Chrono Compendium
Zenan Plains - Site Discussion => Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion => Topic started by: ThatGuy on August 07, 2018, 11:22:57 am
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Continuing from a different thread so we don't hijack...
Acacia Sgt said...
Schala, post-merge with Lavos, as the one opening the gates? I doubt it much. Considering the general lack of predestination paradox the Chrono games use, the gates open before she merges with Lavos. Not even as a retroactive thing.
ThatGuy said...
I go more into it in other threads, but basically, if you notice that during the final battle with Lavos, he, and the party, seem to be existing in all time periods... then he is, in a way, outside of the normal flow of time. Schala could merge at any point, and then exist in all these time periods.
I go into it in these threads:
https://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php?topic=12575.msg224842#msg224842
https://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php?topic=12611.msg225201#msg225201
https://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php?topic=12608.msg225194#msg225194
https://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php?topic=12531.msg224825#msg224825
The idea is also mentioned here, second to last paragraph:
http://chrono.wikia.com/wiki/Entity
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Can you tell I'm a fan of this theory?
Anyway, let's start a new thread on it if you wish to discuss so we don't hijack this one.
Acacia Sgt said...
Seem, but I don't think it's stated quite exactly what's up with that.
I still stand it goes against the nature of time travel as shown in the game. Schala wouldn't merge with Lavos until Lavos itself is defeated. We can't have a Dream Devourer until both Schala AND Lavos are sent to the DBT, not before.
It's the same way the Black Omen isn't already there when the game begins, or 2300 AD is still ruined even if Lavos is going to eventually be defeated, or the Moon Stone isn't already in the Sun Keep being charged before Son of Sun is defeated. Same applies for the existence of the Dream Devourer.
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Well, to be fair, I'm always defaulting to pretending the CC thing didn't happen.
But even if it did, why do we assume Schala didn't merge until Lavos was defeated? Why is that a necessity? She could have easily merged, and then the dream devourer her came out of Lavos-with-Schala-merged's defeat.
(I don't know what DBT stands for).
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DBT stands for the Darkness Beyond Time. It's the place where discarded timeline and stuff get dumped to once they no longer apply. It's where the Dream, then Time, Devourer is found and fought.
For better or worse, it's explained in CC. Both Schala and Lavos merged in the DBT, which means both needed to be in there in the first place. Schala fell into a vortex when the Ocean Palace collapsed, sending her to the DBT. Lavos itself wasn't sent to the DBT until its demise by Crono and company. Hence, with the lack of predestination paradox, means that from the temporal point of view, the Dream/Time Devourer wasn't formed until after the Gates opened, because it was the opening of the gates that led to the events culminating in the creation of the Devourer.
This is why I don't think the Schala, as part of the Devourer, opened the gates. The only things ever stated she did as the Devourer was the storm that sent Wazuki, Serge, and Miguel into Chronopolis; and the creation of Kid.
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Huh...
So yeah, then it'd work better if we ignored the whole CC plot, which I'll probably always advocate.
But still, just because it wasn't mentioned doesn't mean it can't have happened.
Anyway, if you consider just the CT game, I think it really works.
Now here's a question: why would Schala have fallen into the DBT at the Ocean Palace? Is there any particular reason for this? And for that matter, why would Lavos go there once defeated? I mean, that could kind of make sense just because he's this great powerful time-manipulating being... But Schala?
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As I mentioned, for better or worse. Stuff like the Dream Devourer require the information given in CC to work, since it was only added to CT as a way to tie it further with CC.
One thing about ficitonal media is that the Law of Conservation of Detail is a thing. Unless it's deliberately meant to be vague, info is usually outright stated, or not stated. Not saying X happened means X really didn't happened, no "Not said therefore not confirmed of otherwise".
As I mentioned, bring the Dream Devourer into discussion, you're bringing CC into this.
The place had become unstable, space-time wise. Could be the result of a random (or perhaps not quite random) gate. Similar cases could be like Magus's botched summon of Lavos in 600AD, also causing an out-of-control Gate.
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Eh, conservation of detail isn't exactly law. You can always add to it later. Like Darth Vader being Luke's father.
So long as you don't contradict yourself in the past, or, have a good reason to (i.e. they were mistaken or lying!)
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Changes in later works is already outside the scope of the "law", because purposes and context can change when making a new work, unless you had it all planned from the beginning.
The "It wasn't said" statement is weak evidence at best. I could also claim that Crono's cat was the one that opened the gates, because the games never said it wasn't him/her, so it's not been disproven yet. No, that's not how it works.
Ultimately, I've already presented evidence that Schala-in-the-Devourer couldn't have been the one. If you want to keep your theory of Schala as the one, then disprove my statements and evidence that the series doesn't employ the Predestination Paradox.
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Well, to be fair, my theory is mostly about what could work as an actual CT direct sequel anyway... But the thing that Schala really has over Crono's cat is the plausibility. She was there, she had the magic, she has the personality to try and save the world even in such a compromised state...
Plus, the clues we are given about the entity as postulated by Robo could point to her. For instance, Frog says "Lavos plays an integral role in the fate of this entity." Kind of odd for Frog to say that, how the hell would he know? Strikes me as a wink to the audience, almost.
Oh, one more thing- the Schala we know as fused with the Time Devourer was the Schala that experienced the Crono timeline, correct? I'm pretty sure somewhere in CC that's more or less mentioned... I can't remember how exactly. The CT characters talk about the consequences of their time travel or something... Help me out.
Anyway, for my theory to work, the Schala that opened the gates would have been the Schala that experienced the Lavos timeline. So, hey, totally different Schalas!
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That's my point. Saying "Game never says she isn't" isn't a valid argument. Use stuff that can be actually tangible.
The "clues" can point to lots of people or beings. The cutscene wasn't written with Schala in mind. As CC shows, it referred more to the planet itself, or something related to the planet. Once again, like it or not, CC has to be taken into consideration.
No idea what you're talking here.
How would the Schala pre-Crono's intervention be able to open the gates, anyway? While her fate in ambigious, the fact her pendant somehow made it out of the Palace intact has to imply she made it out safely (hence the theory of using the last of its power on herself and her mother instead of Corno's party and Magus to warp out). At best, she lives the rest of her life magic-less in Antiquity. At worse she simply outright dies. No position to open the gates.
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I've never understood how there could be any confusion about who the Entity is. The party says that the Gates were opened by a dying entity reliving its past. We know it wasn't Lavos, because there are Gates predating its arrival. The only other entity with such an enormous lifespan is the planet itself.
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I've never understood how there could be any confusion about who the Entity is. The party says that the Gates were opened by a dying entity reliving its past. We know it wasn't Lavos, because there are Gates predating its arrival. The only other entity with such an enormous lifespan is the planet itself.
I must be rusty with my CT history, but which gates pre-date Lavos?
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The gate to Mystic Mountain takes you prior to Lavos's arrival.
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I guess I should have said "there is a Gate" rather than "there are Gates."
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Let us consider that the Time Devourer was a direct response to Lavos's defeat at the hands of Crono, Marle, Lucca, Ayla, Robo, Frog, and Magus. The very livestock Lavos was hoping to cultivate ended up biting back and pissing it off. Outside of a stable time loop (which as far as something this big goes, Chrono Trigger seems too smart to rely on. I mean cloning an egg in the lost sanctum sure but the freakin entity?), it just isn't possible.
Lavos destroys the world in 1999
Crono party finds out
Lavos is defeated in 1999
Lavos merges with its selves and becomes the Time Devourer
Time Devourer drags the frozen flame's arbiter (Schala) and the mammon machine into the DBT (which is weird because CTDS implies she was there before it became this, when CC implies after but semantics.)
Mind, Schala does not merge with Lavos until *after* it has been defeated. Lavos does this as a direct result. (After, in this case, being a relative term: Lavos exists four-dimensionally, so interacting with 12,000 BC but being elsewhen would be for it like reaching for something to your left or right.) Otherwise, she is lost (or possibly dead) in the ocean palace in the timeline where Crono and party interfered, and moreso survived in the one where they were never involved, in no danger of Lavos whatsoever.
In terms of relative cause-and-effect... she couldn't have been the entity that started guiding them along.
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Everyone keeps looking at cause-effect as if it followed the rules we follow, moving one-way through time (excepting only instantaneous timegate transfers).
I don't see why this is necessary for beings such as Lavos. If you gain the ability to exist outside the linear flow of time the rest of us are stuck in, if you could look at it in its entirety the way we look at
a fishbowl in its entirety, the cause-effect thing, as being described, goes away.
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Wait, Lavos's defeat was necessary for the merging?
Now, was it Lavos's defeat that caused Schala's merge with Lavos? Or was it Lavos's defeat that cause Schala's merge with the Time Devourer?
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Everyone keeps looking at cause-effect as if it followed the rules we follow, moving one-way through time (excepting only instantaneous timegate transfers).
I don't see why this is necessary for beings such as Lavos. If you gain the ability to exist outside the linear flow of time the rest of us are stuck in, if you could look at it in its entirety the way we look at
a fishbowl in its entirety, the cause-effect thing, as being described, goes away.
Because cause-effect is how things work in the Chrono setting when it comes to time travel. Once again, look how 2300AD is ruined in-game despite Lavos being eventually defeated. How the Black Omen isn't already floating in the sky despite Crono and company's eventual meddling of the Ocean Palace Events. Event A follows Event B follows Event C. It's how it is.
Consider this. When people bring up the "timey wimey" quote, it's usually accompanied by a ball of yarn, to represent how time isn't linear. The thing is, that's not the whole picture. The ball of yarn, from the perspective of the linear plane it's on, does makes it look like it's a jumbled mess, but, the string itself is still linear. From the plane it's on, the string may go forward, or backwards, or sideways, looping, etc. But it's still just one linear course. It's just not linear from the perspective of the surface it's on. There is still an order, and said order is how we see and witness things in-game. We play following the string of that ball of yarn all the way to its end.
Regarding Lavos, it's only "out of time" from the perspective of the dimension's timeline. Lavos is in a pocket dimension that can connect to any point of the timeline. However, the place where Lavos and Schala merged, the Darkness Beyond Time, is a separate area altogether. One that Lavos doesn't enter until after its defeat. Look at this way. The pocket dimension is confined within the timeline, but the DBT is outside of the timeline. Lavos's pocket dimension would be the fishbowl, and the DBT is the outside of the room that houses said fishbowl. Lavos can't be outside (DBT) until it's thrown out (being defeated by Crono and company) from both the fishbowl (its pocket dimension) and the room (the timeline). Something like that.
Wait, Lavos's defeat was necessary for the merging?
Now, was it Lavos's defeat that caused Schala's merge with Lavos? Or was it Lavos's defeat that cause Schala's merge with the Time Devourer?
Both questions are the same one in context, and the second would be wrong since the Time Devourer is already the merge of both Schala and Lavos. Anyway, it's none of them. Lavos's defeat caused its move into the DBT, where Schala was already there. Once both are there, they merged. Why? I don't think there's a why exactly, it happened.