The Rinoa-Ultimecia theory.

[Sir Bahamut]

Doubtlessly it's a thing of choice, that much should at least be clear in any argument. No proof can ever be made for a theory(by the definition of the word) and no proof against it has been found, though many have tried, that's for sure.

Only it's level of plausibility can be argued. For instance, the fact that...

SPOILERS



...Laguna is Squalls father is also a theory by definition, yet one backed up by so strong arguments that it seems ridiculous to not take it as fact. Similarly here, one should at least make a case for plausibility.

As for Ultimecias looks, they are of no importance. After all, consider Adel. Judging on her looks it's hard to say she's human, but she was just as everyone else a human when she first got her powers. So any change in looks between R and U have little to no significance.

[udsuna]

Cool.... I've never heard this theory before. It's warped- and unlike a lot of people, I couldn't care one way or the other on it, but I like convoluted logic like this, so I'll treat it as a logic problem.

1. What would be necessary to make this work?
A: Clearly, the immunity to aging- which seems plausible, given Edea and Adel's appearant longevity. With the other stuff their powers seem to cause, it's reasonable. THIS ONE IS KEY- you can't have anything further in the theory without acknowledging this.
B: A reason for Rinoa to go loco. Falling in love, watching the man you love age and die while you stay young, having no way to stop it (power over life and death don't appear as any sorceress ability) and then spending a few centuries alone... yeah, that could break just about anyone. I could see someone coming to the conclusion to hop back in time, kill either herself or said love before it ever came to be, thus blinking the future that created her out of existence. And being so demented as to fail to recognize the accidental birth of the very reality so sought to stop. Watch "Back to the Future", the original "Planet of the Apes" series, even a few choice episodes of "Andromeda" or the one in "Futurama"- it's a common time-loop theme.
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.

Strangely enough, in the end, Edea (already a sorceress) chose to absorb Ultimicia's power in order to allow her to pass on, which a sorceress appearantly can't completely- they need to be human again. It also seems the half-life magically animated state is a fate worse than death. Which is then passed to Rinoa, and then (eventually) re-acquired by Ultimicia. Only to repeat the cycle, ad infinitum. *PARADOX* BRAIN HURTING *AAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

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.

Of course, this leads to another question: who would Rinoa force her powers upon? Considering that Edea was so adamant about taking Ultimecia's instead of having one of her charges imbued with those powers... one could presume that Rinoa would also be loath to do the same. Which actually supports the R=U theory- what better motive to absorb every sorceress line than to eliminate it entirely?
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).
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. Suicide by the only means that would actually work completely. She'd also know that her acts would ultimately lead to her own demise through those very memories. 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.
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.
She did enough 'evil' stuff to convince the team to assault her in her own era- and them heading back gave her a 'doorway' to bring her actual self (and not just a projection) into the past, through Squall's trail, and get assimilated into Edea- and in the future/past whatever, take Edea's power and fuse it into Rinoa. Somehow, I don't think asking nicely would have gotten these end results.
Presto, whether as suicide, preventing whatever it is that makes passing on the line something bad, or making sure no more sorceresses exist to abuse the power, the entire lineage gone completely and forever.

Wow, this one's pretty big. It should be broken off into its own little thingy- maybe someone else'll do it.

[Destai]

Ultimecia a misunderstood hero? Well Im all for the R-U theory but my explanation would be a mix of Ultimecia being left alone in time ,going insane and trying to destroy time itself seeing as she was immortal unless someone literally murdered her or Maybe she was trying to use the compression to reunite herself with Squall and the past. Sure she tried to killhim to achieve it but by then she was pretty insane. Flawed but its just a theory.

[rubah]

I thought there was something in the whole time compression thing that said that Ulticmecia would be the ONLY one able to live in such an environment for an extended amount of time?

That doesn't seem to fit with her being a suicidal future rinoa that wants to completely obliterate any chance she has at existing in teh future.

[Shoden]

ok now im lost and confused me no like this now (goodnight ppl)

[ShivaBlizzard8]

Oh man, I was gonna keep my mouth shut but rubah's point should be backed up.

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.
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?
2)The bigger point, why would Ulty try to destroy her past self, over and over again?

As I see it, the only reason Ulty would want to create such a place is that for whatever reason, she can't exist in the "normal" world - only the time compressed one, which is why she keeps going through all this trouble to create it - then fails, dies, and is born and tries again. Just my 2 cents.

Oh, and I read that fanfic - I don't get it. It makes no sense to me.

[Big D]

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.

So basically, the R=U theory depends on some really selective amnesia from Ultimecia. After all, Edea had full knowledge of Ultimecia's plans and motivations; no hint of R=U was ever given by Ultimecia.

[udsuna]

Hey, I said she was SUICIDAL, not SANE. I mean, really... what was her motivation for poking around in a past, knowing (and she would have to know) that it would stir up a chain of events that she'd have access to memories of... and would eventually lead to her demise.
Also, she never *really* used the time-compression as it was implied, not fully at least. Otherwise, how would all the beings still alive in her era exist? Monsters and those SeeDs alike? Either compression is a localized phenomena, a lot of beings actually can handle it, or it was never truly completed. And it'd make for some very GOOD motivation to manipulate the heroes into killing her... something that, regardless, she'd have memories of through Rinoa and Edea's mind. One kills her, the other absorbs her powers- dunno about you, but THAT's something that would stick out in my mind. Scale of 1 to 10, those two events get an 11 and 12, perspectively.

[Sir Bahamut]

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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

[Shockwave Pulsar]

Have you ever had a feeling that you have to do something but don't remember what it is? it happens to me all the time. for example, when i'm surfing the web and i see something interesting i want to look into a little bit more. i get distracted with other things and i forget what i was going to look for. i know i have to go to google, but what am i supposed to do there?! that feeling is terrible. so then i decide, "what the hell i'll just go to google it may comeback there".
Under the assumption that sorceress don't age, this is the best way i've seen the theory explained.
After the death of her knight, rinoa starts to loose her mind. after a process (of insanity), she decides to unify time to be with him forever. due to the use of gf's she forgets the reason but she has a goal set, achieve time compression. at any cost. the reason she may have tried to hurt herself or squall is because she doesn't remember them, they are just two intruders trying to stop her from her goal.

IMO

[Destai]

I like that theory and as I said before, I "wish" it was true but if any of this was true Square would have gived some form of suggestion in the game. Theres just too little info of it in the game for Square to see it as true.

[Shockwave Pulsar]

Personally i believe there are hints thrown in the game, which is probably how the theory started anyways.

[§håd0w]

in the game it says Ultimecia is many generations ahead of them
many is about 6-8 and a generation is 20 years times the numbers and you'll get 140 years if its 7 120 if 6 and 160 if 8. if Rinoa is a full sorceress than she wouldnt have grey hair unless she used peroxide and lots of it or used magic, she could of kept her friends alive using her powers and theres the old "i don't want to hurt anyone with my powers" thingy thats all im saying but theres strong evidence for and against so its a thing of choice we dont know if its true or not.

Ultimecia also sends her presence into the past to obtain what she wants. Henceforth, it is possible that R=U. So don't argue this, it's only gonna end up in a flamefest. It is also possible that they are not the same. We will never know.

[Shoden]

yeah i guess so lets move on to the hints given and differences

[Sir Bahamut]

A full list of all hints(unless I missed any, which I doubt) can be found in the FAQ I linked to repeatedly(yet seems to have been ignored so far):

http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/f..._ultimecia.txt

In the Rinoa = Ultimecia theory section....