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Theories > Different Dragons Theory
Written By Lance Way, January 2004
On playing the games of the Panzer Dragoon series, one aspect of the plot that players often take for granted is that the dragon you control in each game is the same creature. Though this is an understandable and quite logical assumption, the finer details of the plot often indicate that this may not be the case. Upon closer inspection, there are several pieces of evidence, both large and small, which support the idea of there being different dragons.
Remember that from the ending sequence of Panzer Dragoon Saga, (and from information seen in one of Sestren’s memory cells in Panzer Dragoon Orta,) we know that during the course of the Sega Saturn games the dragon had always been guided by an energy-based entity that Sestren identified only as “the Impurity”. (This is the entity popularly referred to as the “Heresy Program” or the “Heresy Dragon”.)
What is definite is that, just prior to the beginning of the series, this Impurity was ejected from the ancient Sestren data network. Then, at the beginning of Panzer Dragoon Zwei, it entered into the body of the baby Coolia that we know as Lagi. Much later, at the end of the Sega Saturn series (the end of Panzer Dragoon Saga), the Impurity left the physical dragon; during the time of the latest game, Panzer Dragoon Orta, the dragon was without the Impurity’s influence. Whether that physical dragon was still the original host of the Impurity - that is, Lagi - or whether the Impurity had entered into different bodies during the course of the Sega Saturn series is what I intend to examine.
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The Evidence
1) Lundi’s diaries from Panzer Dragoon Saga
The most unquestionable and convincing evidence to support this theory can be found within one of the diaries of Lundi, the character who rode the dragon in Panzer Dragoon Zwei. In Panzer Dragoon Saga, his diaries can be found as items and read, and they shed much light on the exact details of the plot of Zwei. The quote most relevant to this topic seems to be the following one from the “Old Diary”. It discusses the entity known as the Impurity (which is the “he” Lundi is referring to in this paragraph):
“By destroying the Tower of the Sky, Shelcoof, our journey came to an end. Exhausting all his power, he discarded his body, and entered a deep sleep. I assume he has now re-emerged with a new body, and chosen you as his rider.”
The following quote also backs this idea up, though it is a little vaguer (as Lundi’s choice of the word “soul”, referring to the Impurity, is perhaps questionable):
“The dragon you ride has inherited the soul of my old friend.”
Lundi’s testament, then, was that because of the immense effort required to destroy the ancient flying Tower called Shelcoof, the physical dragon - Lagi - died. Lundi confirms that the Impurity was able to survive, however, and that it would one day return in a new body. Lundi also verifies that:
“My friend, the dragon, entrusted me with the secret of his existence before he left me.”
As Lundi’s other diaries confirm, this refers to the knowledge he gained from the prophetic visions revealed to him by the dragon during the Zwei ending sequence. As the rest of the Old Diary shows, much information was indeed imparted to Lundi regarding the nature of the dragon, of the Towers it sought to destroy, and of the world in general. He even alludes to knowing even more details than those he writes briefly about here, when he admits:
“What is written here is only part of the secret that was entrusted to me.”
There is thus no reason to doubt the accuracy of what Lundi is saying about the physical dragon’s death and of the Impurity’s future return in a new body, as he both understood the dragon’s true nature and had already seen the future he described. In fact, this information could not really be considered more authentic if it came from any other Panzer Dragoon character: save perhaps the Impurity itself.
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2) The ghost and reincarnation of Lagi
In the ending sequence of Panzer Dragoon Zwei, Lundi found an artefact known as a “Dragon Crest” within the wreckage of Shelcoof. It pulsed with the same mysterious light that once resided within Lagi’s throat, indicating that although Lagi’s body had died, some element or essence of him had been retained within that carved crest. Upon seeing it, Lundi also spoke the single word “Lagi”, revealing that he understood the nature of his friend’s resting place. (Given that he saw the crest in part of the dragon’s prophetic visions, and that he gained a deep understanding of everything else revealed to him in those visions, this seems more than likely.)
 
This same Dragon Crest can be encountered again in Panzer Dragoon Saga, deep within the wreckage of Shelcoof, which is floating over the sea in a state of semi-repair. Once all the locked doors within the ship are opened, the player is greeted inside by what is clearly the “ghost” of Lagi. This spectral entity is in exactly the same evolutionary form that Lagi finished Panzer Dragoon Zwei in - that is, if the player did everything as well as possible - the form that would later be referred to as the Solo Wing. Considering that Shelcoof was the place of Lagi’s demise, it seems that this could be little other than his “ghost”, or at least his consciousness or spirit embodied as pure energy. This entity is able to pass straight through the doors of the ship, and it guides the player to the room containing the Dragon Crest that Lundi glimpsed at the end of Zwei.
 
When happens next is perhaps even more unusual: a living entity emerges from the Dragon Crest. This creature is a small and playful Coolia pup, with wings and a glowing green light in its throat: exactly as Lundi would have remembered Lagi to be, back in the days of his youth. (See the Panzer Dragoon Zwei introduction sequence if your memory needs refreshing!)
Obviously, the implication is that this is the reincarnation of Lagi, the faithful creature which Lundi found dead at this very location, but whose consciousness (or spirit) was evidently saved by the Impurity and retained within this crest. This whole sequence allows the player to recover Lagi from his long resting place. Of course, this means that the dragon you are riding cannot also be Lagi (assuming that he was somehow still alive from Panzer Dragoon Zwei, despite what Lundi stated).
Later on, this baby Lagi is even able to physically merge with the current dragon. They become one entity, which takes on the Solo Wing form of old.
Clearly, the whole point behind the inclusion of the Old Diary and the above sequence in Panzer Dragoon Saga is both to clarify and to conclude the final scenes of Panzer Dragoon Zwei. Though that game’s ending sequence would remain enigmatic without the knowledge and insight contained here, it seems that we now have access to the truth. (Notice that this style of “belated clarification” is used again in Panzer Dragoon Orta. In the course of that game’s story, it clarifies and concludes the ending of Saga in the same consequential fashion.)
(It should probably be pointed out that, although it has been suggested that the Dragon Crest within Shelcoof was itself the body of Lagi that Lundi wrote about, several things show that this is not the case. Primarily, descriptions in Panzer Dragoon Saga confirm that the relic was just a “Crest in which an image of a dragon is engraved”. As Edge had the crest in his possession when he transported it to the Red Ruins, he would have surely noticed if the truth was otherwise. A detailed image of the Dragon Crest on the “save game” menu in Panzer Dragoon Saga also shows that it is merely a carving. In addition, Lundi recorded in his diaries that Lagi’s body was “stone cold”, meaning that he must have touched it. Given the massive scale of the Dragon Crest room, it is very unlikely that he could have climbed up to that item, though. It would also - to perhaps state the blatantly obvious - be very strange for a dragon’s dead body to be stuck halfway up a wall in the exact centre of a carved emblem in the first place. It is clear that Lundi must have discovered Lagi’s dead body after finding the Dragon Crest; that is, after the ending sequence that we see.)
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3) Differences between the Zwei dragon, the Panzer Dragoon dragon and the Saga dragon
The fact that the dragon in Panzer Dragoon is in the same physical form as its predecessor from Zwei, despite being a different dragon, is easily explained. If the Impurity had acquired a new body in the intervening time, it seems that it would have had time to bring it up to the Solo Wing form, as it did with Lagi in Zwei, who started out as only a lowly Coolia pup. The dragon has, after all, had some kind of an adventure involving the mysterious Sky Rider character, which we know no details of. (If this were not the case, its great distress when he dies would seem oddly melodramatic.) The new dragon could easily have reached the Solo Wing form during this unknown time period. As Zwei and Saga show, this is the ultimate form of the dragon that the Impurity seems to prefer above all others, so it would make perfect sense for it to reach this form, and then stay in it.
Note that the Panzer Dragoon dragon’s inability to use “berserk” attacks as Lagi could also suggests that it is a different, perhaps inferior creature. After all, there is no obvious reason why the dragon would loose this innate ability between games - assuming for a moment that the dragon in all three games was the same one - only to reacquire the ability to use berserk techniques again in Panzer Dragoon Saga.
 
The dragon at the start of the next game, Panzer Dragoon Saga, does not even look like the one from Panzer Dragoon, however. Though similar, their forms are clearly different, and there is no real way to explain this if they were not in fact different dragons. The new form - the Basic Wing - is definitely not an evolution of the previous Solo Wing form, as that form still exists in Saga, and it is much higher up the evolutionary ladder than this humble one. On the other hand, it is clearly not a regression of the previous dragon either, (caused, perhaps, by the exhaustion of destroying the Tower in the previous game). If it were, it would have reverted to one of its supposed forms from Zwei - again assuming for a moment that it was still the Zwei dragon, in spite of the evidence - yet it bears resemblance to none of these, and it continues to evolve through alien forms throughout the game.
Looking at the reasons for believing that the Zwei dragon did not go on to become the Panzer Dragoon dragon, we already have an indication of how that second dragon could not go on to become the Saga dragon. Lagi only died at the end of Zwei because his body was exhausted from the immense effort of destroying the flying Tower, Shelcoof. There is little reason to believe that when this action was repeated at the end of Panzer Dragoon (that is, when the ocean Tower was destroyed), it would not have had the same result: the inescapable death of the physical dragon. If the Impurity had sought out a third body between that game and Panzer Dragoon Saga, the change of form from Solo Wing to lowly Base Wing would be perfectly accounted for.
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4) Descriptions of the dragons as being different entities
Though the dragons from each game are widely referred to by the in-game characters as being different entities, this is perhaps excusable on the basis that they are all quite ignorant as to the dragon’s true nature anyway. What cannot easily be discounted are the occasions when the idea of different dragons is presented to the player as general fact.
One obvious incidence of this is in the “Data on Defeated Enemies” gallery of Panzer Dragoon Saga. The information contained within that database is not opinionated or biased: it is merely a collection of facts and trivia presented to the player. The description of the Solo Wing form from the Dragon Model gallery (a sub-section of the “Data on Defeated Enemies” gallery, which is unlocked upon completion of the game), states:
“The dragon has taken the form of one of the ancient dragons that destroyed the Imperial Capital long ago.”
Of course, if the game’s creators had wanted us to believe that it was still the same dragon from Panzer Dragoon, it seems more likely that they would have said “The dragon has taken the form it had when it destroyed the Imperial Capital long ago”, rather than this statement which suggests the exact opposite.
Again, the World section of the Encyclopedia in Panzer Dragoon Orta heavily implies that the dragons from the Sega Saturn games were not the same. It categorises and describes them as being three entirely different creatures: Lagi (the Zwei dragon), the Blue Dragon (the Panzer Dragoon dragon), and Edge’s Dragon (the Saga dragon). Though admittedly some sections of this Encyclopedia have an Imperial aspect, it’s worth noting that this section contains information that the Empire could not know - for example, the mere fact that the Solo Wing was even meant to be called the Solo Wing - suggesting factual, unbiased narration, at least in this case. Either way, though, the overriding point is that there would be no reason for the game’s creators to openly deceive the player regarding such things, if they hoped us to believe the exact opposite.
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5) The dragon’s long “disappearances” between games
If the dragon did not indeed die after Zwei and then after Panzer Dragoon, the fact that it mysteriously “vanishes” from the world between those games - for periods of eighteen and thirty years respectively - would be largely unjustified, but even more so would be the fact that it abandons its rider in each case. The intriguing theory has been put forward that the physical dragon goes into some kind of hibernation during these periods rather than dying, which would admittedly explain these anomalies. Unfortunately, this is only speculation: there is nothing in the games which states that the dragon is capable of this.
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The Theory
What follows is a summary of the events of the Sega Saturn games, which assumes the above evidence to be true; it sets out to reconcile the above points to the known plot.
At the end of Panzer Dragoon Saga, we are finally given insight into the entity that has always guided and empowered the physical dragon. Popularly known as the Heresy Program or Heresy Dragon, this entity was referred to by Sestren as “the Impurity”.
The mysterious Impurity originated in the ancient Sestren network, prior to any Panzer Dragoon game. Unlike the rest of that system, however, it wanted to destroy the colossal structures known as Towers, rather than maintain them. It desired to thus release the world from the Towers’ oppressive hold on its environment and ecosystems.
 
Upon discovery, however, the Impurity was ejected from the Sestren network into the physical world, in the form of pure energy. It found itself in the wastelands of the planet: the sparsely populated region known as the Frontier, or the Outlands.
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Panzer Dragoon Zwei
Clearly still determined to take down the Towers, the Impurity found it essential to take on a physical form. It tried more than once to enter into the body of an unborn Coolia - a domestic beast of burden - and to mutate the creature’s genetics in order to increase its power.
Each attempt was doomed to failure, however. At the first sign of these mutations - starting with a glowing organ in the Coolia’s throat, later dubbed a Bioluminary Oscillator - the creature would be put to death. The superstitious villagers of the Frontier firmly believed such mutations to be a bad omen.
 
It was only when a young man named Jean Jacque Lundi took pity on a mutant Coolia pup that the Impurity survived its entry to the world. Coexisting with the mind of the pup - which Lundi had named Lagi - the Impurity continued to evolve the Coolia’s body by the manipulation of its genetics.
Throughout the course of Panzer Dragoon Zwei, the Impurity constantly enhanced Lagi, bringing him ever more firmly into the form of the Ancient Age’s ultimate living weapon: the dragon. Eventually, this growth culminated in what is evidently the ultimate form of the dragon itself - what would later be classified as the Solo Wing form.
At the end of Panzer Dragoon Zwei, Lagi - guided by the Impurity - destroyed Shelcoof, the flying Tower. As Lundi confirmed in his diary, this effort exhausted Lagi’s physical body, which could only be abandoned by both the Impurity and Lagi’s own spirit as a result.
 
Inside the wreckage of Shelcoof, before Lundi discovered Lagi’s cold body, he came across an artefact known as a Dragon Crest. It glowed with the same green light that had once resided within Lagi’s throat: indicating that, in some way, the essence of Lagi still existed beneath its carved surface.
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Panzer Dragoon
The last thing imparted to Lundi by the dragon was the truth about the nature of its existence. He knew that the Impurity would one day return to the world in a new body. Evidently, this is exactly what it managed to do at some point in the eighteen years to follow.
By the time the dragon reappeared in known history, it seemed to have already experienced an adventure: one of which we will perhaps never know the details. It had acquired a mysterious new rider, (known only as the Sky Rider,) and it was in the process of pursuing the creature known as the Dark Dragon.
The Impurity evidently had time enough to bring its new body to the Solo Wing form before the beginning of Panzer Dragoon. At that point, the Sky Rider was killed in a battle with the Dark Dragon, but his place was taken by Kyle Fluge, a young hunter from the Frontier.
 
The Dark Dragon was ultimately defeated, and the dragon went on to destroy the Tower it had protected. As with before, it seems that this effort was enough to completely exhaust the dragon’s body. After depositing the unconscious Kyle safely on a beach, the Impurity left its physical body behind once more, and again disappeared from the world.
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Panzer Dragoon Saga
Another thirty years passed, but the Impurity eventually returned: this time in another, quite different dragon. It was evidently unable to bring this latest body to the Solo Wing form before the action of Panzer Dragoon Saga commenced.
 
This time the dragon chose a young Frontier mercenary named Edge as its rider. In the course of the adventure, the dragon returned with Edge to the wreckage of Shelcoof. There they were greeted by what seemed to be the spirit of the long-dead Lagi, which guided them to the Dragon Crest that Lundi saw glowing many years ago.
From the crest emerged a being that was a reincarnation of Lagi: a playful, winged Coolia pup, as Lundi would perhaps have remembered him. Later still, through some mysterious process of a structure called the Red Ruins, the current dragon and the Lagi pup were able to physically merge into one composite creature, again attaining the ultimate Solo Wing form in the process.
  At the end of Panzer Dragoon Saga, the Impurity was at last able to achieve its goal of destroying the AI that controlled the Sestren system. As it was once a product of that ancient network, it inherited total control over the system. To take the Tower network offline forever, it allowed itself to be deactivated.
 Before ceasing to exist, the Impurity evidently gave the physical dragon a choice regarding its future (as we find out in Panzer Dragoon Orta). Its decision was to return to the world, even without the extra powers the Impurity had bestowed upon it, because it wanted to follow a new path of its own choosing.
Of course, the dragon left behind was effectively Lagi, but something more as well: that is, the third dragon and Lagi’s reincarnation had been merged as one during Panzer Dragoon Saga, presumably in mind as well as body. The choice he made would eventually lead him to the aid of Orta...
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Conclusion
In light of the evidence, and the ease with which this concept fits into the greater storyline, it would perhaps be surprising if the games’ creators did in fact want us to believe that the dragon is the same creature throughout the games. That idea of the same physical body being retained throughout - if it is the intended implication - is strangely never commented upon. No speech or text states that this is so, and this lack of confirmation would seem very odd if it was meant to be the truth, especially when considering the evidence to the contrary.
Perhaps in the next Panzer Dragoon game, this subtlety of plot will be explained. Perhaps, on the other hand, we will never know the truth, as that dragon’s story finally came to a close in Panzer Dragoon Orta. For now then, the choice to believe in this, or in one of the numerous alternatives, is definitely one for you to decide.
Back to Page 2 of the Theories Section
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Destroy the mutant stealing habits; it is the village's code. The Will of the Ancients is an unofficial fansite that is in no way supported or associated with SEGA or Smilebit. Panzer Dragoon, Panzer Dragoon II Zwei, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Panzer Dragoon Orta and all other official Panzer Dragoon content is © SEGA, 1995-2003. Everything else on this website was made or written by Solo Wing Dragon unless otherwise noted. Please ask me first before using any content on this website for fan or commercial purposes.
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