As the story of One Piece is continuing into the endgame, we are slowly learning more and more about the world that it takes place in and in particular the 100 year period of missing history that seems to be at the center of this entire conflict. There are many gaps although more and more theories are starting to arise. It seems likely that the person we only know as Imu was alive during this period and is the big driving force behind everything. Their abyssal powers seem to be very potent and even the five elders are powerless against Imu. Cobra told us that the name was familiar and theories have arisen that this person is in fact Saint Imu of the Nerona family. I think this is a red herring personally, but I would assume that current day Imu is somehow related to that person. One part of the world that’s particularly mysterious when it comes to the 100 year void is the moon. As an eternal lover of villains being on the moon in fiction, let’s dissect what we know about the moon.
And we cannot talk about the moon without talking about the man through whose eyes we learn most of what we know about the moon. Enel is a Birkan, with him and his followers only moving to Skypiea after destroying the Sky Island that was their home. We see Enel as a villain in Luffy’s story and with his lightning devil fruit he spent many years ruling over the people of Skypiea while holding onto “Vearth” or the soil that is common on the surface but rare in the sky. After a brutal few fights that see many of the Straw Hats pushed to their limits, every member of Enel’s crew is defeated with the leader himself fleeing to the moon on his flying ship; Ark Maxim.
We then don’t see or hear from him for a while until a cover story shows up in which Enel actually manages to make his way to the moon, and it is here that we get most of our information about the moon from. During this story, Enel manages to land on the moon where he meets two groups. One group are small automata and the other group are space pirates. I don’t want to go into the space pirates because I do think they’re not supposed to be a bigger part of the series, but the automata are. We learn during this arc that the Shandians – who used to live in the city of Shandora – originally came from the moon. The Shandians, Skypieans and Birkans all came from the moon at some point, while also building the automata. Enel is likely one of very few remaining Birkans left, since the city was destroyed before he left it, but it is likely that Urouge from the Supernovas is also Birkan. The Skypieans live on the Upper Yard alongside the Shandians now.
So we have three species of humanoids who originated from the moon and all ended up living in the sky of the Blue Planet. Not to mention the fact that Shandora was brought to ruin during the 100 year void. We don’t know what exactly happened to it, but the Shandians continued to guard it all the way until it was sent into the sky, and even continued to do so afterwards until Enel took over. From the limited interaction we had with the Skypieans, it seems like they also weren’t aware that they originated from the Moon. Right now the only person who knows this is likely Enel. But Enel does have an army of automata that were built by these three races, which makes you wonder, what do they know that they have now shared with the self-proclaimed god? There is a reasonable chance that there is knowledge on the moon that will become extremely valuable for the endgame of One Piece.
When we look at the cover stories that Oda has given us, there is a trend among many of them. The characters that have gotten their own cover story and have then returned to the story as relatively important characters are as follows:
- Buggy → becomes an emperor
- Koby & Helmeppo → Hero of the navy and his best friend
- Jango → A relatively high ranking navy man who is present at the Marineford war
- Hachi → Becomes a key player during the events of Sabaody Archipelago and later protects the Thousand Sunny during the time-skip
- Wapol → Creates a powerful metal that Franky ends up building things out of and saves Vivi during the events of the Reverie
- Ace → Luffy’s brother and gets captured leading to the events of Marineford
- Gedatsu → I’ll be honest, I’ve got nothing for Gedatsu and I think he’s more of a tool to allow us to see how Arabasta recovers from the war
- Miss Goldenweek → Shows us how both Crocodile and Daz Bones end up in Impel Down, both of them becoming important members of the Cross Guild
- CP9 → Are playing a very important role in current events both at Egghead as well as the Reverie
- Caribou → Spends time away from the Straw Hats before returning to them during Wano and then sharing all the information he learned about Pluton with Blackbeard
- Jinbe → A member of the straw hat pirates
Later on we mostly spend time with people from arcs that have finished, which gives me the impression that these people (Gang Bege, the Grand Fleet, Germa 66, Yamato) will return to the story at some point, but let’s not get into that too much.
The point I’m trying to make with this paragraph that is far too long, is that none of the cover stories so far – with the exception of Gedatsu’s – have led to nothing. I would be incredibly surprised if the moon and Enel don’t end up playing a big role in the endgame story. How this will look, I do not know, but I think there is some technology on the moon that he will end up using to stop the Mother Flame. His army of automata is interesting because during Egghead we learned that there was tremendous technology in the past and these automata are probably one of the rare few surviving elements of this ancient technology. Along with things like Emet, who was sadly destroyed at the end of Egghead. Could all of this mean that the space pirates that Enel discovered on the moon are the same race that Imu came from? Probably not, but that’s a crazy call if I got that right, right? Thanks for reading.
Opal Kaharis 