Lavos
Contents
General Information
Game Information
Chrono Trigger
Full Name: Lavos
Japanese Name: ラヴォス Ravosu ('Lavos', same as in the English version)
Age: Indeterminate, many millions of years in linear time
Species: Unknown alien, possesses DNA of all life-forms on the planet
Home Time: Keystone PD-1
Home Area: Keystone PD-1
Weapon Type: Magic, biological capabilities
Weapons:
Form 1
- Chaotic Zone, Rain of Destruction
- Also imitates the attacks and HP of the Dragon Tank, the Guardian, the Heckran, Zombor, Masa&Mune, Nizbel, Magus, Azala and the Black Tyrano, and Giga Gaia.
Form 2 - Evil Emanation, Flame Battle, Freeze, Laser Beams, Obstacle, Protective Seal, Shadow Doom Blaze, Shadow Slay, Span Death
Form 3 - Active Life, Crying Heavens, Dreamless, Evil Star, Grand Stone, Invading Light, Time Warp
Lavos is a colossal, extremely powerful alien invader from unknown parts of the universe. He was originally named by Ayla, with La meaning "fire" and Vos meaning "big." Lavos fell to Earth in roughly 65000000 B.C. and burrowed deep underneath the planet's crust. From that position, he began guiding evolution for his purposes and devouring the genes and life energy of everything on Earth. This course of action was part of Lavos's effort to create the best possible collection of genes to pass on to his spawn, who would then presumably travel to other planets and repeat the process. Lavos landed directly on top of the Tyrano Lair, smashing the kingdom of the Reptites and eventually allowing humanity's rise to dominance. It is unclear whether the Ice Age ushered in by Lavos actually lasted millions of years, but it seems unlikely.
As suggested by Chrono Cross, around 3000000 B.C. the ancestors of humanity came into contact with the Frozen Flame, a part of Lavos that was lost when he crashed to the planet. It rapidly accelerated human evolution, rendering modern Homo sapiens, including some with the ability to use magic. These magic-using humans formed the kingdom of Zeal in the era of 12000 B.C. They were responsible for many great feats of magic and science, including the Time Egg, the Blackbird, and the Masamune. Their downfall came when they attempted to harness Lavos's power through the use of their Mammon Machine. The effort failed, and resulted in Lavos's destruction of Zeal and its Ocean Palace, as well as his absorption of Zeal's princess, Schala. With Zeal no longer around to oppress the humans who did not use magic, they emerged to form their own empires. Lavos largely waited under the planet's surface after that time, though he made a brief appearance in 600 A.D. to consume Magus after being summoned out of his Pocket Dimension by the warlock.
In 1999 A.D., Lavos erupted from the planet's surface, utterly devastating the whole of human civilization. This apocalyptic occurrence came to be known as the Day of Lavos. Thereafter, the machines in existence at that time slowly began to become intelligent as the world wasted away in the environment required for the Lavos Spawns' optimal growth - a blasted nuclear wasteland. By 2300 A.D., only a few humans were left, and these were being systematically murdered by the berserk Mother Brain supercomputer. The ones that were still living were hungry and hopeless, as food was scarce after Lavos destroyed almost all life on the planet, while the food that was stored in the Arris Dome's cellar ended up rotting (the Seed of Life was presumeably not planted until Crono and co. came along). This state of affairs was glimpsed by Crono, Marle, and Lucca when they were catapulted into 2300 A.D. After viewing the footage of the world's end, they resolved to change history, and they eventually did defeat Lavos, banishing him and the post-1999 Lavos Timeline to the Tesseract and creating the Keystone Timeline. This in turn created the temporal paradox that serves as the basis for Chrono Cross.
From a historical standpoint, there are quite a few issues attached to Lavos. The archaeologist Dr. Luis Alvarez pinpointed one of them with his studies on the titanic crater in Chixulub, Yucatan. According to the radiometric dating conducted by his team, in 65000000 B.C. a massive nickel-iron asteroid pinned as between five and ten kilometers in diameter collided with Earth at that site. The ice age this asteroid brought on presumably ended Earth's Cretaceous period, wiping out the dinosaurs - events shown in the game and foreseen in Azala's lament after the player defeats him and the Black Tyrano. The kinetic energy the real-life asteroid had in its impact can be pinned within a range of a few hundred gigatons to as much as 100 teratons, outstripping the entire world's present nuclear arsenal potentially thousands of times over - all the more potent when one considers that Lavos survived more or less unharmed. Lavos, while very large, is not likely several kilometers across. Thus, in order to create and survive the impact, his shell would have to be far denser and more resilient than nickel-iron. Magic also could have had a hand in the impact dynamics - his magical abilities are demonstrably of the highest caliber.
Lavos's history with the evolution of the Chrono universe's rendition of Earth is quite storied - according to what data has been gleaned from the existing fossil record, modern man is no more than a few million years old. Lavos is treated as the being responsible for our evolution, even though Cross suggests that his part was indirect, played out via the Frozen Flame. The Frozen Flame does, however, serve as an uplink to Lavos - before the fight with the Dragon God in Cross, all of that game's characters speak directly with Lavos through the Flame.
In the kingdom of Zeal, Lavos is treated as a god of sorts, especially by Queen Zeal herself. The Mammon Machine, designed to draw power from Lavos, derives its name from the Hebrew word for "sin,"? giving a clear indicator of the malevolent nature of Lavos's power. However, after Zeal's destruction, ironically at the hands of Lavos himself, both he and that kingdom faded into myth. By the time of 600 A.D., the only one who possessed any sort of reliable information on Lavos was Janus Zeal, who had by then renamed himself Magus and dedicated his life to destroying Lavos. He is effectively treated as a mysterious "Great Ancient? in the style of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu, an evil god bent on devouring humanity. It has been debated extensively whether Lavos is sentient or not in that regard.
Interestingly, Nostradamus predicted the end of the world in 1999 A.D.
Chrono Cross
Radical Dreamers
In Radical Dreamers, the Lavos and the Frozen Flame is referenced: "It descended from the heavens long ago, part of a huge meteorite."
