Video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8ZeMrUDP2g

Cover

On the cover, we are told of the route Yamato should take on the pilgrimage, passing through the regions of Kibi, Kuri, Udon, Hakumai, Ringo, and then back to the Flower Capital. We’ve actually never seen much of Kibi in detail, so hopefully we get a slightly better look at the region this time! Kin’emon asks Yamato to help lay to rest Yasuie’s sword in his home region of Hakumai, as it is tradition in the Wano Country to bury one’s swords as their grave markers. In particular, Kin’emon is referring to the Enma shrine, which made a brief appearance during Act 2 when Zoro and Hiyori were running away from the capital. The shrine is named after Enma, the god of Hell after which Zoro’s sword is also named.

More Cameos Across the World

Back to the chapter, we are once again shown reactions from characters all across the world. First we have Marine HeadQuarters at New Marineford. We see Sakazuki reacting, which given how distrustful he seems to have grown of the Government and the Gorosei over time, it wouldn’t be surprising if this broadcast further fuels his distrust in how the Marines serve the Celestial Dragons. He is far from the only familiar face here however, as not only is Rear Admiral Hina visible, but also several other faces that we have seen around Marine HeadQuarters despite not having a name. There is this burger faced man who appeared in Chapter 957, the one about the Yonko bounties, alongside this sea captain Marine, this ponytailed Marine, and this long-faced Marine as well, all of them looking at Vegapunk’s transmission from the same hall where they listened to Sengoku’s speech about the Rocks.

Next is Mock Town where, fittingly enough, the pirates laugh at the notion that the world is sinking, due to the town’s strong skepticism and mockery of any concept straying too far from what they understand. Interestingly enough though, there’s a familiar mark on the visual den den mushi, being the flag of the Donquixote Family. We already know that Doflamingo had influence on Mock Town, with how Bellamy operated in the area for a bit and with how he personally came to visit Mock Town to remind its people of the meaning behind his mark. So it makes sense that his influence spread to Mock Town and this visual den den mushi was likely obtained through his black market dealings in the underworld taking place upon this island.

Next is Water 7, where Paulie and Peeply Lulu, likely among others, are in disbelief about realizing the truth behind their country. As we’ve talked previously, Water 7 has been long since afflicted by the Aqua Laguna, a high tide that swallowed the island whole every year, inspired by the high tides that also affect its real life inspiration of Venice in Italy. However, while these were blamed as a high tide, it’s evident now that these rising waves were caused by the hole left behind in Enies Lobby, the impact site of an ancient weapon much like Lulusia that took place 800 years ago, which has led to Water 7 slowly sinking across the centuries. The citizens here seem to start becoming aware of this, as they realize that this is far more than a high tide and something that affects the world at large.

Switching to Impel Down, we see Doflamingo reacting to the broadcast, who doesn’t appear that surprised at all, likely due to the fact that he was already aware of Imu’s identity as he mentioned during Dress Rosa. He claims that with just 5 meters of rising sea levels, most of the world’s capitals will sink beneath the waves, so they should all try to relocate far higher, likely joking about the fact that the only real safe place now would be at the top of the Red Line, where Mary Geoise is, safe from all of this trouble.

Impel Down and the Gorosei

Speaking of Impel Down, a lot of people have questioned if a previous sinking of the world may have been how Impel Down was built, as otherwise its gigantic construction seems almost impossible with modern building techniques. To bring this one step further, there’s been a very interesting theory that several people brought up, being the idea of what if Impel Down’s levels are themed after the Gorosei. The logic is that the first floor is crawling with poisonous spiders, much like Saturn, the second floor has wild beasts such as the basilisk that highly resemble the Itsumade, the third floor is a scorching desert, where a sandworm would normally prowl, the fourth floor is boiling hot, like the fires of the Feng Xi, and the fifth floor is freezing cold, like the chill of the underworld brought by the skeleton horse.

Furthermore the sixth floor being erased from history and only existing as a myth could symbolize Imu and how he has been erased from history for his crimes as well. Some of these are a slight stretch, but it’s not completely out of the question that the Government could have themed the levels with which they torture their enemies after themselves.

Back to Cameos

Anyway, at the Ryuuguu Kingdom of Fishman Island, Neptune and Shirahoshi, accompanied by the Minister of the Right and Left, and pets Hoe and Megalo, are also concerned, because while this would theoretically benefit fishmen, their dream is to live on the surface alongside humans, so of course a flooded world would not help much.

We get some other unnamed locations, such as a tropical islqnd where citizens wear veils over their heads, likely the South Blue judging from the weather, as well as an island that has mostly sunk under water due to the rising sea levels, with citizens attempting to survive on top of their roofs or on boats, much like the one we saw in Chapter 1089.

Then, beyond Smoothier and Mont-d’Or, we get to see Tonjit at Long Ring Long Land, another island that has been affected by the rising sea tides of the Enies Lobby hole to the point of being mostly submerged, who is trying to get around the flooding by instead using his stilts to walk on water instead, and then Kuzan at Hachinosu, still recovering from his wounds from his battle against Garp as evident by his bandages.

At Mary Geoise you can still spot the ruins from Kuma’s incursion on the previous day, as Imu silently listens. Among the Celestial Dragons we also see Sts. Shalria, the sister of St. Charlos who appeared during Sabaody, who isn’t even exactly sure what a “Void Century” is, showing just how disconnected the Celestial Dragons are from everything in this world, including their origin.

At what is likely Elbaf, as he should supposedly be in hiding there, we can see Saul, who listens to the call while laughing to himself. Dorry and Brogy described him now as a “scholar”, likely having learned through the books of Ohara, so he’s quite happy about the fact that Vegapunk is divulging details on the poneglyphs.

At Orange Town we see Boodle with Shushu, as well as a little girl who is confused by Vegapunk’s message due to the narrative that the Government has spun. She is getting this from a book that has the writing “Sekai” on it, which translates to “World”, likely a Government textbook about the origin of the world. You can also spot a pattern of shushu being printed on the back of the den den mushi shell. Finally, we also get to see a reaction from Amazon Lily, featuring Marguerite, Cosmos, and Belladonna.

When was Vegapunk’s Message recorded?

For now though, let us focus on the contents of Vegapunk’s actual message. Starting off, he says:

Now I’m going to skip a bit ahead to the future, but…
If the sensor I created and my calculations are correct,
At some point after the filming of this video
There should come an earthquake that will strike the entire world.
As a result of it, sea levels in several places should rise by about 1 meter,
Causing many people to be displaced once their islands become uninhabitable.
Many beaches across the world will be swallowed up as well.

This statement seems to give us some point of reference as to how Vegapunk got to predict the rising sea levels. You see, the attack on Lulusia was six days ago before the current day. Whereas the earthquake itself only happened today six days later. Essentially, it seems the earthquake was a delayed effect. The hole on Lulusia was made 6 days ago, but it took time across those six days for the aftershocks to really hit and lead to the sudden earthquake that caused that massive raise in sea levels in just a matter of hours. Vegapunk’s dialogue here seems to suggest that this transmission may have been recorded just some few days ago as he claims that the sensors he built seemed to pick up on vibrations that he believed would lead to this earthquake. If he had some hunch about Imu’s existence as well, then it would make even more sense that he could connect the dots. This would line up, as Vegapunk claimed at the start of Egghead, through Shaka talking to Dragon, that he felt he was going to be killed by the Government soon. So it makes sense that soon before that and attempting to flee Egghead, he recorded this message after seeing the vibrations coming from the hole in Lulusia as he felt the need to inform the world about its danger. In fact Vegapunk is so confident about this prediction that he tells people to listen to him only if it comes to pass and since it did come to pass, suddenly people across the world are starting to believe his words, smartly taking advantage of this prediction to prove to the world he is stating the truth.

If this prediction turns out to be incorrect,
Then please feel free to ignore what I’m about to say.
However, if I am, in fact, correct…
Then I would like you to listen to what I have to say!!
I am strongly confident in the fact that this phenomenon
Was in fact not a natural disaster.

I have always wished for peace…
However, that is the first of my two sins.
I dreamed of eternal energy.
But with a firm desire to advance the world towards its future,
I flew too close to the sun!!

The Mother Flame

Through this speech, we also get to see in person the Mother Flame itself, the power source that alimented the ancient weapon that was used to destroy Lulusia. In this case the Mother Flame is depicted as a very literal flame being contained within a massive tank, which has been referred to as the “Power Plant”, or by its kanji reading a “fusion reactor”. So undying is the flame that it is in fact floating in the middle of water itself, likely boiling it to generate electricity much like a nuclear reactor.

What is however most tantalizing is the writings on the tank itself: at the top there’s the writing “S-108”. Given how the Seraphim have had a similar nomenclature with “S-” in front of their names, this could present a connection between the Mother Flame and the flames of the Seraphim and Lunaria, something we’ll touch very shortly in just a moment. For what it’s worth, 108 is a very symbolic number in Japanese, as it refers to the number of earthly temptations in Buddhism that humans must avoid. You may be familiar with it in One Piece as seen in Zoro’s Buddhist-named attacks like “108 Pound Phoenix”. This could perhaps be a reference to S-108 representing Vegapunk’s temptations going too far, flying too close to the sun as he puts it, but I could be stretching the meaning here.

But also below it is the writing “A&Mu”. The latter here is likely a pun in Japanese, as “and” in Japanese is pronounced as “to”. So this writing when read in Japanese becomes “A-to-mu”, which is the Japanese reading for “atom”, given how the Mother Flame is essentially a parallel to nuclear or atomic energy. However, I wonder if there is some deeper meaning to this, as “Mu” is also what Imu used to refer to himself as a first person pronoun, being a shortening of his name, so is this just a coincidence or is there a deeper connection here? People have already made connections between Atlantis and Mu, lands that sunk under the water in the past, but it’s still hard to say anything in particular without going off the rails with speculation.

However, this finally confirms what has been alluded to all this time, which is the fact that the Mother Flame is the artificial sun that Lilith spoke of at the start of Egghead, and the theory most of us have held since then. Lilith claimed that fire is essentially the way to generate electricity, but it always needs continuous resources to burn. So if they were able to create a veritable artificial sun, an undying flame, then they could generate infinite energy, which is what they were trying to focus on developing with the Mother Flame.

The way that they described this undying flame seemed to be referring to the flame of the Lunaria who are seemingly able to generate eternal flames on their back without need for resources, thus each of them having a portable mother flame with them at all times. We know that the ancient kingdom had close ties with the God Country, the nation of the Lunaria that existed atop the Red Line before Mary Geoise did. And it’s been strongly inferred that the God Country may have been the point of origin for a lot of the technology of the ancient kingdom, given how the Iron Giant returned to Mary Geoise almost as if it were once its home, how the Lunaria came from the heavily advanced civilization of the Moon, and how the Lunaria themselves are essentially augmented angels, likely having attained advanced evolution through their mastery of the bloodline elements as a genetically superior species. So this whole time we’ve postulated the idea that the Lunaria’s undying flames on their back helped power a lot of their technology without the need of resources, which is likely the dynamic power source Vegapunk was talking about.

Vegapunk mentioned that he believes there is an undying energy that bathes the entire world, and at the same time he claims that the source of eternal energy is the sun, or being able to generate an artificial sun at least. So in that regard, it makes sense that the infinite power source Vegapunk was talking about may in fact be the sun itself, and if there was a way to attain solar energy by harvesting the energy of the sun, there there may not even be a need for resources, or quite simply the mother flame could just be a replica and embodiment of the fusion that is generated within the sun, much like how nuclear energy replicates to an extent the fusions that happen within the sun.

In a sense Vegapunk’s story is much like that of his inspiration, Albert Einstein, who made groundbreaking discoveries in the road to nuclear power, something that should have served humanity as a more renewable source, but unfortunately went out of hand to create weapons of destructive power. In this case, much the same happened, with Vegapunk recreating the Mother Flame in hopes of giving infinite energy to the world, but at the same time causing Imu to use the Mother Flame to power up the ancient weapon he possesses, what we’ve mentioned appears to be Uranus, in order to bring destruction upon the world. In that regard Vegapunk poetically claims that he got “too close to the sun”.

This is what explains the title of the chapter, being “Wings of Icarus”. As you may be familiar, Icarus refers to a myth from Greek mythology where Icarus was the son of master craftsman Daedalus, and after both became entrapped in the labyrinth of the Minotaur, they were able to escape by crafting artificial wings that Daedauls created to simply fly away. Daedalus warned Icarus to be careful to not fly too high to the sun, as the heat of it would melt the wings. However Icarus ignored the warnings, fascinated by the radiance of the sun, until his wings melted and he plummeted to his doom, drowning in the sea. Thus the myth of Icarus has served as a moral for never becoming too conceited and trying to achieve more than what you need, which in this case is reflected here quite literally as Vegapunk getting “too close to the sun” which is symbolized by him literally trying to create an artificial sun that ultimately burned his wings and led to his downfall.

Joyboy the First Pirate

Let’s however skip to the final part of the message, at least for this chapter:

So let me explain what is going to happen to the world by going step by step.
First we need to talk about the century that lasted from 900 to 800 years ago.
Though the truth is that it’s a part of history that has been left completely blank…
This is what is known as the “Void Century”, of which all records of it have been erased.
So the only way I had to learn more about it was to read the “poneglyphs”, letters from the past that have been scattered all over the world.
But within this history exists a “tale”…

In other words, I have only come to learn an incomplete amount of the tale from this century.
As much as I would like to fill in the gaps with my speculation, I’ll just state what I know for a fact…!!
The main character of this tale…
Is someone who was born 900 years ago in a kingdom with an incredibly advanced civilization.
It was said he could fight by stretching his body, like the Sun God Nika from cultures like that of Elbaf.
His name was “Joyboy”.
And he was the first man in this sea to call himself a “pirate”!!!

Now, the fascinating thing here is that Vegapunk refers to the history of the Void Century holding a certain “tale”. The word here is “monogatari”, which is the Japanese word for a story, a tale, like that of a book. And Vegapunk refers to Joyboy as quite literally the “shujinko”, or “main character”, the “protagonist” of this tale. This is kind of a big deal because as we’ve talked about several times before, we now know that “Nika” is not a real existing person. Rather, as Kuma and Saturn described him, he was a “fictional superhero”, just the subject of legendary stories.

However, we do know that there was someone who did become Nika in the real world during the Void Century who came to be called by the superhero name of “Joyboy”, much like say other superheroes like Astroboy, or Superboy. The way that he was able to achieve this, becoming like the fictional superhero Nika like Vegapunk describes even here, is through having eaten the Hito Hito no Mi, Mythical Model: Nika and thus transforming into the mythical fictional character that is Nika in reality. So while Nika was just a fictional figure of a superhero with the superpower to stretch his body, a certain man of unknown real name came to be known as the real life superhero “Joyboy” by eating this devil fruit and thus incarnating Nika. This is why Luffy has been referred to by the same superhero name of “Joyboy”, since he has been the first person since the Void Century to eat the fruit and awaken it, thus embodying Nika himself as well.

In this case however not only are all of these concepts reinforced, but we are also introduced to what has been a long standing belief, that this Joyboy was in fact also considered the first pirate in history. That isn’t to say that sea criminals may not have existed previously, but Joyboy may have been the one that popularized the concept of what it truly means to be a pirate during the Void Century. We’ve already talked before about how many of us believe the ancient kingdom was likely a kingdom of pirates. Lily spoke of raising the “flag of the Dawn”, giving the image of a pirate flag, against a “something something -ing world”. Which by the way, a lot of Japanese fans have brought up the grammar fits quite nicely in Japanese with a certain interpretation for Lily’s message: “The poneglyphs must be protected. Bear the flag of the Dawn against this sinking world”, which now would make all the more sense.

But it would make sense if this ancient kingdom wasn’t just a monarchy, but rather built more like a pirate crew, a nation of pirates that sought to liberate the world and make all people equal. Sailing the seas as pirates not to steal and plunder, but to oppose the oppressive human kingdoms that monopolized power and enslaved the populace. So miserable were those suffering during the Void Century that they began to venerate a fictional cartoonish figure like Nika like a god, because they hoped that their lives could experience even just the remote feeling of joy that this fictional story brought them. And from the dreams and hopes of these people came to be the Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Nika, which a certain man came to eat, embodying this fictional superhero as the real life hero going by the name of “Joyboy”.

The fact that Vegapunk parallels Joyboy as being the “main character” of a “tale” may be to draw a further parallel of how this Joyboy became a main character of a story by literally embodying Nika, the main character of his own fictional tale, once again suggesting that this fictional superhero may have arisen from a certain story, a certain tale. A story so silly and funny that it causes laughter, specifically because of how goofy Nika is when he fights, bringing smiles to our faces through how absurdly silly and funny Nika’s fights are. Perhaps even… a laugh tale?