Enhasa Halls - Chrono Series Analysis > Lavos, the Planet, and other Entities

Theory on Day of Destruction

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Odd Water:
First let it be known I only joined this site hours before this post, but I've spent the last week reading up on EVERY topic in Chrono Compendium's Articles and Analysis page. Like many of you, I am a long time fan of the series and find the mysteries and ideas within the games to be quite enthralling. That is a lot of go through in a short time. Thankfully, most of the concepts were things I understood very well or already assumed about the series, just perhaps not in as much deep thinking detail. In the course of reading all of that, it started my own mind thinking about ideas and theories I once had long ago or recently developed. I wanted to list them here together as they all tie in strongly with the being Lavos. I did not see these ideas in either of the topic pages pertaining to Lavos (The Ethics of Lavos or Lavos - Points of Interest). Honestly, if these ideas are already in someone else's thread topic, I am sorry. While I did spend most of the week reading up on most of the Compendium site, I don't think I'll be doing the same for every topic on the forums as well. So, here we are with my Second Lavos Theory.

Theory #2: Day of Destruction

Lavos only comes up out of the ground two times in Chrono Trigger. But seeing as how we never get to communicate with the being directly, we never get to really know why these events happened, and can only speculate on them. First off, I think the theory reason behind the first eruption which brought down the Kingdom of Zeal has already been covered quite well. The Kingdom of Zeal, through the Mammon Machine, were siphoning energy off Lavos to power their kingdom. For the great and massive power that is Lavos, it may be that this was a... tolerated small amount of energy that Lavos wasn't all to bothered with, or perhaps even allowed. But then as NPCs in the game even tell us, moving the Mammon Machine down to the Ocean Palace closer to Lavos would allow them to draw a far greater amount of power. Perhaps this is when the mosquito on Lavos' back finally caught its attention enough to warrant a retaliation. So Lavos erupts from the ground, does his defensive bit, and takes down the Kingdom of Zeal, which cuts off a lot of the energy drain being done.

What's missing is no one really goes into detail of why Lavos erupted upon 1999 A.D., The Day of Destruction. Now that best theory out there that most seem to like is that Lavos erupted out at that time sensing the advancement of the humans, and tried to wipe them out to get rid of a threat. I don't really like this idea because it implies a very conscience and deliberate act on Lavos' part against humans. Its one thing to attack or defend against a known or perceived threat, as it did when the Mammon Machine was moved to the Ocean Palace and drew too much energy from Lavos. It is quite another for a creature to look upon something and judge it to become a greater and future threat to oneself. This line of action suggests a far greater line of reasoning and intelligence, which would lead to Lavos being along the notion of 'evil' and not just living out a life-cycle of survival. If Lavos could judge the future high-tech world as being a threat, there is no reason why it would not have been able to do the same with Zeal when they first started to drain energy from Lavos.

My theory for the Day of Destruction is this; that the eruption upon 1999 A.D. was just a natural point in the life-cycle of the Lavos species .

Lavos was already on the planet for a very long time absorbing energy and DNA from species. My suggestion is that by 1999 A.D that Lavos already got enough DNA from creatures and thus needed them no longer. So it erupted to the surface and rained down its destruction from the heavens to clear off most or all of the surface life. Thus giving its spawn a safe place to be deposited for them to grow mostly undisturbed. This would then last until the spawn are large enough and stored enough energy for their own trips out into space, as per the exploding the planet theory of mine before covered.

Kodokami:
First off, welcome to the Compendium! And good job on the analyses. They're very well thought out.


To play devil's advocate, Kid's dialogue in Chrono Cross suggest that Lavos did have some form of intelligence.

[  Engulfed in an enormous
   dimensional vortex,
   Chronopolis was hurled ten
   thousand years back in time.
   Perhaps it was the awakenin'
   Lavos who pulled the Frozen
   Flame back through time to it.
   Maybe so that Lavos, who saw
   the possibility that some young
   adventurers might destroy it,
   could create a backup plan. ]
...
[  Just as Lavos, in an attempt
   to save itself, summoned
   Chronopolis from the distant
   future... ]

Seems like Lavos was doing more than simply swatting a pest in this situation. It quite literally looked into the future and judged it to be a threat. What do you think?

Odd Water:
Yeah, Lavos purposely summoning Chronopolis was the only real kink that says its a free thinking, conscience being. And I never liked that. To do this, Lavos would have to have a vision and understanding of time, cause and effect well past anything we could comprehend. To KNOW to save itself it had to bring Chronopolis because it knew the sequence of events that would come about is what that suggest. But at the same time it also makes no sense, as so many other things Lavos didn't stop or prevent, not to mention summoning Chronopolis in the long run didn't save itself anyway. I think the act of that was just fluke chance, and that Kid is just giving Lavos way too much credit. As it is in real life, it is in games, just because someone says something or thinks it, doesnt make it true. Best I can come up with is after so long of absorbing DNA, that even if its actions are based on a simple instinct, who's to say the complexity of Lavos doesn't take advantage of any and all bits of data it might have absorbed over the eons, even if it doesn't understand what its doing.

Kodokami:
Let's also consider that Lavos may have inherited the intelligence of the humans, Mystics, and Reptites. Yet, as you said, Lavos may be too complex to even understand intelligence. It may also be that it's too simple, or dumb, but I find that highly unlikely for a creature so evolved as Lavos.

Having intelligence would suggest that Lavos' actions are malicious. However, the only times where it purposefully caused destruction were when it arrived on the planet and when it was ready to spawn, both of which are inevitable during its course of life. Everything else is in response to some other event to protect itself. So in all, I would agree with you that Lavos is not evil and is simply following its instincts to live.

Chrono45:
Just because an organism like lavos mass kills other organisms doesnt mean that it is evil. Infact, one might profess that evilness is not an unique quality of the universe but merely a human invented definition. Also, one wouldn't consider the mass genocide of mosquitoes by the human race which is committed every spring to be evil. Lavos' relationship might be just that to humans. saying it is evil, in my opinion, is a silly thing to say. Lets assume lavos is intelligent, it may just be in his best interest to severally cripple the human race for some advantageous reason, and not for malice or opposition to moral ideals or whatever it is that evil is.

on the basis that he is intelligent I believe their is more evidence for it than against it. So I would have to side with idea that he is intelligent. I mean for one, he was absorbing the DNA of several races who seemed to have some semblance of thought for the last like 65+ million years or so. second, the quote previously posted adds some evidence to the possiblity of him having intelligence. Plus in all of the encounters with lavos i receive the feeling that he is indeed acting thoughtfully (although this is little evidence as my thoughts have little to do with empirical evidence). Also his biological structure supports advanced central nervous system species i.e. he has a cephalocaudal design. This is a fancy word biologists use to describe an organism (like a human) with a head down design. From the final fight one can discern a large portion of his base anatomy.

anyways it is a little weird for a parasite to wipe out its host organism, being as that is where the parasite acquires nutrition. So, I would have to say it was mostly because of a different reason he wiped the planet out. Lavos doesn't fit into darwins survival of the fittest design obviously, since he evolves during his life as apposed to a species evolving through reproduction. So... maybe his new DNA for some reason interfered with a parasites natural process of only minorly effecting its host. I always thought possibly a dead planet may have been a more ideal place to make lavos spawns so that could be another reason for the destruction. But, their is little support for that and is merely (as far as i know) speculation. But, I am in general support for the theory's of lavos being intelligence and that he surfaced for some particular thoughtful reason.

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