went. They were also most likely responsible for building the original Master Emerald Shrine where Chaos and Chao dwelt 5000 years ago- perhaps they had a similar attitude towards Chao as they did towards Flickies. At some point the power of the Chaos Emeralds was abused and 'Atlantis' suffered a great catastrophe, after which they fell from power. The Emeralds were abandoned to the wilderness and Chaos assumed protection of the gems. The remnants of 'Atlantis' became the Knuckles Clan and the Nocturnus Clan.
The rest of the story we know. Eventually the Knuckles Clan went to war and began to conquer their neighbors. Pachacamac remembered the legends of the Chaos Emeralds' great power and desired to use them to make his own people mighty. His greed lead to the wrath of Perfect Chaos and the desolation of the Knuckles Clan. Tikal sealed Chaos away in the Master Emerald and Angel Island rose into the sky with the surviving members of her people.
With his rival Pachacamac out of the way, Pir'Oth Ix set out to gather the Chaos Emeralds himself and make the Nocturnus Clan the dominant civilization of the world. Having advanced technology, they used the Emeralds to create the Gizoid, the Ultimate Being and a weapon capable of making them invincible. However, the Gizoid went rogue and wrecked the Nocturnus civilization much the same way Perfect Chaos destroyed the Knuckles; the Argus Event took place as described in Sonic Chronnicles and Nocturne was taken with its surviving people to the Twilight Cage.

It was most likely after the fall of the Fourth Great Civilization that the Chaos Emeralds passed into the possession of the Babylonians and other ancient groups; it unclear if they had access to Giant Ring technology or not, but the continuity of ancient knowledge that began with the First Great Civilization was most likely lost after the Argus Event.
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Re: The Four Great Civilizations

Post by Jeffery Mewtamer »

Maybe I'm misremembering, but wasn't The 4th Great Civilization of Gerald's Journal 4000 years ago and the Massacre of the Knuckles Tribe by Perfect Chaos 3000 years ago? Or Does Chronicles(which I've never played) retcon one of these dates?
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Re: The Four Great Civilizations

Post by Ivogoji »

Gerald's journal does not mention how long ago the cataclysm happened; I cannot recall any ingame dialogue that said anything to that effect either.
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Re: The Four Great Civilizations

Post by Ivogoji »

A note on the Second Great Civilization/'Atlantis'-
The Labyrinth Zone and the Marble Zone in Sonic 1 both feature what appear to be busts of birds. Evidence of my proposed connection to the Flicky's Island civilization? Flickies already existed at the time the game was made, it's entirely reasonable to suggest that their significance was already worked out in the creators' minds.

I still wonder if, retroactively, we should assume the Babylonians represent the main non-Echidna civilization to rule the ancient world. They definitely have the whole bird theme some ancient ruins in the old game feature down pat.

On the other hand the Babylonians don't actually show much evidence to indicate that they had a real empire like Pachacamac or Ix. Tails exposition establishes that they were pirates mostly, plundering the wealth of other civilizations with their advanced technology. Did they have colonies beyond the Babylon Garden? smight replay Riders again to get a better idea of the timeline- I can't remember if the Babylonians predate or postdate the Echidnas.
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Re: The Four Great Civilizations

Post by Ivogoji »

Thinking about this again:
Ivogoji wrote:At some point the power of the Chaos Emeralds was abused and 'Atlantis' suffered a great catastrophe, after which they fell from power. The Emeralds were abandoned to the wilderness and Chaos assumed protection of the gems. The remnants of 'Atlantis' became the Knuckles Clan and the Nocturnus Clan.
The story of Sonic Adventure pre-supposes that there at least three strata of ancient civilizations behind the events of the game:
1-The civilization who built the Master Emerald shrine. They had the Master Emerald and the seven.
2-Pachacamac's empire. They knew about, but did not have the Emeralds.
3-The successors to Pachacamac that left behind records depicting the wrath of Perfect Chaos. They would have had the seven Chaos Emeralds but not the Master.

The fact that later games refer to group three as the Fourth Great Civilization or the Nocturnus is of secondary importance; SA pre-supposes this group exists. We know it to be the case years before Sonic Battle or Sonic Chronicles were released.

Same goes for group one. Nobody in Tikal's time period knows where the Emeralds came from, what the water spirit that guards them is supposed to be, or anything else about the nature of the shrine. The forerunners of the Knuckles tribe might also have been Echidnas, were probably even their ancestors, but they clearly lived long before Pachacamac's day. An elder race.

What happened to them? Chaos is Guardian of the Emerald Shrine when Pachacamac rose to power. We know Chaos is a Chao mutated by exposure to the Emeralds. That could have been a completely random occurrence with no intelligent force behind it. A pair of wandering Chao make their home in the pool beside the Master Emerald, one of their babies turns out funny, the end. Or Chaos might have been created on purpose by the Shrine Builders to be their watchdog (maybe Gerald Robotnik's quest for an Ultimate Lifeform wasn't a new idea...), and -he- is what happened to his creators. The Wrath of Chaos could have a prequel.

Or the Master Emerald just chooses her own Guardians.

That's speculation we might draw from Sonic Adventure. The earlier games also provide food for thought, but they don't really tell us anything about the ancient civilization we wouldn't conclude after playing SA.

Later games however build on SA's foundation and give us more clues to work with.
In SA2 we see ruins of an Echidna civilization that depicts figures of Echidnas alongside those of Chao and gems that are obviously Chaos Emeralds. These ruins are in a desert, which could easily be located right next to the Mystic Ruins given that the latter are within walking distance of Sand Hill. Pachacamac's civilization? Or their ancestors?
Sonic Battle gives us the Fourth Great Civilization. They were advanced enough to build the Gizoid, who absorbed the Emeralds and wrecked all their stuff. Nobody calls them Echidnas, but at this point it goes without saying.
Sonic Chronicles provides a huge info dump by revealing that the Fourth Great Civilization were the enemies of Pachacamac's people, the Nocturnus Imperium.
The Riders games introduce an entirely new faction of ancients, the Babylonians, who aren't connected to the overarching mythos of the Chaos Emeralds, but never the less had some sort of contact with gems before the Hanging Gardens fell; I'm just not sure when the come in.

Lets try to work out a history for these people...
7000-6000 years ago, the South Island/Second Great Civilization/Atlantis/The Elder Echidnas made use of the eight Emeralds to build a vast empire. They created the Emerald Shrine, Giant Rings, and ancient cities all over the Earth. They might have created Chaos.
Something happened. They fell apart and divided into competing tribes.
5000 years ago a Knuckles Clan chief named Pachacamac launched a campaign against their neighbors. He waged war against Pir'Oth Ix, Imperator of the Nocturnus Clan. This was effectively a civil war between two remnants of an older empire. Pachacamac needed a game changer, he went after the Emeralds. Chaos killed everything and Angel Island rose into the sky. Ix claimed the Emeralds without resistance and effectively took over the planet. Then he made Emerl and got flung into the Twilight Cage.
This all coheres pretty smoothly.

Just some insights I've been mulling over. It's interesting how this plot point has evolved over the years.
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Re: The Four Great Civilizations

Post by Ivogoji »

In the last post I mentioned the break between the era when the Echidnas built the Master Emerald Shrine and Pachacamac's time period. The Knuckles Clan tribesmen mention that they can't approach the altar and that they're unfamiliar with the Chao.
Amy's story wrote: Chao? Sacred power?
No way! I don't buy it.
We're goin' in to get
those special stones!

These strange creatures seem
to be living near the altar.
They're small and...
well, it's hard to describe...
My grandma called
them "Chao."

We made a lotta money
with our power.
But whenever we tried to
get the Emeralds,
some strange force always
stopped us.
I can't imagine those
little creatures
have that much power...
Knuckles' story wrote: We don't care about the Chao.
We need to get past that
mysterious barrier
to get the Emeralds.

Our Chief is Pachacamac.
He's awesome!
He controls everything
around here,
except the altar...
The Chao live there
and have built
a little world of their own.
Gamma's story wrote: The Chief's daughter
always seems to be hanging
around the altar.
Perhaps she knows how to
break
through the sacred barrier?
In SA2 we see the ruins of an old Echidna civilization around Eggman's pyramid. There are depictions of Echidnas worshipping Chao and kneeling around one of the Emeralds.
Image
Image

For the reasons outlined above, these can't be depictions of the Knuckles Clan at the time seen in Sonic Adventure. The characters' dialogue indicate the Chao and the Emeralds were once considered sacred, but by Pachacamac's day these traditions were no longer believed in (replaced perhaps by the tribe's snake worship). This means the ruins seen in SA2 must be placed in an earlier time period, before Pachacamac's culture rose to power. This agrees with the three stage development of the Echidna civilizations I suggested before.

The culture that built the Pyramid is obviously based on real world ancient Egypt, just as the Knuckles Clan are based on the Mayans and the Nocturnus are based on the Roman Empire. From this we can surmise that the same Egyptian like society that built the Wild Canyon and Dry Lagoon ruins built the Sandopolis Zone from S&K, as well as Regal Ruin from Sonic R and other Egyptian themed locations in the series. By a similar token we might conclude the Nocturnus are responsible for the Greco-Roman style architecture like the Marble Zone, Aquatic Ruin Zone, and Rusty Ruin Zone.

With this in mind we can break down the technological development of the Echidna civilizations.

-The Sandopolitans created technical marvels like the moving stone Guardian of Sandopolis, the similar automaton Eggman converted into the Egg Golem, and the complex clockwork machinery of the pyramids in S&K and SA2. They possessed and understood how to harness the power of the Emeralds. They most likely built the Master Emerald Shrine, which means their technology is the original basis for the Eclipse Cannon. They also appear to be the ones who placed the Mystic Melody devices around the world; meaning they possessed a form of teleportation.
-The Knuckles Clan in Pachacamac's time seem at first to be less advanced, but they were no slouches, having constructed the transforming stone structures in and around the Mystic Ruins Temple, as well as the giant robotic snakes, artificial gravity platforms, and water channeling system beneath it. Later on Angel Island they built the Sky Sanctuary Zone, Hydrocity, the hovercraft devices in Marble Garden, and the teleporters seen throughout the island. They're probably responsible for the machinery in Lava Reef (unless this was built by Eggman), and for digging the Endless Mine. Despite their primitive style of dress they clearly possessed things like electric lighting, plumbing, fans, and vehicles of transportation.
-The Nocturnus Clan were the most advanced of the Echidna race. Before their banishment to the Twilight Cage they already had sophisticated robots with artificial intelligence and incredible weapons technology. In construction they replicated and improved upon many of the inventions of their predecessors. The Gizoid was their most impressive achievement, but after entering the Twilight Cage they developed spacecraft and armed themselves with Leech Blade weapons that absorb life energy, laser cannons, and high tech armored suits. In these respects they may have been superior to the Sandopolis civilization, but the older culture seems to have possessed a deeper understanding of the secrets of the Emeralds.

Certainly the Sandopolis Echidnas were the source of Tikal's stanza ("the servers are the seven Chaos, Chaos is power enriched by the heart, the Controller serves to unify the Chaos") which encapsulates the reverence for the Emeralds that was lost by their descendants.
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Re: The Four Great Civilizations

Post by Ivogoji »

Now that my thoughts have started to crystalize about the Four Great Civs, I think I can tackle the Babylon Rogues' chronology and see how they fit in.

We know from Sonic Riders that the Babylonians had access to the Chaos Emeralds just before they fell, as they used them to create the Control Box. According to legend they plundered the ancient world for treasures with their advanced technology, incurring the wrath of the gods, which brought about the destruction of their civilization. So advanced was their technology that a single gift they gave to a boy, "the wing of angel", allowed that boy to rule the world.

Zero Gravity reveals the existence of the Arks of the Cosmos, devices that could control gravity, one of which was stored in the Babylonian ruin of Gigan Rocks. When Sonic and his friends investigate Gigan Rocks, Knuckles is able to read the inscriptions the Babylonians left behind.

This last detail may allow us to date the history of the Babylon Rogues. Knuckles of course has spent his entire life on Angel Island, with minimal contact with the outside world; it is very curious that he would know this ancient language. The Knuckles Clan was isolated after Angel Island rose into the air- if they knew the Babylonians' language, and passed this information on to their present day descendant, then they must have had contact with the Babylon Garden before the Perfect Chaos disaster.

This would give the Babylonians the terminus ad quem of 4000 years ago, before Pachacamac's time period.

If they lived before Pachacamac's time and access to the Chaos Emeralds, then we can deduce that they were contemporaries of the Second Great Civilization. The Master Emerald Shrine was constructed in that time period, and it was as the Second Great Civilization came to an end that Chaos became Guardian of the Emeralds. The Sandopolis/Wild Canyon Echidna race watched over the Chao and the Emeralds themselves for most of their history.

From here I think we can reconstruct the real history of the Babylon civilization and their relationship to the Echidna clans.

Shipwrecked on Earth, the Babylonians longed for a means to return to their homeworld. The Arks of the Cosmos were locked in orbit around the Earth after being jettisoned from their starship, and they observed for an opportunity to reclaim them. I believe the "angel's wing" mentioned in Eggman's diary is the Ark of the Cosmos sealed away in Gigan Device. The Babylonians' gift represents their first contact with surface dwellers, and the beginning of their interbreeding with terrestrial birdfolk; the boy in the legend may be the first hybrid offspring the aliens conceived. For a time they reigned supreme with their power over gravity, and other cultures were instructed in their language and arts. Before long however the Babylonians decided the Arks of the Cosmos were too dangerous to use and had the ones that fell out of orbit sealed away deep underground. One and twelve generations after arriving on Earth the Babylonian scientist Stolen created an alternative means of defying gravity without the Arks: the first Extreme Gear. This gave them greater mobility on the surface world, which they took advantage of to plunder the surface dwellers for riches and resources absent on Babylon Garden. One of the treasures they set out to steal were the Chaos Emeralds- powerful relics that could reactivate the machinery of Astral Babylon and potentially take them back to the stars. My hypothesis is that what Tails described as the judgement of the gods which scattered the Babylon Rogues was actually a counterattack by the Echidnas in retaliation for the theft of the Chaos Emeralds. The Echidna clans seiged Babylon Garden, causing it to collapse into the desert, and reclaimed the Emeralds for the altar. While the Second Great Civilization continued to prosper in the light of the Emeralds, the Babylon Rogues were left as wandering exiles in the desert sands, memories of their illustrious heritage fading with the passage of time.

It is interesting that the Babylonians could reproduce with terrestrial life forms. True aliens should be too different genetically to interbreed with Earthlings. It is possible however that the Babylonians were in fact a colony of another spacefairing civilization that found its way back to Earth after generations of separation. I think the Babylonians were a remnant of the First Great Civilization that dwelled on the Little Planet. After communications broke down between the Little Planet and other First Great Civilization colonies, the crew of the Astral Babylon attempted to locate the other remnants on Earth, ending up stranded there. After failing to return to space with the Arks, they attempted to rob the Echidnas in desperation, only to totally lose their starship in the process. With the last of the First Great Civilization out of their way, the Echidna clans became the dominant power in the world, eventually leading to the events depicted in Sonic Adventure.
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