Okay, I came upon a number of ideas on some of the fundamental properties of the time gates while writing my story. Bear with me on this, as it is long, and my mind does crazy things sometimes. I find it easier to get across my viewpoints by using a number of "experiments".
Let's assume, for the sake of the experiments, that I am: immortal, in possession of a gate key, and implanted in the CT timeline in the year 1000 AD before Lavos is destroyed.
Experiment #1:I head to Leene Square and hang out by the time gate that leads to the Middle Ages. In all my immortal glory, I keep my eyes on the time gate for the next 999 years, until the Day of Lavos, when I get scared, open up the time gate, and jump through. Where do I end up?
A) In the year 1599 AD, since the other end was at a 400 year difference toward the past.
B) In the year 600 AD, the original temporal location of the other end.
C) There is no time gate there in the year 1999 AD, dummy! The timegate in Truce Canyon/Leene Square only exists in the years 600 AD and 1000 AD.
D) None of the above.
Experiment #2Instead of doing experiment #1, I jump through the time gate to the year 600. Once again, in all my immortal glory, I hang around for the next 400 years until the year 1000 AD, making sure to keep my eye on the time gate even more carefully this time. Then, I jump in. Where do I end up?
A) In the year 1400 AD, since the other end was at a 400 year difference toward the future.
B) In the year 600 AD, where the 1000 AD portal always goes to.
C) There is no gate in the year 1000, dummy!--- err, wait - there is. Never mind. Don't pick this answer.
D) None of the above.
Experiment #3Opting to not travel at all, I hand my gate key to Robo before he sets off to replant Fiona's forest. I tell him to take a break after 100 years of planting and come visit, before heading back and finishing the rest. He does this. What happens to Robo when he re-enters the Truce Canyon time gate in the year 700 AD?
A) He ends up in the year 1100 AD, 400 years later, and is sad because all his friends are dead. So he hops back through the portal to the year 700 AD and finishes planting.
B) He ends up back in the year 1000 AD and spends some quality time with his friends. But returning through the gate, he travels back to the year 600, and has to hide for the next 100 years until his past self takes the break he just took, and then resumes planting.
C) There is no gate in the year 700 AD, dummy! A sad and confused Robo just goes back to planting.
D) You have way too much time on your hands thinking up all of this stuff.
I believe the answer to be D for each, unless you guys think otherwise. I have a more specific answer, but you have to keep reading.
The time gates obviously flow with the passage of time. They have to, as the Chrono crew can access them whenever they wish. And they don't just exist in the relative present. Just as a tree will exist at every point in time during its life span, so too do the gates exist at every point in time during their life spans (until Lavos is destroyed, Gaspar seals the gates, whatever the current theory is). Assuming this is the original CT timeline,
a time gate that exists at a specific location must exist at every point in time during its life span at that location.Theoretically, if the gates exist at every point in time, one would be able to access every point in time, using the time gate to connect one point of existence to another. Yet this is not the case. Instead of being open-ended gates, the gates act as 2-point wormholes, for instance, the gate that links 600 AD to 1000 AD. That begs the question, what causes the 2-point effect?
A) The Entity forces the Chrono crew to exit at certain spots in time in order to guide them on their journey. How convenient.
B) ..... is there another possible explanation?
C) Yup, there is. The time gates don't actually cause time travel; they cause dimensional travel.
D) 
what??? You're a dummy.
Maybe, just maybe, that whenever the Chrono crew travels through the gate, they don't travel in time within their own timeline, they travel to a different dimension
that happens to be lined up at a different time period. Who says that dimensions have to be lined up all perfectly neat and tidy right next to each other, where 1000 AD in one dimension lines up right next to the 1000 AD's in the infinite number of other dimensions?
What if, the time-space continuum doesn't look like the inside of a piano, where all the strings are neatly parallel to each other. What if, it instead looks like a giant bowl of spaghetti. Yes, spaghetti, where each strand of spaghetti is an infintely long timeline representing a dimension. They tangle, curl and loop around, and make contact with each other at certain specific locations and times. These points of contact are where the barriers within the dimensions are the weakest, and only a little nudge from an extra something can allow travel between the dimensions. For example, Truce Canyon/Leene Square - 600 AD/1000 AD.
This theory first popped into my head while writing my story, trying to figure out why Chrono travels through the time gate to rescue Marle not one minute after she left, only to find she had been whisked away already to the palace - probably days later. That would mean the rate of time in 600 AD is faster than it is in 1000 AD. But why?
A) The planet's velocity has slowed down somehow since then, thus its relative time-rate is slower.
B) The Entity did it.
C) Marle and Chrono travelled dimensionally rather than temporally, and that dimension's rate of time is faster.
D) Enough with these multiple choice questions already!!!
Okay, okay.... well, the next question would be how can one dimension proceed at a faster rate than another? The answer requires an analogy.
Let's say you and I decide to go on a trip. We both get into two separate cars, and start driving from the same point. You head east, and I head northeast-ish, at about a 60 degree angle to you. We both travel at 30 miles per hour.
Eventually we both hit the east coast, but you make long before I do, since you take the most direct route, and I travelled at an angle. Your easternly speed was 30 miles per hour. My easternly speed was only 15 miles per hour. Yet we were both travelling at 30 miles per hour.
Likewise, the 1000 AD dimension is laid out at an angle to the 600 AD dimension, and the absolute 'arrow of time' follows more closely to the latter than to the former. Meanwhile, the relative 'arrows of time' follow the timeline like normal. Thus, Chrono can arrive and find that in the space of a minute, days happened. And since the dimensions can be nearly identical due to the fact that there are an infinite number of dimensional possibilities, it would appear to everybody that they simply travelled through time - even to the gamer!
But, what happens when Chrono, Marle, and Lucca return to their original dimension. What they changed in the Middle Ages, like with Fiona's forest, shouldn't affect the original dimension. Or should it?
For this, I like to go back to the spaghetti model of the universe. In fact, it is on a plate in front of you, smothered in a zesty tomato herb sauce. But, your obnoxious baby brother decides he wants to throw a meatball at you. A very dense meatball. Little does he know he isn't strong enough, and it simply lands on your plate.
To the strand of spaghetti that was directly underneath, it suffered the most change, the most drastic shift in position. The strands around it, still under the meatball but not directly under it, experience a change, though slightly less. And as you progress away from the meatball, the changes are less and less noticeable until they are infinately small for the strands farthest away.
Likewise, changes in the dimensional structure do not occur one dimensionally - within its own timeline. They occur three dimensionally, to all the other timelines around it. Just like a rock thrown into a pool of water will create ripples, so too will declarations of free will ripple throughout the dimensional universe. And this isn't just for dimensional travellers. This is for any choice, any action, any possibility created by any resident within any dimension. Thus, timelines that are nearby will be very similar - they experience the same "ripples". Timelines farther away will be different. But all possibilities are accounted for. Once again, you look down at your plate of spaghetti, and your newly opened mind sees instead a plate of earthworms, writhing and twisting about each other in a constant motion of change and possibility. It makes you sick to your stomach and you vomit.
Or who knows, maybe you vomitted because I just told you there could possibly have been no time travel in Chrono Trigger. Though I'd like to hear your thoughts on this in any case.
Thanks for listening to me!
