#sky meta

Or perhaps the turtle is in some taxonomical group of creature of darkness, perhaps it feeds on light and the "wax" is its feeces. Maybe this means that the turtle belongs in the taxonomical group that ties between creatures of light and creatures of darkness?

*The birds of prairie peaks are the only birds in the entirety of sky cotl which don't recharge you. I lean to think that maybe it's something that the development team forgot about, rather than an intentional choice, and if it is an intentional choice I believe it's to add to the ways in which Prairie Peaks is supposed to evoke the moth experience of having few places to recharge your light when you run out. I don't think it says anything about the birds of sky that would be consistent with the rest of the birds we've seen.

English:

With the stars united, our light was infinite. But darkness came, and the stars fell... Together, the fallen stars made a new home in the clouds. If only they had listened... A long time has passed. Now, I call to you. Wake up, child. Bring our lost stars home.

Chinese:

Long ago, there were many, many stars in the sky. One day, however, they left the sky, to build their own civilization amidst the clouds. Thousands of years passed, the kingdom of sky once flourished and was obliterated. The stars have endured enough suffering. My child, go search for the lost stars, and bring them home...

Japanese:

In the age of the gods, the galaxy's brilliance had been promised to us for all eternity. On that day, the stars who made a mistake were driven from the sky. The ancestors of the setting sun built themselves a kingdom upon the surface of the world. But their endeavor didn't last for long... After countless months and years, we now meet with the children on a mission. Thou shalt set out, weave together the lingering memories, and finish guiding them to the skies.

Throughout all 3 versions, we are given the impression that some other entity (possibly Megabird) is the one addressing us/our sky kids, and we are given our mission: get the stars back home (aka, back to the sky). This, however, is where the similarities start to fade

With the English version, it gives the impression that the stars fell due to forces beyond their control (the mysterious darkness), and essentially took refuge in the Sky Kingdom. An interesting part of the English one, however, is the line "If only they had listened..." This implies that the stars were warned of some kind of problem or threat, but disregarded this warning. Given what we see in-game, it appears that their failure to listen is why the Sky Kingdom went the way of a moth in Eden

With the Chinese one, however, it gives the impression that their fall was a deliberate choice, and that they did so in order to establish the Sky Kingdom. There is no mention of the darkness, only an implication that the obliteration of the Sky Kingdom is why the stars now suffer (which seems fairly in-line with what we see of the Elders, who are themselves the fallen stars)

And then we come to the Japanese version, which not only implies that the fall of the Elders' stars was their own fault, but that someone or something forced them down to the surface as punishment for this "mistake" they made. This is also the only one where the Elders have no mentioned role in the formation of the Sky Kingdom, and instead has the Ancestors themselves be the ones responsible. This does line up more with the murals that we see. Whether the entity that banished them is also the same one telling us to bring them home is doubtful

If you're looking for something exact, anon, I'm sorry to say that you're never gonna find it. The vagueness of the lore is a feature, not a bug. But I can help direct you towards your own interpretation of it!

For the majority of Resh's story, one of the best places to look is the Cave of Prophecy's murals once you've completed the Trial of Fire and ignited the braziers on floating rocks around the central chamber. As the golden figure depicted in them is likely Resh, that seems like the best starting area for backstory

Another good place is the final cutscene of Vault, after you've had your one-on-one meeting with the Vault Elder. At the end is the crown constellation that is expanded to become the Eden palace, with a figure kneeling before it that is most likely the King

Finally, here's a collection of dev statements regarding the game, including some tidbits of info on the King

Eh, good and evil are a bit too subjective to apply to natural forces like this. If anything, we could argue that both sides are simultaneously good and evil, depending on perspective. For example, poison ivy is natural, but you don't want it touching you, because it'll hurt you if it does. From that perspective, poison ivy could be called evil. Does that make it inherently so? Not necessarily

Near as I can tell, darkness is like that for light. Is it natural? Yes. Is it "good" from the perspective of light? No, because darkness is the antithesis of light and, as we see in-game, is actively harmful to those connected to light. But that does not make it inherently evil, either

It's worth noting that, within the Sky Kingdom, very few things of pure darkness exist, as opposed to the vast abundance of light entities. For darkness, we have only the dark plants (which could themselves be corrupted variants of a "neutral" species), dark matter (arguably the only "pure" form of darkness we ever see), and the dark water (which seems to be polluted by a sludge-like substance). For light, we have all the kinds of light creatures, the spirits and elders (and Megabird), the light clouds and geysers, and our sky kids. Everything else is what I consider "neutral," as in, it possesses qualities of neither side. The peaceful crabs in Sanctuary, as well as the koi seen at Home and up by the Prairie temple, would be considered neutral entities

Darkness has corrupted some entities: the vast majority of crabs, as well as the light dragons, but light dragons were, as the name states, light creatures at one point. Could there have been "true" dark creatures at some point? Possibly! That may very well be what the massive skeletons in the Golden Wasteland were. There are also the strange creatures we see in the Switch trailer, which are almost like crabs, but not quite. These actively flee from the light released by the spirit's lantern, and we haven't seen a trace of them since

It's possible that the majority of dark creatures/darkness in general are found within the depths of the ocean. Perhaps the waters rose after the Fall and consumed much of the Sky Kingdom's lower landmasses... or perhaps they were pulled under by something. It would make sense: light, as it is connected to heat/flame, rises upwards to the heavens, and darkness, in the form of crabs, dark plants, and the gaze of dark dragons, is focused on the ground, moving downwards

There's also the parallel to the idea that light is love and connection, and therefore emotionally (and literally) uplifting, while darkness is isolation and a lack of love, and therefore keeps you low, both emotionally and literally (can't fly when you have no light, after all). It would explain the aggressiveness of corrupted creatures: being lonely, especially for long periods of time, leads to a great deal of stress and puts you in a long-term "fight or flight" status. In the case of crabs, they recognize that our calls can flip them over (and possibly see us as predators, given the roasting spit in Wasteland and Pleaful Parent's memories), and so preemptively strike (the "fight" aspect); in the case of those creatures from the trailer, they run away from the light (the "flight" aspect)

Similarly, the isolation of darkness seems to be tied to sound and hearing, as well. Our calls, as well as those of spirits and light creatures, have audial and visual components. When the bubbles of light come into contact with other light entities, they react (sky kids can be recharged, and light creatures will call back). But dark dragons don't react to these sound bubbles, despite being (former) light creatures. They don't react to fireworks, instruments, the cries of spirits or crabs, or even other dark dragons. As far as we can tell, they're completely deaf. This may be both a side effect and contributing factor to why they're now dark creatures—their deafness prevents them from connecting to others, which strengthens darkness' hold over them, thus creating an inescapable cycle

I, and many others, wonder about why they used the sun symbol for the accessories and tool closet. Was it simply because it was a convenient asset? Could it be because they are primarily for connecting to others (music sheets for instruments can be shared, chat tables are for chatting, and the other props are used mainly for the shared spaces)?

It's even weirder because the sky kid symbol used for the other closets has one part that never lights up: the horn-like shapes jutting out from the head. That could have been used for this closet—or, alternatively, just adding a small symbol to the center of the sky kid and having that light up for accessories would both fill in the large empty space and help tie this closet to the others

It likely comes from the theory that the Vault was sealed off when Eden fell, thus allowing those inside to last longer than those on the outside. Whether that was actually the case is up to you, but I have a theory that Vault was actually second-to-last, and the last one was actually Isle. This is based primarily in the damage to their masks, with Vault's somewhat damaged, but not wholly broken like Isle's was

Speaking of which, it's interesting that, in the final Vault cutscene, while all the Elders appear in their "unlit" forms, Isle's mask is whole. It could be that expanding the constellations takes up some of their light, hence why we see none of them in their fully "restored" forms, but that's just a guess

On that subject, it's worth noting that Vault does actually kneel during that cutscene. They are most likely the last to do so, with it happening during the pan up to the Eden/crown constellation, but the oob with all the elders shows that they do indeed kneel. You have to get in quickly, however, as they'll all revert to their standing positions if enough time passes

Here's proof that Vault does indeed kneel

So it's fairly heavily implied that krill are former light creatures that have been so heavily corrupted by darkness, they not only hunt down other beings of light to consume their light, but also absorb any light cast on their bodies

They also make both metallic clinking and rocky crunching sounds as they fly around, and it seems likely to me that, if there is still light in there, it's wrapped in a shell of (dark) stone and metal, with their spotlight possibly related to the crystals we see in Eden

Now, we also know that they're officially called "dark dragons," but what about the light dragons? What happened to them?

I think we may have seen one already

This fella, also known as the Elder creature. But an elder of what, exactly? They first showed up in the concept art on an image simply titled "Light Creature Roughs." Later on, there's another image showing the Creature Life Cycle, which involves the diamond-shaped fish creatures turning into mantas, which then turn into the coelacanth-like whales (as of Sanctuary, however, we know that's likely no longer the case in Sky). Could it be an ancient manta? Possibly, but the body shape and headplate are closer to a whale than a manta (and it also appears to lack the spines we've seen on the biggest manta so far)

You know what it does look like, structurally? A krill or dark dragon

In terms of body shape, they are very similar. The legs on a krill don't appear to be used for perching or walking, and instead move more like the oars on a ship... or the fins on an elder creature. Since light creatures seem capable of psychokinesis, they could very well be moving the legs around using this power (I have more thoughts on how psychic powers seem prominent in both light creatures and ancestor spirits, and even how this might be connected to the murals we see, but I'll talk about that some other time)

Admittedly, krill are a lot smaller than the Elder creature, but that leads into my next thought. What if they were formed from younger versions of that creature? What if the creature in Sanctuary Islands is an ancient dragon who evaded any attempts at capture, possibly by going underwater? What if the manta that circles the top of the main island in Sanctuary is an elder manta, and this creature is an elder dragon?

(Elder birds don't exist because they all keep flying into Eden before they can get to that point)

This is all mere speculation, and I hope that one day TGC gives us more concrete answers (Krill Whisperer spirit, please?), but for now, I end this with a little extra angst: