2nd June 2010, 6:54 AM
You crawl up a pulsating tube to a cervix where you fight a mutating red blob that has the silhouette of a fetus inside it. xD 'The devil's machine' is a uterus, get it? It cant be more obvious imo.
On Lavos, that cant be. Keep in mind i havent played Chrono Cross, but leme splain. You kill it and then crawl up in to its shell which has a cave underneath leading to the alien who is in a large suit. You even fight Lavos's infants, so they are just animals. Really, really big animals, that feed off worlds. People can use that siphoning power to gather it for themselves just as the Queen did using the Mammon Machine. But even she was just getting the leftovers from Lavos's host (the alien). The last battle has Lucca examining the alien, saying that he is an explorer that seeds worlds. The alien's 'siphoning suit' that you first battle him in, that is not an evolutionary form. it's the alien's technology (it's his Mammon Machine).
The evolutionary form of lavos is the Dreameater, it's a different Lavos that has grown for billions of years, eaten time, and it (they) are the reason that time ends, that's why the Guru found himself there as time isn't supposed to end. Schala said the dreameater is multi-dimensional, taking the minds of all living things through time and space so all the infinite possibilities act as one at the apex of the dreameater. It's there to bridge Chrono Cross as you said, as it spits Magus in to a different time with no memory, at which point you get the cut-scene of the 1005 war and destruction of the Guardia kingdom with 'someone' grabbing a sword that looks like the masamune. Setting the stage for Chrono Cross.
The alien using Lavos, at the end battle, has some interesting things happen depending on which chars you bring there. If you bring Marle she will say 'It's made up of every animal' and 'He is the reason we're all here' and if you bring Magus (or was it Frog?) he will say that the alien (calling him Lavos as well) created the world as its farm using "That creature" to suck the life from it.
But I agree with you, I dont think I explained very well, but Lavos is essentially religion. Putting faith in to power and omnipresence when it was just an animal feeding. Religion never succeeds in Chrono Trigger, but we're shown repeatedly that God exists. The Reptites and people of Zeal thought of Lavos as a God, as did the game player up until they find out that Magus didn't summon him from hell, which I thought was a great story arc to surprise the player and expand the game from fantasy in to science fiction. Lavos-as-religion has a ton of double meanings, even the resurrection of Chrono and Schala who sacrificed herself for her mother's sins.
"It all began with a red rock" is a theme too, I believe it represents the same thing as the image of 'unexplained intelligence' and 'advancement' as seen in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It appears from no where and immediately causes constant change but looks as a simple black brick. The red rock in Chrono trigger appears from no where, Ayla holds it and for some reason, Ayla is supremely strong and better than any human on earth, you first hear about it as the Masamune and having to obtain 'Dreamstone'. One caveman says "Found strange rock, made me feel icky so threw away."
Now it's kinda interesting but... its red like blood and man's destruction is a theme in Chrono Trigger, war is everywhere. Strangely enough, after time ends and nothing exists, the 'Master of War' still waits. I think this very telling in to the ideas of Chrono Trigger. Before the red rock exists openly, humans are simply victims. Once Ayla gives it to you and you use it in the future everything opens up to war, even the humans in 65m BC start to fight back. Belthasar and other gurus use the red rock in their inventions including the blackbird's engines, the Black Omen's generators, the Mammon Machine itself and of course the ruby knife which becomes the masamune.
More odd, is that the masamune contains three spirits, two males and a female. More oddity - the powerful form of masa and mune combined is what the Master of War will look like until you hit level 99 (at which point he becomes a Nu, which I believe t represent man's child-like curiosity) but does this mean that dreamstone is the spirits of things in our natural world? The ruby knife had no spirits, masa and mune lived in Zeal with their sister who stayed in the dream chambers. How and why did the three siblings decide to become part of the sword after it made contact with the Mammon Machine? was it a continuum break, a rift that pulled spirits in to it? The masamune stays in the mammon machine, but when you get to queen Zeal, you can see the remnants of the original mammon machine behind her. Did Melchoir take it? Did he put the spirits inside the sword? Did the queen trap the spirits the sword as a prison? Regardless, the red rock is spotted repeatedly and in each instance represents major feats of advancement for humanity, i think it is another piece of the true (and invisible) natural God in Chrono Trigger guiding life on certain paths but letting people choose what paths to take.
i have a psx emulator... maybe i should play Chrono Cross...
On Lavos, that cant be. Keep in mind i havent played Chrono Cross, but leme splain. You kill it and then crawl up in to its shell which has a cave underneath leading to the alien who is in a large suit. You even fight Lavos's infants, so they are just animals. Really, really big animals, that feed off worlds. People can use that siphoning power to gather it for themselves just as the Queen did using the Mammon Machine. But even she was just getting the leftovers from Lavos's host (the alien). The last battle has Lucca examining the alien, saying that he is an explorer that seeds worlds. The alien's 'siphoning suit' that you first battle him in, that is not an evolutionary form. it's the alien's technology (it's his Mammon Machine).
The evolutionary form of lavos is the Dreameater, it's a different Lavos that has grown for billions of years, eaten time, and it (they) are the reason that time ends, that's why the Guru found himself there as time isn't supposed to end. Schala said the dreameater is multi-dimensional, taking the minds of all living things through time and space so all the infinite possibilities act as one at the apex of the dreameater. It's there to bridge Chrono Cross as you said, as it spits Magus in to a different time with no memory, at which point you get the cut-scene of the 1005 war and destruction of the Guardia kingdom with 'someone' grabbing a sword that looks like the masamune. Setting the stage for Chrono Cross.
The alien using Lavos, at the end battle, has some interesting things happen depending on which chars you bring there. If you bring Marle she will say 'It's made up of every animal' and 'He is the reason we're all here' and if you bring Magus (or was it Frog?) he will say that the alien (calling him Lavos as well) created the world as its farm using "That creature" to suck the life from it.
But I agree with you, I dont think I explained very well, but Lavos is essentially religion. Putting faith in to power and omnipresence when it was just an animal feeding. Religion never succeeds in Chrono Trigger, but we're shown repeatedly that God exists. The Reptites and people of Zeal thought of Lavos as a God, as did the game player up until they find out that Magus didn't summon him from hell, which I thought was a great story arc to surprise the player and expand the game from fantasy in to science fiction. Lavos-as-religion has a ton of double meanings, even the resurrection of Chrono and Schala who sacrificed herself for her mother's sins.
"It all began with a red rock" is a theme too, I believe it represents the same thing as the image of 'unexplained intelligence' and 'advancement' as seen in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It appears from no where and immediately causes constant change but looks as a simple black brick. The red rock in Chrono trigger appears from no where, Ayla holds it and for some reason, Ayla is supremely strong and better than any human on earth, you first hear about it as the Masamune and having to obtain 'Dreamstone'. One caveman says "Found strange rock, made me feel icky so threw away."
Now it's kinda interesting but... its red like blood and man's destruction is a theme in Chrono Trigger, war is everywhere. Strangely enough, after time ends and nothing exists, the 'Master of War' still waits. I think this very telling in to the ideas of Chrono Trigger. Before the red rock exists openly, humans are simply victims. Once Ayla gives it to you and you use it in the future everything opens up to war, even the humans in 65m BC start to fight back. Belthasar and other gurus use the red rock in their inventions including the blackbird's engines, the Black Omen's generators, the Mammon Machine itself and of course the ruby knife which becomes the masamune.
More odd, is that the masamune contains three spirits, two males and a female. More oddity - the powerful form of masa and mune combined is what the Master of War will look like until you hit level 99 (at which point he becomes a Nu, which I believe t represent man's child-like curiosity) but does this mean that dreamstone is the spirits of things in our natural world? The ruby knife had no spirits, masa and mune lived in Zeal with their sister who stayed in the dream chambers. How and why did the three siblings decide to become part of the sword after it made contact with the Mammon Machine? was it a continuum break, a rift that pulled spirits in to it? The masamune stays in the mammon machine, but when you get to queen Zeal, you can see the remnants of the original mammon machine behind her. Did Melchoir take it? Did he put the spirits inside the sword? Did the queen trap the spirits the sword as a prison? Regardless, the red rock is spotted repeatedly and in each instance represents major feats of advancement for humanity, i think it is another piece of the true (and invisible) natural God in Chrono Trigger guiding life on certain paths but letting people choose what paths to take.
i have a psx emulator... maybe i should play Chrono Cross...