The One Piece Manga Just Revealed something about the world of One Piece and its history
that will change how we see the story forever.
Because as it turns out, Egghead island the Island with the most insane technology on
the entire planet, is not the island of the future after all.
Instead, Vegapunk explains that his research lab is actually a place of the past.
His technology pales in comparison to the technically advancements made by the legendary
ancient kingdom, that was destroyed during the void century.
And we see Luffy discovering what seems to be a gigantic ancient robot outside the lab.
And there are 5 incredibly important things that we can take away from this.
Like the fact that we now know for certain that One Piece is a story taking place in
a post-apocalyptical world.
Which is absolutely crazy.
But where did Oda get the idea for this?
This reveal felt a lot like the one in Attack on Titan, where you get fed one narrow perspective
on what the world is like, until you find out nothing is what it seems.
That’s the exact same feeling here.
Turns out the world of one piece, as we know it, is the cataclysmic aftermath of an era
of greatness before.
The first thing that came to my mind here is the wheel of time.
In case you are not familiar with the story, it’s a fantasy novel that takes place in
a medieval, lord of the rings-like world, in the 3rd age after the breaking of the world.
Even though it is not a major plot point, throughout the story the author feeds the
reader hints, that the world before this breaking was actually our own reality.
That humanity became incredibly advanced in the future and ultimately destroyed itself.
Leading to a complete setback and a world that feels like fantasy.
That’s exactly the vibes i’m getting from all this.
i can’t even begin to tell you how great a piece of writing this is.
It makes the lore and story of one piece even better than it already was.
The love Oda has for aliens and sci fi stories like star wars are also gotten really apparent
in recent events.
And the giant mossy robot from a lost civilization has pretty strong ‘castle in the sky vibes’
a gihbli movie that seems to have a number of connections with one piece.
Go watch it if you haven’t.
It’s fantastic.
But it’s not only fiction that Oda was inspired by.
Because there are multiple theories out there, that our own world experienced such a set-back
as well.
People like Graham Hancock or Randal Carlson argue that the last ice age started and ended
with a cataclysmic catastrophe that might have wiped an already advanced ancient civilsation
from the face of the planet, roughly 12.000 years ago, lost as the sea levels rose over
80 meters in the aftermath.
It was this ancient civilization that built the pyramids all around the world and mapped
the entire planet.
Now, I’m neither an archeologist nor a geologist, so I can’t evaluate how accurate this is,
though there seems to be increasing evidence for it.
In any case, it doesn’t matter for us here.
It’s an incredibly fun and interesting topic to go down the rabbit hole for and due to
all the similarities these theories have with Oda’s writing, I am 99% convinced that he
took inspiration from this idea.
Which brings be to the second point on my list: What does this major reveal mean for
the one piece world and the context of the story?
There used to be modern day technology on the planet, including space travel and advanced
computing.
But at some point this advanced civilization got defeated by the 20 kingdoms that later
became the world government that is ruling the world today.
After this war.
a major technological setback happened, throwing the world back into the age of guns and swords
and sea-faring.
It also explains why the world government was so keen on wiping any trace of this kingdom
from the history books: If someone were to find out the truth about their advanced civilization,
they would try and find and revive its technology and use it against them.
Imu and the government are purposefully withholding this knowledge and banning any research on
it, to keep their subjects unaware and incapable of standing up against their tyrannical rule.
Now you might be wondering why that is such a big deal.
After all there were many hints already in the story that the ancient kingdom was quite
powerful.
So what has changed?
It’s the fact that what Luffy finds is a giant functioning titanic robot.
We kind of assumed that much in the one piece world is basically based on the stories own
magic system.
Devil fruits have a literal devil in them, the ancient weapons are just unique abilities
certain people have and the ancient kingdom built big cities, like wano and shandora and
were a place where everyone could live together in harmony.
Technology wise maybe on the level of Ancient Greece or something like that if you like.
But with the reveal that all of the fantastic technology that Oda has shown us in vegapunks
lab so far, that all of that is not even on the same level as the ancient kingdom used
to be, it tells us, that we are talking star wars civilization level instead of ancient
rome.
That’s absolutely insane.
It means that the entire power system in One PIece might very well be science.
After all science that is advanced enough does look like magic if you’re unfamiliar
with it.
It means that devil fruits could be a technology and not some sort of power system.
it also means, that the ancient weapons, to me at least, suddenly become a much more terrifying
and graspable threat as well.
Think about something like the death star.
I explained how much Oda loves Star wars in the last chapter review, where he introduced
light saber technology.
Pluton being buried in the volcano under wano could be some apocalyptic giant machine with
unfathomable powers.
i think the idea that it’s futuristic war tech, makes it so much more fascinating and
terrifying.
No wonder than maybe, that Roger was laughing when he learned the true history.
About a time when you could fly to the moon, heal all diseases and change the face of the
planet itself.
Joy boy most likely explained how all that knowledge and technology would one day come
back, once the right conditions are met.
no wonder that Roger wished he was born in the same era as Joy Boy.
And no wonder he and his crew were too early.
The knowledge and skills of this advanced civilization were lost and would only return
at a certain point in the future.
It of course also explains why the world government and Imu have technology no one else has.
Like the ability to eradicate an entire island.
They got their hands on the pieces of technology that they wanted to secure their rule.
Which begs the third question: How in the world did a kingdom with this level of knowledge
crumble in the first place?
The only thing we know for a fact about the end of the void century, is that 20 countries
gathered together to defeat the ancient kingdom.
These countries would later on become the celestial dragons, who are secretly being
ruled by the mysterious Imu.
But if Joy Boy and co were as powerful as they seemed to have been, how did they lose?
One explanation is, that just like any other empire in history, no matter how long it lasts,
at some point it starts falling apart from inside, like Numenor in Lord of the rings.
A country that’s so wealthy and comfortable in their position, that they start having
infighting and corruption gnawing away at its former glory.
Maybe Imu and the 20 kings were actually allied with or part of the ancient kingdom and backstabbed
Joy Boy.
Another option, is that the kingdom wasn’t the only country with advanced technology.
Maybe the war was a conflict like we know if from star wars, where boths sides have
access to terrible and advanced weapons.
Or, there is the wheel of time option, where the civilsation becomes so advanced that they
discover something they shouldn’t have.
An external force, even greater than them, Maybe the devil or devil fruit technology
was the thing that allowed the government to wage war on the kingdom.
A new power ot match joy boy’s.
This would be a great explanation for Imu, someone who offered the celestial dragons
his help, while secretly taking the throne for himself, ruling from the shadows, where
he is able to still rely on his own ancient technology, like the one that destroyed God
Valley and Lulusia.
Which means that for item 4 on our list, we have to talk about all the things in the one
piece world that have hinted at technology capable of shaping an entire planet.
Like the actual one piece planet itself.
Anyone who has seen the layout of the globe knows, that the world of one piece feels incredibly
artificial.
the Grandline and Red line meet at a perfect 90 degree angle, and thus split the world
of one piece into 4 equally sized regions, overlooked by the ruling celestial dragons
on top of the only continent in existence.
The red line is impossible to cross, since flying technology is actively kept from emerging,
while the grand line, with its dangerious and unpredictable weather and currents and
the windless calm belt around it guarded by the sea kings, make it impossible to cross
by ship.
The rest of the world seems to be flooded, so that the only inhabitable place are islands.
This results in a population that can’t form larger groups or travel and learn about
the world.
Which of course is designed to keep people from rising up against the government or learn
about things the government doesn’t want them to learn about.
All the weird anomalies, like the existence of sky islands or the giant hole under enies
lobby.
We originally thought that it might have been devil fruits who shaped the world in this
way.
But now that we know just how advanced the ancient kingdom really was, it seems much
more likely that actual technology or weapons were used to terraform the planet into a place
that is easy to rule and control.
Think of Enel and his findings on the moon.
The fact that he found the plans for an actual spaceship in Shandora and that he encountered
space pirates were always odd.
But now all these things are suddenly closely tied to the void century.
There is technology and an army of robots on the moon powered by electricity.
We have the giant arc noah, a ship big enough to carry an entire civilization, waiting to
be used again.
And as we know, the technology in one piece is all over the place: You have space ships
and lazer technology, while most people seem to be stuck in the 17 hundreds, fighting with
swords and canons.
Modern steel warships, while most people sail on wooden ones.
Video live streaming, while the rest of the world is stuck with paper.
And curiously enough, all this advanced technology seems to be Monopolized by one faction.
So for number 5 on the list, we have to ask ourselves: What does this reveal mean for
Vegapunk and the government?
One thing that the story so far, and the egghead island arc in particular has made clear, is
that Dr. Vegapunk doesn’t think very highly of himself.
He describes momo’s devil fruit as a failure and is clearly not very impressed with his
own work, calling it a place of the past.
Now I don’t think anyone who can build the things he has built can be called anything,
but a genius, but it seems llke Vegapunk has been reverse engineering a lot of the major
inventions he is credited with from technology from the void century, something that seems
to bother him.
He seems disappointed that he can’t do what the people 800 years ago were capable off.
Even though Momo’s fruit is a perfect copy of Kaido’s, it’s just that, a copy.
Not an actual new devil fruit.
Based on the winged robots seen on the moon by enel, it seems like the seraphim and pacifista
were also based on ancient technology.
They are based on research he conducted on Kuma and King, who both seem to be lunarians,
who were known as the gods who lived on the red line, possibly the original people of
the ancient kingdom.
The giant robots Vegapunk has seem to be based on the giant one Luffy has just found.
In other words, all the crazy stuff vegapunk has built is just a fraction of what used
to exist before.
It is also no surprise then, that the government wants to take him out.
It seems like he might know more about the true history and its power than almost anyone
else, making him the number one threat to the government.
Rightfully so it seems, as one of the 6 Vegapunks, shaka, is in contact with Dragon of the revolutionary
army.
By the way if you are a bit confused by the entire 6 Vegapunk thing, how it works and
what each of them is like, I did a breakdown of them in this video right here, that you
can watch next.