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Factions > Drones
Written by Geoffrey Duke, March 2003
Drones, called demi-humans in Japan, are bio-engineered yet seemingly humanoid entities built to serve the ancients. Their semblance of humanity is perhaps a reflection of the image and intent of their ancient creators who dared to become gods by tinkering with nature itself. Externally, drones have been known to seem human, but internally they are in fact highly advanced pure type creatures hidden under the guise of a human form. Although the identity of the ancients was lost with time, I can't help but believe the ancients were the more knowledgeable progenitors of the current human survivors who created drones in their image. Drones have the power to synchronize with pure type bio-weapons such as dragons, to the point of becoming a single mind in order to literally wield them as a physical extension of their will. They have earned the keen attention of the nefarious human Empire by virtue of their unique ability to interface and control otherwise inoperable ancient technology. Because drones were born into servitude, servitude is all they have ever known. This makes them little more than a slave race that finds the definition of freedom far too alien to comprehend. Serving the ancients also meant serving the will of the ancients embodied in the form of Sestren, an AI created to control the Tower network.
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Panzer Dragoon:
 
The drone riding the Dark Dragon in Panzer Dragoon bears a striking resemblance to the Sky Rider in that his armour is, apart from its color, identical in almost every respect. The story behind the two drones (assuming the Sky Rider is a drone too) has never been revealed, though many fans believe the similarities they share are intentional. Delving into the deeper story Team Andromeda originally dreamt up may prove to be more revelatory than I could imagine. Both drones also wield identical guns, further reinforcing the unknown link between them.
 
Before the Dark Dragon delivers a fatal blow to the Sky Rider we catch a glimpse of its equally dark rider. The black armour and the striking possession of two glowing eyes, which is all the proof we need to confirm his drone nature, separates the Dark Dragon rider from his more human Sky Rider counterpart appearance-wise. However, some drones can seem more human than others as we know from the stark differences between Azel and Abadd. The one other thing that separates the Sky Rider and the Dark Dragon rider from one another are their intentions, which paints the picture of two equal and opposite drones: one endeavoring to free the world from the evil will of their ancient creator race, and the other helping to enslave it.
After the Dark Dragon and rider kill the Sky Rider in what is a dramatic chase ending in his death, Kyle takes the reins of the armoured blue dragon. The two dragons race towards a sleeping Tower recently discovered by the Empire outside the Imperial capital, only now the blue dragon was chasing the other in a noticeable reversal of roles. The Empire begun a tentative examination of the Tower which resulted in no change to its dormant state; however, the Dark Dragon's close proximity to the black monolith somehow brought it to life with disastrous consequences for the nearby Imperial capital. The drone seemed to have activated the Tower the moment he entered communication range (I assume the drone is a he because he has the build of a man); he was the key to its reactivation. Wasting no time, the Tower started securing the area; an army of pure type biomonsters rose up from the sea without warning to do its master's bidding. Huge flying bio-mechanical insects swarmed the Imperial anti-gravity warships guarding the Tower to remove the little threat they posed, then proceeded to engulf the defenseless capital.
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Panzer Dragoon Saga:
 
Drones were explored more fully in Panzer Dragoon Saga, when we were introduced to Azel, a character inseparable from the game's storyline. Azel is a female drone who was built in the genetic engineering labs of Uru during the Ancient Age. Her name, Azel, which means servant, serves as a lingering reminder of why she exists. The Uru logs recorded by the ancients themselves tell the tale of Azel being stolen while still incomplete during an attack on the installation; her creators didn't regard her as a person in the slightest. These attackers, who are still unknown, later assigned Azel a task that didn't involve automatic slavery to the ancients. Lundi's journals verify the existence of people in the Ancient Age who defied the Tower network, and therefore a connection can be established. These rebels, whoever they were, reprogrammed Azel to seek out the destruction of a Tower located near her birth place, the lakes of Uru.
 
The Tower of Uru itself was indestructible from the outside, but could possibly be broken into, and taken control of from the inside. Azel was meant to interface with the Tower's main computer -- something only a drone could do -- and ensure its destruction from the inside out. This was Azel's ancient duty and the sole reason the Empire searched for her so desperately: the Empire wanted to control the Tower for its own goals. With Azel in mind, the Empire focused its resources on excavating ancient ruins located in the frontier. The story of Panzer Dragoon Saga, of course, begins in an excavation site where Azel had been resting in silence since the twilight years of the Ancient Age. It's possible that Azel was originally built to control the Tower of Uru and why the ancient rebels targeted her specifically for capture. However, in order to control a weapon as complex as a Tower, Azel's intelligence was enhanced, and in the process, she gained emotions that in turn gave birth to a sense of identity. The ancients would never grant a drone free reign over his/her emotions unless such a drone was absolutely loyal to no one but them, so it is likely Azel's kidnappers were the ones responsible for enhancing her intelligence, and in so doing, freeing her from her emotional constraints. Even if they turned her into an instrument of destruction, Azel was ultimately free to decide her own purpose in life. A dragon companion was built to protect Azel and to aid her in bringing her task to fruition. Atolm, a huge black dragon of ineffable shape, and Azel were unified on a telepathic level. They could sense one another when separated, interestingly enough.
 
The Imperial traitor Craymen liberated the ancient sleeping chamber housing Azel from the excavation site the moment the Imperial mercenaries guarding the site came under attack by a pure type bio-monster. He left no survivors (with the exception of Edge who in the end survived by chance, more or less intact) and grappled the device, Azel still asleep within, aboard his flagship. It seems composed of the same white, timeless metals a typical ancient ruin is constructed out of. Craymen freed Azel from her ancient duty when he woke her up from a 10 000 year period of hibernation. He named her the one word imprinted on her sleeping device, the word Azel, which she took as her own and only memento of her distant past. Azel immediately became enamored of Craymen; she embraced his ambition to restore the world's environment, even if that meant reactivating the very Tower she was programmed to destroy. Azel's surfacing emotions forced her to question her innate programming, and on lengthy reflection, overrode it. However, she defends Craymen with her life, standing between Edge and his vengeance no less than three times before the final climactic showdown. Edge cannot persuade her to stop, as she remains single-mindedly loyal to Craymen until she sees the consequences of realising his goals. Linking with the Tower was permanent, and Azel could sense the Tower's true purpose: to enslave the world.
 
Azel deactivates when experiencing great distress (such as the death of Atolm which violently divided their unified state), and can only be reactivated with the aid of ancient devices like the one Craymen somehow knew how to use inside the Tower once Edge brought her to him. Watching Craymen being brutally murdered caused the same type of shock reaction whereby she fell into unconsciousness again, at which point, only the Seekers and their understanding of ancient technology could revive her. Azel was later able to destroy the Tower of Uru after using it to open up a gateway to Sestren that allowed the Heresy dragon to finally return to its point of origin and finish the task of freeing humanity from the shackles of the Ancient Age assigned to it so long ago. It stands to reason, then, that Azel and the Heresy dragon were [re]programmed by the same people seeking to destroy the Towers. We don't know if opening up such a gateway was an ability exclusive to Azel, however.
More detailed technical information regarding drones can be found locked away within Panzer Dragoon Saga in a report compiled by the Seekers that was cut from the game for no apparent reason. The drone record itself is a translation of ancient logs providing insights into the nature and duties of drones from the perspective of their rather callous creators. The ancients kept the production of highly intelligent drones to a minimum because their minds were too complex to mass produce, and because these drones risked developing their own identity resulting in a number of undesirable problems that could only be solved by their swift termination. A slave gaining sentience wasn't an ideal situation; after all, a drone becoming aware of itself would probably start questioning its purpose. A handful of these drones overcame the turmoil arising from the liberated mindset they faced such as problems synchronizing, and subserviance (a problem Azel fell victim to when Craymen woke her up) relatively unscathed. Consequently, they were spared from what can only be described as a culling of the weak. They managed to overcome the aformentioned problems by themselves, but still retained a sense of identity and all the unfamiliar emotions that came with a higher intelligence. Higher end drones ran the risk of thinking for themselves, but the construction of many advanced drones was necessary to operate the numerous Towers and other complex ruins scattered across the world regardless of how risky it was. Why some of them remained loyal to the ancients even after becoming self-aware is a question only they can answer. If you were a drone who formed your own sense of identity yet only knew the life of a slave and could find no other purpose in life, wouldn't you be tempted to remain in the service of your creators? Perhaps they remained loyal because they knew no other way. All I know is, this sets the stage for more future encounters with drones, making such encounters a mere eventuality.
  Azel is particularly striking in appearance. She has pale skin and jet black hair that seems perpetually bound by moist into a tale shape. Her impassive visage belies a confusing maelstrom of new emotions. An expressionless face could be an indication of a former life devoid of emotions; she hasn't gotten used to them yet. Azel's single-mindedness and willingness to follow Craymen can be attributed to her inner struggle against her servile nature. She's very slender and wears a thinly layered metallic outfit separated vertically down the middle by contrasting colours on either side -- one side is bony white and the other is silky black, that is indeed more than adequate for the task of lending her an air of distinctiveness when we first lay eyes upon her. Both sleeves and gloves are black, however, so the symmetry of the whole suit isn't exact. Azel wears a brown leather coat Craymen gave her for a large portion of Panzer Dragoon Saga. She doesn't wear the coat at any point after his death, so I assume she never really needed it at all. From that, I'd draw the conclusion that she wore the coat as a sign of affection, rather than to keep warm.
 
In the English version of Panzer Dragoon Saga, Azel fell in love with Edge, expressing her feelings to that effect before Edge leaves for Sestren. Edge never returned, but Azel nevertheless searched for him. Since she severed the path to Sestren through the Tower of Uru to prevent Sestren from escaping, she must have scoured the land for other Towers in the hope of finding another gateway. She heads west at the end of Panzer Dragoon Saga on a coolia, the opposite direction of the Tower of Uru, heedless of electrical storms stirring there. She demonstrates her newfound caring nature by helping up a child who trips and falls. And that's the last time we see her.
In the Japanese version of Panzer Dragoon Saga, Azel never declared her love for Edge in the said departure cinematic. An argument can be made that she never really loved Edge at all, or that she had feelings for him she wasn't prepared to accept or wasn't fully conscious of until she felt the pain of his loss. In Panzer Dragoon Saga she was only beginning to understand her emotions, yet her loyalty to Craymen went well beyond mere loyalty. How else can we explain her eagerness to defend his life at any cost, including her own life? Before Azel departs in the final ending cinematic, Anjou asks her if the friend she is apparently risking her life to find is worth dying for. I gather from this determination she was compelled by her love for Edge to do everything within her power to find him despite the fact her search was doomed from the start to end in failure. Azel combined the DNA of a human who visited Sestren with her own DNA to create Orta. In a recorded message to Orta, Azel tells Orta that she was the answer to her fruitless searches. This can only mean her father was Edge, because we know she was searching for him and he was the only person to actually visit Sestren. Azel may not have declared her love for him in the original Japanese game but that doesn't change the fact she tried her best to find him. She went wherever her feelings took her. Azel's declaration of love for Edge was added by Chris Lucich, the man responsible for refining the English translation. Chris Lucich didn't actually translate PD Saga. He just refined a very basic direct Japanese-to-English translation that was done prior to his involvement. The quality of the writing throughout the game is top-notch even if some story elements were somehow lost (there are supposedly no references to the ancients being human in the original Japanese script) or added in translation (like explicitly stating Azel's feelings for Edge where they were only implied before). Smilebit kept the Azel/Edge love plot consistent with the English translation of Panzer Dragoon Saga in Panzer Dragoon Orta, however, for the sake of a wider non-Japanese exclusive audience. The truth is we will never know if Azel actually loved Edge in the Japanese version of Panzer Dragoon Saga, or even if those feelings were inevitable. I would hope so judging by the final cinematic sequence.
The above information was gleaned from Panzer Dragoon, Panzer Dragoon Saga, and Panzer Dragoon Orta to a minor extent.
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Related Articles:
Books > Drone Record
Dialogue > Conversations with Azel
Theories > Fourth Rider Theory
Theories > Race of Drones Theory
World > Drones
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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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