Revised Plot and Planning Thread

[Chrono'99]

Just a note. I'm currently adapting Chapter 4 to the new plot (moving Renault/Luther/Roget to 602 instead of 1002, and Glenn's new development). However, I really don't like coincidences, and there's a big one here in that the Dorino/Tunnel/Medina battle happens right when the party arrives and seems to be a decisive battle, yet the war has been going on for years... Glenn shouldn't have had to wait for the party to arrive to launch this battle, especially since Kasmir (formerly Serran) isn't that powerful at this point.

So I'm thinking about adding a small plot point: Kasmir knows a spell that allows him to create illusions of himself. This way, tons of battles can have happened between 600 and 602, but everytime Kasmir was defeated it happened to be an illusion, while the real one has always remained safely away from the battlefields in his hidden fortress. Thus, in Chapter 4, it's also an illusion, and the real one is defeated only later in the plot/sidequests.

We could even take this idea further and make Kasmir a Lich, i.e. an undead creature who is resurrected each time it's defeated thanks to a phylactery (soul container) hidden in a safe place, but this might be a bit cliché because of the Dungeons & Dragons reference. Lichs don't exist only in D&D though (see Koschei). I think I'd go with the illusion spell rather than the full Lich stuff, but please comment.


EDIT: In the original timeline, Kasmir was killed early in the war (perhaps by the Hero Cyrus, though we don't need to specify) before he managed to master his illusory spells. In the modified timeline, Cyrus not-the-Hero died first and stuff changed so that Kasmir lived on and went to become Magus' successor.

[Chrono'99]

I'm spotting a possible weakness in the plot: the Dragon Tooth doesn't seem to be integral to the plot of the game. Its only notable usage is to make traveling from the past to Chronopolis possible without Time Eggs or pre-existent Gates, which in fact only applies to 1 AD and the trip to the 12000 BC Ocean Palace before the Frozen Flame nightmares. It's used in so few instances that we might as well remove these instances. We could declare that the Entity creates a permanent Gate in 1 AD after what Marle experiences; as for 12000 BC, we could simply have another Time Egg breaking.

I'm not saying we should remove the Dragon Tooth itself though. It just needs a more important function... Perhaps it could be revealed in Singing Mountain that the "Dragon Tooth" is not an artifact, but actually a Reptite shamaness? The party, dumbfounded, would still try to bring her to Belthasar. However, King Zeal would appear in the Lavos crater as in the current plot. In addition to the party members, the Dragon Tooth would also be warped through time along with a male Reptite, to some random year BC.

This new plot point can perhaps make the Reptite timeline more credible. It feels curious that the humans could survive for 65 million years against the Reptites in a warm Ice Age. So, what if King Zeal's spell doesn't change history, but instead, the two Reptites do? The Dragon Tooth and the male Reptite would reproduce and create a population in whatever BC which would compete with humanity and changes history. Marle would arrive in 1 AD to witness the end of humanity; then the alternate 1002 A.D. and 2001 A.D. would be like it is in the current plot.

When Crono, Glenn, and Magus return to Prehistory with Sorin, the latter would be the one to revert the alteration: he would heroically jump in the Dragon Tooth's portal, would arrive in whatever BC to kill the Reptite couple, and would presumably be stuck there for the rest of his life. "Whatever" BC is never explored directly, but the party could discover Sorin's age-old corpse in a cave in a future era or something.

I believe this new stuff connects the King Zeal, Sorin, and Reptite story arcs better than currently. This may change Chapter 16 (Stop the Porre Lab) a bit though, and Dalton still has to be integrated somewhere.

Thoughts? Is it credible to have two Reptites "recreate" a Reptite population? We could have more than one male and one female warped, but I don't want to go overboard.


EDIT: "Whatever" BC could perhaps be 3,000,000 BC, meaning that the new Reptite population would be affected by the Frozen Flame taint like the humans.

[nightmare975]

How did we have Sorin die before? If we go with this, we could have his body found in Giant's Claw or something.

[Chrono'99]

He was supposed to be damaged by King Zeal, saved and formatted by the party and allowed to return to 1002 AD. Then Luccia's parents find him and program him to kill the party again (Chapter 16). Giant's Claw sounds interesting, but the party doesn't really have any reason to go there, although it could be the point of the surprise, too. I guess we'll see depending on the side-quests.

[Chrono'99]

Chapter 8 (the Reptite/Robots war) strikes me as a bit too simple and straightforward, even though it should be one of the highlights of the Reptite timeline story arc. How about this change:

The Reptites think of themselves as the planet's champions and whatnot, and manage to defeat the humans in 1 AD. All is well until some point in the future, when their scientists discover that they too were "corrupted" by the Frozen Flame in 3,000,000 BC (via the Dragon Tooth and male Reptite appearing there). This shocking discovery deeply affects their whole society and worldview. All their certainties are suddenly called into questions, and they believe that they are inherently harmful to the planet due to the "corruption".

So, they eventually decide to relinquish their individual ambitions and their free will to the Vision Serpent -- a central, Elemental AI which would control them collectively and establish a society that would have a wiser, better focused vision of what's good and what's bad for the planet. Whereas the Vanguards are the embodiment of misguided zeal, the future Reptites would be the embodiment of... whatever the opposite is called, misguided collectivism and dislike of personal ambitions or something.

This is where the Robots come in. They are opposed to the plan (they can't be plugged into the Vision Serpent anyway) because, ironically, they think that free will and aspirations should never be relinquished, especially when they aren't even sure whether the Vision Serpent's guidance will actually be any good. A war occurs between the Reptites and the Robots.

As for the Xamoltan time-travelers, they don't have the right to change anything historical in the timeline (like, going to the past to destroy the first Robot model or something); their only mission is to protect the timeline from changes, like with Crono's party.

As you may have noticed, the Vision Serpent's mindcontrol is reminiscent of FATE's, thus furthering the parallel between the two and shedding a slightly ironical light on the Chrono Cross Dragon God. The implication is that Belthasar will gain the idea of the Records of FATE after he studies the datacube that Yaluk gives to the party.

Anyway, I'm still not sure whether the Reptites should already be controlled by the Vision Serpent or not when Lucca and Robo arrive in the war in the Reptite 2302 AD. In any case, they can't be controlled in 1 and 1002 AD. Thoughts?

[nightmare975]

Nice idea, I think they should be under control so the player can see how they've completely changed between the eras.

[Vehek]

Good idea I guess, but wasn't it 2001 A.D.?

[Chrono'99]

It was initially 2001 AD, but 2302 AD is easier to explain how the cast gets back to Chronopolis. Crono's party gets back on their own; Marle gets back thanks to a Chronopolis agent sent through a Gate (let's say Belthasar learns about her situation by searching in history books or something); and Lucca and Robo conveniently appear in Chronopolis directly from Prehistory while the "Lucca" and "Robo" of Chapter 8 are discarded in the time change. These last 2 reappear in the Darkness Beyond Time in the final chapter to freak the player out.

[Vehek]

I brought that up because of the TTI immunity thing. Probably isn't really too important, but I just feel like pointing it out.
Which people in Chronopolis are from another time...

• Belthasar - but he would have arrived years before, so anything could have happened to him
• Scientist from Zeal
• Melchior
• Schala
• The Zealian woman (assuming she is one by the sprite)
  

[ZeaLitY]

Should we just break down and put the plot on a Wiki page that anyone can edit? I didn't do this before because I was worried some could find it, but now that the encyclopedia uses .html (and before too), Ramsus could simply exclude the page in question with robots.txt.

[Chrono'99]

I brought that up because of the TTI immunity thing. Probably isn't really too important, but I just feel like pointing it out.
Which people in Chronopolis are from another time...

• Belthasar - but he would have arrived years before, so anything could have happened to him
• Scientist from Zeal
• Melchior
• Schala
• The Zealian woman (assuming she is one by the sprite)
  

From a storytelling perspective we can probably avoid mentioning them, but yeah from a logical perspective we could still need an explanation. I guess we can imagine that they did reappear... but above an empty sea, thus quickly dying from drowning? Since El Nido remains empty, that could be their fates. We could even have a Robot NPC mention that these corrupted Reptites suffered global warming, which would implicitely mean for us players that Melchior and co. appeared below the sea level and couldn't survive.

Should we just break down and put the plot on a Wiki page that anyone can edit? I didn't do this before because I was worried some could find it, but now that the encyclopedia uses .html (and before too), Ramsus could simply exclude the page in question with robots.txt.

If there's no risk of having Google catch it or something, then sure.

[Chrono'99]

To wrap up Dalton's fate, I'm thinking we could make him an ally of King Zeal. Zeal would have contacted Dalton as early as before Chapter 1, somehow gaining his support and asking him to gather old relics to prepare for the re-creation of the kingdom of Zeal. So that's why Dalton seeks the "Silver Streak" in Chapter 1 and encounters Magus. It doesn't change history then because the relics are inactive without a power source. This allows us to put Chapter 1 in 11998 BC instead of 11999 BC without too much coincidences (since Dalton's action is directly caused by King Zeal in this scenario).

In Chapter 20 ("Let us depart in Zealous regret"), King Zeal is finally ready for the re-creation. He activates the relics with the Sun Stone and goes to talk with the villagers as in the plot outline, etc. The relics have been assembled into a bunch of defense systems in a fortress guarded by Dalton (perhaps one of the machine can be Grobyc's StrongArm). Its purpose would be to protect the new kingdom, so the party has to pass through it to reach the villagers.

Honestly working for King Zeal doesn't really fit Dalton's personality though, so we can add that Zeal simply used Dalton into creating the defense system (Dalton thought it was an immortality machine). Once the system is completed and activated, Zeal actually intends to kill Dalton since he is well aware that Dalton would try to enslave the villagers and make himself the king of that new kingdom.

This can spice things up a bit: instead of trying to kill the party in the fortress, Dalton would actually be trapped in it by King Zeal and hunted by his own machines. We can thus put a number of small funny cutscenes in the dungeon involving Dalton running around and seriously failing each time he does something (think Ozzie in his Fortress in CT). After a while, the party try to talk Dalton into joining them, since they have the same enemy, King Zeal. But of course, Dalton refuses and Magus then kills him. This recalls yet again the main theme of reconciliation, except that Dalton happens to be an example of a typical stubborn person who refuses to reconcile.

Seeing how a lot of different things are exposed before and after it, I guess this event will constitute an additional chapter (between 19 and 20) rather than be a part of 20.

[Daniel Krispin]

Wow, the project is still active?! I'm impressed! I thought it had died a year ago! Nice to see you guys are still at work on it: Crimson Echoes always seemed to have more potential than the other projects.

Hey, by the way, you guys still keeping my idea of the sidequest with Janus and the Furies, where he has to vindicate himself from his mother's vengeance? I was just looking back over that, and I think I did a pretty good job with the dialogue, if I do say so myself.

[Chrono'99]

It's definitely active. So much people worked on the plot, it's almost the Compendium's duty to complete the game now, one way or another. If we don't complete it, King Zeal will come and haunt all of us!

As for the Furies, rather than being a sidequest, I think it would make a perfect sequence for Magus' Frozen Flame nightmare. For the record, there's a part in the story in which each character has to face the Frozen Flame and overcome a personal "nightmare" that the Flame summons out of their mind. I can definitely see these Furies appearing in Magus's sequence. Janus's victory over the Furies would also be a victory over the Flame. Since it all happens in his mind, we could almost totally blacken the background location and focus exclusively on the characters and their dialogue: this would almost be theatrical in nature. It would be reminiscent of all these Classical plays in which the Furies appear. If there's one place we can perfectly fit Greek references without risking going overboard, it's definitely here.

[ZeaLitY]

Well, I wish updating the site weren't getting so hard. I'm wasting so many hours making listings for the Concerts and Albums pages that it'd ridiculous. Updating the site has gotten paradoxically harder, and with December, it will be time for us to run through all new analysis again since the last topic review. This time, maybe you can look too in case I forget something important. We have a hard decision ahead concerning the Pocket Dimension theory.