Author Topic: Should AD and BC have been used in the Chrono series?  (Read 8691 times)

Chrono'99

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Re: Should AD and BC have been used in the Chrono series?
« Reply #15 on: June 16, 2009, 05:40:41 pm »
Hmm.. BC/AD was never used by a character in game, correct? It only appears in the epoch time travel screen, message windows with the pillars, and on the overworld maps, right?

Actually, BC/AD is commonly used by the characters, and in CC it is also used in the Lithosphere Investigation Report and on plaques (Nadia's Bell, Chronopolis statue, etc.).

Thought

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Re: Should AD and BC have been used in the Chrono series?
« Reply #16 on: June 16, 2009, 05:56:50 pm »
Actually, BC/AD is commonly used by the characters, and in CC it is also used in the Lithosphere Investigation Report and on plaques (Nadia's Bell, Chronopolis statue, etc.).

Doing a script search, AD is used in five different situations in all of CT. Once when Lucca is reading off the Day of Lavos info, again when they introduce themselves to Gaspar, in Lucca's journal, at the trial of King Guardia, and if the party actually travels to 1999 AD (and then only by Robo). Interestingly, it is never used by a non-PC. BC is never used by anyone.

Certainly not common, but at least a few characters do use it.

utunnels

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Re: Should AD and BC have been used in the Chrono series?
« Reply #17 on: June 16, 2009, 09:43:53 pm »
World map, Epoch Dial Panel

Thought

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Re: Should AD and BC have been used in the Chrono series?
« Reply #18 on: June 17, 2009, 10:44:23 am »
World map, Epoch Dial Panel

Hmm.. BC/AD was never used by a character in game, correct? It only appears in the epoch time travel screen, message windows with the pillars, and on the overworld maps, right?

Which indicates that this is a useful tool for the players, not the characters. We may be able to no more draw meaning from AD/BC than we could from the fact that the text in game uses a sans serif font, or that the menu colors are blue.

utunnels

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Re: Should AD and BC have been used in the Chrono series?
« Reply #19 on: June 17, 2009, 11:14:09 am »
Sorry, I didn't see that.



Quote
Doing a script search, AD is used in five different situations in all of CT. Once when Lucca is reading off the Day of Lavos info, again when they introduce themselves to Gaspar, in Lucca's journal, at the trial of King Guardia, and if the party actually travels to 1999 AD (and then only by Robo). Interestingly, it is never used by a non-PC.
So they are mostly in morden era?
In CT, Toma's tombstone uses "Kingdom Calendar" or "Kingdom Year" (see the retranslation script).

In CC, epigraph on Nadia's Bell also uses "Kingdom Year".
But those messages from the Dead Sea or Chronopolis use "year", or "A.D."



Quote
   ~~~~ A.D. 1000 ~~~~
   ~~~~Nadia's Bell~~~~
   May our prayers for peace
   ~ ring on for eternity...

It seems the NA script doesn't follow that rule.





« Last Edit: June 17, 2009, 11:24:00 am by utunnels »

Chrono'99

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Re: Should AD and BC have been used in the Chrono series?
« Reply #20 on: June 17, 2009, 01:09:22 pm »
Well it makes sense that they abandoned the use of "Kingdom Year" after the Fall of Guardia, even though they didn't create a new calendar.

utunnels

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Re: Should AD and BC have been used in the Chrono series?
« Reply #21 on: June 17, 2009, 01:51:31 pm »
Yeah, so AD and BC means after and before the foundation of Kingdom Guardia.
Maybe seriously, during the Guardia period, people didn't use AD or BC. :?

xcalibur

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Re: Should AD and BC have been used in the Chrono series?
« Reply #22 on: June 20, 2009, 03:45:57 am »
the calendar is based on the founding of guardia (1000 AD is the 1000th year of guardia). also, it makes allusions to the real world easier - 1999ad referenced the y2k/apocalypse theories around during the 90s.. also, 12000 bc is around the time that the mythical civilization Atlantis was said to exist.. and 65 million bc was around the time of the great impact event that killed the dinosaurs.

other than that, using the real world dating system would make things less confusing.

GenesisOne

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Re: Should AD and BC have been used in the Chrono series?
« Reply #23 on: July 09, 2009, 02:41:22 am »
I found it rather nice for the game to use the BC/AD calender system.

I was able to relate the periods in history based on what year I was exploring and having adventures in.  Aside from the context of the Anno Domini and its relation to the Chronoverse, I really don't see the inconvenience it brings.

The Secret Skeleton

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Re: Should AD and BC have been used in the Chrono series?
« Reply #24 on: October 10, 2009, 05:16:12 pm »
I know I am coming into this topic rather late, but I would like to add that as an RPG Chrono Trigger uses abstractions such as the lack of cities on a continent or the size of a sprite in relation to the size of a house maptile.

Therefore the presence of Latin, AD, and BC could simply be an abstraction representing the "nearest equivalent" in relation to their world.

The development team, rather than devise new terms and language, likely used which ones they felt would quickly and easily represent their intended meaning.  So a literal analysis may not be necessarily possible.  Generally history is divided up by each new epoch.  The Victorian Era began with the coronation of the Queen Victoria.  The Inter-War Period began with the end of World War I.

In Chrono Trigger the timelines seem to be focused on the transition from one epoch to another.  For instance in Prehistory you see the fall of Lavos and the end of the Reptites.  This could easily signify the end of the epoch into a new one.  In Antiquity you see the fall of Zeal...again the transition from one epoch to another.

AD 600, the end of the War of the Mystics...again the end of an epoch.

AD 1000 is within an epoch, but apparently does not end until Porre destroys it.  This may or may not be the end of the epoch, thought if AD is an abstract term literally referencing Guardia, then it likely would be.  However, as AD 1999 and AD 2300 are recorded as they are, it could mean that the calender system in reference to the founding of Guardia was not dismissed.  At least by Gaspar.

AD 1999 is the end of recorded history.  A new epoch, the last epoch, begins.

AD 2300 is a time within the last epoch, where there is no possibility for history to continue.

It is likely, however, that the robots under mother brain, providing they one-day achieve global domination, would put in place their own calender, which may or may not even have significant relevance to the Gregorian one as robots would see little purpose in emulating a human system.

Now, I cannot recall if anyone in the game script uses the term AD or if it is just for when using the Epoch.  Regardless, I believe that if you want to explain it via plot it likely would be a method of recording history from the viewpoint of Gaspar using the 1000th year of Guardia as a starting reference point.

That is my two-cents.


Zaulche

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Re: Should AD and BC have been used in the Chrono series?
« Reply #25 on: August 25, 2010, 02:22:53 pm »
Were the terms BC and AD used in the Japanese version of the game, or only the English translation?

Vehek

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Re: Should AD and BC have been used in the Chrono series?
« Reply #26 on: August 25, 2010, 04:33:19 pm »
BC and AD are used in both languages, but the Japanese version sometimes uses "Kingdom Year"/"Kingdom Calendar" (or using Kwhazit's current translation on his site, "Royal Year") in dialog instead of A.D.