Activation of the very first gate

[stenir]

Okay, so the reason the first gate opens is due to a reaction to the pendant, correct? Marle has the pendant around her neck, and because she's not really paying attention, she gets sucked into the gate while dropping the pendant. Okay, good so far.

Crono grabs the pendant, and holds onto it, allowing him to use the gate. He still has the pendant as he goes through the gate.

So, how the heck did Lucca "follow"? She has no access to the Pendant when the Gate sending Crono back closes. So, how does she activate the gate?

The only possibly explanation I can think of is that when Marle dropped the pendant, it chipped and Lucca used the chip to create the gate key.

[FouCapitan]

Lucca is a goddamn genius that's how.  She calculated the energy field alterations caused by the resonance of the pendant and duplicated the scenario all by mere one time observation.

It's scary in a way.  She could probably do anything if she put her mind to it.

[Thought]

Yeah, while impossible in the real world, this is a video game and it seems to hold to the idea that Super Scientists are capable of anything.

Seriously, I'm half surprised Lucca didn't create Mecha Godzilla to battle Lavos.

[stenir]

If Super Scientists are able to do anything, why didn't they just create something to head down through the crust of the planet and use like a Super Straw to suck Lavos out into space. Perhaps they don't have Super Vacuums yet?

Well, there has to be a reasonable explanation for Lucca's ability to time travel? What if Marle and Crono die in the past, leaving the pendant behind, Lucca finds it, learns they were in the past, and uses a piece of it to create the gate key? That is a roundabout way of doing it, though. She wouldn't have had that much time between telling Crono she's coming after him and bumping into him on his way out of the castle (maybe an hour or two if you adjusted game play mechanics to real world).

[FouCapitan]

If Super Scientists are able to do anything, why didn't they just create something to head down through the crust of the planet and use like a Super Straw to suck Lavos out into space. Perhaps they don't have Super Vacuums yet?

Simple.  It's a game world.  Have to have something to play through.  Super scientists only achieve godlike brilliance when it advances the story at a reasonable rate.  Killing Lavos with brilliance alone 1 hour into the game ruins the pacing, thus the cognitive abilities Lucca would require to pull off such an event are lost forever.

Well, there has to be a reasonable explanation for Lucca's ability to time travel? What if Marle and Crono die in the past, leaving the pendant behind, Lucca finds it, learns they were in the past, and uses a piece of it to create the gate key? That is a roundabout way of doing it, though. She wouldn't have had that much time between telling Crono she's coming after him and bumping into him on his way out of the castle (maybe an hour or two if you adjusted game play mechanics to real world).

I hate to play the Occam's Razor card here but...

Lucca's smart vs. That huge paragraph up there...

[stenir]

Saying "it's a game world" is just as bad as "the entity did it". There is a reasoning somewhere in it for Lucca's ability to create a gate key without the reacting ingredient.

[FouCapitan]

Saying "it's a game world" is just as bad as "the entity did it". There is a reasoning somewhere in it for Lucca's ability to create a gate key without the reacting ingredient.

But the fact is that's really the only explanation.  Lucca says so herself.

Gates are very unstable, so I used
the principal behind my Telepod
device...

...to create a Gate Key.
Now we can use them as we please.

So basically she just mimicked the reaction of the telepod and the pendant to open the gate.  She saw how it happened and went about recreating the process.  I'm sure she had some trial and error in fashioning it, but she eventually forged a device based on the warp technology the telepod had.

[stenir]

Lucca says she utilized the principal behind the Telepod device. She never said anything about materials.

[FouCapitan]

Lucca says she utilized the principal behind the Telepod device. She never said anything about materials.

If you see a pendant in there anywhere, let me know.

Materials were probably the same basic energy systems as the telepod, focused through those green crystalline orbs to mimic the frequency that the pendant emitted during the first gate opening.  It doesn't emulate the full functions of the pendant, just the energy released when in contact with the telepod.

[stenir]

What's inside the center circle? It looks like a shard. Maybe the pendant did actually hit the ground with some force, leaving behind a splinter of it.

I'm not looking for the full pendant, of course.

If you are right though, that it only emulates the function of the pendant, would it be reasonable to assume that the pendant would have a greater deal of control over the gates? Such as, controlling where they went or what the time dilation is?

[FouCapitan]

What's inside the center circle? It looks like a shard. Maybe the pendant did actually hit the ground with some force, leaving behind a splinter of it.

I'm not looking for the full pendant, of course.

If you are right though, that it only emulates the function of the pendant, would it be reasonable to assume that the pendant would have a greater deal of control over the gates? Such as, controlling where they went or what the time dilation is?

It's plausible, but the only one who ever exhibited compotent control over the pendant's abilities was Schala, who didn't seem to know anything about time travel.  The player's team, on the other hand, just holds it up to things and lets it act on its own.

[stenir]

Well, my guess is that Schala is able to use the pendant to the best of its abilities because it was designed with her in mind, correct? She'd know what it was capable of and how to use it.

Though I doubt one of the uses they intended for it was time gate activation.

Funny, I always imagine Lucca whacking the gate with the gate key like she does to an enemy if she's right up next to them (swinging her gun around like it's a golf club, lol!). as opposed to holding it up (of course, that's just slightly more programming than they probably wanted in the first place).

Lucca would probably be smart enough to mimic the frequency, that's understandable. And if that it a shard of the pendant inside the central circle, perhaps the surrounding circles are stabilizers. Something to dumb down the power level so the pendant didn't do what it did the first time (i.e., shock everything in the immediate vicinity).

[Thought]

The pendant is totally not needed to active a gate. Merely look at when the Prophet opened a gate and threw the party inside. Magic, apparently, can mimic the pendant. And, as we learn from Lucca and Robo (specifically, there techs), technology can mimic magic (Spekkio even notes that Robo can mimic Shadow type magic; that is pretty advanced stuff).

Given that it was a malfunctioning Telepod, not the pendant alone, that opened the gate, it may be that the pendant was nothing more than a monkey wrench thrown into a machine that caused it to malfunction in a wonderful way. Only wouldn't need the exact same monkey wrench to duplicate the effect, but one would need the principles behind the machine.

[stenir]

The Prophet never opened the gate, we just don't see them activate the gate when they go into it. He was just there to make certain they went through.

We don't know if it was a malfunctioning Telepod. One who hope and assume that it is working fine, since Crono had no problems (unless half his stomach is missing, a partial explanation as to why there Crono almost never eats, lol).

[FouCapitan]

The Prophet never opened the gate, we just don't see them activate the gate when they go into it. He was just there to make certain they went through.

Have to agree there.  Didn't look like the Prophet did anything to open the gate, I always assumed it was the gate key that did it.  Or the Entity...

We don't know if it was a malfunctioning Telepod.

It wasn't built to send people through gates, so it was a malfunction.

One who hope and assume that it is working fine, since Crono had no problems (unless half his stomach is missing, a partial explanation as to why there Crono almost never eats, lol).

But he's still hungry...