Sadly, these fireworks aren’t going to last forever
Over the decades, many fans on both sides of the Pacific have tried to answer this seemingly simple question in a variety of interesting ways, ranging from a sheer commonsense approach (which, as we’ve learned time and again, doesn’t exactly work well with Sailor Moon) to in-depth analyses of the clothing the denizens of the Silver Millennium wear.
Unfortunately each of the answers I’ve heard thus far seems to fall short on one point or another, and I find myself wanting something just a little bit more concrete. Assuming that’s even possible.
Today we’re going to take a look at some of the popular theories surrounding the fall of the Silver Millennium and then take a stab at the question ourselves. If you’ve also been mulling this over for the past dozen or so years, this one’s for you!
The Moon Castle (before things go horribly wrong)
Before you can build a sturdy Moon Castle house, you’re going to need to start with a solid foundation. In our case, our “foundation” starts with clearing up some of the wrong answers before we can build up our own theory.
So what are some of these theories? Well, I’m glad you asked!
A quick note: I will be alternatively referring to the Moon dynasty as the Moon Kingdom and Silver Millennium throughout. They are essentially the same thing.
The Moon Kingdom Fell 1,000 Years Ago
This is one of those “commonsense” answers that you often see thrown around, though I never actually seem to find any supporting proof other than the nice, tidy convenience of it all.
Essentially, the idea behind this is that most things in Sailor Moon seem to happen in blocks of 1,000 years. This would make the whole timeline nice and clean: the Moon Kingdom falls in the 10th century, the anime/manga takes place in the 20th century, and the events in Crystal Tokyo unfold in the 30th century.
Unfortunately, as nice as it would be if this were the case, it doesn’t quite work out due to some reasons that we’ll outline below.
Love the crescent Earth from the Moon
The Moon Kingdom Fell 2,000 Years Ago
In addition to this further building on the themes of Christianity that were slowly introduced into the series starting with the Infinity arc, there is some supporting evidence for this… or at least it seems like there is.
When Hotaru re-awakens as Sailor Saturn in the Dream arc in the manga, the following lines grace the page:1
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle…
While it is pretty easy to make the connection between “the twenty centuries of stony sleep” with Saturn’s long wait to be awakened by the Outer Senshi, and thus implying that this is a reference to the fall of the Moon Kingdom, unfortunately this is nothing but a red herring.2
The lines come directly from the poem “The Second Coming” written by William Butler Yeats.3 In fact, on the previous page, you can see that Hotaru is reading a book titled “The Collected Poems of WB Yeats,” which pretty much seals the deal.
Though it’d be great if this actually were the correct answer, there’s really no basis for it.
Prince Endymion and Princess Serenity
Prince Endymion Lived During the Renaissance
This theory is actually pretty simple: Prince Endymion wears plate armor, which reached its peak in the late-15th and early-16th centuries.4
Yes, that’s literally all there is to it.
I don’t think much needs to be said to debunk this theory, so I’ll just do it in a bullet list so we can get on our way:
- the Sailor Soldiers wear 20th century Japanese school girl-inspired uniforms back during the Silver Millennium
- Princess Serenity’s dress is nearly a direct copy of the 1992 Christian Dior “Palladio” dress5
- unless all of the Earth’s memories were erased, this is too modern to have been lost to history
- technology used by the Golden Kingdom could easily have been more advanced than the rest of the world
I could probably keep on going, but I think that’s good enough to properly debunk this theory.
Gonna say this debunks the Prince Endymion angle…
So… When?
Now that I’ve essentially said “here’s why everyone else is wrong,” this is the part where I’m supposed to explain how I’m right.
Alas, across the many times I’ve read through the manga and watched through the anime, I can’t for the life of me find anything that would help us narrow down the exact timeline of the Silver Millennium to anything specific enough to be useful.
What I can say, however, is that we know that it must have taken place much further in the past than most people seem to assume. In fact, it would probably be safest to place the Moon Kingdom as having risen and fallen prior to the earliest written records in human history.
When Queen Serenity6 introduces herself to the Sailor Senshi among the ruins of the Moon Castle, she states:7
I am the personification of the one known by those of Earth as Selene, the goddess of the Moon.
The earliest written accounts of the Greek goddess Selene date back to at least the third century BC, though there may be references going back even earlier, to around the sixth century BC.8 This implies that at least some of the major players in the Silver Millennium weren’t entirely unknown to modern humans and may have simply been misinterpreted as gods.
You know you’re having a bad day when…
However, just a few pages later, Queen Serenity goes on to say that the role of the Moon Kingdom and the Silver Crystal was to protect the Earth from negative energy and to watch over the planet as it evolved. This actually fits nicely with statements later made by Nehellenia about the early days of the Moon Kingdom where she states that Queen Serenity and her retinue came to the Moon back in its infancy.9 Possibly shortly after the hypothesized planetary impact that created the Moon 4.5 billion years ago?10
Queen Serenity refers to Endymion as the prince of the Earth Kingdom and talks about him trying to convince the “people of Earth,” which implies that there was a large, unified empire that spanned the entire globe in the days of the Golden Kingdom. This is further supported by the fact that each of the Four Heavenly Kings assume control over a different part of the globe.
She sums up her story about the past by saying that the Earth Kingdom also fell and that civilization had to essentially start over from scratch.
Luna would like a TLDR here
So what does this all mean?
Well, basically all the information we’re given states that the events of the Silver Millennium happened “a really long time ago,” but we don’t have enough to actually go beyond that.
My best theory is that Queen Serenity and her entourage came to the Moon hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of years ago to watch over the Earth, possibly as life first began to develop here.11 Thanks to the constant care and supervision of the Moon Kingdom, a glorious Golden Kingdom developed and prospered on the Earth.
Long before the earliest written records, the battle between Queen Metalia and Queen Serenity took place and both the Moon Kingdom and Golden Kingdom fell. Though all of their knowledge, technology, and powers were lost to time, some of the stories of these mythical figures (Serenity, Endymion, Helios, etc.) somehow survived, possibly passed down as stories before being written down many generations later.
That, however, is just my best guess. I’d love to know what you think about all this! If you have any thoughts about where I went wrong, or possibly any alternate theories, let me know down below!
References:
- See p. 39, act 39, vol. 14 of the original release ↩
- Not to be confused with Freddie’s arch nemesis, Red Herring ↩
- See The Second Coming ↩
- See Plate Armour (Wikipedia) ↩
- See About Naoko Takeuchi ↩
- Or the AI hologram of Queen Serenty, for those who want to get technical ↩
- See p. 22, act 10, vol. 3 of the original release ↩
- See Selene (Wikipedia) ↩
- See act 41, vol. 15 of the original release ↩
- See Giant Impact Hypothesis (Wikipedia) ↩
- See Evolutionary History of Life (Wikipedia) ↩
One thing that made Western fans believe the 1,000-year theory was the Dic anime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c3YZujaWT0
As you can see, they reworked the intro by using later footage. (Also, apparently Queen Serenity, Ikuko and “Michelle” all have the same voice in the Dic dub.)
My guess is they came to the same conclusion, that Millenium meant it had happened 1,000 years ago.
Personally, I don’t have any idea when it happened, though I’m quite sure it was longer than 2,000 years.
Worldwide memory wipes are not outside the scope of Sailor Moon’s universe, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across any real evidence of one in the manga of one taking place.
My guess is this is one of those details we’ll never get a real explanation for unless Naoko decides to redo the manga and include everything she was forced to drop for the sake of deadlines.
Only in episode 1 dud Queen Serenity have the same voice as Ikuko and Michelle, later on she had a different voice actress.
This question has been bothering me for a long time, especially trying to write my own fiction involving prehistoric ancient civilizations (likely influenced by the Silver Millenium in the first place). Finding a place to put it becomes tricky when you’re trying to pay some kind of attention to real history!
Is it not too far off that the golden kingdom couldve been based on the atlantis myth and how it somehow fell? Atlantis was believed to have global influence at the peak of it’s power.
You know, you have just given me an idea for a possible fanfic: the Golden Kingdom existed in the late parts of the Thurian Age, and the Great Cataclysm that ended it and started the Hyborian Age was Sailor Saturn doing her thing.
It was shown in the manga that the moon kindly or moon dynasty was pre-historic compare to the DIC version of it lasted 1000 years ago. It might be best to look up about pre-historic info on Wikipedia or something to maybe update your theory on this page. Indeed the moon kingdom was around for a extremely long time. This kingdom loo to have been around longer before ever the fist human records could develop it.
I’ve always thought that Princess Serenity’s dress was Greek inspired lol (so that perhaps moon folk inspired the Greeks in SM. XD) as Endymion armor looks medieval, I think their clothing styles are mixed, but the moon kingdom is ancient.
The Moon Kingdom definitely took place before recorded history and it and the Golden Kingdom’s destruction basically meant an apocalypse for the people and life that existed previously. I was said that life and evolution started over again after the fall of the Moon Kingdom. It also could not have taken place at anytime in recorded history as the Earth was said to be one Kingdom ruled by Prince Endymion and there was no time in recorded history where the Earth was one Kingdom. The concepts of ages humans predating our current existence isn’t unknown in mythology. In Greek Religion there were 5 ages. The Age of Gold, Age of Silver, Age of Bronze, Age of Heroes and Age of Iron. Usually these ages start with creation of humans and end with an apocalypse followed by a recreation of humans. The Age of Gold for instance was said by some to be the time where the Titan God Cronus ruled all though the Orphic tradition says this was the time when the Primordial God Phanes ruled. All other ages were ruled by Zeus however the Orphic tradition says that Phanes ruled the Golden Age, Cronus ruled the Silver Age and the rest of the ages were ruled by Zeus. It is usually stated that each progressing age gets worse then the previous age all though the age of heroes was said to be an improvement over the age of Bronze. The age of Iron is the worst and lowest ages and the one we are currently end. It is foretold the age of Iron will keep getting worse and worse until a grand apocalypse happens followed by a restoration of the age of Gold. The ages are in fact cyclical and it was through the mysteries of Gods like Dionysus in the Orphic faith or Demeter and Persephone in the Eleusinian Faith that man could escape the cycle of death and rebirth and achieve union with the Divine and an end to suffering.
I’ve always thought it was sometime before written history as well. The mythology tie-ins fit nicely that way for sure. Saintfighteraqua is right though – if it took place later and just involved a massive (and selective) memory/time reset when the Silver Millennium ended, I wouldn’t be at all surprised XD.
Toss it on the gigantic pile of mysteries never to be solved haha.
I’m not an expert in architecture and building materials but the conditon of ruins on the moon we can see in manga and crystal would suggest the palace was abandoned/destroyed 4000-2000 years ago – but how does it work on the moon with its weak atmosphere and low temperatures anyway?
Kind of off-topic:
Have you considered writing about 90’s Sailor Moon/Crystal soundtrack? What were the inspirations behind it, maybe some copyright issues as with Moonlight Densetsu occured? And I heard it remains unclear who played violin in Outer Senshi theme
*sorry for any mistakes, English isn’t my first language*
Not an expert either, but to my knowledge the lack of wind and weather, as well as geological processes, prevents a certain type of corrosion while the vast difference in temperatures (260° Fahrenheit (127° Celsius) during ‘daytime’ and minus 280° F (minus 173° C) at ‘night’) promotes other kinds of corrosion. If the presumed stone and debris from the Silver Millennium wasn’t white/grey to begin with, the sunlight bleaches most everything over a relatively short period, unless it’s shaded by sitting in a crater. And then there are the ongoing impacts – while Earth is protected by its atmosphere and magnet field, every speck of dust with enough speed and force hits the Moon’s surface (approx. 5 tons/24h), kicking up existing dust to ‘rain’ back down, and slowly but steadily chews away on anything, churning away on the top 2 cm of regolith per 81,000 years. The last “big” impact on the moon in recorded history happened 2013 and left a 40m wide crater – before that it was assumed the last bigger impact happened in the 11th century, which was sort of debunked… so, bigger impacts don’t happen all to often, I guess.
I am not sure where you got the 2k-4k time-frame from – it may or may not be likely with ‘softer’ stone, but I honestly wouldn’t know.
But in this context, there could be a case be made, that whatever protected the populated areas back then would still – while having faded over time and without maintenance – to some degree protect some of the ruins, like the parts the Senshi visited on their trip down memory-lane…
Something from wiki, I stumbled upon some years ago, that settled the debate to me, how long ago a moon kingdom could have existed:
(the rest is the meta-consciousness, memories of the characters and their names transcending through dreams, mythologies and religions…)
…regarding the Outer Senshi theme:
It was NOT Vanessa Mae. …It was composed/arranged by Takanori Arisawa (有澤 孝紀), but I have searched myself insane back in the days trying to find out if the actual violinist was credited anywhere, and despite exhausting research could not find anything. So: unclear it is, but we can rule one out with almost 100% certainty.
PS: English isn’t my first language either, but I think we’re both doing just fine ^_-
I have alway considered, but of course I don’t speak Japanese, but in Crystal there was a line how “Once the Earth was just one Kingdom” and after the battle with Metallia the Earth has to reset itself. So it was probably long long before anyone can imagine, as everything has to reset. In a way it reminds me of Assassins Creed plot about the Ancient Civillization.
That’s what it sounds like to me: the Earth had developed and advanced into a great Golden Kingdom and then, after the tragic events of the battle against Queen Metalia, was completely reset along with the rest of the Solar System and had to start over.
I’m in the camp that I thought it was 1,000 years ago mainly because of the DiC dub… and of course, the name “Silver Millennium,” but not referring to how long it lasted (or how long it’s been around) is a bit weird. I know now that it’s the name of the monarchy, though.
Unrelated, but how do you generate your Related Posts (Read Also) at different points throughout your articles? Is it Jetpack, or another plugin? Do you choose them, or are they randomly selected?
I use the Inline Related Posts plugin. It’s not perfect, and the results it comes up with are a bit random, but it relies on the tags I use for each article to try and find something related.
If nothing else, hopefully it introduces readers to something else they might find interesting!
For some reason I always assumed the “1000 years ago” from the dub was canon and never gave it another thought. Why in the world I would think that the awful English dub definitely got something right, I have no idea.
Is there any chance to believe that the Silver Millenium actually took place during the time when Dinosaurs were still roaming like Zyuranger (Power Rangers’ Japanese original version) did or in a past timeline before ours?
D’oh, forgot to mention that it’s only a guess that it was either one of them. Sorry.
I’d never considered the deep impact theory in the context of sailor moon…but that would actually offer some interesting explanations for things. Possibly the impact of Theia and Gaia killed the original sailor crystals, necessitating a replacement by the cauldron, or at least created some cross contamination in their respective sailor crystals. Regardless, earth and the moon don’t have standard crystals anymore. They’re tied to each-other. This would also explain why Princess Serenity felt such a strong pull to Endymion. They both have parts of each other. (I can’t think of a better definition of literal soul mates.) It might also explain why both crystals are so ridiculously powerful and why contact between earth and moon were forbidden.
The two joined together and acting in concert is just terrifyingly overpowered. At some point someone decided that much power in the hands of two people was going to go horrifically wrong and cut contact as much as possible.
As far as why they’re overpowered compared to practically every other crystal out there? One of the major themes of sailor moon is that working together makes you stronger and more effective. The silver crystal and golden crystal are ALWAYS, CONSTANTLY working together. They do it just by existing.
It’s totally head cannon, but it works in my brain.
I always figured it took place before recorded history and the Moon and Earth were reset from there and became the Moon and Earth as we know them. But, what I really love is the concept that their ancient story inspired Greek mythology, much like the MCU’s Thor in relation to Norse mythology.
My only take away of this is…if it’s set way before pre history or such, then the humans would’ve been around when the dinosaurs were not only still existing (ala like Zyuuranger) but also have the kingdoms be more ancient looking instead of Renaissance looking. I mean I think Naoko just didn’t think things through when she made the “the Silver Millenium was long ago” kind of stick and probably wasn’t even considering the actual timeline. At least with the 1000 Years ago stick the old dub had back then, I felt it a bit more believable. But that’s just me.
i thought she the queen rewrote hisotry
I agree that it happened a looong time ago. But didn’t the manga clearly state that the evolution of the earth started anew? At least the German manga translation states that. I always thought that was ridiculous, since this is an icredibly long time, but well, it’s canon, as far as I know. Also: Snow Kaguya came 450 million years ago to the moon, which was stated in that side story. So obviously someone posessing the silver crystal (probably Queen Serenity or someone before her) must have already lived on the moon.
My theory is it happened hundreds of billions years ago.
Let me start with the Golden Kingdom. In real world history we have seen emperors rule over kingdoms. The Northern Yaun ruled over Goryeo (in real world history) which could be used as how the fictional Golden Kingdom operated & why there were Four Heavenly Kings. Also, in Chinese fictional dramas we’ve seen how the Crown Prince would often rule on behalf of the Emperor which could tie in with why Queen Serenity wanted Prince Endymion to talk to the earth people. The only thing is Naoko Takeuchi never gave her character proper titles.
So if Endymion was the prince of earth then who are his parents? Were they titled as King & Queen or Emperor & Empress? It would make sense if Naoko Takeuchi would have modeled the kingdom after Asian ones where there is an Emperor, his wife, concubines, the crown prince, & potentially other children but it seems she modeled it after western kingdoms where there were no concubines. It would also make sense if Endymion’s father was Emperor (but his mother not necessarily Empress) as it would then explain while Prince Endymion’s consorts were all kings & governed their own regions of the world.
If we want to tie in the fictional story with reality then what if the Golden Kingdom existed during the Rodinia supercontinent? This would put it well over 400 million years ago up until about 225 billion years ago. This would predate Pangea, Triassic, & the Jurassic periods.
Borrowing from Assassin’s Creed. Let’s say the Golden Kingdom, the Silver Millennium, along with the remaining planetary kingdoms were all “precursors” to current humanity. They would have been viewed as gods as ancient civilizations found hints of the previous civilizations. Even in AC, the Isu were thought of as gods & given real world tie ins. So borrowing that concept, in the Sailor Moon universe it wouldn’t have been difficult to say that ancient humans found traces of them & that led to what became religious beliefs around the world & in turn became mythology.
It would also help tie in another dropped plot point of how all the Senshi were princesses in their own right with their own castles. The whole plot point of them having their own parents (not just Princess Serenity with her mother Queen Serenity), people on their planets, & civilizations wasn’t even touched on OTHER than their guardians (i.e. Phobos & Deimos for Mars).
Now in regards to the war. What we see on the show & in the manga was essentially the final battle. All the other planets & their people were wiped out, the people of earth brainwashed, Endymion & Serenity killed which left Queen Serenity in a moment of madness to destroy the solar system not just wipe out all life. This is why in the original anime you could see hundreds of souls heading toward earth while Luna & Artemis we’re placed in stasis. Pluto was the only one to escape because she was in a different dimension but all the lives left on the Moon were sent to Earth. The lives of the other planets were sent back to the cauldron which is why those planets remain dead worlds.
When she used the Crystal it fragmented & destroyed her but her daughter’s soul remained intact & was able to inherit the crystal. (Still don’t understand how Chibi Usa inherited as such a young age while leaving Neo-Queen Serenity & Endymion as rulers.)
& if you want another kick in the theory department… if Chibi Chibi (Sailor Cosmos) was the reincarnation of Usagi/Neo-Queen Serenity (as imply in the manga) then what happened that led to her eventual death & reincarnation?
But yeah… in my opinion, the Silver Millennium & the Golden Kingdom took place billions of years before our time.
“My theory is it happened hundreds of billions years ago.”
Well, the universe itself is only 13.7 billion years old, so… *probably* not? Humanity as a species is only around 200,000 years old, and that ancient humans knew some of the names of those involved (Endymion, Serenity (as Selene)) – even if they got the context wrong – tells me that life itself didn’t have to start completely from scratch, *civilization* did.
Considering that all of the citizens of the Silver Millennium were apparently human, it would make more sense to me if they originally evolved on Earth, then spread out to colonize the rest of the solar system. (Yes, I know Stars had seemingly human aliens who were definitively from elsewhere in the galaxy, but – as far as I know – we never saw any ancient Lunar spaceships, or mentions of their original homeworld, so I’m inclined to believe they’re from here.) The people of Mercury could have lived underground, Venus and Mars could have originally been more Earth-like, magic or technology (or some kind of magitek hybrid) could have been used to terraform many of the moons of the gas giants. It would have taken time – probably a long time – and there could easily have been some friction and minor conflicts (and perhaps one or two not-so-minor ones), but eventually peace was achieved, and lasted for a thousand years (something no civilization in the real world has managed; little wonder they were so proud of that accomplishment), a period of time that would later be dubbed “the Silver Millennium”.
That may even have played a part in how Beryl/Metalia managed to rally the people of Earth against the Moon Kingdom: their great, world-spanning kingdom… didn’t include them anymore, the seat of government having moved at some point in the past to the Moon, ostensibly to better watch over them and guard them from threats… but it wasn’t like there was a “Sailor Earth”, was there? They weren’t even given the consideration of even being informed what decisions the Lunar Queen might make *concerning them and their well-being*.