udsuna:
What would be necessarry for it to work?
Only two things:
1) The assumption that a sorceress has extended(or infinite) lifespan. A case for this can be made based on ingame facts making it more than a baseless assumption.
2) A certain view on Rinoas psyche. A view that makes Rinoa not giving away her powers and not being able to cope without her Knight plausible.
Because from those two assumptions alone it is trivial to point out that we'd end up with a mentally weak Rinoa, all alone without any of her friends or knight and love(Squall), in a world full of people who generally fear and hate sorceresses. No logical contradictions arise from the theory after all, or at least, not in more than 2 years have any been found(check the FAQ I linked to for "explanations" against the common arguments).
That's the basis of the theory. At least, the only truly plausible basis of the theory. That fanfic linked to earlier is just that, a fanfic, and cannot be backed up by anything ingame at all. If such use of imagination were to be "permitted" in a making of a theory like this, I could make an equally strong case for Ultimecia being Irvine.
The motive attributed to her from there may vary, but personally I think it seems by far the most reasonable assumption to assume that she wanted power, period. After all, when scanning Ultimecia in the last battle it says:
"A sorceress trying to change the world by compressing
time and taking power from all sorceresses."
Personally I doubt Square really meant something completely different when they wrote this. So I would say that if R=U, her motive would nonetheless be the same motive that we perceive Ultimecia as having.
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C: An explanation to the time-dialation series of future sorceresses that you fight. There are always (at least) two in any point in history- Edea and Adel being the ones that you start in dealing with. Maybe in the past there were more, with a whole Highlander-esque thing, but that's a different subject.
Rinoa inherited Edea's powers when she was defeated. It doesn't seem, however, that she also got Adel's at the end of that conflict. Her power would be absorbed by whomever- another side issue.
Following that, in the dialation there are MULTIPLE generations of FUTURE sorceress, each having inherited from the prior being. Which means someone with Adel's line, the other with Edea's. Until presumably some sorceress acquired BOTH lines (as Adel tried to do), fused them, and became the final in the series- "Ultimicia" would be a fitting name. But the time- issue is one I can't see a way around (any takers?) and that would be needed to complete the R=U theory.
Firstly, Rinoa got Adels powers, so she has both Adels and Edeas powers. We KNOW she got Adels powers. After all, Odine explains in his plan, that a crucial element is that Rinoa gets Adels powers, and since the plan succeeds, we can only assume Rinos did, in fact, get Adels powers, leaving her the only sorceress of that time.
As for the sorceress you fight. Well, it shouldn't be assumed they are descendants of Rinoas power. Firstly, since we see two in each time, as you say, yet we are told Rinoa is the only living sorceress of her time, there's something strange going on. Even if Rinoa gave up her powers, she couldn't give them to two different people(at least, such an assumption would seem rather rash).
But we are also told in the tutorial that it is not known how many sorceresses exist, because many live in hiding, and never reveal their powers.
So, was Odine simply wrong, or is Rinoa the only living sorceress? If there WERE other sorceresses alive, then the problem with the sorceresses you fight would have an alternate explanation, namely that they originated from those/that unknown sorceress.
But even if Rinoa WERE the only sorceress, it should be noted that you're moving through time compression, where both past, present, and future are drawn together, and all sorts of weird things occur. So the sorceress you fight may not even be sorceress inbetween Rinoa and Ultimecia. They may just be freak products of the warped time, or they may be sorceresses of old or of the far future, thrust into a different time.
Either way, there are explanations for the sorceresses you fight that agree with ingame facts and quotes.
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Only to repeat the cycle, ad infinitum. *PARADOX* BRAIN HURTING *AAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*
Irrelevant as it may be, it is no paradox, merely a looping of time. A paradox is impossible by definition.
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Seeing as sorceress' gain both powers and memories from their predacessors, when sliced on that axis, from Edea on up, all the sorceress' are essentially just new incarnations of the same entity. Direct looped decent, certainly, but a decent that required a hop.
They gain memories? I'm sorry, but that is an unfounded assumption and is thus irrelevant. So the power passing through them is the only similarity between the sorceresses, and would hardly suffice to name them the "same entity".
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It also gives a *VERY* good reason for Ultimecia's meddling in the past (Has ANYONE ever actually tried to explain that? Considering she was the all-powerful master of her time, what would be the point in poking into the past? I've always hated that part of FF8- all the other FF villains at LEAST made sence).
As has been mentioned, her goal was obviously time compression, and as I said, even if R=U I think it seems clear that was her motive. And we are told that in order to cast TC, Ultimecia needed to be in the far past. IN order to get that far back, she needed Ellone, which is why she started "meddling in the past", and that's about as good an explanation as we'll ever get.
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Since she would have Edea's, Rinoa's, and Adel's memories, reguardless of source, she'd know exactly what would need to occure to insure that she was the last chronological sorceress.
Again, this is unfounded, as nothing indicates that memories are passed on with powers.
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And it's evidenced by how Ultimecia had Ellone's past-projection power (which only works on people she knew) that she had to have SOMETHING for contact- and since she could only affect the sorceresses of the past, presumably only as far back as Edea, Adel, and later Rinoa- it's this bloodline that made it work.
She could only affect sorceresses of the past? No, we only see her possess sorceresses of the past, and that's because we are told she needs to go into the past, and NOT the future to cast TC. She would have no reason to go to the future. She probably couldn't if she wanted to, by the way, as Ellones machine only works that way as far as we know.
Of course, there had to be some connection, but the fact that they all shared the same power would probably be enough. Or if she were Rinoa, she would have known all those sorceresses well enough anyway.
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These are fun thoughts- Rinoa as a future potential psycho. And Ultimecia as potentially a poorly understood, self-sacrificing hero. And considering the only one she ever actually kills is the Galbadian president, a complete jackass in his own right (and she has plenty of time and chance and supposed reasons to kill the entire group of heroes) it lends itself to reason.
Eh, to make an analogy, Hitler may not have killed many with his own hands, but that doesn't make him less evil. Ultimecia is the cause of the death of countless men. She invaded Deling, went to war with SeeD, destroyed Trabia garden, and in her own time had countless SeeDs killed.
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Yes, the game clearly states that Ulty is the only one who could exist in a time compressed world. No one else, including Rinoa, Squall, anyone - would survive the completion of Time Compression. Therefore, I've always said that since the compression threatens Rinoa's life just as much as anybody else's she cannont be Ulty.
That's flawed. True, only Ultimecia could live in TC, but if Rinoa were to one day become Ultimecia, then no one would know of it in Squalls time, meaning it is obvious they'd all assume Rinoa too would be unable to live.
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1)Being Ulty would allow her to survive the spell, meaning both she and Ulty would survive, and what would they do then? Sit around and play pong?
I don't see your point. If Rinoa weren't Ultimecia, Ultimecia'd be all alone after time was compressed. What'd she do then? Sit around playing patience? We don't know what Ultimecia would do once she compressed time, and we never will know.
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2)The bigger point, why would Ulty try to destroy her past self, over and over again?
The theory is based on Rinoas insanity, and well, insane people do insane things.
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In Deling City, while she was possessing Edea, Ultimecia tried to kill Rinoa. No-one in their right mind would try to kill their past self. Now, many people say she was simply suffering from the effects of GF amnesia. Yet these same people say she wanted to compress time to be with Squall forever. They also say that her "Remember your childhood..." speech proves she knows who they are.
I agree, that it would be HIGHLY unlikely that she in any wanted to be with Squall again, considering she tried to kill both him and herself.
That's why I would propose that a Rinoa who were Ultimecia followed the same motive as the Ultimecia who is Ultimecia does; a desire for all the sorceress power, and a compressed time.
In that way, you don't get this "selective amnesia" as you put it.
Finally, it is true that time compression was never completed. After all, if it were, no one would be able to fight Ultimecia, yet they do. Furthermore, Ultimecia says clearly that "the world was on the BRINK of that ever elusive time compression".
PS: I don't want it to seem like I'm merely shamelessly plugging my FAQ, but I wrote it so I wouldn't have to write as long posts as these. Therefore, if anyone wants a fuller view of my take on it, please read that instead of asking me: http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/f..._ultimecia.txt
