So, if Crono and Marle are alive in 1020 A.D. (Lucca was killed by Lynx when she refused/couldn't remove the Prometheus Lock Circuit on the Frozen Flame), who are the Children of Time (the kids on Opassa Beach who expo-dump about the Time devourer)? They are echoes of Crono, Marle and Lucca, created by Scala when she sent them back to their own time after they defeated the Dream Devourer.
Alternatively, if the "gladiator" wins, it is free to indulge in the spoils and spawn offspring to take the flame elsewhere and try again (assuming the Flame does not also reabsorb this edited DNA.) By this logic, Lavos' species themselves would have been mutated from their original form by the flame at some point. Additionally, even if the future is saved, mankind will inevitably, unwittingly take the flame to some new world they hope to annex or clear out.
The amulet and the pendant are similar to each other: they both have magical, and mysterious, powers. The pendant can open sealed doors and chests, and is the trigger behind the Ocean Palace incident and the rise of the Black Omen. The amulet grants Sofia powers when she does good deeds (including superhuman abilities like making herself small or changing into animals), and it saves Elena from death at the hands of Shuriki. In both storylines, the jewel is of ancient origin, from a kingdom whose history isn't well known (the Kingdom of Zeal in Chrono Trigger, and the Kindgom of Maru in Sofia/Elena).
In Sofia the First, it's mentioned that the amulet connects princesses throughout time, and that all of its bearers have been princesses. In Chrono Trigger, the two characters who wear the pendant are Marle (a.k.a. Princess Nadia) and Schala (the princess of Zeal).
The Sofia and Elena timelines take place in a (relatively) short period of time, compared to Chrono Trigger, so under this theory, Sofia and Elena's timelines take place after the fall of Zeal, but before the founding of Guardia. The ancient Kindgom of Maru rose from the ruins of Zeal, and was founded by some of the Enlightened Ones. They recovered Schala's pendant, which they renamed the Amulet of Avalor. Thousands of years later, Elena and Sofia wore the amulet, and thousands of years after that, it eventually became Marle's pendant, setting forth the events of Chrono Trigger.
- The the most concrete safeguard against a paradox in this scenario could be assumed to be the limited technology at the time (1990 AD lol). If the footage of Lavos' emergence is taken from satellite imagery it could be (pardon please) reasonably reasoned that whatever satelite it was that happened to have a window to record, left that window as it continued through orbit, subsequently sealing THAT moment in time as the confrontational point. Looking a little further (and removing Balthasar's influence supposedly), if Lavos determined that that footage was pure and untouchable in that timeline, guaranteeing a confrontation, perhaps it altered its plans somehow during the initial contact with Schala. This would explain why there is no oppurtunity for the team to confront Schala in the desolate future, as Lavos has accounted for everything. Lastly, this time movement made by Lavos to alter itself could possibly have created the catalyst for the Dream Devourer in Cross, even though I think it is already justified by some kind of hurtling because of the Time Crash. This is futhers speculation of the entity Robo considers may be guiding or influencing their fate in some way.
- To be fair, every time travel story in existence- whether the characters visit the future or the past- has this problem, so the general rule is that the characters' memories can't be altered. A better question is, how is it possible that their massive interference in the past doesn't eliminate their own births?
- Time Traveller's Immunity.
- The canon in the DS almost seems to imply a tier system where Lavos merges with Schala to become the Dream Devourer who then on near defeat merges with the new fangled dimension power with other near defeated Dream Devourers, which after all Dream Devourers are either killed or merged becomes the Time Devourer. So by time Chrono Cross comes about all Lavos, lavi?, have been defeated in all dimensions. So either there are many parallel parties doing this, as hinted by the "evil" clones merging with the main characters, or there are a limited number of parallel universes of this type.
- The Chrono Trigger timeline has a way of correcting such paradoxes, shown when Marle is torn apart from the inside out because of her ancestor never being saved.
- Chrono Trigger definitely ends in a temporal paradox. The whole point of Chrono Cross is to undo that paradox by making the defeat of Lavos part of the true timeline. In the original timeline, Lavos emerged in 1999AD and destroyed the world. The events of Chrono Trigger created a paradox where it became possible to have a different outcome, that being the defeat of Lavos. The events of Chrono Cross then made it possible to take that newly created outcome of defeating Lavos and replace the outcome where Lavos destroys the world in the original timeline, thereby completely remaking the truth of the original timeline. By the end of Chrono Cross, we've closed the paradox from Chrono Trigger while simultaneously ensuring that Lavos will always be defeated in ALL timelines. Of course, this was all a MASSIVE Batman Gambit by Belthasar. The Belthasar in 2300AD of the ruined future had to not only help orchestrate the events of Chrono Trigger, but he had the foresight to realize that if Crono succeeded in defeating Lavos, it would create a temporal paradox that would have an alternate version of himself in the newly created good future who would then realize that a paradox actually existed in the first place. Knowing himself, Belthasar knew that the alternate Belthasar would then seek a way of closing the paradox in a way that would result in always ensuring that Lavos was defeated, and he did this through orchestrating the events of Chrono Cross. And to top it all off, 2300AD Belthasar masterminded this entire scheme knowing that if his plan was successful, it would ultimately result in him having never existed since the ruined future would be completely replaced by the good future in the true timeline. Belthasar was basically the ultimate Chess Master.
- But in the original, pre-Crono-et-al-finding-time-gates timeline, nobody breaks into Magus's fortress, but he is killed by Lavos after summoning him, ending the Mystic War. If he had succeeded in defeating Lavos at that point, Guardia, already losing the war, would have been conquered.
- Magus however, doesn't seem to care about the Mystic-Human conflict. All he really cares about is Lavos. If Magus had beaten Lavos, he could have stopped caring about the war and the humans would win. Or perhaps he was mortally wounded in the battle.
- The monsters on the Mountain of Woe seem to imply that Mystics already existed before Zeal's fall; however, it's possible that they were created in advance of Janus even being born.
- Or it had humanity develop technology based on itself.
- In the beta, certain promotional materials, etc. shows the second form's chamber as clearly more mechanical in nature. Taking into account time altering powers, distance travel, ability to reproduce, etc. perhaps it was post singularity product of said race gone horribly wrong.
- In addition to Lavos' ability being effectively identical to Cells, and part of Lavos being also identical to one of Cell's forms, Future Trunks already inadvertently generated at least three alternate futures—the one where he prevented Goku's death via heart attack and Cells emergence in the "main" timeline, the one where he was ambushed by a future Cell (which traveled back in time to secure his own existence), and the one where he prevented the same. Furthermore, Dragon Ball Xenoverse formally canonized that any "major" historical event could have had any number of outcomes. So some version of Cell must have won the Cell games, devastated the Earth, and sent his spawn off to conquer the universe; Chrono Trigger just so happens to be one of the times he was thwarted—ironically enough by a Goku-lookalike—in doing the same to another planet.
- Norstein Bekkler probably could've made a Schala clone, though Crono still couldn't have come back.
- Post Chrono's rescue, you can win clones of everybody else in your party if you put them in the lead. Too bad you can't get extra Time Eggs...
- Well, then just rescue them both with the single Time Egg, then. Kill two birds with one stone.
- Huh. Important to the timeline . . . so save Schala, reunite her with Magus/Janus in 600AD, somehow confront Queen Zeal during her abuse of Lavos and somehow quell Lavos for the time being. Grown Magus/Janus and Schala could possibly (POSSIBLY) preserve or resurrect the Kingdom of Zeal together (after reuniting them with the Guru's with some time travel) hopefully creating some sort of significant occurence in defense against Lavos in 1999AD. maybe. idk. It seems realistic because they have first-hand experience of it's power AND will probably be ready with a Sun Stone, AND maybe repair the Mammon Machine and hook it to something non-Lavos-y. Adaptation Deviation .
- Post Chrono's rescue, you can win clones of everybody else in your party if you put them in the lead. Too bad you can't get extra Time Eggs...
- Conversely, this troper once heard a theory that Crono was from the Dark Ages/Antiquity. The main support for this theory was his unusual hairstyle (on par with the other citizens of 12,000 B.C.), his love of sleeping (displayed during the game's opening and a few of the endings, and shared with the people of Enhasa), and the fact that Schala knew his name, having stated it right after she sends the rest of the team away in the Ocean Palace. The last point can be explained easily, since the rest of the team had been shouting his name mere moments ago, when he was killed by Lavos, but the other two make a strong point. There's also the fact that Lightning/Light magic users don't seem to be terribly common.
Once the plot is kicked into gear, Lucca manages to get the Gate Key working in short order and seems to be fairly knowledgeable regarding the situation and how Gates work.
- Going off on a tangent: Taking time travel and passage of time into account, she could have possibly been working on it for longer than we think. After all, Crono going after Marle into the then unstable Gate was minutes from his perspective, yet she's already established as having been found, mistaken for Leene, and back at the castle. If the timelines were moving at a 1:1 ratio in terms to their relation to one another, wouldn't Crono have seen Marle in the canyon? Lucca making the Gate stable could have allowed her to pinpoint onto roughly the time Crono arrived, but for her she may not have seen him for weeks.
Anyway, once the party is in the future, Lucca is somehow able to operate tech from 1999? Even taking the idea that this is a world with Schizo Tech into account, it seems highly unlikely that Lucca would be able to instantly get to work on the computer in the Arris Dome without at least some need to figure out how it works. The only explanation is that she clearly has encountered this tech before.
- A theoretical timeline for the Ashtear family:
- Taban is a scientist in the future. He has a wife named Lara, and a daughter named Lucca. They are from 1999.
- While knowledge isn't widespread, some folks do know of Lavos as we see when the director of the 1999 Arris Dome mentions him by name in the bad ending.
- Knowing that a disaster involving Lavos might be imminent, it's possible the government may have enacted a top secret plan to try and stop Lavos.
- During the chaos of the Day of Lavos, the plan is put into effect. Taban is sent back in time with his family in an attempt to kickstart technological advances early in the hope that this might advance technology enough to destroy Lavos in 1999.
- The family ends up around 990 AD, the incident with Lucca's mother occurs, etc.
- As she gets older, Lucca learns of their purpose in the past and is tasked with continuing Taban's work.
- She eventually meets and befriends Crono, but never tells him of her true origin.
- The events at the fair happen. Taban keeps up appearances for Crono's sake as he doesn't anticipate him going after Marle. Following that, him and Lucca are quickly able to get the Gate stabilized and the Gate Key made.
- The party eventually winds up in 2300 AD. As this would be when Lucca finally realizes the true scale of the destruction her family escaped, she now knows that the plan to kickstart an early industrial revolution is doomed to fail, and despite her better judgement, she follows along with Marle's suggestion that they could use time travel itself to change the future.
- This is also how her name shows up in the Chronopolis records; as well as why Chronopolis shows up in her "alternate universe" in the DS.
- Also, consider Doan. He shows up at the good ending to congratulate the heroes for saving the future, but if it was changed, he wouldn't have any memories of an apocalyptic one...unless he'd done some temporal hopping to pick up Time Traveler's Immunity. Sounds like someone's been taking passengers and making trips to the future behind everyone's backs. No wonder Miss Ashtear was so many centuries ahead of her time.
- Robots existed in 1000 AD, even before Lucca's supposed visit to Chronopolis - Gato was built by Lucca, so she must have at least some knowledge of robotics. We could also assume that off-screen, Lucca takes a screwdriver to the defeated robot enemies for scientific research, allowing for the repair of Robo (and possibly the knowledge of computer systems - you can't use any computer systems until defeating the Guardian robot, which would have a lot of future-circuitry to educate oneself with...)
- Of course he's afraid of humanity. Look at what Ayla can do at level 99! Good thing he replaced their "Hand" abilities with just magic.
- Perhaps humanity died out in the ice age after 65000000 BC, and had just evolved back to the point of humanity again by 12000 BC?
- Except that Kino and Ayla where mentioned as Marle's ancestor in one of the endings.
- Magus can control other elements, so he's a fully realized Avatar. Maybe Crono has a little bit of Magus kicking around inside him?
- They're both Avatars! Magus was born 12000 years before Chrono. Chrono is his reincarnation.
- Crono is Aang, Robo is Toph, Lucca is Zuko, Frog is Sokka, and Marle is Katara. Only with this Avatar, his earth(ish)bending friend is a Defector from Decadence, and not the firebender. Ayla and Magus aren't part of the Five-Man Band, so I'm not counting them.
- Ayla is Suki. (Ty Lee fits her better, but eh.)
- They're both Avatars! Magus was born 12000 years before Chrono. Chrono is his reincarnation.
- I like this one. At every other non-1000 AD point in the game, you have (or at least, can potentially have) the Gate Key, Marle's pendant, if not both.
- ID'ing time travel as different for Marle reminded me: Shouldn't Marle's pendant have had some exposure to Lavos from 12000BC and be made from the Red Stone? Second (and technically worse) if Lucca had been meddling with various time travelling then maybe she took the time to study the pendant and build something to either make look like an accident for the sake of science, OR to correct that temporal thing from stopping Lavo's.
- For those keeping score, this means there are three different Jani seen in the game. The one from the original timeline who became the Magus that you either kill or allow to join your party, the one becomes someone new in the "second" Antiquity, and the one who challenges the Devourer at Time's Eclipse; but gets memory erased (apparently into Guile.)
- IIRC There's a person who tells the party that Janus was sucked into a strange black portal.
- Said person was an Earthbound One who would never have been at the Ocean Palace to witness what he described. More likely he witnessed this occurrence while Melchior and Janus were at Terra Cave. The circumstances altered because of Crono & co's interference.
- Theory time: In the original timeline Janus and Melchior are sucked into black portals in the Ocean Palace. When Crono and co. interfere; the same events occur - they vanish, they just happen to be with the Earthbound Ones.
- In relation to the DS remake's Magus, he seems to recognize Crono and co (clearly stating "we"; though because I didn't kill him, who knows if the line can be different) so it is likely he is the same Magus from the original timeline (and the one who joins your party) just from the future without Lavos.
- Said person was an Earthbound One who would never have been at the Ocean Palace to witness what he described. More likely he witnessed this occurrence while Melchior and Janus were at Terra Cave. The circumstances altered because of Crono & co's interference.
- The only hole to poke in this is: what is the significance? The only clean scenario I can conceive is, instead of being destroyed by Lavos when he summoned it to the castle he was still flung back to Zeal because he damaged Lavos enough or Lavos spazzed or something and the OP's original event then ensued. This creates one more fun scenario hiccup though. If the timelines could merge here because Magus MUST go through a portal at that confrontation regardless of Crono & co's influence, and BOTH Magus's/Janus's whatever could be there, given the events that played out, it is impossible to determine WHICH of those Magus's/Janus's fulfilled events in The Prophet's Guile to meet with everyone in the canon Crono Trigger timeline. Would they have battled or would one have gone his separate way?
- Chrono Cross is one huge Batman Gambit by Belthasar designed to destroy Lavos, as transformed into the Time Devourer, and free Schala.
- That...makes a crazy kind of sense.
- Alternately, since the more cat food you win from Norstein Bekkler the more cats you get, they're different cats, but they're still all the cats Crono owns and the ones that jump into the time gate during the regular ending.
- OR are they the same "different" cat? Perhaps Norstein has a time portal where he feeds one cat in one end and 2 come out from the other side (slightly different time periods, like a puppy farm but ethical). Read below, Norstein could be a time traveler from Zeal. It makes this troper wonder if the cats were a "catalyst" (hur hur) for the whole adventure.
- He actually had someone playing music during his battle, and told them to switch because he needed something more appropriate.
- Given his inflated ego and show-off attitude, that actually makes a lot of sense.
- Given that she has very strong magic, I would say that's probably true. She seems like a Kajar descendant. Perhaps her mom's anscestor came through a portal to 600 AD.
- Isn't everyone (except Ayla and Robo) technically a descendant of the Enlightened Ones? That's the whole reason Spekkio can unlock their magic in the first place. For all we know, there are more people who have seemingly unusual hair colours, but they're rare and we can see numerous houses in the world map that we don't get to enter.
- Yes, but it irritates me when people go on in fanfiction about blue being such a rare hair color in the world when a pretty notable non-Zeal NPC has it.
- You have to admit, though, that she's pretty singular in that era. In fact, howbout we take it up a notch...
- Several of Queen Leene's attendants had that coloured hair.
- Isn't everyone (except Ayla and Robo) technically a descendant of the Enlightened Ones? That's the whole reason Spekkio can unlock their magic in the first place. For all we know, there are more people who have seemingly unusual hair colours, but they're rare and we can see numerous houses in the world map that we don't get to enter.
- Recall Gaspar's words: Zeal is now "living out a normal life", or something to that effect. Given her atemporailty when you defeat her, she could conceivably end up anywhen; why not somewhen in the vicinity of 980? This would technically make Lucca Janus' and Schala's half-sister! (or niece, possibly some degree removed, depending on just when Zeal actually got dropped)
- The theory that Vera, from Radical Dreamers, is in fact Queen Zeal supports this. She's no longer connected to Lavos, and therefore mortal, so she continues to age again (Vera is, in fact, pretty old when you meet her). If she was dropped to around 980 A.D., then she would, by the time Radical Dreamers' story comes along, be in her sixties at least, probably closer to seventy. That would help fit the old crone look she's got by then.
- This actually comes up in a fanfic that this troper read once. When the party first meets Ayla, she wonders why they're speaking the Reptite language. This makes sense in the game's plot since it's possible Ayla had the humans adopt the Reptite language to honor Azala after the latter's death.
- Ayla: 'Azala... me not forget...
- It would really suck if Ayla decided to go back to the first human language after her victory. The rest of the gang would go back to their times unable to understand anything said to them.
- Languages evolve faster than creatures. There is no way the people from 1000 AD would sound just like the people from 600 AD (Eyes Cream notwithstanding). But to say that people from 12,000 BC speak the same language as people in 65,000,000 BC AND 2,300 AD is just nonsense. So I must assume that the main characters all have some kind of invisible translator key item.
- Or...
- So Ayla originally named Lavos by combining 2 words from the original language humans had. That also means some people back then might have been actually fluent in the original language but chose to speak English for the reasons above.
- Languages evolve faster than creatures. There is no way the people from 1000 AD would sound just like the people from 600 AD (Eyes Cream notwithstanding). But to say that people from 12,000 BC speak the same language as people in 65,000,000 BC AND 2,300 AD is just nonsense. So I must assume that the main characters all have some kind of invisible translator key item.
If you think about it, how else could Belthasar know of his existence and how he likes fairs, and how else does he have the ability to create extremely accurate clones/dolls of anyone, even if he has never seen them? My theory is that Norstein Bekkler was once a normal person from Zeal, but at some point, Queen Zeal banished him and changed his form. When Lavos woke up in the Ocean Palace, the time distortion affected Bekkler and sent him to 1000 AD or some time before. Either that, or he was sent to the End of Time and showed up shortly after Gaspar did, and figured out how to travel through time. Either way, he found a job at the Millenial Fair, which kept him happy during the events of Chrono Trigger. It also explains why he was willing to make a Chrono clone, as he understood the events of the Ocean Palace, how much of a corrupted monster Queen Zeal was thanks to Lavos' power, and was happy to help anyone who could defeat Lavos.
- This actually comes up in a fanfic that this troper read once. He's currently looking for it as he's typing this. when he finds it, he'll edit this.
- Belthasar knew Bekklar was at the fair because he also worked at the fair, remember? And being one of the only human-esque magic users of the era, he might have had an interest? The others are interesting points.
- Umm, no. Melchior was at the fair. Belthasar was in 2300 A.D.
- Don't forget about the room where you fight Queen Zeal in the Black Omen(before she transforms). There are a bunch of clones of the party there. Maybe Bekklar was responsible for that.
- Look at Norstein Bekkler, now look at what the Queen Zeal transform into at the top of the Black Omen.
- This article on the Chrono Compendium notes it as a mass of land somehow separated into it's own dimension before the events of 65,000,000 BC. IIRC, the Reptites there don't even recognize humans either. So you are right in some aspects, but it's probably not visited in Chrono Cross.
"What about the Dream Devourer and the Sequel Hook?", I hear you ask. That's actually pretty simple. The alternate-timeline Magus that initially tries to stop the Dream Devourer is from Chrono Cross's initial timeiline, where the Dimensional Vortex never appeared, Dalton conquers Guardia, and a mindwiped Magus goes searching for Schala. He gets sent back to a different part of his own timeline, not the one where the Dimensional Vortex appeared and Dalton gets stopped. Which is why "the fall of Guardia" plays after we see him, and nobody else. Like he said, "there are as many worlds as there are potentialities."
- This troper took the same away from the DS remake. Chrono and co. meet Chrono Cross Magus and try to defeat the Dream Devourer, fail, and are sent back to their own universe by Schala. Realizing the danger if Lavos merged with Schala they promptly destroy Lavos, save the future, and with peace restored, Magus goes off searching for Schala whom in the absence of Lavos to merge with is out there somewhere. Possibly reincarnated as the baby Lucca finds. Lucca just happens to also invent the RX series while she's at it, which also ensures the peaceful future we see Robo in occurs. Meanwhile bad stuff happens in the Chrono Cross universe but that's not our party's problem.
- omg. awesome. this would explain why Crono and party appear at the distortion on the beach in Crono Cross (it being the only apparent or primary or whatever way of travelling supernaturally in any way in Crono Cross not governed by others (Chronopolis, Dragons, Lavos Fragment, etc)), making it not some insane hallucination on Serge's part. They would have access to cross worlds at the vortex in this " 'alternate' DS version" obviously because Serge has created the neccessity for this distortion for himself in the (I say) Cross time period, with no small aid from Lynx and the Dragon Tear's power. This distortion is either the same, or very similar, and in either case serves the purpose of those in need of it. There is no evidence to suggest Crono and others are ACTUALLY interacting with Serge when they fade in, but if the distortion IS the same one, Serge is either using it first and his actions allow or prevent Crono and them from meeting Crono Cross Magus for anything just yet (just for time placement's sake), or Serge is using it after Crono and co and is viewing their afterthoughts because they DO get flung back, or it is somehow happening at the same time. The Dimensional Vortex is hosting the Time Distortion Crono and co are travelling through so . . . The only thing that holds this together is that the distortion exists ONLY due to Serge and Lynx's efforts (er, Lynx's manipulations and Serge picking up the slack so to speak). Serge's position grants him a degree of omnipotence towards the distortion. If they hadn't known what they were doing, it probably wouldn't have appeared as the original time warps in Trigger did (accidentally), and they wouldn't know exactly what it was for anyway.
- Also, could Magus have trained or teamed up with any of the magic users in Cross? A few of them were obsessed with finding things, like Guile iirc.
- omg. awesome. this would explain why Crono and party appear at the distortion on the beach in Crono Cross (it being the only apparent or primary or whatever way of travelling supernaturally in any way in Crono Cross not governed by others (Chronopolis, Dragons, Lavos Fragment, etc)), making it not some insane hallucination on Serge's part. They would have access to cross worlds at the vortex in this " 'alternate' DS version" obviously because Serge has created the neccessity for this distortion for himself in the (I say) Cross time period, with no small aid from Lynx and the Dragon Tear's power. This distortion is either the same, or very similar, and in either case serves the purpose of those in need of it. There is no evidence to suggest Crono and others are ACTUALLY interacting with Serge when they fade in, but if the distortion IS the same one, Serge is either using it first and his actions allow or prevent Crono and them from meeting Crono Cross Magus for anything just yet (just for time placement's sake), or Serge is using it after Crono and co and is viewing their afterthoughts because they DO get flung back, or it is somehow happening at the same time. The Dimensional Vortex is hosting the Time Distortion Crono and co are travelling through so . . . The only thing that holds this together is that the distortion exists ONLY due to Serge and Lynx's efforts (er, Lynx's manipulations and Serge picking up the slack so to speak). Serge's position grants him a degree of omnipotence towards the distortion. If they hadn't known what they were doing, it probably wouldn't have appeared as the original time warps in Trigger did (accidentally), and they wouldn't know exactly what it was for anyway.
- Jossed by the DS remake. She no longer says this and instead asks for the humans to take care of the planet.
- De-jossed by the fact that in the original Japanese version, her last words are simply "The future..."
- Lavos has partaken of the genetic diversity of the entire world. Perhaps he took that from the Yakras.
- This... May be the greatest WMG in the history of anything. In fact, one might even be able to prove WHAT Lavos was doing sitting on a single planet for those millions of years. It's been well established that the Reapers are absolutely ancient, and since they seem to need MASSIVE amounts of living resources to be able to reproduce, one can come to the logical conclusion that Lavos was Reaper damaged by some form of weapon by a species predating the aliens which destroyed that Reaper over Mnemosyne. Noting a planet with some serious evolutionary potential, he landed, burrowed within the ground, and unleashed the ultimate indoctrinating artifact, the Frozen Flame. As luck would have it, the inhabitants of the planet had even more biotic potential than the asari, essentially giving them near-magical abilities. Simply by guiding the planets evolution, Lavos' ultimate plan would have been to use these humans to repair itself fully, returning as what would likely be an immensely powerful being, even by Reaper standards, and torch the planet after it was finished with it. Thankfully, a Shepard-esque figure, Crono, would rise up and kill him before it was too late, saving not only their planet, but perhaps the entire universe from 'Lavos the Super-Reaper.'
- Perhaps Lavos is a proto-Reaper, the species that became the Reapers. At some point, a one of the Lavos-entities decided to evolve itself into a mechanical form.
- You mean a Leviathan? Yeah, actually the size is about right...
- Also, take a look at the Black Omen, the thing that was built using Lavos' power. Take a good, long look. Are we sure BioWare wasn't playing this game when they came up with Sovereign's design?
- Robo's theme uses the Royal Road chord progression, which is common in pop songs in both the USA and Japan at the time. Even confirmed in an interview with the composer that he never heard Rick Astley's music prior to composing Trigger's music score.
- Unfortunately for this theory, before they're seen in dresses, the queens use the commoner sprites, but this could possibly be Hand Waved that the royal family has a penchant for Rebellious Princesses, or just that they didn't want to make whole new 'young princess' sprites that would show up for all of ten frames.
- They also show only four, including Leene and Marle, when there would actually be a fourteen-generation difference, and it showed Leene being kidnapped by a Blue Imp. At any rate, the most it shows is that Guardia's succession is not male-only.
- Crono is, at one point, accused of being a kidnapper, and trying to "confuse the princess and take over the throne".
- In the alternative...
- Jossed. It's stated in 600 AD that Leene married into the Guardia family.
- He is Frog's descendant
- This is manly because Frog say that Chrono was really good with the sword. Yeah, Chrono use a katana and Frog use a classic sword, but still. that could be because Chrono inheritace frog's ability with the sword.
- He and Lucca descend's from the blacksmith.
- And that's why they are so good friend, thay discovered that they have an ancestor in common and that's was the start of a good friendship.
- He descend's from ''another" line of heritage.
- Note that basic population genetics shows that a past individual ancestral to any particular present individual will (and must!), if sufficient time has passed, be ancestral to all other present individuals too. Since it's canon that Ayla is an ancestor Marle, and 65 million years is plenty long enough, Ayla and Kino are, in fact, common ancestors of all the other human characters in all the other time periods in the game.
The only way any of the above makes sense is if all his magical ability lies in manipulating others, and for all his showmanship he's actually pretty good at the political game - he only seems like a blowhard because 1) the party is explicitly throwing a king-sized spanner in the works during Antiquity, and B) he activates his magic by overacting - Spekkio says magic takes strength of character, he takes it up a notch.
All his actions and abilities are based on this principle - when he loses a battle, he gets so spiteful it manifests as one last attack. He can convince enough powerful people to band together and, over time, build up an outlying town enough to take over an unprepared kingdom. He can even magically force the party to fall for a blatant "Look, a Distraction!" long enough to knock them out with his limited attack magic. It all boils down to a sophisticated Jedi mind trick.
- I never saw it as a 'good vs. evil' kind of conflict. Just two species struggling for territory and resources until one of them is gone. Given that, it could be seen as a Worthy Opponent kind of thing.
- Since Magus had to die sometime, maybe that made the curse go away (and if Magus joined, maybe he undid it at the end because you see him in the cutscene at the end of the DS version) he turned back into Glenn (I guess that after saving the queen in Manolia Cathedral, not being able to tell her yet, and sulking in Cursed Woods for a while without being given the Masamune made him make his move even if he is a frog) and got with the Queen. When you travel through time with Frog, then since Frog was never there, King Guardia was the ancestor, so that at the end when Frog goes home, Frog's the ancestor again.
- Alternately, Glenn was always Marle's ancestor. King Guardia XXI dies sometime after 600 A.D. without siring an heir. Glenn, the kingdom's greatest hero, is crowned king(either being chosen by the Kingdom's council/advisors or through coming out on top in a Succession Crisis), marries Leene(either to provide a sense of continuity or because they fell in love during the whole mess), and in the historical tradition of people taking on new names upon ascending to a throne, becomes Guardia XXII.
- Spekkio has the ability to grant people magic power. The Frozen Flame, a piece of Lavos itself granted the human race magic power.
- I was always under the impression that Lavos and Jenova were related somehow. We don't learn a lot about either of their histories or origins, but both Lavos and Jenova are incredibly resilient cosmic parasites that can absorb DNA and memories to modify themselves. Jenova doesn't show any of Lavos' time-space warping powers, and in general it seems to be less intelligent, so perhaps at some point after absorbing the Lifestream, it mutates into a giant space flea and attempts to become the ultimate life-form.
- The planet (which somehow had sentience of some sorts) knowing the end was near, remembered key moments of it's life before it finally laid to rest. That is why each of the times you can go to are either essential to Lavos destruction of the world or were about important milestones to humanity. This coincidentally helped save the planet and create a better future.
- You're not alone in thinking this- this Troper has had the same thought for years.
- There is no entity, no dying planet, whatsoever, the gates are formed in period where mass annihilation took place and just before said annihilation take place:
- The reptite extinction in 65M B.C.
- The fall of Zeal Kingdom in 12k B.C.
- The war between humans and mystics in 600 A.D.
- The day of lavos 1999 A.D.
- The human extinction in 2300 A.D. at the hands of the machines.
- Something that was about to happen in 1000 A.D. Could be the fall of Guardia or a second Human Mystic war.
- Although this is just guessing, it may be a bit possible that not only due to the timeline it took place (at least in 1000 A.D. wise), but also some of the influences that was seen (ex. characters designed by Akira Toriyama), the Chrono Trigger Present Time may have taken place long after the Dragon Ball series had ended, but this is just a theory.
- So then, what happened to the Saiyans? Crono and Co. are powerful, but they ain't THAT powerful. Not even Lucca and Ayla.
- The MMORPG Dragon Ball Online (canon??) takes place 216 years after the end of Dragon Ball Z. In that game, Saiyans are a thing of the past (I'm guessing because the few existing ones died out). However, the frequent breeding between Sayians and humans made so that the latter acquired traits of the former (including the transformations). All the detail given in the MMO about the future of the Dragon Ball franchise actually makes this WMG unlikely, though.
- So then, what happened to the Saiyans? Crono and Co. are powerful, but they ain't THAT powerful. Not even Lucca and Ayla.
- The game is pretty explicit in insinuating that Lavos killed Magus AND destroyed his castle in the unaltered timeline. I think the 1000AD Mystics refer to Magus attempting to summon Lavos before "mysteriously vanishing", which eventually led to the humans winning the war with the Mystics in 600AD. Even as strong as Magus is with magic, he still vastly underestimated the power of Lavos. Crono and co. technically saved his life by interfering with the summoning ritual.
- Furthermore, the Mammon Machine isn't a power-up for Lavos, on the contrary, it works by draining its energy. The Lavos you fight on the Dark Age is stronger for gameplay reasons only.
- Or is it? After all, it seems somewhat odd that Queen Zeal - now completely in Lavos's thrall - would keep the Mammon Machine around after the Ocean Palace incident. Why would she bother to preserve a machine that makes her patron "deity" weaker rather than just destroying it after it's served its purpose?
- I don't think it has an appreciable effect on Lavos at all, really. The Mammon Machine is kept around because it converts Lavos' power into power for Zeal, but given the scale that Lavos exists on, I would think it would more leech off radiation rather than actually sapping Lavos himself.
- Or is it? After all, it seems somewhat odd that Queen Zeal - now completely in Lavos's thrall - would keep the Mammon Machine around after the Ocean Palace incident. Why would she bother to preserve a machine that makes her patron "deity" weaker rather than just destroying it after it's served its purpose?
- Time travel alone doesn't cause timelines to split. You can only get temporal paradoxes this way. Split timelines occur in the CT/CC universe when something that exists outside of the flow of time directly affects the timeline in question. This happens in Chrono Cross when Kid, who was the avatar of Schala, saves Serge from drowning. In the original timeline Serge was supposed to die, and by changing that event it caused the timeline to split in two. Crono's party does a lot of time travelling back and forth in their timeline, but they always exist within their timeline. Schala, after being absorbed by Lavos, exists outside of the timestream from that point on and as such does not require time travel to affect the timeline.
- Well, it's never addressed how big of a change splits two dimensions. Why does the universe care more about Serge than a Reptite you may have killed in 65,000,000 B.C.? What if the Reptite had descendants, and they all vanish from existence? That's enough to constitute a different reality to some degree, even though the changes don't affect the main characters. Since nothing changes before the only incident of time travel in Chross, that means that a change only needs to affect part of all of the time in a universe. If you leave footprints in a time period that weren't there before time travel, then a short period of time is now altered. Also, as the future and/or alternate dimension Magus says when he meets the party before fighting the Dream Devourer (DS version), "There are as many dimensions as potentialities."
- Hrm. In the case of Chrono Cross, EVRYTHING revolves around Serge, in particular because Schala avatar Kid rescues Serge because she is not affected by the timeline per se (don't know which Schala it is) and this occurs in a time when the Frozen Flame is a part of a mega-computer ironically, here, dubbed FATE . It would seem destiny or fate took offense to unleash the events of Chrono Cross. And, if I may be so bold, technically a second dimension is not created since there is a place where defunct timelines actually exist in limbo until some sort of action is accomplished The second dimension exists only as way to allow for a solution to an upset fate.
- Well, it's never addressed how big of a change splits two dimensions. Why does the universe care more about Serge than a Reptite you may have killed in 65,000,000 B.C.? What if the Reptite had descendants, and they all vanish from existence? That's enough to constitute a different reality to some degree, even though the changes don't affect the main characters. Since nothing changes before the only incident of time travel in Chross, that means that a change only needs to affect part of all of the time in a universe. If you leave footprints in a time period that weren't there before time travel, then a short period of time is now altered. Also, as the future and/or alternate dimension Magus says when he meets the party before fighting the Dream Devourer (DS version), "There are as many dimensions as potentialities."
- Jossed, at least in the DS translation, where they're just called "potions".
- 600 AD - Janus(Magus)
- 1000 AD - Melchior
- 2300 AD - Balthesar
- End of Time - Gaspar
Of course, that leaves 65m BC and 1999 AD as unaccounted for arrivals. My theory is that Schala was the one sent to 1999 AD, where she encountered Lavos again, which ended with Lavos' spatial/time warping sending her to the darkness beyond time. Now existing in a place beyond time that would still allow her to affect the timeline, she created gates where her family and friends had been banished to in an attempt to get them to help her avoid being jettisoned outside time, but refusing to sell Melchior Marle's amulet meant the wrong person jumped at the call.
The people aboard Magus' ship knew that Zeal's destruction was a direct result of the way they lived, so Magus persuades her sister to erase everyone's memories and let them start new lives, as equals. She succeeds... for everyone but Magus; they are in a rush, and he is too powerful for it to take. So Magus disguises himself as a bellringer (getting the idea from Leene Square), the villagers, now no longer in Zeal regalia, go about their day-to-day lives on the new islands they land on, and Schala has two children, both with extraordinary magical powers. Magus falls forever silent, knowing the person he cares about most no longer remembers who he is, but taking solace in the fact that he saved her. Then... well, you know.
Meanwhile, Lavos still exists beneath the earth, though everyone has a different name for it: a common one is the Dark Dragon. Dalton, having stolen and modified the Epoch with no resistance, attempts to use Lavos' remaining influence to take over the world. However, being Dalton, he fails, and is thrown through time and space into the body of a small child sometime in the 1990s. Despite his remaining delusions of grandeur he is powerless, weak, and disliked by everyone he meets... until he finds a device, akin to the Mammon Machine, that allows him to tap into Lavos' influence again. Having done so, and thus having regained his powers, he finds the Epoch again and uses it to do bad shit; he destroys Guardia then, looking for something else to do, kidnaps people from throughout time and space and heads for the refuge of former residents of Zeal. He takes the name of "Porky," after the taunts.
Spekkio, meanwhile, finally gets off his ass and uses his power to take on guises to split himself into seven humanoid forms, each of which seals Lavos away with a Dreamstone needle. For reasons only known to himself, those guises look like Flea. One of them, however, becomes corrupted by Lavos' power and becomes a traitor.
Of the main party:
Crono remains dead.Lucca lands in the 1990s. Traumatized even further by their quest, devotes the rest of her new life to trying to stop Lavos and Dalton, primarily through the creation of part-human, part-mechanical beings like Robo. However, before she can, Dalton kidnaps her and forces her to work for him. She also has a kid, though she abandons him.Marle's pendant reacts to the gate again and she's flung into the same time as Schala and the rest. Panicking, Magus basically makes a bunch of shit up in a hurry as her backstory and hands her to Spekkio to raise, as he's the only one around who remembers how to deal with magic users. During this time, she dyes her hair pink.Frog becomes, of course, a frog, albeit one who makes himself useful.Robo is also picked up by Dalton and is used as the prototype for the Claymen. While Dalton is in 2300 AD, he also picks up some of the Enertrons, which he slaps a pig nose onto and claims he invented.Ayla gets flung back into her own time. Her connection to the plot was always the most tenuous anyway.
Random stuff:
Some Nus also make it onto the White Ship, but Magus can't think of anything to do with them, so they just wander off into their own valley and do their own thing. A couple of them are worshipped by far-off cultures.The fate of everyone in Mother, except the ones Dalton abducts, is accounted for by the Day of Lavos.Buzz Buzz would probably be one of the Gurus of Time, perhaps Belthazar as their names sound similar. Maybe his final act was to go to just before the Day of Lavos, trying to prevent it. You never do see his body.The Ultimate Chimera is Lucca's attempt to splice a Nu and Lavos' spawn. It works as well as you'd expect.Zexonyte is Dreamstone. The whole business about the Phase Distorter killing people was Lucca talking out of her ass (you'll notice nothing actually happens to any of the Earthbound heroes).
Theoretically, since the party is teleported away right in front of it, Schala could have borrowed a bit more power to then get herself out as well. However, both Chrono Cross and especially Radical Dreamers establish that she felt responsible for all of the terrible events brought on by the incident (Crono's death, the destruction of Zeal, etc) and in her guilt, lost the will to live. She may have realized it was possible to save herself as well, but simply refused to do so, especially if her salvation was coming from the Mammon Machine.
- Lavos was created by a likely long dead eons old race. It has a programmed purpose: go to a planet with life, alter it to improve the native species there over millions of years, absorb the result into itself to improve itself, then annhilate most if not all life on said planet, make more of itself, then send them off to do the same. A cycle which will continue until the creature attains the absolute pinniacle of power in every way to where no other life form including those it has altered will be able to even come close to it. Maybe they're even programmed to obliterate all other life in the universe when they're done. And guess what? Crono and Co only killed the one, there are likely millions of Lavos out there, billions even.
- Due to Crono and party destroying Lavos, any version of Lavos that exists in all time periods up to that point is destroyed, but also any changes the party have made to the timeline become set in stone and they become incapable of time traveling any further without the Epoch. This is why killing Lavos prior to storming the Tyrano Lair and Lavos actually landing results in the Reptiles winning the war and becoming the dominant species on the planet. Before in any Timeline where humanity exists Crono and Co discover time travel, go back into the past to 65,000,000 BC, and storm Tyrano Lair and defeat Azala. Combined with Lavos falling leading to the Ice Age causes the complete extinction of the Reptiles and ensures humanity's existence. With Crono and Co killing Lavos before they actually do this Tyrano Lair stays impenetrable, Lavos vanishes from the sky, Azala continues her genocidal war against humanity, and humanity is ultmately wiped out.
Unlike Marle's situation near the start where there was still a possiblity that the paradox could be prevented, the party has no Epoch and no reason to travel through time further anyway, and as such there is no possiblity they could destroy the Reptiles and make sure humanity exists. As a result Crono and Co are wiped from existance and replaced with their Reptile counterparts who also go back in time but ultimately do nothing to change Reptile history or any history, because Lavos has ceased to exist to give them motivation to do so. That's even assuming the Reptile party even could time travel without Marle's Pendant or at least it's remnant of Lavo's power inside it being present. Also, since Lavos was wiped from existance in 65,000,000 BC, it wouldn't exist in any of the time periods after either.
- Or, alternatively, Lavos does still exist in 65,000,000 BC and does still fall on Tyrano Lair, but without Crono and Co to attack and thus force most of the Reptile forces and leaders to be at the Tyrano Lair, they manage to evacuate. With their leaders and most of their forces intact they manage to continue the war and wipe out the humans in spite of the ice age coming, and thus survive it to form their own version of Zeal, create Marle's pendant, and as such result in the same events as the game, just with Reptile versions of the party members who subsequently go on to kill Lavos and who wouldn't have any reason to help the humans survive past 65,000,000 BC anyway.
- Although Ayla cannot use magic, various playable characters possess a heightened defense against attacks which match their element, and Ayla in particular is fire-resistant. Considering how Frog and Marle's use of water differs, it is likely Ayla would utilize this differently from Lucca as well...
- To delve deeper into the subject, Fire is actually part of Ayla's name:
Ayla:"La" mean "Fire". "Vos" mean "Very big".- So, how exactly would Ayla have utilized this? Just ask her mom in Chrono Cross:
Leah already have-um name for Leah's child.Big, strong name. Aylaaaaaa!!! New song of land!- In other words, Ayla's name either means "Song of Fire", or possibly "Fire of the Land" - In other words, Magma.
- Additional theories of this troper are that Schala and Marle are incarnations of Hylia and ancestors of Zelda, and Crono is the ancestor/past incarnation of Link, with Demise/Ganon being the vengeful spirit of Lavos. Yeah, Chrono Cross probably josses this, but this troper doesn't care. As an above WMG said, Chrono Cross is fanfiction.
- Either that and/or this one was greedy for the planet's natural magical power and decided only it could have it.
- One of them ended up in the Pretty Cure universe (or Pretty Cure is the distant future of CT) and fell in love with a fairy who could turn human, and that's how the twins were born. Why? Because Ciel's brother has Schala/Janus's blue hair.