Saturos
 Saturos
| |
|---|---|
| |
| Element | Mars |
| Hometown | Prox |
| Hair color | Silvery blue |
| Eye color | Red |
| Weapons | Sword |
| Japanese name | サテュロス Satyros |
| French name | Salamandar |
Saturos (サテュロス Satyros) is a Mars Adept who, along with his partner Menardi, serves as the main antagonist of the first Golden Sun. The duo lead the original effort to break the seal on Alchemy and allow the potentially abusable power to return to the world of Weyard, and they are opposed by Isaac's party throughout the entirety of the first game. Though he is Menardi's superior and considered the leader of their operations, they are of one mind on many matters and rarely clash or disagree on the best course of action.
Biography
Saturos hails from the northernmost settlement in the known world, Prox, located far in the winter-locked Northern Reaches. He and the rest of Prox's people share a visually distinct appearance in that they seem to be humans for most intents and purposes, save for reptilian scales on their flesh and pointed ears giving somewhat dragon-like features. This may be related to the Proxians' natural proficiency in the Mars element, which seems to be an outcome of having lived near the fire-aligned Mars Lighthouse near the northern edge of the world. He is thus afforded both an impressive toughness and a natural immunity to the constant cold of his environment. Among Prox's elite warriors, Saturos is recognized as the village's strongest, even amongst his contemporaries Menardi, Agatio, and Karst.
As of several years before the present, the people of Prox know for certain that the abyss that lies north of Mars Lighthouse, Gaia Falls, is inexorably growing in size, and Puelle, Prox's chieftain, realizes that it will eventually plunge Mars Lighthouse and Prox itself into the void. Puelle somehow deduces that the absence of the power of Alchemy is the root issue, for the force had remained sealed away since the world's ancient past. Knowing that the seal lies in Mt. Aleph to the south, Puelle and the Elder of Prox send envoys to the village at its base, Vale, to try to convince its elders of the plight the world faces — but the elders stubbornly refuse to listen and forcefully drive them out. The envoys learn from this trip, however, that Mt. Aleph's Sol Sanctum contains the secret to breaking the seal: a set of four elementally imbued jewels, the Elemental Stars, which are to be cast into the wells at the aeries of the Elemental Lighthouses spread throughout the world.
In Golden Sun
Failed Raid on Sol Sanctum
Three years before the present, Prox dispatches a raiding party composed of the village's finest warriors, headed by Saturos and Menardi, and sends them south to Vale to secretly take the Elemental Stars from Sol Sanctum. That night, while attempting to deal with one of the sanctum's ancient riddles, they run afoul of a trap designed to punish those who do not use Psynergy to gain access into the chamber containing the Stars. In a matter of minutes, the entire raiding party ends up dead except for Saturos and Menardi, who themselves barely survive to make it out of Sol Sanctum. Mt. Aleph itself generates a violent and localized thunderstorm as a direct reaction to Saturos' intrusion, and the storm incidentally dislodges a large boulder somewhere on the mountain and makes it plummet through the village below.
As the two remaining Mars Adepts reconvene and take stock of their circumstances, they realize that a pair of boys from Vale, Isaac and Garet, are eavesdropping on them; Saturos and Menardi promptly render them unconscious in a way that deprives them of the memory of having witnessed the strangers. Just as the warriors begin their journey back to Prox, they discover several other villagers floating along a river leading away from Vale: Felix, his two parents, and Isaac's father Kyle, all of whom were knocked unconscious by the destructive boulder. Possibly motivated by some level of remorse for the consequences of their deeds, the duo save all four of their lives and bring them back to Prox.
Information on the three-year interim that takes place at Prox is somewhat vague. Over that time, Felix and the three adults from Vale are effectively forced to live as Prox's captives, largely on Saturos' insistence; though Puelle never intended to take hostages and disagrees with Saturos on the matter, Saturos' claim that holding them is a matter of Prox's "own safety" apparently sticks. In the meantime, Saturos and Menardi bide their time carefully researching each of the four Elemental Lighthouses. It is found that a given Lighthouse can only be entered by having an Adept of the corresponding element use their Psynergy to unseal its entrance, and Jupiter Lighthouse is a special case that also requires an artifact called the Shaman's Rod in some way.
As Felix happens to be a Venus Adept capable of producing the Psynergy needed to allow entry into Venus Lighthouse in the future, Saturos uses his captive parents to force Felix to follow him on his mission. Apparently, Felix does not fully grasp the significance that the quest to break Alchemy's seal will have in regards to saving the entire world, but the promise of freeing his parents makes him highly motivated to accompany Saturos. At the same time, a certain rebellious attitude Felix harbors is why Saturos apparently refuses to give him extensive combat training or let him fight over the course of their journey. Similarly, Saturos does not share with Felix knowledge of the research he and Menardi had conducted into the lighthouses.
At some point, Saturos comes across Alex, a Mercury Adept who is charged with protecting Mercury Lighthouse; highly interested in the prospect of letting Alchemy loose into the world, he is entirely willing to break his oath and agree to become the Adept who will help them enter the tower and light it in the future. Between him, Felix, and themselves, Saturos and Menardi now only need to somehow find a Jupiter Adept and the "Rod of Hesperia" at some point on their travels. With all their preparations complete, the Mars Adepts and their two willing conspirators eventually set off from Prox on a more serious effort to retrieve the Elemental Stars from Sol Sanctum, sailing on Menardi's own Psynergy-powered ship.
Theft of the Elemental Stars
The Mars Adepts Saturos and Menardi, joined by the Venus Adept Felix and Mercury Adept Alex, take Menardi's ship to a peninsula called Idejima on the continent Gondowan and anchor it there, and they travel north into Angara and eventually reach Mt. Aleph and Vale for the second time. In advance of their second attempt at a raid on Sol Sanctum, Felix forces his peers to promise him not to let any of Vale's villagers get caught up in their raid, especially Felix's younger sister Jenna and his former childhood friends Isaac and Garet.
The Mars Adepts and Felix — the latter of whom conceals his identity from the villagers using a mask — first lodge at Vale's inn without observing the time-honored custom of introducing themselves to Vale's mayor. While investigating the village for context regarding Sol Sanctum, the duo find that the elders of Vale evidently do not permit anyone in the village to plumb the mysteries of the sanctum their society venerates. They stop by the cottage of the elderly scholar Kraden, whom they find is a prominent authority on the vaguely understood subject of Alchemy. Kraden, as it turns out, was planning on visiting the earlier reaches of the normally restricted Sol Sanctum with his three pupils under the supervision of the elders. Saturos tells Kraden that he and Menardi had previously reached Sol Sanctum's inner depths and voluntarily discloses information that would hypothetically allow Kraden to reach as far as that, were Kraden to decide to make his own effort to do so. They also cryptically disclose that they are planning to use the four Elemental Stars to "set the four elements into motion."
Through what Saturos would consider both impressive stubbornness and cunning, Kraden is able to send the strangers away. As Saturos and Menardi privately decide on forcefully making use of Kraden for his knowledge, they are happened upon by the three teenagers whom Kraden was waiting for: Isaac, Garet, and Jenna, none of whom recognize them from three years earlier. Saturos takes offense at their accusation that they have been sneaking around the village, but he surprisingly soon relents and lets them have their appointment with Kraden, reasoning to Menardi that they have no particular reason to stop them.
It is not fully clear whether Saturos's disclosure of the existence of secret depths within Sol Sanctum was intended to spur Kraden into doing so, but Kraden suddenly convinces his pupils to accompany him into an unsupervised intrusion into Sol Sanctum. He reasons that they need to confirm whether the strangers were telling the truth about having seen the sanctum themselves, which would give Kraden's group the necessary grounding to notify the elders that Saturos' group are thieves out to rob the sanctum. When Kraden and his students sneak into Sol Sanctum, he makes use of Saturos' information to reach its further depths — but his own curiosity compels him to put their self-appointed responsibility to warn the elders on hold and press onward. The Mars Adepts and Felix secretly tail Kraden into the heart of the sanctum as Kraden's group successfully disarms the deadly trap with the young Adepts' Psynergy, and the scholar's group eventually manages to breach the cavernous Elemental Star Chamber.
As Kraden and Jenna have Isaac and Garet handle the legwork taking the four Elemental Stars off their pedestals on their respective "indoor islands," Saturos and Menardi make their move and take the scholar and the girl hostage. The masked Felix next enters the chamber to reassure the two captives that he made the warriors promise that they will not be hurt, though Saturos forebodingly warns that will depend on whether Isaac and Garet cooperate and hand over the Elemental Stars they've collected thus far. When Kraden demands a guarantee that they will hold true to that, Saturos agrees with Menardi's proposal to have Felix remove his mask and commands him by name to do so.
Felix is given no choice but to let his identity be outed to the people who thought he was dead for three years and would react the worst to the revelation that he is now willingly betraying his home village by helping his new "superiors" violate Sol Sanctum. Saturos soon puts a stop to what he dismissively calls the "teary reunion" between Felix and Jenna to get to the point: Since Felix would never allow his new allies to bring harm to his own sister or childhood friends, they can be trusted to hold their word. Alex suddenly chooses that moment to join Saturos in the chamber, and Saturos instructs Garet to hand their three Stars to Alex while clarifying that the two boys are expected to fetch the final Star for them as well.
Isaac and Garet, effectively shocked into submission, head over to the pedestal of the Mars Star and remove it — and this immediately causes the entire mountain to tremble and quake, leading Saturos to exclaim in distress that what befell his raiding party three years ago is seemingly happening again. Then, all parties present watch as an immensely powerful one-eyed entity Kraden identifies as the Wise One emerges into view, and Saturos realizes it is the guardian of the Elemental Stars. His group quickly realizes that it is now much too dangerous to try to take the Mars Star from Isaac under the creature's watch, and Saturos reluctantly remarks that "the Mars Star will have to wait for another day." When Menardi points out that the two boys could survive, Saturos agrees with Alex's proposal to take Jenna with them in addition to Kraden because the boys would pursue them for her freedom and bring them the final Star they need. As the four intruders start to flee the mountain with their two new captives and incomplete gains, Saturos has to order Menardi to stand down when tensions flare between her and Felix over her treatment of Jenna.
Mercury Lighthouse and the Journey to Gondowan
Saturos' company of travelers, now numbering six, have already initiated sweeping changes across Weyard by being involved in Mt. Aleph's eruption, which showered Psynergy Stones that have started making new Adepts emerge among the world's population while making travel much more dangerous by driving animals everywhere mad.
Given that Mercury Lighthouse is the closest to them geographically, the four travelers and their two captives stop at the town of Vault for the night; it is unclear whether it occurs to them at this time that the Shaman's Rod they will eventually need either is under the possession of the visiting Ivan or gets stolen and hidden by local thieves. Leaving the town without it at any rate, the company then heads through multiple cave networks up north into Imil, Alex's hometown. Alex uses Mercury Psynergy to unlock the lighthouse for his party, and they set up obstacles to prevent Alex's clanmate Mia from pursuing them. It is not long before the travelers arrive at the tower's aerie and cast the Mercury Star down the lighthouse's well, which irreversibly ignites the Mercury Beacon.
Just then, an entirely new group of four young Adepts suddenly arrive at the aerie to discover that Saturos already achieved his goal with the lighthouse; their numbers consist of Mia, Ivan and who turns out to be Isaac and Garet, who have survived the erupting chamber in Sol Sanctum. Saturos and Alex hide behind the beacon and listen as Menardi and Felix address them with the captives in tow, and it is quickly confirmed that Isaac's side means to put a stop to the entirety of Saturos' efforts to ignite the lighthouses. With it now established that exchanging Jenna for the Mars Star is out of the question, Saturos steps before the party and threateningly gloats that he will grant them their apparent death wishes. Rather than letting Menardi help him, Saturos firmly orders her to head for the next lighthouse immediately with the others, and he also expresses interest in seeing how far the Adepts' powers have developed.
Saturos' boasts about his "greatness" in the face of four opponents suddenly give way to alarm as he realizes that the Mercury Beacon just behind him is suppressing his own fire-based powers with its water-aligned energy to such an extent that it physically weakens him. He is thus thrust into a one-on-four fight with a severe handicap, and though he manages to be the party's most fearsome opponent by far even in this state, they manage to leave him lying prone on the ground. It is up to Alex to stall for time to allow him to at least stand back up, and Alex chooses to give a lecture on how Saturos ultimately failed to appreciate the power of the lighthouse beacon when he challenged them. Alex also admits that he did not step in to help because he was initially as certain as Saturos that he would win.
As Saturos weakly stands back up, he maintains his pride and bravado by proclaiming that it was the lighthouse itself he lost to, not them, and he chortles that the Venus and Jupiter Stars are currently in Menardi's care. Alex warps him away to the elevator while confirming that Isaac still has the Mars Star and means to pursue Saturos for the other two Stars, and Saturos parts with the sentiment that he looks forward to their next battle. He and Alex flee Mercury Lighthouse and rush to rejoin the other four members of their group, and it apparently takes them quite some time to catch up because they pass through Bilibin some time after the other four do the same.
Saturos and Menardi's extended group begins a long and drawn-out journey toward their next lighthouse, Venus Lighthouse, and their route is forcefully diverted into a clockwise trek across the brunt of Angara because of a critical bridge south of Vault that got destroyed by Mt. Aleph's eruption. Along the way, they both purposefully and indirectly cause problems at the various settlements and locales they pass through while attempting to slow down the pursuit of Isaac's party. No in-game reason is given as to why Saturos' group does not, at any point, move to put an end to Isaac's party and relieve them of the Mars Star by force.
One of the more objectionable deeds that happen under Saturos' watch is when some locals from Kolima Village get pushed into a river while they remain cursed with the forms of helpless trees, endangering their lives. In another instance, Saturos deliberately causes a landslide at Alpine Crossing to block Isaac's party, heedless of how it blocks a critical trade route stretching from southeastern Angara into northwestern Gondowan. Saturos evidently pays just as little heed to how that landslide traps and injures a local from the nearby town of Xian as his group proceeds further west.
Though the Lamakan Desert that next stands in their way was made unbearably hot as a result of Mt. Aleph's eruption, the company manages to pass through the desert with little issue because of their powers; it is speculated by a particular oracle based along the route that Saturos and Menardi's Mars-aligned powers might be helping to suppress the heat. The party eventually makes it south of the broken bridge from earlier and takes a ferry service west across the Karagol Sea, and they finally reach the city of Tolbi.
Downfall at Venus Lighthouse
Saturos' group apparently waits until after Tolbi's current tournament of warriors concludes for the year before proceeding east toward Venus Lighthouse, even though it allows Isaac's party enough time to catch up that Isaac himself ends up taking part in the competition. Once the festival is over, Saturos' company heads southeast through Suhalla Desert, another desert that his side's Adept powers easily compensate for the recently increased danger level of. During this stage of their journey, the group comes across a lost girl named Sheba, whom Tolbi's ruler had kept in his palace as his unwilling guest until just after the tournament, when he suddenly ordered his men to escort her back to her hometown, Lalivero. The soldiers making up her escort have since been driven out by the desert's local creatures.
Saturos immediately forces Sheba into his company because he secretly realizes that she is the Jupiter Adept they have been seeking for the purposes of their quest. Saturos does not tell Felix that this is the reason he is taking her, instead merely portraying her as a necessary piece of leverage in order to reach Venus Lighthouse. Both the tower and the town situated near it lie in territory that has been claimed by Tolbi's imperial control, after all. A great deal of friction occurs between Saturos and Felix over Sheba's involvement in their quest because Felix considers her unrelated to it, and he makes Saturos promise that Sheba will be released once they get into Venus Lighthouse. Felix makes a similar promise himself to protect her in the meantime.
Saturos and Menardi, their emotions apparently boiling over because of the rising tensions within the group, resort to violent and occasionally lethal force to push past the guards stationed at Suhalla Gate and surrounding Venus Lighthouse itself. Once they reach the entrance at the base of the tower, Felix uses his powers as a Venus Adept to grant the party entry, but they soon find that this is merely Venus Lighthouse's conspicuous "one-way exit out." They come back out seeking the Venus Ruins up north that house the true underground entrance into the tower. This forces the company to pass north through Lalivero itself, and Saturos and Menardi strike down more of Tolbi's soldiers stationed at the town's gate and threateningly display Sheba as their hostage to cow Lalivero's stunned townsfolk into standing down and letting them pass. The Mars Adepts then use their fire Psynergy to violently drive away the workmen who are currently constructing the tower that Tolbi's monarch wanted built atop Venus Ruins.
Saturos' company enters Venus Lighthouse through its true basement-level entrance and begins a laborious climb toward its aerie — and it is all the more difficult because seemingly neither of the Mars Adepts possesses the intellect required to solve the ancient riddles set up within the tower. After presumably being walked through the lighthouse by the other four members of their group, the company clears the way to the aerie, and Menardi orders Felix to lead Jenna and Kraden back to Idejima where she had left her ship dormant. Saturos, on the other hand, has Sheba accompany the duo to the aerie without disclosing a particular reason for it, and Felix is dissatisfied with their assurance to him that she will be safe under their watch.
Atop the aerie, Saturos and Menardi are on the verge of casting the Venus Star into the well when they are suddenly interrupted by Felix, who has returned seeking to keep his prior promise to Sheba. Felix demands to know why they have not released her, and he is hardly surprised when Saturos confirms that Sheba being a Jupiter Adept makes her utterly indispensable to their quest. Felix works out from their experiences with the first two lighthouses what the Mars Adepts had already known since before the quest started — that entry into Jupiter Lighthouse will require a Jupiter Adept like Sheba. Though Felix seems willing to grant them this, he is still aggressively concerned that Venus' ignition could bring about chaos that would needlessly put Sheba in danger, and he announces that he will take Sheba to the safety of the ship.
This defiant tone, however, evaporates Saturos and Menardi's willingness to trust him, and they refuse his demands. Felix makes it clear that he would fight the duo outright in a bid to secure Sheba's freedom from them, but they logically observe that his chances of winning against them and actually keeping his word are nonexistent. Saturos cites that this attitude was precisely why they had never let him fight and gain combat experience, and he and Menardi are seemingly about to put an end to Felix... but at that moment, Isaac's party arrives at the scene, once again seeking to stop them from lighting the beacon. Felix immediately objects to Isaac "rescuing" him and yells that he will settle things with the Mars Adepts on his own. When Felix once again exclaims to the duo that Sheba has "nothing to do with this," Saturos bellows that both of them will suffer if he keeps it up.
Isaac and his friends suddenly reveal their own interest in Sheba's safety, which gives Saturos an idea to improvise a plan that will shift the circumstances in his favor. He first has Sheba affirm telepathically that the Shaman's Rod currently held by Isaac's companion, Ivan, is indeed the Rod of Hesperia that is needed to "reach" Jupiter Lighthouse. Based on this, Saturos seemingly negotiates a deal with Isaac in which Sheba will not be "harmed" once the rod is handed over. Saturos tricks Isaac into interpreting this as a vow to set Sheba free, perhaps letting him think Saturos considers the rod itself to be the more important commodity of the two at the moment. Saturos tells Felix to take the rod and keep it safe so as to continue proving himself loyal to the Mars Adepts; Felix clearly resents the implication, but he agrees out of practicality. When Saturos then clarifies that he had never actually said that Sheba would be "free to leave," Isaac's side cannot restrain their outrage.
Saturos and Menardi then wryly reason that releasing Sheba now would endanger her life... since Isaac's party would not be around to escort her back to Lalivero. The Mars Adepts lunge forth and attempt to kill the four meddlers, and this time, there are no external factors to give Isaac's side an advantage. Astonishingly, the four battle-hardened Adepts manage to not only survive the brutal onslaught but leave Saturos and Menardi injured on the ground — but the party is greatly taken aback when Felix confirms his intention to light the remaining lighthouses despite seemingly having been "freed" from Saturos' "control." Saturos then takes the opportunity to casually toss the Venus Star into the nearby well right under everyone's noses, immediately securing another long-term victory over Isaac. He and Menardi then reveal that the earth-aligned energy now flowing out of the lighthouse will restore their vitality and fighting fitness, since the elements of fire and earth share a symbiotic relationship.
As the duo prepare to do battle with Isaac's side again, they greatly surprise Felix by suddenly telling him to take Sheba safely to the ship like he had originally wanted, reasoning that they might not have the strength to protect Sheba afterward. However, Felix now exclaims that he cannot leave the two to fight Isaac by themselves and potentially lose to their opponents again — but the Mars Adepts, perceiving this offer to be coming from Felix being emotionally on the fence regarding his childhood friends' impending deaths, suggest to him that he may be too incapable of bearing that sight to resist trying to save Isaac in the end. This indirect appeal to Felix's dedication to his and the Mars Adepts' ultimate mission successfully prompts Felix to loudly affirm that he will take Sheba for them as they wish.
Saturos and Menardi suddenly overflow with Psynergy and cackle that it is now too late for Isaac's party to run, and they willfully initiate an unexplained process that spectacularly merges and transforms their bodies into a massive two-headed dragon, which attempts to annihilate Isaac's party with its terrifying power. In an outcome that defies belief, Isaac and his seasoned party of warriors manage to defeat even this final stand mounted by the Mars Adepts. After they revert back to their defeated forms, Saturos weakly questions how they lost, and he and Menardi perish as they fall backward into the Lighthouse's gaping well.
Felix, intimidated by Isaac's demonstrated abilities given how intimately he had known of the duo's power, announces to the victors that he has no choice but to flee with Sheba and finish Saturos' original objective. Venus Lighthouse suddenly generates a violent yet localized earthquake that leads to both Sheba and Felix falling off the tower, though the simultaneous occurrence of Idejima breaking off from Gondowan allows them to fall safely into the newly exposed area of ocean that has just flooded the base of the tower. The two survivors swim onto the now-buoyant island as it floats off to sea, where they reunite with Jenna, Kraden, and Alex. All five of them are left with the tricky question of how they can resume Saturos' quest to light the Jupiter and Mars Beacons because they no longer have access to the means to make use of Menardi's ship being carried along with the island.
Postmortem
Saturos and Menardi's shared legacy critically shapes the entirety of the story in Golden Sun: The Lost Age, given that it pertains to a conflict between Felix's traveling party of Adepts seeking to light the remaining lighthouses and Isaac's party seeking to stop it. Felix must additionally deal with the Mars Adepts Karst and Agatio, who sail from Prox in search of their missing kin and soon swear vengeance upon Isaac for slaying them. In Karst's case, things are especially personal because Menardi was her elder sister. Alex soon associates with the duo and makes use of them to pressure Felix's party into lighting Jupiter more expediently; Alex very bluntly tells Karst and Agatio that because Saturos and Menardi were "somewhat lacking" when it came to solving the mysteries of the lighthouses, he would leave the task to Felix's party instead of letting the duo pick up and finish the job themselves.
At one point in his travels, Felix allies with one Piers and pursues a quest to return him to his mysterious homeland in the heart of the Eastern Sea, Lemuria, and it is there that Felix learns that the seal binding Alchemy is doing more to directly imperil the world than he realized. Therefore, finishing Saturos' objective to light all four beacons carries importance even beyond his motivation to win his parents' freedom from Prox. A dramatic series of incidents eventually take place at Jupiter Lighthouse that result in its beacon being lit, and Alex prevents any deaths from occuring among any of the sides involved and ensures that Karst and Agatio make off with Isaac's Mars Star to try to light Mars Lighthouse by themselves. Felix and Isaac's parties soon reconcile their differences and make a combined effort to light Mars Lighthouse when it is evident Agatio's efforts failed.
Even though Agatio had told the people of Prox that Isaac was the one who killed Saturos and Menardi, the people of Prox do not jump at the opportunity to condemn Isaac when Felix leads their combined party north to Mars Lighthouse. The people and their leaders accept that Isaac merely sought to regain what Saturos stole and did not expect them to fling themselves into the opening of Venus Lighthouse's beacon when they were defeated, and they tell Isaac that he should be proud of having been stronger than the duo in the end. The soldiers of Prox send off Isaac and Felix to Mars Lighthouse with their blessings, and the parents whom Saturos originally had Prox keep captive are allowed to go free.
Eventually, the combined party of Adepts discover the Mars Star in the lighthouse and successfully manage to light the Mars Beacon using it, though only after they are forced to pass a hideously cruel test of their wills. The Golden Sun event soon transpires, saving Prox and the rest of the world from its eventual collapse into the abyss while unavoidably forcing all the world's populations into a new era of upheaval and chaos.
While the eight young Adepts who would later be called the Warriors of Vale would bear the brunt of worldwide society's mixture of praise and criticism for both saving and devastating the world, there is little to suggest that Saturos and the other Proxian Mars Adepts' roles in building up to the Golden Sun event are widely known or appreciated. The Sun Saga, a series of collectible books in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn that presumably constitute an in-universe perspective on the journeys leading up to the Golden Sun, do not even mention the Proxians by name and largely portray the events as the ambitions of Felix and Alex. If the Psynergy Training Grounds at Patcher's Place are also interpreted as a reflection of how the world understands the original journeys, the world does not see the Mars Adepts as much more than villainous brutes.
As a boss in Golden Sun
Saturos is the only named character in the Golden Sun series to be fought on at least three separate occasions, not counting a battle involving a particular transformation. As they all take place within the scope of the first game, it is fitting for his role as the game's primary antagonist. He ends up having one more battle with the party overall than his counterpart, Menardi.
In the Prologue
The first battle with Saturos as a character takes place at the end of the game's dark and stormy prologue sequence in Vale, and he is accompanied by Menardi in a scenario where both of their names are yet to be disclosed to the player. Saturos, as "Mystery Man," is a level 10 opponent who takes part in a scripted encounter that the player's starting two characters, younger versions of Isaac and Garet, obviously have no chance against. Losing against the two characters initiates the cutscene leading to the rest of the game rather than a game over, though using external hacking methods to give Isaac and Garet the capacity to win against them technically leads to the exact same cutscene that presumes the boys lost.
Saturos as "Mystery Man" is especially likely to be affected by Defense-lowering effects. His statistics are as follows:
| Name | HP | PP | Attack | Defense | Agility | Luck |
| Mystery Man | 3000 | 260 | 63 | 22 | 9 | 40 |
| Elemental Resistances and Levels | Exp | Coins | Item Dropped | Drop Rate | ||
 175 (Lv 10)  127 (Lv 7)  100 (Lv 7)  72 (Lv 5)
|
0 | 0 | None | N/A | ||
Saturos as Mystery Man uses the following battle commands with high intelligence:
| Command | Chance to use |
Elem. Stats used with * |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fireball | 2/8 (25%) |
110 Power
|
Psynergy costing 12 PP where a large array of balls of fire spread out from the user’s position and gather into the party of Adepts. Deals a Mars-aligned attack with 65 base damage that is spread out across 5 enemies with high damage distribution. |
| Eruption | 2/8 (25%) |
110 Power
|
Psynergy costing 14 PP where two fiery pillars explode through the party of Adepts. Deals a Mars-aligned attack with 90 base damage that is spread out across 3 enemies with high damage distribution. |
| Heat Flash | 2/8 (25%) |
110 Power Level 10
|
Enemy ability where the user leaps forward to strike a target, and a bright orange-red cloud is emitted upon impact. Deals a Mars-aligned standard physical attack with 20 damage points added to the end result, and there is a chance the target will be afflicted with Delusion. |
| Attack | 2/8 (25%) |
-- | Standard physical attack. |
On Mercury Lighthouse
The second time in the game Saturos is featured in a battle, he is the sole enemy in a boss battle taking place relatively early in the game atop Mercury Lighthouse. The party is forced into the battle with him as soon as they approach the center of the tower's roof with the swirling spherical beacon, so it is heavily recommended that the party heals themselves with Psynergy and then uses the Psynergy Stone on the eastern elevator to refresh their PP meters.
This boss fight is by far the most significant spike in difficulty faced by players up to this point in the game, and yet it is mandatory for the party to clear it to progress with the game. Players who do too little to prepare themselves with gear from Bilibin, sufficient leveling, and/or all of the eight possible Djinn collectible up to this point can genuinely get stuck until they make those commitments. Collecting the Mercury Djinni Sleet hidden earlier in Mercury Lighthouse enables the usage of the Nereid summon for a significant chunk of damage, but going for this approach is risky because the Adept holding the two available Mercury Djinn will not receive a second-stage class from them while they are On Standby or recovering from a summoning. Though Mia would use Nereid with the most power, the party might not be able to afford her missing a single turn providing healing to the party.
Depending on how low the party's development is, Saturos' Eruption Psynergy can potentially one-shot Ivan even at full health, and the battle takes place at a point where mid-battle revival effects are hard to come by. Exchanging Djinn to give the Adepts mixed classes may be useful. For example, the party can start off with either Isaac or Garet having both Mercury Djinn On Standby so that Nereid can be summoned by any of the four Adepts, and as the Mercury Djinn recover back to Set status on that warrior at a rate of one per turn, he will gain the Mercury-aligned Cutting Edge elemental physical attack from his version of the Swordsman class and gain Ply and improved stats as he advances to the improved Defender class. Either warrior has to be level 11 in order to have access to Cutting Edge, however.
Saturos, who is level 18, is especially likely to be affected by Defense-lowering effects. His statistics are as follows:
| Name | HP | PP | Attack | Defense | Agility | Luck |
| Saturos | 1200 | 160 | 113 | 35 | 51 | 40 |
| Elemental Resistances and Levels | Exp | Coins | Item Dropped | Drop Rate | ||
| 175 (Lv 10) 127 (Lv 7) 100 (Lv 7) 72 (Lv 5)
|
331 | 800 |  Psy Crystal
|
1/1 | ||
Saturos uses the following battle commands with high intelligence and is rare among enemies in the GBA series in that he proceeds through the command list in sequential order with a random start point; this means that any one of the eight actions listed below can be the "starting point," and the next turn's action will be the one listed beneath what had been used, cycling back to the top of the list when the bottom of the list is reached.
| Command | Chance to use |
Elem. Stats used with * |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heat Flash | 1st Move |
110 Power Level 10
|
Enemy ability where the user leaps forward to strike a target, and a bright orange-red cloud is emitted upon impact. Deals a Mars-aligned standard physical attack with 20 damage points added to the end result, and there is a chance the target will be afflicted with Delusion. |
| Fireball | 2nd Move |
110 Power
|
Psynergy costing 12 PP where a large array of balls of fire spread out from the user’s position and gather into the party of Adepts. Deals a Mars-aligned attack with 65 base damage that is spread out across 5 enemies with high damage distribution. |
| Attack | 3rd Move |
-- | Standard physical attack. |
| Fireball | 4th Move |
110 Power
|
Psynergy costing 12 PP where a large array of balls of fire spread out from the user’s position and gather into the party of Adepts. Deals a Mars-aligned attack with 65 base damage that is spread out across 5 enemies with high damage distribution. |
| Heat Flash | 5th Move |
110 Power Level 10
|
Enemy ability where the user leaps forward to strike a target, and a bright orange-red cloud is emitted upon impact. Deals a Mars-aligned standard physical attack with 20 damage points added to the end result, and there is a chance the target will be afflicted with Delusion. |
| Attack | 6th Move |
-- | Standard physical attack. |
| Eruption | 7th Move |
110 Power
|
Psynergy costing 14 PP where two fiery pillars explode through the party of Adepts. Deals a Mars-aligned attack with 90 base damage that is spread out across 3 enemies with high damage distribution. |
| Attack | 8th Move |
-- | Standard physical attack. |
On Venus Lighthouse
The strongest versions each of Saturos and Menardi constitute the first of two boss battles that make up the final storyline challenge at the end of Golden Sun. The party is forced into the battle the moment they take a lone slide into the gaping pit of a stand-alone room high up in Venus Lighthouse, with the follow-up battle taking place without an opportunity to heal the party in between.
While in this fight, Saturos generally does more consistent damage and is likely to cast Break to clear away buffs the party attempts to apply to themselves, Menardi is generally focused down first because her abilities include an enemy skill that can potentially down an Adept regardless of health. Regardless of who is defeated first, the other will be much easier to deal with once the first is no longer fighting at the same time as them, so the party must use the relative ease of that lone opponent to restore health and PP before taking them out.
Saturos, who is level 38, is especially likely to be affected by Defense-lowering effects. His statistics are as follows:
| Name | HP | PP | Attack | Defense | Agility | Luck |
| Saturos | 3000 | 260 | 409 | 140 | 160 | 50 |
| Elemental Resistances and Levels | Exp | Coins | Item Dropped | Drop Rate | ||
| 175 (Lv 10) 127 (Lv 7) 100 (Lv 7) 72 (Lv 5)
|
3000 | 3600 | None | N/A | ||
Saturos uses the following battle commands with high intelligence:
| Command | Chance to use |
Elem. Stats used with * |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heat Flash | 53/256 (20.7%) |
110 Power Level 10
|
Enemy ability where the user leaps forward to strike a target, and a bright orange-red cloud is emitted upon impact. Deals a Mars-aligned standard physical attack with 20 damage points added to the end result, and there is a chance the target will be afflicted with Delusion. |
| Inferno | 47/256 (18.4%) |
110 Power
|
Psynergy costing 23 PP where a large mass of balls of fire spread out from the user’s position and gather into the party of Adepts. Deals a Mars-aligned attack with 140 base damage that is spread out across 5 enemies with high damage distribution. |
| Break | 41/256 (16%) |
-- | Psynergy costing 5 PP that removes all buffs currently active on the party of Adepts. |
| Attack | 35/256 (13.7%) |
-- | Standard physical attack. |
| Pyroclasm | 29/256 (11.3%) |
110 Power
|
Psynergy costing 29 PP where four fiery pillars explode through the party of Adepts as the camera swivels. Deals a Mars-aligned attack with 180 base damage that is spread out across 3 enemies with high damage distribution. |
| Protect | 23/256 (9%) |
-- | Psynergy costing 5 PP that temporarily increases the Defense rating of each combatant on the user's side of the field by 12.5%. |
| Haunt | 17/256 (6.6%) |
Level 7
|
Psynergy costing 5 PP that projects a swirling array of purple skull-headed cloud images into multiple party members. Up to three Adepts may be afflicted with Haunt. |
| Potent Cure | 11/256 (4.3%) |
100 Power
|
Psynergy costing 16 PP that restores around 300 HP to either the user or its ally on its side of the battlefield. |
| Bosses |
|---|
| Bosses in Golden Sun |
| Vault Bandits • Tret • Saturos • Killer Ape • Hydros Statue • Manticore • Kraken • Azart • Satrage • Navampa • Toadonpa • Storm Lizard • Tempest Lizard • Saturos and Menardi • Final boss • Deadbeard |
| Bosses in Golden Sun: The Lost Age |
| Chestbeaters • King Scorpion • Briggs and Sea Fighters • Aqua Hydra • Serpent • Avimander • Poseidon • Moapa and Knights • Karst and Agatio • Flame Dragons • Final boss • Valukar • Sentinel • Star Magician • Dullahan |
| Bosses in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn |
| Tangle Bloom • Dim Dragon • Dim Dragon Plus • Stealthy Scouts • Sand Prince • Ku-Tsung and Ku-Embra • Ice Queen • Sludge • Mountain Roc • Blados and Chalis • Blados, Chaos Hound, and Chalis • Final boss • Ogre Titans • Ancient Devil • Star Magician • Dullahan |
Trivia
- An image surviving from the original Golden Sun's beta (pictured) depicts a strikingly different design for Saturos that gives him less dragon-like features, such as normal human ears.
- The cardboard caricature of Saturos used in the Psynergy Training Grounds in Dark Dawn was originally used in the "adventure mode" demo for the game that was an exhibit in the 2010 version of the E3 convention.
- The battle theme commonly associated with Saturos, which plays during the fights with him in the prologue on Mercury Lighthouse, also plays in The Lost Age during the optional boss fight with Star Magician, as well as all four optional boss fights in Dark Dawn. This makes it the only battle theme to be heard in all three games.
- Saturos and Menardi's names seem to reference two types of creatures in Greek mythology: the satyrs and the maenads. This seems to begin a series pattern in which each game's headlining antagonistic male-and-female duo receive thematically congruent names, with the second and third games respectively using geology-themed naming conventions for Karst and Agatio and tarot-themed conventions for Blados and Chalis.
Quotes
| In Golden Sun |
 The Sun Saga's version of the events atop Venus Lighthouse.
|
In fan circles
Saturos and Menardi naturally get extra attention from the player base as the first primary antagonists faced by the main cast. Among each of the three games' antagonistic duos, they are the most popular for providing a particularly intimidating first impression in the prologue, amounting to challenging boss fights, and managing to achieve their goals through tenacity and guile even when defeated. Saturos in particular leaves an impression with his penchant for exploiting loopholes that he craftily leaves in the deals he verbally proposes. The duo are also the cause of audience debates when they are posthumously revealed to have been pursuing altruistic objectives that the main characters need to finish on their behalf. Namely, the power of Alchemy they seek to break the seal of is revealed to be what is needed to save the world itself from physically collapsing.
Some criticize that Saturos and Menardi do not need to commit so many cruel and villainous actions in their efforts to save their village, or withhold information from their opponents that their objectives will ultimately help the world, when there seems to be various opportunities for the two sides to collaborate. Since the villagers clearly do not think in similarly hostile terms as them, the duo's conduct can be speculated in terms of Agatio's stated belief in The Lost Age that the breaking of Alchemy's seal will make Prox claim a position that will force "all the people of Weyard" to "kneel before" them. That line can be read to suggest that Prox' military elites believe that their nation should be entitled to a position of military superiority over the other nations of the world they are saving through the release of a dangerous new power.
Saturos and Menardi are only ever depicted in the games as fellow soldiers without any romantic undertones between them. That said, the fan community hardly ever writes fan fiction shipping them with anyone other than each other; the category for this is called "Proxshipping."
The Temple of Kraden's administrator, Saturos, takes his user handle from the character, though he leads the forum's Sol Clan instead of the more expected Mars Clan. His avatar formerly appeared as if Saturos had been blasted with the Apollo Lens like the residents of Belinsk, but is now an angel.
| Main characters in the Golden Sun series | |
|---|---|
| Playable Characters | |
| Golden Sun |  Isaac  Garet  Ivan  Mia
|
| The Lost Age | Felix Jenna Sheba Piers
|
| Dark Dawn | Matthew Karis Tyrell Rief Amiti Sveta Eoleo Himi
|
| Non-Player Characters | |
| Golden Sun & The Lost Age |
Agatio Alex  Babi Briggs Dodonpa Dora Feizhi Hama Hammet Hydros Karst Kraden Kyle Menardi Moapa Puelle Saturos Susa The Wise One Tret
|
| Dark Dawn | Arcanus Baghi  Blados Bogho Chalis High Empyror Hou Zan King Wo Laurel Nowell Paithos Ryu Kou Unan Vande Volechek
|
