I don't recall this being addressed previously, probably because it's so esoteric, but here goes:
Let's say I want to open a gate to the Darkness Beyond Time and go fight the Dream/Time Devourer. How do I get there? I.e., what's the "recipe" for this special gate?
There are three sets of individuals who successfully made it into the DBT by something other than sheer accident: Serge & co; Eclipse Magus in CT:DS, and Crono & co. in CT:DS. We don't know how Eclipse Magus ended up there, but we do know the following:
Serge's Case:Serge opens a gate straight into the DBT by using a Time Egg on Opassa Beach. This DBT gate lies within feet of an Angelus Errare, a dimensional distortion.
Crono Case:The Time Bucket, which contains a Gate to 1999AD, is used to travel to the DBT. This can occur only after dimensional distortions have opened up "in every age,"
as Magus explains in the English script. We do not know for sure whether a similar dimensional distortion also forms in the End of Time, but by virtue of the fact that they form "in every age," I'm leaning toward the hypothesis that a dimensional distortion does form there, and in that bucket. If so, we have two instances in which a temporal distortion added to a dimensional distortion leads straight to the DBT.
Are there any more clues on the subject of the conditions needed to open DBT gates? They seem to differ from either time gates or dimensional distortions by virtue of where they lead. If you add a dimensional distortion and a time gate together, do you automatically get a DBT gate?