The Sky Sanctuary

The Sky Sanctuary--the sixth level on the game "Sonic and Knuckles" (and LAST if you're playing as Knux)--is yet another one of the ruined marvels left behind by the echidna-people on the Floating Island. It is directly above the Hidden Palace, but it is WAY above it. It consists of all kinds of beautiful ancient, crumbling towers, minarets, delicate bridges, arches and stairways made of the finest stone and marble--and floating on NOTHING but the air! Sometimes they have entire castles built on clouds. It is very pretty and elegant but deadly dangerous, as the tiniest misstep can send you sprawling down to the Island hundreds of feet below. Also, at that altitude, it's quite cold, and the air gets a bit thin. But the buildings--or, at least, the ones that are still intact--usually still have working environmental systems, so that's not your main concern.
The Sky Sanctuary also has high technology, such as transporter beams (the same kind that are in the Hidden Palace.) Even in ruins, falling apart, it is quite impressive.
Yet the big question that begs answering is--what was this structure FOR? After all, the Echidnas were ALREADY living on an island that floated in the sky, away from everyone else--surely that would be isolation enough! Apparently not. Perhaps this was the making of an eccentric Queen who wished to be alone and TRULY "above" the common people; maybe it was a religious monastery (like the word "sanctuary" suggests.) Maybe they kept rare animals up there that had evolved in the nether reaches of the sky and could not stand the thicker air below. Maybe an eccentric rich hermit built it; maybe it was built on a bet or a dare, maybe it was a temple to worship the Sky Gods (if they had any). Maybe it was meant as another colonization project--although the Island seems to have large chunks that are nothing but wilderness left, perhaps the Echidnas were already feeling crowded. Perhaps they were going to make a sky-transit system, or maybe it was even supposed to be an early-warning watchtower for a possible attack from the sky! If THAT was the case they sure failed, as evidenced by the fact that, well, the Echidnas are GONE, now, aren't they? If it was a warning, it obviously didn't get there in time...
But the real answer is that we will NEVER know what it was for now that the people who built it are gone; there are just too many questions when we know almost nothing about their culture and even less about their psychology...
The only thing that IS certain is that it is a marvel. A beautiful, delicately-built, exquisite, sad, lonely marvel.



Click HERE to return to the Floating Island Tour Route.

Click HERE to return to the Chaotix Clubhouse.

Click HERE to return to Sandopolis.



curious tourists have visited the Sky Sanctuary since June 27, 1999. Of course, most of them failed to get off that spindly marble bridge before it crumbled beneath them...and we haven't seen anything of them since...except perhaps a few random pieces here and there...