Moloch


 * [[Image:Moloch_Icon_GSDD.jpg]] "The sacred ice monster."

Moloch is a Summon of the Mercury element first appearing in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. When two Mercury Djinn and one Jupiter Djinni are on standby, and Moloch’s Summon Tablet has been collected, the Moloch Summon sequence can be activated. It resembles a massive, white-furred, single-horned dog-like monster appearing out of a falling snowstorm and breathing ice at the opposition.

Basic Characteristics
Moloch has a base Mercury power of 100 and also does additional damage equivalent to 9% of the enemy’s maximum HP. In addition, all foes have their agility ratings cut down to 50%. Moloch, however, is not automatically summonable once one collects the required Djinn. Moloch can only be summoned once its Summon Tablet has been found and collected in the interior of Madra Catacombs in The Lost Age. This is a summon that is sometimes missed by players because the catacombs can be explored several times early in the game without possessing the Frost Psynergy and Tremor Psynergy necessary to reach the tablet. In Dark Dawn its summon tablet can be found in North Wall Shrine. If the player completes the events in Belinsk before obtaining Moloch, it becomes impossible to return and obtain the summon by normal means, but it can be accessed by means of the Endless Wall glitch. However, after doing this, northern Angara cannot be left by conventional means. The only way to return to the rest of the game is to fall in battle without having visited any towns since performing the glitch, which will send the party to the sanctum of the most recently visited town. Because of this, while Moloch might appear to be permanently missed, if glitches are used, it always remains possible to obtain it.

Analysis
Moloch is among Zagan (Venus), Megaera (Mars), and Flora (Jupiter) as a summon that is useful as an “alternative” summon for more powerful “traditional” summons. In The Lost Age however, once Piers, the Adept with the Psynergy means to reach Moloch, joins up, and provided the player has been careful to acquire all findable Djinn up to this point, the party can have a maximum of five Mercury Djinn by the time Moloch is acquired, so the powerful Boreas summon sequence may already have been used by the player for a while beforehand, and since Boreas does 2.4 times the amount of damage as Moloch, Moloch is already considered outclassed. However, two of the five Mercury Djinn that can be acquired are encountered in not-so-obvious areas of the overworld map, so more often than not a first-time player without a walkthrough handy will only have three Djinn (enough to summon Neptune) when they acquire Moloch. In this case, Moloch is considered a superior alternative to Neptune because it can do comparable damage while drastically lowering the agility rating of all foes. Although it is the strongest of the four “basic summons” of The Lost Age, Moloch will quickly be outclassed by later summons.

Cultural Allusions
Origin: Unknown, around North Africa, Middle East, and Europe.

In ancient texts there are many different interpretations of Moloch but the origins of such a deity are unknown. It is believed that Moloch was either the name of a god or a particular kind of sacrifice practiced by Phoenicans and other North African cultures. This particular sacrifice was young children being thrown into a gigantic fiery oven and cremated, which is actually directly opposite of the elemental association he has in Golden Sun. The Mesopotamians worshiped Moloch as Ba'al, the Moon God, whilst medieval European demonology saw Moloch as a Prince of Hell, due to his association with the fiery sacrifice. Moloch is also one of the Fallen Angels in John Milton's Paradise Lost, and is the Angel who openly advocates a revival of the war against God immediately during the Fallen Angels' conference in Pandaemonium, the capital city of Hell. However, he could also be a representation of the Yeti of Asia, specifically Russia.