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Messages - RedStar

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1
Great ideas and points guys.  I was ready to post about this sort of topic when I saw this topic here.  I've got some ideas about how the Frozen Flame works with all of this.  I posted in another topic because some ideas go off topic and bring up more unrelated questions (like we don't have enough questions just on this topic alone).  The link is http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,6810.0.html let me know if you think my ideas are plausible or they don't work.

2
Lavos, the Planet, and other Entities / Theories about the Frozen Flame
« on: January 17, 2009, 06:36:57 am »
I have 3 ideas which are very or loosely tied together, they're more like theories, but I think they answer some questions.  My theories are somewhat fact and somewhat "what if", so I'll point out the fact and presumptions sometimes for clarification.  I had decided to post these ideas before I read http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,5571.0.html and I decided to not only include my ideas but direct my theories at that topic.  My post can be read without having to read that other topic, but I think that reading or at least breezing through the other one would be helpful to understand why I make the points and arguments I do.  I thought about posting this as a simply reply to that topic, but the scope of my post doesn't stay on topic.  I would be introducing new ideas and questions to a topic that's having an interesting enough time trying to figure out answers to its own questions.

My first point is that the Frozen Flame was used to keep tabs on the upper world (though that wouldn't be its only purpose).  Lavos showed up to destroy Zeal, possibly showed up in 1999 to stop mankind which could have reached a technological level that could threaten Lavos.  If we believe that Lavos wanted to improve the DNA of humans in order to find desirable DNA characteristics to add to its own (kind of like the Borg from Star Trek) then it would have to be aware of the good and the bad.  It makes a lot more sense for Lavos to have an "eye" on the world rather than magically be able to parse through good and bad DNA characteristics while hanging out in the core of the Earth.

Quote from: Lynx:
   This is the essence of what
   descended from the heavens
   in the prehistoric age.
   The living crimson stone...
   the Frozen Flame!

The Frozen Flame is the essence of Lavos.  Having seen that phrase used in other video games by Square, it's safe to assume it is the life force or at least energy of Lavos (and probably only a part of its energy).  If this is true then it's compelling support for the Frozen Flame being an intentionally made object, one which can change how it looks, interact with Lavos, and manipulate people.  It manipulated Serge's father and turned him into a demi-human, it is logical that it could also manipulate people's DNA a bit at a time over a period of generations.  Humans would discover the Flame at some point in history and it could be right there as mankind evolves.  How does the Flame monitor the changes to all humans and determine which are best?  How does it know if someone living miles away has the best genetic makeup for a certain trait?  No idea, this is never explained, but if an advanced being is going to monitor this somehow, it makes a lot of sense for Lavos to be near the area, rather than thousands of miles away under rocks.

My second theory is that the Frozen Flame did in fact end up in the Mammon Machine.  Someone would find the Frozen Flame and presumably it would be affected by it, maybe even becoming more powerful right away (if it was the Flame itself that caused the evolution of mankind then it has shown the ability to affect people immediately or gradually, which appear to be intelligent and sentient choices).  It's totally possible that others nearby would be influenced as well, even if it took a while, but a certain group of people would stand out among the rest of the people on Earth.  Eventually you would have a kingdom of people with an advanced genetic makeup...the Kingdom of Zeal.  With the Flame in close proximity they would be smarter and it became manifest that they had magic powers while the Earthbound Ones, who weren't in close proximity to it, didn't have any powers.  Yeah, the Sun Stone probably had to do with it too, but the Sun Stone didn't help the people individually stand out.

Quote from: Dragonian Record
   However, the unforeseen
   coming of the mighty one from
   the heavens suddenly smashed
   their kingdom to pieces.

   That one was known as '"Lavos!"'
   The great crimson flame......
   
   Wielding absolute power,
   Lavos buried the dinosaurs -
   the kings of the land -
   in the space of a night.

   However, the timid '"apes"'
   who had lived hidden in
   the forests...
   
   ...came into contact with
   the crimsom flame
   that fell from the sky,
   and evolved into '"humans."'

The Frozen Flame evolved us from our basest form to humans.

Quote from: Prisoner
   In the eyes of the Dragons,
   we humans are the foes...
   
   A brain that has developed abnormally
   to 3 times the original size in the
   span of 3 million years...

   We humans have evolved at an
   enormous rate because of our
   contact with Lavos's flame...

   In a sense, mankind is Lavos's offspring...

You don't need to physically touch a substance to have contact with radiation from it.  A number of people have had physical contact with it, I'm sure, but I don't think all the Enlightened Ones touched it, so I think proximity is all that's needed.

I think the only thing known to be able to contact Lavos, the Frozen Flame, was placed in the Mammon Machine.  Mammon describes material wealth or greed, and the Frozen Flame is said to be able to have special powers and grant eternal life to the bearer.  The Flame corrupted Serge's father and it also corrupted Queen Zeal, extra support that it was in the machine.  Schala could interact with the machine but didn't have to touch it, didn't have to physically contact it.  It got sucked into the void, which brings up the question of how it could be around later if it was in the Mammon Machine.  Simple.  Lavos makes another Frozen Flame.  Lavos survived traveling through space and gamma radiation, a super powerful impact with the planet, it can create enough power to completely decimate the surface of the planet, it may even have the power to manipulate and transform DNA...creating another object or using another one to interact with and putting some of its power in it shouldn't be that hard for it.  Heck, right after Lavos kills Crono another Frozen Flame could have been left at that place.  The Kingdom of Zeal crashed into the ocean, creating a massive tidal wave, sending the ruins of the Kingdom, and another Frozen Flame, to the 4 corners of the planet.  The Frozen Flame could have ended up anywhere.  When you go to Last Village there's a woman there who makes an interesting comment.

Quote from: Woman
   A few "Enlightened Ones" did survive.
   But no distinctions remain between the
   "Enlightened" and the "Earthbound"
   anymore.

Where did their powers go?  The people were lazy, dreaming and sleeping each day away.  Using magic was still part of their DNA but all the work was being done for them.  They had the power of Lavos magnified through the Mammon Machine, it must not have taken any effort to cast spells with that much power around.

Quote from: Young Woman
   The Mammon Machine?
   You came to see it?
         Yes.
         No.
   
   I thought so!
   Feel the flow of the mighty Lavos's
   power?
   Oh...I feel faint.

   Oh, but you MUST feel them!
   The last of the great Lavos's
   emanations!

The power and energy of Lavos was all around them there, but that was gone and they couldn't cast spells on a whim.  The Frozen Flame could have been thousands of miles away or perhaps not even recreated yet.  It doesn't need to show up in the timeline until some time before Belthasar finds it around 2300 AD.

My third point is that Lavos allowed Crono and friends to attack it.  In the battle with Lavos' outer shell we see it change into a bunch of different modes.  All of those forms died, except for one, which was Magus.  It's safe to assume that if Lavos would not have shown up then Magus would have been killed by a group of heroes looking to stop the person they thought was responsible for creating Lavos and an angry frog man looking for vengeance against the person who killed his best friend and transformed him.  Lavos could have seen Magus die in the timeline and then interfered at that moment after gaining the information it needed from Magus.  It seems that Lavos learns from the things that it sees die.  It incorporates beneficial things from them after they are dead.  So when it saw in the timeline that Crono and friends were the biggest movers and shakers out there, and they were coming after it, so it waited for them to become as powerful as they could and let them attack it.  It could have wiped them out in 12000 BC but didn't.  It gave them a chance to live and they came back stronger than ever.  The perfect genetic specimens, and a wide variety of them too.  Unfortunately I see some potential flaws in this idea, so maybe some parts are true, but not all.

3
I'll explain what happened as I understand things to have happened (this game is very complicated and I haven't spent enough time making absolutely sure I understand why everything happened, so I'll try my best).

Schala and Lavos are merged, and while they're chilling in the Dimension Beyond Time, Schala hears Serge crying.  He's a big crybaby, somehow Schala picked up on his suffering at that one time period, as opposed to someone else suffering in some other time period.  Lavos was corrupting her, maybe she temporarily was winning the battle with Lavos during that time when she somehow heard his crying and suffering.  Regardless of how, she did.

She causes a storm to send the people trying to save Serge off course.  They wind up at Chronopolis, Serge gets chosen by the Frozen Flame to be the Arbiter, the people with Serge don't end up the same way.  Maybe because Serge had such a strong will to live (shown by his crying that could get the attention in someone in the Dimension Beyond Time) was why he was able to become and Arbiter while his dad gets corrupted and becomes Lynx.

In short, he didn't become Arbiter because he was a crybaby, but he was directed onto a path that led to him becoming Arbiter.  That's how I loosely understand it, please feel free to correct me where I'm wrong or make details more clear.

4
I have an idea to explain how Magus's gate worked, since it seems to be a 1 way gate, or a 1 time gate...somehow.  It also explains how the Gurus got sent to their time periods.  We know that in nature that things travel along the path of least resistance.  If you look at a picture of lightning you will see that it does not travel in a straight line, but it zig zags.  It does that because if follows the path of least resistance through the air (and at a ridiculously fast rate too).  The one time gates that sucked up the Gurus and the people at Magus's castle didn't have a counter gate (that's what I'm going to refer to as the gate you'll return through).

Take the gate at Leene's square in 1000 AD and you'll end up in the canyon that was there in 600 AD.  That canyon gate is the return gate, because you can go through it again and end up in Leene square.  We all know how the Guru of Time ends up at the End of Time, the place of least resistance when 4 or more people from the same time period enter a gate.  So my idea is that when there is no return gate then you get deposited at a timeline of least resistance.  The gates, which allow for travel through time, probably weakened the uniformity and stability of the timeline (if the timeline were to be represented by a piece of bread, then a gate from one time to another would be like a tiny tunnel going through that piece of bread).  Therefore those weakened points would be the easiest locations for a person traveling through time to end up.

Either the Entity determined where the Gurus would end up (giving it some insane foresight...and hindsight in order to save itself) or their locations were arbitrarily determined by nature.  It makes more sense that it would be nature since we're already told about the path of least existence to explain why your party ends up at the End of Time to begin with.

5
Did anyone here ever watch Star Trek: The Next Generation?  There was an episode where this sentient alien thing, named Gomtuu, was wandering around space, the last of its kind, and a guest aboard the Enterprise developed a telepathic bond with it.  Check this link, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_Man_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation) to see a picture of what it looks like.  It looks REMARKABLY LIKE LAVOS.  Or should I say Lavos looks remarkably like it, since the episode was made years before Chrono Trigger was.

In the episode, the guy with the bond with Gomtuu was transported inside it.  There he could breath and watch the stars and talk with Gomtuu and whatnot.  This got me thinking; what if the outside was still the body but the inside was like the brain?  Unlike our anatomy, the brain could defend itself.  In the Stargate series the aliens are really just little parasitic creatures that crawl inside us and control us.  This would be a step up from that.  So, the shell is part of the body, the inside is part of the brain, where the real genetic development would take place.  The spawn all look the same from the outside but it's the inside that really changes.

I don't think that it IS a cybernetic organism but it BECAME one.  His first form in the final battle is the Dragon Tank, a mechanical thing.  Then it's the Guardian and 2 Bits, which seems to be the template for his final form.  The apex of human evolution (the future) is a pretty good place to look for a superior being to model yourself after/assimilate into your DNA.  Fusing machines with organic DNA was probably the most efficient model it could use.  That's why I think the inside of Lavos looks the way it does.

6
I read the article on this site about the Ethics of Lavos, and I did find it interesting.  I hadn't really thought too much about Lavos' intent for its point of view.  It's weird because in basically every other game you understand the main antagonist's goals and why they are trying to achieve them.  Lavos is much different; its intent isn't so clear cut.  I think that looking at the duality of Chrono Cross can shed some light on the matter and raise some interesting questions.

Chrono Cross has a lot of duality in it.  I mean A LOT.  A world with you and one without, Dinopolis being used to counteract Chronopolis, good Serge and bad Serge, Kid and Harle appear to be 2 sides of a similar coin, how one element is strong against or weak to another element, and there are others you can probably think of too.  The game even focuses on the duality of certain characters; Fargo in one world is different than Fargo in another world.  You get a few star levels during the game on Fargo's ship.  The reasons why you are on his ship and the resolutions revolve around the duality of his character.  There's the guy in your home town who is a fisherman in one world and worships the straw man in another.  The game points these out to you, and to me, it is very apparent to me that duality is at the core of this game.  Want to understand why some things are the way they are?  Duality might just be the answer.

If nature is allowed to take its course and Lavos never interrupts the normal flow of events, humans die out or become subservient to the Reptites.  They create Dinopolis and become at one with nature.  The Dragon God is used to control nature, I guess to help terraform areas to make them more inhabitable, prevent natural disasters, that sort of thing.  I believe the Entity is the planet as well, so the Reptites are at one with the Entity.  Makes it look like the Reptites are the good guys, doesn't it?

The humans and Reptites are at war, probably because they have a different nature, different values, and could never get along.  Even Demi-humans aren't accepted by humans; once again it appears that mankind is the problem).  However, the nature and character of Reptites does not appear pleasant (though when two forces are at war with each other it's hard to know what one's character is truly like during peace time).  It should also be noted that snakes and crocodiles and similar types of reptiles do not have a very pleasant nature, and if the Reptites are an evolved form of those creatures, then one would expect the Reptites not to have a pleasant nature either.

At this stage it appears that Reptites are the best species for the planet (since they have a way to control the weather, the Terra Tower has an organic feel to it, they appear to work with the planet rather than just use its resources).  All of this becomes moot when Lavos hits the planet.  Humans become the only sentient beings that can help the planet.  The Entity may prefer the Reptites over us, but Lavos is slowly killing it.

We can try to assign Lavos as being evil and the Entity as good here because the Entity is innocent whereas Lavos is not.  It's a stretch, but I prefer to see it as the Entity representing nature and Lavos representing forces outside of nature.  There's a chapter in 
Chrono Trigger entitled Unnatural Selection.  Natural selection refers to the favorable traits being passed down to future generations and the eventual emergence of a new species.  This whole process was interrupted and the dominant species was decided when Lavos hit the planet, leading to an ice age that killed off the Reptites.  The Frozen Flame also played a big role in this.  Lavos does not represent what is right or proper or pure, whereas the planet does, because it does not interfere with the normal flow of events.

Where does this leave humans?  Humans are always at a crossroads where they can determine what category to be placed in.  Someone like Crono, sacrificing himself for the sake of his friends and the planet can be seen as good.  Someone like Queen Zeal who utilized Lavos, which was slowly killing the planet, to help her subjugate her people, can be seen as bad.  We don't truly fit into either category; it is for each person to decide what kind of person they are.  We ourselves are a duality.

So if someone like Crono can be seen as good, and the Entity can be seen as an innocent being, representing the natural progression of things, and Lavos is intentionally trying to interfere with all that, then I believe we can finally assign Lavos as being evil.  But what made it evil?  Lavos is like the pinnacle of evolution, "pure logic" as I have heard some call it. And how did Lavos corrupt Queen Zeal?

There is a well known line that I think applies perfectly in this case.  Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Lavos is this absolute power.  Just a piece of Lavos, the Frozen Flame, was the cause for our accelerated evolution.  Just a piece!  There's a good chance that it was inside the Mammon Machine, used to commune with Lavos and draw its energy.  Lavos needs to feed of the planet to stay alive; those are some serious carbs!  It can unleash devastating attacks to completely annihilate the surface of the planet.  It can travel through space and survive an impact.  It can manipulate time.  With some help it can evolve into the Time Devourer and threaten all space and time in the entire universe (and perhaps even the other dimensions)!  How much more absolute power can you get than that?

Simply put, Lavos is corrupt.  Whatever it is, however it got to be the way it is, it got corrupted somewhere along the way.  It's angry (that anger corrupted Schala), selfish (killing the planet and its inhabitants), and that power will corrupt others (Schala and Queen Zeal).  The Entity is incorruptible, whereas Lavos is completely corrupt.  The decisions made by Lavos were on made on purpose and reflect its nature.  It isn't just "trying to survive", it is interfering with the course of nature, corrupting those that interact with it, and doing whatever it takes to survive and reproduce.  It will corrupt Schala, one of the nicest characters in the series, in order to become a being that will destroy time and space.  It is very angry, probably resentful, and looking for payback for being beaten.  Nothing will exist any more if it succeeds in its plan.  This to me makes Lavos the truest and purest evil.

Is the Entity the truest and purest good?  No.  Once again it is innocent and is itself just trying to survive.  It does do good things; it takes care of the things that live on the planet, it helped Crono and company in their journey to save it and their friends, and in the Reptite dimension it apparently was at one with their species.

The Dragons were seen as evil in the game, but they too had been corrupted by Lavos; we cannot know what their true nature was like.  It's interesting to see the Reptites as good, or at least less evil than they have been portrayed to be.  In short, Lavos is a corrupt being who performed his actions with the clear intent to do whatever it took to survive.  When it was defeated it began a process to become a being to destroy everyone and everything.  Everyone who came in contact with it became corrupt.  It is the opposite of what the planet and its inhabitants represent.  It is an act of defiance against innocence, the natural progression of things, selflessness, and just about anything "good" you can think of.  Lavos is a duality of all that exists; it tried to destroy all that exists.

If you read all that, thank you for reading it, and let me know if you have anything to add, anything you question or don't agree with, or if you actually agree with me.

7
Sorry to throw a wrench into things, but... how do said gates get connected or "latched" to each other in the first place. Clearly there is some mathematics involved(Calculus, Trigonometry, maybe even Chronometry; which computers are notoriously good at, might I add :wink:), but the mechanism, to us, is either undiscovered or non-existent. Throw Heisenberg's uncertainty principle(that kinda screws things up royally) and general probability into the equation and one could only conclude that it is... possible. So, for the time being, we'll have to take some things, such as time travel, for granted in the Chronoverse.

NASA scientists use a lot of insane math and computers to figure out when to launch something into space, its trajectory, when and how long to use boosters, just to get something to land on the moon or Mars.  To their credit they can get it to land within miles of the target site, but it's not exact.  As the time spent traveling increases and the distance it has to travel increases, the accuracy of their launch will decrease (I think it decreases exponentially towards infinity at some point, but whatever).  There's no way you could accurately go back 65 million years in time and end up even close to the same spot if you relied on math.  There are just too many factors to deal with that we don't know about.  An object that passes by the planet will exert a gravitation pull on it if it is big enough.  If that happens enough times then the planet will be at a slightly different location than one would expect and if you just relied on math you could end up inside a mountain if you rode in the Epoch.  You would have to use the planet as a marker somehow, that's the only thing that would make sense, but how do you use the planet as a marker and be accurate enough so you don't wind up in a mountain!?  We clearly see the topography change over the years.  Islands move, mountains rise and fall.  They would have to be very high in the air and have a way to push the matter at that spot out of the way when they traveled back, because that matter has to go somewhere.

8
Everything has a physical and temporal location: a where and when.  Time is always changing, but so is our location.  The Earth is spinning, the Earth is moving around the Sun, the Sun is moving around in the galaxy, the galaxy is moving in some direction.  Temporal locations can work (somehow, not sure how, but they can).  Physical locations really can't work because you'd have to point to a marker or something for you to return to in the past to.

If I were to go back in time 5 years I wouldn't be standing on the Earth.  Depending on the time of year it could be well over a hundred million miles away.  In order to be on the Earth when you go through time you've got to have some marker to take you there, right?  How else will you end up at the spot you want to be at?  For the gates, those are markers, I can buy into that.  But for the Epoch, it's gotta have a marker to connect to.  Maybe the planet?  Any ideas?

9
Time, Space, and Dimensions / Re: Is this possible?
« on: July 19, 2008, 03:44:26 am »
I think after image is a weird term to use because if you go backwards in time then you see that after image sort of effect.  You're going backwards in time and seeing an AFTER affect.  That's why I think it's a weird term to use, but I can't think of a better one to describe it.

10
Time, Space, and Dimensions / Re: Is this possible?
« on: July 18, 2008, 05:14:10 am »
When the Epoch appears it has a sort of after image effect (after image is kind of a weird term to use).  To me that means that it doesn't "materialize" or whatever instantly.  One thing I always had a problem with when dealing with time travel like that is how you deal with the air particles that are there.  You can't just appear somewhere instantly, the microscopic things that are there have to go somewhere.  The after image effect could be the Epoch materializing and bit by bit pushing other matter out of the way as it appears.

11
Time, Space, and Dimensions / Fixing the Grandfather Paradox
« on: July 06, 2008, 04:38:49 am »
If we believe that there is such a thing as Time Traveler's Immunity and Time Bastard we find ourselves with a sticky situation explaining how Marle can suffer from the Grandfather Paradox.  I believe I have an answer.  It's not an amazing one but it's still an idea.  In this theory I'll allow the Entity to have decided what time period to have sent Marle back to (creating a situation which would set off a chain of events to save the planet) but I'll explain in a moment why I believe that the Pendant was the cause for the Telepod to transport her through time and not the Entity as some believe.

I can think of 5 ways a person can go backwards in time in Chrono Trigger.

1. Marle's Pendant.  It sent Marle and Crono back in time.
2. The Gate Key.  It's the device through which time travel is done for the most part of in the game until you get the Epoch.
3. The Epoch.  Balthazar's creation that can go to any time period you have accessed.
4. A gate created by Lavos.  Lavos transported people through time at the Ocean Palace and at Magus's Castle.
5. The Time Crash.  Chronopolis was sent back in time but unlike other forms of time travel this affected a large 3 dimensional area and as pointed out in an article on this site, the area didn't travel but those 3 dimensional coordinates pointed to different time coordinates at the same 3 dimensional location. 

Marle's time travel situation was actually different than Crono's.  Crono traveled back in time with the Pendant whereas Marle was sent back because of it.  Does that make any difference?  I believe so.  I believe that the five examples I just listed are different than what Marle experienced.  I also believe that Time Traveler's Immunity doesn't just happen to you because you travel through time.  I'll first explain why I don't believe Marle could experience a Grandfather Paradox because of any of the five examples I listed.

First off, the Time Crash.  Going to Chronopolis would not send her backwards in time.  Going there would send her to a place that really hasn't been sent back in time, just the coordinates for it point to a different time than it should be in (this is based on an article here on the Compendium).  Marle cannot go back in time here and create a Grandfather Paradox.

Secondly, Gate Keys.  I don't know how they really work or why, but they do.  That said, anyone who uses them receives the Time Traveler's Immunity.  If you use the Gate Key or are with someone that uses it then you won't experience the Grandfather Paradox.  Time/nature has a way of balancing things out (like getting rid of extra copies of people for instance) which means that somehow it takes note of you when you travel through time.  The Gate Key is a way for time/nature to take note of you.  My reasoning for this is when you go to The End of Time there are portals there but after you use a gate more portals appear.  You can be sent back through a portal you have been through which means that somehow time/nature keeps track of where you have been.  Thus you are granted immunity from the effects of time travel.  I also think the Gate Key might be made out of Dreamstone but there's no way of knowing.  I'll get to why I think that it being made of Dreamstone would be important in a moment.

Thirdly, gates created by Lavos.  They usually send people forwards in time, but when Lavos appears at Magus's Castle it sends Magus and the Chrono Crew back in time and apparently to different time periods.  The Crew had a Gate Key so Magus might have been under the effect of traveling with the key.  Magus may have been sent to the same time period as the others and woken up before they were found and taken to the village.  Then again he may have been sent to a different time period and might not have been under the effect of the key.  He changes his own history by appearing as The Prophet and having an effect (even minimal) to his past self.  That would cause the future Janus to be different, thereby sending Magus to the Darkness Beyond Time.  I think there's an answer to that too.  Lavos seems to exist in a Pocket Dimension, kind of living outside the normal confines of time.  Traveling through a gate that Lavos created would give one Time Traveler's Immunity.  I'll explain why that would give you immunity in a moment as well.

Fourth up is the Epoch.  Once again hell if I understand the mechanics of the machine, they're not explained in the game.  Anyways, it's possible that the Epoch could send you to any time period you wanted but since that's beyond the ability of a game, you can only go to the time periods you've been to as well as the Day of Lavos.  It makes more sense that the Epoch would be limited to its destinations in time because the Neo-Epoch seems to have the ability to go to any time, and an upgrade like that would make it worthy of the name Neo-Epoch.  One additional way it would make sense that the Epoch is limited to the time periods you've been to would be if the Epoch could somehow determine where you have been (I think Star Trek: Voyager has talked about being able to read what time period someone's from) and then go there.  Maybe there are special materials that go into making the Epoch (like maybe Dreamstone helps it travel through time).  Does someone who uses the Epoch automatically receive Time Traveler's Immunity?  I'm actually not sure.  If the Epoch utilizes something like Dreamstone to help it travel through time, then I think so.  We can't know this for sure since everyone who rides the Epoch has either used the Gate Key already or has been sent through time because of Lavos so we don't have a "pure" subject to test it on.  I do think there's a good chance it would give you immunity because we see people from other time periods at the end of the game (explaining why they're there is a whole other topic, I personally think it's possible they were picked up before Lavos was beaten, giving them immunity to the effects of defeating Lavos, and therefore someone like Doan could go back in time to be at the fair).

The fifth and final thing is the Pendant.  It is made out of Dreamstone, a special material used to create some of the most important items in the game: the Pendant, the Mammon Machine, and the Masamune.  The Mammon Machine was created to commune with Lavos who doesn't interact with time normally.  If Lavos does indeed exist inside a pocket dimension then Dreamstone must have some interesting temporal qualities.  This is given more credibility when you think about how the whole adventure started.  Marle, wearing the Pendant made of Dreamstone stepped inside a machine designed to relocate a person's spacial coordinates.  The temporal qualities of the Pendant caused the machine to relocate Marle's temporal coordinates instead since she wound up in the same spacial location.  The Entity, perhaps aware of what would happen, and having created gates for the heroes to use, decided what time period to send her to.

Now to tie everything together.  I believe that traveling through a gate with an item with temporal qualities or travleing through a gate caused by something with temporal qualities grants one Time Traveler's Immunity.  The Pendant is made of Dreamstone which appears to have temporal qualities since it can commune with Lavos who apparently exists in a Pocket Dimension.  Crono had the Pendant with him when he went back in time and when the timeline was changed because of the disappearance of Marle's ancestor (which would have changed Crono's history and therefore changed Crono and would have sent him to the Dimension Beyond Time if the didn't have immunity) he wasn't affected.  After Lucca created the Gate Key (which has apparent temporal qualities because it can manipulate gates but might possibly be made of Dreamstone) anyone who traveled with them never had to worry about disappearing because of their actions in the past.  Lavos has temporal qualities and created a gate which sent Magus into the past.  The Epoch might have temporal qualities since it can travel through time on its own without the need of a gate.  It apparently just needs to know the time periods the people piloting it have been to in order to know what time periods it can go to.  I also think it makes sense if Dreamstone somehow powered that time travel mechanism, but there's no way to know that.

That leaves us with Marle who was sent back in time because of the Pendant but did not travel with it.  She is the one case in which someone went backwards in time and was not with something with temporal qualities or was sent back by Lavos who has temporal qualities.  She's also the only person to experience the Grandfather Paradox.

Two quick things of note: Even though we changed the events in Zeal it still had the same outcome.  In the original history it makes sense that Frog would have found the missing queen at the Cathedral anyways.  Frog would have found a way to have conquered Magus in the original timeline because we are told he was defeated.  We helped Ayla but the dinosaurs in the past still would have died out after Lavos hit the Earth.  Simply put: events still had the same results after we went back in time.  I don't think the creators of the game expected us to believe that going back in time and trying to change things that ended with the same result as before would cause the original timeline to be sent to the Darkness Beyond Time because a few protons and electrons are out of place because of our presence.

Also I think it's pretty interesting to note that all time travel done without a Gate Key (assuming it's not made of Dreamstone) or futuristic technology (the Epoch and whatever was used in the Time Crash) was done in the presence of Dreamstone.  The Pendant at the beginning, Mammon Machine at the Ocean Palace, and the Masamune at Magus's Castle.

Sorry it's such a long post, let me know if you can think of anything that might confirm or contradict my ideas.

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One thing I find interesting is that Schala appeared as a young person as did Crono, Lucca, and Marle.  The young version of the original heroes aren't the real team obviously; they're a manifestation of them somehow.  I don't think it has been agreed upon for sure how they appeared.  Anywho, we know that Schala was a conflicted person after she made her farewell in Chrono Trigger.  Part of her wanted destruction and the other part didn't.  I could so how (not in the real universe of course) Schala could have cloned herself and divided the matter (but apparently not the information) that went along with it.  Schala's the older sister of Janus, which limits how old she can be.  She acts like someone who's about the same age as the main characters maybe so it's reasonable to assume she's in her late teens, maybe even around 20 or so.  When the game ends we see a young woman who looks to be in her late teens as well.

When we finally see her at the end of Chrono Cross she looks about half that age (at least to me).  So, if she were to split herself in half (conserving the laws of matter) then evidently her age also got split in half too.  There is a lot of duality in this game and at first it would make sense for her to also split her already split personality; keep the evil side with Lavos and send the good side to her new clone.  Perhaps she felt that if she did that then when Lavos would be defeated that part of her would be lost, I'm not sure.  Maybe she didn't have the ability to transfer part of herself to her clone, but I think it would be possible for her to do.  Anywho, she doesn't, which means the cloned her wouldn't have her knowledge and all that.  It makes the most sense to create a little child who can learn; a sort of blank slate if you will.

To summarize, she split herself in half, but not her knowledge/information, thus the logical thing would be for the cloned version of her to be a baby since it wouldn't have the knowledge to take care of itself/know where it came from if it were older.  Thus matter is conserved.  It's kind of farfetched but at the same time makes some sense.

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