#arknights be like 'lets invent another little girl to carry a generations long feud and be the hero to end it' -invents cecelia-

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Guide Ahead actually does bring up an interesting possible past between what caused the Sarkaz and Sankta to fight and I think it has to do with what the pope has locked in his basement.

I think Sankta are an artificial race who are predominantly based on Sarkaz modifying themselves to not be Sarkaz anymore.

It's been pretty omnipresent throughout the lore but Sarkaz are pretty much hated by every other race in Terra for a number of reasons: Usually infected with Oripathy, constant warring state that forces them to find work as mercenaries, very easy-to-vilify appearance, etc. And especially we see that Sarkaz and Sankta have a long-standing hatred between each other, where Sarkaz regularly raid and keep their patron weapons as trophies and Sankta regularly go on "cleaning missions" in return, and Pope Yvangelista XI himself confirms that this is a generations long feud where the original reason has long been forgotten but the hatred remains. That said it is made especially clear in the main story that what the Sarkaz all collectively yearn for is peace and for their King to lead them to said peace so that they no longer have to be a mercenary state at odds with itself or the rest of the world.

I think what the pope has locked in his basement isn’t a Feranmut, or some kind of eldritch entity, but rather Ancient Technology with an AI that works similarly to the Coffin, and that ancient Sarkaz used this technology to turn themselves into Sankta.

It’s been pretty clear throughout but the Sankta have always been presented as a bit more... cyborg-y and artificial than other races. All the E2 arts for Sankta operators show either technology or religious symbolism, with the ones that show birds also showing those birds as artificial constructs compared to all other E2 artworks, where the operators corresponding animal is show pretty clearly. They have more robotic elements overall compared to their peers, and if Sankta are in fact modified Sarkaz, it explains why Mostima (a fallen angel) now has an accompanying demon in her E2 art, because as a fallen Sankta she’s essentially reverted back to being Sarkaz, and thus now shows a demon instead of any religious imagery. There’s also the tidbits from the end of Ch8 where it shows an artificial Theresa growing in a test tube, which implies that Sarkaz are more technologically advanced and have more knowledge on modifying themselves than most people seem to realize.

There’s another layer to this: The Sankta empathy power. In Guide Ahead it’s shown that Sankta can sense each others emotions and largely have some empathy based superpowers where it’s brought up that actual vitriol among the Sankta is rare because their shared empathy means that they can’t really hide those emotions and thus have to confront them.

The only other specifically empathy based mental Arts shown in all of Arknights belong to Sarkaz as well, primarily to Amiya (who has the King of Sarkaz title and Arts given to her by Theresa), and Ines. As well, the Sarkaz collective consciousnesses brought up in Ch7 bears a huge resemblance to the Sankta laws and directives set by the thing in the popes basement, which leads me to believe that it’s not that the Sankta established the faith and empathy that many believe they do, but rather it was put into place there in the first place by Sarkaz trying to escape prosecution.

Essentially, ancient Sarkaz found underground ancient technology akin to the Coffin, modified themselves to be similar to the King of Sarkaz who can empathetically connect to the Sarkaz collective consciousnesses and the previous lives of past kings and other people, and created an artificial race of now angelic beings in order to escape persecution, with the downside of disobeying the laws for peace set by the machine to revert back to being Sarkaz, and the reason the feud between Sarkaz and Sankta started was because they clashed over whether to abandon their own races and become something new, or to remain as loyal Sarkaz.

The reason why Cecelia is a Sankta despite a Sarkaz father is because they’re the same race, and the only reason her wings and halo are slightly corrupted compared to others but she still has them is because being born of a Sarkaz father might have clouded whatever modifications exist inherently to every Sankta, yet because they’re still the same race it doesn’t really harm her in any way.

The reason the bell tower activated was because a Sarkaz went to ring it, not an artificial Sankta.