Hiro??

[AnimeJei]

I dunno if this topic has been brought up but I've always wondered if Hiro has the blood of the "Vile Tribe" in him..since his markings/tatts as the three Vile Tribe sister's has marking and tatts too. Where is Phacia and the Vile Tribe 1000 year later in EBC? Did they just blend in with the rest of Althena's children? I know she's been mentioned here and there and in the manga.. just wish there was more.

[phyco126]

Yes, but it appears that beastmen also have tattoos (That, or just born odd patterns, say, like Inuyash's brother has on his face.)

[Kizyr]

The beastmen's marks are really darkened skin/fur in certain places, so those aren't the same as Hiro's marks.

I wondered the same thing initially. The most likely explanation is that he has some Vile Tribe blood in him, which would explain the markings and some of his natural magic abilities.

There's one book in the Vane library that has an annotation by Phacia that says that the Vile Tribe spread out across the land and mixed with the rest of the population of Lunar. The Childhood's End manga also says this in more detail (a translation is available on LunarNET). Phacia also says something to that effect at the end of SSS when you go to the exit of Meribia at the end of the game. KF

[ilovemyguitar]

Didn't some of the early Lunar 2 art depict Hiro with red eyes? That's another Vile Tribe trait.

[AnimeJei]

There's one book in the Vane library that has an annotation by Phacia that says that the Vile Tribe spread out across the land and mixed with the rest of the population of Lunar.

Thanks for the info, I will have to check that out, I just finished SSSC again and seen the talk with Phacia at the end saying how they'd have to earn the trust of Althena's children and that they seek a part of the green land that's unexplored to call their home. I guess they just did blend in eventually and their story is done after SSSC.. it would have been cool to hear something though and to know Hiro's origins forsure...on to EBC ^^

[Alunissage]

Hiro's facial markings are referred to as tattoos in the wanted poster... which also lists Ronfar's age as 45, so that may not be the best source of information.

Shigema left Hiro's history intentionally blank, other than that Gwyn is his adoptive grandfather and that he (Gwyn) travelled a lot in his youth and probably met Hiro's parents during those travels.

[Temzin]

There's definitely no definite answer, as seen in the many (unsuccessful) attempts in interviews in the Lunar I&II Design Material Collection which always result in Shigema basically saying Hiero's backstory isn't something he made definite designs for. Geographically, I always figured that he's in approximately the location of the former Frontier, so having that ancestry mix wouldn't be surprising. I always liked how the second game started in the nearly final area of the first one.

[GhaleonOne]

Side note, but that's a sweet avatar Temzin! I always loved that final "battle" (not much of one, but still, it works for the story well). Especially in the original.

[Temzin]

Heheh, many thanks, it's thanks to the screen cap gallery here, no less! Remember when we voted for favorite RPG's maybe a few years back, and you asked if the lack of the EB remake among all my Lunar selections was because I was considering my chosen favorite, the Mega CD version, to be the same thing? It didn't even make the list for me, actually, because of changes that included the total botching of the remake's final battle (from the wrong music playing to the dumb dragon skeleton to the lack of explosions)...I just love the gigantic Zophar head sprite too much, especially the way the whole thing lights up when it gets hit.

Erm, anyway...yes! Hiero and the Frontier design are surely channeling the ex-Frontier location. Given that they were created before the SSS remake's implication that the tribe would be forgiven and reincorporated into the rest of the world, I guess Hiero can't even be supposed to symbolize any direct sense of Magic/Vile Tribe's acceptance, but maybe his tattoos just remind you of what once existed in the area. They look cool, at any rate.

[Kizyr]

Geographically, I always figured that he's in approximately the location of the former Frontier, so having that ancestry mix wouldn't be surprising. I always liked how the second game started in the nearly final area of the first one.

I used to think that, but there's one major problem. The Blue Star is still visible from the Salyan Desert (it has to be, for the Blue Spire to be a point-of-transfer, and you can clearly see the Blue Star over that). One key point of the Frontier (implied in TSS, explicit in SSS) is that the Blue Star's light doesn't reach there.

The Salyan Desert is probably closer to where the Plains Tribe is in SSS, or around where Tamur is in TSS. KF

[Alunissage]

The Cadin people in TSS say that Althena's light doesn't shine there, but that's not necessarily the same as the Blue Star's light. And I'm not that inclined to take SSS as evidence there seeing as the EB geography and character designs predate it. Does SSS even say that the Blue Star's light specifically doesn't reach there (as opposed to Althena's)?

If you want to pull the manga in, recall that a younger Ghaleon is shown with the Blue Spire in the background. And when he, Morris, and Tagak leave Vane they talk of visiting the Vile Tribe villages in the Frontier, so clearly coming and going isn't a significant problem. It seems likely to me that the Frontier is bigger than just the bit of it we see in SSS, and not all desolate. The Blue Spire and those villages could be in part of it that isn't shown in the games.

Actually, I wonder if those villages could have been assimilated into human ones before the events of SSS, while a separate set of Vile Tribe were shut up in the Frontier. Phacia says that they'd been shut away there for 500 years, as a justly deserved punishment, so that can't be the same set as Ghaleon et al. set out to visit. I still think that in TSS it was the Magic Emperor that shut off the travel between the Frontier and the rest of the world, not Althena, though she confined the Vile Tribe specifically in some fashion. (That can't be the same as the sealing off of the Frontier, because Xenobia and henchmen travel freely before Alex and co. revitalize the Fountain of Transmission. It had to be something else holding them back previously.)

You could also pull Dragon Song's geography into this... the continent that's the Frontier has both sandy desert and acidic craters. It might not be so much of a stretch to posit that some of the Vile Tribe rebelled and were banished to the latter, while others continued to live in the sandier areas, later the Salyan Desert. And went to establish Vane (Latona says it was their city originally). I'll make all these storylines fit together yet.

[Benevolent_Ghaleon]

Geographically, I always figured that he's in approximately the location of the former Frontier, so having that ancestry mix wouldn't be surprising. I always liked how the second game started in the nearly final area of the first one.

I used to think that, but there's one major problem. The Blue Star is still visible from the Salyan Desert (it has to be, for the Blue Spire to be a point-of-transfer, and you can clearly see the Blue Star over that). One key point of the Frontier (implied in TSS, explicit in SSS) is that the Blue Star's light doesn't reach there.

The Salyan Desert is probably closer to where the Plains Tribe is in SSS, or around where Tamur is in TSS. KF

i thought I was bad when i heard crickets in one area of EBC and used that to figure out the approximate temperature in the area.

[AnimeJei]

I've been playing EBC and was in Vane and seen the book Phacia wrote in and they have Hiro respond "Who's Phacia?".. I didn't catch this before or maybe I just forgot.. it's been awhile since I last played it. Anyway, maybe Phacia is Hiro's ancestor..that would be pretty cool to find out.

[Kizyr]

I've been playing EBC and was in Vane and seen the book Phacia wrote in and they have Hiro respond "Who's Phacia?".. I didn't catch this before or maybe I just forgot.. it's been awhile since I last played it. Anyway, maybe Phacia is Hiro's ancestor..that would be pretty cool to find out.

Phacia isn't Hiro's ancestor...

But you might be interested in reading the Childhood's End manga.

We have a translation of it available here if you check the main page (http://www.lunar-net.com/manga/childhoodsend.php). KF

[Kizyr]

The Cadin people in TSS say that Althena's light doesn't shine there, but that's not necessarily the same as the Blue Star's light. And I'm not that inclined to take SSS as evidence there seeing as the EB geography and character designs predate it. Does SSS even say that the Blue Star's light specifically doesn't reach there (as opposed to Althena's)?

Something I just found when going through old screenshots...

There is a book in the TSS Vane library that says that the light of the Blue Star doesn't reach the Frontier. However, the same text wasn't kept in the translation.

Here:
English Text:
AT THE EDGE OF OUR LAND
LIES THE DARK FRONTIER.

Japanese Text:
"At the edge of this world stretches the land of the Frontier, where the Blue Star in the heavens does not shine."

There's additional NPC text in the English version about the Frontier:
THE EASTERN PART OF OUR
CONTINENT IS THE BARREN
WASTELAND OF THE FRONTIER.
THEY SAY THAT IT IS BARREN
BECAUSE THE LIGHT FROM
GODDESS ALTHENA DOES NOT
SHINE THERE.

So, yeah, what I said is based off this. KF