Author Topic: Magic in CT and CC  (Read 53548 times)

Aitrus

  • Guru of Life Emeritus
  • Guardian (+100)
  • *
  • Posts: 197
    • View Profile
Magic in CT and CC
« on: December 18, 2003, 12:43:15 am »
I like that line of thinking that GrayLensman used.  By saying that the elements from CC are akin to a "sub-layer" of the four CT types, the comparison can be made to Classical Physics and Quantum Physics, each one matching up to the magic types respectively.

Classical Physics is the general Newtonian physics, a description of the world as we see it presented to it.  A car is a perfect example of a classical object.  It will move when a force is applied, and will remain at rest when a force is not.  It has weight and mass, has inertia, and generally behaves like it should behave.

Quantum Physics, on the other hand, is an attempt to describe the world according to what little we know about the subatomic domain.  In the attempt, we find that the world is not such an orderly place as Classical descriptions would have us believe.  It contains such wierdness as the electron cloud (where an electron in an atom has no particular point where it is, but instead has a certain region where it is "probable" that it is) and the principle of particle-wave duality (which says that light is both a particle and a wave, exhibiting the properties of both).

Anyway, the comparison I draw is this:  Quantum Physics is more powerful that Classical Physics.  This is easily shown in the comparison of the power of a Nuclear bomb when compared to conventional bombs.  A nuke uses the power of the atom to destroy its target, while a conventional bomb uses Classical methods.  This is the most likely explanation for why Dinopolis was defeated by Chronopolis, even though both had gotten to a similar point in technology.

ZeaLitY

  • Entity
  • End of Timer (+10000)
  • *
  • Posts: 10797
  • Spring Breeze Dancin'
    • View Profile
    • My Compendium Staff Profile
Magic in CT and CC
« Reply #1 on: December 27, 2003, 09:18:57 pm »
Small inquiry. I noticed that Spekkio recognizes inherent leanings towards magic innate types in every character but Frog, whom he designates Water due to his appearance. Might this be a case of Glenn having little magic orientation, or perhaps Spekkio can advance one's ability for magic against any initial leanings?

Ramsus

  • Guest
Magic in CT and CC
« Reply #2 on: July 01, 2004, 06:58:37 am »
I'm bringing back this old topic, because I'm thinking about writing/drawing/maybe even programming something, and I don't want to get the magic all screwed up. The problem is that it's also been a long time since I last played Chrono Trigger.

I've skimmed through this thread, reading good parts of many of the posts, and I think a lot of the ideas here are too focused on the elements that exist or the idea of a single real source of magic.

I'm pretty sure that all of the types of magic used in all Chrono games come from a process that involves the concentration of energy or life force (e.g. the cycle of life and death such as with a planet's life stream, large and highly evolved organisms such as lavos, or solar energy such as with the sun stone). As organisms live around these energies, they evolve to tap into them and use them. That's why Ayla can't use magic, but Crono can.

In this aspect, Mystics are more capable of using magic, because they're higher up on the evolutionary scale in terms of magic. Humans moved away from being able to use magic for the same reason they don't have tails anymore: they don't need it.

There may also be other reasons related to events happening after the fall of Zeal, possibly involving a backlash against strong magic users by the majority of people, who couldn't use magic anymore.

Zeal was originally built out of the power of the sun stone. The nobility and royalty of Zeal became so, because they were the first magic using humans. They probably lived in clans near the sun stone, and as their clans advanced, they built cities and soon learned to make machines that could take advantage of the sun stone's energy.

Of course, many non-magic using citizens existed in this society, since the Earthbound ones were said to come from Zeal. Machines and cities, not to mention large numbers of people, create a heavy draw of energy (look at our electricity usage today compared to fifty or sixty years ago). Eventually a source such as the sun stone would wear out, which is why the discovery of Lavos was so important to them.

The first evolutionary step in magic use is being able to use energy from a strong, concentrated source (e.g. Sun stone or lavos) to create magic effects, although it may require they stand in a refined source of radiated energy for a period of time (e.g. the Mammon machine). This is how many Zealians used magic, and why they couldn't after the fall of zeal.

This first step starts with being able to use magic through direct contact, then being able to temporarily store magic energies for later use.

Elements from CC can be considered a store of energy created and refined to a specific element over time from small sources. Users are still creating the magic effect, even though the energy used comes from the store. Because elements are highly refined into specific forms (e.g. a Heal element has healing properties), they are easy to use for any creature evolved in channeling energies. They're like magic batteries.

The next step is evolving to be able to refine your own energies to use magic with. This is how the Zeal royal family used magic, although using other sources such as the Mammon machine magnifies their power. This ability can become innate however, if a species doesn't make use of it.

This step is similar to creating elements within your body. Kind of an element glucose. Different people would naturally evolve to be able to create different types of element glucose, although highly evolved beings (e.g. Magus) could create many sorts of elemental glucose.

Magic using humans became more prevalent in Zeal because they used magic, and also due to their close-proximity to refined energies (just like living on Earth causes creatures to evolve eyes because there is light). After Zeal, there was much less exposure to these things, so humans naturally moved away from magic (many deep-sea creatures are blind).

However, so long as technology does not fully replace magic, humans would still evolve towards being able to create energies. After all, some creatures in the deep sea evolve to see, although there's no naturally occurring light down there. They evolve to create their own light.

So then, why can't Crono use magic to begin with? And how is Spekkio able to make him use magic? The answer is simple, Crono is already advanced enough to use magic (that is, create his own magic energy). However, having never used it his body doesn't bother refining any.

What Spekkio does is create an initial store of refined element glucose in Crono that allows him to use basic Lightning spells. Being exposed to this, his body learns to create this special glucose (which it already did in a less refined form, allowing the Slash ability). By exercising this new skill, Crono's body is able to create more refined element glucose that can create even greater lightning effects.


When Magus transforms Glen into Frog, he changes many parts of Glen's genetic makeup. Frogs, living in water, have greater tendencies towards evolving magic abilities related to water. After all, they spend most of their time in it. This means Glen as Frog would be more inclined towards water-based magic.


Also, the idea the Lavos would try to speed the evolution of magic refining life forms makes a lot of sense, since Lavos is a high-energy life form, and requires very refined/concentrated sources of energy to survive and reproduce. Causing these beings to then advance towards technology use would ensure that they would spread in great number.

V_Translanka

  • Interim Global Moderator
  • Arbiter (+8000)
  • *
  • Posts: 8340
  • Destroyer of Worlds
    • View Profile
    • http://www.angelfire.com/weird2/v_translanka/
Magic in CT and CC
« Reply #3 on: July 01, 2004, 08:25:22 pm »
Quote from: Ramsus
In this aspect, Mystics are more capable of using magic, because they're higher up on the evolutionary scale in terms of magic. Humans moved away from being able to use magic for the same reason they don't have tails anymore: they don't need it.


While that evolutionary process is true, we don't need tails...There are still plenty of varius segments of the human body that are no longer necessary. This is true with other species as well. Sometimes evolution declares it not relevent to get rid of certain traits. Magic seems too important to just die out in that manner. How would Magic be useless? How about one of the most common of human activities: wars? I don't think so.

Oh, and Ayla's Tech, Tail Spin=Magical

There are various abilities that are classified as being Magical without being "Magic". Like Crono's Slash Tech.

*And then I stopped reading!*

Ramsus

  • Guest
Magic in CT and CC
« Reply #4 on: July 02, 2004, 01:04:13 am »
I didn't say humans weren't able to use magic anymore, but moved away from it. That is, their natural ability to use it was reduced or became less prevalent. Read the entire post before you try to reply. I'd like to get opinions on the latter half.

Chrono'99

  • Guru of Reason Emeritus
  • God of War (+3000)
  • *
  • Posts: 3605
    • View Profile
Magic in CT and CC
« Reply #5 on: July 02, 2004, 07:16:20 am »
But, how comes every actions are "colored" in CC, even the physical attacks, whereas many aren't at all in CT (like Cyclone)? Some are though, like Slash and Tail Spin.

Ramsus

  • Guest
Magic in CT and CC
« Reply #6 on: July 02, 2004, 08:00:09 am »
Chrono'99: Zeality has my copy of CC, and I haven't played in a while, so I don't know what effects different attacks and elementals have too well on the color field. However, if all actions in CC have some sort of elemental effect, then that's a consequence of the color field itself and has to do with gameplay.

V_Translanka:
It's been a while since I last played. Could you expand on how Ayla's Tail Spin technique is "magical" ? What do you mean by magical?

Anyway, I should probably classify what magic means in my discussion. Magic is the ability to command elemental side-effects by channeling refined elemental energy. Just because something (e.g. using a flamethrower) causes elemental damage or side-effects doesn't make it magic.

I'm pretty sure any elemental side-effects from any of Ayla's techniques are achieved through brute force, making them not "magic" by my definition.

Robo's techniques are a bit in a gray area, since it's impossible to tell whether or not the process used to create his elemental damage through lasers is the same as, say, Magus casting one of his spells. It's most likely different though.

ZeaLitY

  • Entity
  • End of Timer (+10000)
  • *
  • Posts: 10797
  • Spring Breeze Dancin'
    • View Profile
    • My Compendium Staff Profile
Magic in CT and CC
« Reply #7 on: July 07, 2004, 01:11:36 pm »
Must we still reconcile the presence of more Cross Elements under this system -- the entire four basic elements vs. derivates? And this explanation also gives us in-depth detail and speculation on one of the fuzzy areas; we've been quoting magic as the biological ability to master the elements, and now have a deeper explanation.

Jikkuryuu

  • Iokan (+1)
  • *
  • Posts: 7
    • View Profile
Magic in CT and CC
« Reply #8 on: July 07, 2004, 04:11:17 pm »
If Spekkio is taken literally and the 4 elements make up everything (ie the Universe) it wouldn't be a big stretch to describe the 6/7 elements as making up the Earth or perhaps just Life as it is on Earth.
Just as carbon et al make up the matter in our universe, plants make fuel out of the elements, and we further manipulate matter into other forms.
Sorry for the poor explanation.
If a plant takes minerals and makes nutrition for a cow, which then turns it into milk, which we then turn into ice cream it is still made up of the original minerals but is now in a much different form with different properties.
To conclude my "Ludicrous Food-Based Theorum" I would like to state that Lavos' power could be described as pure sugar. Very potent, very addictive, very hard to 'digest' in its purest state, and it rots your teeth (or maybe your magical ability/desire/will is warped in such a way that no one exposed to his power would think of manipulating the 4 elements to create the 6/7 element system).

Plague

  • Iokan (+1)
  • *
  • Posts: 2
    • View Profile
Magic in CT and CC
« Reply #9 on: July 10, 2004, 03:55:52 pm »
A minor point of note.

If magic (not color Elements) was Lavos based, how could it still be around after he was defeated?

The frozen flame was a part of Lavos and was still around and fully functional long after he was killed off, and was considered an all powerful artifact that connected the arbiter or user directly with Lavos, apparently after he was dead.  

Given this and Lavos's propensity for generating time distortions as he pleased, he could of retroactivly used his influence to do as he pleased before he arrived and after he died.

Leebot

  • Guru of Time Emeritus
  • Black Wind Agent (+600)
  • *
  • Posts: 636
    • View Profile
    • Infophilia
Magic in CT and CC
« Reply #10 on: July 10, 2004, 04:12:30 pm »
The magic the CT characters use probably isn't Lavos-based. Queen Zeal was trying to tap into that energy, which is more powerful than standard magic.

Although, this thought just came to me: What if the evolution of humans that the frozen flame supposedly caused wasn't standard evolution as we were thinking (bringing the "Apes" up to sentient status), but rather allowing them to use magic? This would neatly explain how the "Apes" of 65,000,000 BC seem so close to modern humans (if you except the speech patterns), yet can't use magic.

ZeaLitY

  • Entity
  • End of Timer (+10000)
  • *
  • Posts: 10797
  • Spring Breeze Dancin'
    • View Profile
    • My Compendium Staff Profile
Magic in CT and CC
« Reply #11 on: July 10, 2004, 04:38:28 pm »
Let us stop arguing semantics; through logic, we established that magic isn't Lavos-"based" several months ago when this site began, and if you play through Chrono Trigger, you'll know that the size of the human brain increased significantly, which is probably responsible for the improved speech of humans, higher thinking capacity, and ability to use magic.

GrayLensman

  • Guru of Reason Emeritus
  • Dimension Crosser (+1000)
  • *
  • Posts: 1031
    • View Profile
Magic in CT and CC
« Reply #12 on: August 14, 2004, 08:49:51 pm »
I surmise that since Kid is a daughter-clone of Schala, they would share the same genetic code.  Magical ability appears to be hereditary, so that would mean Kid is an innate magic user.  Kid never developed any magical ability in Chrono Cross, leading me to believe that no one, not even innate magic users, can use magic spontaneously.  Crono and the others were fully innate, but they needed to have their ability unlocked by Spekkio.  The innate magic users of the Zeal Kingdom would have undergone a similar process.

Perhaps on a related note, in Radical Dreamers, Kid expressed her innate ability as a result of extreme stress.

koolkame

  • Earthbound (+15)
  • *
  • Posts: 22
    • View Profile
Use the Grid, Serge
« Reply #13 on: September 30, 2004, 07:31:28 pm »
I like Aitrus' comparison of CT and CC's magic to the Force for several reasons. First, all living things (humans, reptites, monsters, etc.) are connected to the Elements but only a few are innate magic users (i.e. Force sensitive) due to evolution of the brain or external stimuli (Lavos, Sun Stone, Spekkio, etc.) Even mechanical lifeforms like Robo have characteristics of elements like Shadow.

Second, each lifeform connects to the elements in their own way, in other words, their Innate Color. Races and individuals have varying connections, ex. the Mystics being more inclined than humans or Magus' power among the Zealians. (Remember, each party character in the series has their own Magic Stat.)

Finally, magic may be just one way of accessing the greater energies that make up the universe. "Human", "Reptite", and "Lavos" magic are probably different mediums to accessing this powers. Grids and Elements in CC may be one of those mediums, an artificial means to access "magic."

I figure I should stick this in here even if it's a little off-topic. The seventh element that the Chrono Cross uses may be related to the soul, or conciousness i.e. The Living Force. The Tears were able to sitch bodies and alter Serge's form as Lynx, possibly using his memory or even the memory of the Planet. The Cross was able to free Schala's consciousness by harmonizing the elements to seperate her from the alien entity.

I have some theories on Grids but that may have to be another topic.

V_Translanka

  • Interim Global Moderator
  • Arbiter (+8000)
  • *
  • Posts: 8340
  • Destroyer of Worlds
    • View Profile
    • http://www.angelfire.com/weird2/v_translanka/
Magic in CT and CC
« Reply #14 on: September 30, 2004, 07:45:58 pm »
1. Robo itself (himself, i guess) doesn't have access to Shadow Magic, it's only said that his laser weapons produce a Shadow Magic-like effect. Just like how Crono's Slash tech produces a Lightning Magic-like effect without actually being 'Magic'.

2. The Elements are not artificial. They are processed and refined, but they are originally something close to an ore that comes from the earth at points of the earth called 'power points'.