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De edo sud tovouk GENERAL SCALES!
(No one can defeat GENERAL SCALES!)
SFA ScalesHead

General Scales was a member of the SharpClaw Tribe, who rose to a position of power and went on to try and fulfill his desire as the tyrannical despot of Dinosaur Planet, believing that he could only rule the many tribes by forcing them with brutality to spread fear that they couldn't stand up to him. Although he was successful in causing havoc across the entire planet at a dangerous level, his conquest agenda attracted the attention of the Cornerian Military, who sent the Star Fox Team to prevent his rule from causing planetary destruction, and he did not realize he was just being used as a pawn himself until it was too late.

Biography[]

Early life[]

Millions of years ago, the second moon of Dinosaur Planet came crashing into the world below, creating many new races and a mutant race of Dinosaurs, soon known as the SharpClaw. Orphaned at a young age, Scales grew up with the rest of the SharpClaws, as an overpowering bully with a dislike of authority. The other sharpClaw feared Scales because of his size and strength, which allowed him to stage many challenges for rule over the tribe, finally becoming the youngest general at age 24. Scales went on to become the tribe leader of the SharpClaws, and attempted to overthrow the leading tribes of Dinosaur Planet, basing the idea of his role on acts of fear to keep other tribes in line. However, they were denied a spot, instead losing out to the CloudRunner and EarthWalker tribes.

Ascent into power[]

After so many unsuccessful campaigns, Scales caught the eye of Andross, who by that point was a disembodied spirit. While making himself relatively unknown to Scales, the ape managed to subconsciously influence ideas of power and presumably his prior knowledge of conquest to Scales, allowing for him and his improved SharpClaw army to war against the EarthWalker tribe at Krazoa Palace and the CloudRunner tribe in their fortress and the other tribes on Dinosaur Planet, using unexpected tactics and technology the other tribes had never seen before. Scales was also the one responsible for the breakup of the planet by removing the SpellStones that restrained the unstable dark energy buildup of the planet, forcing the four scared SpellStone kingdoms into the orbit. He eventually raided Krazoa Palace, wiping out the EarthWalkers who were guarding the palace, although not without the EarthWalkers sensing the malevolent power behind Scales' assault. At some point, he was met with resistance with a diverse group of friends composed of an EarthWalker, a HighTop, a ThornTail, and the CloudRunner who flew Krystal to Krazoa Palace, and defeated and captured them save for the ThornTail, who was secretly a GateKeeper and who managed to escape. As a security measure against potential meddlers, he assigned members of his tribe to guard Moon Mountain Pass and the Cape Claw area due to their connection to the Force Point temples. He also arranged for Prince Tricky to be captured and held prisoner at Ice Mountain.

Eventually, he ambushes the Cerinian survivor, Krystal, with his prized galleon, and after his ship was heavily damaged, he met up with her after she managed to procure a key for Krazoa palace and tried to kill her.

Search for GateKeepers[]

Afterwards, he hunted down the GateKeepers to gain access to the floating pieces of the planet, and he conquered each floating land mass one after another, as well as returning the SpellStones to their respective lands. Scales attempted to blackmail Garunda Te, the elder of the SnowHorn tribe, into opening the way to DarkIce Mines with the alternative of Scales committing genocide against the SnowHorns. Although Garunda Te still refused even at the cost of his tribe, his daughter, Belina Te, submitted to Scales and opened the gateway for him in order to save her race. Scales, true to his word, did not wipe out the race, but enslaved them instead and transported them to DarkIce Mines so they would be forced to work in the mines; he also had his minions seal away Garunda Te, presumably as his punishment for resisting him.

He later captured the CloudRunner Fortress to use as his base of operations to rule over Dinosaur Planet and acquire the vast wealth inside their treasure rooms, exiling the CloudRunner Queen to the main planet shortly after capturing her. At some point, he became privy to Fox McCloud's arrival on the planet, and upon the queen's return to the CloudRunner Fortress, he captures and interrogates her about Fox's location. He then has her beaten after she states that Fox will find him and destroy him. Shortly after Fox reveals himself, he has Fox captured, and takes away his staff. Scales eventually manages to break into the treasure room where the SpellStone was and retrieved it, although Fox managed to intercept the SpellStone. Scales fled from the scene via a teleportation device on his belt, and Fox did not encounter him again until his penultimate visit to Krazoa Palace.

Although he did not capture Walled City due to the King Earthwalker sealing away his gatekeeping powers, he did nonetheless return the SpellStone to the Walled City sometime beforehand and also released the RedEye tribe from their imprisonment and gained their support in planetary domination, and likewise forced the EarthWalkers into hiding.

He also captured Dragon Rock and turned it into a prison facility for any enemies of his tribe, while releasing the full force of the planet's dark energy into the area, transforming it into a desolate wasteland and conducting experiments to transform prisoners into powerful killing machines such as Drakor.

Unexpected defeat[]

Later revealed to be the holder of the last of the Krazoa Spirits, General Scales prepared himself to fight Fox McCloud in the Krazoa Palace, using some kind of sword. However, this was not to be, as Andross interrupted their fight and forced Scales to relinquish the final spirit to McCloud. Despite being a part of Andross' plan, General Scales seemed completely surprised and unaware of Andross's presence, as he questioned his identity and authority when Andross ordered him to simply give Fox the final Krazoa Spirit. Scales then grudgingly released his Krazoa Spirit after he let out a painful roar and collapsed to the ground without moving again. Three SharpClaw soldiers surrounded him and retrieved his belt before cheering as if celebrating.

When Fox returns from fighting Andross, he finds that the SharpClaw have liberated themselves from the general and are holding up his belt in victory. It is unknown what became of Scales afterwards.

Fate?[]

While it is unknown what the true fate of General Scales is, it can be assumed he would never again return to threaten the Dinosaur inhabitants, as Scales was not seen or heard of again after the final cutscene of his involvement in "Adventures".

SFA Krazoa Palace SharpClaw

SharpClaws rejoice.

The only provided suggestion that Scales' campaign was over is the brief moment during Fox's brief return to Krazoa Palace where the entire SharpClaw Tribe are cheering Fox for his victory over Andross, and one particular trooper held up the General's belt for Fox to see, suggesting they liberated themselves from their fallen ruler and were cheering Fox on his victory for stopping both Scales and Andross. This can be seen as a possible reference to the original "Star Fox" game manual reading for Venom explaining that the inhabitants of Venom were not really willing followers of Andross, but rather forced into service and inwardly hoped that Fox would be successful in liberating them from his control after defeating him, which finally explains the outright joy of the SharpClaw minion's newly found freedom at the defeat of Andross and their corrupted General.

11-10-OneLife

Life-Force Door.

One plausible reason for Scales to be speculated as having died could be that when Fox entered the last Krazoa Shrine to find the last Krazoa Spirit, a Life-Force Door emitting a singular enemy spirit was automatically activated when he entered the arena, which prevented Fox from leaving, until Scales released the Spirit to Fox, causing the Life-Force Door to dispel after the Test was seemingly completed, despite no battle between Fox and Scales actually happening. In the game's context, Life-Force Doors tend to disappear after the required number of enemies are defeated, and the said enemies never respawn, further suggesting that releasing the Spirit might have been fatal to Scales.

In "Star Fox Assault" however, Slippy claims that during the Aparoid Invasion, the SharpClaw tribe got wiped out in the attack, which left the entire planet totally defenseless. If this were the case, it would also clarify that Scales may have been dead before or after then.

Trivia[]

  • The relationship of General Scales and Andross is similar to two other Nintendo characters, Zant and Ganondorf, from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, in that both have two tyrannical minions given power by vastly more powerful beings who are both arch enemies of the main protagonists. On a related note, both Ganondorf and Andross had completely revived themselves shortly after Zant and General Scales had met their downfall, and both Zant and Scales started serving Ganondorf and Andross when they (or in Scale's case, his tribe) were denied a position of power. The only difference is that Zant was fully aware of his servitude to Ganondorf, while Scales was completely unaware of Andross's existence, never mind his role in Scale's rise to power.
  • During Adventures' viral marketing campaign, a wallpaper was released featuring Scales, where it claimed him as a benevolent leader in a somewhat sarcastic manner.
  • General Scales and Andross both seemed to have exactly the same kind of eyes. This is probably deliberate to hint at Scales and Andross's connection. However, it should be noted that Scales' eyes differ, as he is seen with normal eyes in his official renders, but is shown differently during the course of the game, as he possesses a Krazoa Spirit.
  • Despite being a central character and a major antagonist, Scales only gets about fifteen minutes on-screen, making just five appearances in total with eight lines in Dino Talk, spanning 70 words and 12 lines in English, spanning 94 words. He has a combined total of 164 words and 220 lines of dialogue.
  • It is unknown how General Scales managed to get a Krazoa Spirit, since it is said only a being with a pure heart can pass the test to be possessed by one. Of course, he could have simply been pure evil. There is also the possibility that this lone Spirit did not have a test to keep it safe from Scales' grasp. Another possibility is that given that Krystal finds Andross within the Krazoa Palace, Andross could also have the ability to channel the power of the Krazoa spirits, in this case into General Scales.
  • The shadow of Scales appears on the western regions box artwork of Star Fox Adventures, as if the artwork is taken from his own point of view. This is very likely, as he towers over every main character in that picture.
  • General Scales, alongside Captain Shears, are the only major Star Fox villains who do not have their names begin with an "A."
  • General Scales largely had the same role in the basis for Star Fox Adventures, the cancelled game Dinosaur Planet, although with a few notable differences.
    • In the original game, during his first encounter with Krystal, he ended up unintentionally getting himself electrocuted due to his claw making contact with the Queen Cloudrunner's baby's cage and it being struck by lightning, resulting in him falling overboard. In Star Fox Adventures, he ends up grabbing Krystal when she attempted to defend the baby cloudrunner from his terrorizing it and then threw her overboard while gloating about his invincibility.
    • He also was meant to have a different defeat. Namely, Krystal would have fought Scales before both fell into a desert, with Scales specifically falling hard on a protruding rock precipice, severely injuring him. Krystal and what was presumably the Queen Cloudrunner's baby from earlier then proceeded to remove his belt. Scales then regains consciousness long enough to warn that he'll soon seek revenge before passing out again.
      • His belt also was going to have a more major role: It was derived from Kamerian technology, which was how Krystal and by extension Sabre found out about their involvement.

Names in Other Languages[]

Language Name
Japanese (スケール将軍 Sukēru Shougun)
Italian Generale Scales

References[]

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