Cosmic Keystone - Television Tropes & Idioms

In a realm beyond sight/The sky shines gold, not blue/There, the Triforce's might/Makes mortal dreams come true.

"Who designed this campaign setting? Why would you include four points of such catastrophic weakness that tampering with any of them results in the destruction of the global ecosystem? It makes no sense! A kind and loving creator would never have done this, and a cruel one would simply have made the air out of acid. And it wouldn't have evolved on its own, as there's no advantage to living in a world poised on the brink of annihilation!"
— Red Mage, 8-Bit Theater, "A Deal with the Devil

"Now listen closely, because this bit is very important. Existence, in all it's forms and splendor functions solely on one principle: God is infallible. To prove Him wrong would undo reality and everything that is. Up would become down, black would become white, existence would become nothingness. In essence, if they are allowed to enter that church, they'll unmake the world."

—Metatron, Dogma

Oh no! The world is in danger! Happiness, sunshine, puppies and ice cream will cease to exist! Why, you ask? Well, it seems that the villains have stolen, corrupted, or destroyed the Four Orbs of Fate, the Pillars of Reality, or The Lifestream. The loss of even one of these is enough to make the world spiral into a hellscape of torment that would make Satan weep molten tears of envy and pride. It seems that for some unfathomable reason the Powers That Be or Crystal Dragon Jesus who created the universe saw fit to make its continued healthy existence contingent on these poorly guarded, easily found, delicate, carry-on-luggage sized objects. Obviously they never heard of redundant systems and failsafes. These are also poorly designed, allowing less than scrupulous individuals to abuse them for personal gain.

If the villain ever gets the cosmic keystone, expect him to try and use it to destroy and/or remake the world in his own twisted image to rule over. If he even realizes the reality-central nature of the item. Sometimes the villain has a smaller goal in mind for its power; he just doesn't believe it'll destroy everything if something goes wrong, or else has an overinflated opinion on his ability to prevent that from happening. If he doesn't have it he'll tail the hero, let him do the hard work of finding it, and snatch it from the heroes' grasp at just the last second, only to fly away cackling. One would think they'd know better than to tamper with the underpinnings of reality, but villains aren't the sanest lot. When the changes can be easily reversed, there is obviously No Ontological Inertia in that cosmos.

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In Dogma, the cosmic keystone isn't an object, but a concept: God is Infallible. If god is ever proven wrong, existence would end. The movie's plot involves stopping two angels from doing that, by using Hollywood Catholic Dogma to end their banishment on earth.
The Fifth Element didn't just have cosmic keystones, but a living "perfect" human, the titular Fifth Element, was the focus and trigger for the only weapon that could fend off the elemental, perfect evil that wanted to destroy the world.
- The way This Troper understood it was that there is some kind of a "Law of Conservation of Evil", which would basically mean that if they created another anti-evil weapon, the Evil would still need to be destroyed by both the anti-evil weapons. It was The Evil, you know...
In the second Pokémon movie, three of the Legendary Birds maintained the balance of the world's climates. Capturing just one quickly threw the whole thing out of whack, turning a tropical area downright arctic. This is a massive change of theme from the Gotta Catch Them All mindset of the games; More like "Catch 'em all... except these three!" It's unknown whether this applies just to those specific three, or whether the capture of ANY Legendary Bird would have the same effect (or whether it would make a difference if the Bird went willingly).
- When Ash meets one of the Frontier Brains, him and the others tell the Brain how impressive it is that he caught Articuno (although he didn't), showing that, at the very least, one CAN catch the birds as long as they aren't from the three islands. Either that, or Ash suffered from amnesia after that movie.
- One could make a very valid argument that except for the first, none of the movies obey the continuity of the show. The first movie had a lot of setup in the show, and is partially based on a plotline from the game, so it has to be canon. Plus it would get around the "how can Ash keep saving the world and yet nobody knows who he is" question.
Slightly subverted in The Thief and the Cobbler, in which an Opening Monologue explains that the safety and balance of the Golden City depends on three golden balls perched on top of a minaret. News of an invading army comes just as King Nod discovers that the balls are gone, but the defeat of said army only seems to be incidental to the Thief finding and "returning" them.

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White gold in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is a cosmic keystone that is conveniently located outside of the cosmos it affects... until the start of the story anyway. The One Tree is another cosmic keystone, but with protections far surpassing the typical keystone. (Subverts the usual pattern further in that the Dark Lord never got his hands on them — they were used by the good guys instead.)
- Well, not really The Big Bad DOES get his hands on the white gold at the end of the Second trilogy. At that point, however, the hero has realized the true nature of the power of the white gold, and is able to trick the Big Bad into wasting his one shot at its use.
The Dark Tower in the series of the same name. It manifests in all worlds, but only in one does it appear as an actual tower — which is held up by six radiating Beams that span the sky in twelve directions from it. In most worlds, it takes the form of a rose, though it has also been known to appear as a tiger, a dog, or a talisman. One might question how a structure that is supposed to be the sustainer, or container, of all space-time can be threatened from inside the passage of time, but, you know, whatever.
- Think endoskeleton.
- In an interesting twist, two entire universes function as Cosmic Keystones for the multiverse. One the world in which the Tower exists as a real tower, and most of the characters' adventures take place. The other is (almost) our world, in which their adventures are described in a series of books by Stephen King — actually referred to as the "Keystone World", and the only one for which time travel is impossible. Destroying the Tower in either of these universes would lead to all of God's (er, "Gan's") creation being unraveled.
Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising series revolves around this.
The Boxes of Orden in the Sword of Truth series fit the trope, as using them incorrectly can let the Keeper, the local equivalent of Satan, into the world of the living. The Pillars of Creation are living versions.
The ~~Holy Grail~~ Lightstone is the Cosmic Keystone of the Ea Cycle. One would think something with that level of potential for abuse would have been guarded better.
One interpretation of the biblical story of Adam and Eve holds that the Forbidden Fruit of the tree of knowledge essentially acted as a Cosmic Keystone. The serpent, who is supposed to represent Satan, tricks them into partaking of the forbidden fruit. The result, of course, is the fall of man and the ruin of God's perfect creation. Some believe that this is the reason why we have natural disasters, diseases, wars, famine, and death in the world today.
- This is Adaptation Decay, since in the actual Genesis there are two forbidden trees; the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree of Life. According to the more or less literal Word Of God, anyone who eats from both will become like God him/herself.
  - No, you Did Not Do The Research — the Bible makes it perfectly clear that only the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was forbidden.
    Genesis 3:3: Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
    4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
    5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
  - I bring your attention to:
    Genesis 3:22: And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.
  - Note that he says ALSO. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit of knowledge, had they eaten the fruit of life they'd basically be God — immortal and nigh-omniscient. They were already immortal prior to eating the fruit, but because God said that they'd die if they ate from that Tree, they lost that immortality. Thus, prior to that point they didn't likely eat from the tree of life because they were already immortal. It was basically God saying "Yeah, you made your choice and should get out."
  - The bible never said Adam and Eve were already immortal prior to eating the fruit of knowledge. I suggest you reread Genesis 3:22. It suggests that Adam and Eve weren't immortal and that God didn't want them to be immortal and thus forbid them from eating the fruit of life. Let me reiterate. God put the trees of life and knowledge of good and evil, for whatever reason, in the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve were tempted and ate the fruit of knowledge, thus granting the knowledge of good and evil. God didn't want them to be immortal as well and so, to prevent them from the temptation of becoming immortal and also as punishment, he banished them from the Garden of Eden. In other words, God put a Cosmic Keystone in the Garden and then created humans with the purpose of eating from it and then punished them for doing what he designed them for. Seems like major Fridge Logic to me.
- Interestingly, Revelation 5-6 and 8:1 speak of a scroll that is believed by scholars to be the title deed to the Earth. Now to whom could it belong? It's Jesus.
  - Given that the idea of "Titles" and "Deeds" to land and property came long, long after Revelations, it seems to be a stretch to interpret those parts in that manner.
  - Not if you consider that God operates outside of conventional space-time it isn't. Anyway, there must have been some kind of local equivalent; the Hebrews -and probably most of the rest of the world- would rent and buy land.
  - Yes, but if God is working outside of Time Space why not add Simpson's Jokes to the Bible just to make it clear?
The Young Wizards series has The Book of Night with Moon, a book which describes the entirety of existence and which must be read from periodically by wizards in order to remind Reality what it's supposed to be like. It's indestructible and can't be used by the Big Bad, but simply keeping it out of the hands of the good guys for long enough will result in reality slowly unraveling.
Played sort of straight in Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series with the 'invincible' cuendillar seals containing The Dark One being the key to his release and the apocalypse that would ensue as he rewrote the Pattern in his image.
- Interestingly, Jordan plays with this trope as the seals are gradually weakening (and outright breaking in some cases) without any outside influence. This is generally put down to The Dark One breaking free of his prison.
  - Which is a catch-22. the Dark One can manipulate the laws of physics if he's free, allowing the otherwise indestructible Cuendillar seals to be breakable, but he shouldn't be able to do so unless the seals had already been broken. But, as Moiraine points out, the Dark One is paradoxical by nature. (Also, it's possible one of the seals was broken by some other means, weakening the prison and causing a chain reaction.)

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The Pillars of Nosgoth in Blood Omen: Legacy Of Kain, though there it's subverted because the Anti Hero protagonist decides to destroy the pillars completely and rule as an evil vampire king.
- The Pillars are technically more of a representation of the state of Nosgoth as a whole, and they are maintained by their nine guardians, whose states of mind the pillars reflect. Alternatively, the player can choose to save the pillars by killing himself (him being, unknowlingly, the last pillar guardian), but canon says that he chose not to, condemning the pillars to eternal ruination.
The Final Fantasy series has many of these.
- The original has the Four Orbs, one for each classical element. Their loss is what's slowly destroying the world. They were only called "Orbs" because "Crystals" wouldn't fit in the space allotted.
- Final Fantasy III (the real one) had four elemental crystals, fairly standard stuff. Much like the elemental crystals of Final Fantasy V (see below), they give the heroes jobs. Unusually, they are neither destroyed, stolen, nor tampered with. They are losing their light, though, which is why the Wind Crystal summons the Onion Kids (or Luneth in the remake.)
- Final Fantasy IV had not just four crystals for the elements, but an additional four dark equivalents for the underworld. While these crystals are never threatened within the time-frame of the game (merely used as tools to reach villains' goals), it is strongly implied that they are just as vital to the world as similar crystals other installments in the series.
  - And there's a second full set of eight on the Moon. Using both sets together is what enabled the Big Bad to send the Giant of Bab-il down to the world in order to raze it.
- Final Fantasy V also had four crystals for the elements, the destruction of each in turn wreaking havoc with the given element.
- Final Fantasy VI had the statues of the three goddesses, which merely moving out of alignment would cause the entire world to fall to pieces. Although they have that effect because they want to destroy the world, or at least don't care if it gets wrecked while they fight amongst themselves.
  - According to the Esper legend, the Warring Triad came to realize the horror they had brought upon the world, and voluntarily sealed themselves away. However, the raw magic that emanates from them is so powerful, they need to be sealed in a precise alignment to nullify each other, and prevent their mere existence from causing further damage.
- Final Fantasy Mystic Quest had four Crystals very similar to the Orbs in the first Final Fantasy. Additionally, there was a Crystal of Light, but its significance to the world was never well-established.
- In something of a reversal, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance had the protagonist going around destroying Ivalice's Cosmic Keystone set to turn the world back to normal. This is subverted when, after all of the keystones are destroyed, nothing changes - the world is still held together by Mewt's desire to live there, and the only way to unravel it is to convince him to give it up.
- In Final Fantasy IX, the Crystal is indeed a very Cosmic Keystone, as all life, everywhere, comes from and is sustained by it.
- It's very much like that as well in Final Fantasy XI, as the Mothercrystal is the basis for all of Vana'diel. It was also absurdly hard to get to, originally, but when the thing trying to destroy it is a Cosmic Horror, that kinda doesn't matter.
The Legend Of Zelda series features the Triforce which, while it cannot have such a powerful effect upon the normal world, will turn The Golden Land in which it usually resides into a reflection of the bearer's whim. The Triforce has canonically only been used directly a handful of times to grant wishes (The Adventure Of Link, The Wind Waker, A Link To The Past), and during the timeskip of Ocarina Of Time, Big Bad Ganondorf uses it to warp the Golden Land into Mordor.
- In Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf makes a grab for the Triforce (whole) and it shatters: Power is given to Ganondorf, Wisdom goes to Zelda, and Courage goes to Link. The real Ganondorf has been with Power in almost every other game (A Link to the Past is a notable exception since the Triforce is actually all in one place for once), while Link is often on quests to retrieve Courage and Zelda almost always has Wisdom innately (with the original game being exception for both).
  - Which in turn explains his incessant desire to kill or otherwise "deal with" Link and Zelda, since the death of either will release their part of the Triforce, making it up for grabs — exactly what Ganondorf wants.
- Twilight Princess changes up the mythos a bit: the Triforce is notably backgrounded, and new Light Spirits are added; without the Light Spirits, the Twilight Realm takes over the world. And the Twilight Realm has its own — small suns that return Dark creatures to their original, more peaceful forms.
Tales Of Symphonia has the Mana Tree, which in a subversion, has already been destroyed for the past thousand years or so. The entire point of the game is to create a new one.
Romancing SaGa pulls something more out of this, The legendary Artifacts; Fatestones, if not collected will be used to power up the Final Boss, you can even power him up intentionally for a greater challenge if you wish after clearing the game one time.
In Star Fox Adventures, General Scales manages to snag the four SpellStones that keep the planet together. Its initial effect is to push four chunks of land away from the planet, but there are concerns that the planet could explode. You don't need to worry about that happening, however; you can Take Your Time.
In Valkyrie Profile 2, the four worlds of the setting are each stabilized by one of the four treasures. Removing a treasure from its world causes that world to quickly become unstable and eventually cease existing.
The world of Wizardry VI, VII & VIII are chucked full of these. First theres the Cosmic Forge, a pen and book in which anything written (or erased) affects reality accordingly.
The four seals in Drakengard fill this role. Partially subverted in that the world was created far differently from how it appears, and the seals hold back the true world by replacing it with one that is user-friendly.
In Zork Grand Inquisitor, the world will stay a world oppressed by the technological dictator The Grand Inqisitor if the player doesn't find three object with massive magical power: a Cube of Foundation, the Skull of Yoruk, and the Coconut of Quendor.
In Nox, the player must find the Halberd of Horrendous, the Heart of Nox, the Weirdling, and finally The Orb.
In Diablo II, the evil Baal tries to capture the Worldstone. He aims to corrupt it and turn the mortal world into a bastion of Hell.
- Note that there is slight subversion though: In the end, the Worldstone got corrupted, so Tyrael destroys it. Apparently, it wasn't necessary for the world to exist, it was just some sort of... something. This Troper likes to think that by destroying the Worldstone, our own world "came to life" (basically making the worldstone some sort of a link to the magical / religious)
  - The novelisations provide some amount of backstory: the Worldstone was apparently made by the renegade angels and demons who built Sanctuary (particularly the angel Inarius) in order to hide the world from everyone else and also limit the magical potential of humans so they couldn't challenge Inarius. Since Heaven and Hell have long since learnt of Sanctuary's existence, its purpose, from a human point of view, was fairly moot. Although it may have had other functions not mentioned.
Golden Sun features the Elemental Stars, which when removed from their hidden chamber cause a calamitous volcanic eruption. Placing these stars in their respective elemental lighthouses will destroy the world. But in Golden Sun: The Lost Age, this is inverted: If the Elemental Lighthouses are not lit, the world will definitely be destroyed, and the only danger otherwise comes from what humans might do with the power of the activated lighthouses. Oh, and just lighting a few of the Lighthouses will upset the climate.
The Touhou Project game Scarlet Weather Rhapsody revolves around a rebellious Celestial stealing a keystone. The loss of the keystone destroys the Hakurei Shrine via earthquake, prompting the lazy Miko to head out.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Inverted in that the player goes around entering small hellish dimensions stealing their cosmic keystones in order to collapse them and prevent the demons within from attacking your world. Of course, the reason the demons are able to do open up the portals is because the Cosmic Keystone on your side (The Amulet of Kings) was stolen, and you need to get it back.
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind features the heart of the Daedric Prince Lorkhan, who is also the creator of Mundus and Nirn, in which the TES series takes place. Additionally, after having powered the massive golem Numidium once, the golem breaks reality each time it is turned on.
Averted/Inverted in Suikoden, with it's 27 True Runes. The runes are major parts of the world, and at least one is required for the continued existence of it's domain (The Dragon Rune allows dragons to exist) and the destruction of the 5 True Elemental Runes is Not A Good Thing. However, the Runes are rarely in danger as they have wills of their own and generally control their bearer FAR more than their bearers control them.
Pokémon loves this trope to itty bitty pieces. So many examples, so little time...
- Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald were centered around this. Evil bad guy(s) steals object(s) of power, world goes to hell.
- Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum were even more centered around the trope, if that's even possible. There were even separate levels of Cosmic Keystones here: the Lake Trio, when brought together, created the Red Chain. That in turn summoned Dialga or Palkia, who were cosmic lynchpins that could literally destroy and reform the universe. Platinum takes it a step further, with the temporospatial chaos created by Dialga and Palkia's presence summoning Giratina, who could also destroy the world. Presumably with a bigger bang. And, wouldn't you know, some lunatic had the fantastic idea to make the Red Chain and (try to) pull this Trope.
  - To be fair, it WAS incredibly difficult. Cyrus DID have to catch the three spirits first, and since they are described as mirages, well, you can imagine how hard that was. He then had to rip the gems out of them while avoiding their curse (look at Uxie's open eyes, and your memory is wiped. Touch Mesprit, and lose all emotions (although Cyrus would actually like that). Harm Azelf and become petrified for all time) and craft them into a chain. And in Platinum, he then had to copy the chain. Even after dragging out Dialga/Palkia, the pixies came and contained the god. In Platinum, he used both chains to drag out both deities, since he knew that the Pixies could contain one, but not both. However, Giratina, pissed about the fact that, if you destroy that world, you destroy his as well, came out and dragged Cyrus into his world. Giratina, in fact, ended up inverting the trope as Cyrus tried to trick the player into not going near Giratina by saying catching or defeating Giratina would end both worlds, when in fact it was the only way to repair the rift created. And the player can even RUN AWAY from Giratina to calm him down and repair the rift, showing how damn easy it is to undo the damage done. I would say that those are some DAMN well guarded Cosmic Key Stones.
- Another D/P example is found in the postgame, when the removal of the Magma Stone from Stark Mountain almost caused said volcano to erupt. Not "cosmic" persay, but certainly destructive.
The first Ty The Tasmanian Tiger has five talismans that need to be recovered so the Big Bad of the series can't unlock the power of the Dreamtime and wipe out all the mammals. Incidentally, the place the talismans are returned to serves as the conveniently-located hub of the game.
Wild ARMs has the Tear Drop - a crystal with a link to the guardians and should not be in the wrong hands. There's also the Ray Line, a sort of underground conduit linking the guardians' powers. When the villains manage to damage it, the forces of nature go out of whack, wreaking havoc.
- And this makes more sense if you take into consideration Blind Idiot Translation: Ray Line = Leyline. Indeed, it was translated as Leyline in the remake.
In Mother 3, the Seven Needles sealing away the Dark Dragon, although subverted somewhat by the fact that not just anyone can pull it - you have to have a certain special PSI power. It also helps that if a good-hearted person pulls the Needles, the Dragon wouldn't so much destroy the world as upgrade it.
Skies of Arcadia: Six Moon Crystals that control ancient biological superweapons, the Gigas. When brought together, the Moon Crystals can unseal the most powerful Gigas and call upon the power to destroy civilization.
In Vagrant Story, the city you fight in is the Cosmic Keystone. Yes, drawing on its power irrevocably damns your soul, and sometimes you can't even stop yourself from using it. Yes, it also unravels that pesky Laser Guided Amnesia (OR DOES IT?). And yes, everyone and their grandmother has designs on the bloody place, including that Corrupt Church. All to the point where you don't know who might have the right idea up. Until the end, where it becomes a case of who's the last man standing.
- Said Cosmic Keystone, named 'The Gran Grimoire', is the source of all magical energy in the world. And, in the Final Fantasy games that tie in with Vagrant Story, normally manifests as a book that created, and is holding together, the entire world.
The Infocom Interactive Fiction game Spellbreaker has its protagonist traveling the world in search of its Cosmic Keystones, which in a borderline subversion manifest as featureless white cubes that are utterly indistinguishable from one another (but can be written on to differentiate them; this was considered a neat feature when the game first came out). It turns out that this is all part of a Xanatos Gambit executed by the protagonist's evil magical doppelganger: you've been playing Mac Guffin Delivery Service for him all along, and once you unwittingly bring all the cubes to him, he magically paralyzes you and uses the cubes to build a tesseract - a hypercube - at the center of which is the Cube of Magic. Once he enters the hypercube, reality will reconfigure itself around him - essentially turning him into a god - but the protagonist can use his Heroic Resolve to shake off the doppelganger's spell just in time to replace the Cube of Magic with something nonmagical, erasing your evil twin from existence... as well as magic, unfortunately.

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Pirates of Dark Water had thirteen treasures which kept the evil, omnivorous Dark Water from escaping. The show's central premise is recovering them before it's unsealable.
The Thundercats had scads of these. Most of the second season was taken up recovering the sacred treasures of Thundera in order to restore and stabilize said planet after it was originally destroyed.
In the X-Men animated series, people with Psychic Powers proved to be Cosmic Keystones when brought together, as killing them all at once would have allowed the Big Bad to remake the universe in his image.
- Albeit only if it was done in the Axis of Time, a kind of convergence of history existing outside of time. Plus, being in the Axis increases the psychics' powers, such that all of them gathered together collectively overpowered Apocalypse. So somewhat more stable than most Cosmic Keystones.
In Code Lyoko, entering "Code XANA" into a Way Tower will destroy the sector it is in. Furthermore, Lyoko can be deleted all at once by destroying the "Core of Lyoko" in Sector 5.
In Avatar the Last Airbender, the spirits of the moon and ocean, bored with existence in the spirit world, came to live in the mortal world in the form of koi fish. If they are killed, the part of nature they represent (or the effect it has on other objects or something) will be gone forever.
- Although one of them was smart enough to heal someone in exchange for them becoming a backup spirit.
One episode of Futurama featured a box containing the universe. Played for laughs, as even with warnings that it had to be treated as dearly as life itself, the box is shaken to listen for anything rattling inside (causing a small earthquake) and sat on (stretching out the picture horizontally).
Transformers Cybertron revolved around the characters attempting to recover the Cyber Planet Keys and the Omega Lock. Optimus Prime needed them to save Cybertron, Starscream wanted to become a god, and Megatron wanted to destroy the universe and remake it in his image.
The plot of Barbie and the Diamond Castle involves the heroines trying to keep the titular castle and the instruments in it out of the villain's hands, lest the world turn to "shadows and sorrow." The villain's actual goal in gaining the castle is to solidify her position as the only muse and rule all music, but those side effects will occur, apparently.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Special "Turtles Forever" have an entire dimension and group of the titular Turtles as a Cosmic Keystone for the entire Multiverse. It is the dimension of the original Mirage Comics and its native TMNT and is called "Turtle Prime" in the special.