The FF Timeline (Possible Spoilers)

[Aaron]

Anyone read 8-bit Theater?  Then you may have seen the "Twinkin' Out with Red Mage" articles that show up from time to time.  Anyway, this is in the latest article, and I thought it was really cool, so I'm gonna post it here for you guys to ponder over...

(Original article)

Ok, now for the tough part. When researching the Final Fantasy Timeline, you have to keep in mind all the all the constants: The level of technology (particularly the airships), the summons, moogles, chocobos, magic systems, and most importantly the second moon, which I believe is behind almost all the evil forces in Final Fantasy. Now I believe the order goes like this: 9, 2, 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, X, X-2. I left out 3 becuase honestly, I've never played it. Final Fantasy 9 started first, as the beginning state of the world. All the kingdoms are at peace (until Kuja shows up at least). The mist is what produced all the monsters, which came from the Iifa tree, which originated from Terra, which is the second moon we see later. The mist also produced the first chocobo, which explains why there's only one in the game, and the only other ones are in dreams. Kuja and the mist are designed to weaken the races on Gaia, so that Garland can proceed with his plan which is *CENSORED SPOILER*, making Garland the first Lunar. The one crystal you see created the world, and made four elemental shrines to govern it's laws. When the shrines were opened to corruption, the elemental fiends were born. They were previously guardians of the crystals, but Kuja corrupted them to become evil. Now airships are common because of the mist, although steam power is in development. Eidolons, the summons, are actually divine beings who can be called forth like angels. However, only summoners, a specific race, can summon them, and they use the jewels for focus to bring forth a specific eidolon. This is why Eiko can use common items like the ribbon, and a phoenix pinion to summon eidolons. Moogles were common, and wise. Their purpose in life was to create save points to make traveling easier and safer, so until one was developed, they did all the saving themselves. When Kuja released Pandemonium, the moogles managed to get inside and loot the save points so they could study the technology. Also the black magi origins are revealed, who probably intermarried until black magi and humans were basically one and the same.

Now when FF2 comes around, which I'm only halfway through so bear with me here, a sorceress nearly levels the world with her power and armies, thus destroying the kingdoms and concealing most of the important places on Earth, the elemental shrines for example. There are still airships in use, but after the war, I'm guessing the rest were either destroyed or too damaged to use. There are no summoners in the course of events, although they might exist somewhere, so there are no summons. The moogles probably dug underground during this point to escape the war.

After FF2 comes FF1. Tiamatt and Kraken as stated in the game have destroyed most of the world, leaving only a handful of kingdoms left. Now as these events go by, the major geological formations change due to the forces at work, which explains the different world maps in each game, and the kingdoms' complex politics gets their names changed repeatedly. Now the one airship left is buried in the desert, which possibly crashed, but didn't get damaged that much. Then the elemental shrines are rediscovered because *CENSORED SPOILER*, and the four fiends from FF9 are *CENSORED SPOILER* becuase Kuja corrupted them and now *CENSORED SPOILER*. Garland the knight is not the same as the Garland from FF9, but is probably the reincarnation of him, and just gets happened to be named after the shiny stuff on the Christmas tree. The dwarves start building their homes deeper into the earth, lunar sages have come down to see what's going on and to measure up the strengths of the world, and the one village of people who only speak music are probably namingways from FF4.

When FF4, comes around, the kingdoms have situated themselves around the elemental shrines to protect the crystals. The underground dwarves probably found a lost moogle city. The moogles probably created the Bab-el Tower, Giant, 4 backup crystals in case the 4 from above were taken, and a way to their homeland of eidolons. Moogles are lesser eidolons, and they can sometimes be summoned in some FFs. The Summoners, now known as Callers, have been rediscovered, but are seen as a threat and are mostly wiped out. Golbez and Garland could be incarnations of each other, since they're both Lunars, as could KluYa and Kuja. Since the discovery of an airship in the last era, engineers have been competing to build the most and best airships. The Big Whale could be the remains of the Dreadnought from FF2. The Eidolons, through the gate which the moogles made, may now be made physically manifest on Earth, (the name changed from Gaia to Earth somewhere in there) as well as be summoned. Chocobos are now an entire species, which are easily domesticated. And the moogles have finished their savepoint prototypes. Although the second moon is supposedly expelled at the end, it will probably come back later.
In FF5, the world has gone soft, so Death comes down from the second moon and paves the way for his invasion by shattering the crystals. These shards are able to be used to give job classes, but later are discovered as the first magicite. The eidolons are still manifest. Since airships are useless due to certain elements being destroyed with the crystals, they're dismantled for better use.

FF6 has people exploiting magic for power, which revives the world, but also leads to the War of the Magi. The second moon falls to earth and becomes the eidolons, now called espers, home. The 3 gods which govern magic are Chaos (ff1) Ultimecia (ff8) and X-Death (ff5), Espers are hunted down and extracted of their power for the people, so all the other non-human races are hunted down. Elves and dwarves probably died out in some grudge war between the two. When Kefka tore apart the world, he released hordes of monsters which explains the stranger monsters in future FFs. The only two airships belong to Setzer and Daryl, whose ancestors, "took a chance" by keeping the airships. At the end, the magicite is destroyed, but not the espers. The espers are divine beings and can't be destroyed, but they can no longer manifest themselves physically or otherwise because there's no magic left. The first weapon is born by the apocalypse: Atma. The weapons are probably super-evolved espers who grew beyond human control. The save points by the moogles have reached a new perfection.

In FF7, there's no more magic to keep the world going, so the world is slowly dying. Desperate for power, mako energy is discovered by harvesting it directly from the earth's life-force. The Lifestream as it is called is from the one crystal mentioned at the end of FF9, in order to keep the world going. However, humans selfishly harvest as much of the force as they want. The industrial revolution started in FF6 reached great heights in FF7, with whole cities machines and weapons. With Mako energy, materia is manufactured, and at first equipped in guns. Howver, the guns only act as souped up paintball guns, explaining the low damage of guns, but the magical properties can still be lethal. Guns being an ineffective force, Shinra, the monopolozing family of Mako energy and therefore rulers of the world, fuses materia with weapons and armor greatly enhancing the powers of their weilders, and later fuses it directly with humans, creating such beings as Sephiroth. The second moon is probably Meteor. Jenova is an evil Lunar. The Ancients were good Lunars who lived on earth, but then were wiped out. Through the magical materia, the summons were once again able to enter the world. Sephiroth also releases the Weapons, all of them. Chocobos become extremely popular to raise, train, race, ride, etc.

FF8 reaches the pinnacle of technology, but at the same time begins an evironmental movement inspired by the Lifestream Crisis in FF7. Instead of manufacturing materia, magic is allowed to flow freely through the planet and one's body, getting rid of a lot of the harmful side-effects in FF7's materia. The lifestream flows are cultivated into draw points and Espers, now known as Guardian Forces, are able to manifest themselves anywhere. Airships aren't really used because of the environmental damage they cause. The one city able to make airships that are safe, Esthar, closes itself off from the rest of the world that takes place from another war earlier. Lunatic Pandora is a chunk of the moon, and the second moon produces the Lunar Cry as a means of invasion. Chocobos are nearly extinct and exist in only a few forests. Moogles have evolved to Shuumi, who evolve into Moombas. Everything would be hunky-dory if not for Ultimecia a sorceress from the future, who was driven insane by the loss of her love. She controls sorceresses in the present, has lots of GFs by her side, and wishes to destroy all of time. SeeD is created in order to battle her, and after it wins, SeeD disbands.

Finally FFX. The story is pretty well-explained, and basically the technological worls was destroyed by Sin. Yu Yevon, tha last Lunar, managed to succeed in taking over the world and became the center of his own religion. Magic is still ingrained in some humans so Black Mages like Lulu exist, and other times it naturally solidifies to create spheres, which are similar to materia but not as deadly. The Moombas evolve into Ronsos. The second moon is the Farplane, and Yu Yevon creates a ritual that turns humans into the only possible channels for Espers, now called Aeons, to manifest, thus making the Aeons his slaves until Yuna comes along.

I could stop there but why should I? FFTactics would fit in just between FF5 and FF6, right before the Industrial Revolution, and the shards of the crystals would be used in the artificial summoner horns so that they could be used. The Zodiac Demons are actually the Weapons, which explains why not all the demons are defeated. FFTacticsAdvance would be just before FFX, since the world is fairly technologically modern until the book changes it. And for the record, the reason Red Mages use the color red is not because it's a combination of Black and White magic. It's because the Red Mages are versatile in every magic and skill, so they express their individuality as being Red Mages. which really doesn't explain Blue Mages though....

[Caddberry]

Thats pretty awesome.. I'm going to have to save that.. and save it for a time i can comprehend it.. LoL.. Thx for sharing..

[Jedimark]

Cool... that was interesting reading.

[Lieron]

i read ff7+.. since havent played lower and i absolutely hate ff9 ) sounds reasonable )

[DragonMage]

i hated FF9 too ** david shakes his fist at it ** none of the characters except viv were cool enough it boring and not original enought for me anyway cool read all tho i just started on FF10 so thanks for runeing it for me

[Lieron]

hmmm  maybe someone shoudl put a spoiler tag on title

[Lord_Skylark]

Damn. That artical really cracked me up...to think that someone actually believes that... was the guy who wrote that serious?

~Sky

[Caddberry]

Damn. That artical really cracked me up...to think that someone actually believes that... was the guy who wrote that serious?

~Sky

You know.. You say that it was funny, and who could believe it, but when you think about world religions it just takes faith to believe it.. This is basically a similar situation here.. It may sound far fetched, and may have a few holes that need to be filled (and could be quite easily) but it reminds me (when you said would anyone take it seriously) of how serious people take their religions on blind faith.. Just an off the wall thought i guess.. ~_^

[Aaron]

Damn. That artical really cracked me up...to think that someone actually believes that... was the guy who wrote that serious?

I took it as more of a "theory" (i.e. piecing the pieces together for the fun of it) than an explanation.  Anyway, it is a reasonably complete theory using a lot of the evidence available, and I thought it was interesting, so I posted it

[Kendrilian]

I agree with Aaron here.  It sounds like a logical conclusion from the evidence given.  There could very easily be a different conclusion.  And there also could be "there should be no conclusion because SquareSoft didn't want one".

Kendrilian :wicked:

[Goku7]

Hmm.....I have to admit, it does seem to be one of the more reasonable theories.

I wonder where FF:CC's story would fit in with the others?

****MINOR SPOILERS FOR VARIOUS FF GAMES****

I doubt it would be directly after FF9, because while the ending stretch of FF9 shows that the world is covered in Mist (much like how Miasma covers the world in FF:CC), the Mist in FF9 has limits (i.e., it does not exist at higher elevations) and appears to not have much harmful effects to humans that are exposed to it.  In addition, we know that the Mist was not the result of a meteor impact, whereas Miasma was borne from a meteor impact.

To me, the meteor impact would more likely put FF:CC either after FF5 (what with the whole crystal shattering and other various things).  Now, I have gotten far in FF:CC yet, so I don't know if the Miasma is finally gone by the end of the game, but I suspect that the Miasma streams are coming directly from the meteor that spawned it (i.e., if one were able to travel "upstream" through the Miasma, it could lead them directly to the meteor), and that permanently stopping the miasma could involve somehow disrupting the flow of each of the Miasma streams simultaneously while attempting to seal off the meteor impact zone by using some huge-arse crystals.

In any case, something would need to happen to get rid of it before the events of FF:T or FF6.....that's the only hard part about trying to reconcile it with the rest of the theory.

[Aaron]

If the mist is not gone at the end of FF:CC, maybe it could come before FF9?  The mist grew less dangerous and came to rest in lower elevations over time or something.

I dunno, haven't played FF:CC.

Still, I never thought about the FF games being on the same world before, but after I read that theory I think it's fun to think about.

[Goku7]

If the mist is not gone at the end of FF:CC, maybe it could come before FF9?  The mist grew less dangerous and came to rest in lower elevations over time or something.

I dunno, haven't played FF:CC.

That could work, except that the very existance of the Iifa Tree in FF9 would fly in the face of it.  As you may remember, the Iifa Tree was confirmed to be the source of the Mist in FF9.  On the other hand, the existing races on the planet during FF:CC look very similar to what's there in FF9....

Still, I never thought about the FF games being on the same world before, but after I read that theory I think it's fun to think about.

Personally, I think that if it doesn't take place on the same world, then at least in the same Solar System; perhaps the timeline is spread out between 2-3 different planets (Gaia, Terra, Spira, etc.), with only a portion of FF timeline's events being confined to one planet at any single time....

[Aaron]

Ah right, I forgot about that.  Still, you could make something up about the Iifa Tree somehow coming from the meteor

IIRC, the same character designer who worked on FF9 also worked on FF:CC.

[Goku7]

Ah right, I forgot about that.  Still, you could make something up about the Iifa Tree somehow coming from the meteor

Indeed, that would be the missing link.  Oddly enough, in FF:CC it is mentioned that an ancient text indicates that monsters did not begin to appear until 100 years AFTER the Miasma appeared. At the same time, it is also mentioned that the reigning theory for why this is so is because the meteor may have served as a place where monsters were either incubated as eggs.....if this really is true, then it may be that the meteor had some sort of biological component in it.  And if it has a biological component, then there is a possibility that the environment could spawn a living thing like the Iifa Tree....

-edit-
Doh!  I didn't completely take out the rest of your message when it tried to quote teh entire thing.

Anyway, since you haven't played it yet, I should mention that FF:CC is definitely worth playing.  However, it has a "FF meets Diablo II" type of feel in the gameplay....