Chrono Trigger DS Analysis HQ (Spoiler Spoiler, of course)

[Stanger5150]

These are interesting ideas.  I was perfectly content thinking it was just the Dream Devourer fucking with the party,  because through Schala, Lavos learned more about Crono, Marle, and Lucca.  After reading this thread though, I have a headache because I am not content anymore haha!

[ZealKnight]

It's those damn clones man.

[ShoeMagus]

I've been slowly working my way through this thread again. Have thoughts that seem a bit worthwhile to me (after twenty pages of reading). Sorry if some of this is already resolved but...

Eclipse Magus- I'm strongly convinced that he is post-Trigger Magus. Not Magus from some alternate dimension or something weird like that. While it is worthwhile to test all options in a game, including visiting Time's Eclipse without having recruited Magus on the North Cape, the recruitment seems to me to be the canonical event in the game. Specifically because of this: "If so, hello, Janus!" I don't think Lucca would write a letter to Kid speculating on whether or not a guy she helped whack caught up with Kid. Its almost a minor plot point (I don't think anyone really wants Magus dead in the plot), but if the canonical ending is that Magus survived to search for Schala, then some version of him suddenly finding Schala seems logically like it would be him, Prophet garb or not. I think even the attitude fits in. He did not seem particularly hard of heart. He was never really chummy with Crono and Co., even though he helped them revive Crono and fight Lavos. There was no tearful farewell at the end of the game. He did his loner thing and mutely entered the Gate to continue his journey and find Schala. Crono wasn't his concern anymore and I think its only natural that the next time he sees them (probably feeling close to success again), he reacts with coldness. The first time he met them, they screwed up his summon. Sure he fails anyway (either by being eaten or whatever), but he'll always have that loving memory of them bursting in to mangle everything.

I think in the end, he was simply burned out. People react to his dialogue leading up to the loss of his memory with surprise, but its really not that weird. He spent his life, fueled by hatred for a creature that took away everything, particularly his family and his loving sister who, though his mom lost her mind, always tried to protect him. He finally manages to destroy said creature and then goes through time to find her. Finally finding her, going through what must have been all kinds of Hell to get into the Darkness Beyond Time, she rebuffs him and tells him to stop. That all of his efforts are pointless.

His life has been lived for that moment. I think despair is a natural reaction.

I don't think Amnesia Magus is Guile though, and I don't see why everybody started speculating that he was. It's clear that he wasn't. It was stated explicitly by the creators. He may have been intended to be Guile, but the idea was scrapped. So Magus is still unaccounted for. Though he has amnesia and is searching for something he's unaware of. Fun story ideas for that one. Along with whatever else happened to Crono and Marle (who are probably dead, though I'm leaning toward them being in hiding).

[utunnels]

@ShoeMagus

I agree with your interpretation. Though there's something I still not sure: it is not a contradiction to say Eclipse Magus is post-Trigger Magus and from an alternate dimension, since Magus himself also metions there are infinite worlds.

I think the new ending was influenced by CC: since history is composed by choices, this Magus can be from a 'branch' timeline of post-Trigger.

[ShoeMagus]

@ShoeMagus

I agree with your interpretation. Though there's something I still not sure: it is not a contradiction to say Eclipse Magus is post-Trigger Magus and from an alternate dimension, since Magus himself also metions there are infinite worlds.

I think the new ending was influenced by CC: since history is composed by choices, this Magus can be from a 'branch' timeline of post-Trigger.

Not inherently a contradiction. From a perspective of writing, that quote seems to set up for CC. On the other hand, whoever this Magus actually is, he has had experience with extra dimensions, so it could be that he's from elsewhere. Of course, if EM is from some other dimension, that begs the question of what happens to the Magus that you recruit and fight Lavos with.

I'm suspicious of an "infinite dimensions" interpretation anyway, but I currently don't have the time to find a way to refute it.

Here's kind of an insane thought. I'll have to go back and replay the ending, but what if Crono and Co.'s memories are not wiped, but they cease to exist? I mean, I think its supportable in that most of the speculation in this thread seems to point out that they probably did not recall the events of the Distortions. What if (and now I'm contradicting myself), the Crono and Co. that enter Time's Eclipse aren't the regular versions, but somehow exist in an alternate dimension (see why I'm suspicious? it just causes problems). Things, aside from the Dream/Time Devourer, generally go to the DBT in order to cease to exist. Not to say that you can't travel there, but I don't think you can do so accidentally. The Distortions, though they seem to offer an explanation as to how Dalton winds up in 1000 AD, seem almost like a degradation in the time.

Wow that's insane.

[wsdragon]

When fighting Crimson Shade (Dark Lucca)... the Eggsterminator that she had with her reminded me of the mini-robo that Lucca had in the ending movie when she finds the baby in the woods.  Although they do not look all that alike, Eggsterminator might possibly be the "battle mode" of the mini-robo.

If this is so, then are the shade versions of Crono, Lucca, and Marle future versions of themselves in some dimension?  In all 3 boss fights with the shades, it is always the shades that initiate the fight, meaning that they have some reason to want to fight chrono & co.  Are future versions of Crono & co purposely trying to stop the present versions from venturing further into the dimensional vortex?  Would Dalton have traveled to 1000 AD and raised the Porre army against Guardia anyways if he did not encounter (and was defeated once again by) Crono in the dimensional vortex?  Does the defeat of these future versions of Crono & co have anything to do with their absence in Chrono Cross?

[utunnels]

@ShoeMagus

Yeah, if we agree with infinite dimensions/timelines, traveling to the future will become impossible, unless the gate *knows* which future it connects. From each piont in time, there is only 1 route to the past, but infinite lines to the future.
It is obvoius original Trigger has a single timeline model, unlike CT DS or CC.

[Acacia Sgt]

Though, unless that also, only one dimension houses one time line, so traveling to the future remains constant as there is really only one possible time line to travel around unless dimensional travel gets involved too.

[maggiekarp]

The shades are made up of memories. That's why Guile has this line at the DBT:

Guile:
   Is this what I have
   been searching for
   all this time...
   No...
   Stop it!
   I am no such thing.
   What good is it...
   to possess such
   dark power...?

His memories as Magus are still there.

[gatotsu911]

The shades are made up of memories. That's why Guile has this line at the DBT:

Guile:
   Is this what I have
   been searching for
   all this time...
   No...
   Stop it!
   I am no such thing.
   What good is it...
   to possess such
   dark power...?

Oh snap, that is some pretty compelling evidence right there. Screenshot?

[CelestialPhantasm]

(I don't think anyone really wants Magus dead in the plot)

I do! That bastard killed Sir Cyrus.  

On a less/more serious note: The Lost Sanctum. I have not read all of the pages, but it seems it has not been discussed very much in comparison to Magus and the Dream Devourer.

Upon having slain the monsters in the forest in the past, the first reptite inhabitant to see you exclaims:

Oh ! Des primates qui se tiennent debout ! Et qui parlent en plus...! Que se passe-t-il ?

which translates to:

Oh! Primates who hold themselves upright! And who even speak! What is going on?

Which shows that the reptites of this time and place are not familiar with humans, which is why this person wrote:

The Dragon's Tear is most likely not the same thing as the Dragon Tear in Chrono Cross. The Dragon Tear was a Dragonian artifact, not merely a Reptite's. Besides, those monsters couldn't get the Dragon Tear as long as the Reptites hid in their homes.

Also, if that is supposed to be the Reptites dimension, then why do they act so damn nice towards humans? According to our information, the Reptite dimension is a dimension where the Reptites won the war against the humans, and Lavos never fell. If they would have been at war with humans previously, they wouldn't act so nicely towards them now, especially not ask them favors, OR give them one of their most cherished artifacts, the Dragon's Tear.

No, I do not think that is the Reptite dimension where Reptites continued to evolve into Dragonians and created Dinopolis. I don't know what it is then, but not that.

Is it not possible that the eras in which the gates to the lost sanctum are located in the party's world do not correspond to the eras in the lost sanctum?  I would say this is very possible, since the two do not appear to be nearly as separated as 65,000,000 B.C. and 600 A.D.- The links between the two eras are too close.  The sprout that grows into a tree, the preserved artifacts, even the village and its culture seem more or less unchanged.  It appears that a few hundred years have passed at the most.  

It is therefore perhaps possible, that the Lost Sanctum is indeed in the Reptite/Dragonian dimension in which Dinopolis will come into being, so long after the extermination of humans that the reptites no longer remember what a human is and are only familiar with apes; and long before the construction of Dinopolis?

I suppose the real question is: Even if that were the case, so what?

In reply to something posted a few pages ago:

And what we've ascertained is that the Amulet =/= Schala's Pendant, and that Lucca did not create the Amulet as the Compendium holds but Kid found it sometime around the orphanage burning, which begs the question - how did Kid survive the original burning of the orphanage since Serge wasn't there to save her? Which relates to your earlier question by further elaborating it - could Amnesiac Magus have saved her?

Is it not stated in Chrono Cross, that Kid's pendant protects her by means of shifting her through space and time to a safer condition (although hardly seems to work during the course of the game itself)?