Dying star?

When you're outside of Ultimecia's throne room, you would notice a red star (sun), which appears to be pretty dark:

http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/9982/redsun.jpg

There's no dark cloud blocking the view of the Star ... and yet it's still dark.
Look, the other areas of the sky appear to be clouded, but not the area where the Star displays.
This proves that Square was trying to hint something.

When the camera brings you into the lower part of the room (approaching Ultimecia's chair), the general brightness goes up, and hence the star looks a bit brighter - Where did this extra brightness come from? The flames, gold religious stuff and the Lifestream on the ground.

This red star looks like it's dying. So that must be millions of years into the future, not in hundreds of years. In the present days (Squall and Co.), the star looked pretty heathly. Apparently, this star doesn't seem to be heathly.

You really look at random things oddly.

Since you have no way of determining what star that is, you really can't use it as a chronometer. We don't know what star it is, or if we ever saw it in the pre-Time Compressed world, which means we don't know whether it is much dimmer than it was in Squall's time. We also don't know that it's even a star. It could be an illusion Ulti used to make her throne room more appealing, or it could be Lavos coming to destroy the world. Even if it is a star that we saw before and that has become much dimmer in Ulti's time, it doesn't mean it has to be millions of years in the future, it could just be that her magic, which is encompassing all of space time, is draining everything, not just our world. The devs wanted to present a theme of darkness and despair, where everything is fading away, and the star was just a part of that. They never figured anyone would be so truly stupid as to freeze-frame one second of the game and use it to decide that everything else the game tells us is wrong. For goodness' sake, cut this nonsense out.

The star is darker because there is a light haze or fog over it. It's dense enough to scatter the light from the sun, but thin enough that it's not visible to the naked eye. As you move up the tower you move out of the mist, thus the sun becomes brighter, just like the sun becomes brighter if you're ever taken off in an airplane and it becomes brighter as you gain altitude.

Simple as that. No fancy meanings or hidden symbols. Just basic physics at work. Sorry your theory turned out to be a realistic representation of mundane life.

Ultimecia castle takes place on Earth (the same world as VIII) somewhere in the future. Unless Ultimecia resides on another Earth where beings can breate oxygen but I doubt it.

Whenever we see Rinoa in the present, she looks up to the star. A bright star (why else her body turned brighter?) Did we see any other nearby star in the game? Nope, only this one. We can assume that specific star to be our dear Sun. Therefore, we can safely assume that there's only one star in Ultimecia's present. That's if she resides on the same planet as where Squall and Co physically exist back then. If it's only one star, it gotta be our Sun.

Wait a second!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Remember Rinoa using her finger sign at some star in the sky to deceive Squall? She shown it to Squall from the beginning and also the ending. Is this the star in the Ultimecia picture above? Hmmm.

Theres a lot of stars in the sky. idk what youre trying to prove but its really not meaning much of anything =/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Serapy

Ultimecia castle takes place on Earth (the same world as VIII) somewhere in the future. Unless Ultimecia resides on another Earth where beings can breate oxygen but I doubt it.

Whenever we see Rinoa in the present, she looks up to the star. A bright star (why else her body turned brighter?) Did we see any other nearby star in the game? Nope, only this one. We can assume that specific star to be our dear Sun. Therefore, we can safely assume that there's only one star in Ultimecia's present. That's if she resides on the same planet as where Squall and Co physically exist back then. If it's only one star, it gotta be our Sun.

Wait a second!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Remember Rinoa using her finger sign at some star in the sky to deceive Squall? She shown it to Squall from the beginning and also the ending. Is this the star in the Ultimecia picture above? Hmmm.

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W. T. F.

We see plenty of stars in the game. Remember the space scenes? Hell, remember the scenes in the "secret place" in the training zone? Or any other scene where it is actually nighttime? There are TONS of stars out there.

Also, we never get to see what Rinoa is staring at when the game starts, but she is certainly not pointing to a star when she holds her finger up, since, y'know, when any sane person points to something above them they actually fully extend their arm.

Yes, there are stars in the space. But I'm talking about ones that are nearby, like the one in the picture above.

A red star is very ominous. Darkness is very ominous. The star being red as well as the darkness are there for atmosphere only. There is no logical proof that Rinoa was pointing to anything at all. Why would she point at the sun anyway, and how could pointing at the sun decieve Squall?

next theory, if anyone would like to follow me I am now looking at the thread entitled "tunnel"

I don't think it's possible for Ultimecia to make everything (outside of her castle) to meet her standards. Go and watch her Castle FMV, do you see the moon? Does it look the same as the one in Squall's days? Except this time, it looks MUCH bigger and lively. It seems that the moon is very special in VIII... considering the fact that it has Griever on it.

It isn't that Ultimecia changed the tone for herself, the developers set a tone, unimportant to the story past emotions that the player will experience.

The developers have put something in her castle for a reason. They make Ultimecia's castle look that way (the design, the walls, the paintings, etc) because all of them are supposed to represent Ultimecia's personality. But the developers making outside stuff (the star) to achieve the same goal doesn't seem right.

How can a dying star represent her personality? Unless there's something going on. Like it's dying to show that Ultimecia will die later. Destiny.

If a star is dying, it's supposed to look more red-ish and darker. Maybe Lunar Cry boosted the process of this star dying?

A dying star means Ultimecia and her castle were taken place in millions of years later. I don't see any dying star in Squall's present timeline.

No, you don't seem to understand what I am talking about. Why would the dying star not be used for atmosphere? Atmosphere is something that helps set a tone, and unless you are an idiot, you can see that a dark, evil looking scene will compliment a dark, evil being.

...I still say it's Lavos. The only thing ever described specifically as "red star" in a Square game, to my knowledge.

Beware, Ulti! The destroyer comes!

No, this was confirmed by Square Enix, actually.

That's just the sun, but Ultimecia spends hours on her hair and wardrobe, and she has spent an immense amount of time on making her castle ominous (including piping in organ music 24/7). So what you're seeing is just the usual sun, except she has poured gillions into making it look really, really scary.

So you see, we're all right.