Lavos, Origin, Purpose, Lifecycle and Motivation

[ryu planeswalker]

Or, he could die upon giving birth to spawn, through complete energy expenditure, or through the Spawn destroying the father to gain life, much in the case of the black widow spider. Really not enough info to go off of. And, to be honest, he could be picky about the DNA, as you say, humans don't really evolve too much, in which case, he wouldn't be looking at their DNA, but the DNA of Bosses, which would also explain why he does the phase shift when you choose to fight him through the bucket at The End of Time. In which case, he probably wouldn't be paying attention to any DNA but that, and it would take the amount of time it did to collect all that data.

Erhem, Continuing from Another Thread.

If Lavos were gathering up Boss DNA then he would still be looking at Humans, since Magus was a boss, hmm How do the Lavos Spawn differ from Regular Lavos?

[Eske]

I doubt he only collects the DNA of bosses, since they are only bosses relative to the Chrono Team. And the game script even says "from every creature that ever lived".  And even so, some of those bosses have stronger counterparts ( Zombor vs Retinite,  Black Tyranno vs Rust Tyranno), so why not choose those versions?

Though, to counter the Magus example just to be fair:  in 600AD, Magus was the most powerful being in the world aside from Lavos.

[idioticidioms]

Also, Magus isn't exactly human, if you haven't noticed the pointy ears and pale white complexion. Though, from all view points, the child form of him does appear to be human. I have no idea what happened to change his appearance, but change it did.

[ryu planeswalker]

White and pale is easy to do when you sit in your castle all the time..the pointy ears could just be fake to make him look more like a Mystic.

[mav]

Right, the entire question of Magus's appearance is still relatively unanswered--he either did it himself as a disguise, or it's the effect of prolonged use of Shadow magic--but he is human.

Anyhow, I believe Lavos harvests quite a bit of DNA and doesn't discriminate what DNA he's harvesting. I mean, some of the bosses are more impressive, so their DNA would be desirable, and the DNA of Mystics probably has merit as well...like Eske said, humans evolve rather slowly, so if Lavos's goal is to gather the DNA of evolving products, then humans are a slow answer. Mystics, however, seem to have various forms throughout time...maybe that's a point of interest to Lavos.

[ryu planeswalker]

Maybe Humanity wiped out the last of the Mystics in 1999, it would explain why lavos would want to restart the evolutionary cycle since Humans probably weren't a good source of DNA since they were mutated by the frozen flame.

[idioticidioms]

no, I don't think that's the case, because by 1000 A.D. they had already become quite docile, especially after removing Magus and Ozzy from the picture in 600 A.D. I think that by the time 1999 A.D. had rolled around, they had already pretty much became just like humans with a different look to them. That and the domes would stop the need to ever evolve again, thus stagnating those species. As to why there are no mystics in 2300 A.D., could be because they just weren't able to survive Lavos' attack, or they could have been more susceptible to the changes in weather, or illnesses cause by the change in weather.

[ryu planeswalker]

Okay, So in say 1800ishAD Humanity achieves Biodome(no not the Pauley Shore one) status, Then doesn't show any real advancement in Evolution in 200 Years, and Decides to wipe the planet,


but not enough to cause permanent harm, so future generations of lavoid could have a grounds to Harvest different DNA strands, which makes sense if assuming only earth like planets could support life(anyone know how many known ones of those there are?) and if a Lavoids Lifespan is 65Mil + Travel Time There might be a Lavoid on every Planet.

[Foxx]

Okay, So in say 1800ishAD Humanity achieves Biodome(no not the Pauley Shore one) status, Then doesn't show any real advancement in Evolution in 200 Years, and Decides to wipe the planet,


but not enough to cause permanent harm, so future generations of lavoid could have a grounds to Harvest different DNA strands, which makes sense if assuming only earth like planets could support life(anyone know how many known ones of those there are?) and if a Lavoids Lifespan is 65Mil + Travel Time There might be a Lavoid on every Planet.

I think that Lavos just generally reviewed the evolution of mankind through the ages and found out that there were undesirable genes popping up.
A lot would have happened between 1000AD( plus all those other years in CC) and 1999AD.... not only tecnologically, but also, say, in the creation of nuclear arms or power plants.... what if a nuke went off, or a power plant like chernobyl blew up?
IRL children who live around Chernobyl are born with twice as many genetic defects as children elsewere... so my bid is an undesirable mutation caused by a nuclear force, or general genetic breakdown as can be seen in our modern society today (some allergies, the lack of being able to properly survive without aquedate hygiene etc.) 
Keep in mind that the 1999AD in CT is at leat 50-100 years more advanced than IRL today, so it could be PARTIALLY because of the lifestyle in the domes

That combined with tech and stuff like that could have triggered the 1999AD catastrophe where Lavos pops out and says hi...

[idioticidioms]

makes sense

[ryu planeswalker]

I like the Cancer Idea, never though of that, haven't Cancer rates grown as Life Expectancy has grown?

[Xenterex]

I do like the notion of Lavos attacking the world simply as a means to break the stagnation of evolution of life on the planet.   The best traits are made manifest through adverse conditions, and recede when life became easy.  It's possible then that Lavos' cycle could be to create several litters of spawn  (maybe several are created and dispatched into space over the time, like the one on the Omen) as opposed to just a single batch.

On the other hand, it could also be the means of forcing life into docility for the offspring.  Lavoids collect/absorb DNA, and I wouldn't be surprised (as mentioned with the spider example)  that Lavos is simply going to have the spawn absorb all the DNA it's collected by having the spawn 'absorb' the elder Lavos, ie eat it.  Once they've absorbed  that collection, they grow strong enough to travel through space, find more life and repeat the cycle.

[Lakonthegreat]

Anyone know how many known ones of those there are?

Currently 2.

Earth, and this planet around some other galaxy that apparently has the same approximate "comfort zone" distance from their sun. I believe they call it Alpha II or something.

[ryu planeswalker]

Well, that would lend credence to my theory that Lavos only damaged earth enough to reset the life cycle, but that could really cause some sibling infighting when they launch off.

[Magus_Brokenhart]

Well, Lavos would work similar to how the real life meteors did. On past impacts, most life has perished, and with such conditions, new forms of life propagated.

On a different note, i've heard people in the compendium state that Death Peak is Lavos' corpse. And the Lavoids lived there...So is this similar to how some spiders work? The mother gives birth, and the offspring live on her and eat her bit by bit.