Could (most of) the FF games be connected?

[EmeraldWeaponluvsRuby]

I've recently been working on a theroy that connects most of the FF together in one way or another. I'd like some comments and corrections if you have any. If you have anything that could invalidate or support my theroy, I reccomend you post them here. I won't get mad.

My timeline theroy starts out simple, with FFI. The original Light Warriors destroyed Garland's time loop and set things straight. Many years after that, Archmage Noah revolutionialized the world of FFI and brought new ideas, such as summoning, to light and informed the people of the Dark World, which was a place that could give one the power to view all sorts of alternate timelines and galaxies. It also was the home of Void, an very unstable power that could only be controlled by the most powerful of wizards. If one were powerful enough (and there was a large enough weakspot in between the Dark World and the place you wanted to visit), he could open up a gate and visit those alternate timelines and galaxies. He also informed the people that the Dark World ran on it's own crystals, similar to FFI's world (which was known from then on as the Light World) and had it's own civilization. Thanks to his help, the Light and the Dark World made contact and became friends, exchanging ideas and technology with each other. Before Noah died, he gave his apprentiences Zande, Unne, and Dorah some of his powers. Zande has received, to him, the worst power of them all and began to slowly go crazy. After a while, he started the events that happened in FFIII and tried to use the power of the Void to destroy everything. However, he underestimated the power of Void, and released Dark Cloud, who was stopped by the new Light Warriors, the Onion Kids. While everybody though it was over, it was only the beginning to worse things. Since Zande messed with the Void, it began to have negative effects on the Dark World, such as creating monsters , killing the Dark World townsfolk and sending the monsters to attack the Light world. The Light World decicded it's only hope was to shut off the Dark World once and for all by taking away it's crystals and trying to bring in any survivors from the Dark World. Once the move was completed, the Dark World was shut off from the Light World, along with it's powerful monsters, such as Twin Tarnia. However, there were still monsters attacking the Light World, so the people sealed them in the Floating Continent's Ancient Forest. Once that was over, the people began to call the Dark World the Cleft of Dimension. After a VERY long time, in which the Floating Continent was lowered, one of them formed Ex-Death to gain the power of the Void and destroy the Light World once and for all. The events prior to FFV happened, and the worlds were split. Ex-Death was sealed and all that good stuff. Then, FFV happened, and he treid to do what Zande did again (who, by then, had underwent a name change in the legends to R-something. I forgot waht his name was, but he's they guy mentioned in the secret town in FFV that tried to use the Void, but failed), but it backfired and the FFV heroes killed him once and for all.

Now, how does that connect to the other FF games? Jenova could possibly be a monsters form the CoD. Ex-Death, during that brief time he was in the CoD, could've seen the potential of conquering FFVII's universe, since it uses the Lifestream, which could be very powerful if he used it correctly, and sent Jenova (a creature imprisoned in the CoD) to kill and/or enslave the natives, gather the power of the Lifestream, and come back to FFV's (FFI and FFIII's) world and use to to destroy the Light World in case something happened to Ex-Death. Ex-Death got killed and his plan for the FFVII was stopped by the Cetra imprisoning Jenova on their planet. 2,000 years later, Jenova tried to manipulate Sephiroth into completing Ex-Death's plan by posing as a Cetra and saying that the humans took the land from the Cetra and made him believe that the only person that can "pure" the land was Sephy by turning into a demi-god and killing everybody. He, fueled by the Lifesteam, would then be commanded by his "mother" to go back to FFV's world and destroy everything like Ex-Death would've wanted. Obviously, this didn't work, as Jenova and Sephiroth were killed by Cloud and friends.

Now, for FFII, it's possible that "Hell" in the game is actually the CoD, as Pandemonium looks very similar to the CoD and the final floor of the castle looks like it came straight from the Dark World of FFIII and the CoD (which as I stated earlier, are the same thing). Before the game (and some time after FFV), the Emperor managed to stumble upon some information regarding the CoD. As he was power-hunrgy, he read on and learned a way to gain the power of the Void. After some long rituals, he managed to get inside and discover how powerful it really was. He managed to take control of a majority of the creatures in the CoD, so that he could use them to take over the world of FFII. He also came in contact with Void during that time, but he was too weak to do anything with it. He came back from the CoD and armed with all sorts of monsters, began to take over FFII's world. Frionel and friends eventaully managed to killed him in the Cyclone. As soon as he was killed, his soul was taken to the Void, where he underwent a tranformation similar to what Ex-Death did when he became Neo Ex-Death. he then returned to FFII's world, ready to bring it into nothingness. He also destroyed his old HQ, Palmalcia Castle, and replaced it with Pandemonium, a castle from the CoD. He also brought some very powerful creatures, such as Beelzebub and Astroth (sp) with him to guard powerful treasures that are in the castle. He also revived Borghen and made him a guard. Frion and friends eventaully managed to infiltrate Pandemonium, kill the guards, steal theri poweful items and kill the Emperor once and for all. That casued the CoD portal in FFII's world to close, causing all of the CoD monsters to leave FFII's world and return to the CoD. I'm not sure about what happenes in Soul of Rebirth, so I can't comment on that.

Now, for the others. I ca't seem to draw anything from FFVI, as I was always under the assumption that magic in all the other games was natural and not produced by anything. FFIV might be between FFIII and FFV, but that's a bit of a stretch, since the Lunerians aren't mentioned in any other game. For FFVIII, the area where Odin released Gilgamesh could be an area where the balance between FFVIII's world and the CoD was weak, so it'd be possible for his spear to temporarily open the gate to the CoD and conviently release Gilgamesh, who had just executed his Self-Destruct attack on Necrophobe. The gate was too weak and brief to release anything else, however. This does prove that Squall and Bartz's adventures were happening at the same time, if anything.

For FFIX, I haven't played the game, but I have read up some things about it, and it's possible that FFIX is an alternate timeline version of FFI, only Garland is an old man and has been experimenting in some scienfilic stuff, rather than a 30 to 40ish knight turned bad. It's also possible that Necron is a CoD creature hastily dispatched by Ex-Death to kill Zidane after he killed Kuja, so that the Light wouldn't win in that alternate time line, but I highly doubt that.

For FFX, I've heard some rumors that the character Shinra from FFX-2 eventaully finds FFVII's world and populates it with people from Spira. If this is true, then this connects FFX to the main timeline. I'd like to see if anybody has a translation from some sort of "Making of FFX-2" book that could support this.

Now that I've typed all that up, here's a brief timeline I made:

FFI > FFIII > FFV=FFVIII > FFII > FFVII

Possible alternate timeline:

FFIX

Uncertain:

FFX, FFX-2, FFXI, FFXII

Unrelated:

FFVI and FF IV

Misc:

I honestly don't know where Omega and Shinryu come from. FFV states that they came from the sky and that Shinryu is Omega's follower, but I don't know of any FF where a robot designed like Omega and dragons styled like Shinryu exist in the same game. In fact, there are enemies that are recolored versions of Omega called Prototype and Metalhead within FFV, so I honestly don't know what his deal is. Was he made by Archmage Noah for some reason and his prototypes still live on, or what?

Now, keep in mind that I don't know how Void truly works (and I don't think the writers do either :P), so take how I think the Void works with a grain of salt.

[Dreddz]

They probably arent, I made a thread saying if it would be cool, but people disagree.

[ThroneofDravaris]

Nice theory, I enjoyed reading it. I too think that it’s possible that Square have created worlds throughout the series that link to one another in some way, if people keep digging I’m sure they will eventually work it out.


Then, FFV happened, and he treid to do what Zande did again (who, by then, had underwent a name change in the legends to R-something. I forgot waht his name was, but he's they guy mentioned in the secret town in FFV that tried to use the Void, but failed

That would be Enuo. Nothing is really known about this guy, although some believe that he is the one that corrupted the tree that would become X-Death…

Just one thing though, X-Death didn’t become Neo X-Death. X-Death and Neo X-Death are two completely separate entities. No body knows who Neo X-Death really is, but since he has completely different aspirations to X-Death, he isn’t simply his evolved form.

As for the void, I’ve already poste my thoughts on its nature here (http://www.eyesonff.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66409)

Once again, nicely done. A refreshing change from all the usual "which FF game is the best" crap on this forum.

[Christmas]

Jenova could possibly be a monsters form the CoD

As fae as I know, Jenova most likely came from outer space. But it will be determine by how you look at CoD. Is it another planet or other dimension?

It also determine how you see "Dark World" and "Light World". Whether they are of different dimension or from different planets?


would then be commanded by his "mother" to go back to FFV's world

Whether is Jenova controlling Sephiroth or the other way round is still not quite clear.Read here for an anaylsis:

http://www.geocities.com/ff7analysis/control.html


Sephy by turning into a demi-god and killing everybody.

Sephiroth did said this


Sephiroth: It's simple. Once the Planet is hurt, it gathers Spirit Energy to
heal the injury. The amount of energy gathered depends on the size of the
injury. ...What would happen if there was an injury that threatened the very
life of the Planet? Think how much energy would be gathered! Ha ha ha. And at
the center of that injury, will be me. All that boundless energy will be mine.
By merging with all the energy of the Planet, I will become a new life form, a
new existence. Melding with the Planet... I will cease to exist as I am now...
Only to be reborn as a 'God' to rule over every soul.

It is likely he wanted to rule over everyone instead of killing everyone but there might be some other meanings to it.

Someone once said that the world of FF VIII is related to FF III taking the character Hyne in consideration and the world map.

[Masamune·1600]

I'm sorry to say this, but the theory you present is impossible. As ambiguous as certain series concepts are, most of these are explained, and in a way that clashes with your take.

First off, the Cleft of Dimensions (which you suggest to be FFIII's Dark World) was only created ~1000 years prior to the events of FFV; it was basically a "space" between the split world to contain the Void. Since the actual specifics of the formation of the Cleft are known, it's impossible to suggest that it and the Dark World were/are one and the same.

For your convenience, I've included the relevant statement from FFV.


...1000 years ago, there was a powerful evil called Enuo. Enuo was
able to control the power of the Void. The battle raged on for a long time.
Eventually, using the 12 Legendary Weapons, the people defeated Enuo. But
they were not able to get rid of the Void that Enuo had created. The people
were left with no choice but to. split the Crystals into two. When the
Crystals that supported the world were split, the world split into two as
well. The space between the two worlds, called the Cleft of Dimension, was
where the people chose to seal the Void.

Second, Zande unleashed the Cloud of Darkness. Enuo, who you suggest is the same individual, was able to successfully harness the power of the Void. However, the precursor heroes of FFV were able to defeat him using the Legendary Weapons. This clashes with the established events of FFIII.

While it's true that JENOVA's origins are unknown, the entity was clearly incompatible with Gaia's Lifestream. In any case, the Lifestream, being the "life" of Gaia, could not be removed from the planet and utilized in the manner you suggest.

As to FFII, the Emperor's plan involved "mere" world domination. The entire Hell/Destroy! tangent only came about as the Emperor "died." He did not expect things to turn out as they did, although his ability to call on the underworld suggests some sort of contact with the Infernal. In any case, the concept of Hell in FFII clearly involves Christian allegory. Pandaemonium, after all, was Satan's Temple/Palace for demons in Paradise Lost; Beelzebub is, in that work, Satan's chief lieutenant.

Neo Ex-Death is not Ex-Death. Neo Ex-Death is the very embodiment of the Void, which is in itself the manifestation of negation/nothingness. The ambiguity concerning the origins of the Void in FFV is really not that difficult to explain; it always existed, but Enuo's machinations ended up altering it, arguably even infusing it with the mission/consciousness displayed at the end of FFV.

Necron is, depending who you ask, a cosmic entity whose purpose is essentially to end life, the primary function of the Iifa Tree, or something else altogether. However obscure Necron's purpose was, however, it would certainly be something more than that of a random monster sent out to harass Zidane and company, particularly given its dialogue.

The matter of Gaia (FFVII)-Spira connectedness is primarily based upon an interview with Kazushige Nojima, who suggested in an interview that he liked the idea that Shinra's descendents would eventually travel through space to Gaia, and attempt to utilize the Lifestream as an energy source. However, this would require at least acceptance from the other FFVII story designers (in our case, Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshinori Kitase), the closing of an immense number of plotholes, and allowing for the inclusion of what is, frankly, extremely poor backstory.

[NeoCracker]

Well, listening to the stories so far, heres an attempt to connect them.

Starting with FF1, Garlands hole timeloop thing. It could very well be possible that killing him wouldn't fully fix everything, since they are messing with something that generally people shouldn't be able to control. The Time loop could have possibly been Garland tapping into the power of the Void.

With these Disturbances, The Emporer from two was able to, in a sense, breach these weaknesses and gain powers from the void. I havn't played II myself, so i am trying to go off your descriptions. Though in the end, he was incapeable of fully harnessing the voids power, thus leading to his udder demise.

In three,(Also i haven't played, so bear with me) The disturbances were not only breached by Garland, but now opened when the emporer tried using creatures created from the void the so called "Holes" between the ff world and the void were still open, easilly allowing the guy from III to go in and pull out the cloud thingy. He asumed he could control it because of how easy it was to obtain, unaware it took two waves of evil people, Garland And Emporer, to open the path to the void. Upon his defeat, between FFIII and IV, they needed to seal off the Desturbances. So they used the Four Cryasals of the Original Light Warriors, along with for other crystals that were found to "HEal" the desterbances and succesfully sealed off the void.

However, This is when the Lunarians desended upon the moon, but put themselves to sleep waiting for people to evolve. But unbenknownst to them, some of the power of the void Still Lingered, and was found by the Lunerian Zemos. The power corrupted him and he tried to destroy the humans of earth. Since the power of the void made Zemos to strong for the Lunarians to Destroy, they turned to the Crystals of earth in order to seal off Zemos. Of course the FF heroes fight against and defeat him, opening his seal using the Crystals. However, opening that Seal also released the Seal on the Void.

After FF 4, They realized the power of the void was returning. So the idea was to seperate the crystals, though it would split the worlds, it would give them a space to trap the void between the two worlds. In one world a dark creature was born of the power of the void who became known as Ex-Death. Through the returning of the worlds into one and the inevitable defeat of Ex-death and the Void, peace was restored. This covering the Events up to five.

Then, even though the void was destroyed, there were still remenants of its power were refusing to die out. Of the remaining power of the Void, the so called Gods were born, the three gods of ff 6 were created. They could have been originally called the creators of magic due to early knoledge that magic could originally have been drawn from the weaknesses in the void. Since Magic could no longer be pulled from the void since it was no more, the only remaining rements of magic were the Gods, who used their power to create Espers. Through the course of FF 6 when The magic source was destroyed, some of the power still clung to the planet. Including Powerful espers created by the gods that refused to let their power vanish from existence.

These creatures became known as Weapon and Jenova. These would be the events of FF 7. Though at this point, people could no longer draw mana from the void or the non existing espers. But people Discovered another source of power, Mako Energy from within the planet. Jenova happened to be created using the dark powers of the void, explaining why it was far more evil then the other espers which is why it tried to carry on the will of Neo Ex-Death, whose will carried over to Jenova. Even though Jenova and Seperoth were inevitably defeated, Jenova was able to use the mass amount of maka at the crater to recreat an immense evil that was thought to be destroyed, the Void. Originally it didn't have the power Jenova wanted since Metoer didn't collide with earth the second time, but that is where FF VIII comes in.

A person discovered the presensce of the new void and started to exploit its power, using various means to increase the power of the void. The person responsible was called Ultimetica, i think. Anyway, she used the same basic method of garland and created a variation of the time loop, in which she gained control of Edea in the future. THough in the end, the power of the void was again defeated.

However, The viod was still there. So farther into the future come the events of FF IX. In another reality, the planet that Zidane came from found a way to manipulate the voids energy and break through the demensions to fuse with the other planet. Though again the plan was foiled. However, when Memoria was destroyed, so was the Void.

But, some of the power again managed to escape. Just as the summons before they were drawn from the void. So when Yu Yevon in X discovered the power of the void, he realized that the aeons were of the same power. So, when people manipulated the powers of the Void to become the final summoning, Yu Yevon would simply fuse with that power, since he had a greater undersanding of it then the ones who were becoming the summoning. With the Defeat of Yu Yevon the void was once again Defeated.

However the problem i notice with this are the Ancient from seven, don't know how to work them in.

[cookieface]

I doubt they could be connected in any swift way, if you ask me. They could only be connected in a really large existential way, or like phantasy star 3 had all these different timelines, if you ever played that game.

but I doubt all the FF are in the same planet. maybe it's the same 'energies', but not the same planets. and if it's gonna be linked existentially, that's gonna be hard to do in a FF game since we're talking about actual stuff happening with living mortals. only that side of things happens, since the ones playing are mortals themselves what else could it be.

cross-overs would be nice though, but they'd turn out funny, inevitably

[MJN SEIFER]

Acording to Square All FF games are in order of neumericary (Although FFX and FFX-2 might be slotted somwhere before FFVII - I don't know because Square said this statment BEFORE FFX came out) and are connected but most are Mileniums apart. but I think FFVII and FFIII are a BIT closer to each other. (But Only slightly) I'll double check with Sqaure soon.

Also Zande and Enuo are 2 seperate aentirties. Again something that square have adressed beofore.