- Turtle Tale
- Opinions of an Alien Scientist
- Capturing the Spark of Davy Jones
- Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Toys
- Flight of the Dream Turtles
Someone gave me an overview of Kingdom Hearts yesterday. Had remembered seeing advertisements years back, but had never looked into it (have never owned a PlayStation). What struck me as interesting were two sets of enemies: the Heartless and the Nobodies. Don't know if Disney owns the rights to these or not, but even if they don't, here's something similar yet distinct...
What if the Lost Toys, the Shades often imprisoned to Neverland, were also referred to as the Sparkless?
It is explained by Milo Thatch, whose toy version within Infinity is a software engineer, specializing in old computer languages such as Fortran & LISP
. After an arduous search throughout the archives of these Disney Infinity Fan Forums, he was able to acquire long-lost architectural documents regarding the Infinity Project. Within these documents he discovered many inter-dependent design points and attempts to translate them in the vernacular for us now: "Within Disney Infinity, where everything is a toy, that toy's essence is the Spark. At the early formation of the Toy Box, the creation of the Grid, each toy was given a special, individual spark by one of the Makers. All of the sparks are interconnected, collectively a mystical force that binds all toys of the Toy Box together. Sparks fuel the Plasma of fun within the Toy Box, which in turn has alternate colored forms as Goo and Crystals. There are also various colored forms of sparks, but none so special as the unique essence of any given toy. That spark grows when it is fed by the sparks of others, especially the imagination of children. When neglected, it dims, and there are sad times when a toy chooses to abandon it. Others have even begun to wonder if there are villains so "Maleficent" that they forcibly rip the sparks out! Why? A toy without its spark is easily manipulated - it is the quest of the Dream Turtles to guide them, but the evil machinations of some villains to control & manipulate them. It is an unwitting Davy Jones who serves such a villain to trap those Lost Toys in Neverland, thinking to protect the Toy Box, only to be amassing those minions for planned attacks. For the Shades are very dangerous - like a walking "Defeat Switch", the single touch of a Shade scrambles another toy back to the last Checkpoint (yet ironically the Shade is the most dangerous to itself, for this act causes the Shade to be lost forever, its system resource returned back to the Toy Box Meter, never to be reunited with its Essence Spark).Some might mistakenly believe that these Shades of Infinity have no body, but the reverse is true. Mystically they are shades of themselves because they have no spark within them. Only the body of the toy is left, and it appears dull & shaded. Grid soldiers for example bear no resemblance due to the neon red glow of plasma highlighting. The Magic Lanterns are able to encase these Lost Toys because, well, they are magical, and as any toy scientist can remind us, the laws of Physics within the Toy Box are merely computer simulations and are easily changed. It's akin to trapping a Genie in a Magic Lamp. Size is relative, and scaling in a 3D virtual simulation is relatively simple
.When an Essence Spark is separated from the body of a toy, it can take a couple different forms. It may simply be a larger, brighter spark than other sparks within the Toy Box. In the early days, where the only Theme was the Grid, a toy needed a separate device to encase its spark - the Identity Disc
. Today within the modern Toy Box the Identity Disc is still downward compatible and is sometimes used as a mechanism to steal copies of Essence Sparks, or to safely transport one back to its Lost Toy. Another spark form is that of a Toy Ghost. Light Blue Goo may temporarily transform a toy into this alternative form of Spark mode. A Jedi or Sith may project his or her essence this way in "holographic" communication. Stark Industries has assisted S.H.I.E.L.D. with the toy technology of recording holographic messages as well. But this non-corporeal form may also be the result of a Lost Toy's separation, a Toy Ghost. These ghosts are also referred to as "The No-Bodies". No-Bodies can have a variety of personalities - some sad from the separation, some angry, and some confused. Some may have been lost so long ago that they have forgotten the reason. The Toy Ghosts of Fear Tech Monsters are the scariest however. Their scaring powers are magnified and they enjoy that newly acquired power. They are feared nearly as much as the Lost Toys are.There have been many missions to reunite Lost Toys with their No-Bodies, and there are likely to be many more. An Essence Spark without its toy is insubstantial. But a toy without its spark is hardly a toy at all."
Side-note: one aspect of the Kingdom Hearts storyline that doesn't make sense to me - why would an enemy known as a "Nobody" have a body? Anyway, the non-corporeal form left from a Shade would make a fun addition to Toy Box games & stories, although sometimes it might be a little scary
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