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Arks of the Cosmos

From Sonic Retro

An Ark at the feet of the SCR-GP army.

The Arks of the Cosmos are five long-lost gravity-manipulation devices, designed by either the ancient Babylonian civilization - ancestors of the Babylon Rogues, or another civilization more ancient than them.

Overview

Amy Rose with an Ark on her neck, drawn by Yui Karasuno.

The Arks are large, metallic, ring-shaped stones, and glow brilliant blue when activated. They are worn round the wrist like a bracelet by various characters during Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, the only game in which they appear. These stones co-opt Eggman's robots and almost destroy the world via the "Lightless Black".

In the gameplay, the Arks use Gravity Points (GP) to preform "GP actions". To gain Gravity Points the user must preform advanced tricks on Extreme Gear while racing.Media:SRZG Wii UK manual.pdf[1] The various actions the user can preform with Gravity Points are called "Gravity Control", "Gravity Dive" and "Meteor Burst".Media:SRZG Wii UK manual.pdf[1]

History

Much of the Arks' true nature is only (speculatively) revealed at the very end of the game, when Tails muses back on the meaning of their recent adventure. The Arks were part of a black-hole-powered drive system for Astral Babylon, an interstellar vessel which brought the Babylonians to Sonic's world in ancient times. Some sort of malfunction required the spaceship to jettison the Arks in orbit and crash-land on the planet; stranded, the Babylonians converted their ship into an aerial city, Babylon Garden. Eventually losing their high technology, the Babylonians' extraterrestrial origin faded from memory, by Sonic's time existing only as faded ruins and myths amongst their distant descendants (like the Babylon Rogues).

Thus things might have continued, if not for Dr. Eggman. Some time before the events of Zero Gravity, the fat scientist discovered one of the jettisoned Arks within an impact crater in the desert near Monopole. As well as being able to manipulate gravity, the Arks seem able to function as high-power computers, and Eggman extracted a piece of the Ark for use in his Meteor Tech Mother Computer atop Crimson Tower.

By coincidence or design, other Arks began to be discovered after the Mother Computer was activated. Jet the Hawk extracted one from the old Babylonian ruins of Gigan Device, while Tails, SCR-HD, and Megalo City's museum picked up Arks that fell as meteorites. At this point, the Mother Computer went berserk, with Babylonian programming taking control of the networked SCR-GP and SCR-HD robots, guiding them to collect the 5 Arks together and bring them back to Babylon Garden. The majority of Zero Gravity sees Team Sonic and the Babylon Rogues avoiding the robot's pursuit, and trying to figure out exactly why they want the Arks.

At the end of the Babylon Story, SCR-HD steals the five Arks from Wave at the top of Crimson Tower. Returning them to Babylon Garden, however, prompts precisely the disaster which the ancient Babylonians were trying to prevent thousands of years ago: the black-hole drive overloads completely, obliterating the Garden and threatening to devour the planet itself. Sonic flies his Extreme Gear into the maelstrom to battle Master Core: ABIS - SCR-HD transformed under the influence of the Arks - and manages to stop both the robot and the singularity. The fate of the Arks after this final battle is unknown; they may have been destroyed by the black hole, scattered, or simply resting peacefully on Astral Babylon, now back in orbit.

References


Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity
SonicRidersZG title.png

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Items in the Sonic the Hedgehog Game Series
Collectibles   Ring | Special Ring | Rich Ring | Heal Ring | Red Star Ring | Number Ring | Silver Moon Ring | Sonic Medal | Sun Medal | Moon Medal | Sun Tablet | Moon Tablet | Planet Tablet | Secret Item | Red Orbs | Blue Orbs | Green Orbs | Emblem | Chaos Drives | Special Stage Key | Material | Portal Gear | Memory Token | Vault Key | Red Seed of Power | Blue Seed of Defense | Dream Orb
Power-ups   Shield (Water, Lightning, Fire, Gold, Magnetic) | Invincibility | Power Sneakers | Rocket Shoes | Propeller Shoes | Hyper Heli-Tails | Eggman Mark | Super Ring | Combine Ring | Forcejewel | Power Core | Light Cores | Special Combination
Level Objects   Item Box | Dark Energy Key | Spring | Spikes | Checkpoint | Time Warp Plate | Signpost | Goal Ring | Hidden Treasure Ring | Giant Ring | Dash Ring | Rainbow Ring | Capsule | Button | Door | Bumper | Speed Booster | Crane Lift | Air bubbles | Chao container | Item Panel
Powerful Items   Chaos Emeralds | Super Emeralds | Master Emerald | Time Stones | Chaos Rings | Precioustone | Sol Emeralds | Jeweled Scepter | World Rings | Excalibur | Phantom Ruby | Reverie | Dream Core
Weapons   Piko Piko Hammer | Chaos Energy Cannon | Caliburn | Wispon
Devices   Remote Robot | Combi Confiner | Mother Computer | Nega's Camera | Arks of the Cosmos | Miles Electric
Other   Chili Dog | Fortune Cards | Speed Down Boots | Chao Egg | Scepter of Darkness | Cacophonic Conch