Easter Island, known to locals as Rapa Nui, is an island in the Pacific Ocean belonging to Chile. The Sixth Vertex is hidden beneath the island.
Fictional History[]
Early History[]
A long time ago, a race of super-ancient beings built the Sixth and final Vertex of the Machine beneath Easter Island (the exact geological status of it at the time is unclear), and presumably carved the moai statues scattered around what became the island, explaining their somewhat odd looks.
Estimated dates of initial settlement of Easter Island have ranged from 300 to 1200 CE, coinciding with the arrival of the first settlers in Hawaii. These settlers were aware of the original Great Games of the Hydra that had been conducted by the Four Legendary Kingdoms, and so began their own tradition in honour of the Games, the Birdman races.
When the Spanish arrived and plundered the island and enslaved the locals, they took them away to die as slaves, ruining any chance of discovering the history of the moai or the Super-Ancient men.
In the following years, Napoléon Bonaparte attempted to locate basalt statues guarding a Vertex in Egypt, unaware that the shrine he was looking for was on Rapa Nui.
Several statues, including two of the four basalt moai, were taken by Britain during the late 1800's. In more recent years, the new locals were demanding to have the basalt moai returned, since all the British were doing with them was keeping them in a museum food court.
In the course of various parties researching the locations of the Sixth Vertex, Carnivore and Diane Cassidy, and Wolf and Mao discovered its location on Easter Island. The CIEF/China alliance made their own plans to secure the site for themselves during the Return of the Dark Sun, and so Mao had China bribe the Chilean government for unrestricted access to Easter Island through several payments publicly believed to be aid relief funds.
Members of the Japanese Blood Brotherhood discovered the existence of the inverted pyramid within the Easter Island Vertex. During the autumnal equinox, they performed a ceremony there with a second Capstone, which nullified the power of the Tartarus sunspot.
The Six Sacred Stones[]
A diagram of Easter Island with the locations of the moai statues was included in Wizard's notes, suggesting he had considered the island relevant to the Dark Sun mission. However, Wizard had crossed it out, believing he was wrong.
The Five Greatest Warriors[]
As soon as Carnivore and his team got their hands on the sixth Pillar, they made their way to Easter Island.
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As the final Pillar was set in the Vertex, the inverted pyramid activated, firing a beam of light which struck the Earth's core, accompanied by the light beam from the other five Vertices, causing a series of harmonic waves that repelled the Dark Sun.
The Four Legendary Kingdoms[]
In Mae Merriweather's research into the Four Legendary Kingdoms, she concluded that the Birdman races of Easter Island had been conducted in deference to the Great Games.
The One Impossible Labyrinth[]
Years later, after averting the Omega Event, Jack returned to the Sixth Vertex beneath Easter Island to recover the Sixth Pillar from the chasm.
Features[]
The Sixth Vertex[]
The Sixth Corner of the Machine, the Greatest Shrine of All, is located beneath Ahu Vai Mata in the North-Western corner of Easter Island. The cavern is shaped like a funnel, and there is are spikes lined around it which hides the safe route, which is transcribed onto the plaque describing each vertex. At the bottom of the 'funnel' is the abyss and an outlying ledge which leads to the inverted pyramid, and contains a battlement at the edge of the spiked zone.
Once the Pillar is placed, the Thoth incantation etched into the Twin Tablets of Thuthmosis must be spoken aloud to activate the Machine. The Sixth and final Pillar was placed on 20 March 2008, not during a Titanic Rising as the others were, but during the Dual Equinox, when both the Sun and the Dark Sun are shining on the Vertex.
Moai[]
The large stone statues known as moai were in reality carved from 1100–1680 CE. A total of 887 monolithic stone statues have been inventoried on the island and in museum collections so far. Although often identified as "Easter Island heads", the statues have torsos, most of them ending at the top of the thighs, although a small number of them are complete, with the figures kneeling on bent knees with their hands over their stomachs. Some upright moai have become buried up to their necks by shifting soils.
Almost all (95%) moai were carved out of distinctive, compressed, easily worked solidified volcanic ash or tuff found at a single site inside the extinct volcano Rano Raraku.
Trivia[]
- The Vertex's inverted pyramid beneath Easter Island is the same Pyramid that Wolf mentions the Japanese used, though how they got through the traps, used it in conjunction with the Golden Capstone's polar opposite, or learned of its location is never clear.
- In addition, Wolf's statement makes it seem like the inverted pyramid beneath the island is common knowledge; if this were the case, Jack's team might have figured out the Vertex's location sooner.