Chrono Trigger - The Darkest Timeline
Our friends in the overworld our stressed out when the see the future
People at the second dome are surprised someone could travel through the dangerous ruins and get to the other side unharmed. All these people have given up on life. Feeling of learned helplessness pervades in this dome just like it did in the other one. These people have only known ruin and destruction so they do not even know what better times they can strive for. There is on old man here who implies that, too. He says something to the effect of how refreshing it is to see hope in young people. This is an unusually dark timeline for a game that is usually very colorful and peppy. Having said that, there are instances of darkness peppered frequently in the narrative. The only difference is the game tends to not dwell on them for long. This is the only time (as far as I can remember) where the story explores in detail the consequences of the destruction. Actually, check that, I think there is at least one more event later in the game where the game makes the player face the questions of mortality. But we will talk about that thing later.
Is it the food, the dead body, or both?
There is food stored under the dome, but no one has the courage to go retrieve it. There is a giant robot that guards the store. These warehouses were created to help the people in case of a calamity (you know, like Lavos destroying the world). But something happened and the AI malfunctioned. Now it guards the food stores the way a dog guards hay from the cattle in that one Aesop’s fable. So people up here are starving, but not dying because they get healed. They stay in a constant state of hunger without succumbing to it. A very Promethean end to humanity.
The robot battle was a little tedious but not frustrating. Once he is defeated we have access to the food stores. There is a rat here Crono has to catch and get the code which lets us enter the room with the computer. I remember having quite a lot of trouble getting him when I last played on a touch screen device. This time around, I did not have as much trouble with it. I wonder if the touchscreen version has intentionally made it easier, or I was just doing something wrong last time.
Lavos is here
Right as we enter the storage, the party notices a strong smell. As Crono takes a look at the food he realizes the refrigeration has failed and the whole store has spoiled. There is a dead body here, too. This person holds a note explaining the only thing he could save from the store was a seed. Everything else is gone. In the computer room Lucca is trying to locate the portal to go back home. Just like the princess, it is in another castle. Guess we will have to move on from here. Before we can go, Marle taps a button on the console and the end of the world starts playing on the screen. We can see Lavos coming out from underneath and raining fire on the whole world. People die, buildings crumble and despair reigns. The first time I played, this scene gave me genuine chills. It is terrifying to be going about your life one instance and see the whole society fall away right in front of your eyes in the next. Everyone in our party freaks out as well. The journey from denial to despair to resolve is a quick one for our friends though. They vow to put a stop to Lavos before he can come out and destroy their future.
If one is willing to draw parallels it is not hard to see this as a prophecy of our imminent future. I’m sure I am not the first person to make the connection between our reliance on drilling for petrochemicals and resulting climate change. A monster that comes out of the ground and causes the world to burn is symbolic of the oil that comes out of the ground and results in the world getting hotter. In the 90’s, when Chrono Trigger came out, the issue of global warming was already relevant. Final Fantasy VII came out few years after and the themes of climate change our even more obvious in that narrative. It is not too huge a leap to think, the issue of our relationship with our planet was on the minds of those working at SquareSoft.
Something to look forward to
The team starts making their way back up. Everyone here is expecting us to come back with food. The tempers expectedly start getting high when they realize no salvation is coming. The old man comes to the rescue when he sees the seed Crono brought with him. They will plant the seed and from that rebirth of the land will start. And hopefully some time down the road they will have better things. In the meantime, they can keep using the Enertron. They could also eat the spoilt food to get rid of their hunger and then use the Enertron to get better, but no one makes that suggestion. Better for them to come up with it on their own.
In the long term it does not matter any way. Crono and his friends will be going back in time to defeat Lavos. This timeline will not exist once that happens. Most of the people who we see here will disappear with that timeline. I wonder what those people would think of our plans to end Lavos. Would not existing be better than this existence? Would they be willing to not be if it is for the greater good of the world? Chrono Trigger, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is an exercise in existentialism. It constantly makes me think of the consequences of the choices Crono and his friends are making.
Regardless, whether they will exist or not, these people are happy right now having found some hope. The old man gives Crono the key to his jet bike. We can use it to go to Porto Dome, our way back to our own world. Once we get to the Jet bike, Crono gets challenged by someone to a race. He has to win this minigame to move on to the next destination. I feel like I also did something similar in Final Fantasy VII. Something to do with Cloud riding a bike away from Shinra, but I haven’t played it in so long, I may be misremembering.
Johnny is as fabulous as he is a good racer
Once in the Porto Dome, we find a disabled robot, which Lucca is quick to fix. There is a security door between our party and the portal and there is only one way to break in. The newly fixed robot tells us he can disable it, but we will need to go to the factory to do so. In the factory, our robot friend doesn’t have too much trouble disabling the security. He has much more difficult time getting over the fact his robot friends think of him as defective and beat him down. This betrayal triggers another existential crisis (did Camus write the story for this game). We drag his metal carcass back to the dome where Lucca fixes him again. The robot starts to question is his purpose in life. He doesn’t know where else he can go if he is not wanted here. He is our new friend, his name is Robo from now on, and he will travel with us. There is nothing left here for him. Will he disappear if we succeed in putting a stop to Lavos? Or will he be here with us? Will the dark timeline cease to exist, or will our success create a new stream of time? Is a 16-bit cartridge big enough to provide answers to such complex question? Let’s play and find out.
11-26-20
We are going to have to lug his shiny metal carcass back
