Author Topic: How does a Lavos spawn get sent to the Black Omen?  (Read 3439 times)

Berf

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How does a Lavos spawn get sent to the Black Omen?
« on: January 24, 2013, 03:44:00 pm »
Hi, first time here. I decided to post since I couldn't find an answer on the Compendium's analysis section.

Anyway, when the party is assaulting the Black Omen, how is it possible for a Lavos spawn to be sent from 2300 AD to 12'000 BC? It's doesn't make sense, because it shouldn't be possible for this Lavos spawn to even exist! From the point of view of 2300 AD, whatever came before is past and has already happened, including the party's invading the Omen in 12'000 BC, which immediately leads to the party defeating Lavos in 1999 AD. Both things, from the point of view of 2300 AD, have already happened, so the future should be pristine, not ruined, and Lavos spawns shouldn't even exist in the first place.

Think about it: Suppose it's 12'000 BC and the party is assaulting the Black Omen when Queen Zeal summons a Lavos spawn. Years later, in ruined 2300, AD a Lavos spawn is just chilling when a Gate opens, with Queen Zeal commanding it to warp to 12'000 BC. But before entering it, the spawn decides to look back at the timeline. It sees the party arriving at the Black Omen...but does it see itself arriving? No, because things only happen when they happen; until the spawn enters the Gate, we are still in a timeline in which the spawn has never arrived in 12'000 BC.

Then, what happens next? It sees the party continuing their assault on the Omen, it sees Queen Zeal being defeated, it sees the party falling into the Omen Gate to 1999 AD. Because the spawn is in 2300 AD, events in 1999 AD are in its relative past, so it does see the party arriving in 1999 from the Omen Gate, it sees Lavos erupting, it sees Lavos being defeated by the party...at which point the Lavos spawn thinks "Oh crap!" and vanishes. It never gets the chance to travel to 12'000 BC!

The only explanation I can think of is dramatic coincidence. Basically, while the party is out doing sidequests but before Lavos is defeated, Queen Zeal, hoping to improve the Black Omen's defences, summons a Lavos spawn from the future. This works because the future is still ruined and it isn't far-fetched to think she would enlist extra-temporal help to defend the Omen. From now on, the spawn's appearance in 12'000 BC is protected by time traveller's immunity regardless of the state of the future. The problem is, because she's proactively summoning the spawn rather than reacting against the party's assault, the specific chamber and moment she summons the Lavos spawn are essentially arbitrary. Yet the party encounter the spawn at precisely the right place at precisely the right time to see it just coming out of the Gate, a huge coincidence for which the only explanation is "rule of drama".
« Last Edit: June 22, 2013, 04:38:26 pm by Berf »

Manly Man

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Re: How does a Lavos spawn gets sent to the Black Omen?
« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2013, 01:01:41 am »
That the spawn in the Black Omen is called an Elder Lavos Spawn makes things seem even weirder; judging by what of the Lavos species' lifespan we can determine, for it to be significantly older than the ones that you find on Death Peak means that it came from at least centuries ahead of the latest date that you can see the world.

I would assume that your idea about Queen Zeal having drawn it forth from the future (possibly somewhere around the very end of the world altogether, not just the post-apocalyptic setting) is the most likely to be correct. The Black Omen, being a product of Queen Zeal and her tapping into the power of Lavos, who is shown to have time-space-reality-warping capabilities, could hypothetically have some extra time-screwing strangeness as well. Another would be that it's just from Queen Zeal's own power, since she's the one who has absorbed the most of Lavos' energy at that point, and so she would take on features of Lavos. Lavos can create its own pocket dimension, so after having saturated herself in the energies of something so powerful, being able to pull something from a future date doesn't seem like too far of a stretch.

EgyLynx

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Re: How does a Lavos spawn gets sent to the Black Omen?
« Reply #2 on: February 01, 2013, 11:01:37 am »
 :oops: Youre right Manly Man...

intresting

Berf

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Re: How does a Lavos spawn gets sent to the Black Omen?
« Reply #3 on: February 03, 2013, 02:43:47 pm »
That the spawn in the Black Omen is called an Elder Lavos Spawn makes things seem even weirder; judging by what of the Lavos species' lifespan we can determine, for it to be significantly older than the ones that you find on Death Peak means that it came from at least centuries ahead of the latest date that you can see the world.

I would assume that your idea about Queen Zeal having drawn it forth from the future (possibly somewhere around the very end of the world altogether, not just the post-apocalyptic setting) is the most likely to be correct. The Black Omen, being a product of Queen Zeal and her tapping into the power of Lavos, who is shown to have time-space-reality-warping capabilities, could hypothetically have some extra time-screwing strangeness as well. Another would be that it's just from Queen Zeal's own power, since she's the one who has absorbed the most of Lavos' energy at that point, and so she would take on features of Lavos. Lavos can create its own pocket dimension, so after having saturated herself in the energies of something so powerful, being able to pull something from a future date doesn't seem like too far of a stretch.

Fair point. At any rate, I just assumed it was Queen Zeal that brought the spawn because it's the most simple explanation, but, ultimately, the origin doesn't matter. The spawn cannot come from the future to stop the party; its arrival is a paradox.

Unless the spawn comes from another planet (!!) or was asspulled from another dimension à la Chrono Cross, but this beyond far-fetched.

Pyramid

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Re: How does a Lavos spawn gets sent to the Black Omen?
« Reply #4 on: February 23, 2013, 03:57:10 pm »
There is also the possibility that the spawns have existed since Lavos first arrived in the planet. One of the underlying themes of chrono trigger is evolution and the rise of a dominant species. You need to spread your genes, and deliver control over regions if you want to be the dominant species, and you can only do that by procreating or replicating. Lavos' spawn are his offsprings released throughout any given period in time.

ZeaLitY

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Re: How does a Lavos spawn gets sent to the Black Omen?
« Reply #5 on: April 21, 2013, 01:40:47 am »
I thought hard about this, and I'm guessing that http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Flow_Principle.html might cover it. While it's true that Crono's going to defeat Lavos, as long as it hasn't happened yet, the "memory" of the last existing timeline (in which Lavos destroys the earth) would still be active. Queen Zeal should be able to reach into it.

Still, this is just problematic all the way around. Nothing else in the series touches upon "summoning" something from the future, or having a window into it. We ran into this problem with Chrono Cross, with Chronopolis's existence in the Sea of Eden as part of the El Nido archipelago.

So there are still some explanations possible that might make sense within canon/internal consistency, but it's still a huge issue. I'm going to put it in Theory (Time and Dimensions) but not Plot Inconsistencies just yet, I guess.