Thanks to MarblesAreDelicious for the inspiration!

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. Like most Final Fantasy sequels, it actually follows the same themes as the previous game. Unlike most sequels, it doesn’t attempt to explain the questions of Final Fantasy IV. How can Palom and Porom turn back? Why didn’t Cid just throw the bomb overboard? How did Cid survive that blast? Final Fantasy IV: The After Years doesn’t explain any of this. In fact, it raises more questions:

With the story’s inclusion of The Creator, I feel it brought a whole new set of questions to light, particularly about some discoveries during the final tale.

Firstly, is it reasonable to assume that The Creator or those of his species destroyed the Lunarians’ home planet? This seems to be supported by the fact that they have crystals on the moon, which were fabricated by the Creator. The weapons that were sealed inside the core are implied to be from some sort of war. Also, the first set of floors on the True Moon are identical to those on the Lunarian’s moon, though mirrored. Perhaps one race assimilated this design and theory of using moons as spacecraft.

The Deathmask, Arms Legs, and Full Body. Are these supposed to be unfinished pieces of new clones of the Giant of Babil? Proto Babil and Lost Babil were obviously such things… and Lost Babil is fought in individual pieces the same way.

Despite the shortcomings of the story of The After Years, I actually would enjoy other stories told inside the FF4 universe. Maybe one that details the Lunarian’s catastrophe, war, and their planetary evacuation to the moon.

All interesting questions. First, the Creator didn’t destroy the Lunerian’s home planet. I think the Lunerians destroyed their own, much the same way the Creator’s race did: depleting resources. As the Creator states:

Long ago… I was born on a blue planet, one much like your own. We prospered more than we could ever sustain… until we consumed our very planet down to its core. By the time a small group of experts noticed, it was already too late to reverse the trend. So we abandoned our home planet and embarked on a space-wide search for another planet to live…

Months and years passed, and generations lived and died aboard our fleet as we voyaged. Eventually, our ability to survive slowly deteriorated to nothing… stunted by the artificial environment we lived in. The result is this new moon you see… the remains of our space fleet. I am the last survivor.

What kind of civilization should we have built? How should we have evolved instead? In search of an answer, I embarked on a lifetime of experimentation, creating the Crystals to record all of my proceedings. After I made them, I sent them out to countless planets… any place that had the potential to sustain life.

So the Creator is like a god-figure. His existence comes from nowhere, but just think how terrifying you’d feel if you met God in this life? I wonder why the Creator and his race didn’t hibernate like the Lunerians. How did he survive? Who is the Creator and how did he get this power to create the Crystals, but not save his hometown? How was he able to create the Maenads? Why does he want to destroy life and the planet? Wasn’t his original purpose to find a place to sustain life? Didn’t he find it on the Blue Planet? Why wouldn’t he simply compel them to heed his words?

In this sense, the Lunerians had the right idea. Well, mostly…

Lost Babil is a failed prototype of the Giant of Babil.

Hello Wanderers…

You look like you might enjoy an interesting fight. Why don’t you take on my challenge, if you think you’re up to it?

Then your opponent will be Lost Babil, a failed prototype which was scrapped after it went out of control. Defeat him on your own, if you can.

…Even I admit it would be impossible for one party to do, though. Make three parties to attack simultaneously from within and without.

If you crush the mighty giant, I will reward you with 3 Silver Apples, 2 Soma Drops, However, you must pay 500,000 gil to even attempt the feat.

Are you game?

…how did Namingway transport our characters to the failed prototype? Why is it now operational? Why do we have to pay Namingway to fight it? Aren’t we really just paying for the 3 Silver Apples, and 2 Soma Drops? We can never truly know, as they can’t be sold in stores. But what if they were the cost of admission, and defeating the Lost Babil was nothing in comparison?

I like Final Fantasy IV too, but I’m fine with what we have. What more can they do? Perhaps they can go into a deeper Underworld, where they find out their planet is a moon? Or an alternate timeline? Or a time travel story? The options are limiting, but only more questions will arise.