Forums › English Language Forums › General › General Discussion

Search

How are babies made?

34 replies [Last post]
Sat, 01/10/2015 - 14:03
Orangeo's picture
Orangeo

Trojan babies, of course. How are they born? Where do Trojans come from, exactly? I saw this question implicitly brought up in some other topic, so I figured I'd put some thought into it.

The Legion of Ur mission and the Crest of Ur material state that the Legion of Ur conquered the underworld and was sealed there, and that the devilmites intended to bring them back as Trojans, but the underworld itself isn't necessarily a direct cause. If anything, it's just being used as a pokemon storage box for Trojans at the moment. So with that out of the way, the other two ways we've seen them come to be is from Trojan statues or knights like Arkus.

First, let's address the statues. We know some of the dormant statues make Trojan noises when broken, and that Trojans turn into rather similar statues upon being defeated. So as opposed to Trojans coming from statues, this would lead me to believe that the statues are simply Trojan corpses that got used as decoration rather than being broken for loot; the noises suggest they aren't just simple statues cut from stone, and Arkus being able to revive explains the statues ability to be re-animated. Arkus's ability to revive frequently and not turn to stone may simply be due to the fact that he isn't a full-fledged Trojan and could still speak, etc.

So now we've got Arkus. One thing you should notice is that as Arkus revives more and more, the rock on his back grows, seemingly making him more of a Trojan. His transformation seems to be related to the loss of his team and guilt over their deaths, and he's spent all his time since in what could possibly be the same graveyard his allies were lost in originally, as his allies were killed by dust zombies in a graveyard at depth 26, the depth you fight him at. Combined with the fact that there's a huge legion of Trojans in the underworld, being dead and being around dead things seems to be a rather apt universal description of how to turn into a Trojan.

However, correlation is not causation; just because it's always the case that Trojan transformation is facilitated by continually reviving and being around the deceased, regular knights can run through graveyards and revive all day long without becoming one. Furthermore, Trojans aren't even classified as undead. So what's the direct cause?

The one hint towards Arkus's transformation is his psychology, his guilt in particular. You could say Arkus is incredibly irrational; he seemingly vents his guilt over the loss of his team of knights by killing teams of knights. His depression developed to the point of him intentionally doing wrong for the sake of fueling his masochistic self-loathing, and the only reason he doesn't actually kill himself is simply his sheer sense of personal duty. You could say that nonsensical nature of his actions, combined with the fact that they ended in his death, could be deemed self-destructive. Along with that, Arkus and the only other named Trojan, Maulos, are both in areas populated by lost souls whose only ability is to self-destruct. Trojans could be a metaphor for how being self-destructive and hurting yourself makes you hurt others. In other words, OOO is telling us that if we’re guilting ourselves over something we need to stop horsing around.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 14:21
#1
Neueragon's picture
Neueragon
instead of statues being

instead of statues being trojan corpses, how about trojans are animate statues?
the crystal in their back is a kind of power source packed with a consciousness, which is why when destroyed, the trojan looses all life and turns back into rock.
arkus was simply "infected" with a crystal, therefore causing something similar to schizophrenia, due to a trojan mind invading him.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 14:40
#2
Dahall's picture
Dahall
^

The statues were probably honoring the wardens of the Spiral Order. The fiends used dark matter (since they know more about dark matter than the other forces (gremlins and Spiral Order)) to turn them into warriors.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 14:49
#3
Orangeo's picture
Orangeo
That doesn't really explain

That doesn't really explain why they make noise upon being broken. It's rather clear normal statues aren't being turned into trojans, just ones that neigh like horses for seemingly no reason.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 15:25
#4
Traevelliath's picture
Traevelliath

I always thought Trojans were basically caused by that crystal in their back. Stick it into a statue (or a depressed Arkus) and it'll turn into a Trojan. Now assuming said crystals are rare, you'd probably only stick them into the biggest statues holding the biggest swords, hence the Trojans. The T1 Trojan at least has a Scarlet Fortress Symbol on it, so it may have just been part of the art style of the kingdom.

That being said, what throws a monkey wrench in all of this is Maulos. He could just be a statue frozen in ice, but at the same time it's implied he is the one controlling everything in the Heart of Ice mission, which implies that Trojans are capable of actual thought.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 15:42
#5
Neueragon's picture
Neueragon

the statues make the noise because they might still have s sliver stuck in them.
maulos is just fine according to my explanation, as there is no necessity to limit intelligence if there is a whole consciousness in the crystal.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 18:17
#6
Orangeo's picture
Orangeo
Noone cares about my pun

If dormant "never-tried-ta-kill-ya" statues still have a sliver in them, that means they used to have a whole rock inside, implying they're all slain Trojans. That kindof proves that all the statues you find which make noise upon being broken are slain Trojans. Now I suppose it doesn't disprove the possibility of Trojans beginning as statues rather than soldiers, but I'd think it odd that all those statues you bump into just happens be trojan corpses. Making Trojans could be the very reason why devilmites attack knights in the first place, and I'm rather confident they don't have many stone masons among them with their stubby arms and all.

As for Maulos thinking, there's a difference between being intellectually capable and rationally inclined; Arkus for example could speak fluidly but was missing huge chunks of his rationale. You can see from Maulos's exchange with his devilmite coworkers and how he spams their office mail system with the message: "The freezing corruption of lord Maulos is inescapable," that he isn't any more rational than Arkus. They've just both got big sharp sticks and big irrational goals. Regardless, this means the consciousness could come solely from a transformed victim; Arkus didn't have any extra consciousness, but rather seemed to have the same mind, just minus some reasoning capability and the ability to tell the difference between fantasy and reality. The grunt Trojans you face could simply have just been Trojans long enough to have lost it completely, Maulos having perhaps "hung on" in a sense due to willpower or some other cause.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 17:39
#7
Jmmoormann's picture
Jmmoormann
This is how it works

Baby trojans are born when a mummy trojan loves a daddy trojan really much...

The description of Spark and Roar says however says that constructs are the only monster family who can't reproduce by themselves. So there must be a way for trojans to reproduce, although we'll probably never know...

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 20:03
#8
Orangeo's picture
Orangeo
So does that at least mean

So does that at least mean they aren't simply "made" by devilmites the way constructs are "made" by gremlins?

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 20:28
#9
Holy-Nightmare's picture
Holy-Nightmare
Carved from stone.....powered by a crytsal...

They're like the Weeping Angels from Dr Who.

"That which holds the image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZigY1LKXpw

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 03:03
#10
Hexzyle's picture
Hexzyle
I get the feeling that

I get the feeling that Trojans are some sort of afterlife form of the once great warriors of the entire Spiral Knight race.
Devilites, being interdimensional denizens of some sort, are able to tap into this afterlife/underworld and put the dead Spiral Knights to work.
I don't know how the statues could come into this theory other than perhaps its a reference to how many great people of history have had statues erected of them, and in the Spiral Knight universe perhaps there is some way to summon the original person by using those statues.

Arkus, despite ending up being killed after he watched his teammates die, maybe had such an attachment to his duty that that combined with the rune-rich atmosphere in which he died sort of caused him to summon himself back from the land of the dead.

TL;DR, Fiends are playing Shogi with Isorans.

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 09:35
#11
Orangeo's picture
Orangeo
Arkus having died is both

Arkus having died is both possible and likely, and you could say that reviving causing crystal growth suggests being resurrected increases the extent to which one is a Trojan. On the other hand, someone could just as easily claim that if he could still revive, he wasn't really "dead," just getting up from a KO.

Either way, I still think the psychology behind the knight being used has to do with it, simply because it was so pushed in the otherwise barren destiny-tier plotline this game has.

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 13:20
#12
Gbot-Vtwo's picture
Gbot-Vtwo
....

The answer Is, There Is no such thing as Trojan babys. :P

As In they can't "reproduce."

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 15:30
#13
Dahall's picture
Dahall

OP was referring to their origins, he just tried to be funny or something.

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 15:51
#14
Orangeo's picture
Orangeo
Firstly, my sarcasm is

Firstly, my sarcasm is revealed about two sentences into the post, and secondly, the mission description of Spark and Roar states that Constructs are the only family who can't reproduce on their own.

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 15:58
#15
Holy-Nightmare's picture
Holy-Nightmare
......

I still believe that Trojans are statues carved by Devilites, and powered by corrupted Dark Matter.

A similar thing happened with (new) Tortodrones but rather than creating them the Devilites Frankensteined them into monsters (powered by Dark Matter).

Depending on the quality of the stone and the Dark matter the Trojan would end up at different tiers. Maulos was probably powered with Everfrost, or at least corrupted by it. Arkus was maybe found and experimented on by Devilites or the Dark matter grew from within him.

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 16:12
#16
Orangeo's picture
Orangeo
Or perhaps you're just

Or could it be perhaps that you're just denying your inner desire to see some hot and steamy horse on horse action?

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 17:13
#17
Avihr's picture
Avihr
Void

I thought this was going to be another of those "how do knights even do it?" or "do spiral knights have a gender?" kind of threads but somehow it turned out to be worse...

Long story made short= blablabla dark ritual rune rune black magic devil devil 666 and the trojan is born GG WP all I win.

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 17:22
#18
Orangeo's picture
Orangeo
Calling horse on horse love

Calling horse on horse love "demonic" is rather bigoted, I'll have you know.

Mon, 01/12/2015 - 02:45
#19
Blandaxt's picture
Blandaxt
@Jmmoormann: Does that mean

@Jmmoormann: Does that mean that battlepods only purpose is to be a turret of some kind and not factories? Then why are their spawn pads usually near them? was i the only one who thought that those monsters came from them?

Also, in roamulus twins, there are also spawn pads, where do these monsters come from? Who "creates" them? In the danger mission where you have that huge motherboard battlepod, who "created" it? And how is it spawning those machines?

All of these questions are lore base questions and have nothing to do with technical mechanics. Just to make sure no one gets confused.

@OP: I think you are totally right, but i feel that it is not all about psychology. I think that with psychology alone, you would only become a minion and not a boss like arkus is. I think that we as knights will automatically amass a crystal on ourselves the more we adventure and grow our inventory. Our inventory would represent the growth of that crystal (and it pretty much is like that crystal) and would represent the influence we have in the world. NOw this is where psychology comes in. When we feel we have become failures as knights, we start to fall into depravity (This is very similar to this manga/anime call MAGI). The more we fall into depravity, the more our influence, the source of all of our power starts to turn dark and darker as times goes on. Once we have passed a certain point where we no longer follow orders from our higher ranking commanding knights, we would loose access to our inventory, and instead start to deform by growing horse mask unto our heads that now has control of our actions or can strongly influence our consciousness. This would be like a second personality emerges, but one that represents all of our negativity. The sword and shield that arkus is wearing is ours but the crystal on his back represents all of our negativity in physical form (This transformation is very similar in anime/manga to MAGi OR even more similar to Black Rock Shooter. Here is a clip of her falling into depravity and loseing all hope, that she turns into a self destructive weapon and shuts her broken heart into the back of her mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56mFj7uTXSY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW9RYmOjPn0

And here is a Animated Music Video that is pretty cool to watch, but this is made by fans and not from the publisher itself. Just matching pieces of parts in the anime, putting some good background music that is in sync with the action and seeing a work of ark form before your eyes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn3Uzwja8_Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyQPg-Mpp2c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoEl2IRxfTo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4JU66QbO6Y

And if your interested on seeing all the fight scenes, click here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0XssHL6ka4

And they even have a game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXjBgApyUXA

And if you just want to watch the games cutscenes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RMONIsEPkg

)

So not only is it possible to fall into depravity, the opposite could also be true where you can come back from that state. It's probably really hard sense you get a second personality (Like bleach with his hollow or Toukyou Ghoul manga/anime with his real personality sealed and some fake takes over his body Or even like magi where black rukh (negative energy) can be expelled, bringing back the person that fell into depravity). This means we should try our best not to fall into depravity and go insane!!

On another note, it would be cool if our knights could fall into depravity ion SK. Their would be a light versus good bar and once we have fallen, we would be sent to a city close to hell (devilites). Their we would live and move as knights until we get defeated by knights coming from haven. When ever we log on we would be spawn into the devilite city and from their, if a knight reaches the room where were suppose to be, we would be spawned automatically in that room where we would fight the knight coming to defeat and save us. Since we control this dark knight we can use him to attack, but if we don't attack for more then 5 seconds, he automatically starts moving like a robot and attacks for us. This means we have no choice but to fight until our saviors defeat us. This is just a suggestion i think would be pretty cool to have.

Mon, 01/12/2015 - 03:25
#20
Hexzyle's picture
Hexzyle
@Blandaxt

All-encompassing link for what you were trying to say:
Warning, it's tvtropes
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeroicBSOD

Mon, 01/12/2015 - 03:55
#21
Sonosuke's picture
Sonosuke
I'm done being serious. Time to revel in insanity.

I think I'm gonna roll with "Statues controlled by Dark Matter".

Mon, 01/12/2015 - 07:43
#22
Orangeo's picture
Orangeo
@Blan I guess you could say

@Blan

I guess you could say battlepods can't make battlepods, so its limited? Still though, that's kind of like asking "why does my gun turn monsters into money?"

>posting AMV's

Weeb

Maulos clearly wasn't depressed though. Though yeah, its not like any self-destructive knight becomes a Trojan, there's a cradle-based reason somewhere.

@ Hex

I don't think it's just trauma, but rather self-destructive behavior. In Maulos's case, as portrayed by his interactions with devilmites, he didn't have much clear trauma but was probably enough of an arrogant douche to soak up an entire frozen lake (or get pushed in by his original coworkers.)

Mon, 01/12/2015 - 08:30
#23
Hexzyle's picture
Hexzyle
@Orangeo

It was one of the first things linked on the page

Mon, 01/12/2015 - 09:01
#24
Blandaxt's picture
Blandaxt
yep

@Hexzyle: Yep, that's exactly what i am talking about. When the character feels all hope is lost and falls to depravity.

Mon, 01/12/2015 - 09:25
#25
Orangeo's picture
Orangeo
Enlighten me, Hex? It says

Enlighten me, Hex? It says "This is about a character losing all hope," but Maulos clearly had pretty big hopes and dreams, as he was trying to instantiate himself as an authority figure in the devilmite hierarchy and seemingly attempting to freeze the world over, unlike Arkus who just sat in his corner. A Despair Event horizon makes sense for Arkus, but not really Maulos. The fact that he gets complaints from fiends for "the disappearance of 1,000 data associates" suggests that instead of being sad or traumatized he's more likely angry and agitated. Unless of course you are infact getting at something I missed.

Mon, 01/12/2015 - 10:29
#26
Holy-Nightmare's picture
Holy-Nightmare
Considering that Trojans only

Considering that Trojans only come in 2 sizes, regular and Maulos I would have to say that they are manufactured. With Deadnaughts outsizing Trojans I can't believe that Trojans are a form of corrupted undead. You don't see little Trojans running about so you can't say they are bred or all made from corrupted SK knights, besides why would it affect guardian knights and not regular SK knights?

Mon, 01/12/2015 - 10:36
#27
Thinslayer's picture
Thinslayer
My theory

Fiends and the underworld are associated with spiritual things, so a spiritual explanation is in order.

Spirits have the ability to possess inanimate objects and take physical form. This can include inhabiting former bodies. What differentiates them from Undead is that the Undead bodies are simply reanimated in some fashion; they have no soul or spirit. Fiends, on the other hand, have sentient, sapient spirits. So a stone statue that is spiritually awakened classifies as fiend, not undead.

But that's not all. Dark Matter appears to be spiritually sensitive, and is the "lifeblood" of all dark spirits. To put it another way, one's soul is transmitted through dark matter. Hence, to insert a soul into a body, one must first inject it with dark matter "blood" then use a Dark Ritual to summon the soul back from the Underworld to its new body.

Mon, 01/12/2015 - 17:16
#28
Orangeo's picture
Orangeo
That's pretty much 100%

That's pretty much 100% subjective, Thin. I mean the word spirit means a million zillion different things to a million zillion people. You can look up many philosophical texts where "having spirit" or "having soul" simply means possessing a certain intellectual capability. Saying "this is what spirits are, therefore-" without just citation for your definition of the word spirit or why it matters doesn't totally make sense.

As for Trojan babies, no, I don't legit think that's how OOO intended it to be seen. The Trojan process works on things other than guardians though; the Legion of Ur clearly was made from something pre-dating the arrival of knights. Trojans looked like Trojans before knight guardians did; you can pass that off as a coincidence or design fault. I think anything that gets turned Trojan gains that appearance over time. We don't know it doesn't work on normal knights, and we've only seen it happen to one guardian.

The only difference between deadnaughts and Trojans seems to be that deadnaughts are mindless and obedient, unlike both Maulos and Arkus, who defied orders as a means of continually harming themselves and others. I don't think Trojans are inherently undead though, given that they aren't in the undead family. However they can "die," like the Legion of Ur in the underworld. Assuming Arkus wasn't "killed" pre-transformation, this would be another factor setting them apart from undead, who become "undead" via dying and coming back rather than just "feelin a little off" like Arkus and presumably Maulos.

Mon, 01/12/2015 - 19:20
#29
Hexzyle's picture
Hexzyle
Sorry Orangeo, when you wrote

Sorry Orangeo, when you wrote "Maulos", I read "Arkus".

Mon, 01/12/2015 - 22:07
#30
Orangeo's picture
Orangeo
Go sit in the corner

Go sit in the corner

Mon, 01/12/2015 - 22:24
#31
Midnight-Dj's picture
Midnight-Dj
:/

Lol, we all know the truth... Arkus didn't loose his team to a horde of dust zombies... the truth is... Arkus killed them himself, he saw through the pointless charade that is life... he knew that no matter what he does, no matter how much he sacrifices, death will always be a certainty in the clockwork, not a probability. So instead of fighting the inevitable, he killed his entire team himself and lied about it, he then voluntarily joined the fiendish legion so that he can kill everyone on cradle so that he never have to worry about protecting anyone ever again. Many thinks that those words Arkus uttered in his final hours are the truth, I suspect otherwise, fiends are known to be deceptive and manipulative... he may well be under the thrall of the dark gods a long time ago, they have ruined people like vanaduke, a fine king, a warden should be no problem.

Mon, 01/12/2015 - 23:05
#32
Nechrome's picture
Nechrome
Homestuck!

I really cannot keep up with what you guys up there have said already so I'll just provide my own thoughts.

Now, personally I believe that there are 2 or 3 different types of Trojans. And not like KnightMare and whatever Tier types. Bur Trojans who are native creatures to the Underworld, Trojans who are animated stone statues, and Trojans who are corrupted Isoran/Almirian like beings.

Natives are simple enough to explain. First of all, I don't believe that Fiends and Trojans are native to Cradle at all. There's the whole thing about Cradle being pieced together from bits of a bunch of different worlds, which probably includes the Underworld or whatever.

So anyway the description for the Crest of Ur talks about some sort of ancient Fiend army, the Legions of Ur, that conquered the Underworld. There's the addition of the clomping of hooves or whatever, which means Trojans were a part of this army, if not the only part of the army. The whole thing seems like a Fiendish legend to me, events that happened a long time ago before the Fiends ever arrived on Cradle. There's also some stuff in the description for the mission Legions of Ur that I don't remember but it was about said Legions of Ur.

Now, there is also a Fiend scenario room with runes and pressure plates and statues, which can summon a variety of Fiends including Trojan. From previous bits of lore all over the place including the description for the Legions of Ur, we know that the Fiends are summoning more Fiends over from the Underworld, presumably via the same Runes and magicks and things in the scenario room.

Now that I think about it I'm pretty sure the description for the Legions of Ur states that the Legions was an army solely comprised of Trojans which is an intimidating though, but I'm not too sure about that.

So basically there is evidence that Trojans do live in the Underworld and are probably natives.

Now, statues. Perhaps carved, perhaps the shells of fallen Trojans, perhaps both. You guys have talked about how Trojan stone statues make horse sounds when broken, which I've lost the train of thought on so I won't bother with trying to explain that. But something that I want to draw you attention to is the mission Blades of the Fallen. You know, the one with all those Lost Souls?

I have to admit that I haven't done that mission in a while so my recollection might be foggy, but from what I recall there was a room with 4 Trojan statues. One or two of them were breakable, but the others seemed to turn into actual Trojans when it came in contact with a Lost Soul.
So the Lost Soul enters the shell of some long fallen Trojan whose crystal has been shattered and its power lost, and turns it into a body for itself to use, probably via repowering the shard of Dark Matter embedded in its back. Dark Matter is weird and unnatural, so it wouldn't be too surprising if it had the power to animate things when powered by a Lost Soul. Who did the Lost Souls use to be? Who knows? Dead people basically. But they have the ability to power things and make them work, make them something new.

Lost Souls are probably connected to the Undead and Fiendish activities in some sort of way, as they not only appear in the Soldier's Graveyard but also in Heart of Ice and Ghosts in the Machine, all missions dealing with the unnatural.

On a bit of a tangent, since Lost Souls can apparently power Trojan statues, it sheds some light on the activities of the Apocrea.
Allow me to quote the patch notes.

Within cities where geometry and madness share meaning, constructed from thought, from unnatural impulse, the Apocrea dream dark machines into being. Only souls keep these engines roaring, heard screaming across distant stars. Only souls can fill their void, sublime in its vast emptiness. Oh such beautiful souls! Bright and vibrant like fruit warming on the branch from a summer’s sun, longing for the pull of the earth below, the chance to seed and grow and birth anew.

I won't bother you all with my personal Apocrea lore, but this plainly tells us that the Apocrea are literally using Lost Souls to power whatever crazy machines they've created. Why? Because they already know the properties of Lost Souls, and how Lost Souls work with Trojan statues. So this is basically why during the mission you had to kill all those Lost Souls to free them from the grasp of the Apocrea.

Also, that last sentence in the quote? The Chance to seed and grow and birth anew. referring to the Souls. They are dead, and what do they want to do? Become alive again. And what do Trojan statues let them do? Become alive again, in a sense.

Although after reanimating them, their allegiance shifts to the Fiends. There's probably some sort of vestigial power of the original Trojan or the Fiends in general still in that body and crystal, sort of corrupting the Lost Soul.

And then there are Corrupted Trojans whom you guys have discussed to death already and I honestly have nothing new to add to that stuff that hasn't been said already. Except that yeah, Dark Matter corrupts. Which I should mention, another nice piece of evidence is the description of the Acheron. Something about being imbued with the power of the Underworld and driving people crazy.

Basically most/all of the shadow weapons are in one way or another connected to the Fiends and the Underworld, cause lore and Dark Matter and curses and insanity stuff.

Also, Tortodrones. From all those Tortodrone scenario rooms we can basically infer that there are a lot of Dead Tortodrones. In the March of the Tortodrones mission, once again Fiends are using Dark Matter to power some sort of abomination of a Tortodrone, which looks stitched together like Frankenstein's Monster. Probably from all those Tortodrone remains. This again displays the ability of Dark Matter to corrupt and reanimate, relating to Trojans and how non-Natives are formed.

Who knows? Maybe the Fiends are in league with the Apocrea and the Dark Matter Torto is one of their 'Dark Machines.' Although I doubt it but that's something to chew on.

So yeah. My thoughts. Most of which I developed and built on while writing this as I went. I also have a few thoughts of Maulos and the Legions and those names on all those Glyphs from the Tortodrone vent but I'll keep them to myself for now.

Tue, 01/13/2015 - 05:25
#33
Orangeo's picture
Orangeo
Isn't it also possible the

Isn't it also possible the legion of Ur was an army which got turned into Trojans?

Good apocrea stuff

I think dark matter could be getting looked at backwards potentially. Arkus's rock just grew straight out of him; perhaps corrupcorruption grows dark matter as opposed to the other way around? Though shadow weapons slightly do imply otherwise.

Wed, 01/14/2015 - 12:37
#34
Fangel's picture
Fangel
Likely just dark matter

Personally I just assume it's dark matter shoved into inanimate objects. We saw what happens when you try to make cakes with dark matter - they get all aggressive and come to life. We see the same thing in other things that might have the dark matter more obviously seen, such as trojans and stone tortodrones. You'll notice that the crystal breaks always in the enemies where crystals are present before they turn into stone.

Arkus is just a story on his own. Trojans are not connected to Arkus despite having a similar appearance. Arkus is not a stone statue, and is also the only living thing that had dark matter shoved into it. Anything that makes Arkus different from Trojans is because Arkus has been alive for a long time whereas Trojans are reanimated statues. If we had a statue of Arkus I might rethink this position, but Arkus merely dies on "camera", not turning into stone because he is not a statue.
That being said, if someone could see if the dark matter breaks on Arkus' back when defeated, (either on one "wave", or on the final down) that would help. If the dark matter breaks that means his life force was sucked into the crystal or at least relied on it, and if not then his life force is independent of the crystal. His revives in general are a knight thing so don't bother with those.

Powered by Drupal, an open source content management system