Saturos

Saturos is a Mars Adept who along with his partner Menardi is the main antagonist of Golden Sun. The pair leads the original effort to break the seal on Alchemy and bring it back to the world of Weyard, and is opposed by Isaac's party all throughout the first game.

=Biography=

Saturos hails from the northernmost settlement on the world map, the colony of Prox. He and the Proxeans are of a distinctive humanlike race that is characterized by almost reptilian scales and spikes on various areas of their flesh, and more importantly, their natural adeptness and extreme potential in proficency to the Mars element. They are thus afforded both a natural toughness unconventional by normal human standards and a natural immunity to the constant cold of their environment. Among Prox's military, Saturos has become recognized as the village's strongest warrior, even amongst his contemporaries Agatio, Menardi, and Karst.

Alchemy and the Elemental Stars
Three years before the present, the chieftain of Prox, Puelle, found that the abyss at the edge of the world a distance north of Prox has been growing in size, and that in the distant-yet-near future, it will eventually swallow up both the town and the nearby Mars Lighthouse. He and the Elder of Prox deduce that this is caused by the absence of Alchemy, and that to circumvent this the Elemental Lighthouses must each be activated with their respective Elemental Stars, currently hidden within Sol Sanctum down south in Angara. However, when Prox sent envoys to the town of Vale which guarded the sanctum, the envoys were stubbornly turned back by the town's elders and mayor, which eventually forced Prox's authority to make the decision to pilfer the Stars outright. So, Puelle organized the extremely talented and hardened Saturos, Menardi, and several other of Prox's finest soldiers into a raiding party that would travel down to Vale and covertly steal the Elemental Stars.

When Saturos and his raiding party arrived at Vale and infiltrated Mt. Aleph and the Sol Sanctum within during the night, they came upon the sanctum's ancient riddles and traps. One of the switches they triggered, alas, was such a deathtrap: In a matter of minutes, all of Saturos' raiding party was killed with Saturos and Menardi being the only ones to survive, barely making it out of Sol Sanctum with their lives, while a magically generated thunderstorm emerged around Mt. Aleph and assaulted the town of Vale below. A large boulder situated on Mt. Aleph named the Mt. Aleph Boulder became dislodged and rolled on a course of destruction through the town. As Saturos and Menardi reconvened at an empty area in Vale to gather their thoughts about what has happened, they suddenly found that they were being eavesdropped on by two young Valeans, Isaac and Garet; Saturos and Menardi immediately assaulted them and knocked them unconscious so that they would lose their memories of the Mars Adepts, who then left Vale to head back home to Prox.

Saturos and Menardi, as they passed by the river flowing away from the town, discovered four more unconscious Valeans floating upon it: Felix, his two parents, and Isaac's father Kyle, all who had been impacted by the Mt. Aleph Boulder. The pair of Mars Adepts may have felt remorse for the disaster they caused for the town, for they saved the Valeans' lives and took them back to Prox. Saturos and Menardi reported to Puelle and the Elder everything that had transpired.

Over the next three years, Felix and the Valean adults lived in Prox where they were conceptually kept as Prox's hostages. Saturos insisted to Puelle that the Valeans be explicitly held as Prox's hostages, perhaps having the idea that the town of Vale would comply in handing the Elemental Stars to them if they presented their hostages as objects for ransom, but Puelle disagreed and stated his will to set the Valeans free. In the meantime, Saturos and Menardi conducted some in-depth research on each of the Elemental Lighthouses, and they discovered that, in order to even enter a Lighthouse, you need an Adept of that Lighthouse's respective element, meaning that Saturos and Menardi need to be accompanied by at least one each of a Mercury Adept, Venus Adept, and Jupiter Adept the next time they set out to light the Lighthouses. (The Jupiter Lighthouse, in particular, also needs some sort of artifact named the Shaman's Rod in some way.) So, Saturos decided that he would have Felix be the Venus Adept in their future party, and as he trained Felix he bent Felix to his will by virtue of the fact that Felix's parents are kept quarantined at Prox and that they will be set free once Saturos' objective is fulfilled. In addition, during their research ventures, Saturos and Menardi encountered the Mercury Adept Alex, a guardian of the Mercury Lighthouse, and Alex agreed to aid them in their soon-to-be quest by traveling with them as their Mercury Adept who will allow them to enter Mercury Lighthouse.

Invasion of Sol Sanctum
Finally, in the present day and age, the Adepts Saturos, Menardi, Alex, and Felix depart Prox on Menardi's Lemurian Ship and set out on their worldwide effort to initiate Alchemy's restoration. The four travelers sail to Idejima on the continent Gondowan and anchor their ship there, and travel far north to Angara to reach Vale and Sol Sanctum. Before they enter Felix's very hometown for the first time in three years, Felix forces Saturos to promise him not to let any of the people of Vale, particularly Felix's former childhood friends Isaac and Garet and especially his younger sister Jenna, get involved in what they're trying to do. The Mars Adepts and Felix then lodge at Vale's inn without introducing themselves to the Mayor of Vale (since it was him who turned Prox down previously), and Saturos and Menardi then investigate matters around town.

Saturos and Menardi stop by the cottage of the wizened scholar of Alchemy, Kraden, and they attempt to glean information from him about Sol Sanctum by telling him about how they plan to "set the elements into motion" and that "the Elemental Stars are the key" to doing this, things that not even Kraden and the elders of Vale are aware of. Kraden tells them off by stating that on this day he has a big errand to run with Isaac, Garet, and Jenna. After leaving, Saturos and Menardi convene in secret, noting that Kraden's knowledge of Alchemic matters is no meager thing; they might be able to use him for their own purposes on their soon-to-begin quest. But then they are happened upon by the three teenagers Kraden was waiting for, and while they are unnerved by Saturos and Menardi's somewhat inhuman appearance they do not remember their past encounter with the pair three years back. After a tense interaction, Saturos decides to let them pass and see Kraden.

When Saturos, Menardi, Felix, and Alex eventually commence their secretive second invasion and exploration of Sol Sanctum, they find that another group is conducting an investigation of their own ahead of them, which are indeed Kraden and the three teenagers Saturos saw earlier. Saturos and Menardi are quick to seize the situation and take Jenna and Kraden hostage, demanding that Isaac and Garet retrieve the Elemental Stars for them. When Kraden asks what guarantee he and the others have that Saturos will not harm them if they give the Elemental Stars to him, Menardi has Felix remove his mask and reveal his identity to everyone, shocking everyone effectively into submission. Isaac and Garet hand Saturos the three Stars they currently collected and go to retrieve the fourth, the Mars Star, for him.

When Isaac removes the Mars Star from its pedestal, however, the mountain suddenly begins to erupt as a volcano and the star chamber begins to collapse, and everyone watches as the almighty protector of Alchemy's seal, the Wise One, emerges into view. Saturos' group realizes that they cannot get the Mars Star without very likely dying, so they must flee with their own lives as they leave Isaac and Garet and the Mars Star behind. It would obviously be truly terrible if the Mars Star was lost with the two boys, but before they flee Alex proposes to take Jenna and Kraden with them as hostages to accompany their group on their soon-to-begin global trek; if Isaac and Garet survive, they will pursue Saturos' group with the aim to free Jenna and Kraden from their grasp in the near future, at which point they can relieve Isaac of the Mars Star by force. Felix lashes out at Alex for breaking their promise, but Alex states that the circumstances have obviously changed since then and that Jenna would probably die if they didn't take her with them. With this decided, Saturos and his group reluctantly flee the erupting mountain.

Angara and the Mercury Lighthouse
The effects of Mt. Aleph's eruption have already begun to change the world. Saturos and Menardi's group now numbers six, with two new captive members now accompanying them on their quest, and Saturos's aim to start off with is to enter and light the nearest Lighthouse, Mercury Lighthouse, to the north. In their immediate trek to Mercury Lighthouse, the group first passes through the town of Vault, briefly staying there, and then they travel through Goma Range. Whether or not they then pass through or stay in the town of Bilibin is unmentioned, but the party then travels up north through Bilibin Cave to reach the continent's snow-capped region, where Imil and the Mercury Lighthouse are located. After Alex admits them into Mercury Lighthouse with his Mercury Psynergy and the group climbs through the Lighthouse to arrive at the tower's aerie, Saturos and Alex cast the Mercury Star into the well of the Mercury Lighthouse to light the Mercury Beacon. With one Lighthouse lit, three remain before the seal on Alchemy is broken.

As soon as the lighthouse beacon is activated, fate plays a hand as a group of four traveling Adepts suddenly arrive to confront them, and they are comprised of Alex's clanmate Mia, a young boy named Ivan, and none other than Isaac and Garet, who survived Mt. Aleph's eruption and have indeed come to stop Saturos' quest and take back Jenna and Kraden. Saturos and Alex immediately hide behind the Mercury Beacon to discuss what this means and what they are going to do, and Saturos soon steps into view to confront Isaac's traveling party while Alex watches from secret. He instructs Menardi to take Jenna, Kraden, and Felix away from the lighthouse via the elevator while he engages the opposing Adepts in Battle. Not surprisingly, Saturos is an immensely powerful combatant who could easily have killed all of Isaac's party under normal circumstances. As fate would have it, however, Saturos finds he is battling with a huge handicap: The newly released element of the lighthouse, Mercury, is in direct opposition to Saturos' innate element of Mars, causing his Mars Psynergy abilities to be drastically weakened. This leads to Saturos suffering a surprising defeat at the hands of the four Adepts. Alex immediately appears and stalls for time for Saturos to recuperate while he talks to Isaac's party, and then Alex and Saturos flee the Lighthouse from Isaac using Alex's warping Psynergy. After the events at Mercury Lighthouse, Saturos and Alex rejoin Menardi and the others, and they immediately resume their journey to the next Lighthouse.

In the extended period of time to come, Saturos' group travels all across Angara, along the way either directly or indirectly causing problems for the various towns and locations they go through to impede the progress of Isaac's pursuing party. Among Saturos' less-than-honorable activities during this period are when he crosses through Bilibin Barricade and pushes Koliman children already petrified as trees by the curse of Tret into the river for no apparent reason; when his group reaches Fuchin Temple and he forces Master Nyunpa to reveal his secrets so that his group can then cross through Mogall Forest; and beyond the town of Xian, Saturos causes a landslide at Alpine Crossing to block off an important trade route and prevent Isaac's party from catching up to them, in the process injuring and trapping an uninvolved person named Hsu. Saturos and his band soon travel through the scorching heat of Lamakan Desert without much incident or trouble because, as the oracle Hama theorizes to Isaac's pursuing party at a later point, Saturos' Mars-based powers somehow allow them to suppress the heat for his group.

Gondowan and the Venus Lighthouse
Saturos and his band eventually pass by the town of Kalay at southwestern Angara and take a ferry service across the Karagol Sea to the continent Gondowan, where the next lighthouse, the Venus Lighthouse, is located. While they travel through the Suhalla Desert in the Lighthouse's direction, effortlessly slaying the powerful Tornado Lizards that have taken over the desert, Saturos happens upon the young girl Sheba lost in the desert. He sees she is in fact a Jupiter Adept, and therefore the one he's been looking for, so he and Menardi take her captive just like Jenna and Kraden; Felix at this point begins to mount objections against Saturos' procedures in response to their kidnapping yet another uninvolved party. Soon they arrive at Venus Lighthouse, and Felix, like Alex with Mercury Lighthouse, uses his Venus Psynergy to admit them entry into the tower.

In Venus Lighthouse, as Saturos' band climbs up through the tower, Saturos and Menardi take Sheba with them to the top as they order Felix and Alex to lead Jenna and Kraden outside to Idejima, the place where Menardi moored their ship a long while back. Saturos and Menardi are about to light the Venus Beacon on the Venus Lighthouse's aerie, however, when Felix suddenly arrives back up there by himself. Felix demands to know why they haven't released Sheba to the Laliverans, and Saturos explains how they need her in order to climb and activate Jupiter Lighthouse in the future. On that note, Felix proclaims he will take Sheba away from the tower and down to Idejima for safety's sake, but Saturos and Menardi deny Felix his demand, pointing out out that they cannot trust him anymore. Felix readies himself to attack Saturos and Menardi outright when at that moment, Isaac's party arrives at the aerie to confront Saturos and Felix. A tense standoff occurs where Saturos threatens to harm Sheba unless Ivan gives him the Shaman's Rod in Ivan's possession. Isaac and Ivan agree to his terms, assuming that Saturos means he would free Sheba from their hold once they have the rod, and Saturos has Felix be the one to take the rod from Isaac so as to ensure his continued loyalty to them. But Saturos clarifies to Isaac afterwards that he only said he wouldn't let harm come to her; he never actually said he'd let Sheba go, to Isaac's party's exasperation.

Saturos and Menardi then decide it is time for Isaac's party to die and they launch an all-out offensive against Isaac's group. The master Mars Adepts are indeed immensely powerful opponents together, and unlike at Mercury Lighthouse their Mars powers are fully powered. But the fierce battle eventually ends when Isaac, Garet, Ivan, and Mia prove powerful enough themselves that they actually defeat the pair regardless. But Saturos and Menardi are not out of the picture yet: After Isaac confronts Felix over the latter's involvement in Saturos' quest, Saturos arises and casually tosses the Venus Star into the Venus Lighthouse's well, to everyone's surprise and Isaac's horror. As the Venus Lighthouse activates, the structure's energy recharges the pair, despite their being Mars Adepts; as Saturos explains, Fire and Earth are symbiotic elements, so the Venus-based energy is beneficial to Mars Adepts almost as much as Venus Adepts. Saturos and Menardi then execute their ultimate power as their last stand against Isaac: magically merging together in a burst of energy to form a single, gigantic, terrifying creature resembling a two-headed dragon. The beast attempts to overwhelm and annihilate Isaac and his group with its superlative Mars powers, but through an intense battle Isaac ultimately slays the dragon in his greatest victory yet. The dragon reverts to the defeated forms of Saturos and Menardi, who express their disbelief in their complete defeat at the hands of people who should by all means be inferior to them. Thus, Saturos and Menardi fall backward into the Lighthouse's opening and meet their shared demise, and are gone for good.

Isaac's incredible victory over Felix's master intimidates Felix into declaring that he is no match for Isaac now, and thus he declares that he must now flee to complete Saturos' quest objective while he still can. But that is when the Venus Lighthouse suddenly experiences a violent earthquake as the structure itself evenly splits up into four quarters, as part of the process that lights the Venus Beacon on the tower's top; when Sheba loses her footing, falling off the side of the lighthouse, Felix insanely jumps clean off the tower after her, to the disbelief of Isaac and his companions. After the Lighthouse reforms and the chaos subsides with the Venus Beacon now brightly alight, Isaac and his friends assume Felix and Sheba have been killed, and that now that Saturos is gone their priority is searching for Jenna and Kraden. Both Felix and Sheba are far from dead, however; as a result of a series of fateful coincidences and incidents, Sheba and Felix land safely in the water while the nearby Idejima, which has been severed off from the mainland in the quake, floats east out to sea, and the two swim to the island to rejoin Alex, Jenna, and Kraden, reporting everything that has transpired, including the deaths of Saturos and Menardi. Now that they're gone along with the Black Orb they used to commandeer Menardi's ship, the ship that's at the island with them is now useless.

In Golden Sun: The Lost Age
Saturos and Menardi, of course, are never seen in person in The Lost Age, but they are by no means no longer important to the story; the entire course of the game's story revolves around Saturos' legacy. Felix leads the party of Jenna, Sheba, and Kraden across much of Weyard in his quest to eventually reach and properly climb Jupiter Lighthouse, while Alex operates on the sidelines and threatens Felix to hasten the latter's progress in achieving Saturos' original objective. (In one scene, though, Alex expresses how he thinks Saturos and Menardi were pretty much simple brutes lacking in intelligence, since while they were climbing Venus Lighthouse the Mars Adepts were having some serious trouble solving the structure's riddles). Felix and Jenna's drive in doing this is to earn the freedom of their parents at Prox and to save the town itself from eventual destruction. At the same time, two other warriors from Prox, Agatio and Karst, set out to search for Isaac and gain vengeance upon him for his killing of Saturos and Menardi.

Much later on in their epic journey, Felix's group discovers and enters the lost society of Lemuria, and from there he learns that the world of Weyard has effectively been dying and shrinking in size because of Alchemy's absence; in order to save the entire world from collapsing in the distant-yet-near future, Alchemy must be returned.

Eventually at Jupiter Lighthouse (which is eventually lit by Felix), Karst and Agatio make their move against Isaac's party, but Felix's party steps in to battle them off, and the dramatic personal conflicts are eventually resolved when Karst takes the Mars Star and Alex advises them to flee the tower while they can so that the Mars Adepts can finish Saturos' goal by activating Mars Lighthouse to the north by Prox. While Felix and Isaac's respective parties engage in a discussion and resolve their misunderstandings about each other and the overall circumstances, Agatio and Karst return north to their hometown of Prox on their way to light Mars. The pair report to the Proxeans before leaving for Mars Lighthouse that Saturos and Menardi were slain in battle by Isaac during their original journey; while the villagers of Prox are shocked, they are not vengeful themselves. Puelle, in fact, gives the order that when Isaac and Felix come to Prox later, their respective parents shall be set free from their quarantine, though it turns out that the parents have suddenly disappeared on their own. When Isaac and Felix's combined party eventually travels to Prox in the Lighthouse's direction, they explain to the Proxeans why and how things happened at Venus Lighthouse, and Isaac receives the Proxeans' forgiveness.

Karst and Agatio are confronted by a mysterious entity in Mars Lighthouse and are turned into dragons, which Isaac and Felix unwittingly kill when they engage the beasts in battle later during their exploration of the tower. Karst and Agatio, near death, put aside their past antagonism with Isaac and entrust the Mars Star to the Adepts so that the Adepts may be the ones to finally fulfill Saturos' goal and save the world. This is as it happens: After the Adepts experience a series of incredibly dramatic events and revelations of their own atop Mars Lighthouse Aerie, the Mars Lighthouse is finally lit, and all four Lighthouses operate to break the seal on Alchemy within Mt. Aleph and restore the great force to the world at last.

=As a boss= Saturos is the only major boss opponent in the Golden Sun games to be fought in three separate, scripted instances, one anonymously. This signifies his role of chief antagonist towards the player's party.

In the prologue sequence
The first battle with him takes place in the game's prologue in Vale, labeled at that point in the game as "Mystery Man", and he fights you along with Menardi (appropriately named "Mystery Woman"). This scripted battle, near the end of the prologue sequence, is the only one in the game that the player's party is expected to lose within a turn, since the two playable characters, young Isaac and Garet, are extremely weak while their opponents are about as durable as when they are fought at the end of the game. When the party loses, the following cutscene plays, where it's Isaac and Garet laying on the ground and Saturos and Menardi leaving the screen off the left.

Saturos as Mystery Man has 3000 HP, 260PP, 63 Attack, 22 Defense, 9 Agility, and 40 Luck. He has extremely high Mars resistance and decreasing resistance values to Jupiter, Venus, and then Mercury in that order. His battle commands are to physically Attack, cast the Fireball and Eruption Psynergies which both end up instantly defeating Isaac and Garet, and his trademark monster skill Heat Flash for strong damage and Delusion-inflicting to one member. Since he cannot be defeated normally, he does not yield any EXP or coins when slain.

If one hacks the game so that young Isaac and Garet are strong enough to defeat Mystery Man and Mystery Woman, what happens afterwards is exactly the same as if it was the opponents that won: The cutscene where Isaac and Garet are knocked out on the ground, the pair of Mars Adepts leaving off to the left.

On Mercury Lighthouse
This scripted battle with Saturos alone occurs after you are teleported to the aerie of Mercury Lighthouse somewhat early on in Golden Sun, triggering as soon as you approach the Lighthouse's central region with the beacon (this gives you an opportunity to heal and recharge your party with the nearby Psynergy stone.) This is a battle which you are required to win this time around, and while he is not as strong as normal he will be a far tougher enemy encounter to survive and win than anything before that point in the game. This version of Saturos features 1200 HP, 160PP, 113 Attack, 35 Defense, 51 Agility, and 40 Luck. Otherwise he is the same as his first appearance, with his resistances the same and his abilities to physically attack and use the Fireball, Eruption, and Heat Flash effects for strong damage and Delusion-inflicting to one member. When he is defeated, the party is rewarded with 331 Exp, 800 Coins, and a Psy Crystal.

To do well against this challenging boss fight, ideally each of your party members have two Djinn each, and it would be a good idea to use their battle effects and then use them for summoning all throughout the battle. Mia summoning Nereid for two Mercury Djinn is the strongest offense available against Saturos, but this is risky because the battle is challenging enough that usage of many healing spells will probably be necessary, and Mia is most often used for healing. A viable alternative is to Set the Mercury Djinn onto Isaac or Garet so that he will become a Swordsman whose Mercury-based Cutting Edge Psynergy is a reliable strong single-target attack.

On Venus Lighthouse
At the end of Golden Sun, the final two-part sequence of boss battles will trigger in much the same way as on Mercury Lighthouse, with the party walking up to the center of the lighthouse's top. After a relatively lengthy cutscene, the first of what will be two boss battles will occur, which is when Saturos is paired up against Menardi to fight against you. What makes things especially difficult is that after winning this first battle, the second battle against an even stronger enemy will automatically trigger with no chance of rest for the player. This final version Saturos features 3000 HP, 260PP, 403 Attack, 140 Defense, 160 Agility, and 50 Luck. His arsenal of moves is now far more powerful: In addition to his phyical attack and his returning Heat Flash skill that scores a strong blow that may inflict Delusion on a party member, he now casts the Inferno and Pyroclasm Psynergies, the former of which always strikes all Adepts and the latter of which is the strongest of all multi-target Mars Psynergies. He can also cast Potent Cure to heal himself or Menardi by over 300 HP, Protect to increase his and Menardi's physical Defense ratings, Haunt to attempt to inflict multiple Adepts with the Haunt status condition, and Break to remove any statistical buffs Isaac's party may have received during the battle. When he is defeated, the party is rewarded with 3000 Exp and 3600 coins, which adds up with Menardi's share to make a total of 6000 EXP and 7800 coins.

While in this fight Saturos is the more physically damaging of the two opponents, many players would consider Menardi to be the more dangerous one because her monster skill Death Size is an attack that has a chance to instantly kill an Adept, so she is often focused on defeating first. Regardless, the remainder of the battle will become much easier once one of the two antagonists are taken out.

=Trivia=
 * In a beta screen of the original Golden Sun originating from that game's development, Saturos originally had a rather different, more humanlike appearance (pictured). Note the lack of pointed ears.

=Quotes= (Coming soon)

=In fan circles= Saturos as a character is popular for being a main character and essentially the main "villain" of the first Golden Sun. Being revealed to have had partially noble intentions from the start along with his partner in crime Menardi in The Lost Age has made Saturos receive all the more focus for fan fiction authors to depict. The obvious shipping relationship Saturos is shown to have is with Menardi, in a genre called Proxshipping.