| “ | To better understand, let us look back, back! 10,000 long years, to a time when Skylands was ruled by an evil empire of robots known as... The Arkeyans. | „ |
| ~ Eon introducing the Arkeyans at the beginning of Skylanders: Giants |
The Arkeyans are major antagonists within the Skylanders franchise. They are an ancient race of robotic conquerors who were notable for their astounding technological advancements, with remnants of them being seen all across Skylands. They first appear in Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure (2011) and later played a much bigger role in Skylanders: Giants (2012).
While they were incredibly technologically advanced, Arkeyans had a tendency to forget things beneath them, which led to the loss of many of their crucial items, including the map to the Lost City of Arkus, the capital of their empire.
History[]
10,000 years prior to the events of the game, the Arkeyans were a race of robots which protected Skylands from The Darkness. Their actual origins are lost to history, due to their carelessness and inability to properly preserve it. What is known is that their technological advancements came from their early discovery of a method to fuse magic with technology to create incredible machines. However, many of them abused this power for their own gain, thus leading to the birth of their empire. As they had developed technology far quicker than the other races living in Skylands, they found themselves holding a great deal of power over them. The Arkeyans were also the first ones to discover the Tech element and how to fuse it with magic. Soon, their quest for knowledge led to an empirical takeover of Skylands.
While the Arkeyan Empire began their conquest of Skylands, there were many Arkeyans who opposed it, and wished for them to use their technological discoveries to enhance their artistic and musical abilities, and to play Roboto-ball, a very popular competitive sport during their time. Because the balls used in Roboto-ball were explosive, many of the well-intentioned Arkeyans were killed, and they were soon vastly outnumbered by those wishing for conquest.
Wielding a magical artifact known as the Iron Fist of Arkus, the Arkeyan King led the empire throughout Skylands, conquering much of its territory. While maintaining control over Skylands, the Arkeyans discovered the Eternal Magic Source and kept it hidden within their highly-secure vaults to preserve its secrets for the coming generations.
The eight original Skylanders, the Giants, banded together to put an end to the Arkeyans' reign of terror. With their combined strength, they were able to defeat an elite Arkeyan battalion and, after weaking their forces in an epic fight, soon fought against the king directly. With the king overwhelmed and unable to put up a fight, the Giants were able to disarm the king and remove the Iron Fist of Arkus from his control, leading to a deactivation of the remaining Arkeyan forces, finally ending their empire's rule. However, this also meant the Giants would soon be swept from Skylands and sent to earth, where they would be lost until the events of Skylanders: Giants.
Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure (2011)
The Arkeyans are first introduced in Spyro's Adventure when the Skylanders are tasked with recovering the Eternal Sources representing each element to rebuild the core of light after it was destroyed by Kaos. Near the end of the game, they come across an Arkeyan known as the Weapon Master, who guides them through the Quicksilver Vault to retrieve the Quicksilver, making the rebuilt core of light able to digest the Eternal Magic Source, and later into the Arkeyan Armory proper in order to retrieve the source itself.
There are shown to be some Arkeyans who remained behind, however they seek to defend their Armory and Vault from the Skylanders and are hostile to them as they venture through each level. Others can be found throughout other parts of Skylands.
Skylanders: Giants (2012)
The Arkeyans play a far greater role in the sequel to Spyro's Adventure than they did in the original game. After learning of the history of the Arkeyans and journeying through a level taking place in the time of the Giants to free a society of enslaved Mabu from the grips of the Arkeyan Conquertron, the present day shows Kaos, after he was able to return to Skylands after being banished to earth, accidentally reactivating the long-deactivated Conquertron fought in the first level of the game. After making an ally of the ancient conqueror, it soon told him and Glumshanks about the Lost City of Arkus and the power of the Iron Fist. Kaos soon found himself on a quest to the Lost City to uncover the fist and resurrect the Arkeyans so that he may lead them through his own conquest of Skylands.
After flying to the Arkeyan Secret Vault of Secrets and facing off with the Skylanders to discover the map to the Lost City of Arkus, leading to Kaos caving in the entrance and preventing the Skylanders from obtaining the map, Kaos soon took the map for himself. However, the robot accidentally destroyed it, leading to Kaos having to create a memory-projecting machine which he used on Glumshanks to view the precise moment the map was seen before it was destroyed by Conquertron. Seeing that the city was underground, Kaos soon commissioned a large drilling machine to dig its way down to the lost city.
Despite the Skylanders destroying the drill and thwarting Kaos' plan, he was unfazed by it, and instead just made Conquertron fly him into the city through a secret entrance only available to the Arkeyans. Before long, Kaos discovered the long-lost Iron Fist and stepped inside of it, taking on a gigantic Arkeyan robotic form as he reactivated the remnants of the Arkeyan empire to serve him.
After using an Arkeyan copter to venture through the Lost City of Arkus's security systems and fighting their way through the city proper, the Skylanders soon came face-to-face with Kaos in his new Arkeyan form. After a long battle in which Kaos summoned an army of Arkeyan Jousters and Shield Juggernauts to fight the Skylanders, he was soon defeated by them, Ermit, and Machine Ghost, the latter two commandeering a gigantic Arkeyan robot of their own.
With Kaos defeated and the Arkeyan army deactivating once more, Kaos desperately attempted to salvage the Iron Fist and regain his power, only for it to crawl away from him and for him to be taken away from Arkus by Glumshanks who was piloting the Conquertron. The robot soon self-destructed, and Kaos was banished back to the outskirts of Skylands once more. The Iron Fist of Arkus was soon lost to an enormous group of Chompies, and the Arkeyans would remain deactivated forever.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The Arkeyan Ultron, the colossal war machine from Skylanders: Giants, is considered the most powerful construct ever built in Skylands’ history.
- Despite being mechanical, the Arkeyans were originally created by organic beings — their own king and sorcerer-engineers — who sought to perfect society through automation.
- The Arkeyans’ aesthetic and philosophy have drawn comparisons to other “machine overlord” archetypes, such as the Prometheans.
- Despite playing a villainous role throughout much of the lore of Skylanders, the Arkeyans are not an inherently evil race. Several of the Skylanders themselves are Arkeyans, such as Chop Chop, Drill Sergeant, and Krypt King.
- Ironically, Bouncer, the Giant of the Tech element who helped bring down the Arkeyan empire before the events of the game, is himself an Arkeyan security bot who was also an all-star Roboto-ball player.
- Some fan theories suggest that Kaos’s mechanical minions and certain Tech Element Skylanders were reverse-engineered using dormant Arkeyan technology.
External Links[]
- Arkeyans on the Skylanders Wiki
