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World Travel



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Heart2Heart

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So, trying to wrap my head around how characters can and cannot travel between worlds from game to game chronologically. I haven't played KH3 yet, but don't mind minor *relevant* spoilers.

So as far as I can tell, KH(U)χ barely counts because of the seemingly virtual nature of the worlds besides Daybreak Town and the currently mysterious connection its events have with the later series.

In Birth By Sleep, the worlds are separated by barriers, but are connected just as people's hearts are, and thus there are the Lanes Between, which keyblade wielders of all kinds can access and travel along with Keyblade Gliders, if the Lanes themselves are open. Corridors of Darkness are generally always accessible by those who are willing to subject their hearts to darkness to open and travel through them. If a piece of those barriers breaks off, it can be used as a "Star Shard", which for all intents and purposes is a special item that can "safely" transport you to other worlds, albeit with little predictability or precision. Strong, high-level magic performed by powerful witches, wizards, and sorcerers is also capable of transporting people and things from world to world.

In Kingdom Hearts, apparently a world's heart being lost to darkness/heartless (or the keyhole... The door to the world's heart?) causes specifically the barrier around that world to break apart (not necessarily shattered entirely?) and cause meteor showers that land as what we call Gummi Blocks. These blocks can be used to build Gummi Ships, which are capable of ignoring barriers of other worlds...? Or passing through the holes in the barriers...? (But if the doors need to be opened or the heartless led to the keyholes of worlds for those worlds to have damaged barriers, how did King Mickey travel from Disney Castle to Radiant Garden? Had Disney Castle's keyhole been exposed?) Anywho, sometime between Birth By Sleep and Kingdom Hearts, Gummi Blocks were discovered by King Mickey and others (Ansem and his apprentices too IIRC) and King Mickey and Scrooge McDuck traveled via Gummi Ship from Disney Castle to Radiant Garden, but also elsewhere, somehow constructing roads or pathways between a number of worlds. It's at least confirmed that Cid took the current members of the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee as children and fled to Traverse Town via Gummi. However, after the Door to Darkness was closed, the worlds' barriers were restored.

In Kingdom Hearts 2, as the barriers are fixed, there's technically no way to travel via Gummi Ship, and neither Sora, Riku, or even Mickey have the option of using their keyblades as gliders. However, the worlds independently favor Sora, Donald, & Goofy presumably thanks to their efforts at the end of Kingdom Hearts, so they... connect to one another... and upon strange circumstances surrounding innocuous objects in different worlds, create, reveal, and unlock "Gates" between each other for Sora, Donald, and Goofy to travel via Gummi Ship. The Organization uses Corridors of Darkness, as does Riku, DiZ, and occasionally Mickey and Pluto, and yet *assuming* Mickey and Pluto aren't opening the corridors themselves, they can't be relying on Riku 100% of the time, so Mickey must be using Gummi Ship, right? Here's the real purpose of the thread, besides clarifying how it works up until Kingdom Hearts 2-3... Can Mickey just fly wherever? Can he only travel between worlds that have their Gates unlocked by Sora? Is Mickey able to unlock Gates as well? If Mickey unlocks Gates, are they separate from the ones Sora opens?

After Kingdom Hearts 2... IIRC, Sora still needs to unlock a Gate to get to Olympus (Coliseum) even though he's already opened it in KH2 and doesnt even do so via something else like the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee Honorary Member Cards or Shan-Yu's sword, or Beast's rose, etc. Can anyone explain? The main question I'd really like to know is, could other Gummi Ships pass through the Gates Sora opened at least? Doubt characters like Leon, Yuffie, etc in the Underdrome battles counted, but still, were they capable of that?
 

okhi12

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In BBS, Lanes Between, wizard magic and star shard were the only travel methods that didn't require dark corridors.

In KH1, anyone with a gummi ship could travel to any world attacked by the heartless.

In KH2 I'm sure they could find alternative routes or use Sora's. Mickey, as a Keyblade Master, shouldn't have any problem, and the heartless gummi ships are able to travel through the same pathways Sora opened, so... you don't even need a keyblade to do so. Scrooge and the FF characters should've been able to travel as well.

In KH3, the ocean between worlds is divided in three Galaxies but the pathways are not explained, because Sora needed a gate to reach Olympus but he could enter the world map and the rest of the worlds without opening additional gates. My guess is that Sora opened the Lanes Between because the gate looks similar to the portal Terra, Aqua and Ven used at the beginning of BBS and the Lanes Between are opened with just a keyblade, unlike the KH2 routes that needed an intermediary item to form a keyhole in order to open them. Even if Sora has no idea what the Lanes Between are, that doesn't mean he's not able to open them. After all, in BBS Ventus was able to use the Lanes Between after seeing Terra, without being -apparently- instructed how to do so (he was surprised to see Terra opening the gate and transforming into his armored form, so I think Ventus had no idea they were able to do that). Maybe the "May your heart be your guiding key" has something to do with opening the Lanes Between, because that motto seems to be related to the keyblade teachings. Anyway, Sora encounters heartless ships through the galaxies, so anyone with a gummi ship can travel. The world barriers are not mentioned at all in KH3, but I assume they are still there and the gummi ship gets through them.
Dark corridors are always present, because they are shortcuts that ignore the world's barriers.

Anyway, the world map and world locations, the pathways, the barriers and their "penetrability" are not consistent within the games and there's no explanation aside from that of KH2 "after the worlds were restored the old pathways cannot be traversed anymore and you'll have to open new ones". I wouldn't think too much about it.
 
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EternalDream

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It's best to just think of the KH universe as space, and each world as a planet. It's been shown anyone can travel the worlds as long as they have a ship capable of flight in space, not just Keyblade Wielders. See Hook's ship in KH1 or the intergalactic space ship from Stitch in BBS. The Keyblade Gliders and Gummi Ships are literally just space ships, nothing special about them otherwise.

The 'barriers' are more of a formality that just keeps some of the darkness out, but they really don't protect from much since anyone can pass through them, and corridors of darkness ignore their protection entirely.

Now, space is pretty big, just look at our universe. You wouldn't know how to get to Mars from a completely arbitrary point in space if you weren't already able to see it or just know exactly where it is, right?

This is where the "pathways" described in KH1/2 come in, being essentially a shortcut to specific "planets" or worlds. They're the easy way to a world, but they're volatile, and the worlds only have these paths leading to them if they're in significant danger (KH1) or someone creates new paths by tracing a connection (KH2).

In KH1, all Sora and co did was follow the existing paths to see where they end up, but locking the keyholes and saving the worlds hearts at End of the World made these paths disappear. It's not that Sora couldn't travel to those worlds, it's just that there's no road for him to follow anymore. They could aimlessly fly around but that'd never get them anywhere.

Then in KH2 he traces connections to some worlds through his heart, creating a new path for him to follow in the vast reaches of the Lanes Between. Once again these are temporary.

In KH3, Sora for the first time properly accesses the Lanes Between without first creating a path, the same way the BBS crew does, and essentially uses his heart like a compass to point out where he needs to go, no paths required. Literally "may your heart be your guiding key".

While BBS crew uses their gliders and Sora uses his Gummi Ship, Mickey most likely has learned to control the Star Shard for the same purpose (he even has it under control already at the end of BBS as he carries Aqua/Ven with him to the Mysterious Tower).
 
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okhi12

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Yep, Mickey still owns the Star Shard. It was used by Donald and Goofy at the end of Dream Drop Distance to help Riku and Mickey in TWTNW.
 

Heart2Heart

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So it almost seems like Gummi Ships are for people who need to bring a passenger lol I still don't quite get why the Heartless and Nobodies had Gummi Ship like enemies and the bit Yen Sid said about the Heartless/Nobodies using the Gates... Like, can't they travel through the corridors? Are those Gummi enemies ships with Heartless piloting them? If not, how come we never encounter them IN world?
 

welken

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I would like to see these Corridors of Darkness. They're so convenient, for characters, and story. Are they just dipping into the Realm of Darkness creepy caverns and coming out somewhere else? Are there special doors in the dark, or do you just summon your own warp gate in the spot that corresponds to where you wanna get to? Is there a dark station? Dark mansion of doors? Dark wonkavator? Do you just "will" yourself through the dark mist with your heart as your guide, or is it a somewhat-static dark nexus that needs to accurately navigated?

I would like to learn more of the dark in general, and see the deeper darkness beneath the realm we've seen. Is there a demonic inferno, where terrifying noble Heartless lurk?

Is the deepest dark where you can find the true Kingdom Hearts, or do you have to take the Scala up to the Caelum? And I'm talking the true true Kingdom Hearts, not a door, not just its heartmoon avatar, but a maaagical mystery land that embodies the quintessiality of Kingdom Heartsness, a perfect garden of wonders and the most glorious of keeps, and all of it alive as one. A plane of existence more fabulous, strange and extravagant than anywhere else. The Throne. That's where I want to go. Or the dark equivalent, Kingdom Hearts of Darkness.
 

Heart2Heart

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Another thing, if gummi blocks arrive in different worlds when a world's walls collapse, and that happens only when the door to said world's heart (the keyhole) is opened,

1. Did Apprentice Xehanort opening the door to Radiant Garden's heart cause a meteor shower of gummies to shower onto Disney Castle? (KH2's placement of Radiant Garden and Disney Castle indicates they are essentially neighbors) since I doubt the same thing happened to Disney Castle's worldly walls (though that begs the question how Mickey and Scrooge were able to pass those walls via Gummi Ship)
2. I'm aware Sora/Donald/Goofy acquiring them is more gameplay than story, but are gummi blocks canonically absent from Kingdom Hearts 2 and beyond, excluding the ones the Kingdom/Highwind is made of?
3. Besides honest curiosity, I also am curious for the sake of fanfic, makes more sense for an OC to find blocks in their world and get the hunch to make a ship (as Mickey/Scrooge/Chip/Dale did) then to, idk, get a keyblade for some unknown reason and use that to travel between worlds. So, point being, seems like any character to acquire gummi blocks and build a gummi ship would have to do it as early as Post-BBS/Pre-KH and as late as before Sora faces Ansem, AND DO said travel either in the above time-frame, or after Sora has woken up and begun his journey in KH2, consisting of him opening the Gates/pathways... (Though as a member has said, perhaps there just wouldn't be any obvious world-to-world route to take, and aimless travel may be possible throughout)
 

Antifa Lockhart

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I would like to see these Corridors of Darkness. They're so convenient, for characters, and story. Are they just dipping into the Realm of Darkness creepy caverns and coming out somewhere else? Are there special doors in the dark, or do you just summon your own warp gate in the spot that corresponds to where you wanna get to? Is there a dark station? Dark mansion of doors? Dark wonkavator? Do you just "will" yourself through the dark mist with your heart as your guide, or is it a somewhat-static dark nexus that needs to accurately navigated?

We see them countless times, we even travel through them in KH2 when we go to the World That Never Was. That's a Dark Corridor.
 

SweetYetSalty

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So it almost seems like Gummi Ships are for people who need to bring a passenger lol I still don't quite get why the Heartless and Nobodies had Gummi Ship like enemies and the bit Yen Sid said about the Heartless/Nobodies using the Gates... Like, can't they travel through the corridors? Are those Gummi enemies ships with Heartless piloting them? If not, how come we never encounter them IN world?
I always took it as the Heartless attacking other Gummi ships not using those to actually travel. Or they are born in the lanes between just like they can be born in worlds of data.
 

Heart2Heart

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Well, it is said that the "Ocean Between" is full of a thin layer of darkness (best way I can describe it not being the same as palpable darkness like in The Realm of Darkness) so if darkness manifests as Dream Eaters in the Realm of Sleep, perhaps darkness manifests as Heartless-aligned Gummi enemies (tho Dream Eaters mostly are that way due to a mix of being formed in the Realm of Sleep and the lack of a heart component) but Master Yen Sid totally explains that the Heartless and Nobodies would use the Gates/pathways and connect them THROUGH the corridors of darkness, so I'm not sure about the necessity there. Especially considering the Organization's missions throughout 358/2 Days. So I presume the Gummi Heartless are actual Heartless, but similar to certain "species" of Heartless manifesting in certain worlds, perhaps the forms they take in the Ocean Between are just appropriate in the same manner.
 

Heart2Heart

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We see them countless times, we even travel through them in KH2 when we go to the World That Never Was. That's a Dark Corridor.
I assume they mean the actual passage THROUGH the Corridors of Darkness, like, what it looks like going through one.
 

welken

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We see them countless times, we even travel through them in KH2 when we go to the World That Never Was. That's a Dark Corridor.

We've only countlessly seen the swirling gates of darkness, with no frame of reference as to what exactly lies within, what is it they're navigating. Betwixt and Between, where Axel dies, is the only corridor we see the interior of, and it's specifically a path through the realm between, the realm of twilight, with nobody emblems swirling around it. This seems atypical to me, of so-called corridors of darkness. Even the white-green portals in and out are completely different to the usual purple-black plume. Maybe it is all like that, just rooms of swimming aesthetic you open portals into and out of, but it's still vague. In Days we use them constantly as Roxas, but it's functionally depicted like teleportation, even though we at least know it's not that, it's grueling and dangerous without the right fashion or tolerance.
 

Antifa Lockhart

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We've only countlessly seen the swirling gates of darkness, with no frame of reference as to what exactly lies within, what is it they're navigating. Betwixt and Between, where Axel dies, is the only corridor we see the interior of, and it's specifically a path through the realm between, the realm of twilight, with nobody emblems swirling around it. This seems atypical to me, of so-called corridors of darkness. Even the white-green portals in and out are completely different to the usual purple-black plume. Maybe it is all like that, just rooms of swimming aesthetic you open portals into and out of, but it's still vague. In Days we use them constantly as Roxas, but it's functionally depicted like teleportation, even though we at least know it's not that, it's grueling and dangerous without the right fashion or tolerance.
The portal that Maleficent and Pete use to escape the datascape is identical save for the emblems. I'm telling you, if it were anything other than smoke I'd imagine there would have to be a specific reason for it to be so.
 
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