Line #128 Headscratchers/ChronoCross


1	* Okay, as far as I can tell from in-game content and external sources, the game ends with the Time Devourer having never existed, as the Chrono Cross undoes the FusionDance that created it, and it exists outside the normal flow of time. This eliminates the possibility of Serge being absorbed by it, and thus the potential for his nullifying the death of Lavos. So... how does El Nido still exist, as it only comes into existence due to actions by the Time Devourer?
2	** Good question. Maybe it doesn't? Maybe the scenes in Other Schala Kid in the modern day are the rewrite of time? Of course, if the Time Devourer never existed, then nobody would have stopped it, and there we have the old [[GrandfatherParadox Grandfather's Paradox]]. Let's just say [[Series/DoctorWho the Doctor]] did it.
3	*** But we briefly see Serge in what appears to be El Nido at the end of the game. And the Grandfather Paradox doesn't really apply, here. We're dealing with travel between timelines, not up and down a single timeline. We're dealing with what happens after the Time Devourer was stopped from the perspective of the timelines that are aware of it... but since, depending on how you view it, it exists either at every point in time simultaneously, or no point in time at all, its defeat means not just the cessation of its existence, but the nullification of it having ever existed -- its pocket dimension exists outside the flow of time, so there's only a constant "now" in which it no longer exists.
4	*** Remember kids, even dimension hopping is not safe from the TimeyWimeyBall.
5	*** El Nido's existence was due to the Time Crash, which occurred because of [=FutureTech=] experiments in a world where Lavos was defeated on a Lavos fragment. While unlikely to be stable, such a world has a non-zero chance of occurring as long as the Balthasar-Future thought the Time Devourer could exist.
6	** Chrono Compendium has whole articles on this. Basic consensus is that time traveling beings have time travelers immunity (i.e. once a being time travels, they are protected from the effects of future time travel). This means that once the future people stepped into the past, their existence IN the past becomes protected under TTI. So even if the future they come from no longer exists, they will still appear in the past out of nowhere. A related theory says that the versions of them in the future will be sent to the darkness beyond time at the same time the original time traveled. Chrono Compendium can explain it better than me :P
7	*** Isn't that directly contradicted by Marle ceasing to exist early in Chrono Trigger thanks to time travel mucking up history and preventing her from being born in the first place?
8	*** That particular scenario was written very early in development by someone other than the guy who wrote the rest of the game. It's the only scene that contradicts it.
9	*** [[AWizardDidIt The Entity]] did that. Probably to make sure Crono would go save Leene.
10	*** Alternatively, Nadia traveled through an unstable Gate. This unstable gate was unable to grant time travel immunity, Lucca's gate key stabilized the gates so they could properly grant TTI. The gates created by Lavos in the fight with Magus and the fall of Zeal also are stable due to his magic, which is why they have always happened, but Crono's gang's changes haven't.
11	** El Nido was created by Chronopolis, not the Time Devourer. After the Time Crash, where it was sent back in time, they knew they had to take steps to avoid causing a paradox by changing history in such a way that they would prevent themselves from ever existing in the future. So they hid Chronopolis in the Sea of Eden, created El Nido, and dumped most of Chronopolis's population there (where they were forced to live without Chronopolis's technology, and became El Nido's "natives"), and created the Pyramids of Fate to ensure that Chronopolis would retain control over El Nido's inhabitants if it ever became necessary to use them to maintain history. When Serge & Co eventually kill FATE and destroy Chronopolis, that removes the possibility of a paradox, so, in the future, Chronopolis is eventually built and causes the Time Crash as per the original, unaltered timeline.
12	** Going a little outside the box (and I will double check later on) this question easily causes a headscratcher to lose sight of the basics. In-game, Miguel, iirc poses the question of whether or not possible future timelines are created in order to accomodate events rather than the events that make them seemingly be the end-all of it. Second, the events of Chrono Cross are tied to the events of Chrono Trigger, ie Lavos' ever-prescence in time-space, and Schala's power and displacement coming together. Why I say this is out of the box is because it is purely incidental what "exactly" will happen when the Chrono Cross is used to it's fullest extent. Can the Chrono Cross be used to exactly undo each and every thing tied to the paradox which it unequivocally resolves? Or (as all the ranting for hope and struggling would suggest) do the actions taken in order to invoke the Chrono Cross matter? Seemingly, it CAN undo the anomalous splitting of the intended timeline, but does not obliterate the efforts of the party-goers. Second and third, Chrono Cross establishes an infinite time-space outside of intended timelines where the Time-Devourer seems to thrive and proliferate just fine, and the Chrono Cross itself can seemingly govern these elements.
13	** Perhaps all the Chrono Cross does is destroy the Time Devourer forever but leave everything else intact? As in, the events leading up to it's destruction still occur, but the Time Devourer is simply removed, hence El Nino still exists, Serge and company still go through their adventure, etc.
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15	* How did Lynx take out Lucca? She's a DAMN powerful mage and, considering the context, was likely in a Main/MamaBear situation to boot.
16	** During the FMV with Lynx and Harle in the orphanage, you never see Lucca, just her glasses on the floor. Harle or Lynx could've sucked her into a time portal. Or, knowing the Chrono series, a time portal could have just opened up spontaneously. Or someone from another place and time was able to open a portal to bring her to where they are... I think that scene was left as ambiguous as possible. Now if only those glasses were easier to notice (I never noticed them until it was pointed out to me).
17	** [[CutsceneIncompetence Cutscene]]. Cutscene, cutscene, cutscene. Once you accept that a trio of cosmic superheroes were defeated by ''Dalton'', simply by ''looking the other way'' at the wrong time, then, well, anybody not currently controlled by the player is fair game no matter how powerful they're supposed to be.
18	** Lucca was horrible at using elements and tried to use them to fight off Lynx instead of her magic in a moment of idiocy. Seriously, she may have tried to use magic (the fire could have been from her trying to fight him off), but Lynx could easily take her out because he was FATE's super powered avatar. The real question is "Why CAN Serge defeat Lynx?"
19	*** You question that when the cast from Chrono Trigger beat Lavos, who is still stated to be stronger than any of the bosses in this game.
20	*** Lucca, as well as the others were likely taken by surprise, weakened, hit with overwhelming odds, or otherwise put the odds in their killer's favor, all of which assuming they were actually killed. In fact, that might be the reason that the Lava Boys are infesting the house. Since they're healed by fire but Lucca isn't, while the only magic she can use is fire, it wouldn't matter how powerful of a mage Lucca is, she'd still get killed by them in a straight fight if she can't hurt them.
21	*** Lucca specifically states in her letter that she was anticipating an attack. She may have been woefully wrong about ''why'' someone was coming after her, but she was right to predict it would happen.
22	* Dalton is so lame he ''defeated himself''. He was a comic relief villain. Now he's the destroyer of an entire kingdom? Good lord, Kato is like a bad fanfic author that got handed the keys to the franchise.
23	** FutureBadass?
24	** Would have worked better if we saw him do it. Fan theory holds he took over Porre and all, but that's just fan theory...
25	*** Fan theory no more. The DS remake has him basically tell the heroes that he's going to empower Porre to conquer Guardia, before one last surprisingly competent boss fight. I think it's the least subtle jossing I've ever seen.
26	*** Yes, but that doesn't mean he actually managed it. In fact, he can't have, because if Guardia was conquered that would be stupid.
27	*** Some fan thinking something is stupid has been an argument against said thing happening since when exactly?
28	*** Just because someone is an incompetent idiot for a while doesn't mean that they will always be. Here's what I think happened:
29	----->1. Dalton probably ended up in 1000 A.D. or so after the Golem Boss incident and got his act together.
30	----->2. Got himself instated as a V.I.P. in Porre, if not as leader, likely because of #3.
31	----->3. Turned Porre into a effective military power that vastly outclasses Guardia's through knowledge of Zeal's advanced technology.
32	----->4. Then just waltzed in and took Guardia over with minimal effective resistance.
33	----->5. Killed Crono and the others by combination of weight in sheer numbers and his own magic powers that he honed in the meantime.
34	-----> The above would also explain why Porre seems to have much more advanced tech than pretty much anyone in the either of the games has with the exception of CT's future era and Chronopolis itself.
35	* I understand that Miguel is reveling in a "war-free" displaced timeline in the midst of the Sea of Eden, but what I'm having trouble connecting is the relationship between it, Serge/Lynx, and Miguel.
36
37	Bear with me here to further specify the question:
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39	Lynx as the MC is actually LITERALLY Fate as Lynx having been so utterly altered by the Flame that he is ACTUALLY Fate/Lynx with no longer any choice or ability to act OTHER than Serge would in the switched situation and, simultaneously Fate is in full control of what "remains" of the surviving Serge to do as it pleases in "Serge's extra timeline". At the same time Miguel has made a stand to, I guess, become some kind of watcher in the discarded, but suspended-in-time timeline, out of preference and reverence. To restate the question, what bearing does the Fate/Lynx/Serge-Miguel conflict have on the stability/existence of the suspended timeline and the Dimensional Vortex?
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41	All I can think is, if Fate orchestrated a scenario holding the existence of the Dimensional Vortex over recreating Serge within Lynx via the Flame or whatever, when Lynx is a degree more powerful, and then leave all the contingencies on a "Serge" traversing the Time-Crash ground zero and then besting some "time vagrant" or not, has me baffled.
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43	Did Fate think the affect of the Flame was actually the complete destruction of Serge via itself as Lynx and all of Fate/Lynx's actions acting as Serge was all a convenient anomaly? Plot-wise it doesn't hold up because Fate is in full control and everything.
44	* Would Serge be cheating on Leena (H) if he and Leena (A) acted on potential {{UST}}?
45	** Yes. Unless they shared a mind, they have their own individual thoughts and, as such, are technically separate people.
46	*** They're just different versions of the same person, so it's not cheating.
47	** I'd say this is a circumstance where the old standby "It's cheating if his girlfriend thinks it is" would apply best.
48	** It doesn't really matter, considering the game goes to [[StrangledByTheRedString extreme lengths]] to suggest Serge and Kid shack up, whilst completely forgetting Leena even exists. The only time she is mentioned as having dated Serge is in a bonus ending, ''and'' Kid ''still'' appears to witness this before taking off on her own as if being forced to move on.
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50	* Why's it called the Darkness Beyond Time when it's actually a well-lit AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield?
51	** I ''believe'' that was something the U.S. localization got a little creative with -- wasn't it the Tesseract in the Japanese script?
52	** Yes, it was. But it is a figurative darkness, not a literal one. It's where a destroyed timeline is "snuffed out", so to say.
53	*** What American knows what a tesseract is? Well, besides everyone who bothers to Google.
54	*** Someone who has seen Salvador Dali's art work called "Crucifixion" or enjoying thinking about time travel enough to stumble across it in a book called "Hyperspace".
55	*** Or read ''Literature/AWrinkleInTime''. In any case, Darkness Beyond Time fits better, 'specially since [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract this]] is a tesseract.
56	*** Beyond that, what does nationality have to do with knowing or not knowing about an analogous representation of a fourth dimensional object?
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58	* Actually goes hand-in-hand with the entry about the Abyss Beyond Time above this one. If the Time Devourer [[spoiler:cannot be killed by normal means because it can regenerate itself from alternative timelines where it didn't die, then the existence of an Abyss Beyond Time doesn't make sense, as the Time Devourer implies that timelines can branch. That, however, means that people from an "erased" time branch would just live on in a parallel time line, one that wasn't altered, rather than going to said Abyss. Alternative time lines means no Abyss Beyond Time, and an Abyss Beyond Time means no alternative time lines. So, we have two models of time that contradict each other.]]
59	** Timelines ''can'' branch, but not because of time travel. Home/Another Worlds split because of Schala's actions (i.e. saving Serge via Kid) from ''outside'' of time, rather than from within that timeline. The Abyss Beyond Time is where things negated by ''paradox'' go. In CT, the heroes see the bad future and so decide to kill Lavos, which negates the bad future, which means that the heroes never have a reason to kill Lavos, which means Lavos causes the bad future... Paradox. Lavos (and by extension the Lavos/Schala fusion, the Time Devourer) is both "killed by CT cast" and "destroys the world in 1999" simultaneously because of the paradox, which is why it exists in the Abyss Beyond Time. Destroying the Time Devourer from ''within'' the Abyss Beyond Time removes the paradox by killing him ''outside of time'', in effect, forcing the "killed by CT cast" side of the paradox to be the "real" outcome. (Of course, simply ''killing'' the Time Devourer destroys both Lavos ''and'' Schala, which is why you have to go through the Chrono Cross craziness to seperate the two so you can kill Lavos but save Schala.) This means that Lavos is ''always'' killed and the good future ''always'' results... but the CT crew remember the bad future anyway because of RippleEffectProofMemory. On the flip side, if Serge & Co had pulled Lavos out of the Abyss Beyond Time instead of killing it there, they would have caused the "Lavos destroys the world" half of the paradox to be "real". This is basically what they did to Schala. \
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61	Think of it like this: if something is caught in a paradox, it is pulled into the Abyss Beyond Time. If it's destroyed there, then the paradox is resolved by using the version of the timeline where the thing doesn't exist. If it manages to ''escape'' from the Abyss Beyond Time without being destroyed, then the paradox is resolved by using the version of the timeline where the thing ''does'' exist. The final battle of Chrono Cross destroys Lavos in the Abyss Beyond Time and simultaneously rescues Schala ''from'' the Abyss Beyond Time, creating a single paradox-free timeline where Lavos is destroyed and Schala survives. Cue Belthasar announcing "[[TheChessmaster Just As Planned]]!".
62	*** The Chrono Cross's power wasn't to destroy Lavos. It's purpose was stated ''in game'' to interweave timelines. Lavos wasn't erased from existance. Schala's freedom is the result of the interweaving removing her from the Darkness Beyond Time to be added to the perfect timeline while leaving Lavos who we clearly don't see dying or vanishing from existence(the screen merely pans away from it once Schala is freed from it) to starve since there's no timelines nor live energy to feed on as only the perfect timeline exists.
63	*** This one is a doozy. So, basically, the Darkness Beyond Time is a dimension where almost every discarded timeline is sent to. When someone time travels and changes something in the past, the original timeline is replaced by a new one, and sent to the Darkness (the one known exception being the extremely complicated situation which caused it to split into Another and Home Worlds). So, for instance, when the Chrono Trigger crew killed Lavos and changed the future, that entire future was sent to the Darkness (which seems like a FateWorseThanDeath and undermines the entire point of saving the future, but that's what we have to work with). However, when Lavos and Schala merged in the Darkness, the combined entity got the power to destroy the universe from outside of time. Just going to the Darkness Beyond Time and killing it is not a viable solution, because that's just creating a new timeline where it didn't destroy the world... and sending the older timeline, which has a living Time Devourer, to the Darkness Beyond Time. Killing it just resets the situation to a position where the Time Devourer is primed to destroy everything again. Balthasar's solution is a TimeyWimeyBall that results in the Devourer being unmade in a way that doesn't create a discarded timeline, but instead works like a rewind, separating its composite pieces, Schala and Lavos. This has the added benefit of saving Schala, but also leaves the discarded Lavos in the Darkness Beyond Time, now powerless to affect anything outside of time.
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65	* This bit of FridgeLogic just hit me while replaying the game the other day: If hydras are extinct in Another World, then how the hell did Lynx get hydra venom to poison his blade with in the first place?!
66	** The same place Norris got his Hydra Humour. Wasn't it said that hydras may still exist on the mainland, just not in El Nido?
67	** Hydras became extinct because people were hunting them for parts. The Hydras may be gone, but parts of them are likely still around as people's possessions, waiting for a use.
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69	* Why exactly are 'Azala's people' said to have evolved closer to the Earth? Last time I checked, THEY were the ones building castles the size of a mountain and robotic dinosaurs. If anything, they were distancing themselves from nature faster and more persistently than the humans ever did!
70	** It's said that one key reason why humans evolved further from the Earth was Lavos's influence. Lavos didn't show up in our timeline until moments after the Reptites were defeated. The best conclusion is that pre-Lavos humans were pretty decent about the whole thing and post-Lavos humans did all that Zeal stuff, and the Reptites didn't go nearly as technologically crazy over time... wait. I just thought of something. It kinda looked like Azala sent Lavos crashing to the earth. Maybe in our timeline, Lavos was affecting the Reptites until the humans beat them, and then moved on to them?
71	*** Considering that Azala accurately predicted both the Ice Age and (possibly) the Day of Lavos, it seems very unlikely she would deliberately cause Lavos to fall. Besides, the DS adaption changes her dialogue to have her cursing the red star's arrival rather than invoking it.
72	** If you look at things, Lavos is directly responsible for the existence of humanity. Had the Ice Age not wiped out the Reptites, humans would probably have been subjugated or driven to extinction. The reason the Reptites are viewed as closer to earth is because they don't have a giant space tick to thank for their continual existence.
73	*** To add to that, in ''Trigger'', you can find evidence that Lavos engineered humans to be strong so it could destroy them and become stronger itself. Humans didn't evolve naturally, they had a monster standing behind them pulling the strings, and so now they've overrun the world and become the dominant species.
74	* How on Earth could Lucca's house '''burn down??''' What did Taban put in Lucca's armor in the previous game that he couldn't line the house with?
75	** Something very heavy and/or existing in small enough quantities that an entire building would be prohibitively expensive.
76	* What's the deal with the ghost workers in Chronopolis? Some of them seem to be some sort of imprint of the original staff in the [[TimeTravelTenseTrouble past/future/whatever]], preparing for the experiment that caused the Time Crash, while others clearly exist in the present, as they refer to the split timelines, the terraforming of El Nido, etc.
77	** We know Balthasar planned the entirety of the game's events, including the whole deal with Chronopolis and Dinopolis as well as the split timeline, in advance. This means he either had ways to monitor the consequence of these events before he caused them to happen (time travel being one hell of a blow to causality), or he had some very accurate simulations going on. Either way, that's probably what we see, and he probably had some staff working on it instead of doing everything on his own.
78	* I thought the BigBad was Lynx and then FATE, but apparently they were keeping the Dragon God from reforming. So, it's the Dragon God, right? No, they were going off instinct to eliminate the bits of Lavos present in all the humans. So that means Time Devourer/Lavos is the villain? It's just distorted and took advantage of Schala's HeroicBSOD and used that to set up this whole situation with dimensions and dragons and Dinopolis and whatever? What I'm getting at is, does this mean that Lavos is still the BigBad? I feel I can enjoy the story more if I can identify just who the villain is.
79	** The Dragon God is the villian the game builds up the most, and it is working under the Time Devourer's control (one of its phases being renamed the Time Devourer in the North American version for some reason). You spend the first part of the game fighting FATE so you can reform the Dragon God and defeat it so you have a chance at destroying the Time Devourer. So, in the end, it is, in fact, Lavos who is behind everything. (I don't blame you for missing that, it's explained in one of the info dumps near the end.)
80	* Here's one that confuses me: the presence of Lynx (and Harle for that matter) in Home World's Dead Sea. If I understand the timeline correctly, Serge is healed by the Flame, becomes the Arbiter, and FATE loses control. She then corrupts [[spoiler:Wazuki]] and presumably turns him into Lynx (based off the panther demon [[spoiler:Schala/the Time Devourer]] sent), and he then tries to drown Serge, believing that killing the Arbiter would reset the Flame back to her control. Then, Schala sends Kid to save Serge from the drowning and this act splits the world, thus creating two Kids and two Lynxes. (Harle must have been created before this by the Dragon Gods so as to bring down FATE.) \
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82	Okay, all well and good so far, but then... he travels to the Dead Sea to find the Flame? Why? (And we know he did -- when you learn what happened to Home World's Viper and the Acacia Dragoons, it's revealed they all went to the Dead Sea with Lynx to find the Flame.) Since he failed to kill Serge in Home World, the Flame would still be linked to him, so there'd be no point in Lynx going after it. Did he ''think'' he succeeded in killing Serge and didn't know Kid had saved him? Or... was he just trying to return home to FATE to tell her what had happened and start planning again (though why would he need to, when he's her avatar and could also speak to her through the Records?), used the dragoons and the general's desire for the Flame as an incentive to get them to come along (either to eliminate them and throw El Nido into chaos or to make them serve FATE), and then accidentally got caught in the Time Crash? \
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84	For that matter, where did the Time Crash come from? Presumably, it was originally the Sea of Eden (in fact, when Serge talks to Marge about the night of the storm, she says the Dead Sea used to be called that), which explains how Wazuki and Miguel were able to bring Serge to Chronopolis and he touched the Flame. But then, when/how did it change into the Dead Sea? Was it because of the storm (which was sent by Schala too, wasn't it?)? Did breaking FATE's link with the Flame, and therefore Lavos/the Time Devourer, cause the Crash? Or did it happen in the future, after Wazuki and Miguel's visit? In which case, wouldn't FATE have warned Lynx not to come? Or did the Crash happen [[ThereAreNoCoincidences right as Lynx and the dragoons were arriving]]?
85	** The night of the storm was the day Serge was attacked by the panther demon. Serge was taken to the Frozen Flame and healed, but FATE came back online, trapped Miguel, and got its hooks in Wazuki. Four years later, when Lynx attempted to drown Serge and Schala interfered, the timeline split; in Another World, Lynx was successful and Chronopolis remained. In Home World, however, Schala saved Serge, and the BadFuture attempted to reassert itself over Chronopolis, resulting in the TimeCrash.
86	*** Schala's interference was after the panther attack, not stopping Lynx. Schala... somehow... heard Serge's cries and... for some reason... traveled through time and the resulting storm knocked FATE offline which allowed Serge to become the arbiter. It was Balthasar that sent Kid back in time to prevent Serge from being drowned by Lynx.
87	*** All right, that sensibly explains the Time Crash. But that still doesn't explain why Home World's Lynx went to the Dead Sea with the dragoons, when he would have known Serge didn't drown and thus was still locked onto the Flame. I can only see three options: he didn't know Serge wasn't dead; the Time Crash happened right as he was going to FATE to report; or he planned to have the dragoons all get killed in the Dead Sea, thus allowing El Nido to fall to Porre, only he got caught by accident too. I think the third option is most likely, and even based a WMG on it, but I don't know if it logically holds up.
88	*** I was under the impression that, with the Time Crash, the Home Frozen Flame is up for the taking by anyone. However, Home Lynx and the dragoons somehow became frozen in time. When Serge in Lynx's body goes to the Dead Sea, Fate decides to wipe out the entire area rather than allow Serge to get the Home Frozen Flame.
89	* On a related note... in Another World, after he succeeded in drowning Serge but the other version of him showed up, Lynx/FATE decided to try subterfuge, luring Serge in so he could [[spoiler:switch bodies with him]]. Presumably, before the world split and the Time Crash happened, there was nothing barring people from entering the Sea of Eden beyond FATE/Chronopolis' defenses, and it was only after the split that the Dragon Gods set up their gambit with the relics to enable only Serge to make it through as the Arbiter so he could eliminate FATE for them. But how did that world's Lynx know not to try what his counterpart did? Was it a moot point, since the Time Crash only created the Dead Sea in one dimension and not the other? (And why did that happen -- was that time's way of having both the version where Chronopolis was okay and the version where it wasn't exist to avoid the paradox?) Why did he not need the relics to get to the Sea of Eden while Serge did -- because he was [[spoiler:now the Arbiter]]? Did FATE warn him not to go to the Dead Sea [[spoiler:until he was Serge]]? But how would she know what happened in Home World? I was under the impression the two worlds' [=FATEs=] did not have any connection to each other or any ability to share what happened in their worlds. And until Serge crossed over through the distortion and gained the Astral Amulet, there was no way to cross over between the worlds. I'm pretty sure Lynx never stole it from Kid so as to cross over (surely she would have mentioned him stealing it, her stealing it back, or him giving it back (so that she could bring Serge to him) when Serge first asked about the amulet or was given it). And it must have been Schala who sent the dream, to warn him of the future, and not FATE, just as it was Kid who called him over (so he could help her get the Flame and get revenge on Lynx). So... ''did'' FATE have a connection with her counterpart, so as to warn Lynx to try a different plan in Another World? Or could she read everything her counterpart knew from Serge's memories when he touched a Record there? Otherwise, I am very puzzled as to why that world's version of him didn't do what Home's did, and how he even knew there was another world in which Serge survived and could be manipulated...
90	** Chronopolis did have a facility for monitoring the two worlds, so presumably [=FATE=] was aware of it too, at least the one in Another World, and at least at some point after the Time Crash. Don't know how that affects what the two Lynx's know though.
91	* What the '''flying duckies''' is wrong with those fairies? We ''save their lives'' and they start ranting that all humans are evil? Okay, the dwarves wouldn't have started the genocide of the fairies if the humans hadn't poisoned the marshes. Fair enough. But the humans had no way of knowing the dwarves would do that, and it's not like they told the dwarves to go kill the fairies. The dwarves crossed the ocean to get to Water Dragon Isle, surely they could've reached a different location. The fact that they got to Water Dragon Isle was nothing more than bad luck. Humans may have indirectly harmed the fairies, but the dwarves harmed them directly and your human party ''helped'' directly. And with all their tanks and mining, it's not like the dwarves were [[WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers Planeteers]] themselves. What gives?
92	** It's a serious case of DesignatedHero; the dwarves are ''supposed'' to be in the right to seek out a new land since 'those evil humans' destroyed Hydra Marshes, but when you consider that they effectively committed genocide, you lose a lot of sympathy for the dwarves. The fairies see humans as responsible for this, but the logic of their beliefs is hazy at best.
93	*** This is the FairFolk we're talking about. Do you ''expect'' them to follow human conventions of logic and empathy? Because if you do, then you do ''not'' know fairies very well. At ''all''.
94	*** The issue here is that the fairies attitude is never called out for being bizarre and stupid. Almost like we're supposed to agree with them despite them basically being bigots.
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96	* What did Lynx hope to accomplish by drowning Serge? Doesn't he need Serge alive to access the Frozen Flame (either directly or via body swap)?
97	** When did he try to drown him? If it was during the night of the storm, then that was before Serge was important to him.
98	*** It was four years after the storm. Serge had become the Arbiter of the Frozen Flame by touching it when FATE's power was out, and the Prometheus Lock kept FATE out of the Flame's containment. Presumably, Lynx was trying to shut down the lock, but his attempt failed.
99	** Most likely, Lynx didn't know that killing Serge wouldn't remove him from the lock's registry, and by the time he realized that he'd actually ruined his chance, it was too late. FATE really is stupidly evil when you get down to it. She could have potentially (if improbably; Serge probably wouldn't forgive FATE once he'd figured out Lynx's origins) made things a lot easier for herself if she tried to convince Serge to ally with her instead of forcing him to be an enemy.
100	** It's possible that Lynx tried to kill Serge simply because he thought Serge would be a powerful enemy later, and never intended Serge's death to remove him from the lock's registry. Based on the Ghost!Crono quotes below, it's possible that Lynx was relying on the Lucca plan to release the lock, and only involved Serge when a) the Lucca plan failed, and b) Lynx learned that another Serge was crossing dimensions to his.
101	-->'''Ghost!Crono''': Ten years ago, it was Lynx who tried to kill you at this beach. After Prometheus broke the link between FATE and the Flame, FATE tried to eliminate any obstacle that stood in its way!
102	-->'''Ghost!Crono''': Lynx and Harle abducted Lucca, who alone could release the Prometheus lock that guarded the Flame... But the whole attempt only ended in failure. Then, they just waited for you to appear instead!
103	* Where the hell is the game taking place? It's supposed to be set in the same world as Chrono Trigger, but you explored every inch of the globe in that game and there's no signs of any of the places you see in this one.
104	** El Nido came into existence ''because'' of the events of Trigger. Chronopolis is built in the new good (Lavos-free) future, gets sent back 10,000 years in the Time Crash, FATE builds El Nido as a new home for the people from Chronopolis, after wiping their memories and using the Records of Fate to keep them from interacting too much with the rest of the world (which might prevent FATE from being built in the future).
105	** And where did the nation of Porre come from?
106	*** You did play Chrono Trigger, right? It's that town on the landmass to the south of Guardia. I think it can be safely assumed that there's a lot of SpaceCompression going on and the locations are a lot bigger than they appear in-game, otherwise the world would be populated by only a few dozen people.
107	*** Chrono Cross takes place in a chain of islands and 1 very small continent surrounded by a rock wall and strong currents that prevent small vessels from exiting, but the other islands and continents that were in Chrono Trigger still exist. The player just isn't able to access them because of the currents, and as mentioned above El Nido didn't exist until after Chrono Trigger's alteration of the timeline.
108	* Robo tells you to settle the conflict between FATE and the dragons, but why does he think you should do that when it doesn't seem like there's any reasoning with either of them?
109	** Well, since you end up killing them both, I'd say that that conflict ends up good and settled by your hands.
110	** That's probably not what he meant. If he did would probably have said something more like "kill them all".
111	* How did FATE beat the combined dragon god anyways? When you fight that thing, it's stronger than FATE is. For that matter, if you beat the thing that beat it, why is it so confident that it can take you? Is it just an idiot?
112	** It wasn't just FATE vs Omnidragon, it was Chronopolis vs Dinopolis as a whole. Presumably, the combined dragon gods are more powerful than FATE, but Chronopolis was more powerful than Dinopolis.
113	** Also, in the original fight between FATE and the Dragon God, FATE had full control of the Frozen Flame. When you fight FATE, the lock on the Flame is just then being released; perhaps FATE doesn't have time to reintegrate its full power before you attack. Basically the same answer for the second question: when you fight the Dragon God, it has the Frozen Flame.
114	* Why is it that Schala heard and reacted to Serge crying, rather than any other of the myriad instances of small children crying in distress throughout all of time and space? Even limiting the subset to those in a certain radius of the Frozen Flame, that's still several thousand given the fishermen culture of El Nido and the millennia involved.
115	** Wazuki, Miguel and Serge were in the vicinity of Chronopolis, so she used the magnetic storm to blow them the right way. It's unlikely that there would have been several children crying in that area at that time.
116	* What exactly happened to corrupt the Masamune?
117	** There isn't much reason given. The most we get is a HandWave saying stuff about the two beings composing it acting weird before their sister knocks some sense into them, which is a pretty weak explanation given the amount of emotion put into the subplot.
118	*** As I understand it, the Masamune was used during the fall of Guardia in the battle between Porre and Guardia, and the Masamune was used to kill people. It's easy to see why a holy sword being used to commit murder, even if it was in war, would corrupt it.
119	*** So... Square was borrowing some story ideas from Namco, then? Because the whole "sword becomes evil by committing countless murders" thing sounds blatantly ripped off from Soul Edge.
120	** Well, the sword was always disturbingly related to Lavos, being created by pretty much absorbing a lot of its energy with a Dreamstone (which, by itself, has some weird parallels to Lavos) knife. Maybe it just took a long time for that corruption to actually take effect. The fact Dalton took the blade certainly wouldn't help.
121	* Where is Home!Kid? She's one of the few characters not accounted for in both worlds and she's clearly the most important to the plot.
122	** IIRC, WordOfGod says that she's up on the mainland somewhere. She's not plot important because she never gets involved in the shenanigans in El Nido.
123	** Home!Kid was successfully killed by Home!Lynx in the fire at the orphanage before he took the Home!Acacia Dragoons to the Dead Sea. We know the attack happened as well in Home World because we see Ghost!Lucca in the Dead Sea. Home!Serge rescues Another!Kid from the orphanage fire by traveling through time with the Mastermune. Cue "Girl Who Stole the Stars." This mirrors Another!Kid saving Home!Serge from drowning at Opassa Beach. They both saved each other in the past.
124	*** That is almost certainly wrong. Not only is rescuing Kid in the past a skippable sidequest, but Kid was quite able to escape on her own. No, the [[FridgeBrilliance logical reason]] for Kid(H) staying on the mainland is that while she may have been looking for Lynx, there were no rumors of Lynx being active in El Nido. Lynx died in the Dead Sea years ago, remember? On a tangent, The burning orphanage sequence wasn't about saving Kid's life, it was about saving her '''mind'''. After being controlled by Lynx and Fate, losing the Frozen Flame and missing out on killing Lynx, she had nothing left to drive her. Serge altered her memories (by altering the actual events via time travel) to strengthen his bond with Kid and give her the motivation to pull herself together.
125	* What's up with the dragons and the reality split? It seems like each dragon can choose which reality it exists in and effects, but why weren't two of each dragon created when reality split?
126	** Likely a result of the true nature, pieces of a greater whole and I believe it was said that it was FATE's way of hindering their efforts. It would make sense as the Dragons want Serge to kill FATE to allow the recombining.
127	* Is there an alternate or better translation/explanation regarding the ability to hop dimensions, because I've never really understood it. The game states (to my understanding) that Serge can jump from Another World to Home World because he's an anomaly. That is, he's supposed to be dead in Another World yet he's running around alive. If that's the case, why can he travel back to Another World when he's not an anomaly in Home World? Also, why can't Lynx travel from Home World to Another World? He's supposed to be dead (or frozen in time) in Home World, so he's an anomaly there, isn't he?
128	** Serge can travel between dimensions because there's sort of a Serge-shaped hole in whichever dimension he's not in at the moment. There's an imbalance because he's in one but not the other, and that imbalance "pulls" him through the hole in Opassa Beach where the barrier between the dimensions is thin, using the power of the astral amulet to "push" him across that barrier. It doesn't work for Lynx (or anyone else) because they're not the reason for the dimension split in the first place, so that "hole" isn't there.
129	*** Actually, Lynx CAN go between the dimensions whenever he wants, you just only see him in Another World in his actual body. After all, he's manipulating Porre in one world and the Dragoons in another. How could he do that if he can't pass between worlds? There's only 1 of him.
130	*** Actually, there are two of him--one is sealed up in the Dead Sea in Home World. Presumably that one helped Porre take over El Nido by removing the dragoons from the picture with the Dead Sea journey, so by the time of the events of the game he is already gone, but so are the dragoons and Porre has taken over Home's El Nido. After Lynx takes over Serge's body, Serge-as-Lynx has to unfreeze the Dead Sea to create a new distortion so as to make it back to Another--i.e., once Lynx possesses Serge he couldn't cross back (even if he could before) because the distortion was gone. (Lynx in Serge's body doesn't count as the anomaly that creates the distortion while Serge in Lynx's body was in the Vortex or Home World and thus couldn't create the distortion any more--as Harle said, he was just "an unwanted piece".)
131	* Why on earth did Schala just completely forget about her brother, the one who dedicated his life to getting the only person he truly cared about out of hell? Was this just a casualty of the Magus write-out?
132	** Where would it have come up? It's not like Schala has much chance to start randomly chatting about Janus.
133	** In the DS edition, Magus and Schala finally get a chance to talk after the party fights the Dream Devourer. Schala tells him that she is no longer the girl he once knew, and that he should "live, and be strong" without her. Furthermore, she tells the entire party that "the crutch of power" can never save her, and that they should forget they ever found her. Based on this, it's reasonable to conclude that Schala might think it's better that Janus lives happily and harmlessly as Guile (if we assume that an amnesiac Janus is Guile, which the DS version heavily implies), as opposed to slip back into Magus' power-hungry and remorseless persona (which is exactly the sort of behavior that Schala has come to despise in humanity).
134	* What does this line:
135	-->'''Lynx''':Now come to me, Serge! The Assassin of Time... THE CHRONO TRIGGER!!!
136	** and at Chronopolis:
137	-->Welcome back, Chrono Trigger
138	** then at Terra Tower:
139	-->'''Balthasar''': Now, go to the place where time became divided and weave the threads of time together again... Chrono Trigger!
140	** and finally, at Opassa Beach:
141	-->'''Crono''':It's now up to you to decide how you want to live. You are the new Chrono Trigger!
142	** mean? They would almost be ArcWords, except their meaning is never clear.
143	*** Probably nothing more than a gratuitous reference to the previous game. Sometimes a TitleDrop is just a TitleDrop.
144	** Bel talks about "weav[ing] the threads of time together again" and you're supposed to combine two timelines so that Lavos cannot be reborn. Also, Lucca said, "The Time Egg... The ancient sage, Gaspar, once called it the Chrono Trigger, you know?! Each of us allows our feelings to be a trigger... Letting them loose changes our world, time, and history!" This implies that anything that can cause great change to the world or time, whether it be an object or a person, is a Chrono Trigger.
145	** There was an actual item called the Chrono Trigger in ''Chrono Trigger'', an object made of pure potential that, under the right circumstances, could alter time itself; In this case, altering time so Crono never died. Serge represents that same potential. Under the right circumstances, he can alter time and prevent the Time Devourer from ever existing.
146	* Since FATE has such control over the destinies of the descendants of the Chronopolis factory workers, why did it allow the culture to become so pro-Dragon God/Dragonian? We know that the Dragon God is FATE's enemy. But until the arrival of the mainlanders, the human natives seem to have basically worshipped the Dragon Gods (if Steena's religion is indicative of the religion of the native humans in general). And this is not academic; this pro-Dragon God culture is directly responsible for Serge's willingness to trust the Dragon Gods when they fooled him into opposing FATE, and hence ultimately for FATE's demise. It is somewhat ironic that it was the recent immigrants from the mainland and their descendants, who FATE didn't want there for other reasons, who showed skepticism about the Dragons and Dragonians and preferred purely human culture. So if FATE can convince people to stop pursuing poetry or fishing, then why couldn't it take steps to ensure that its humans would shun the Dragon Gods and all of their culture, and hence eventually cause Serge to be suspicious of the Dragon Gods?
147	** The Dragon Gods were running a gambit against FATE in order to reunite. Presumably, the veneration from the people of El Nido was part of the scheme, and FATE either didn't know, or it knew but didn't view it as a threat.
148	** Of course, there's also the theory that FATE was working on Balthasar's plan all along, i.e. she was planning to get killed so that the Dragon God, and thus the Time Devourer, would be awakened. So it's possible that she wanted the Dragon God to be popular.
149	* Everything after you kill FATE. Namely: WHY does Kid basically cause the apocalypse and allow the dragons to unleash their masterplan? And Harle's attempt to talk her out of it does clarify that she is basically the one causing it. SO, I must ask, WHY. Why does some hidden part of her want to jumpstart the end of humanity? Is it because she she's a clone of Schala? Is it because of mind control? it's never fully explained what was happening there....
150	** Harle seems to believe that Schala/The Time Devourer had taken over Kid at that moment. She was in a fragile mental state at the time (Brainwashed by someone who just died) which could have created an opening. Alternatively, Kid might have been perfectly fine with no idea what Harle was babbling about ''until'' she actually unsealed the flame (which had always been a goal of hers, but not for any Time Devourer related reasons) and had the plot forced into her mind - driving her into the coma.
151	** I think Balthasar's plan dictates that the Dragon Gods be unleashed and defeated. Giving them what they want would probably be a good idea since Balthasar was manipulating everyone all along.
152	** Additionally, Kid's whole raison d'etre has been to get revenge on Lynx for killing her Sis. Now she comes out of her brainwashing only to find he's already dead and had been manipulating and using her against Serge and the others. She's been cheated of her vengeance as well as abused and violated, and now has nothing to show for her life or even to care about anymore. At this point it might look pretty attractive to take the Flame and lash out with it in a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds, TakingYouWithMe gambit. There's also the possibility (but this is pure speculation) that the Flame has power to control time travel (or Kid believes it does) due to being a piece of Lavos, and so she thinks she can use it to go back and save Lucca.
153	* When the party first confront Lynx, he says something about 'the end of humankind' or some such nonsense. From what I can remember, the wording of the phrase and the fact he is the BigBad (mostly) sort of makes it seem like this is his plan. However, by the end of the game, NONE of what he was going on about is referenced again and has NOTHING to do with his purpose and goals. In fact, it's the exact opposite! Or am I misremembering/missing something?
154	** FATE's plan (and, by extension, Lynx's plan) is to keep the Frozen Flame to herself so that no-one can cause her to cease to exist (this is also why she doesn't want anyone to leave El Nido). She may be planning to destroy everyone to keep it this way. Or, if you subscribe to the theory that she wants Balthasar's plan to succeed, she still wants to keep existing, but she's lying about destroying everyone to make herself seem like the villain, causing Serge to destroy her and subsequently the Dragon Gods.
155	* Why does Schala say she will search for Serge? Shouldn't it obvious to her where he is, i.e. A.D. 1020 in Arni?
156	** Well, wherever she ends up after the credits, it's clearly not El Nido 1020 A.D. She's smart enough to realize that it will take some effort for her to reach Serge after she integrates back into time.
157	* OK, so [[http://www.chronocompendium.com/images/wiki/d/db/Schala4.jpg this is Schala]] as she appears in Chrono Cross. Which is nothing at all like [[http://www.chronocompendium.com/images/wiki/e/eb/Schala.jpg how she appeared]] in Chrono Trigger. Even excusing an artist change, how the hell did her character design change so drastically? Is it because of Lavos? If so, then how the hell does it cause her to seemingly age ''backwards'' and change her outfit entirely?!
158	** Mix of censoring clothes, hair being unkempt, and the removal from Lavos might be factors.
159	** The royal family of Zeal dye their hair blue. There isn't a lot of hair dye in the Darkness Beyond Time.
160	*** This is an oft-repeated rumor that is simply incorrect. There is no mention of hair dye in any version of the game.
161	*** I think it's fairly clear that response was meant to be a (humorous) theory, not stating a fact based off a rumor or a line in CT.
162	** If that's the case, how (and why) does Janus dye his hair blue in the decades after he was tossed from Zeal? I don't expect there's a lot of blue hair dye in the time period he wound up in either.
163	*** Likely a result of his upbringing by fiends and/or his going into Shadow/Dark magic.
164	** Another possibility: the blue hair color of the royal line of Zeal is due to them having absorbed the power of Lavos, first through Zeal's overall magic usage, then through the Mammon Machine. The Queen was always connected to Lavos in some way, and Janus, being as powerful a magic-user as he was, had absorbed enough to make the coloring permanent. Plus, even in the Middle Ages he was still always trying to summon Lavos and thus still drawing indirectly on its magical power. But Schala is no longer connected to the real (now-destroyed) Lavos, just an alternate echo modeled after the Dragon God, and in any event the Time Devourer is feeding on ''her'', rather than she drawing power from ''it''. So, as that magic is siphoned back into it, Schala loses the blue and returns to the natural blond her family should have been all along.
165	*** What's particularly odd about this is that in artwork for Chrono Trigger, Janus and Schala were virtually identical aside from age and sex. If Schala is actually blonde, shouldn't she at least somewhat resemble Guile/Janus? It's not just her hair that's different - her eye shape and color are totally different as well.
166	* If Guile has enough magic to make his wand hover, why does he need the wand?
167	* Why is Serge's existence tied to the future of the world? One thing I didn't get is, how does Serge's prolonged existence in Home World affect whether or not Lavos will wake up and destroy the world in the future, thus creating the Dead Sea , I mean, you could make the argument that, since Serge is the Arbiter of the Frozen Flame, the Records of Fate no longer work and so Chronopolis' existence in the future is put at risk because of that, and that since Chronopolis came into being only in the Good Future, this means that the Bad Future is logically the one that will come to pass, but still, I don't see how Serge's death is tied to whether or not Crono and friends succeed at defeating Lavos.
168	** Home World being destroyed by Lavos is not a consequence of Serge's existence per se, it's a consequence of that world existing at all. It all comes from the fact that the timeline was split after 1000AD, but before 1999AD. Because of that, there is a single version of the Present trio from ''Chrono Trigger'' running around the timeline, but there are two Futures in need of saving, and they only saved the main timeline.
169	* After the battle with Garai, Radius says "Perhaps Glenn will take on that role, now that Dario is gone." But this is Radius from Home world, and in Home world, Glenn is already gone, lost in the Dead Sea expedition. (Furthermore, Home Dario turns out not to be gone, but Radius doesn't know that.) Is Home Radius referring to the Another Glenn he just learned exists from Serge? Or does he believe Home Glenn might still come back? Possible, but a strange remark either way.
170	** haha, this query is worded perfectly. I believe this can only be addressed in the two-fold fashion of HandWave and WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief though with a smattering of FourthWall. The easiest assumption is that all party members are taking in all events and interactions during gameplay so, yes, when Radius learns of Glenn's alternate existence he is merely openly speculating. The FourthWall comes into play if you take into consideration the writing style of the time, as everything is wistful and melancholy, so it stands to reason anything addressing tragedies or hopes-for-the-future will all come out in a fevered rush of brainstorming as the writers try to make sure everything feels alive and consistent. Though, ALSO! technically iianm Homeworld Radius has yet to witness the wormhole business in the Dead Sea along with the fate of Dario, making his statement yet consistent.
171	* So Lynx needed Serge's body to access the Frozen Flame because the door has a DNA check. Great. But hang on, part of the check includes a retina scan. Evil Serge quite clearly has different (red) eyes than Serge (blue), so how the hell did he pass the retina scan?
172	** HandWave, RuleofCool. The player only witnesses the eye anomaly due to the nature of the interwoven timelines/dimensions and proximity of the event AND the Flame. When Evil Serge gets to facility he will be outside of it's influence.
173	* Are the Ghost Children literally the ghosts of Crono, Marie, and Lucca or merely spirits taking their form?

Context Headscratchers / ChronoCross