@jikatuka
You asked for it and you shall receive
IMPORTANT!!!
The devs confirmed that they left the lore open ended so that each individual will be able to interpret it the way the want. So don’t take my words as canon! This is just me trying my best to summarize the plot from what we know and make more or less understandable time line, but I am probably very wrong and you are open to make your own theories.
Before we start I suggest you look into @sky-lore as they reblog a lot of useful stuff and just generally search the sky lore tag in tumblr.
Also, here are some very useful documents for understanding the lore better!
here
here
here (credit to @grapeless-seeds)
and here!
Now, with the introduction end, let’s get to it!
Let’s start with the most important
In the concepts of the game, when it was still in development, there was a powerful creature in the story, something like a “god” in Sky. This creature’s name was Megabird. It was the creator of all light and life on earth, and was also an entity that allowed rebirth - it created souls, sent them to earth to collect energy and information, and when the creatures died, their souls returned to Megabird, it absorbed all the energy and information that was collected trough life time of the soul and sent these souls back to earth, thus creating an endless cycle of life and death and rebirth. In the game, we now do not see a direct form of the entity, but we can well assume that it is still there, since there is a drawing with this entity on the water where the island with the portal to the office is located, and after the credits, after passing Eden, we can see a silhouette that really reminds Megabird and appears on murals in the game.
At the beginning of time, all creatures were united with the light - people were born, lived their lives, and by the end of their lives they went to Eden, which was then a sacred place to die and go to the Megabird. All people and beings went through this cycle, and the balance of life and death was maintained. The world was filled with light.
At some point, six stars fell from the sky (we see this in the very first cutscene when we are just downloading the game).
It is not known what led to the fall of these stars, but it is known that these stars were the Elders (confirmed by the developers). The civilization that lived above the clouds appointed them as their leaders, and each began to rule over their own part of the sacred lands.
(the kingdom in which we play in the game is called “sacred lands.” This is because it was through these lands that all souls passed from the island to Eden. It is also important to mention that all lands are above the clouds. The exception is the Isle of dawn, which is on the ground, and is the starting point to the rest of the lands above the clouds. People living on the earth beneath, after dying, were transferred to the island of dawn, and from there they began their journey to Eden to be reborn). The elders ruled at first honestly and correctly, guiding souls to Eden, continuing the cycle and listening to the decrees of the Megabird.
Then, five prophets (whom we met in the season of prophecy) predicted that a day would come and someone will unite the lands into one kingdom, becoming the king of the holy lands. But in order to find this person, people must go through the four trials, and only the one who will survive them will become the king. People tried and tried but all of them perished, unable to complete the trials, and so the lands stayed without a king. But then, one day, a star fell to the Isle of dawn. A very special star - in the memories of the spirit that teaches the emotions “follow me” on the isle of dawn, you can see how a star falls from the sky and turns into a child.
When this child fell to the ground, the spirits who found him took him to the elder of the Isle. He, in turn, adopted them and raised the child as their own
Then, one day, the child decided to go through the trials so they could prove that they was worthy of becoming the ruler of all these lands. Unlike all others who tried to pass the tests, but died in the process, the child from the skies was able to complete all four trials and get out alive. After completing the trials, they gave four of the elders the gifts that they had collected in the trials - they gave the gift of earth to the elder of the prairie, the gift of water to the elder of the forest, the gift of air to the elders of the valley, and the gift of fire to the elder of the wasteland. After that, they were taken to Mount Eden and crowned prince. The prince united all the lands and a new kingdom on the sacred lands began to flourish and develop. We can see all this on the wall drawings that open to us after passing the trials in the cave - the golden man in the drawings symbolizes the prince.
At first, everything goes smoothly - the new united kingdom flourished, the cycle was not broken, everything was fine. But then, the prince found an interesting material in the Hidden forest - the dark stone. This stone had the ability to generate a large amount of energy. But only if it absorbs the light. The prince ordered to start digging this dark stone, starting to make artificial stars out of it, and using them as batteries to power the mechanisms. These dark stones gave an incredibly strong impetus to the advancement of civilization - they got technology, flying boats, automatic doors, etc.
And for prince’s advances of technology and civilization, their were crowned king in the Valley of Triumph.
The kingdom flourished. But there was one problem - in order for all this to work, light was needed. (Notice, how each time you need something mechanical to work, you must light it with your light first.)
In the beginning, the light was taken from the rays of the sun and lumps of light that came from the sky - this we can see in the memories of the spirit that gives the emotion “laugh”.
But this extraction of light was slow and produced very little. Therefore, the spirits switched to a new source - beings of light, such as mantas, butterflies, jellyfish and whales. They began to hunt, catch and kill these creatures in order to receive light from them for the dark stones. More and more resources began to go for these artificial stars, especially beings of light, and the land and water around them began to become polluted because of the ever-working factories for the production of these stones. (Such a factory is the temple of the elder of the forest, and we can also see a similar destroyed factory in the wasteland, where the dark dragon that eats the manta appears), while the king’s greed grew and grew.
The creatures of light, of course, did not like the fact that the ancestors were hunting them down almost making them extinct, and they rebelled - they began to attack cities and the civilization. Then, the king, instead of realizing that he must have gone too far, went to war against the creatures. And he won, but it cost him dearly. Therefore, he ordered Wasteland elder to start building fortresses and weapons in a case the creatures attack again, making the lands unpassable for the creatures, weakening Megabird and messing up the cycle of death and rebirth completely, because the creatures were unable to go to Eden.
In the same time, the king started to build a huge Ark out of the dark stone, that could hold an entire civilization in it. Nobody knows why exactly he started building it, but there are some theories:
A. The king saw how the lands became less and less compatable for living, and instead of trying to fix it, he decided to just fly away from it and take his whole civilazation with him
B. The king started seeing god in himself and wished to fly to the orbit and overthrow Megabird
C. Since the king and the elders were all stars that originally fell from Orbit, the king wished to return there, but with his subjects too.
The cost of building such ark was even more expensive than the entire kingdom before, and because of that which the land became even more polluted and the creatures began to die out.
Now, we are diving into theory zone! Beware!
In the final location before the elder’s temple in Golden Wasteland, we can find two different types of shields. Also, the location is called “battlefield”. The question is - battle against what?
The most common theory is around that time, some of the civilization rebelled, as they realized that everything would go to hell if they did not intervene, and were tired of living under the iron fist of the tyrant king. And the war began between the kingdom and the rebellious - this can be seen by the fact that there are two types of shield on the battlefield - one with a diamond, which symbolizes the dark stone and the kingdom, and the other with the sun symbol, which symbolizes Megabird and light.
It is not known who won, but it is known that this led to the final destruction of the kingdom. This caused an imbalance between light and darkness, and darkness began to attack. The king started becoming corrupt by darkness, and tried to escape in the ark. But the creatures and rebels attacked the ark and caused it to explode, which released a massive wave of darkness, destroying Eden beyond savior and damaging all the life in other lands.
This explosion finally drove the king mad, and he turned into a cruel monster of darkness. The rest of the elders, realizing how they f**ed up by not intervening and listening to the king, made a last attempt to fix anything - they united and cursed the king’s crown, imprisoning him in Eden in a red crystal, which we see at the point of no return. (It also theorized to be the core of the great arc)
However, by doing so, they sacrificed themselves, imprisoning themselves in the spiritual world out of space and time.
Many centuries have passed, and the earth more or less began to recover, and the surviving creatures began to migrate to Eden again. But because of all that has happened, it is almost impossible to reach Eden, and the lands are destroyed and are filled with darkness. Then, in dismay, Megabird decided to give the earth another chance and blessed the sacred lands with a new species - namely, us, children of light, in a hope that we will be able to reconnect all souls. Our task is to begin to return the light to the Megabird so that it grows stronger, free the spirits that are stuck in the world because of the darkness in their hearts and fight the darkness, freeing the land and bringing back the light.
And this is concludes my Ted talk. I hope I was able to explain it more or less. Just like I said before - don’t take what I wrote for truth, as everything is a mere speculation, theory and headcanons.
Now, allow me to pass out
Sources used: Tom Zhao
7 days of sky
Evolving Emotional Storytelling in thatgamecompany’s Sky
ellievsbear
yousharknotpass
annaxmalina
