Evolution in the Series

[BROJ]

I haven't read the topic yet but I'd like to point out that Fairies are not descended from humans:

[Pink Fairy]
   We fairies are born from the morning
   dewdrops of an aged tree.
   The large tree that stands in the
   center is like our '"Fairy Godmother."'

This type of trees probably originates from the Reptite Dimension (or FATE?), which would explains why there's no Fairies in CT.

Kinda sounds like the situation with the Mana Tree/Faeries in the Seiken Densetsu series.

[Chrono'99]

Perhaps it's an influence from Nobuteru Yuuki... He designed the characters for both CC and SD3.

[Thought]

I haven't read the topic yet but I'd like to point out that Fairies are not descended from humans:

[Pink Fairy]
   We fairies are born from the morning
   dewdrops of an aged tree.
   The large tree that stands in the
   center is like our '"Fairy Godmother."'

This type of trees probably originates from the Reptite Dimension (or FATE?), which would explains why there's no Fairies in CT.

Good point. But to counter that, the quote doesn't say anything about how fairies evolved, just how they are born (similarly, saying that humans pop out of their mother's bodies says nothing about how they evolved either). Now one might have an objection to plants (the trees that produce fairies) evolving from humans, as that crosses Kingdoms, but to be fair, one might also have an objection to plants producing animals, or animals dying to produce plants. I would be very interested to know if any of the creators were familiar with the Pequeninos (which, like the fairies, are born from a plant and return to plant form on their death) or OSC's works in general.

In turn, it seems quite unlikely that dew alone produces the Fairies. They seem to be complex creatures; one needs more than just hydrogen and oxygen to create such a creature (a heavy infusion of carbon, for example, would go a long way to making this physically possible). This might be the result of some sort of magic, but the Fairies don't seem to posses any magic abilities or associations otherwise.

Of course, there is no reason to believe that the Pink Fairy was stating fact as opposed to myth. Humans might say that they are born when a stork drops a baby down a chimney, or when parents go to a cabbage patch and pick one out.

Still, I quite agree that in all likelihood the Fairies (and the Dwarves) came from the Dragonian Dimension.

[ZeaLitY]

In the eyes of the Dragons,
we humans are the foes...

A brain that has developed abnormally
to 3 times the original size in the
span of 3 million years...

We humans have evolved at an
enormous rate because of our
contact with Lavos's flame...

In a sense, mankind is Lavos's offspring...

We humans are extraneous to this planet...

Son of a bitch. I wasn't aware of this quote...

Ugh. There's no choice. Ayla doesn't look like an ape, and she exhibits emotion and higher intellectual function.

...Plot hole.

[Thought]

Hmm... unless that quote is the result from a Dragonian perspective.

We don't know the difference between the Keystone Dimension and the Dragonian Dimension. If that quote is from a Dragonian perspective, then it might be that in that dimension humans didn't evolve as quickly as in the Keystone Dimension and it wasn't  until they came in contact with the Frozen Flame (if there was one in the Dragonian Dimension) that they then evolved. Might explain one of the reasons Dragonopolis was a counter-influence to Chronopolis; it was full of individuals already anti-human.

That would necessitate, however, that the Evolutionary notes in Chronopolis were gathered after the Time Crash and specifically from Dragonopolis.

Its a strech, but that is a pretty big plothole after all.

[ryu planeswalker]

Well, if FATE took apart the dragon god, which was the pinnacle of Dragonian Tech its entirely possible FATE got its hands on a great deal of Dragonian Knowledge.

[Thought]

Hmm... it occurs to me that there is a human-like species in the game that does undergo radical evolution between 65,000,000 and 12,000. Specifically, mystics.

As discussed earlier in this thread, it seems like mystics are probably a branch of humanity. What if they are the ones that are being referred to? Around 3,000,000 BC humans began to change into mystics; that would be a substantial evolution.

Spekkio, at least, conflates Mystics with humans, so it is possible that the Dragonians would too.

[ryu planeswalker]

Thats entirely possible, we do have to take what the dragonians say with a pinch of salt, If They are from a timeline in which Lavos never fell they really wouldn't have a whole load of knowledge on Lavos' effect on human evolution.

[ZeaLitY]

That could work as a stretch...but probably a stretch in a plot hole entry. The presentation of the Chronopolis brains is just too overt, especially considering that Mystics are a variety of radically different species with presumably different cephalic sizes.

[Chrono'99]

That's really weird. Perhaps the humans of 65 million B.C. are really meant to be Homo habilis, but looked modern in CT due to creative licence. After all, Ayla shouldn't have curly blonde hair and be perfectly shaved in the first place (and should probably not be that white-skinned either). But that's still weird because CC does aknowledge the "modern" human appearance of Ayla through the drawing in Lucca's house, and there's also Leah...

Alternatively, but that's really farfetched, Lavos's crashing on the planet sends the Frozen Flame back in time rather than the normal time, and the primates get to evolve into humans before Crono even visits Prehistory. Perhaps the Red Rocks themselves come from Lavos and appeared on the planet before his arrival due to this. That way, the Dragonian and "stone face" quotes would be correct, but in a cause-and-consequence way of thinking only rather than chronological. As I said, that's farfetched.

[Thought]

Interesting, but Masa, Mune, and Doreen (dream creatures allowed to exist due to the Dreamstone) seem to be very intune with the planet. Course, that could also be because they're Melchior's. That implies to me that the Dreamstone is not the Frozen Flame or of Lavos in general.

EDIT: Actually, that makes a lot of sense, Chrono'99

It is rather odd that Lavos would hit earth. Fire an object from one planet and the likelihood of randomly hitting another planet in a different solar system is astronomical. Just randomly sending spawn into the cosmos is an incredibly ineffective manner of propogating; more spawns would drift aimlessly through space, never to find a planet, than would ever actually latch onto something.

It might be that Lavos was specifically sent to earth, then. Perhaps the FF was actually a beacon, then, calling him here. It could have arrived 3 million years earlier, humans began to evolve, and Lavos was summoned.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

I'm not one to obsess over realism or plotholes and more than willing to chalk things up as "it's for the plot and needs suspension of belief" -- but this is definitely something that has sort of bothered me a bit in regards to humanity. We know that:

1.) Humans live as cave men in 65 million BC and are at war with the planet's other children, the Reptites.
2.) After Lavos falls, the Reptites are wiped out and humans are able to live on past the coming ice age.
3.) 3 million BC is humankind's first contact with the Frozen Flame. It is here that humans are first "evolved" with the ability to use magic, and it's hinted in CC that this is when Lavos first starts to directly guide human genetics to make the perfect species.

So what about the 62 million years or more in which humans existed?! This has bothered me from a plot standpoint.

So there are a few options in my headcanon:
1.) The humans of 65 million BC are not actually evolved from that time and place, they are displaced humans from some time in the future, stranded in prehistory. I would assume they eventually die out. The only evidence to even remotely support this theory is that stray dialogue hints that Kino was found in the mountains, it having hinted that he arrived through the time gate... but we also know that Kino is Marle's ancestor, so how would this work, exactly?
2.) The humans of 65 million BC are somehow pushed forward in time, skipping millions of years of history. I could see Lavos somehow doing this -- we know he has the ability to create pocket dimensions and space-time distortions, so perhaps this is the case? No evidence to support it, but a curious possibility.
3.) The human species simply lived for millions and millions of years without advancing. Like, at all.

[Sheiken]

I'm not one to obsess over realism or plotholes and more than willing to chalk things up as "it's for the plot and needs suspension of belief" -- but this is definitely something that has sort of bothered me a bit in regards to humanity. We know that:

1.) Humans live as cave men in 65 million BC and are at war with the planet's other children, the Reptites.
2.) After Lavos falls, the Reptites are wiped out and humans are able to live on past the coming ice age.
3.) 3 million BC is humankind's first contact with the Frozen Flame. It is here that humans are first "evolved" with the ability to use magic, and it's hinted in CC that this is when Lavos first starts to directly guide human genetics to make the perfect species.

So what about the 62 million years or more in which humans existed?! This has bothered me from a plot standpoint.

So there are a few options in my headcanon:
1.) The humans of 65 million BC are not actually evolved from that time and place, they are displaced humans from some time in the future, stranded in prehistory. I would assume they eventually die out. The only evidence to even remotely support this theory is that stray dialogue hints that Kino was found in the mountains, it having hinted that he arrived through the time gate... but we also know that Kino is Marle's ancestor, so how would this work, exactly?
2.) The humans of 65 million BC are somehow pushed forward in time, skipping millions of years of history. I could see Lavos somehow doing this -- we know he has the ability to create pocket dimensions and space-time distortions, so perhaps this is the case? No evidence to support it, but a curious possibility.
3.) The human species simply lived for millions and millions of years without advancing. Like, at all.

I have always leaned toward option 3 TBH.  Or if they did advance on their own, it was at an extremely slow pace.  Remember, if not for Lavos, the Reptites would have won the war as seen in the Dinopolis timeline where Lavos does not come to earth.  So by the natural order of things, humans were never meant to advance to begin with.

[Razig]

I'm also in favor of #3. The game seems to imply that the ice age caused by Lavos's descent lasted all the way to 12,000 BC. If that's true, the harsh conditions might have forced humans to live at a subsistence level, unable to advance because they had to spend all their energy just surviving. Once the Frozen Flame unlocked the potential for magic, survival would have become much easier, so humans now had time to specialize in different trades and this division of labor led to the founding of civilization.

That's my theory, anyway.

[Sheiken]

I'm also in favor of #3. The game seems to imply that the ice age caused by Lavos's descent lasted all the way to 12,000 BC. If that's true, the harsh conditions might have forced humans to live at a subsistence level, unable to advance because they had to spend all their energy just surviving. Once the Frozen Flame unlocked the potential for magic, survival would have become much easier, so humans now had time to specialize in different trades and this division of labor led to the founding of civilization.

That's my theory, anyway.

That is another major factor as well.  It is kind of hard for anything to naturally evolve in an ice age unless they thrive in that environment to begin with.