An Elemental Model for Character Abilities

[sarua]

Are CC Elements older? I didn't think it specifically stated when the Dragonians found them, only when the Dragonians came into existance and the fact that they did find them.

There's another aspect of the CC Elements that people seem to look over. I believe that it's entirely possible that Lavos is responsible for them as well. We know that CC Elements come from power points from the earth, perhaps like how lava comes up from cracks in the tectonic plates? That said, since they come from somewhere deep in the earth, could they not have been effected by Lavos's presence?

Like it (Lavos) absorbs the earth's power, we saw that the earth also absorbed it's (Lavos's) power through Dreamstone. Perhaps the CC Elements are akin to Dreamstone.

Ok maybe they apeared later than ct magic. But there is no diference because i doubt that Spekkio or someone from crono & co said to all world that there are 4 main elements.

Another interesting thing is that ct magic is not usable by robots and cc elements are usable by them and they got their initianal color.

[Leebot]

This is starting to get circular, so a few new points:

Evolution of major traits (such as the ability to use Elements) doesn't work on the scale of thousands of years, it takes millions of years. It doesn't seem likely that the animals of El Nido would evolve this quickly. Additionally, we see robots of the Dead Sea's Chronopolis using Elements, and from the way the Tragediennes speak, it sounds like they were programmed to use them (how else would they be able to? They're not going to evolve). Now, there's no one left in the Dead Sea to program them, so they must have known to use elements in the future the Dead Sea was drawn from.

The same thing happens in Chronopolis: Its automated defense systems use Elements. Given their stated goal of allowing history to proceed naturally, they would not have allowed the knowledge of Elements to leak out. Even if this was inevitable, they wouldn't have allowed Elements to become a part of their own design. Therefore, they must have

a. been using Elements before the Time Crash, and thus before the Dragonian interference.

b. decided to reprogram their entire defense systems to use the Elements they'd found. Why? So GrayLensman would be happy.

Now, an alternative theory:

What if the laws of physics did change? This would have happened during the Time Crash, when Chronopolis and Terra Tower were pulled back to 9000 BC. The travel of Chronopolis wouldn't have these results, but the planet's pulling in Terra Tower just might. If the Elements were the natural way in the Dragonian dimension, pulling Terra Tower over could have caused the laws of physics that governed that dimension to leak over and alter the keystone dimension.

[sarua]

Evolution of major traits (such as the ability to use Elements) doesn't work on the scale of thousands of years, it takes millions of years. It doesn't seem likely that the animals of El Nido would evolve this quickly. Additionally, we see robots of the Dead Sea's Chronopolis using Elements, and from the way the Tragediennes speak, it sounds like they were programmed to use them (how else would they be able to? They're not going to evolve). Now, there's no one left in the Dead Sea to program them, so they must have known to use elements in the future the Dead Sea was drawn from.

And why are you forgeting about fate? It had full control over El Nido. Yes evolution takes a long long time, but what about variuos expiriments? And if i`m not mistaken in the future there were no monsters in Dead Sea and again why are you forgeting about fate? Can`t it program? Fates AI is astonishing so it would easily learn such things as programing.

The same thing happens in Chronopolis: Its automated defense systems use Elements. Given their stated goal of allowing history to proceed naturally, they would not have allowed the knowledge of Elements to leak out. Even if this was inevitable, they wouldn't have allowed Elements to become a part of their own design. Therefore, they must have

a. been using Elements before the Time Crash, and thus before the Dragonian interference.

b. decided to reprogram their entire defense systems to use the Elements they'd found. Why? So GrayLensman would be happy.

and c. elemental defence is more useful than their previuos defence

[ZeaLitY]

Well, that, and there's a quote in Chronopolis that reads:

The El Nido Archipelago is purely
artificial, created by FATE. It was a remodeling plane that took place 10000 years ago.
A plan to include island, blessed with nature, in the sea of El Nido. The main island of
El Nido, Earth Dragon Isle, Water Dragon Isle, Black Dragon Isle... The development of
Elements, using the energy of the natural world...

This suggests Chronopolis had a role in fostering and developing those manufactured Elements. Since they created them, I don't believe it would be too hard to equip themselves with it, since they apparently do have the capacity for immortality (although in reduced form; those ghosts still aren't entirely figured out).

[razor's edge]

With Lavos crashing into the Earth, maybe it's something that Lavos, under normal Lavos circumstances, wouldn't survive. A bird learns to fly on instinct. So, baby Lavos gets old enough to leave the planet it's born on, crashes into the Earth, and on instinct uses a form of Magus's Magic Wall spell on a large, powerful scale.

As for the CC Elements, I always thought of them similar to FF7's materia. As in, artificially created from places where the planet's energy is close to the surface and can be harnessed, and thereby not the natural elements of the world, like those Spekkio stated, but rather physical effects of the world imbued into whatever the Elements are. By this I mean Magic is the 'elemental energy' or the world, but Elements produce physical energy effects based off of the four elements.

It would be helpful if we had actually seen any Elements in CC, but meh, what can ya do?

[Chrono'99]

It would be helpful if we had actually seen any Elements in CC, but meh, what can ya do?

We do see the Chrono Cross. The Chrono Cross is the combination of 2 Dragon Tears, which are some kinds of crystals.

Maybe the huge colored crystals in Terra Tower are also Elements (they look like Mega-Materias anyway...).

[GrayLensman]

Evolution of major traits (such as the ability to use Elements) doesn't work on the scale of thousands of years, it takes millions of years. It doesn't seem likely that the animals of El Nido would evolve this quickly. Additionally, we see robots of the Dead Sea's Chronopolis using Elements, and from the way the Tragediennes speak, it sounds like they were programmed to use them (how else would they be able to? They're not going to evolve). Now, there's no one left in the Dead Sea to program them, so they must have known to use elements in the future the Dead Sea was drawn from.

Adapt not evolve.  Elements are equipable artifacts and animals only have to learn how to use them.  Elemental usage is not an innate ability like Magic.

The Dead Sea is a reflection of the future.  Since the arrival of Porre, Elements have been available to the outside world.  It stands to reason that Elements would be in widespread use on the mainland in the far future.

The same thing happens in Chronopolis: Its automated defense systems use Elements. Given their stated goal of allowing history to proceed naturally, they would not have allowed the knowledge of Elements to leak out. Even if this was inevitable, they wouldn't have allowed Elements to become a part of their own design. Therefore, they must have

a. been using Elements before the Time Crash, and thus before the Dragonian interference.

b. decided to reprogram their entire defense systems to use the Elements they'd found. Why? So GrayLensman would be happy.

FATE created a chain of artificial islands.  FATE wanted El Nido to remain isolated, but it had other priorities as well.

What if the laws of physics did change? This would have happened during the Time Crash, when Chronopolis and Terra Tower were pulled back to 9000 BC. The travel of Chronopolis wouldn't have these results, but the planet's pulling in Terra Tower just might. If the Elements were the natural way in the Dragonian dimension, pulling Terra Tower over could have caused the laws of physics that governed that dimension to leak over and alter the keystone dimension.

If the laws of physics did change it would cause a complete reordering of the structure of the universe, most likely killing everyone.  Since there is no evidence to support this, I think it is very unlikely.

[Faulce]

Well, that, and there's a quote in Chronopolis that reads:

The El Nido Archipelago is purely
artificial, created by FATE. It was a remodeling plane that took place 10000 years ago.
A plan to include island, blessed with nature, in the sea of El Nido. The main island of
El Nido, Earth Dragon Isle, Water Dragon Isle, Black Dragon Isle... The development of
Elements, using the energy of the natural world...

This suggests Chronopolis had a role in fostering and developing those manufactured Elements. Since they created them, I don't believe it would be too hard to equip themselves with it, since they apparently do have the capacity for immortality (although in reduced form; those ghosts still aren't entirely figured out).

That could be due to the effects of Terra Tower described in Leebot's alternate theory, I believe.

What if the laws of physics did change? This would have happened during the Time Crash, when Chronopolis and Terra Tower were pulled back to 9000 BC. The travel of Chronopolis wouldn't have these results, but the planet's pulling in Terra Tower just might. If the Elements were the natural way in the Dragonian dimension, pulling Terra Tower over could have caused the laws of physics that governed that dimension to leak over and alter the keystone dimension.

Evolution of major traits (such as the ability to use Elements) doesn't work on the scale of thousands of years, it takes millions of years. It doesn't seem likely that the animals of El Nido would evolve this quickly.

That's true. However, (1) The enemies in CT harness the 4 primary elements discussed in that game, its a fact. (2) The monsters on El Nido look nothing like any of the monsters found in CT, so perhaps these natural elements found in CC are harnessed only in El Nido. (3) Its true that evolution usually does not work that fast in the real world, but El Nido was artificially created and is relatively young, so where did all of those land based monsters live before El Nido was created, I'm sure they didnt evolve to live on the land and I sure dont see them on the Zenan continent. In fact, they wouldnt be taken from the Zenan continent either if it could be helped; Chronopolis could not interfere with the world because it had to preserve itself.
Something interesting not yet noticed: Because the monsters of CT and CC are completely different, its hard to compare them. It would be nice if we had a few monsters who carried over from CT to CC. Lavos seems to be the only example, but hes not really the same as he was in CT. But what about Slash, Flea, and Ozzie? In CT they harnessed the 4 primary elements, but in CC they use Draconian elements. So, what could that mean? Again, I say that in CC, characters and enemies use a mixture magic based on CT elements (individual, non-exchangable techs) and the CC elements (exchangable, common).

[Chrono'99]

It would be nice if we had a few monsters who carried over from CT to CC.

Perhaps the Pterodacts are supposed to be Dactyls, and the "Tyrano" the same kind of dinosaurs than the Black and Rust Tyranos were?

[Leebot]

Adapt not evolve. Elements are equipable artifacts and animals only have to learn how to use them. Elemental usage is not an innate ability like Magic.

Go teach a monkey to use a hammer, then I'll give this argument some weight. Better yet, leave a hammer by a monkey, and see if it learns to use it on its own.

[Leebot]

Alright, maybe I can buy that FATE engineered them, but this begs the question of "Why?" Same question with the elements used in the Dead Sea and Chronopolis.

Now, for the changing laws of physics: What if it's as simple as two new elements (For point of argument, Yellow and Green) seeping into the world? Over time (again with the time-scale...), new organism may develop an affinity to one of these elements, which is why in CC we see people with Yellow and Green innates.

[GrayLensman]

Adapt not evolve. Elements are equipable artifacts and animals only have to learn how to use them. Elemental usage is not an innate ability like Magic.

Go teach a monkey to use a hammer, then I'll give this argument some weight. Better yet, leave a hammer by a monkey, and see if it learns to use it on its own.

Apes make and use their own tools.  Elements come pre-packaged and are easy to use.  After thousands of years of trial and error, Elemental usage would become part of the animals' natural behavior.  Also, most of the creatures encontered in combat are highly aggressive and intelligent.  I wouldn't count out the influence of the Dragonians either.

Alright, maybe I can buy that FATE engineered them, but this begs the question of "Why?" Same question with the elements used in the Dead Sea and Chronopolis.

Now, for the changing laws of physics: What if it's as simple as two new elements (For point of argument, Yellow and Green) seeping into the world? Over time (again with the time-scale...), new organism may develop an affinity to one of these elements, which is why in CC we see people with Yellow and Green innates.

[list=1]

• The use of Elements in Chronopolis and the Dead Sea has already been explained.  Elements are a superior technology.  Chronopolis adopted and further developed them after the Time Crash, and the Dead Sea reflects the far future where Elemental usage has become commonplace outside of El Nido.
• You are suggesting altering the fundamental forces which govern the universe.  Life as we know it depends on a very fine balance of physical relationships.  Even the slightest change to one of the physical constants would make the universe hostile to life.  There is absolutely nothing to suggest such a change occurred.[/list:o]

[Leebot]

I said "monkey," not "ape."

Do you understand evolution at all? Even if one animal lucks into figuring out how to use an element, this knowledge will not be passed on to its offspring, and short of Chimps and Orangutans, no animals are smart enough to teach their offspring these skills.

Where do you get that these animals are intelligent? Agressive, yes, that's a given. Intelligent enough to figure out that elements can be used as tools? Not likely.

[GrayLensman]

I said "monkey," not "ape."

Do you understand evolution at all? Even if one animal lucks into figuring out how to use an element, this knowledge will not be passed on to its offspring, and short of Chimps and Orangutans, no animals are smart enough to teach their offspring these skills.

Where do you get that these animals are intelligent? Aggressive, yes, that's a given. Intelligent enough to figure out that elements can be used as tools? Not likely.

Various creatures, including non sentient animals, use Elements in Chrono Cross.  Serge can kill these animals and take their Elements.  What is the basis for your argument?

[Leebot]

Let's rewind to the point.

Evolution of major traits (such as the ability to use Elements) doesn't work on the scale of thousands of years, it takes millions of years. It doesn't seem likely that the animals of El Nido would evolve this quickly.

Hmm, guess I didn't spell it out well enough there.

If elements were new, (introduced at most 10,000 years ago), the animals wouldn't have enough time to evolve to use them.

If elements were natural, animals would have had millions of years to evolve to use them, which would explain why we see animals using them in Chrono Cross.

The possible flaw in this theory is that we never use of elements in CT. Perhaps they were used, but Crono's party didn't recognize them as such. Or, there's that wierd "Lavos sealing the Elements theory" that doesn't even make much sense to me... Crono & Co. not identifying them seems more likely.

Now, in the defense of the altered laws theory (which is starting to seem like a reasonable way to wave away the difference in game mechanics between CT and CC). Given our lack of understanding of the true laws of nature of this world (we lack the ability to experiment as I'd prefer), we can't really say what's going on, but imagine this model:

We have two "Planes" to the world: The Material Plane and the Mana Plane. The real world exists in the Material Plane. The Mana Plane is mostly a miasma of elemental energy (originally Fire, Ice, Heaven, and Shadow). When someone uses magic in any way, they draw the element(s) they need from the Mana Plane, and do whatever with it. These elements pervade the Material Plane, and slowly seep back into the Mana Plane to maintain equilibrium.

What would happen if new elements were released into the Mana Plane according to this model? Well, the Mana Plane's only contact with the Material Plane is when magic is cast, so it would have no initial effect. When Dragonians use their Yellow and Green Elements, Yellow and Green elemental energy is released into the Material Plane. As I said before, eventually, its concentration in the Material Plane will build up enough that people with Yellow and Green innates appear.