Here's the key plot point. The Gurus were not imprisoned in Mt. Woe the "first" time around. As Magus recalls, they were all in the Ocean Palace, where they were sent to different eras.
Yet in the new course of the timeline, the Magus as the prophet intentionally has them all imprisoned so he can access Lavos unfettered. Crono and the gang save Melchior, and he and Janus are safe in Last Village, but still disappear despite not being anywhere near those temporal distortions.
So there's a difference here: the original's in 1000 A.D. via time distortion, but now we have this second Melchior who was imprisoned on Mt. Woe and is safe from all that crap. But he still disappears, because we can't get an extra Melchior for nothing.
What? No. The gurus and Janus show up at the Ocean Palace and are sent to their respective eras by the time distortion caused by Lavos. I don't see why you need to complicate matters so much.
And for that matter, if the universe is so gung-ho about not having any duplicates, that doesn't explain how both Magus as the Prophet and young Janus co-exist in 12,000 BC for a good part of the story. Or how you can go back to 600 AD with Robo while he's there plowing Fiona's fields. Or how Lucca can witness her own younger self fail to save her mother and then fix her mistake.
I may be wrong about this, but I'm not sure it was Magus who made Zeal imprison the prophets, I always understood that they were banished years before 12,000 BC. And I don't know where you get that Belthasar and Gaspar were also on Mt. Woe, either. But I'm open to being shown script from the game that corrects my assumptions here.
Magus (aka the Prophet) was the one who had the Gurus imprisoned and you sent away so he could have an uninterrupted crack at the big L. Other than that I'd agree that the Lavos distortion / Zeal tapping into Lavos's power could have sent the Guru's away. There is also the possibilty that the Gurus are immortal and the Age of Magic one actually just survived 13000 years.
Here's the key plot point. The Gurus were not imprisoned in Mt. Woe the "first" time around. As Magus recalls, they were all in the Ocean Palace, where they were sent to different eras.
Yet in the new course of the timeline, the Magus as the prophet intentionally has them all imprisoned so he can access Lavos unfettered. Crono and the gang save Melchior, and he and Janus are safe in Last Village, but still disappear despite not being anywhere near those temporal distortions.
So there's a difference here: the original's in 1000 A.D. via time distortion, but now we have this second Melchior who was imprisoned on Mt. Woe and is safe from all that crap. But he still disappears, because we can't get an extra Melchior for nothing.
What? No. The gurus and Janus show up at the Ocean Palace and are sent to their respective eras by the time distortion caused by Lavos. I don't see why you need to complicate matters so much.
And for that matter, if the universe is so gung-ho about not having any duplicates, that doesn't explain how both Magus as the Prophet and young Janus co-exist in 12,000 BC for a good part of the story. Or how you can go back to 600 AD with Robo while he's there plowing Fiona's fields. Or how Lucca can witness her own younger self fail to save her mother and then fix her mistake.
I may be wrong about this, but I'm not sure it was Magus who made Zeal imprison the prophets, I always understood that they were banished years before 12,000 BC. And I don't know where you get that Belthasar and Gaspar were also on Mt. Woe, either. But I'm open to being shown script from the game that corrects my assumptions here.
Magus (aka the Prophet) was the one who had the Gurus imprisoned and you sent away so he could have an uninterrupted crack at the big L. Other than that I'd agree that the Lavos distortion / Zeal tapping into Lavos's power could have sent the Guru's away. There is also the possibilty that the Gurus are immortal and the Age of Magic one actually just survived 13000 years.
You see Melchior coming out of the closet in Medina Village. That's time travel, not being-really-old. :P
*big time edit: After sitting on it for a while, it finally fucking clicked. I'm leaving the original post, but throwing it in a spoiler, because I don't just want to erase it and pretend it never happened.
Woo hoo! I win!
The scene is 12000 BC. The party is in jail after losing to Dalton. This is yanked from a script dump FAQ on Gamefaqs.
[The party floats in stasis in the room where the Mammon Machine was housed.
Janus, Alfador, and Schala walk in and look at them.]
Janus: "Hmph! Idiots... What will you do, Schala?"
Schala: "Let us rescue them."
Janus: "I think it's useless. Besides, if they escape, you'll be in trouble."
Schala: "Don't worry about me. They just might be able to rescue the Gurus."
[She frees the party.]
Schala: "Are you all right? Quickly, escape from the palace! And if you can,
please rescue Melchoir! He was sent to the Mountain of Woe for opposing
the Queen. Please! You have to help him!"
Voice: "I'm afraid I can't allow that..."
[The Prophet enters.]
Prophet: "Your meddling tires me. You'll...just have to disappear!"
Schala: "You mustn't!"
Prophet: "......!"
Janus: "Stop!"
Prophet: "Okay...I'll spare them. But in turn, you WILL cooperate, Schala! Now,
show me how you came here."
[They show the prophet the warp gate down by the first Skyway.]
Prophet: "Hmm...so you came in through here. Now Schala! After I throw them in,
I want you to seal the portal shut."
Schala: "N, no! You can't make me!"
Prophet: "Obey me! Their lives are at stake!"
Schala: "I...oh, all right..."
[The party goes into the warp gate and Schala seals it. The prophet leaves.]
Schala: "Please forgive me..."
What the story is saying is that the Queen imprisoned Melchior for opposing her, and it's the Prophet/Magus trying to stop Crono from interfering. It was NOT the Prophet who imprisoned him. It was NOT the "Well he wasn't jailed up the first time" explanation. The only little plot hole we have is that if he was imprisoned, how did he get out first before Crono's interference. And a simple explanation is "He just did, on his own or somebody else's help".
Crono and the gang save Melchior, and he and Janus are safe in Last Village, but still disappear despite not being anywhere near those temporal distortions.
No they're NOT. They were not saved from being shot into the future. After the party loses to Lavos, Schala sends them, AND the Prophet, to safety. When they wake up, they have a little pow-wow with the elder. One of the key conversations there is what happened to Melchior.
Elder: "This island was the only refuge left, after the Ocean Palace disaster."
[1] Robo: "Is Sir Melchoir here?"
[2] Ayla: "Melchoir! Where Melchoir!?"
[3] Lucca: "Melchoir! Where's Melchoir?"
[4] Frog: "Whither hath old man Melchoir gone?"
Elder: "When the disaster struck, an eerie, black portal materialized. Melchoir
tried to save Janus, but he was also dragged in."
I have no clue where you got that Melchior and Janus were safe and sound. The game spells it right out. Then, when you meet up with Magus on the cliff later, he fills in the small gap of what happened after Schala saved the party. Lavos threw the guru's into the future. Janus showed up to save his sister and also got thrown. Then Schala goes down as well (Which I don't believe we actually see. The cutscene stops after Janus goes down. But, CC and all...).
That is the key point. Despite all his best efforts, Magus still could not prevent the chain of events from still happening. In fact, I don't think he even tried. Instead of stopping the major players from showing up to the Ocean Palace, he lets it all go on so he can be there when Lavos showed up to so he could kill him. And in his own words, "Unimaginable is the power of Lavos. Anyone who dares to oppose...it...meets certain doom", after realizing he never had a chance.
*Whew* I'm done. That's it. Game, Set, Match. I win. There's no cloning or disappearing or paradox or any of that complicated shit. You simply fucked up on a plot point.
Like I said, it finally clicked. What you're saying happened is this. Original timeline, the guru's and Janus show up at the summoning and get thrown in time for their troubles. In the new timeline, Crono and crew show up, the stuff happens, and Schala teleports them out. What I always took from the plot was that after that stuff happens, the guru's and Janus still show up and history repeats. What you're saying is that Melchior and Janus were chilling out on the earth below because of the changes the party made, and when everything went down, they still got sucked into gates as they would have if they were in the palace. Which makes sense because the village elder witnesses this and says as much.
Honestly... I think that's stupid as fuck and makes no sense. Events were changed, and instead of being at the palace when Lavos appeared, the gurus were elsewhere, probably sitting in a chair at home. And they still get sucked down. Which is hella stupid, because now you got Melchior in 1000 AD, Balthasar in 2300 AD, and Gaspar in the End of Time, all wondering how in holy hell they got their in the first place since all they were doing was probably sipping coffee at home. Like I said, I always took it to be that they showed up anyways after the party was teleported out, and things happened as usual. Which makes perfect sense. They tried to change the future, but it refused to change.
So, I get it. It clicks. I personally think its dumb as fuck, one hell of a stupid plot point in the game, and I have no clue why they chose to say that in the game (not directed at you, at the story writers for having that in the game) But I see it. I don't like it, but I see it.
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"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
Say in 2300 A.D. Crono pops in for 5 minutes to buy a soda, and leaves for 600 A.D.. After the game when the future is saved, that version of Crono's going to pop in and say, what the hell? Perhaps he'll explore around. But what happens when that five minutes is up? Because in 600 A.D., Crono right after that trip is going to still come in. But does the future Crono get to live beyond 5 minutes too?
That's like two people for the price of one, and violates conservation of energy, mass, whatever.
No it doesn't. Since time is simply an extra dimension, having two of someone in the same time (but from different points on his personal timeline) is exactly analogous to coiling a rope or folding a sheet. There's no reason at all that the rope can't be doubled or tripled or pass through the same general area in space-time any number of times.
That's like two people for the price of one, and violates conservation of energy, mass, whatever.
No it doesn't. Since time is simply an extra dimension, having two of someone in the same time (but from different points on his personal timeline) is exactly analogous to coiling a rope or folding a sheet. There's no reason at all that the rope can't be doubled or tripled or pass through the same general area in space-time any number of times.
I'm not really going to join the argument here (though I do find it interesting), but time travel itself technically violates the laws of conservation for both energy and mass, since the energy and mass that you possess, right now, will still exist in the past and future even if you aren't alive yet/anymore. I mean, when you die, the stuff that made you up still exists. It's just not organized into a cohesive you. So yeah, unless there's some sort of temporal clause in the laws of conservation that states that moving matter and energy through time doesn't count as destroying it or creating it, it violates our current view of physics.
And this doesn't even take into account paradoxes in which two copies of the same person could feasibly coexist from multiple time traveling events.
That's like two people for the price of one, and violates conservation of energy, mass, whatever.
No it doesn't. Since time is simply an extra dimension, having two of someone in the same time (but from different points on his personal timeline) is exactly analogous to coiling a rope or folding a sheet. There's no reason at all that the rope can't be doubled or tripled or pass through the same general area in space-time any number of times.
I'm not really going to join the argument here (though I do find it interesting), but time travel itself technically violates the laws of conservation for both energy and mass, since the energy and mass that you possess, right now, will still exist in the past and future even if you aren't alive yet/anymore. I mean, when you die, the stuff that made you up still exists. It's just not organized into a cohesive you. So yeah, unless there's some sort of temporal clause in the laws of conservation that states that moving matter and energy through time doesn't count as destroying it or creating it, it violates our current view of physics.
And this doesn't even take into account paradoxes in which two copies of the same person could feasibly coexist from multiple time traveling events.
No, time travel is entirely consistent with the law of conservation of mass/energy. No mass/energy is created and none is destroyed. If you were to move through time in an other-than-normal manner your mass/energy would simply be moved from one point in time to another, not destroyed. If you move to a point in time at which a previous or future copy of yourself exists, no mass or energy is created or destroyed. You've simply looped the "rope" of your mass/energy's time-line back on itself so that you are close together.
Imagine time as a sidewalk. Now lay a rope out along the sidewalk. This rope represents your course through time. Now loop the rope around so that it forms a single loop while the rest of the rope continues to lie parallel to the sidewalk. The place where the rope crosses over itself is the point in time at which there are two of you. But both of you are the same collection of mass/energy. You are simply at different points on your personal time-line. Nothing destroyed, nothing created, only moved.
That's like two people for the price of one, and violates conservation of energy, mass, whatever.
No it doesn't. Since time is simply an extra dimension, having two of someone in the same time (but from different points on his personal timeline) is exactly analogous to coiling a rope or folding a sheet. There's no reason at all that the rope can't be doubled or tripled or pass through the same general area in space-time any number of times.
I'm not really going to join the argument here (though I do find it interesting), but time travel itself technically violates the laws of conservation for both energy and mass, since the energy and mass that you possess, right now, will still exist in the past and future even if you aren't alive yet/anymore. I mean, when you die, the stuff that made you up still exists. It's just not organized into a cohesive you. So yeah, unless there's some sort of temporal clause in the laws of conservation that states that moving matter and energy through time doesn't count as destroying it or creating it, it violates our current view of physics.
And this doesn't even take into account paradoxes in which two copies of the same person could feasibly coexist from multiple time traveling events.
No, time travel is entirely consistent with the law of conservation of mass/energy. No mass/energy is created and none is destroyed. If you were to move through time in an other-than-normal manner your mass/energy would simply be moved from one point in time to another, not destroyed. If you move to a point in time at which a previous or future copy of yourself exists, no mass or energy is created or destroyed. You've simply looped the "rope" of your mass/energy's time-line back on itself so that you are close together.
Imagine time as a sidewalk. Now lay a rope out along the sidewalk. This rope represents your course through time. Now loop the rope around so that it forms a single loop while the rest of the rope continues to lie parallel to the sidewalk. The place where the rope crosses over itself is the point in time at which there are two of you. But both of you are the same collection of mass/energy. You are simply at different points on your personal time-line. Nothing destroyed, nothing created, only moved.
Which is why I said:
So yeah, unless there's some sort of temporal clause in the laws of conservation that states that moving matter and energy through time doesn't count as destroying it or creating it, it violates our current view of physics.
It's debatable whether the conservation laws are restricted to a constant time-frame. I mean, let's say I time-traveled right now and left you hanging on this conversation. From your point of view, I disappeared. In this time frame, I have violated the conservation laws and created an imbalance. It's tough to say whether there is an "absolute" time-frame for matter and energy, since, as far as I know, time travel has never been observed.
edit: Aha, there was something I was forgetting to say: Our current view of matter and energy leads us to believe that on your sidewalk, each minute section of rope is intrinsically linked to a minute section of sidewalk. Looping the rope like you've done creates that imbalance, where part of the sidewalk gets no rope and another part gets too much.
So yeah, unless there's some sort of temporal clause in the laws of conservation that states that moving matter and energy through time doesn't count as destroying it or creating it, it violates our current view of physics.
It's debatable whether the conservation laws are restricted to a constant time-frame. I mean, let's say I time-traveled right now and left you hanging on this conversation. From your point of view, I disappeared. In this time frame, I have violated the conservation laws and created an imbalance. It's tough to say whether there is an "absolute" time-frame for matter and energy, since, as far as I know, time travel has never been observed.
There doesn't need to be any special clause. If I drive a car behind a hill then as far as you know it's disappeared. Just because we cannot easily perceive something doesn't mean it has been destroyed. Just because I can't locate the mass/energy doesn't mean that it has been destroyed.
edit: Aha, there was something I was forgetting to say: Our current view of matter and energy leads us to believe that on your sidewalk, each minute section of rope is intrinsically linked to a minute section of sidewalk. Looping the rope like you've done creates that imbalance, where part of the sidewalk gets no rope and another part gets too much.
What's your source on this? Because everything I've read indicates that time travel is entirely possible and mostly explainable with our current knowledge of physics, but requires energy on a scale which is utterly beyond our ability to produce. I've certainly never heard that matter is linked to a specific space-time.
I looked at a few different sources, but unfortunately, Wikipedia seems to be the better collection of various viewpoints on the subject. Here is the link, if you're interested. I honestly don't have the time to research the ins and outs of the theories right now (I've already wasted far too much time today), but I might try a thread in D&D later on if one doesn't already exist. Right now, there are many different debated viewpoints of time travel, but the ones that deal with conservation laws seem to deal with the theoretical existence of matter that possesses negative energy (note: NOT antimatter, which is something different entirely). I think they're basically trying to say that if matter travels forward or backward in time, then this negative-energy-matter would have to travel in the opposite direction to balance the equation.
Really, if you look at the Wiki article, I think I fall more under the "presentist" viewpoint that they talk about. I love theorizing, but in the end, I think time's going to flow forward at a constant rate for 99.999% of humans.
I really have to leave for campus, but in the meantime, here's a section of the wiki article that I found pretty funny:
Several experiments have been carried out to try to entice future humans, who might invent time travel technology, to come back and demonstrate it to people of the present time. Events such as Perth's Destination Day or MIT's Time Traveler Convention heavily publicized permanent "advertisements" of a meeting time and place for future time travelers to meet. These experiments only stood the possibility of generating a positive result demonstrating the existence of time travel, but have failed so far--no time travelers are known to have attended either event. Although it is theoretically possible that future humans have traveled back in time, but have traveled back to the meeting time and place in a parallel universe.[27]
Edit: Oh, and regarding time travel being "explainable by physics," everything I've seen about time travel says that it's possible under certain physics principles, but typically violates other completely valid physics principles in the process. I don't think anyone has come up with a theory that doesn't break any physics laws. This could be a consequence of the fact that we don't have a unifying theory of time, gravity, energy, and matter.
I looked at a few different sources, but unfortunately, Wikipedia seems to be the better collection of various viewpoints on the subject. Here is the link, if you're interested. I honestly don't have the time to research the ins and outs of the theories right now (I've already wasted far too much time today), but I might try a thread in D&D later on if one doesn't already exist. Right now, there are many different debated viewpoints of time travel, but the ones that deal with conservation laws seem to deal with the theoretical existence of matter that possesses negative energy (note: NOT antimatter, which is something different entirely). I think they're basically trying to say that if matter travels forward or backward in time, then this negative-energy-matter would have to travel in the opposite direction to balance the equation.
Really, if you look at the Wiki article, I think I fall more under the "presentist" viewpoint that they talk about. I love theorizing, but in the end, I think time's going to flow forward at a constant rate for 99.999% of humans.
I really have to leave for campus, but in the meantime, here's a section of the wiki article that I found pretty funny:
Several experiments have been carried out to try to entice future humans, who might invent time travel technology, to come back and demonstrate it to people of the present time. Events such as Perth's Destination Day or MIT's Time Traveler Convention heavily publicized permanent "advertisements" of a meeting time and place for future time travelers to meet. These experiments only stood the possibility of generating a positive result demonstrating the existence of time travel, but have failed so far--no time travelers are known to have attended either event. Although it is theoretically possible that future humans have traveled back in time, but have traveled back to the meeting time and place in a parallel universe.[27]
Edit: Oh, and regarding time travel being "explainable by physics," everything I've seen about time travel says that it's possible under certain physics principles, but typically violates other completely valid physics principles in the process. I don't think anyone has come up with a theory that doesn't break any physics laws. This could be a consequence of the fact that we don't have a unifying theory of time, gravity, energy, and matter.
tl;dr: Fuck if I know!
Ahh, the "Bill and Ted" theory of time travel.
If we ever take anything from this thread, it's this. Going forward in time is piss easy. It's the whole going back thing that's the trick.
The Wolfman on
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
I finally got around to playing CT about a year ago. I bought the cart for about $25 several years earlier when I was working at GameStop (someone traded it in and I bought it right away). Dunno why, but somehow it got lost in the shuffle after I bought it.
I quite enjoyed it. It is indeed extremely polished, nearly every aspect. It has also aged better than almost any other RPG from its time frame I'm aware of. I dislike random battles, so that probably is a key reason I think this. The way encounters work in CT is excellent, one of the best systems I've seen actually.
I've actually been meaning to go mess around with the +game options some, but I have several other games to beat first.
BTW, there is one thing I found odd.
Is it me, or does it seem like Frog is the only PC who has a real character arc? I mean, he has a mysterious intro, flashbacks revealing the backstory, the great climactic moments where he gets the Masamune and uses it on that mountain, he has that awesome theme music, a nemesis type character, etc. No other character has anything nearly as fleshed out, and it just struck me as a little strange.
Ayla has all that. Robo has some of that. Magus definitely has that. The start and really the whole rest of the game is the arc for the 1000 AD party. And then they all get a huge expansion on their backstory with the sidequests.
I can't deny there was some for the other characters, just Frog got by far the most and the best done one, it seemed to me.
Yep, you got it. As to why it violates conservation of whatever, you can look at Robo.
If Robo stays back in 600 A.D., he ages 400 years to 1000 A.D. You can take him back. Two Robos! What gives? Well, the Robo working is Robo at age whatever. The Robo with you is 400 years older. Same object, different frames of time.
But with Melchior, suddenly we've got two Melchiors at age 50. If Melchior's safe on the ground, then in 1000 A.D. a copy of Melchior will still show up out of nowhere, thus adding to the universe. So the one on the ground is eliminated while the one who time traveled is A-OK in 1000 A.D.
Now, it really is the time-traveling Melchior who's there in 1000 A.D., regardless of what happens before. It's not like this new Mt. Woe ground Melchior suddenly takes his place; he just gets...well, eliminated. Otherwise, as soon as Crono fixed history, the Crono who'd be confused as hell in the nice future would substitute the one who just got back from beating Lavos and is happy to have saved the world.
Yeah, it's like a giant case of covering your ass with internal logic, and it's not pretty because people straight die (like Mt. Woe Melchior, or new dimension Serge). At least Masato Kato was paying attention to internal logic in 12000 B.C., because Yuji Horii and Sakaguchi otherwise caused four plot holes with Marle disappearing, the Telepod crap, and even the very premise of the game. Like, if Marle's descended from Ayla, but Ayla travels to the future before she's ever pregnant in prehistory, how does she still give birth and pass on the line? Ayla going to the future should fubar history because Ayla disappears from the past. But yet, Guardia is untouched, and everything's the same...it's a big plot hole.
Cross thankfully avoids all this crap, but at the expense of sheer mystery (the Dead Sea) and a spat of confusing text at Chronopolis, leaving it with one plot hole to its name. It's just the plot's pacing and delivery that confuses the hell out of everyone. It took me two playthroughs, my own written Chronology, and a lot of discussion before I ever understood the plot completely.
Whew, haven't posted about this stuff like this in over a year and a half. If we ever get a reliable translator at the Compendium (a miracle, but a badly needed miracle for translating Ultimania), I hope we can contact Masato Kato and let him gracefully retcon everything in a nice interview.
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Zen VulgarityWhat a lovely day for teaSecret British ThreadRegistered Userregular
edited August 2007
And still Chrono Trigger has a better story than most RPGs.
And still Chrono Trigger has a better story than most RPGs.
Well, I don't think that you can hold the inability to properly account for the paradoxes of time travel against a story. Let's face it, things just turn out far worse when they even really try.
Probably the only reason I love FF6 more than CT is because I played FF6 when I was 11, and CT when I was 19. I do objectively think FF6 has a better soundtrack and story, but CT's graphic style is so nice, it's gameplay is utterly simple yet incredibly enjoyable, and despite a dozen very involved sidequests it doesn't feel overwhelmingly huge.
Yep, you got it. As to why it violates conservation of whatever, you can look at Robo.
If Robo stays back in 600 A.D., he ages 400 years to 1000 A.D. You can take him back. Two Robos! What gives? Well, the Robo working is Robo at age whatever. The Robo with you is 400 years older. Same object, different frames of time.
But with Melchior, suddenly we've got two Melchiors at age 50. If Melchior's safe on the ground, then in 1000 A.D. a copy of Melchior will still show up out of nowhere, thus adding to the universe. So the one on the ground is eliminated while the one who time traveled is A-OK in 1000 A.D.
Now, it really is the time-traveling Melchior who's there in 1000 A.D., regardless of what happens before. It's not like this new Mt. Woe ground Melchior suddenly takes his place; he just gets...well, eliminated. Otherwise, as soon as Crono fixed history, the Crono who'd be confused as hell in the nice future would substitute the one who just got back from beating Lavos and is happy to have saved the world.
Yeah, it's like a giant case of covering your ass with internal logic, and it's not pretty because people straight die (like Mt. Woe Melchior, or new dimension Serge). At least Masato Kato was paying attention to internal logic in 12000 B.C., because Yuji Horii and Sakaguchi otherwise caused four plot holes with Marle disappearing, the Telepod crap, and even the very premise of the game. Like, if Marle's descended from Ayla, but Ayla travels to the future before she's ever pregnant in prehistory, how does she still give birth and pass on the line? Ayla going to the future should fubar history because Ayla disappears from the past. But yet, Guardia is untouched, and everything's the same...it's a big plot hole.
Cross thankfully avoids all this crap, but at the expense of sheer mystery (the Dead Sea) and a spat of confusing text at Chronopolis, leaving it with one plot hole to its name. It's just the plot's pacing and delivery that confuses the hell out of everyone. It took me two playthroughs, my own written Chronology, and a lot of discussion before I ever understood the plot completely.
Whew, haven't posted about this stuff like this in over a year and a half. If we ever get a reliable translator at the Compendium (a miracle, but a badly needed miracle for translating Ultimania), I hope we can contact Masato Kato and let him gracefully retcon everything in a nice interview.
No, you never had two Melchiors, in this case. The result of Crono and partys' actions was the changing of the timeline, so that the Melchior in 1000AD is and always had been the Melchior who was sucked into a black portal in the Last Village, rather than the one who was sent away from inside the Ocean Palace.
The #1 thing you have to remember with Chrono Trigger is, you have to look at time from your own point of view, not the characters, and not the games. When you do something, it stays done, and you can't go back and change it. CT treats the waygates as points that move forward in time with the player, keeping track of the things they've already done. Which is why, when you go back to 600AD with Robo and see the second Robo, its easily understood why he's still there, and in your party as well. He'll stay there for 400 years, you'll pick him up in 1000AD, then he'll go back and see himself if you want to.
And for Ayla, maybe you're forgetting, in the end of the game, she goes back to make kids with Kino? She didn't have to have a kid before she 'stepped out of the room' because she later 'came back to the room.'
Time travelers have no special immunity. Things in the future are as they are, because things happened in the past. Just like, when you kill Lavos in 1999 AD, it doesn't mean he vanishes from all timelines and no longer hits the earth in 65 million BC. No pocket dimension or bubble, he exists in the time stream like everything else.
The future 'knows' if things are, or rather, do happen in the past, like that Ayla will come back to have her kids, because they've already happened. And if something happens to change that, then the future will change.
The Time Bastard theory makes no fucking sense at all.
so yeah, I got to the "visit all 6 dragons" fetch quest in cross and my desire to continue playing dropped almost to 0 after one of them.
Why did square insist in putting an incredibly boring cockblock point at the 3/4 mark in most of their ps1 games?
so yeah, I got to the "visit all 6 dragons" fetch quest in cross and my desire to continue playing dropped almost to 0 after one of them.
Why did square insist in putting an incredibly boring cockblock point at the 3/4 mark in most of their ps1 games?
The dragons aren't so bad. I hope to god you didn't fuck up the black dragon quest.
Two of the dragons are just sitting there. Two of the dragons are at the end of short dungeons. This leaves the annoying earth dragon and the even more annoying green dragon.
so yeah, I got to the "visit all 6 dragons" fetch quest in cross and my desire to continue playing dropped almost to 0 after one of them.
Why did square insist in putting an incredibly boring cockblock point at the 3/4 mark in most of their ps1 games?
The dragons aren't so bad. I hope to god you didn't fuck up the black dragon quest.
Two of the dragons are just sitting there. Two of the dragons are at the end of short dungeons. This leaves the annoying earth dragon and the even more annoying green dragon.
so yeah, I got to the "visit all 6 dragons" fetch quest in cross and my desire to continue playing dropped almost to 0 after one of them.
Why did square insist in putting an incredibly boring cockblock point at the 3/4 mark in most of their ps1 games?
The dragons aren't so bad. I hope to god you didn't fuck up the black dragon quest.
Two of the dragons are just sitting there. Two of the dragons are at the end of short dungeons. This leaves the annoying earth dragon and the even more annoying green dragon.
How can you fuck up the Black Dragon Quest?
You need to talk to the Band about doing a concert to wake up the monster ghost thingees on the mermaid's island. Otherwise the Black Dragon won't wake and you won't get the chance to get the black absorbing armor. That armor makes one or two fights in the game a lot easier.
so yeah, I got to the "visit all 6 dragons" fetch quest in cross and my desire to continue playing dropped almost to 0 after one of them.
Why did square insist in putting an incredibly boring cockblock point at the 3/4 mark in most of their ps1 games?
The dragons aren't so bad. I hope to god you didn't fuck up the black dragon quest.
Two of the dragons are just sitting there. Two of the dragons are at the end of short dungeons. This leaves the annoying earth dragon and the even more annoying green dragon.
How can you fuck up the Black Dragon Quest?
You need to talk to the Band about doing a concert to wake up the monster ghost thingees on the mermaid's island. Otherwise the Black Dragon won't wake and you won't get the chance to get the black absorbing armor. That armor makes one or two fights in the game a lot easier.
That doesn't answer his question. I wasn't aware that you could do it any other way, either.
I think if you tell home nikki that you wont help him it messes up the sequence some how.
also if you have certain people in your party you can get the blessing without fighting, but I'm pretty sure that can only happen in new game+
I think if you tell home nikki that you wont help him it messes up the sequence some how.
also if you have certain people in your party you can get the blessing without fighting, but I'm pretty sure that can only happen in new game+
WRONG! Beat Zelbess, and forget to talk to mr freaky guitar man. If you don't do that, the mermaid will never join and the dragon will give his bit without a fight. This is bad, because you can't steal the black abosorbing armor nor can you get Fargo's level seven technique. Oh, and a little something known as the spectral hammer. Which you may want...
Yep, you got it. As to why it violates conservation of whatever, you can look at Robo.
If Robo stays back in 600 A.D., he ages 400 years to 1000 A.D. You can take him back. Two Robos! What gives? Well, the Robo working is Robo at age whatever. The Robo with you is 400 years older. Same object, different frames of time.
But with Melchior, suddenly we've got two Melchiors at age 50. If Melchior's safe on the ground, then in 1000 A.D. a copy of Melchior will still show up out of nowhere, thus adding to the universe. So the one on the ground is eliminated while the one who time traveled is A-OK in 1000 A.D.
Now, it really is the time-traveling Melchior who's there in 1000 A.D., regardless of what happens before. It's not like this new Mt. Woe ground Melchior suddenly takes his place; he just gets...well, eliminated. Otherwise, as soon as Crono fixed history, the Crono who'd be confused as hell in the nice future would substitute the one who just got back from beating Lavos and is happy to have saved the world.
Yeah, it's like a giant case of covering your ass with internal logic, and it's not pretty because people straight die (like Mt. Woe Melchior, or new dimension Serge). At least Masato Kato was paying attention to internal logic in 12000 B.C., because Yuji Horii and Sakaguchi otherwise caused four plot holes with Marle disappearing, the Telepod crap, and even the very premise of the game. Like, if Marle's descended from Ayla, but Ayla travels to the future before she's ever pregnant in prehistory, how does she still give birth and pass on the line? Ayla going to the future should fubar history because Ayla disappears from the past. But yet, Guardia is untouched, and everything's the same...it's a big plot hole.
Cross thankfully avoids all this crap, but at the expense of sheer mystery (the Dead Sea) and a spat of confusing text at Chronopolis, leaving it with one plot hole to its name. It's just the plot's pacing and delivery that confuses the hell out of everyone. It took me two playthroughs, my own written Chronology, and a lot of discussion before I ever understood the plot completely.
Whew, haven't posted about this stuff like this in over a year and a half. If we ever get a reliable translator at the Compendium (a miracle, but a badly needed miracle for translating Ultimania), I hope we can contact Masato Kato and let him gracefully retcon everything in a nice interview.
No, you never had two Melchiors, in this case. The result of Crono and partys' actions was the changing of the timeline, so that the Melchior in 1000AD is and always had been the Melchior who was sucked into a black portal in the Last Village, rather than the one who was sent away from inside the Ocean Palace.
The #1 thing you have to remember with Chrono Trigger is, you have to look at time from your own point of view, not the characters, and not the games. When you do something, it stays done, and you can't go back and change it. CT treats the waygates as points that move forward in time with the player, keeping track of the things they've already done. Which is why, when you go back to 600AD with Robo and see the second Robo, its easily understood why he's still there, and in your party as well. He'll stay there for 400 years, you'll pick him up in 1000AD, then he'll go back and see himself if you want to.
And for Ayla, maybe you're forgetting, in the end of the game, she goes back to make kids with Kino? She didn't have to have a kid before she 'stepped out of the room' because she later 'came back to the room.'
Time travelers have no special immunity. Things in the future are as they are, because things happened in the past. Just like, when you kill Lavos in 1999 AD, it doesn't mean he vanishes from all timelines and no longer hits the earth in 65 million BC. No pocket dimension or bubble, he exists in the time stream like everything else.
The future 'knows' if things are, or rather, do happen in the past, like that Ayla will come back to have her kids, because they've already happened. And if something happens to change that, then the future will change.
The Time Bastard theory makes no fucking sense at all.
What? Lavos is in his own dimension, which is stated somewhat in CT and mostly in CC. When you kill Lavos in 1999 AD, he is erased from all timelines because of the fact that he can be accessed from multiple timelines to begin with. Really, you're being extremely ignorant or just saying "no way" for your own sake. Time Bastard makes perfect sense. You're thinking of time as some linear aspect, and.... it's not.
I agree that the melchoir example is kind of convoluted (and I don't think its the best example either). However again the timeline can ONLY know the past IF the past is fixed. Since the entire point of the game is changing the timeline, the timeline is by definition, not fixed. Thus, when Ayla enters a time portal to the future, there has to be some kind of explanation on why she doesn't disappear from history at that moment.
Maybe you should preface this theory with "This is how we explain how the world keeps going on when Lavos dies and he's seemingly erased from time". You know, how they could know the future blows up to save it if it's already saved and all that jazz. Then it makes sense. Sorta.
The Wolfman on
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
I agree that the melchoir example is kind of convoluted (and I don't think its the best example either). However again the timeline can ONLY know the past IF the past is fixed. Since the entire point of the game is changing the timeline, the timeline is by definition, not fixed. Thus, when Ayla enters a time portal to the future, there has to be some kind of explanation on why she doesn't disappear from history at that moment.
That's true, but the explanation that there's another version of the person who is there while the person is gone from the timeline doesn't sit right. For one thing, that would mean that if the character never were to return to their proper time, that would be an addition of matter to the universe. If Ayla leaves 16 million BC and she is replaced by another her, then she goes off and dies in 2300 AD that means that the timeline gains an extra Ayla. You could have someone grow up multiple times within one timeline if that worked.
Besides, it's specifically shown that Crono, Lucca, and Marle disappeared from 1000 AD and that there wasn't anyone else there to replace them. The Chancellor chases them down then freaks out because 3 teenagers vanish before his eyes, remember? Maybe the reason that this is never a problem is simply because of that Time Traveler protection. Crono is specifically referenced as important to the timeline in the game, so maybe the basic setup behind Crono's life is specially protected, so that no matter what happens 1000 AD will remain essentially the same so that his entry to the first time portal will be unchanged- thereby requiring Marle and Lucca to be the same as well.
Or, it could be that the reason that time isn't changed is because nobody in their group and nothing they do is important enough to endanger the timeline pre-1000 AD. I never really thought about it before... but how do we know Ayla doesn't already have a kid? She and Kino could just be terrible parents. Maybe the cavepeople use nannies. She and Kino don't really have time to raise children anyway.
Besides, it's specifically shown that Crono, Lucca, and Marle disappeared from 1000 AD and that there wasn't anyone else there to replace them.
exactly. everyone believed marle had been kidnapped because she had been missing for a couple days. if she had left a duplicate, crono and lucca never would have followed her into the past.
I agree that the melchoir example is kind of convoluted (and I don't think its the best example either). However again the timeline can ONLY know the past IF the past is fixed. Since the entire point of the game is changing the timeline, the timeline is by definition, not fixed. Thus, when Ayla enters a time portal to the future, there has to be some kind of explanation on why she doesn't disappear from history at that moment.
That's true, but the explanation that there's another version of the person who is there while the person is gone from the timeline doesn't sit right. For one thing, that would mean that if the character never were to return to their proper time, that would be an addition of matter to the universe. If Ayla leaves 16 million BC and she is replaced by another her, then she goes off and dies in 2300 AD that means that the timeline gains an extra Ayla. You could have someone grow up multiple times within one timeline if that worked.
Besides, it's specifically shown that Crono, Lucca, and Marle disappeared from 1000 AD and that there wasn't anyone else there to replace them. The Chancellor chases them down then freaks out because 3 teenagers vanish before his eyes, remember? Maybe the reason that this is never a problem is simply because of that Time Traveler protection. Crono is specifically referenced as important to the timeline in the game, so maybe the basic setup behind Crono's life is specially protected, so that no matter what happens 1000 AD will remain essentially the same so that his entry to the first time portal will be unchanged- thereby requiring Marle and Lucca to be the same as well.
Or, it could be that the reason that time isn't changed is because nobody in their group and nothing they do is important enough to endanger the timeline pre-1000 AD. I never really thought about it before... but how do we know Ayla doesn't already have a kid? She and Kino could just be terrible parents. Maybe the cavepeople use nannies. She and Kino don't really have time to raise children anyway.
My understanding of the theories presented is that the act of returning to the past changes the time line to accommodate you being gone. IE you leave for the future, somehow the time line continues as if you stayed in the past (ie the future is more or less how you expect it to be if you lived your life normally). This is the 'duplicate'. When you return to the past, the time line changes to remove you for the period you were in the future (so you are no longer present in the recent past from the perspective of anyone you talk to in the present). This is the time travelers immunity... the person time traveling gets to be the one the time line is 'rewritten' around. An addendum to this is that if something happens that prevents the time traveler from returning to their normal time, the time line is rewritten at that point that they do not return.
This is all very convoluted and is trying to make a semi workable theory of time travel in a game that isn't always logically consistent, but its all in good fun. I mostly continue posting about it because I think its makes for interesting discussion.
Besides, it's specifically shown that Crono, Lucca, and Marle disappeared from 1000 AD and that there wasn't anyone else there to replace them.
exactly. everyone believed marle had been kidnapped because she had been missing for a couple days. if she had left a duplicate, crono and lucca never would have followed her into the past.
I suspect that Time Bastard actually applies to real time travel, instead of the game, but Zeality already pointed out examples in the game that work.
I agree that the melchoir example is kind of convoluted (and I don't think its the best example either). However again the timeline can ONLY know the past IF the past is fixed. Since the entire point of the game is changing the timeline, the timeline is by definition, not fixed. Thus, when Ayla enters a time portal to the future, there has to be some kind of explanation on why she doesn't disappear from history at that moment.
That's true, but the explanation that there's another version of the person who is there while the person is gone from the timeline doesn't sit right. For one thing, that would mean that if the character never were to return to their proper time, that would be an addition of matter to the universe. If Ayla leaves 16 million BC and she is replaced by another her, then she goes off and dies in 2300 AD that means that the timeline gains an extra Ayla. You could have someone grow up multiple times within one timeline if that worked.
Besides, it's specifically shown that Crono, Lucca, and Marle disappeared from 1000 AD and that there wasn't anyone else there to replace them. The Chancellor chases them down then freaks out because 3 teenagers vanish before his eyes, remember? Maybe the reason that this is never a problem is simply because of that Time Traveler protection. Crono is specifically referenced as important to the timeline in the game, so maybe the basic setup behind Crono's life is specially protected, so that no matter what happens 1000 AD will remain essentially the same so that his entry to the first time portal will be unchanged- thereby requiring Marle and Lucca to be the same as well.
Or, it could be that the reason that time isn't changed is because nobody in their group and nothing they do is important enough to endanger the timeline pre-1000 AD. I never really thought about it before... but how do we know Ayla doesn't already have a kid? She and Kino could just be terrible parents. Maybe the cavepeople use nannies. She and Kino don't really have time to raise children anyway.
My understanding of the theories presented is that the act of returning to the past changes the time line to accommodate you being gone. IE you leave for the future, somehow the time line continues as if you stayed in the past (ie the future is more or less how you expect it to be if you lived your life normally). This is the 'duplicate'. When you return to the past, the time line changes to remove you for the period you were in the future (so you are no longer present in the recent past from the perspective of anyone you talk to in the present). This is the time travelers immunity... the person time traveling gets to be the one the time line is 'rewritten' around. An addendum to this is that if something happens that prevents the time traveler from returning to their normal time, the time line is rewritten at that point that they do not return.
This is all very convoluted and is trying to make a semi workable theory of time travel in a game that isn't always logically consistent, but its all in good fun. I mostly continue posting about it because I think its makes for interesting discussion.
Well, yeah, I'm not exactly taking this personally myself.
Really, though, this Time Bastard theory is not working out for me. I assumed that Time Bastard involved the timeline being rewritten upon return to indicate their absence. However, that still leaves the problem of what happens if they never do. That either means that there's just an extra copy of the traveller added into the timeline, or that the whole theory is pointless because the timeline is changed to reflect their absence if they don't return.
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Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
edited August 2007
Heh, you guys should play Chrono Cross. It adds an additional layer of 'Bwah?' to the whole time thing with duplicate worlds thing.
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Magus (aka the Prophet) was the one who had the Gurus imprisoned and you sent away so he could have an uninterrupted crack at the big L. Other than that I'd agree that the Lavos distortion / Zeal tapping into Lavos's power could have sent the Guru's away. There is also the possibilty that the Gurus are immortal and the Age of Magic one actually just survived 13000 years.
You see Melchior coming out of the closet in Medina Village. That's time travel, not being-really-old. :P
The scene is 12000 BC. The party is in jail after losing to Dalton. This is yanked from a script dump FAQ on Gamefaqs.
What the story is saying is that the Queen imprisoned Melchior for opposing her, and it's the Prophet/Magus trying to stop Crono from interfering. It was NOT the Prophet who imprisoned him. It was NOT the "Well he wasn't jailed up the first time" explanation. The only little plot hole we have is that if he was imprisoned, how did he get out first before Crono's interference. And a simple explanation is "He just did, on his own or somebody else's help".
And the final nail in this coffin.
No they're NOT. They were not saved from being shot into the future. After the party loses to Lavos, Schala sends them, AND the Prophet, to safety. When they wake up, they have a little pow-wow with the elder. One of the key conversations there is what happened to Melchior.
I have no clue where you got that Melchior and Janus were safe and sound. The game spells it right out. Then, when you meet up with Magus on the cliff later, he fills in the small gap of what happened after Schala saved the party. Lavos threw the guru's into the future. Janus showed up to save his sister and also got thrown. Then Schala goes down as well (Which I don't believe we actually see. The cutscene stops after Janus goes down. But, CC and all...).
That is the key point. Despite all his best efforts, Magus still could not prevent the chain of events from still happening. In fact, I don't think he even tried. Instead of stopping the major players from showing up to the Ocean Palace, he lets it all go on so he can be there when Lavos showed up to so he could kill him. And in his own words, "Unimaginable is the power of Lavos. Anyone who dares to oppose...it...meets certain doom", after realizing he never had a chance.
*Whew* I'm done. That's it. Game, Set, Match. I win. There's no cloning or disappearing or paradox or any of that complicated shit. You simply fucked up on a plot point.
Like I said, it finally clicked. What you're saying happened is this. Original timeline, the guru's and Janus show up at the summoning and get thrown in time for their troubles. In the new timeline, Crono and crew show up, the stuff happens, and Schala teleports them out. What I always took from the plot was that after that stuff happens, the guru's and Janus still show up and history repeats. What you're saying is that Melchior and Janus were chilling out on the earth below because of the changes the party made, and when everything went down, they still got sucked into gates as they would have if they were in the palace. Which makes sense because the village elder witnesses this and says as much.
Honestly... I think that's stupid as fuck and makes no sense. Events were changed, and instead of being at the palace when Lavos appeared, the gurus were elsewhere, probably sitting in a chair at home. And they still get sucked down. Which is hella stupid, because now you got Melchior in 1000 AD, Balthasar in 2300 AD, and Gaspar in the End of Time, all wondering how in holy hell they got their in the first place since all they were doing was probably sipping coffee at home. Like I said, I always took it to be that they showed up anyways after the party was teleported out, and things happened as usual. Which makes perfect sense. They tried to change the future, but it refused to change.
So, I get it. It clicks. I personally think its dumb as fuck, one hell of a stupid plot point in the game, and I have no clue why they chose to say that in the game (not directed at you, at the story writers for having that in the game) But I see it. I don't like it, but I see it.
I have no idea what you're saying here.
No it doesn't. Since time is simply an extra dimension, having two of someone in the same time (but from different points on his personal timeline) is exactly analogous to coiling a rope or folding a sheet. There's no reason at all that the rope can't be doubled or tripled or pass through the same general area in space-time any number of times.
0431-6094-6446-7088
I'm not really going to join the argument here (though I do find it interesting), but time travel itself technically violates the laws of conservation for both energy and mass, since the energy and mass that you possess, right now, will still exist in the past and future even if you aren't alive yet/anymore. I mean, when you die, the stuff that made you up still exists. It's just not organized into a cohesive you. So yeah, unless there's some sort of temporal clause in the laws of conservation that states that moving matter and energy through time doesn't count as destroying it or creating it, it violates our current view of physics.
And this doesn't even take into account paradoxes in which two copies of the same person could feasibly coexist from multiple time traveling events.
No, time travel is entirely consistent with the law of conservation of mass/energy. No mass/energy is created and none is destroyed. If you were to move through time in an other-than-normal manner your mass/energy would simply be moved from one point in time to another, not destroyed. If you move to a point in time at which a previous or future copy of yourself exists, no mass or energy is created or destroyed. You've simply looped the "rope" of your mass/energy's time-line back on itself so that you are close together.
Imagine time as a sidewalk. Now lay a rope out along the sidewalk. This rope represents your course through time. Now loop the rope around so that it forms a single loop while the rest of the rope continues to lie parallel to the sidewalk. The place where the rope crosses over itself is the point in time at which there are two of you. But both of you are the same collection of mass/energy. You are simply at different points on your personal time-line. Nothing destroyed, nothing created, only moved.
0431-6094-6446-7088
Which is why I said:
It's debatable whether the conservation laws are restricted to a constant time-frame. I mean, let's say I time-traveled right now and left you hanging on this conversation. From your point of view, I disappeared. In this time frame, I have violated the conservation laws and created an imbalance. It's tough to say whether there is an "absolute" time-frame for matter and energy, since, as far as I know, time travel has never been observed.
edit: Aha, there was something I was forgetting to say: Our current view of matter and energy leads us to believe that on your sidewalk, each minute section of rope is intrinsically linked to a minute section of sidewalk. Looping the rope like you've done creates that imbalance, where part of the sidewalk gets no rope and another part gets too much.
There doesn't need to be any special clause. If I drive a car behind a hill then as far as you know it's disappeared. Just because we cannot easily perceive something doesn't mean it has been destroyed. Just because I can't locate the mass/energy doesn't mean that it has been destroyed.
What's your source on this? Because everything I've read indicates that time travel is entirely possible and mostly explainable with our current knowledge of physics, but requires energy on a scale which is utterly beyond our ability to produce. I've certainly never heard that matter is linked to a specific space-time.
0431-6094-6446-7088
Really, if you look at the Wiki article, I think I fall more under the "presentist" viewpoint that they talk about. I love theorizing, but in the end, I think time's going to flow forward at a constant rate for 99.999% of humans.
I really have to leave for campus, but in the meantime, here's a section of the wiki article that I found pretty funny:
Edit: Oh, and regarding time travel being "explainable by physics," everything I've seen about time travel says that it's possible under certain physics principles, but typically violates other completely valid physics principles in the process. I don't think anyone has come up with a theory that doesn't break any physics laws. This could be a consequence of the fact that we don't have a unifying theory of time, gravity, energy, and matter.
tl;dr: Fuck if I know!
Ahh, the "Bill and Ted" theory of time travel.
If we ever take anything from this thread, it's this. Going forward in time is piss easy. It's the whole going back thing that's the trick.
:winky:
*clicks stopwatch* 13 posts. Getting sloppy, G&T!
I can't deny there was some for the other characters, just Frog got by far the most and the best done one, it seemed to me.
If Robo stays back in 600 A.D., he ages 400 years to 1000 A.D. You can take him back. Two Robos! What gives? Well, the Robo working is Robo at age whatever. The Robo with you is 400 years older. Same object, different frames of time.
But with Melchior, suddenly we've got two Melchiors at age 50. If Melchior's safe on the ground, then in 1000 A.D. a copy of Melchior will still show up out of nowhere, thus adding to the universe. So the one on the ground is eliminated while the one who time traveled is A-OK in 1000 A.D.
Now, it really is the time-traveling Melchior who's there in 1000 A.D., regardless of what happens before. It's not like this new Mt. Woe ground Melchior suddenly takes his place; he just gets...well, eliminated. Otherwise, as soon as Crono fixed history, the Crono who'd be confused as hell in the nice future would substitute the one who just got back from beating Lavos and is happy to have saved the world.
Yeah, it's like a giant case of covering your ass with internal logic, and it's not pretty because people straight die (like Mt. Woe Melchior, or new dimension Serge). At least Masato Kato was paying attention to internal logic in 12000 B.C., because Yuji Horii and Sakaguchi otherwise caused four plot holes with Marle disappearing, the Telepod crap, and even the very premise of the game. Like, if Marle's descended from Ayla, but Ayla travels to the future before she's ever pregnant in prehistory, how does she still give birth and pass on the line? Ayla going to the future should fubar history because Ayla disappears from the past. But yet, Guardia is untouched, and everything's the same...it's a big plot hole.
Cross thankfully avoids all this crap, but at the expense of sheer mystery (the Dead Sea) and a spat of confusing text at Chronopolis, leaving it with one plot hole to its name. It's just the plot's pacing and delivery that confuses the hell out of everyone. It took me two playthroughs, my own written Chronology, and a lot of discussion before I ever understood the plot completely.
Whew, haven't posted about this stuff like this in over a year and a half. If we ever get a reliable translator at the Compendium (a miracle, but a badly needed miracle for translating Ultimania), I hope we can contact Masato Kato and let him gracefully retcon everything in a nice interview.
A-u-t-o-matic!
Well, I don't think that you can hold the inability to properly account for the paradoxes of time travel against a story. Let's face it, things just turn out far worse when they even really try.
Some top notch Chrono (Trigger and Cross) remixes:
CC: Another Inspiration
CT: Requiem for a Green Revolution
CT: Black Wind Rising (fucking epic)
CT: Tears for a Girl
I was disappointed as well, I thought for sure I would have been beaten.
No, you never had two Melchiors, in this case. The result of Crono and partys' actions was the changing of the timeline, so that the Melchior in 1000AD is and always had been the Melchior who was sucked into a black portal in the Last Village, rather than the one who was sent away from inside the Ocean Palace.
The #1 thing you have to remember with Chrono Trigger is, you have to look at time from your own point of view, not the characters, and not the games. When you do something, it stays done, and you can't go back and change it. CT treats the waygates as points that move forward in time with the player, keeping track of the things they've already done. Which is why, when you go back to 600AD with Robo and see the second Robo, its easily understood why he's still there, and in your party as well. He'll stay there for 400 years, you'll pick him up in 1000AD, then he'll go back and see himself if you want to.
And for Ayla, maybe you're forgetting, in the end of the game, she goes back to make kids with Kino? She didn't have to have a kid before she 'stepped out of the room' because she later 'came back to the room.'
Time travelers have no special immunity. Things in the future are as they are, because things happened in the past. Just like, when you kill Lavos in 1999 AD, it doesn't mean he vanishes from all timelines and no longer hits the earth in 65 million BC. No pocket dimension or bubble, he exists in the time stream like everything else.
The future 'knows' if things are, or rather, do happen in the past, like that Ayla will come back to have her kids, because they've already happened. And if something happens to change that, then the future will change.
The Time Bastard theory makes no fucking sense at all.
Why did square insist in putting an incredibly boring cockblock point at the 3/4 mark in most of their ps1 games?
The dragons aren't so bad. I hope to god you didn't fuck up the black dragon quest.
Two of the dragons are just sitting there. Two of the dragons are at the end of short dungeons. This leaves the annoying earth dragon and the even more annoying green dragon.
How can you fuck up the Black Dragon Quest?
You need to talk to the Band about doing a concert to wake up the monster ghost thingees on the mermaid's island. Otherwise the Black Dragon won't wake and you won't get the chance to get the black absorbing armor. That armor makes one or two fights in the game a lot easier.
That doesn't answer his question. I wasn't aware that you could do it any other way, either.
also if you have certain people in your party you can get the blessing without fighting, but I'm pretty sure that can only happen in new game+
WRONG! Beat Zelbess, and forget to talk to mr freaky guitar man. If you don't do that, the mermaid will never join and the dragon will give his bit without a fight. This is bad, because you can't steal the black abosorbing armor nor can you get Fargo's level seven technique. Oh, and a little something known as the spectral hammer. Which you may want...
I am a freaking nerd.
That's true, but the explanation that there's another version of the person who is there while the person is gone from the timeline doesn't sit right. For one thing, that would mean that if the character never were to return to their proper time, that would be an addition of matter to the universe. If Ayla leaves 16 million BC and she is replaced by another her, then she goes off and dies in 2300 AD that means that the timeline gains an extra Ayla. You could have someone grow up multiple times within one timeline if that worked.
Besides, it's specifically shown that Crono, Lucca, and Marle disappeared from 1000 AD and that there wasn't anyone else there to replace them. The Chancellor chases them down then freaks out because 3 teenagers vanish before his eyes, remember? Maybe the reason that this is never a problem is simply because of that Time Traveler protection. Crono is specifically referenced as important to the timeline in the game, so maybe the basic setup behind Crono's life is specially protected, so that no matter what happens 1000 AD will remain essentially the same so that his entry to the first time portal will be unchanged- thereby requiring Marle and Lucca to be the same as well.
Or, it could be that the reason that time isn't changed is because nobody in their group and nothing they do is important enough to endanger the timeline pre-1000 AD. I never really thought about it before... but how do we know Ayla doesn't already have a kid? She and Kino could just be terrible parents. Maybe the cavepeople use nannies. She and Kino don't really have time to raise children anyway.
exactly. everyone believed marle had been kidnapped because she had been missing for a couple days. if she had left a duplicate, crono and lucca never would have followed her into the past.
My understanding of the theories presented is that the act of returning to the past changes the time line to accommodate you being gone. IE you leave for the future, somehow the time line continues as if you stayed in the past (ie the future is more or less how you expect it to be if you lived your life normally). This is the 'duplicate'. When you return to the past, the time line changes to remove you for the period you were in the future (so you are no longer present in the recent past from the perspective of anyone you talk to in the present). This is the time travelers immunity... the person time traveling gets to be the one the time line is 'rewritten' around. An addendum to this is that if something happens that prevents the time traveler from returning to their normal time, the time line is rewritten at that point that they do not return.
This is all very convoluted and is trying to make a semi workable theory of time travel in a game that isn't always logically consistent, but its all in good fun. I mostly continue posting about it because I think its makes for interesting discussion.
I am a freaking nerd.
I suspect that Time Bastard actually applies to real time travel, instead of the game, but Zeality already pointed out examples in the game that work.
Well, yeah, I'm not exactly taking this personally myself.
Really, though, this Time Bastard theory is not working out for me. I assumed that Time Bastard involved the timeline being rewritten upon return to indicate their absence. However, that still leaves the problem of what happens if they never do. That either means that there's just an extra copy of the traveller added into the timeline, or that the whole theory is pointless because the timeline is changed to reflect their absence if they don't return.
Great game, though.
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