Speculations Why does the World Government ignore Skypeans ?

[Moewu]

This was probably discussed around here somewhere, but I was just curious. After the Skypea arc and there being no trace of World Government shenenigans or interference at all, the question I have is, why ?


They were down to eradicate the lunarians who lived on the red line, but why were they so focussed on residing on top of the red line ?


If Imu truly believes he's above anybody else, wouldn't he want to reside at the very top of the world ?


Now I understand that for logistical reasons, it would be hard to travel down and up again, and many things would be out of their sight compared to the red line. Especially for the normal tenryubito, it would probably be bad.


But what about resources ? They were never curious about what was up there. I doubt that they don't know about the existence of sky islands at all.


A little abyss action from imu and they could teleport up there in no time.


On the other hand, I am glad the Skypeans didn't get "discovered" or the next hunting game would probably have happened there.


I don't know if there could be something similar to Wano kuni / Elbaf that made the World Government stay at bay for so long, but atleast with the others, they made their moves. But Skypea remains completely world government free, so far.


Or could it be that they went up there and when they saw this, they figured they didn't want any trouble.

Spoiler: Skypea is under his protection

You know, like pirates marking their territories, to scare others away so that normal residents can live peacefully.

Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas.

Why do you think Skypea or Sky Islands in general are "seemingly" of no interest to the World Government ?

 

[Higuma]

As a matter of fact, I think we don’t know at what time they came down from the moon to settle on the Sky Islands. Maybe Imu had already taken control of the Red Line for some time before the Skypieans, Birkans, and Shandians descended to the White Sea. That would partly explain your question.
The only temporal indication we have is the flying boat with lightning on the mural of the Harley of the beginning of the Second World, which resembles Enel’s ship

 

[Moewu]

As a matter of fact, I think we don’t know at what time they came down from the moon to settle on the Sky Islands. Maybe Imu had already taken control of the Red Line for some time before the Skypieans, Birkans, and Shandians descended to the White Sea. That would partly explain your question.
The only temporal indication we have is the flying boat with lightning on the mural of the Harley of the beginning of the Second World, which resembles Enel’s ship

Good call with the Mural. I wondered only because, now that we know that the Holy Knights tried to get Shanks back on several occasions, mustn't they have known that they went to the sky islands at some point ?

And it sparked no interest in them ?

Also, Imu has been around since who knows how many centuries, and never bothered to occupy the skies ?



But yeah, hopefully we will learn more when we finally get the Urogue / Enel Birka backstory or even in the void century flashback.

 

[Yoho]

As far as I can tell the world government has no way of getting to the sky plus theres really no resources up there the world government needs

 

[MonochromeYoru]

they're not really a threat to the wg as far as they know

 

[soupongo]

There´s plenty of countries even among the regular world that the WG doesn´t actively try to conquer. God Valley was undisturbed before centuries before Garling visited on a mission and noticed the Davy population and the natural resources they had.

 

[Kung-Fu Dugong]

Yeah, it was discussed before at least once... I'll repost my reply from the other thread here.

I can think about 2 really good reasons for the WG to "ignore" the sky islands:

1. It's troublesome to reach the sky. The 2 known ways of reaching the sky islands (at least the "main" ones, i.e. Skypiea) are the Knock Up Stream and the "Summit of High West". The Knock Up Stream is a do-or-die option, while the summit is "safer", but you'll experiment heavy losses on the way. It would be incredibly costly to have even a single marine outpost there. (Obviously, someone with a flying DF like Kaido or a flying apparatus like Haredas or Morgans could easily go there, but it's really hard to find someone with this kind of ability/technology.)
2. The sky islands' inhabitants are hostile and possess territorial advantage. The skypieans and shandians are (or were, until 2 years ago) in constant war. The birkans were said to be strong warriors. Plus, it's hard for a blue sea dweller to fight effectively on the sky islands due to the altitude, making them easy preys for local warriors like Wyper.

The only reason I could think of for them to get there is the "City of Gold" legend, but I honestly don't think that they care that much about these kind of stories.

https://worstgen.alwaysdata.net/for...im-them-has-the-navy-not-operate-there.75695/

 

[OykotsTreasure]

Yeah, it's weird. But, a lot of the stuff the World Government does or doesn't do is weird. There's still a lot we don't know. Like, we know they had 800 years to try and conquer the Grand Line. But, they didn't even have a Marine presence in "The New World" half of the Grand Line until 2 years ago? Why did it take the Marines 800 years to just have a major presence in the "Paradise" half of the Grand Line? I guess it's probably a part of Imu's "World being incomplete"? Like, Imu's not completely the "God" of this World, for some reason, so their power is still limited?

As for why Imu's ignoring the Skypieans...part of me wants to assume they just don't know they're up there. I mean, everyone acted like the idea of people living in the clouds was a nonsense fairy tale. Maybe Imu just thought the same?

But, if you want a more interesting reason? Well, we know the Sun God Fruit is still running wild around the World. The Skypieans are living as close to the Sun as you practically can. Maybe the powers of Nika are protecting them, somehow? The powers of the Sun protecting them against Imu's shadowy powers. It's not impossible that the Skypieans wings could somehow be the Nika-equivalents to Imu's Abyss Marks, a way to show a "God" sharing their power with others. This would definitely make sense if Nika or Joyboy or a different Nika-Fruit incarnation were also a Skypiean. There's been some hints about that over the years, although, mostly in the anime, oddly. More about that over here:
https://worstgen.alwaysdata.net/for...-fruit-users-before-luffy.56319/#post-6439582

Alternately, maybe it has something to do with the Island Clouds? Island Clouds are said to contain pyrobloin. Which is the same material that is in Seastone. So, maybe the Island Clouds work a lot like Seastone? "Blocking" Imu's ability to sense anyone living up there? It'd be like Superman trying to see through lead, but in cloud form. The Skypieans would basically be living on a material that blocks Imu's "sight". Imu doesn't know they're up there, because they're blocked by a version of Seastone that blocks Imu's powers.

Or maybe it's simpler than that? Maybe Imu's not interested in people living in the sky, because all the "important" stuff is down below? I, personally, think that all the truly important things in this World are actually in the core of the planet. Not in the sky. Imu's not trying to shoot lasers at the Moon. Imu is putting holes in the ocean. The Chapter 1138 Mural seems to indicate that the "Forbidden Sun" used to be in the core of the planet and was mined out. All the secrets that Imu wants to keep hidden might exist below the ocean. So, people living the sky, FAR away from what Imu cares about, aren't really that big of a concern. Imu's got bigger problems to focus on. Once Imu "completes their World", THEN they can deal with the Skypieans. Focusing on one problem at a time.

Or...it's possible that Imu actually HASN'T been ignoring the Skypieans! Because we know from Ganfall that some humans actually do come to the Sky Islands every once in a while via the Summit of High West. Those humans COULD be Celestial Dragons or Marines. We don't know. It's possible that Imu actually DOES have some sort of base of operations in the sky. We can probably assume Imu has the Ancient Weapon Uranos, after all. We've just never seen it, because Oda hasn't shown us, yet. I actually could see the World Government having some sort of Marine Sky Base up there, just to maintain Uranos.

But, that's just a few possibilities. We really don't have much to go on. Oda could do just about anything, really. And chances are, he will. Oda is notoriously hard to predict, sometimes.

 

[Moewu]

Yep, very nice and valid answers from everyone here. I liked them all. I guess this High West summit is a long over-do. We have to find out its location. / i know elbaf is the most guessed right now.

Yeah, it's weird. But, a lot of the stuff the World Government does or doesn't do is weird. There's still a lot we don't know. Like, we know they had 800 years to try and conquer the Grand Line. But, they didn't even have a Marine presence in "The New World" half of the Grand Line until 2 years ago? Why did it take the Marines 800 years to just have a major presence in the "Paradise" half of the Grand Line? I guess it's probably a part of Imu's "World being incomplete"? Like, Imu's not completely the "God" of this World, for some reason, so their power is still limited?

As for why Imu's ignoring the Skypieans...part of me wants to assume they just don't know they're up there. I mean, everyone acted like the idea of people living in the clouds was a nonsense fairy tale. Maybe Imu just thought the same?

But, if you want a more interesting reason? Well, we know the Sun God Fruit is still running wild around the World. The Skypieans are living as close to the Sun as you practically can. Maybe the powers of Nika are protecting them, somehow? The powers of the Sun protecting them against Imu's shadowy powers. It's not impossible that the Skypieans wings could somehow be the Nika-equivalents to Imu's Abyss Marks, a way to show a "God" sharing their power with others. This would definitely make sense if Nika or Joyboy or a different Nika-Fruit incarnation were also a Skypiean. There's been some hints about that over the years, although, mostly in the anime, oddly. More about that over here:
https://worstgen.alwaysdata.net/for...-fruit-users-before-luffy.56319/#post-6439582

Alternately, maybe it has something to do with the Island Clouds? Island Clouds are said to contain pyrobloin. Which is the same material that is in Seastone. So, maybe the Island Clouds work a lot like Seastone? "Blocking" Imu's ability to sense anyone living up there? It'd be like Superman trying to see through lead, but in cloud form. The Skypieans would basically be living on a material that blocks Imu's "sight". Imu doesn't know they're up there, because they're blocked by a version of Seastone that blocks Imu's powers.

Or maybe it's simpler than that? Maybe Imu's not interested in people living in the sky, because all the "important" stuff is down below? I, personally, think that all the truly important things in this World are actually in the core of the planet. Not in the sky. Imu's not trying to shoot lasers at the Moon. Imu is putting holes in the ocean. The Chapter 1138 Mural seems to indicate that the "Forbidden Sun" used to be in the core of the planet and was mined out. All the secrets that Imu wants to keep hidden might exist below the ocean. So, people living the sky, FAR away from what Imu cares about, aren't really that big of a concern. Imu's got bigger problems to focus on. Once Imu "completes their World", THEN they can deal with the Skypieans. Focusing on one problem at a time.

Or...it's possible that Imu actually HASN'T been ignoring the Skypieans! Because we know from Ganfall that some humans actually do come to the Sky Islands every once in a while via the Summit of High West. Those humans COULD be Celestial Dragons or Marines. We don't know. It's possible that Imu actually DOES have some sort of base of operations in the sky. We can probably assume Imu has the Ancient Weapon Uranos, after all. We've just never seen it, because Oda hasn't shown us, yet. I actually could see the World Government having some sort of Marine Sky Base up there, just to maintain Uranos.

But, that's just a few possibilities. We really don't have much to go on. Oda could do just about anything, really. And chances are, he will. Oda is notoriously hard to predict, sometimes.

The part you mentioned with the Island Clouds containing the same material as the sea prism stones, maybe being able to shield them from Imu, was interesting. It reminded me of the notorious panel with Smoker sitting in crocodile's sea prism cell, and although we didn't know much about it back then, I guess a lot of people asked why he didn't just turn into smoke and escape through the holes without touching it directly. So I guess it does have some kind of slight aura.


Or, yeah, Imu really just didn't care as many suggested.

I mean, we know that Professor Tsukimi's automatas went to the Moon ! With simple balloons, certainly the World Government could figure out an easy solution to reach Sky Island ? Probably with dr vegapunks assistance.

One of the Nika fruit incarnations being a skypean, could certainly be possible.


Interesting that there was that "anime only" scene (I haven't watched the anime in ages). The only thing I saw because someone sent it to me, was that cube-like thingy Joyboy was sitting on. Many thought it could have been a poneglyph.


Oda drew Luffy in some specific attire on various cover artwork as well. I like this one the most from chapter 175. His outfit gives me some old Aztec vibes.

Probably because I am a huge Street Fighter and Tekken fan, there was this character called Ancient Ogre in Tekken, who was always my favorite to play. He was described as a powerfull "Alien" posing as the Aztec god of fighting. Both Games have demon-powered fighters, and material arts masters.

He also posesses a 2nd form,

Loki anybody ? No, I am just kidding.