I faced a dilemma of whether to put this in "Plot/characters" for the plot aspect of this post, "Artifacts" because of the Chrono Cross, or "Time, Space and Dimensions" because of it's implications for Cross's ending, but I decided to post it here.
I recently played through Chrono Trigger and Cross back to back as they are two of my favorite RPG's and I hoped to elucidate more of their intricate plots. Well I noticed something in the script of Cross that may have relevance to the ending that was not mentioned in the Compendium's "Chrono Cross Resolution" article. So here it goes:
After talking with Belthesar in the Viper Manor illusion in Terra Tower, the Crono apparition says a bunch of stuff about the Chrono Cross, elucidating it's function in unifying dimensions, including the following:
Crono:
It has the power to cross
space and time and unify
people's thoughts and feelings...
It has the power to
transfer memories...
So, my interpretation of the ending of Cross is like so:
When Schala/Kid is referring to everyone "forgetting their memories of the journey", she is most likely referring to the fact that time will "restart" from the point of the split in 1010 A.D. and they will not remember their adventure at first (but perhaps will eventually). This is further supported by the party members with Serge at the Darkness Beyond Time talking about things they will do in the future. However, unlike the Compendium's analysis, I propose that complicated Time Bastard scenario's are not needed to explain why Serge retains his memories at the end of the story.
I propose that the Chrono Cross literally has the ability to transfer memories, akin to the ability of the Dragon Tear before it to transfer the consciousness (and memories) of one individual into another's body. At the end of the game, Serge remembers all details of his adventure because of this abililty of the Chrono Cross, and nothing more. The memories of Serge from the DBT were transferred into the Serge at Opassa Beach. Or perhaps their consciousnesses were actually fused together to make one, as is also implied by the above quote.
It's likely that Schala/Kid's memories were also transferred into the Kid present on the mainland in this new Ideal Timeline. After that she would probably seek out Serge in El Nido, which may explain the white dress in another cutscene - she has regained memories both of the previous adventure and of her life as Schala.
My hypothesis that Time Bastard is not needed to explain Serge's memory of the journey further simplifies complications with the so-called "Ideal Timeline", which makes it especially attractive as a possibility. When the two dimensions are merged, presumably history restarts from the original point of the split, with the history of both dimensions going to the DBT in favor of a new timeline beginning. But, how does one account for all the instances of TB/TTI and time travel that occur in each separate timeline after the split? You run into many, many problems when trying to account for them. For example, if one character time travelled in one dimension, but his counter-part in the other did not - in the Ideal Timeline is the character Time Bastarded out, or not?
So I propose that in the Ideal Timeline, all instances of TB/TTI are preserved in the timeline
before the split in 1010 A.D., but all instances of TB/TTI that occurred specific to each dimension are
not preserved after the original time of the split in 1010 A.D.
This is the simplest explanation for the creation of an Ideal Timeline, because events would proceed as follows:
- All story-related events up until the split would be subject to TB/TTI, including Serge and Wazuki re-emerging from the Dead Sea.
- After the original time of the split in 1010 A.D., the Records of Fate would suddenly become inactive, because their transmissions are not preserved by TTI/TB. Events pertaining to the lives of normal people would presumably proceed similar to Home World.
- After 1010 A.D., Wazuki would presumably not turn into Lynx as a biological terminal for FATE because FATE no longer exists, or he might but would not be controlled by FATE. Lucca would not be abducted and the orphanage would not be burned.
- It was Lynx that manipulated the Porrean government and the Acacia Dragoons, not the Records of FATE. Without Lynx around, Porre would not invade El Nido and the Acacia Dragoons would still rule the islands.
- In 1020 A.D., Serge regains the memories of the adventure. The Kid/Schala that is probably on the mainland likely also remembers the adventure, and seeks Serge out in El Nido. Blah blah blah and they get married happily ever after.
Quite a concise theory that passes Occam's Razor if I do say so myself. It neatly account both for Serge's memories at the end of the story and for the existence of the Ideal Timeline, without having to account for Time Bastard events during the story of Chrono Cross at all. Discuss!
