Fall of Guardia / Viper

[ZeaLitY]

Letting the cat out of the bag on the next site update, but whatever:

Firstly, an important analysis potential breakthrough. Cansei de ser Enix of the Chrono Crisis forums has stated that General Viper's speech in the Chrono Cross Demo is a replica of Kid's speech from the General Kid ending in which she plans to conquer Guardia and Porre. This may reinforce the implicit suggestion that the Dragoon were at the Fall of Guardia. As usual, important knowledge lay buried in Japanese text. We need these translated: [ 1 - 2 - 3 ]

[Chrono'99]

Whoa, that's interesting. The Japanese community must have gone "WTF? Viper is the bad guy!" when they saw that in 1999. I wonder if this sequence means that Kato originally intended to delve into the Fall of Guardia subject in CC.

[Romana]

Firstly, an important analysis potential breakthrough. Cansei de ser Enix of the Chrono Crisis forums has stated that General Viper's speech in the Chrono Cross Demo is a replica of Kid's speech from the General Kid ending in which she plans to conquer Guardia and Porre. This may reinforce the implicit suggestion that the Dragoon were at the Fall of Guardia.

This could be huge.

Long shot, but does Viper happen to fit the shadowed figure seen in the Fall of Guardia scene? I know it's unlikely and probably thought of before, though, and I get the feeling I overlooked something.

[justin3009]

The shadow figure at Guardia has more hair...and I believe is alot skinnier then viper, so I don't think it was him.  Maybe it was someone else from the Dragoonian army?

[Chrono'99]

15 years is a long span of time. Viper certainly looked a bit different in 1005 than in 1020 AD (and we all know that old=fat). In any case, Viper has long hair like the shadowed figure, but no cape (at least in 1020 AD). However, among all the characters directly or indirectly related to the Masamune in Chrono Cross (Radius, Karsh, etc.), Viper is one of the few who never says anything special concerning that sword.

[ZeaLitY]

I'm hesitant to totally integrate this with "Compendium Canon", but I've added those screenshots to the Material Requiring Translation page. This thread won't be forgotten; I'm stickying.

[Blackcaped_imp]

Just a question, ZeaLitY, why are you reviving some topics?

Just a thought. I think that a Dragoon wouldn't be the one that used the masamune in the fall of guardia, unless he/she died before Radius killed Garai with the sword, he/she had to put the sword in the Divine Dragon Falls after all, unless the own sword transported there by its own means (to avoid more corruption or more blood taking).
Maybe the Dragoons in a attempt to avoid Porre invade El Nido, made an arrangement, in which the Dragoons would help Porre, and Porre would stay away from El Nido. Vipers speech may be a way to encourage the Dragoons to fight for a cause that might not be completely of their interest, but may get the army to a better position (unless that the speech is completely different than the one my memory tells me, it would be great if someone could quote it).
I stick to the point that the guy that used the masamune is someone from a different time or dimension, taking into consideration Luccas words in the letter. 
My deep excuses if I'm saying stupid things, or if I'm getting out of the point.

[Chrono'99]

he/she had to put the sword in the Divine Dragon Falls after all, unless the own sword transported there by its own means (to avoid more corruption or more blood taking).

It was Denadoro Mountain, not Divine Dragon Falls. It's strongly implied by the game and confirmed by the Ultimania Guide.

[Blackcaped_imp]

I'm sorry, but where's the next appearance of the masamune after the fall of guardia? I quite do not remember well.

[Chrono'99]

The next appearance chronologically is in the flashback about Garai's death. It does shows the Divine Dragon Falls map, but there are reasons to believe that it was actually just a template map used for Denadoro Mountain (which otherwise doesn't appear in Chrono Cross, so creating a map just for it wouldn't have been profitable).

Radius:
Yes, I once wielded a sword as a proud member of the Acacia Dragoons. Glenn's father, Garai, the blacksmith, Zappa, and I used to tear up the battlefield. But that was a good fifteen years ago... When Garai lost his life on the central continent, I vowed to become his sons' guardian.

Karsh:
The general is the head of the Viper clan and has governed these islands for generations. But that's not all. When he was ordered to take up a new post on the main continent, he made quite an impact as the leader of the Acacia Dragoons and was promoted to general.

Overall, we thus know that the Acacia Dragoons Viper, Garai, Radius, and Zappa participated in a war in 1005 A.D. (1020 minus 15 years) on the Zenan continent, and that Garai died there around that time. And contrary to what's sometimes assumed, the term "continent" in the game script is consistently used in reference to Zenan; Radius and Karsh were definitely talking about Zenan, not the El Nido main "island".

The game reuses the Divine Dragon Falls map, but it's also reusing the Radius and Garai 3D models for this flashback, even though Radius should be younger and have more hair, and Garai should probably not look like a pale, evil-looking giant.

The Ultimania Guide also confirms that it was on Zenan Mainland:

AD1003 Acacia Dragoons Viper (40), Radius (45), Garai, Zappa (35) received appointments in mainland. Serge born.
(...)
AD1005 Guardia Kingdom falls, Porre assumes power
AD1007 Radius (49), finds Masamune in mainland. Garai dies.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

I just always assumed the Fall of Guardia was like this:

Chrono Cross happened because Balthasar emerged in the new 2300 AD, and was thus able to discover the Time Devourer and carefully sculpt the events of Chrono Cross in conjunction with Chronopolis and the Counter-Time Experiment.  El Nido was created, blah blah blah blah blah...

As such, Porre discovered El Nido around 920 AD (at this point El Nido had remained undiscovered and in isolation), and through finding the remnants of the Dragonian civilization (and thus the Dragonian system of Elements), Porre was able to gain power and become a world super power.

Thus, by 1005 AD, they had grown so strong that they were able to crush Guardia.

Effectively the CT story line had been altered.

I just always assumed that the silhouette in the video was not any one person in particular - just a vague image used to show us that Guardia has fallen to Porre (as such in Chrono Cross) and that the Masamune was stolen and corrupted (as such in Chrono Cross).  The video pretty much just showed those facts so we aren't left without any sort of bridge to help us understand the gap of what we once knew and what we now know.

[Dark Serge]

I do not believe that Viper was involved in the original Fall of Guardia. If Guardia ever fell, that is. In this ending http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6ito9OAAdM&feature=related we can clearly make up that Guardia is still alive and kicking. Perhaps they just rebuilt their kingdom. In any case, if the first post in this thread is a legitimate screenshot, it would rather seem that they were planning to destroy Guardia for the second time.

Perhaps the Acacias and Guardia have a beef going on like they do with Porre. Who knows?

[Kenji]

A government can fall while the nation still technically exists.  So, if Porre goes up and just abolishes the monarchy, that doesn't mean that the Guardian territory must be absorbed.  They could just install a pro-Porrean government, a rather common occurrence in situations like this.

So, Guardia can fall and still exist immediately afterward.

[maggiekarp]

I really hate that that ending is used in these arguments. Saying Guardia is still a super power and Marle and Crono are still alive because Kid wants to take over in one ending is like saying Tata becomes the Hero and rules Guardia because Crono and co. fight him in one ending. It tries to contradict what solid evidence we have with a silly non-canon event.

[V_Translanka]

I don't think that's the same...If an alternate ending reveals something about the world that other playthoughs either don't or only hint at, I think we can take that at face value as being additional information we can use to understand the happenings of the world.