Return to canon: Lavos and evolution

[Chrono'99]

Let's get straight to the point: Lavos did NOT guide the evolution of the planet's living beings. He just slept in the planet's core and somehow absorbed energy and DNA, but he did not actually change the course of evolution (apart from killing the Reptites). The only quote, in the entire series, that suggests Lavos manipulated evolution is this one from CT:

Magus: ......

   So...since the dawn of time, it has
   slept underground, controlling
   evolution on this world for his own
   purpose...

...BUT, as already mentioned somewhere, it's actually a mistranslation. According to Kwhazit, the original quote in the Japanese version was:

Magus: .......
Since the ancient era, it has slept underground and gone on making the evolution of all life on this planet its own......?

This quote, and the other pieces of info in CT and CC, claim that Lavos passively absorbed the planet's energy/DNA. It is never stated anywhere that he actively manipulated evolution (check the script and see for yourself!). The only time he actually altered a species is when the early humans got in contact with the Frozen Flame.

So, well, "Lavos didn't control evolution" and there's this mistake in the encyclopedia (in the actual "Compendium canon" !), that's the main point of my post.

My second point is the potentially immediate consequence: if Lavos doesn't normally evolve species, why did his Frozen Flame evolve the early humans? Could this "contamination" (that's the word used) have been an accident opposed to Lavos's plan? Ultimately, does this mean that the creation of the Frozen Flame itself was accidental, and not wanted by Lavos?

[DBoruta]

Most of the argument that Lavos somehow controlled or influenced the evolution of humans from the Chrono Cross Script is based off of the following quotes:

   The life-forms on this planet
   developed from single-celled
   microorganisms to protozoans...
   Then from fish to amphibians...
   from reptiles to mammals...
   and eventually to humans.
   Beginning with a cerebral
   neocortex, which only
   exists in higher mammals...
   The anthropod brain enlarged
   at an accelerating pace until it
   became the human brain we know.
   Could the reason for the
   abnormal development of the
   human brain be the biological
   contamination caused by Lavos?
   That would mean that humans are
   really a heterogeneous life-form,
   or '"foreign matter,"' as far as
   the planet is concerned.
   Humans are a sudden mutation
   caused by the contact with
   Lavos -- an alien life-form that
   fell to this planet from space.
   That is why humans are,
   biologically speaking,
   unbalanced and half-finished.
   Internally inconsistent and
   disconnected, the human
   existence is plagued by
   contradictions.
   An incomplete species,
   torn between love and hatred,
   whose very being is self-
   contradictory.
   From the planet's viewpoint,
   humans are just destroyers
   and a cursed, yet perhaps
   pathetic, blight on the world.

This is the most interesting quote from Chronopolis, as the ghost of the scientist in the east lab starts thinking that Lavos did influence human evolution, although it may not have been a conscious effort on Lavos' part. 
 

   The DNA records are
   poems and music...
   Adenine and Thymine...
   Guanine and Cytosine...
   Rythym and Melody...
   Perhaps the DNA of the ones
   who make contact with the
   Flame is recomposed by the
   sound they generate within?
   I wonder if life-forms are
   just dreaming in an endless
   flow of music?

This quote shows that scientists at Chronopolis thought it was the Frozen Flame that changed DNA, and not specifically Lavos itself.  The Dragonian Record, however, sees humans purely as the progeny of Lavos, as shown here:

   That one was known as '"Lavos!"'
   The great crimson flame......
   
   Wielding absolute power,
   Lavos buried the dinosaurs -
   the kings of the land -
   in the space of a night.

   However, the timid '"apes"'
   who had lived hidden in
   the forests...
   
   ...came into contact with
   the crimsom flame
   that fell from the sky,
   and evolved into '"humans."'

   Or perhaps it was
   not '"evolution,"'
   but '"transformation."'
   
   In this way, humans
   increased in number
   and filled the earth...

   The fearsome '"progeny of Lavos"'
   who, like their progenitor,
   began to devour our mother planet.

What is really interesting though, and gives some credibility to your argument is that there is no mention of Lavos' effecting evolution in the data on Lavos in the west lab of Chronopolis:

An extraterrestrial life-form
   that is thought to have
   fallen from the heavens
   65 million years ago.
   On the time line that existed
   before history was changed,
   Lavos was assumed to have
   slept deep below the planet's
   surface...
   Sleeping and consuming the
   planet's energy up until the
   day of destruction known as
   the '"Apocalypse."'
   There are those who believe
   that, 12 thousand years ago,
   the legendary ancient magical
   civilization known as Zeal
   came into contact with Lavos.
   That fateful encounter is
   said to have resulted in
   Zeal disappearing from the
   surface of the planet within
   the space of a single night.
   However, the very existence
   of the ancient civilization
   of Zeal has never been proven,
   so up till this day this
   theory cannot be confirmed.
   On some time lines, Lavos
   appeared on the surface of
   the planet in the year 1999
   and brought the world to
   ruins.
   However, a group of young
   time travelers saw where
   their planet's history was
   heading and, through their
   actions, rewrote time.
   This very research facility
   exists on that new time line...
   In a world where, thanks to
   the defeat of Lavos by the
   young adventurers, the
   Apocalypse never happened...
   On a temporal vector where
   human civilization continued
   to evolve unhampered.
   All the data on Lavos that was
   obtained from tracing different
   parallel world possibilities
   has proven to be volatile, with
   fluctuating discrepencies.
   Perhaps, at this point in time,
   it is nearly impossible to
   obtain any true information
   about Lavos

What we see, however, is that while Lavos may not have specifically manipulated evolution, its mere presence, along with the Frozen Flame, is strongly suggested by the Chrono Cross script to have been the cause of human evolution. 

[Chrono'99]

Yeah, there is no doubt about the Frozen Flame causing the humans to evolve. My point was about all the other species of the planet. It's written everywhere in the encyclopedia and articles that Lavos manipulated the planet's species and their DNAs to his own end, but it's actually not the case, as the only quote which hints towards this is a mistranslation. Basically, we've been leaning on an erroneous piece of information for years...

What the games actually state is that Lavos just sleeps and passively absorbs the genomes which are generated by natural evolution. It is nowhere stated that Lavos was active and controlling the planet's evolution with a particular plan. Here's an interesting example from the Japanese CT:

Lucca: The evolution this planet's life took a long time to go through, making use of it by just sleeping is too selfish......!

I believe this fact changes a lot concerning our theories about Lavos. Firstly, this means Lavos is quite an "ordinary" parasite after all, burrowing inside his host's body, profiting from the efforts of the host, and just chilling like a fungus on a badly cleaned human foot... It's quite different than the concept of a Gnostic, world manipulating Demiurge, controlling livings beings and altering/corrupting them all to his liking. And indeed, Chronopolis and the Dragonians only speak about the human contamination, they never say that animals or plants were contaminated by Lavos.

Secondly, there's the issue of the Frozen Flame's purpose. Lavos didn't alter any species on the planet, except the humans. Why did he do that? There's only two solutions: either he did it on purpose (to further his DNA collection) or he didn't do it on purpose (the humans finding and using the Flame by themselves). The first solution is not really satisfactory, because why would Lavos choose to mutate the humans only, instead of all the planet's species, with different levels of evolutions?

I think the second solution makes more sense, as we know the humans did cause Lavos some problems:

-they created the Mammon Machine to absorb his power, i.e. they totally reversed Lavos's life cycle (Lavos is the one who's supposed to absorb their power, not vice versa!),
-they (Magus) summoned him and disturbed his slumber,
-and ultimately, they (Crono's party) outright killed him and his spawns...

All these nuisances kind of give credence to the possibility of the human "biological contamination" being something accidental, which wasn't planned nor wanted by Lavos. I mean, Lavos's plan is to absorb the DNA of the planet's species, not to give away his DNA to one of the planet's species. The accident would have been that the early humans found the Frozen Flame by themselves, and used it to their own ends instead of Lavos's.

Lastly, all this would imply that the creation of the Frozen Flame was also accidental, and not part of Lavos's life cycle, since that Flame would be without purpose to Lavos and would even actually be an issue for him. This would also help explain why the Devourer of Time menace is so unique: its creation was caused by pure chance, a Time Devourer doesn't risk forming on every planet of the universe that is parasited by a Lavos.


Well, the latter part of my post is just my theories. I think they make sense (yeah well, of course), but in any case, if there was only one thing to remember from this topic, it's the 100% valid fact that Lavos did not control the planet's life evolution!

[ZeaLitY]

Yeah, I've seen that quote of Magus's argued on Gamefaqs to show that Chrono Cross's "no-involvement" take on Lavos is a plot hole. Thanks goes to the retranslation. GrayLensman was headed in this direction a year and a half ago...I think the evidence now really points to the accident, though...I suppose we have to consider its role in Chrono Cross. The game doesn't clearly tell us what happens to Serge once he touches it on top of Terra Tower. Perhaps it was part of the lost plot line about Serge merging with the Time Devourer. We also have the case of Lavos pulling back Chronopolis (some argue that this is done through the Frozen Flame there). In the case of the Time Devourer, the Frozen Flame might have been an asset.

However, the Time Devourer wasn't Lavos's original intention -- he wanted to spawn and continue life, whereas the Time Devourer, injured and relegated to the Darkness Beyond Time by Crono, wants to exact revenge by consuming space-time and is completely absorbed by hate. Since this is such a different case, I think that yeah, the Frozen Flame was accidental. The statement that it is a "splinter" (rather than a Lavos bit like the final boss) implies that it sheared off in the impact and wasn't prefabricated for use.

I have some encyclopedia entries to edit.

[Zaperking]

I don't think that Lavos killing off the Reptites was intentional either, but it was just their own evolutionary fault for being cold blooded (some may have been, some may have not). It's also the fact that Lavos' landing on top of the Reptites Castle that probably wiped them out. Though, this could go the same if Lavos landed on Ioka or that forest or whatever.

But Chrono Cross seems to make this into a greater deal, saying one one side that there are no chances, and the other saying that there are no absolutes. So basically, we just see CC and CT from the outcome of that particular event when everything was set up. Had Lavos landed 100miles to the west of the reptites, the story may have been different etc.