Chrono Trigger - Kangaroo Courts

That was not a welcome Crono was expecting.

Just as I feared, Crono is taken into custody the moment he walks into the castle. Princess Nadia’s pleas fall on deaf ears as the Chancellor drowns her voice out while painting Crono as an abducting villain. On hearing all the commotion, the King comes out only to admonish Nadia and leave again. He may be royalty, but we know who wears the pants in this kingdom.

Court is in session

There is a sham trial where the Chancellor acts like Crono’s guilt is a foregone conclusion. Then he calls in a few people to further cement his position. None of them are here to talk about the actual crime this trial is for so they can not be called witnesses. The old man is angry because Crono ate his lunch. The little girl complains about being ignored and Crono did not help her find her kitten. While socially questionable behavior, this in itself does not amount to crime. It is certainly a fairly long leap to assume a man who steals lunch is a kidnapper. But the logic and truth are just obstacles the Chancellor will sidestep to bring an innocent man to the gallows. One does wonder what is he hiding that drives him to ask for Crono’s death. Maybe being tortured by Yakra caused genetic modifications that were carried down the generations. Thankfully, Crono has done enough good deeds to not be sentenced to death. The jury decides Crono is not guilty, but the judge can not let an innocent man go. So he decides to still punish Crono by putting him in jail for 3 days on trumped up charges. The King shows up once again to show us how useless he is.

Crono is taken in custody. The Chancellor relishes the chance to walk him down to the jail. Here we find out that he has not given up on his dreams of seeing Crono hang. He tells the warden that Crono is to be kept here until he can be executed for acts of sedition. When the warden protests by saying he does not know anything about this person getting the capital punishment, the Chancellor makes up some excuse about a hold up in paperwork. He then threatens the warden until he falls in line. For some reason these people don’t take away Crono’s weapons. When the jailer comes in for some old-fashioned police brutality, he gets a face full of sword.

Guardian Empire unleashes their most fearsome weapons on their own innocent subjects.

Cronos escapes his cell and tries to find his way out. A mini boss of sorts presents himself here to put a stop to the escape attempt. After getting a light beating, he decides he does not get paid enough to get wailed on by innocent people (only enough to give a beating then huh?) and exits the stage quickly. Crono continues on his quest to find his way out of this jail. He gets to the warden, who tries to make a run for it, only to find himself on the wrong end of Lucca’s pea shooter. She has come in to save Crono, only to find out he is managing pretty well. There is another scenario here which I have never seen. If Crono does not try to escape, he is taken to the gallows where he is rescued by Lucca. I am always to impatient to wait three days for Lucca to come rescue him. Before the two leave, they see a document lying next to the warden. It is a report on the new secret super weapon the empire has been developing, Dragon Tank. The head can heal itself, so it is impossible to defeat it. The only weakness is the heads susceptibility to swords and pea shooters. But then again who will be foolish enough to attack a tank with swords and pea shooters. Right?

The hunger thing drives home the dreadfulness of the future

Crono and Lucca get to the bridge, only a few steps away from sweet freedom. But before they can make their getaway, the damned Dragon Tank shows up. It rolls out right on to the bridge. Just from the engineering point of view, this does not seem like a good idea. I don’t think the bridge was made to take this kind of a weight. Especially not the walking bridge between the jail and the castle. In fact, why is there a bridge connecting the jail and the castle? I would definitely not have a bridge to invite the criminals from the jail into the house the monarch lives in. Only if the Chancellor wasn’t too busy hanging innocent kids, he would at least do his duty of protecting his king better.

A sword to the head turns out to really be the Tank’s weakness. The Chancellor and his guards show up just in time to see the bridge break and the Dragon Tank to fall through. They helpfully make a human bridge to help the two champions walk over their bodies to freedom. But even as they make their way to the main door, the guards surround them. The Chancellor has somehow pulled himself to safety and hurried down here to see Crono arrested again.

Marle sees the miscarriage of justice and becomes so disillusioned from the governance of the kingdom that she abdicates her position and decides to run away with her new friends. As the three run into the forest, they find themselves still being followed by the royal guards. They have no choice but to jump through an unknown time portal. They have escaped the tyranny of their present-day government only to find themselves in a desolate future.

The place looks foreboding to say the least. Once we get into the overworld, the true bleakness of the times comes into focus. Our friends have ended up in a post-apocalyptic future. Everything is in ruins. People are begging and in tatters. There is no food. A machine heals everyone but never takes away their gnawing hunger. Crono has to travel to the next dome over to find answers, but to get there we will need to go through some dangerous ruins.

11-25-20

This place has seen better days