Author Topic: The Quarter  (Read 4862 times)

Myth

  • Iokan (+1)
  • *
  • Posts: 3
    • View Profile
The Quarter
« on: July 28, 2010, 01:11:05 pm »
Hi there !

I am all new in the wild wild world of Chrono Compendium, yet i am a huge fan and did spent hours reading theories and analysis about the chronomantics in one of the best series ever made (alongside Baten Kaitos). Oh, by the way, i'm french. Excuse my english, he's very rude right now, but i'm working on it.

I had begun something, written in the corner of a sheet, last year, when i came to the end of Chrono Cross. I really enjoyed the idea that Chrono Cross was not a sequel of Chrono Trigger, nor a spin-off, but just a related game, the vision of an artist over a universe and the stories going on. When i played Chrono Cross, i was really feeling like playing something new, something definitly not Chrono Trigger like, and i really loved it.

I don't have any pretention about telling how Chrono Break should be, but what i am sure about is it should be an artistic vision, a global vision, radicaly different from Trigger / Cross, yet significatively connected.

The first version of my story was entitled "Romance Variation", because i felt it sounded good. It still sounds good, but i'm not enjoying it. Oh yeah, and because i really lack of time to write the story down, i suppose i don't care that much. After a new oveview of the story, i decided to name it "The Quarter", not "Chrono Something" because it was supposed to be something new, something different, living in the Chrono's World (see Radical Dreamers ? Same title logic)

So, here i am.

"Cough, cough."

The Quarter

Somewhere, in the city, a scientist is about to reveal the world his great news: he just built a time machine ! He did not that all alone, it was the result of a long way with a high-skilled team. One, named Arthur, is about to go back three days in the past, with the mission to write a diary of its adventures and to come back three days later, 10 minutes after his departure. 10 minutes after he left, nothing came. One hour passed, still nothing. Everyone is pissed. The experience has failed, one man is gone. Forever.

Actually, Arthur went back three days in the past, but before he could join the last confined cell before the finale revelation, he's abducted by a team of hobo-looking speaking weirdly, saying things like "OMG our world iz gonna be destroyed /o\ and you know what, man of little science ? It's all your fault ! Well, not entierely yours, actually, more your time machine's fault. So guess what's next: put this watch on your wrist, take a nap, we won't do anything but destroying the parallel-worldistic huge mistake you just made. Nighty-night !" then, they all disapeared. I write "all", i mean "the entire world".

Arthur, nicknamed Art, wakes up in a nice villa, over a nice meadow, by a nice sunshine. Then, the hopo-time-travellers team rush into the room. If you have in mind the scene in Snow-White when she awakes at the dwarfs rustic penthouse, that's it. The team, called Romance Variation, introduces itself. They are not time travellers, they are thieves. They stole a timeline.

Major spoilers: the world as it was seen by the scientists building a time machine was just a part of a bigger world. Well, should have been, actually. Art is told about a place called Chronomundi, core of the entire time and space, where all dimensions merges at some point. Like a huge server. And people from Chronomundi have lived with the possibility to come round time and space as they want, via many, many hubs. Chronomundi is not hell, nor heaven, just a big machine. But all this possibility to travel through time and space is faked.

When Chronomundi connects itself with another time, it breaks the destination timeline, and creates a parralel one. Nothing bad. Except it corrupts the timeline, making it shocking with another ones. Again, nothing bad, as long as it's not repeated and not too much done. In order to guarantee the Greater Good of time and space, the Chronomundi Administration set an heavy bunch of laws, which, for example, forbid anyone to cross another time than the authorized ones. Then, repression. Every place was put under Chronomundi control, law was unbreakable. Life had come boring. Everything was faked.

So people tried to escape, and hack timelines in order to break Chronomundi and it's dreadful Administration. How to hack a timeline: go back in the past, change history, lock the era. It worked for a short time, then Chronomundi won. How did it ? Good question, i havn't reached the script that far.

Some hackers/thieves were caught, and jailed in Time-Zero cells (which makes you live in a perpendicular timeline, you're living your whole life inside a second, which is the hardest way to kill you, i bet you can imagine), others fled, so did Romance Variation. They were offered, via a generous donator named [sorry, don't know yet], a land they could hack and grow peacefully, being ensured it would not be detected. Until innocent people managed to time travel in a very simple way, which had made the world detectable by Chronomundi. So, here they are, a hobo fellowship on the verge to run away from the biggest police ever: time and space.

The plot is about the team running all over dimensions and history to break the administration and the detection files (erm... not very subtle, i should work this again)

I'm running out of time (ahah), so here are some majors spoilers:

- The administration is located in a building called the Quarter.
- The Quarter is a giant computer who analyses all space and time.
- Wait ! Oh noes ! The Quarter is not a giant computer, it's a living thing !
- I can't believe what i hear, the Quarter is not a living this, it *is* Chronomundi !
- No way, the Quarter is a piece of a man inside a dimension who is itself a living creature ! I just don't understand anything !
- Ok, so the Quarter is the meeting of Dalton and Lavos in Zeal, when he last left in Chrono Trigger. His mind just ran mad, and it created a new dimension apt to connect itself to everything, and create a whole new story. Why ? Because he's starving, he needs human energy to stay alive.
- Oh shi-, the only way to destroy Chronomundi and restore the originals timelines is to blow it but, which would destroy time and space ! Nice !
- In the end, Time Crash, everybody dies.
- The only way to resolve the Time Crash is to create something, in the dawn of time, which could regulate time and space. A kind of weapon.
- Hence the race of Lavos is created. Sorry, it's a bit rough, but i'm late.

PS: Oh, and [the man i don't know the name but who is very helpful anyway] is Melchior, whose goal is to hide in order to find a way to destroy Chronomundi. That's right guys, it was him from the begening.  *sigh* *i feel lame*





Lord J Esq

  • Moon Stone J
  • Hero of Time (+5000)
  • *
  • Posts: 5463
  • ^_^ "Ayla teach at college level!!"
    • View Profile
Re: The Quarter
« Reply #1 on: July 29, 2010, 11:28:17 pm »
Your idea sounds very promising. Keep at it, and here's hoping you can develop it into a lush, full-bodied storyline. Then, if your ambitions hold, you can develop it into a fangame yourself!

Lennis

  • Chronopolitan (+300)
  • *
  • Posts: 385
    • View Profile
Re: The Quarter
« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2010, 01:07:01 am »
I'm not seeing much connection with Trigger or Cross here.  What you have is something that might be able to stand on its own, if you can develop your ideas more clearly.

I would advise caution in developing too complicated a plot.  When the plot starts to overshadow your characters, it's usually not a good thing.

Try developing your characters - their personalities and basic motives - before doing too much with their world.  Your writing will only benefit from this.

Myth

  • Iokan (+1)
  • *
  • Posts: 3
    • View Profile
Re: The Quarter
« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2010, 11:08:22 am »
Oh yeah ! (hello :] )

For some reasons, i don't feel like releasing The Quarter from the Chrono Series, partly because i thougt the bounds as merely imperceptible links (remember Johnny in CC), except for The Outstanding Last Truth (i.e. the last five minutes before Final Big Evil Boss in CC). Considering the Quarter / Chronomundi is a entity copying time and space, time glitches like the Black Omen, Chronopolis and stuff would be treated differently. What about it confused the Quarter who created Anomalies ? Gosh, more background to develop ! We'll see later.

I noticed that characters are not really the chief point of the Chrono series. I mean, who are the freaking coolest characters ever ? Lucca, Frog, Magus, Kid, Harle, enventually Serge and Lynx... and not anyone else. IMO. Crono is cool because of his hair, if i were to make Chrono Break, i would want a deeper character. A kind of Kalas (Baten Kaitos) who was like the little brother of Serge. Of course, characters are severely linked to the story (Art, thieves, other friends, aliases, Anomalies, Melchior, Gaspard, Dalton...).

The main problem with linking with Chrono Cross is that El Nido is an artificial world, created by a computer. But i have my ideas.

I'm currently writing a novel, so i don't have much time to get busy on a fanfic, but i like the idea of eventually make something new from this material, with the Chrono background without letting newbies feel lost.

Thanks again for your comments :)

Lennis

  • Chronopolitan (+300)
  • *
  • Posts: 385
    • View Profile
Re: The Quarter
« Reply #4 on: August 02, 2010, 03:28:30 am »
I'm currently writing a novel, so i don't have much time to get busy on a fanfic, but i like the idea of eventually make something new from this material, with the Chrono background without letting newbies feel lost.

I'm sure you're talking about two different projects, but are you saying that novels and fan-fics are different?  We shouldn't look on something based on a game as "just" a fan-fic.  We as writers need to set our sights a little higher.

The main problem with linking with Chrono Cross is that El Nido is an artificial world, created by a computer. But i have my ideas.
Yeah, that's the big problem with making a true sequel to Cross.  Doing so while remaining 100% true to canon may be impossible.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that it is.  But that brings me to another point...

I noticed that characters are not really the chief point of the Chrono series. I mean, who are the freaking coolest characters ever ? Lucca, Frog, Magus, Kid, Harle, enventually Serge and Lynx... and not anyone else. IMO. Crono is cool because of his hair, if i were to make Chrono Break, i would want a deeper character. A kind of Kalas (Baten Kaitos) who was like the little brother of Serge. Of course, characters are severely linked to the story (Art, thieves, other friends, aliases, Anomalies, Melchior, Gaspard, Dalton...).

Just because the characters kind of take a backseat to time-travelling in the games doesn't mean that they should in novels based on those games.  The storytelling rules in a novel are fundamentally different than they are in a game.  If you want deeper characters in the Chrono universe, by all means make them.  Don't be defined by what has come before.  Take what has come before and make it your own.  That's what the Dream Splash is all about, right?

Myth

  • Iokan (+1)
  • *
  • Posts: 3
    • View Profile
Re: The Quarter
« Reply #5 on: August 03, 2010, 04:48:50 am »
Quote
I'm sure you're talking about two different projects, but are you saying that novels and fan-fics are different?  We shouldn't look on something based on a game as "just" a fan-fic.  We as writers need to set our sights a little higher.
Absolutly differents projects ;) Actually, i don't know much of fan-fics universe. The mere experience i got about it is this girl who spammed me all night long at a party telling me how cool was her website publishing gay porn fan-fics of Harry Potter. Riiiiight. However, i totally agree with you. That's why, if i were to write The Quarter, i would do it as something accessible for the Chrono newbies.

Quote
Just because the characters kind of take a backseat to time-travelling in the games doesn't mean that they should in novels based on those games.  The storytelling rules in a novel are fundamentally different than they are in a game.  If you want deeper characters in the Chrono universe, by all means make them.  Don't be defined by what has come before.  Take what has come before and make it your own.  That's what the Dream Splash is all about, right?
You're right, after all :) Yet it feels weird to write a novel over the Chrono universe. I'd really enjoy a game. Or a script. Or a cake (?)