While browsing through the internet, I stumbled upon this theory over in the Giant in the Playground forums. A guy named DiscipleofBob was just simply dusting off a high school project, but it was sheer genius in my eyes. Sadly, DiscipleofBob never finished it, stopping at FF7, so I'm not only going to finish it, but throw in some theories of my own. Before we cut to the chase though, let me explain the Final Fantasy World in general. Although each game takes place in it's own world, I'm focusing it all on just 1 or 2 planets. Now, before you start yelling at me, let me explain. DiscipleofBob theorized that the abused usage of magic and the constant threat of some sort of apocalypse caused the landmasses to shift abnormally fast. It may not sound so bad a thought, but it's still grasping at straws. Here's a theory no one's ever thought: what if the Final Fantasy games took place on a planet that was the size of JUPITER? (For a quick reference, Earth is 7,926.28 miles in diameter, while Jupiter is 88,846 miles in diameter.) A lot of people base the Final Fantasy world off of our own, but it only makes things harder for them (because last I checked, we don't have a second moon). And now, let's talk about the map borders. We all know how it loops to the other side, right? Well, to explain that, we're gonna have to delve into another theory of mine: when something really bad starts stirring up (like when Xande flooded everything), the world's natural defenses kick up, and place a barrier over the area affected, and waits until everything's back to normal. To prevent people from freaking out too badly, the barrier acts as a warp point, thus the "loop" effect seen in every(?) Final Fantasy game. Sound cool? That's nice. Now, another thing I'll point out is that DiscipleofBob didn't play every game in the series, so he made a few mistakes. I'm not going to make that same mistake. Without further ado, here's the timeline theory!!!!!!!!!

Final Fantasy I

The Plot

We start out in the world of Final Fantasy 1. The world is under siege from dark forces which seek to corrupt the very elements themselves. The world’s last standing human kingdom is Cornelia, the last bastion of hope and the source of a prophecy involving four Warriors of Light who will save the world. Four Warriors of Light bearing crystals do indeed appear and fulfill the prophecy, defeating corrupt elemental fiends and restoring the light to the crystals. Along the way, we find out the truth that the traitor knight Garland was the man behind the plot, using the energy drained from the crystals to send himself back in time to start this whole process, causing a time paradox to result in a millennia-long time loop at a bid for immortality as the demon Chaos.

The Warriors of Light break the time loop and restore the world. They manage to get back to their own time where they are hailed as heroes, and Garland exists as a different person: a benevolent and loyal knight who never even conceived of the plot for immortality.

The Aftermath

Cornelia becomes a global superpower, all other nations, or at least their remnants, paying homage to them. The world is surely but slowly being rebuilt. Most importantly, however, measures are being taken to better safeguard the crystals, lest the next villain decide to try and attack them to destroy the world. And now, we take a look at Garland. When he became Chaos, he turned into not only a demon, but the very embodiment of evil itself. When the Warriors of Light defeated Chaos, all they really did was prevent Garland from ever remembering the ordeal. When he died, his soul became Chaos once more, and began haunting the world, searching for a new pawn in his ultimate plan for world domination........



Final Fantasy II

The Plot

The elemental crystals are not seen or mentioned in II, probably (and thankfully) because they aren’t central to the plot this time, so they remain hidden for now. The world is being threatened as the Emperor of the world’s strongest nation desires to rule the world, and thus launches a campaign to conquer the world, crushing any resistance in his path. The plot of Final Fantasy II revolves around some refugees who prove themselves to the rebels and become unlikely heroes. The plot is basically an arms race of magical artifacts and weapons. Multiple cities are destroyed, including the land of the dragoons. The party finally manages to confront the Emperor inside the destructive force known as the Cyclone. But their battle is far from over. Even from the afterlife, the Emperor actually manages to raise Castle Pandemonium from hell with his own army from the underworld. No longer content to rule just the world of the living, the Emperor attempts to conquer this and every world, only finally getting destroyed by our party and being banished back to the underworld, this time for good.

The Aftermath

The Emperor’s ambition was stopped, but not before leaving his mark on the world. The nations of the world had now learned to fear each other, as any nation with too much power could decide to try and take over the world. The trend towards gathering/building powerful weapons, magical or otherwise, was also started (Dreadnought, Sunfire, Cyclone, Ultima, Mythril, etc.). Thus the world’s nations obsessed over an arms race that would carry on to the distant future, a source for the future conflicts that the world sought to prevent. On top of that, Castle Pandemonium might have sunk back into hell, but the dam had already burst. The monsters of hell could now reach the world of the living, causing the race for military power among the few surviving nations to hasten to protect themselves.

The Connections

The emergence of Cornelia as a world power at the end of Final Fantasy 1 was accepted mainly because Princess Sara was a kind, just, and noble woman who understood what was at stake. Under her rule, the various races and nations of the world could come together in an age of peace and prosperity. But rulers don’t last forever, and their heirs don’t always live up to their precedent. After many years of changing politics, the central power of the world was eventually renamed Palamecia, and its emperor, whoever his ancestors might be, was far from kind. The Emperor was easily one of the most powerful men in the world, but he sought complete and total control of everything. The other nations of the world were completely unprepared for his military campaign. Chaos, sensing this dark ambition, made a deal with the Emperor, which explains the demonic forces he had at his disposal. Chaos would've played a larger role here, but he had another pawn to manipulate, and likely didn't stick around for long.

Possibly the largest inconsistency between the first and second game is the lack of several key components from the first game: other sentient races like elves, dwarves, dragons, etc., and the crystals. The former could possibly be explained by interracial marriage and breeding/blending the genomes until there were no real differences, but the unfortunately more likely possibility is that the majority of said races were wiped out by the Emperor’s ethnic cleansing. One bit of evidence we have for that is the society of dragoons and dragons that was wiped out by the empire before you can ask for their aid in game. It is possible that some of the other races survived, but were just in hiding for the whole game. The dwarves could just dig deeper, the elves could hide out in remote forests, etcetera, especially since such races (to some degree) appear in later Final Fantasy games.



Final Fantasy III

The Plot

The adventure this time revolves around four orphaned youths on the floating continent who come across the previously sealed Wind Crystal. The Crystal grants the youths its power, giving them the abilities of various Jobs that they can switch between at will (something that will come up several times later). The youths, charged with saving the world, set out to explore the floating continent on which they live, on the way meeting Vikings, Dwarves, Gnomes, Bahamut, and evil monsters like Medusa claiming to be a servant of the dark wizard Xande attempting to destroy the entire floating continent. They eventually find the Fire Crystal and receive its blessing and more jobs.

Our heroes then learn that their floating “continent” is but an island compared to the vast world that lies below. The world below is completely flooded, most of the remaining settlements enshrouded and stopped in time. It is only once they find and reactivate the Water Crystal that the time flows again and the world is returned to normal.

It turns out the flood was caused by the dark sorcerer Xande, an attempt to stop time to stave off his own mortality. Xande was the apprentice of a powerful magus named Noah, still revered among the wizarding world, along with fellow apprentices Doga and Unne. Noah gave his disciples each a gift: Doga vast knowledge of magic, Unne control over the world of dreams, and Xande mortality. Xande, confused and furious with his “gift,” sought to create an imbalance of the world to stop time, so he drained the energy from the Water and Earth crystals on the surface below. The Fire and Wind crystals were stored safely on the floating continent, but for the time being, Xande was successful in stopping time on the surface world. When our heroes journey to the world below, their quest to restore the light to the crystals starts time moving again.

Eventually, our heroes meet with Doga and Unne, who seek to aid the heroes against Xande’s dark ambitions. They end up giving their lives so their souls can power the keys to the Crystal Tower where Xande awaits. They find the Earth Crystal in the maze surrounding the Crystal Tower, and proceed to Xande’s lair. After finally defeating the dark sorcerer, a being called the Cloud of Darkness appears, claiming to have been using the darkness in Xande’s heart to manipulate him the entire time. The Cloud of Darkness effortlessly defeats our heroes with her Particle Beam, but thanks to a MacGuffin arranged by the souls of Doga, Unne, and the prayers of their allies the heroes made through their adventures, the heroes come back to life and pursue the Cloud of Darkness on her own turf: the World of Darkness.

In the World of Darkness, the heroes find four Dark Crystals, the counterparts to the four crystals of their world. After defeating some monsters guarding the crystals, they find the four Dark Warriors who saved their world some time ago when a different imbalance caused light to almost envelop and destroy their world. Confronting the Cloud of Darkness, the four Dark Warriors sacrifice themselves to make the Cloud of Darkness vulnerable to harm. In an epic final battle, our heroes defeat the Cloud of Darkness and restore balance to the world, then returning on the floating continent.

The Aftermath

Final Fantasy III starts out with the world in shambles. The game isn’t so much about saving the world as putting it back together. When Xande and the Cloud of Darkness are defeated and the crystals are restored, balance returns and the world can begin to heal. The events leading up to Final Fantasy III, namely the magical arms race, saw the creation of new magics including Summon Magic, something that we’ll have to take into consideration later. The theme of crystals choosing heroes and imbuing those heroes with power will be repeated in later games as well.

The Connections

Now, I'm gonna say right now that FF3 takes place not too long after FF2. I'd estimate about 15 years (at least) has passed since the events of FF2. Remember how I said Chaos was busy manipulating a certain pawn? That pawn was Xande. Knowing how upset Xande was over becoming not-so-immortal, Chaos convinced him to use the crystals' power. As for how the Cloud of Darkness falls in, I have another theory: it's actually CHAOS! Cloud of Darkness is nothing more than an alias. Chaos chose to use these desperate measures since both the Emperor and Xande have failed. The reason behind the alias was to keep his actual identity secret, possibly to prevent it from being used against him. He may have been defeated, but there was still another plan up his sleeve, and all it needed to bloom was patience. Final Fantasy III contains a lot of firsts that we’ll need to keep track of for the sake of the theory, but let’s start with the crystals. In FF3, there are 8 crystals, four light and four dark. Presumably the four dark crystals also correspond to fire, earth, air and wind. This might seem to contradict our timeline in the events of FF1, but it actually doesn’t. In FF1 there were eight crystals as well: one in each shrine, and one carried by each Warrior of Light. Although the final dungeon is called the ‘World of Darkness,’ we have no reason to believe that it’s another dimension or world at all, just a secluded place where the Dark Crystals are stored. For our world, we’re going to currently assume there are eight crystals, two for each element, and that each crystal also acts as sort of a backup generator for the other. Darkness swallowed the world not just because the Light Crystals were being drained dry, but because the Dark Crystals were out of commission as well, being guarded by monsters in the Dark World. We’ll see these same crystals in FF4.

The lore of this game mentions another epic story where four ‘Dark Warriors’ stop another imbalance from destroying the world, though in their story light is trying to engulf the world. This might not seem to tie into the other games, but if we stretch the story and allow for some of the details to have changed over several generations. In Final Fantasy 1, the four designated Warriors of Light of the prophecy show up apparently out of nowhere each carrying a “darkened crystal, one for each element.” In order to save the world, they have to go to each crystal and, using their own crystal, restore the light of the crystals. This theory hypothesizes that the Light Warriors actually carried the Dark Crystals, and used their properties to give light to the Light Crystals and restore the balance. Their plan backfired, however, since Chaos’s plan drew upon the light of all four crystals to power his time loop. This could be interpreted as the ‘light engulfing the world’ the story of FF3 talks about, and since no real mention of who the FF1 Warriors of Light are or what their ultimate fate is (unlike the nameless protagonists of FF3 who are stated to be orphans who go back to their village at the end of the game), it’s possible that the Warriors of Light of FF1 are in fact the nameless Dark Warriors of FF3, and they give their lives to combat the Cloud of Darkness.

Let’s go now to the Floating Continent. We know from the lore that it’s the remnant of an advanced civilization that tried to harness the power of the Light Crystals, and that it was the one refuge when the world was swallowed by darkness. We know there are multiple races, including the dwarves, on the floating continent that have lived for possibly hundreds of years in ignorance of the status of the world below. When the world was swallowed by darkness, it’s likely that everyone who could took refuge on the floating continent via airships, or even possibly Bahamut. According to lore, the magus Noah was the one who actually put Bahamut and Leviathan on the island. We know of a civilization capable of floating cities: the Lufeins of Final Fantasy I. It’s possible that this continent was the natural evolution of their technology. Not just a floating castle, but an entire continent.

Speaking of Bahamut, his role in FF3 is odd in that it’s both the first time he can be summoned and the only time he’s not presented as some sort of divine dragon-god-king and instead as a wild beast. Because of the advent of Summon magic, some dark implications arise. It’s possible that Bahamut along with other summoned creatures were enslaved and brainwashed as part of early summon magical experiments. Bahamut’s behavior is due to his mind being wiped and not having any master to control his actions, thus reverting to the actions of a wild dragon.

One important detail that I didn’t mention in the Plot section is that Final Fantasy III marked the first appearance of the Moogles. They were friendly servants of the wizard Doga before his demise. It would make sense that Moogles were magically created creatures, like familiars, who were sentient and helpful. Their bodies including their tiny wings, colorful and cute appearance, and red bonbon don’t exactly lend themselves well to evolution, and their demeanor is far from the norm for natural selection. Doga created the Moogles as servants to help with his magical studies, and after Doga’s death, the Moogles were free to do as they pleased, living throughout the Final Fantasy series in ways we’ll get to in later installments.



Final Fantasy IV

The Plot:

When we last checked on our Final Fantasy world, it was in a rare era of prosperity. Balance had been restored to the light and dark crystals, all the tyrants and evil advisors had been overthrown (for the time being), and the land was allowed to prosper. Over time, the light crystals were restored to place of balance on the surface world and the dark crystals were well hidden underground. Instead of hiding the light crystals in dungeons, something that the past had shown to be a bad idea, kingdoms were built around the crystals to protect them. The residents of the floating island eventually migrated to the surface world, the floating island itself left to drift into obscurity (we’ll touch upon its fate later).

Kingdoms which protect and are protected by the power of the crystals greatly prosper, but other kingdoms pop up as well. Eblan, the secretive home of the ninjas, prospers largely isolated from the rest of the world. Baron, not governed by the power of the crystals or superstition, becomes the leader of an industrial revolution that rediscovers airship technology and constructs its own fleet. For a time, there is peace. Then something happens: the ruler of Baron does a personality 180 and suddenly starts attacking other peaceful kingdoms to raid their crystals. Their first act is to raid Mysidia, causing numerous casualties before the mages who live there to surrender the Water crystal. The other kingdoms are ill-defended: Damcyan, a kingdom in the middle of desert full of culture and trade but little military force, Fabul, a kingdom of monks and martial strength but little in the way of full military might, and Troia, a matriarchal theocracy headed by the pacifist Epopts. However, the corrupted Baron does fear the potential might of the Summoners in the hidden town of Mist. Fortunately, the captain of his force, Cecil, is showing doubts and signs of possible disloyalty, so he sends him to deliver a ‘package’, which turns out to be a massive bomb spell which burns the city to the ground, killing all but a young summoner girl named Rydia.

Cecil then goes on a quest to warn and hopefully defend the other crystals, but he arrives at Damcyan too late. He gets to Fabul and the monks assemble only to be beaten back by Baron’s forces, including monsters, Cecil’s old friend Kain, and the mysterious armored figure known as Golbez. Cecil’s love Rosa is kidnapped by Golbez and Cecil resolves to take a ship to Baron with, at this point, the summoner girl Rydia, the bard/king of Damcyan Edward, and the future king of Fabul, Yang. On the way to Baron, their ship gets attacked and swallowed by Leviathan and the group is separated. Cecil wakes on the shores of Mysidia, the very town of mages that he had attacked under the service of the king before. The Elder gives Cecil a quest to go to the top of Mount Ordeals, where Cecil faces and triumphs over his darker side and becomes a Paladin. Along the way, he must face a servant of Golbez: the earth fiend known as Scarmiglione.

Cecil, along with Mysidia twins Porom and Palom, and the sage Tellah, go to Baron via a mystical channel known as the Devil’s Road. They encounter Yang in the town of Baron who was brainwashed into serving the kingdom until Cecil defeats him and sets his mind straight. They sneak into the castle and confront the king, who is actually the water fiend Cagnazzo in disguise. The ruse exposed, the group finds and frees the engineer Cid who provides them with an airship. Porom & Palom petrify themselves to stop a crushing wall trap (they get better later), and the four (Cecil, Cid, Tellah, and Yang) take the airship to the earth crystal in Troia. Unfortunately, they find out that a certain Dark Elf has stolen the crystal and hidden in the Lodestone Cavern. The party goes after the earth crystal, and at some point meet Kain in an enemy airship, with the offer to exchange the earth crystal for Rosa. (They also meet a recovering Edward in Troia.)

Cecil reluctantly gives the earth crystal to Kain, and the airship is escorted to the Tower of Zot at an unknown location, where the group fights the wind fiend Barbariccia and Golbez. Tellah gives his life to use the powerful magic Meteor on Golbez which injures but doesn’t kill him. Seemingly though this is enough to break the control over Kain, who informs the group that there are still the four Dark crystals remaining. They rescue Rosa and teleport out of the Tower before it crumbles on top of them.

They unlock the hidden path to the underground world and head below in their airship, and after sustaining an attack, crash near the Dwarven Kingdom. They fight and seemingly defeat Golbez for the crystal with the help of a returned adult Rydia, but Golbez’s magics allow him to sneak away the crystal before anyone can stop him. They assault the Tower of Babil where the (now seven) crystals in Golbez’s possession are kept, and in the process Yang sacrifices himself to stop a superpowered cannon from destroying the dwarves (he survives, but is injured for the rest of the game.) On the way out from the underworld, Cid sacrifices himself to seal the hole to the surface so the Red Wings can’t pursue Cecil and co (he also survives and gets better eventually).

Cecil, Kain, Rydia, and Rosa find their way to Eblan, seemingly abandoned after being attacked by the fiend Rubicante. It turns out the ninjas of Eblan just evacuated to nearby tunnels that would also lead into the Tower of Babil. They find Eblan’s prince, Edge, who seeks to kill Rubicante to avenge his father and mother who were killed in the attack. Edge joins the party, and together they fight and defeat Rubicante. They steal a ship from the Tower of Babil called the Falcon and they use it to reach the Sealed Cavern where the last dark crystal sleeps. They retrieve the crystal, but right when they’re about to leave Golbez reasserts his control over Kain, who betrays the party and steals the crystal.

With the help of the Elder and the ancient ship known as the Big Whale, the party travels to the second moon, a constant source of superstition for the world, where they learn that Cecil’s father, Kluya, was part of the Lunarian race which inhabited this second moon before, and that one Lunarian, Zemus, has gone rogue and is responsible for the actions of Golbez and Kain. They recruit the Lunarian Fusoya and head back to the planet’s surface where Golbez has used the crystals to revive the Giant of Babil, a mechanical weapon so large that Cecil and company have to infiltrate inside the giant while their allies use all the military might left in the world to distract it. Defeating the four archfiends again, stopping the giant, and with Fusoya’s help, breaking the control over Golbez and Kain, we learn that Golbez is Cecil’s brother and Golbez and Fusoya head back to the moon to confront Zemus.

The party (Cecil, Kain, Rydia, Rosa, and Edge) travel to the moon’s core to witness Golbez and Fusoya strike down Zemus, but Zemus’s hatred manifests as the seemingly invincible Zeromus who easily defeats Golbez and Fusoya, before turning on the party and wiping them out in one attack as well. Through the prayers of their allies on the surface, and a crystal provided by Golbez, the party manages to make Zeromus vulnerable and finally defeat him. The party heads back to the surface, while Fusoya and Golbez stay on the second moon which leaves for the distance. Cecil and Rosa get married and Cecil becomes king of Baron, Kain leaves to train his body and atone for his role in the events that transpired, Rydia rebuilds Mist and maintains relations with the world of eidolons in the underworld, Edward becomes king and rebuilds Damcyan, Yang becomes king of Fabul, and Edge becomes king of Eblan.

I will cover the After Years in a different update, since it contains a lot of pertinent information to cover with our theory.

The Aftermath:

This will be shorter than other entries, as I have to review a lot of information in The After Years and Final Fantasy V before I make full connections. What we do know so far is that although the crystals were once again stolen by malevolent forces, they were retrieved and returned to their places in each kingdom. The crystals will once again play an important role in the installment of this theory for V.

The Connections:

The events of FF4 take place not too long after FF3. Here's why: in FF2, you meet a dragoon named Ricard Highwind, and in FF4, you meet Kain Highwind, whose father died fighting an evil empire. Sound familiar? You've probably heard this theory before, but with my Giant World theory (see above), it seems a bit more plausible, don't you think? The biggest difference between past games and this one is the presence of a second moon, which isn’t a moon at all. It’s a space station! References aside, that’s not completely untrue. In Final Fantasy I, we had the floating castle as a remnant of the Lufenian civilization, In Final Fantasy III, it had grown into a small continent. The inhabitants of the second moon claim they did not come from earth, but from a different planet altogether. This theory both supports and refutes that claim. It’s possible that the second moon, fully capable of space travel, actually traveled and possibly colonized a whole planet in our solar system, the advanced science, technology, and magic allowed for a terraforming project on a massive scale sometime between the events of FF1 and FF2. Sadly, the process was experimental and eventually failed, and generations later the second moon returned to the Blue Planet with a different crew entirely who believed the Blue Planet to be entirely new to them. They claim the crystals were their invention, but aside from the many artificial crystals that powered their ‘space station,’ we know that to be false, so it’s possible they assumed the crystals were somehow of their invention.

To support this theory, we have the true king of the eidolons, Bahamut, living on the moon. If the second moon was truly alien to the planet, it wouldn’t make sense for a recognized member of the eidolons of earth to be found on the moon. Bahamut, was, however, on the floating continent of Final Fantasy III, so he probably just moved to the moon recently. We also know the eidolons in general are in hiding. Based on what we’ve postulated about summoning magics in FFIII, we can assume that the eidolons eventually broke free of control and hid in their own society deep underground where they couldn’t be enslaved, only allowing their services to the chosen summoners of Mist whom they fostered a relationship with. Leviathan and Asura are the acting rulers of the eidolons on earth, even though Bahamut is and probably will always be their true ruler.

The Lunarians are, biologically, completely human. Their differences are purely in their culture and technology, whatever their claims might be, and we can start to see the pattern of a wise, advanced society in the FF-Verse which claims to be a different race altogether. The Lufenians of FFI, the prophet Gulgans of FFIII, and it certainly won’t be the last example.

We see the obvious fates of the Light Crystals and the Dark Crystals as they’re clearly referenced, even though we never see the actual resting places of two of the Dark Crystals (in both FFIV and its sequel they’re already stolen before you can get to them).

As for Chaos' involvement, it's a lot like with Xande. Zemus had a dark heart, and Chaos exploited it. And now, we move on to Zeromus. I personally believe that it's actually Chaos. To support this claim, when Zeromus was defeated, he said, "we cannot perish as long as evil exists in the hearts of the living." Chaos is the embodiment of evil, remember? How could he die if evil still exists?

That's all for now (I'm currently in the middle of The After Years). I'll be sure to update, unlike DiscipleofBob.