Chrono Compendium
Enhasa Halls - Chrono Series Analysis => Time, Space, and Dimensions => Topic started by: GrayLensman on May 29, 2004, 04:42:37 am
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Formerly: Archived Discussion from GameFAQs: Marle and Ayla Paradox
This issue is hardly resolved, so as always feel free to continue the discussion. These are the most relevant and insightful comments from the GameFAQs message board topic, "Time Traveling Errors."
Yes, what I'm talking about is simple. And I'll get right to the point.
When you go to 65,000,000 B.C. you can get Ayla to join your team. And if I'm not mistaking Ayla is Marle's ancestor. So how is it when Ayla joins your team and you travel to the future that King Guardia is still there?
I mean, its basically Ayla disappearing from the face of the earth for 65,000,000 years. Unless they had kids before, this would make no sense.
Now you might say its going to happen no matter what even though it hasn't really happened yet, them having kids. You might say its in the original timeline that's why. Well you can change the statue in Medina Square, can't you?
That's what I believe 2300 A.D. is, if Crono and his friends were to disappear from this world and reappear 1300 years later.
Also when Robo and Doan go back to the future to 2300 A.D. its after Lavos is defeated, so do they go to the good or bad future?
What StreetFighterAkuma has brought to light is a significant revelation. While Ayla is waiting at the End of Time, the entire time-line would be changed so that there is no Guardia royal line. For that matter, Marle could never meet Doan in 2300 AD because he would cease to exist due to her absence in 1000 AD. This has far-reaching implications for the mechanics of time travel in the Chrono universe.
The time-line is not predetermined because history can be observed to change. If Ayla warps to the future, she is in fact missing for 65 million and some odd years. Ayla is not observed to return and have children until after Lavos is defeated. Time traveler immunity has nothing to do with this.
Maybe if Ayla never came back another women would take her place in mothering those who would eventually become the Gaurdia line. We don't see any evidence of this though because by the next time period you can visit, all records andstories from cave man times are lost.
That is certainly possible, as Kino would have probably taken another wife without question as Chief of the village. Since it's so far back in the past, any small change might cause a chaos effect (or rolling snowball) of ill repercussions through time, but I believe such a wave would be constricted by
-Population reducing Ice Age
-Ayla's probable life after returning (settling down)
-Ayla's extremely short lifespan in the grand scheme of time
Timeline Resilience Theory
Small changes made to the timeline will not have any noticeable effects if the intervening interval of time is sufficiently large. This is due to the overwhelming number of other factors involved and chaotic effects. After a geologic period of time, these small changes are simply cancelled out by the law of averages.
For example, even though Ayla was originally the ancestor of the Guardia royal line, in the timeline which existed while she is traveling through time, the present era was not noticeably changed. The Guardians had a different ancestor which had no noticeable effect after 65 million years.
Doan is surviving member of the Guardia royal line in 2300 AD, even when Marle was traveling through time. After 1300 years, Marle's absence from 1000 AD had a minimal effect on the timeline.
One example of where this does not apply is Queen Leene's disappearance in 600 AD, which may have eliminated Marle from the timeline.
Still, this is somewhat refuted by the fact that the Mayor of Porre does change if you give Jerky to his ancestor in 600AD. By most accounts, this is a minor change, yet the mayor is in fact changed by these events. Perhaps a better way to explain it is that the scale of the changes to the past corresponds to the scale of the changes in the future.
Examples: Having the original ancestor of Marle leave 65mil BC would end the Guardian line, but this is a very significant change, so some factor would act to preserve the timeline of the world to allow the Guardian line to come into existence. Giving Jerky to the Mayor of Porre's ancestor is a relatively small change, but because the resulting change to the timeline is also relatively small, it is allowed to happen. The rising of the Black Omen is a very significant change, but Crono's interference in the Ocean Palace is certainly not trivial.
Perhaps the 65 mil. BC ancestor is just Kino, and Ayla has nothing to do with it. Certainly, this would create a domestic problem when Ayla returns to her own time and finds that Kino has already taken or will take another tribe member as his wife. Nonetheless, the time stream would remain undisturbed.
Also, this theory might be comparable to Ending #1 if you complete all the side quests and resurrect Crono. Well you see Robo and Doan, correct? And you see them after you already defeated Lavos. So we know it exists, but it means nothing since it's not going to happen.
So on to the point, Robo and Doan come to 1000 A.D. to join the Moonlight Parade and talk with the King. Along with some other historical figures. Well Doan and Robo also return to 2300 A.D. in a time line where Lavos is defeated. So which time line do they return to? The good or bad 2300 A.D.
If they do return to the bad one, this has some power over time traveling laws. Which my first post can somehow be compared with.
Hmmm. I wonder. Ayla, is Marle's ancestor. If Ayla died, then Marle would never have been sucked into the portal, and nothing would ever happen. I hate to bring It into this, but...this may have been planned by the Entity. If Crono and co. failed, then they never would have tried, and the Entity could use someone else to it's purpose. Perhaps it did, and Crono isn't the first one to try.
And "the entity" is nothing more then destiny, the way things are supposed to happen in time traveling.
Now, with that in mind, suppose destiny recognizes the fact that no-one other than Crono & Co. could ensure the planet's survival?
I forget who postulated it, but in real life, there's a theory that states "God" is nothing more than the collective consciousness of humanity.
Taking this into consideration, if the Entity is the collective consciousness of humanity in Chrono Trigger, wouldn't it do everything in it's power to aid them in their quest? From little changes like the Mayor becoming kinder because a stranger gave his great-great-grandmother beef jerky (or whatever) to the bigger changes, like Ayla disappearing entirely for an extended period of time - isn't it at all possible that humanity keeps the timeline pretty firm in situations where deviance would prevent Crono's birth, only to make the timeline a little more flexible where it could make the defeat of Lavos that much more likely?
After all, I'm pretty sure Crono's really the only one that matters. Nobody else would've gone to save Marle, and if that hadn't happened, nothing else would've either.
One - I understand what you're saying. And two - have you said that before? If not, I just got the weirdest sense of deja vu.
I don't pretend to understand time travel because I don't. But what I'm saying is that maybe time, in this sense, is almost a living thing (An "Entity." :P) and that it is willing to remain inflexible in instances where doing otherwise would endanger it - i.e., Ayla not giving birth would keep Marle from ever being born, which would mean that Crono would never start his quest, which would mean that Lavos would never be defeated. However, the beef jerky thing - I'm only using that as an example - is relatively minor, or is, at least, relatively minor thus far. Perhaps ten thousand years from that point in time, it would have some critical influence on the timestream. But so far, all it did was aid Crono, which seems to be destiny's aim.
Alright, I have 2 theories :
1) the Dream theory
We all know Crono's adventure is the "Dream of our Planet". Let's say for example, the time Gates were to be shut down right there, in the middle of the game. Crono would just >wake< up in his house in 1000AD, so as Marle, and Ayla in 65...BC, the three able to marry whoever live their life... So, well, my point is, maybe those time-travellers have some kind of "protective status", since they travel basically between a "real world" and the "dream" of the world... hmm hope it makes any sense.
2) the Clones theory
See those clones of the party in the Ocean Palace? either they're just random stuff to make the decor scary, or they may have a real >purpose<. Like, "replacing" the party in their respective time-line, something like that... it still doesn't explain why we don't see them in the eras, but, it's something to think about, maybe...
First:
"All things are four dimensionally predeterminate, meaning that everything has already happened and their's really no way to change it. I could get into it, but take a few good physics courses and you'll none what I mean."
I've taken Relativistic Physics, Quantum Physics, Nuclear Physics, all of which were "good" physics courses, and I don't "none" (know) what you mean. Please, do "get into it", otherwise don't state such things without backing them up.
Second:
I believe I may have a theory that kinda satisfies what StreetFighterAkuma is saying.. Before I say them though, I just need to make sure we're on the same page.
- So, your question is: since the actions of characters have implications on the future (i.e: giving Jerky to the Porre Elder's wife in 600 A.D. results in their decendents being more generous), then why does the Guardia/Doan exist if you can visit them with Ayla in your party (since that would mean Ayla has been missing for millions of years)?
- And as was said, one can't claim "well because she would go back home and get pregnant later" because then there would be no reason a New Game couldn't be started with a Rainbow and high equipment/stats since technically those would also be gotten later..
If we are indeed on the same page, I have 2 theories:
- My theory is that this is a result of the time travel methods being very limited in where/which time periods one can travel to. What I mean by that is: the 3 ways Crono and gang can travel through time (Gates, Pillars, Epoch) can only go to
a.) a limited number of times (otherwise Epoch would be able to go to millions of different time periods, and there would be much more than 9 pillars) and
b.)1 scenario out of an infinite amount.
-What I mean by the latter is each of the 5 time periods you can originally go to (excluding 1999 A.D. and the End of Time) are all time periods which would have existed if Crono and company never began travelling through time.
-Once Crono and company have been to a particular time period, their actions in that period change the future (not post-Lavos future, but future from that date) only for scenarios that they have not been to.
Example:
-Crono lives in a time where Porre's Elder is greedy.
-Crono gives Jerky to his great great great grandmother (or whoever) in 600 A.D.
-When Crono travels back to 1000 A.D. he is not in the same world as he grew up in. The version of 1000 A.D. he is in now is changed, for some strange reason, whenever Crono travels from now on to 1000 A.D., he can only go to the scenario where Porre's Elder is generous.
Example 2:
-Crono, Marle and Lucca are chilling in the End of Time. Ayla (knows all about time travel and such) is waiting around in her hut in 65000000 B.C.
-They go to the Millenial Fair 1000 A.D.
-Lucca (alone) goes to 65000000 B.C. Gives Ayla the Gate Key, and tells Ayla to go 1000 A.D.
-Ayla happily obliges, and when she gets there, she sees Crono and Marle.
-If there were an error in the time-travel process, then as soon as Ayla stepped into the Gate, then past/future would have changed instantly, and Crono and Marle would disappear or be changed somehow. The reason that they don't is because Ayla (when travelling from 65000000 B.C. to the End of Time, and from there to 1000 A.D.) can't choose which scenario to go to. She can only go to the one where Crono and Marle are. Why, I don't know.
Theory 2
The Zeal/Guardia/Doan bloodline is not decendent of Ayla. She could have died when Lavos struck the world while she was battling Azala (hey, she was alone this time, so it took longer..)
Zeal/Guardia/Doan are all decendents of Kino, and Kino alone. He took over as chief when Ayla died, and thus, the male dominated society began. This is just as possible as any other theory, and it's just chance that Kino got Ayla pregnant because they had a chance to be together.
Edit
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Another thing to point out is after Crono gives the jerky to the mayor and he's in a whole different 1000 A.D., this small change may have effected the way Crono was raised, yet Crono doesn't gain or lose any memories.
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Well, that's due to Time Traveler's Immunity. Even if Crono entirely obliterated his ancestors so that he was never born, he'd still exist and have memories of every timeline he had traveled through.
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Alright, so the issue is why Guardia continues to exist if Alya is taken out of the timeline, correct? And possibilities cannot explain it (meaning that the posibility of Alya returning to her timeline wouldn't have an affect until she actually did)
The simple explination is that they're not really ancestors in the literal sence. With all the intervening years, how could they confirm that either way without some higher technology than they posess?
Or, it could be relation through adoption. With so many intervening generations, its possible (likely maybe?) that one of the wives marrying into line bore a child illigitimately and hid the fact, or someone adopted.
Just some thoughts.
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I agree with Daggart. Obviously the King from 600 A.D. is related to Marle, and maybe it is possible that she is related to Doan (he could probably trace his ancestry, being from a highly advanced technological society). But there is no way of tracing Marle's ancestry over 65 million years. Kino and Ayla were the "royalty" of the time, as was Doan and of course King Guardia from 600A.D., probably just some way of convincing King Guardia XXXIII that Marle and Crono were saving the past present and future from a great evil and many lesser evils instead of gettin it on ;)
heh, Lucca sure is crafty.
Question: With all of these bumps in history created by important people leaving their time periods and supposedly erasing lineages, how would an observer from the future see this? Would this all be a problem if the true Present was beyond 2300 A.D., perhaps a bit later when the planet actually about to die and is seeing its life flash before its eyes as Ayla put it?
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Aside: Ever seen Back to the Future 2? In it, the main character, Marty (played by Michael J. Fox), travels to his own future. In it, his future self and future children all exist, whom he could theoretically visit. This is similar to Marle traveling to 2300 and meeting her descendant. The paradox is, if Marty left the timestream, how does he exist in the future?
Here's a little theory of mine that can go a bit towards explaining the paradox:
Consider the mechanics of time travel (from a very simplified perspective). When a traveler decides to travel from time X to time Y, X<Y, there are two possible ways this could work:
1. The traveler leaves the timestream at X, is kept in some sort of stasis, the timestream continues naturally to Y, then the traveler reenters.
2. The traveler moves immediately from point X on the timestream to point Y, without any chance for the timestream to change. He enters the timestream as it would be if he had never traveled.
The first method may actually be feasible in the real world, with methods of stasis and such. But if it can be done by such simple methods, is it really "time travel"? It can't be used to travel to the past, as the methods in CT can. It would be possible for a system like this to exist, of course, if paradoxes like the Ayla paradox didn't act as evidence against it. The second method seems more like actual time travel, and fits in with in-game evidence (at least as far as I can see). Note that those mechanics are nowhere near complete; they differ for jumps to the past and when multiple jumps are involved.
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I beleive what you said is used alot in Marvel Comics (a separate world, but nonetheless full of good theories) Unless a specific event in the past is changed, then the timestream continues. If the event changes, then the original timestrand is 'standed' in time, while the new timestream is taken.
If we take into account the fact that Ayla is the ancestor, then Ayla must have gotten pregnant. Since this specific event was never changed, and Ayla later returned to her timeline, then in the future, she gave birth to Marle's ancestor.
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Yes, it's one of the more popular mechanics of time travel.
Aside: The other method is used often in Star Trek; whenever someone makes a voyage to the future, they find it as it would be if they had never left.
Star Trek also uses an axiom that limits changes to the present from traveling to the past by an amount "proportional to the inverse-square of the distance traveled." This means that the further one travels into the past, the smaller the effect on the present. This can also be seen in CT; the party can easily make changes to the present from 600 AD, but can change nothing (with the exception of the Sun Stone) from 65,000,000 BC.
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Sorry my answer isn't gonna be as sophisticated as some of yours, but to everyone wondering how Time Travel works in Chrono Trigger, one "idea" of how it works could be the one from Pastwatch, by Orson Scott Card. I'll try to find the passage and enter it in here, as it may be how the developers thought of time travel.
And BTW, you should probably check out Pastwatch if you are a fan of Sci-Fi or Card.
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Keep in mind that that game never really proved a relation between Ayla and Marle. For all we know Ayla could be related to the Zeal family line.
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Marle: Please!
Just listen to me!
We had to...
KING: ...save the future, right?
Marle: Huh??
DOAN: You saved the future, and gave
us hope.
KING GUARDIA: You fought Magus's
troops, and brought peace to the
kingdom in the year 600.
KINO: Crono beat Reptites!
Marle: Wh, what's going on here?
Marle: Lucca!
You brought them here, didn't you?
KING GUARDIA: Our kinsmen told me all
about your incredible mission.
Marle: Kinsmen?!
You mean these're MY ancestors...and
descendants?
KING: Here I was fussing about my
kingdom, and my daughter, and you
were saving past, present and
future!
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I'm curious -
Why is no one from Zeal brought back to that meeting?
Is there anything disproving the possibility that Marle may be somehow related to Queen Zeal, Schala, and Janus?
You would think that if a surviving relative could be found in 65,000,000 BC, one could be found in 12,000 BC.
EDIT - I guess striking against this idea is the very plot of Chrono Cross, though - in retrospect. Maybe its a thought of use to someone else.
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The Elder of Algetty is probably part of the Guardia royal line. He has the exact same sprite as Doan, so he wouldn't have been brought to the Moonlight Parade for obvious reasons.
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That would make sense.
Lazy Square should have kept that in mind and gave the Elder another sprite!
Those bastards. :o
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Well they do have a time machine what if Ayla just left for one day. Ayla leaves and they just return her to the day after she left. I know that doesn't solve why Marle was still there even if Ayla leaves.
i mean they leave every character in their era a day after the day they changed.
Man its hard to say what I'm thinking. :?
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hmm, oh. So now this is not just the Marle/Ayla paradox, but also the Marle/Ayla/Kings Guardia/Doan paradox? it's getting tough :o
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hmm, oh. So now this is not just the Marle/Ayla paradox, but also the Marle/Ayla/Kings Guardia/Doan paradox? it's getting tough :o
That's just making the title longer. Let's just call it the Marle/Ayla Paradox for simplicity sake. Or maybe the Guardia Line Paradox?
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Topic titles can only be so long, so an extended version is not possible. However, Guardia Royal Line Paradox has a nice ring to it.
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I would like to submit for your approval (amusement?) the Bill & Ted theory of time travel.
(Please bear with me as it has been a long time since I last watched it.)
At the end of a movie the villain (sp?) is about to win, but a cage falls directly over him from the roof. Bill & Ted planted it after they won and used the time machine.
Then the villain pulls out a key he left in the cage after he won and used the time machine.
Then he also grabs the spare gun (he lost his previously I believe) which he also planted after winning and using the time machine.
He fires the gun which is just a toy that makes the "Bang" flag pop out.
Bill & Ted explain that only the winner gets to use the time machine and that they planted the key and the gun.
It's a bit of a stretch and goes against the idea of Chrono Trigger and imposing one's free will upon the fabric of time, but maybe since lavos is defeated there is never any question of the Guardia Line's continuity.
(Hmm, even as I wrote this I kept coming up with more ways that it didnt fit properly. I will post it anyway in hope that it will spark something relevant in someone else's mind, but I consider it pre-post-debunked.)
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Questions Raised:
1. Why does the Guardia Line exist after 65000000 B.C. when Ayla departs to the future with Crono's group?
Inquiry
Under the rules of Chrono Series time travel, history is not predetermined; if a person leaves for a year in the future, he will arrive in a world that has not seen him for one year's time. This is proven in the case of the Sun Stone; when the Porre mayor removes it in 1000 A.D., it no longer exists in the Sun Keep afterwards. Now, consider that Ayla is Marle's ancestor, and gave birth to the descendants who would eventually become the Guardia royal family. If Ayla leaves 65000000 B.C. on her quest with Crono to go to the future, why is history unaffected? From the point of her departure, the world's history should have progressed without Ayla, meaning the Guardia family would have never been born. The same can be said for Doan, said to be a descendant of the family from 1000 A.D. How do Ayla and the others travel through time without violating history in this manner?
Theories
Timeline Resilience Theory
GrayLensman, Leebot, whatev
Small changes made to the timeline will not have any noticeable effects if the intervening interval of time is sufficiently large. This is due to the overwhelming number of other factors involved and chaotic effects. After a geologic period of time, these small changes are simply cancelled out by the law of averages.
For example, even though Ayla was originally the ancestor of the Guardia royal line, in the timeline which existed while she is traveling through time, the present era was not noticeably changed. The Guardians had a different ancestor which had no noticeable effect after 65 million years. Doan is surviving member of the Guardia royal line in 2300 AD, even when Marle was traveling through time. After 1300 years, Marle's absence from 1000 AD had a minimal effect on the timeline. One example of where this does not apply is Queen Leene's disappearance in 600 AD, which may have eliminated Marle from the timeline.
Still, this is somewhat refuted by the fact that the Mayor of Porre does change if you give Jerky to his ancestor in 600AD. By most accounts, this is a minor change, yet the mayor is in fact changed by these events. Perhaps a better way to explain it is that the scale of the changes to the past corresponds to the scale of the changes in the future.
Examples: Having the original ancestor of Marle leave 65mil BC would end the Guardian line, but this is a very significant change, so some factor would act to preserve the timeline of the world to allow the Guardian line to come into existence. Giving Jerky to the Mayor of Porre's ancestor is a relatively small change, but because the resulting change to the timeline is also relatively small, it is allowed to happen. The rising of the Black Omen is a very significant change, but Crono's interference in the Ocean Palace is certainly not trivial.
Star Trek also uses an axiom that limits changes to the present from traveling to the past by an amount "proportional to the inverse-square of the distance traveled." This means that the further one travels into the past, the smaller the effect on the present. This can also be seen in CT; the party can easily make changes to the present from 600 AD, but can change nothing (with the exception of the Sun Stone) from 65,000,000 BC.
Alternative Ancestors
KerntheGerm, Daggart
Perhaps the 65 mil. BC ancestor is just Kino, and Ayla has nothing to do with it. Certainly, this would create a domestic problem when Ayla returns to her own time and finds that Kino has already taken or will take another tribe member as his wife. Nonetheless, the time stream would remain undisturbed.
Another simple explanation is that they're not really ancestors in the literal sence. With all the intervening years, how could they confirm that either way without some higher technology than they posess? Or, it could be relation through adoption. With so many intervening generations, its possible (likely maybe?) that one of the wives marrying into line bore a child illigitimately and hid the fact, or someone adopted.
Misconceptions
History cannot be preserved simply because Ayla "returned to prehistory and had babies after the adventure." Until Lavos is defeated, there is no "after the adventure," and on top of everything, the theme of the Chrono games is that free will exists and people can change history by unleashing their desires and passions. The series does not operate on temporal possibilities, and neither is anything "fated" to happen. When Ayla departs 65000000 B.C., she should be missing for sixty five million years, and Guardia should evaporate.
Additionally, Kino and Ayla probably did not have a baby before she left. This is evidenced in the animation ending of the Playstation version, in which the two are formally married. Kino's jealousy in the game is also indicative of a young and turbulent relationship.
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I've decided against including some of the more tenuous ideas in my summary. Chrono'99, if you want to further develop your theories, feel free to.
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Can Time Traveler's Immunity protect Ayla's absence from mucking up the timeline? O_o
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Time Traveler's Immunity would protect Ayla from something, but it wouldn't protect her Children/Descenants.
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Under the rules of Chrono Series time travel, history is not predetermined; if a person leaves for a year in the future, he will arrive in a world that has not seen him for one year's time. This is proven in the case of the Sun Stone; when the Porre mayor removes it in 1000 A.D., it no longer exists in the Sun Keep afterwards.
I'd have to contest this point. The removal of the Sun Stone isn't like the exit of a time traveler. For one thing, the Sun Stone isn't traveling through time. Its removal is simply a historical event that had nothing to do with time travel. It would be a legitimate proof if instead the Sun Stone fell through a Gate into the future and came into a future in which it didn't exist--which is the type of event we're trying to figure out here.
If you don't have any other proof for this, I would have to argue that history in the Chrono series actually is predetermined, and the Guardia Royal Line Paradox is proof of that.
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Under the rules of Chrono Series time travel, history is not predetermined; if a person leaves for a year in the future, he will arrive in a world that has not seen him for one year's time. This is proven in the case of the Sun Stone; when the Porre mayor removes it in 1000 A.D., it no longer exists in the Sun Keep afterwards.
I'd have to contest this point. The removal of the Sun Stone isn't like the exit of a time traveler. For one thing, the Sun Stone isn't traveling through time. Its removal is simply a historical event that had nothing to do with time travel. It would be a legitimate proof if instead the Sun Stone fell through a Gate into the future and came into a future in which it didn't exist--which is the type of event we're trying to figure out here.
If you don't have any other proof for this, I would have to argue that history in the Chrono series actually is predetermined, and the Guardia Royal Line Paradox is proof of that.
Look at how the non-time traveling person would see this. If someone time travels, the world would see it as the person disappearing for X number of years, reappearing later. In the world's point of view, if someone of the Guardian Line leaves, it would have been like they physically disappeared, thus giving us no way for their family to continue.
I think I might have an idea about some of these Paradox, that I just came up with. Lets take Marle and Doan first. Lets say that after the 1000ad in Chrono Trigger, King Guardia remarried. And produced another child. And Doan is descended from that child. He would technially still be Marle's descendant (I think, or close enough), and his existance wouldn't require Marle's. Kino (and therefore Ayla) to Marle is a bit harder to explain, other than maybe Kino produced a child with someone other than Ayla. But thats defininately not what was intended with Ayla and Kino.
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Ahaha! I have the answer. Belthasar departed the future to watch Project Kid in action with the Neo Epoch. And as the Chief of Chronopolis aptly describes, he was missing thereafter. This qualifies that time travelers who exit to the past are gone. Janus went to the future from 12000 B.C., and was missing afterwards too, along with the Gurus. Now, I suppose one could argue that this was predetermined, and that the Entity perhaps had some hand in involving Crono's team without significantly interrupting time.
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I think I may have come up with a way to explain this paradox.
It was stated in Chronopolis that observations of alternate time-lines were extremely volatile. We should consider the effects of quantum mechanics rather than general relativity. Perhaps, instead of a static sequence of events, time-lines should be considered as a set of probabilities, which are always changing.
All possible outcomes of an event exist in superposition until something happens to "collapse the waveform". Ayla and Marle's descendants would exist in a potential state unless they actually died, precluding the possibility of their returning to their respective time periods.
As the group time travels, Lavos exists in a potential state until the timeline collapses into the outcome where Lavos is defeated.
This might, might be another way to explain Marle's disappearance. When Crono approached Marle, he collapsed Marle's potential outcome to where she didn't exist. Rescuing Queen Leene, and observing the site of Marle disappearance, shifted the time-line again. I'm not sure how this would jive with TTI. A time traveller's personal timeline is not affected by cause and effect, but could a traveller's existence just "collapse" because such a time-line is more stable? Or rather, Marle's personal timeline was protected, but Crono shifted the rest of the timelime to a different outcome, leaving Marle stranded in the DBT.
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Entity Theory. Get your groans out now.
If we are to believe that the Entity caused Marle to stop existing to encourage Crono to get his quest going, is it also possible the Entity could protect the Party's absence from changing the timeline so they don't get distracted from the Lavos quest by fixing their own absences and being counterproductive?
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I don't personally like that idea, Grey.
Another idea about the Guardians being perserved, even when Ayla time traveled: In the original timeline, Ayla and Kino would have probably still gotten together, and produced offspring, who would later become the Guardian Royal Family. What if that in a generation between Kino/Ayla and the Guardians of 600, [on the original timeline] who time traveled to a point in time, but then returned. This would give him/her Time Traveler's Immunity, thus freeing him/her from his/her temporal foundation of Ayla/Kino. And then the Guardians would be decsended from him/her. That works, I think. However, the biggest problem with that is that there is absolutly no proof whatsoever for it, and its just an idea trying to solve a problem.
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Kino might have came to prehistory by time traveling since he was found near the Mystic Mts Gate, but I guess it doesn't help in solving the problem.
I once proposed the idea that maybe the guy who founded Guardia (in 1 A.D.) came to power thanks to possessing the Frozen Flame, and that maybe the flame somehow gave him Time Traveler Immunity among other mysterious powers. This is very farfetched though, it's more fanfic material (or CT:Crimson Echoes :roll: ) than a real theory.
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Isn't the like number one time travel rule of the Chronoverse state that nothing changes until a change is actually made? Sure, Ayla does leave 65,000,000 but that doesn't instantly kill her. Lemme try and give an example of how this works.
Ayla for some reason becomes stranded in another time. Lets say that Ayla was supposed to bear children one year after she got stuck in her current time. Once Ayla stays past that year, then things get screwy, because she is not present at her time and cannot bear the children. That would end up messing the entire family tree.
But thats not what happened. Think about it, if in the unaltered timeline Ayla gave birth in 59,999,998 then why would her leaving that time earlier and returning back before hand affect anything in regards to the tree? It shouldn't, since in the Chronoverse things don't change until something changes it. Unless Ayla dies or is unable to return to her home time then nothing that comes after the time traveling would be affected.
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But from the way it's understood in Chronoverse, it's never assumed that a person will come back to their original time.
God, I fricken hate Time Travel -_-
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Isn't the like number one time travel rule of the Chronoverse state that nothing changes until a change is actually made? Sure, Ayla does leave 65,000,000 but that doesn't instantly kill her. Lemme try and give an example of how this works.
Ayla for some reason becomes stranded in another time. Lets say that Ayla was supposed to bear children one year after she got stuck in her current time. Once Ayla stays past that year, then things get screwy, because she is not present at her time and cannot bear the children. That would end up messing the entire family tree.
But thats not what happened. Think about it, if in the unaltered timeline Ayla gave birth in 59,999,998 then why would her leaving that time earlier and returning back before hand affect anything in regards to the tree? It shouldn't, since in the Chronoverse things don't change until something changes it. Unless Ayla dies or is unable to return to her home time then nothing that comes after the time traveling would be affected.
Well, lets apply that backwards then. A time traveler never returns to their own time until they actually do it. If a Time Traveler leaves their own time, its not assumed that they will some time return. Because as to that point, they had not returned.
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About how Doan can possibly be related to Marle. I know in real life history when a king or queen does not have any children to succeed them usually a family member, whether distant or close takes over.
Anyway, I don't think Marle and King Guardia XXXIII are the only surviving members of the royal family in 1000 A.D. Just the only ones we're aware of. So it's very possible Marle could be missing for a thousand years and Doan to be existing.
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Isn't the like number one time travel rule of the Chronoverse state that nothing changes until a change is actually made? Sure, Ayla does leave 65,000,000 but that doesn't instantly kill her. Lemme try and give an example of how this works.
Ayla for some reason becomes stranded in another time. Lets say that Ayla was supposed to bear children one year after she got stuck in her current time. Once Ayla stays past that year, then things get screwy, because she is not present at her time and cannot bear the children. That would end up messing the entire family tree.
But thats not what happened. Think about it, if in the unaltered timeline Ayla gave birth in 59,999,998 then why would her leaving that time earlier and returning back before hand affect anything in regards to the tree? It shouldn't, since in the Chronoverse things don't change until something changes it. Unless Ayla dies or is unable to return to her home time then nothing that comes after the time traveling would be affected.
Well, lets apply that backwards then. A time traveler never returns to their own time until they actually do it. If a Time Traveler leaves their own time, its not assumed that they will some time return. Because as to that point, they had not returned.
But they do return to their own times.
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*head hits the wall* READ the thread before you post in it if you're gonna revive it after several months, for the love of god.
Time doesn't assume anything. If someone leaves their normal time period, the entire timeline assumes he never returns until he actually does. If Bob goes 7 years into the future, history says he's been missing for 7 years. If he had children in those seven years, then they wouldn't exist to greet him when he arrived in the future. However, that would be remedied once he went to his own time.
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*Cracks knuckles* Time to get back to work.
Okay, here's how things look, now that I come back to it:
1) Time travelers can apparently change the present from the past in many ways, even through seemingly insignificant actions (ie. Porre Mayor).
2) If the universe were inherently self-correcting in all manners related to time travel, the whole defeating-Lavos-to-save-the-world thing suddenly becomes pretty futile. The overall theme of the game is changing history; it wouldn't make sense for there to be a self-correcting mechanic like this, unless it were explicitly stated somewhere in the game or its sequel.
3) The Sun Stone can be brought back in time and placed in the Sun Keep in 65,000,000 BC. In the nearly 65,000,000 years until you can check it again, in 12,000 BC, it isn't disturbed. If history did have a self-correcting mechanism, it would surely have been able to act by then, wouldn't it? A convenient earthquake or cave-in could destroy it or knock it out and into the ocean.
Putting 1, 2, and 3 together, it seems obvious that a self-correcting law regarding time-travel can't be our answer here. But, we then have to explain how both Kino and Marle can travel to the future and meet their descendants. Here, I can think of two possibilities:
1. Partial self-correction - The event of a time traveler exiting the timeline to travel to a different point is the only possible time-traveling event that will cause the universe to try to fill in the gap and correct itself (note that if they go to the past, this will be completely unnoticeable). So, if they go to a future, it will be one that underwent the self-correcting process, but correcting only for their absense.
2. Genetic Averaging - Over the timescales we see the paradox taking effect, the other people contributing to the descendant's ancestry comprise almost all of the contributed genes. The change of only a single person in the past would be such a minor change that the descendant would be virtually no different.
So, let's look at our two cases: Kino leaves 65 million BC, and meets his descendant Marle. The universe has had 65 million years to correct itself, so the Guardia line could easily have been created from a slightly different ancestry. However, with all the generations involved, a single different ancestor 65 million years ago would have no noticeble effect whatsoever. It's possible that Kino's (and maybe Ayla's) place in the ancestry was simply replaced by someone else.
In the second case, of Marle going to the future to meet her eventual descendant, Doan, the same situation basically applies. The Guardia line could have simply been continued by a cousin of hers or something, who would already have pretty similar genes. The timescale isn't nearly as long, but it's still around 50 generations. This means that Doan's ancestry would differ by a minimum of only 1/2^50. 2^50 is on the scale of 10^30, which is much greater than the number of genes any person has. This means that chances are, not even a single gene would be different.
3. Preset Future - This is the other theory I hypothesized earlier, regarding traveling to the future. Basically, if you make a time jump to the future, you come to the future that would have occured had you not left the timestream at that point (that is, the future as if time travel had suddenly stopped working). When they return, the other version is Time-Bastarded out.
This last option now seems the least likely, as you'll note that when Crono & co. leave 1000 AD the first time, their absense is very much noticed. Additionally, this type of mechanic seems to lend itself too easily to paradoxes in the case of repeated time travel.
Theory 2 also faces a problem due to Chaos Theory - a small change in the past has a very good chance of causing large changes in the future in many ways, as the changes ripple out. In the end, I think our best bet is to combine theories 1 & 2. We have genetic averaging coupled with the universe trying to correct for the change. This should account for everything we observe in the game.
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*head hits the wall* READ the thread before you post in it if you're gonna revive it after several months, for the love of god.
Time doesn't assume anything. If someone leaves their normal time period, the entire timeline assumes he never returns until he actually does. If Bob goes 7 years into the future, history says he's been missing for 7 years. If he had children in those seven years, then they wouldn't exist to greet him when he arrived in the future. However, that would be remedied once he went to his own time.
1. I read the thread, and 2. On most forums it is not considered 'reviving' provided it is on the first page. I see nothing against posting in this this one. o.o
Nope. When you go forward in time, the time you return will have happened and be recorded presuming you do return.
Provided you return before the events have happened, there is no reason the events will be changes, as the world will go along with the normal flow of time as opposed to your personal timeline, in which it may be years that you spend traveling through time.
Trust me, I've had experience in the area of time-travel debating. I've been arguing over Zelda: Ocarina of Time for years (ugh, what a mess that timeline is).
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1. I read the thread, and 2. On most forums it is not considered 'reviving' provided it is on the first page. I see nothing against posting in this this one. o.o
Nope. When you go forward in time, the time you return will have happened and be recorded presuming you do return.
Provided you return before the events have happened, there is no reason the events will be changes, as the world will go along with the normal flow of time as opposed to your personal timeline, in which it may be years that you spend traveling through time.
Trust me, I've had experience in the area of time-travel debating. I've been arguing over Zelda: Ocarina of Time for years (ugh, what a mess that timeline is).
1. This thread has been over 6 months old. It's reviving.
2. No, in CT, it doesn't assume you go back. It's a fact that's been concluded on this forum for atleast a few years.
3. You missed my point anyway
4. The Ocarina of Time can't be compared to Chrono Trigger. They have two entirelly different, contradicting systems of time travel.
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1. But it does not inconvenience you or any other member of these forums, so I see no reason to be angry.
2. It is not assuming anything, because if you are going to be back you will be back before the time that uour child is conceived, so your line will continue.
3. And your point was?
4. Right. In Ocarina of Time time is "immutable". (depending on whether you are a Splitist or a single-timeliner, I suppose) Here it is not. But that does not effect this matter and this is certainly a case where the two systems are similar.
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1. But it does not inconvenience you or any other member of these forums, so I see no reason to be angry.
2. It is not assuming anything, because if you are going to be back you will be back before the time that uour child is conceived, so your line will continue.
3. And your point was?
4. Right. In Ocarina of Time time is "immutable". (depending on whether you are a Splitist or a single-timeliner, I suppose) Here it is not. But that does not effect this matter and this is certainly a case where the two systems are similar.
For point number one, I have to agree with the Mystic Frog King. Given what I've observed of this forum, not too many topics around here are all that active at once. As such, it's not really reviving so much as continuing. Believe me, I hate forum necromancy as much as anyone, but in this case, it's not really necromancy.
For point number two, AuraTwilight is correct. The entire premise of the series is that you can change literally anything. When you leave a specific point in the timeline, the timeline continues as if you are no longer there. That's how things work in the Chronoverse and why we have so much trouble resolving this paradox(though I believe Leebot has an excellent explanation.)
I have no idea what AuraTwilight's point was, and no, this is not similiar to the Ocarina of Time.
Seriously, you two have been at each other's throats since MFK registered here. What's going on, if I may attempt to mediate so as to avoid other intervention?
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1. But it does not inconvenience you or any other member of these forums, so I see no reason to be angry.
2. It is not assuming anything, because if you are going to be back you will be back before the time that uour child is conceived, so your line will continue.
3. And your point was?
4. Right. In Ocarina of Time time is "immutable". (depending on whether you are a Splitist or a single-timeliner, I suppose) Here it is not. But that does not effect this matter and this is certainly a case where the two systems are similar.
For point number two, AuraTwilight is correct. The entire premise of the series is that you can change literally anything. When you leave a specific point in the timeline, the timeline continues as if you are no longer there. That's how things work in the Chronoverse and why we have so much trouble resolving this paradox(though I believe Leebot has an excellent explanation.)
Seriously, you two have been at each other's throats since MFK registered here. What's going on, if I may attempt to mediate so as to avoid other intervention?
But if you do return, you have already. x.x It's confusing. But this element is shared by OoT, I'm pretty sure.
I dunno o.o
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http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Flow_Principle.html
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But if you do return, you have already. x.x It's confusing. But this element is shared by OoT, I'm pretty sure.
I dunno o.o
Time Error. Time Error is the answer to this problem. The gates do not take you to specific days or a time of day. They take you to a specific era year, that's all. Time flows on both sides of the gate, the flow of which can be altered due to gravitational effects, the rotation of the planet--hence why 65,000,000 B.C. would differ greatly in its flow of time from all the other eras--ect ect. So, basically, if you leave on January 2nd, 1000 A.D, headed for 600 A.D., you would arrive a few seconds later, same time, January 2nd, 600 A.D. Presumably the same applies to the Epoch, as there has been nothing shown otherwise. The only gate and time era accessible that shows a difference is the Day of Lavos gate, which apparently links to the specific day and time Lavos appeared in 1999. As such, it would presumeably be a red gate were we to see it as a gate rather than a light pillar.
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And? Is there anything to suggest that the quest takes so long that it is impossible for Ayla to come back and get pregnant? (Forget the inns)
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And? Is there anything to suggest that the quest takes so long that it is impossible for Ayla to come back and get pregnant? (Forget the inns)
The simple fact is they never go to back before they arrived at a specific point in time. Everything in the game happens in sequence. Say when they first go to 65,000,000 B.C. they arrive on January 9th. They can never go to back before that date in 65,000,000 B.C. Therefore, until the adventure is over, time proceeds as if Ayla had not returned, because until the adventure is over, there IS no after the adventure. That's how it works.
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Except for the fact that when she is travelling back in time she is traveling to before the events of the adventure happened, so there is no need for an 'after the adventure' in this case.
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Except for the fact that when she is travelling back in time she is traveling to before the events of the adventure happened, so there is no need for an 'after the adventure' in this case.
No, that's not true in the slightest. If only because that means there'd be two of each party member in every time period.
OOT is different because only Link's consciousness travels through time anyway, which is a very, very, very, VERY significant difference.
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Which probably happened but would be far to annoying for gameplay purposes.
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What am I, invisible man??
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Yeah; look up flow principle, guys.
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I'm gonna try and lay down a theory here even if it may not be accepted. We already know that as an extension of Time Travelers Immunity, the Time Bastard will remove any clones created through the manipulation of time. This is done to protect from paradoxes. My question is why can't it work in reverse.
As you guys have said, time can assume nothing. That is, it can't assume a time traveller will die, nor will reappear. In theory, it should appear that the traveller has dissappeared from history. However, why can't the time bastard theory be applied in reverse? Allow me to elaborate...
In order to minimise the possible paradoxes, a kind of 'reverse-time bastard' occures where by a time clone appears at the point where the time traveller is expected to return, and lives their life for them, for the sake of keeping the continuity of the future.
If the time-travellers succeed in their mission, then they would return to the point in time that the clone appeared, changing time so that the clone is never neccesary. This would explain why the Guardia line remains stable, whilst still allowing a changes to be made t the timeline.
This could also go some lengths to explain the doppelgangers that appear in the Ocean Palace. We already know that it had certain chronological capabilities, since once it's power is amplified by Lavos, it turns into what people know as the Black Omen.
Now, I'll hand this over to you and see who shoots this theory down first. :D
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That's just the thing. The timeline NEVER respects ANYONE to return. If you leave your time period, it assumes you're gone forever until you actually go back.
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Never assume that what you see and feel is real... I'd like someone to actually cite a counter-example to Radox Redux, if there is any.
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That's just the thing. The timeline NEVER respects ANYONE to return. If you leave your time period, it assumes you're gone forever until you actually go back.
Don't worry, I'm very aware that my theory is long-shot. However time can neither assume that the characters can return, but they also can't assume that they won't return. The thing with time-travelers is that they are suspended above chance. If the time-travellers did die, then the clones would never be created, and history will simply see a bunch of mysterious disappearances. The clones are merely placeholders that hold the place in the travellers expected return point, until the travellers either return (meaning time is changed and the clones are never created.) or until they die. This seems to be the simplest way that the planet could maintain the continuity without making assumptions.
Look at it from the entity's pov: You want Crono, Lucca and Marle to learn of the day of Lavos via 2400 AD? But you can't becuase removing them from the timeline (especially Marle) would result in that timeline becoming ultimatly innaccessable, unless the entity made some sort of counter-measure for this eventuality, such as in my theory, whereby the new future is identicle to the one that would have existed had Crono and crew not took off from 1000 AD.
EDIT: yes, I'm aware that removing Marle from the timeline, wouldn't make that much difference, but assume it does for the sake of example.
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Never assume that what you see and feel is real... I'd like someone to actually cite a counter-example to Radox Redux, if there is any.
Aha, herein lies the problem: Shifting the burden of proof to us to disprove his theory. The burden of proof is always on the positive claimant. In a case like finding the rules for time-travel in this game, proof is hard to find, so the goal is to apply Occam's Razor to find the simplest explanation that accounts for everything we see.
So, let's look into this theory, and see what it's assuming. On the surface, it seems simple, but there's one big complication: How does the timeline figure out when and how a time-traveler is expected to return? Does it run a simulation in an alternate universe to see what would happen there? But that simulation would require first performing it so that the time traveler would first leave to a future where they hadn't returned (all of that's uncertain). But then, the clone generated wouldn't be faithful to what would happen to the next iteration of the time-traveler. The only choice is to run the simulation again, and keep running it until it reaches a stable limit.
But there end up being problems with this. First of all, what if it doesn't reach a stable limit? What if it enters into an alternating loop (chain of events in timeline A lead to timeline B being generated, and B leads to A being generated)? What if there are alternate stable solutions that aren't arrived at by this process of iteration? How is the one that actually happens chosen?
And then there are the problems of what this explanation requires: Namely, at least one simulation of the universe for some extended period of time. This is a pretty big thing to postulate, and we have no evidence to believe such simulations are going on. On the other hand, we do have simpler explanations which don't require so many big assumptions, so Occam's Razor would imply that those are favored.
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And there's the much easier, simpler assumption for the universe to make: That they don't come back at all, and to just progress as things are.
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Never assume that what you see and feel is real... I'd like someone to actually cite a counter-example to Radox Redux, if there is any.
Aha, herein lies the problem: Shifting the burden of proof to us to disprove his theory. The burden of proof is always on the positive claimant. In a case like finding the rules for time-travel in this game, proof is hard to find, so the goal is to apply Occam's Razor to find the simplest explanation that accounts for everything we see.
So, let's look into this theory, and see what it's assuming. On the surface, it seems simple, but there's one big complication: How does the timeline figure out when and how a time-traveler is expected to return? Does it run a simulation in an alternate universe to see what would happen there? But that simulation would require first performing it so that the time traveler would first leave to a future where they hadn't returned (all of that's uncertain). But then, the clone generated wouldn't be faithful to what would happen to the next iteration of the time-traveler. The only choice is to run the simulation again, and keep running it until it reaches a stable limit.
But there end up being problems with this. First of all, what if it doesn't reach a stable limit? What if it enters into an alternating loop (chain of events in timeline A lead to timeline B being generated, and B leads to A being generated)? What if there are alternate stable solutions that aren't arrived at by this process of iteration? How is the one that actually happens chosen?
And then there are the problems of what this explanation requires: Namely, at least one simulation of the universe for some extended period of time. This is a pretty big thing to postulate, and we have no evidence to believe such simulations are going on. On the other hand, we do have simpler explanations which don't require so many big assumptions, so Occam's Razor would imply that those are favored.
I dislike Occam's Razor, as (ironically) it's one of the biggest assumptions a person can make. But anyway... Forgive me for not elaborating, but to clarify, I had the entity in mind when I thought of the predicted point that a traveller should return. Don't forget that the entity is responsable for the gates and it effectively wanted Crono and the gang to experiance certain matters. Keeping this in mind, the entity would have a certain plan for the traveller and thus would know the expected return point. When I made my theory I had only the travellers from Chrono Trigger in mind, essentially because the entity would require Crono and the gang to see their future. Or ,in the least, the nearest future possible. I didn't mean the theory to apply to time-travel as a whole, as that would be quite a stretch. (BTW this would still apply to Ayla, if you wish for me to explain why then simply ask and I will.)
And for the record your use of Occam's Razor is flawed. You say, (and I shall quote directly) so the goal is to apply Occam's Razor to find the simplest explanation that accounts for everything we see.
I believe my my theory of time-traveller placeholders to be the simplist theory on how to account for the guardia line paradox.
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I'm not sure if this sounds sensible, but how about if they end up in a superposition of simultaneously being there and gone, with them more likely to be gone on average?
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To sum it up, your argument seems to amount to "The Entity did it." In the real world, we call these "Goddidit" types of arguments. But before I get into that, let's talk about Occam's Razor. (As it applies within our universe first.)
Let's go back to what the Razor actually says: Any explanation of observed phenomena should make as few assumptions (and postulate as few hypothetical entities) as possible. This is often paraphrased as, "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one." But why should this be? The best support from it (that I've seen, and in my opinion) comes from Jerrold Katz:
If a hypothesis, H, explains the same evidence as a hypothesis G, but does so by postulating more entities than G, then, other things being equal, the evidence has to bear greater weight in the case of H than in the case of G, and hence the amount of support it gives H is proportionately less than it gives G.
This means that if we have available to us a given set of evidence and two theories, G and H, H being more complicated, and both G and H explaining observed phenomena, then H, by nature of being more complex, is going to require more evidence to support it. Since we have a finite set of evidence, H will have proportionately less evidence for it (relative to how much it needs) than G. This means that G is better supported by the evidence, so G is the better theory.
Now, what happens when we're working with finding the laws for a fictional world? We have to keep in mind that it was written by humans. If they have a significant imagination, they're going to want to show it off, and we'll see it in the world. If there's a consistent set of laws in this world, it's likely that the writer wouldn't intend it to be unnecessarily complicated, and would probably be imagining the simplest set of laws that explains everything that happens. Even if the writer comes up with a more complicated set than we do, if ours explains everything we see in the world, it's just as valid, seeing as we can't go in and compare them (if the writer writes more, things will change). Plus, our theory has the aesthetic benefit of being simpler, so we might as well go with it.
Okay, onto your argument. The problem with any type of Goddidit arguments is that they lack any predictive power. If we assume that some entity did something in any particular case, we lack a springboard to predict for future cases as we don't know if or how the entity will intervene in that case. If we have no other possible explanation for the events, this isn't such a big deal. But if we do have another explanation (as we do in this case), then it makes sense to use it, as it gives us something we can use for fan projects (fiction, Crimson Echoes, etc.) Of course, we'll never be able to definitively determine which actually happens, but the latter case helps us proceed a lot more.
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Yes, 'Goddidit' arguments are quite cheap. Never-the-less, in the case of CT, it is the 'God' (Entity) that is planning these events, and as such, the god in question would have to provide a way for Crono and the gang to witness Lavos and his wrecked future. I'm afraid you're looking far too deep into it, we already know that the majority of Trigger's events were thanks to the entity, this is merely a theoretical extension of that thinking. The theory itself (time clone placeholders) is quite a simple way to explain how it could achieve these ends.
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Since this is my first post here at Chrono Compendium, I hope everybody at least thinks about my theories. I haven't had a chance to get reading on the Principles of Time and Dimensional Travel, so if my thought violates any statements made in there, all I can say is sorry.
I only have two thoughts on this topic, and if there are any problems with them, please let me know. I only just thought of these after reading this topic.
Theory:
Although I can't remember what topic(s) it was under, many times I've seen reference to Back to the Future (BTTF) tactics for time travel. That, in and of itself, should answer this problem. The timeline has just not caught up yet. Think of it this way: When Marty pushes his father out of the way of the car, theoretically, he should no longer exist. The moment his father doesn't get hit, his father and mother don't meet, they don't get married, and they don't have kids.
Same effect happens here: Marle arrives in the past, the guards find her, the search is called off. Following the thought that the moment the change is made, Marle should not exist, then the moment that the search is called off, *poof*.
Unfortunately, in neither case does it happen that way. It takes a week in BTTF for Marty's mess-up to change 30 years of history. Just using that math, it should take about 93 days for Marle to disappear. Granted, it takes a few hours. So, this shows that time alteration is not an instantaneous change. So, for 65 million years, an alteration just for 65 million years would take just over 113 1/2 years. Even going at a rate of 100 years every hour, that would still be 74 years.
So, it is extremely unlikely, following this theory, that the cast would ever see the alteration.
Now for the extension to the theory, i.e., my second thought.
The Extension
Assuming that the above theory is true, the time it takes for the alteration to occur may be extended. The main thought I had was that there would be so many permutations due to the "no-longer-existing" Marle or Marty (similiar names...hmmm) that the "Entity" might not know exactly what would happen. As we all know, timelines have to be pretty much 100% stable to exist correctly, and if you have one timeline like Chrono Trigger appeared to have, then a stable timeline would not have 600 A.D. from the "existing Marle" and the 1000 A.D. from the "non-existing Marle". Perhaps Time has to determine the entire timeline from that alteration to the End of Time, when the alteration would be a moot point. Once Time has figured it out, then the alteration would take place.
This may or may not extend out from my theory above. In all manner of thinking, this could be its own theory. Perhaps the reason Marle does not immediately disappear from existence the moment that the search is called off is due to time trying to figure out what the heck is going to happen to the timeline.
After thought:
Then again, it would be interesting if Marle didn't exist and the world altered so drastically that in 1999 A.D. the population of the world was more advanced than in the game and were able to destroy Lavos outright.
Just think if Marle learned of that one. Her existence allowed Lavos to destroy the world.
Man, that would suck.
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Hehehe.... I think I finally got this one figured out! :D
Okay, bear with me for a second here. I've had this theory laying around for a while now, never having posted it because of my own personal issues (lack of self confidence) and not wanting to create a new topic for it.
I developed the theory trying to use only as much proof of actual in-game evidence to explain this paradox, as opposed to the rest of them based mostly on other assumptions (like using the entity to explain everything); therefore making some of them seem as something that is not really convincing enough, since they don't make proper use of much evidence, to fully explain or give us a reason as to why they are to be believed in the first place.
First of all, consider the following part of the script concerning the Moonlight Parade ending:
Marle: You're my distant ancestor.
So you'd better have tough kids or I'll be in trouble!
Kino: Heh, Heh!
No worry. Ayla VERY strong!
Marle: Right!
(puzzled by this, she pauses for a few seconds, blinking repeatedly)
Marle: Hey... what do you mean by that?
Now for my theory, consider that Ayla is not really Marle's ancestor. In other words, she could NOT be the one who actually gave birth to the descendants who would eventually become the Guardia royal family. She simply cannot be her relative, as the paradox would come into effect, and we know that never happened, besides this is NEVER really stated in the game. So the general assumption should be, from now on, that only Kino is, which is mainly because of two reasons: 1. Kino is the one introduced as to be her kinsmen. 2. The above scenario that was quoted from the game, DOES make one raise the question that Marle asked Kino, and never got an answer for.
I guess the only reason people assumed that Ayla was to be considered also as her kinsmen is because she gets married to Kino in the playstation ending. But, other than that, the game never makes this evident in any way. Now, for some reason people don't find it strange that they don't get along very well and are very untrustworhty of each other. Ayla yells at Kino for having taken Crono's stuff (the Gate Key) because he acted out of jealousy thinking that she probably liked kim best. This clearly demonstrates the nature of their relationship. They don't trust each other.
For example, like I said, in the Moonlight Parade ending, Ayla yells at Kino (yet again) for having said the above statement to Marle when she mentioned that she would be in trouble if they didn't have strong children. It seems, that Kino's comment was more focused towards the word 'trouble' than 'kids' and answers her that way, as if to say something about their own problems. Ayla then calls him a 'dummie' and immediately prones to take off to their time (as if to shut him up), before he says something 'stupid' (anything else) to Marle that's none of her businesss. Like for instance something about their personal relationship and what it exactly involves?
So if you take into consideration all of this information, you can get a very plausible answer to this paradox. And the answer (if you follow the Ockam's Razor Principle) is this: Kino, being the real ancestor to the Guardia Royal Line, was able to time travel to 1000 A.D. to the Moonlight Parade Ending, because he had already fathered a child in his time period (who knows, perhaps during the time that Ayla was gone for the adventure with the team), and therefore not creating any Time Paradox in doing so.
P. S. I realize that there already is a theory called Alternative Ancestors by KerntheGerm & Daggart that tries to explain this, but doesn't really go into any in-game evidence or details that could demonstrate this further.
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thought on this whole matter is as such it can be assumed that time will continue on as though the person removed from time was never removed from time unless that person does not return before preset times and events would take place. ((the back to the future effect with marty's girl visiting herself in the future)) so ayla could be marles ancestor as long as she returns to her own time before history has her children being born. also. Because of the way the time travelers immunity is set up they remove themselves from cause and effect so the statement Bacause ayla left she never started the guardia line is false
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I always thought Kino got it on with another Ioka woman while Ayla was time-traveling...
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Oh boy, this one is a doozy.
Every time they would travel to a new time period, they would therefore begin a new thread in the big-chain-of-the-universe, and the old one would either cease to exist or continue on it's own. Personally I think it would cease to exist.
For instance when you give the mayor's ancestor beef jerky for free in 600 ad, he is no longer the jerk he was, and is now the worlds greatest dad. So, what happened to the jerk who wouldn't give you the sun stone? He either ceased to exist and that thread was destroyed, or he continued to exist in some alternate dimension. So whenever they would travel to a different era, the dimension they were in would cease to exist, right? This way their absence could be noticed, but they'd never know about it.
Or another idea, they do all end up in their original times in the end, perhaps that is predetermined by the planet, and figured in to how the time line goes. To someone who would be watching them come and go from Leene square, wouldn't it appear that they would be coming and going every couple of minutes? Maybe not that fast, but if they do something in the past or future that takes hours for them to do, and travel back, would that time in the present be accounted for?
Bah, gotta dumb this one down to something simpler (which is never easy with time travel). Perhaps everything they did was predetermined and already done within one universe and therefore they would do it all, and continue to exist in their era. Like Alya would travel around, and go back, and it would only account to a few days. Maybe not, maybe I'm crazy.
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need to read the encyclopedia.. TTI, time bastard theories and so on...
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thought on this whole matter is as such it can be assumed that time will continue on as though the person removed from time was never removed from time unless that person does not return before preset times and events would take place. ((the back to the future effect with marty's girl visiting herself in the future))
You're applying different time traveling mechanics to and from two completely different sources. Read this whole thread and you will understand why this is impossible in the Chronoverse.
so ayla could be marles ancestor as long as she returns to her own time before history has her children being born. also. Because of the way the time travelers immunity is set up they remove themselves from cause and effect so the statement Bacause ayla left she never started the guardia line is false
Actually the statement you're claiming about how she could be her ancestor as long as she returns in time to her time period is what's false. I'm not sure you quite understand what the problem at hand with this paradox is. What you're saying is that somehow, in some unexplained way, if and when a person time travels to another point in time, the effects you could exact on the time stream would all be calculated and predetermined beforehand as if you never even time traveled in the first place. That desrtoys the whole system of time traveling in the Chrono series, because it relies in making assumptions or guessing what if all other possibilites might have taken place.
Oh boy, this one is a doozy.
Every time they would travel to a new time period, they would therefore begin a new thread in the big-chain-of-the-universe, and the old one would either cease to exist or continue on it's own. Personally I think it would cease to exist.
For instance when you give the mayor's ancestor beef jerky for free in 600 ad, he is no longer the jerk he was, and is now the worlds greatest dad. So, what happened to the jerk who wouldn't give you the sun stone? He either ceased to exist and that thread was destroyed, or he continued to exist in some alternate dimension. So whenever they would travel to a different era, the dimension they were in would cease to exist, right? This way their absence could be noticed, but they'd never know about it.
What you are referring to here I believe, is what the concept of Time Traveler's Immunity was created for.
Here's a link explaining what that concept means:
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Principles_of_Time_and_Dimensional_Travel.html#Time_Traveler.27s_Immunity
Or another idea, they do all end up in their original times in the end, perhaps that is predetermined by the planet, and figured in to how the time line goes. To someone who would be watching them come and go from Leene square, wouldn't it appear that they would be coming and going every couple of minutes? Maybe not that fast, but if they do something in the past or future that takes hours for them to do, and travel back, would that time in the present be accounted for?
I believe that what you are referring to here is the concept of Time Error. Which has nothing to do with the problem that this paradox originates from. Here's a link that explains all about Time Error:
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Principles_of_Time_and_Dimensional_Travel.html#Time_Error
Bah, gotta dumb this one down to something simpler (which is never easy with time travel). Perhaps everything they did was predetermined and already done within one universe and therefore they would do it all, and continue to exist in their era. Like Alya would travel around, and go back, and it would only account to a few days. Maybe not, maybe I'm crazy.
And now you're just going at it from the perspective that the Entity must have somehow intervened in this whole matter, as if everything was already preordained by it or something. Basically, what you're saying is that events in the game all took place because that's how the Entity dictated all of them, as if the charcters didn't have any choice or say in this whatsoever. Which is ludicrous, because it would be the same thing as stripping them off of all of their free will.
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Ah, yeah good point you have there, but in assuming it was indeed their choice to go into the portal, how is it possible that the world would have ended in the first place, as in why would have the year 2300 been a post-apocalyptic wasteland? Does it imply that the entity ignored it first time around? Or possibly... that Chrono and friends decided not to go into the portal originally?
Let me rephrase my original idea, I don't believe a more powerful force predetermined their actions, my idea is that in going into the gate, their following actions would be predetermined by themselves. Like some people believe the choices we make in life are made previous to our existence, and it is impossible to defy it, because it was always intended that we would do so, by ourselves. What I mean by this is since Ayla probably traveled to the future with the intension of saving the world and returning to her time, that inevitably is what would happen, unless of course she died, in which case she wouldn't be able to return, and the Guardia family would apparently vanish.
So technically speaking, the choice would actually be her own, and the time line would exist as if she had already done it all, because in a way, she already has. Right? I'll have to read those links later, thanks for the information, gotta head to work now -_-
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chrono time travel is confusing and anyway it goes just remmeber that it was kino they brought back from 65 mil so it is possible that ayla is not related to the guardia line in any way
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Ah, yeah good point you have there, but in assuming it was indeed their choice to go into the portal, how is it possible that the world would have ended in the first place, as in why would have the year 2300 been a post-apocalyptic wasteland? Does it imply that the entity ignored it first time around? Or possibly... that Chrono and friends decided not to go into the portal originally?
Everything you're referring to is covered in that article I linked you to the other day. Just read it thoroughly first, and then if you still don't understand a few things come back with more specific questions.
Let me rephrase my original idea, I don't believe a more powerful force predetermined their actions, my idea is that in going into the gate, their following actions would be predetermined by themselves. Like some people believe the choices we make in life are made previous to our existence, and it is impossible to defy it, because it was always intended that we would do so, by ourselves.
I think you're mixing up a few concepts between the two games. FATE isn't an All-knowing supreme being that was able to determine the lives of people outside of the El Nido Archipelago. The Entity is not a FATE-like kind of being that would act in a similar fashion as FATE did in Chrono Cross. And finally, Fate isn't exactly proven one way or the other in our own universe, so even though there's this possibility that everything IS set in stone and we can't do anything about it and we might think that we can, there also is the possibility that we CAN influence our own destiny.
What I mean by this is since Ayla probably traveled to the future with the intension of saving the world and returning to her time, that inevitably is what would happen, unless of course she died, in which case she wouldn't be able to return, and the Guardia family would apparently vanish.
Exactly. What if... she died? What if... she would stay behind (by accident) in The End of Time stuck for eternity? What if... everything. You see the problem now? You can't expect for Time Traveling to be as lighthearted as saying: Well, if I can't make it back to my own time, at least Time would assume I did and at some point restore me there as if nothing ever happened.
So technically speaking, the choice would actually be her own, and the time line would exist as if she had already done it all, because in a way, she already has. Right?
Again, I think you're mixing up concepts between the two games. The concept of parallel worlds or universes is something that is explained only to a certain level in Chrono Cross. The reason is not fully explained is probably because Belthasar didn't want to confuse Serge any further than he already was, and as such, he told him ONLY what he needed to hear (this includes a few lies) to understand everything.
chrono time travel is confusing
Yeah, it CAN be a little confusing. But that's what the encyclopedia here at the Compendium is for! Use it and be thankful it exists so you can clear up on some 'confusing' bits of information that have already been covered.
and anyway it goes just remmeber that it was kino they brought back from 65 mil so it is possible that ayla is not related to the guardia line in any way
Yeah, I know. I've been meaning to make an update to my original theory which would include this fact into it, as well as a few other ones I picked up.
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Exactly. What if... she died? What if... she would stay behind (by accident) in The End of Time stuck for eternity? What if... everything. You see the problem now? You can't expect for Time Traveling to be as lighthearted as saying: Well, if I can't make it back to my own time, at least Time would assume I did and at some point restore me there as if nothing ever happened.
From the game I was under the distinct impression that gaspar could have sent them through a gate with or without a gate keyso ayla would not have been stuck. on top of that Doesnt the time travelers immunity protect her own time from suffereing from her dissapearence? would'nt time itself find a "replacement" to fill the void if the unthinkable happened?
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That's not how time travel in the Chronoverse works. Things happen only when they happen...time doesn't "find a replacement" or anything silly like that. Nothing is set in stone. That's why Medina can change from a hate-filled city to a loving city. That's why Magus can be replaced by Ozzie. That's why the Porre Mayor can change from a greedy bastard to a generous man. That's why Lara's legs can go from lost in an accident to just fine.
So yes, Time Traveler's Immunity would protect Ayla. It would protect Marle. But it doesn't protect anyone else, and that's the paradox. The Algetty Elder should never be there once Ayla has joined the party, and nor should the entire Guardia kingdom have ever existed, which means the fate of Arris Dome is also altered significantly, and the future should be radically different. Yet it's the same as it was before, and Don is still there.
So it's a paradox and a plot hole.
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Or that Ayla, from the time stream perspective, will come back.
Or did anyone ever think that the planet, that actually created these gates, possibly put the rest of time on some sort of Hiatus or some kind of barrier so that the timeline wouldn't be drastically affected by time travel. Like each 12,000BC, ,600AD, 1000AD and 2300AD are all incased in their own pocket dimension or something, so that they change, but historically in between, for example, 1000AD-2300AD, it records Marle still existing there etc.
But then again, we have to also remember that in the original timeline, the Guardia Royal Line exists still, so does that mean Marle and Crono get together regardless, or that they're always destined to time travel and fix the world ?
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That idea is a little ridiculous...it would make the affects seen on time by Chrono and the gang's actions as completely impossible because they couldn't affect anything else.
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Well, would you really trust a bunch of kids with the entire timeline of the world? Hell no.
They probably stepped on a heap of butterflys, killed many monsters that would evolve into something else in the prehistoric era.
The planet obvious has to somehow safeguard the time line, but only let Crono and co edit the main events that would lead to the planets demise. Otherwise Crono might as well never have met a bunch of people if the whole time line could be disrupted.
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But... that sorta happened anyway. CT REWARDED screwing up the timeline for their own benefit. Crono had tasty food dishes named after him and tons of buddies through time.
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well as far as the ayla thing goes I once again state that Kino is the one brought from 65,000,000 which means that even if he would have origninally screwed ayla to start the line.. he would have found someone else. and as far as time pardoxes go.. time moves forward no matter what you are correct however.. the way the gates tied the time periods together connects all those times. think about. time would not erase the guardia line from existance becuase of the removal of ayla or kino as long as they stayed alive because their presence would still be tied to their original time by some bond or another. and Fate(not the computer) can have some influence here..
and as the chrono dania thing.. the guardia line would have continued with or without time travel
possibilities include but not limited to.
1. Lucca introduces chrono to dania someday as lucca seems to be on a walk in basis in the castle.
2. Nadia marries someone else so that she would become queen ((eventualy))
3. Even without the time travel nadia and chrono still would have met in leene;s square during the millenial fair. and who knows where that would have gone without the telepod turning into a make shift gate entrance
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Fate(destiny) does not exits in the chronoverse, The whole point of the story is them making there own choices to stop lavos. In chronocross you think the whole there all so fighting a computer that is manipulating the people of El Nido that is named fate you don't think Square was trying to draw parallels.
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Hello.
Actually, Time Error seems to be the perfect explanation as to why the Guardia Royal line doesn't vanish once Ayla leaves her own time period.
Time Error, as I understand it, is that the specific instance a gate will open up into is its original period + the time error. Or, in other words, if the gates original period is Noon, June 1st, 1000 AD and the Time Error is 3 days, (the amount of time that Crono, Lucca, and Marle were gone on their first trip), then the gate would open onto June 4th, 1000 AD, at noon.
Let us then apply that general concept to Time Travelers themselves. Any event that occurs in a time traveler’s life after they have first traveled is the period of their original departure + their own personal “time error.” Let us call the product of this equation a “Time Index.” Specifically, it is the Time Traveler’s Time Index. An event in that traveler’s life might also have its own Time Index that would match the traveler’s index when the action occurs.
Let us say that Ayla is going to have children when she is 30, as established by the timeline from Crono’s perspective in 1000 AD. When she leaves on her adventures through time, however, she is only 25 (well, her age is never given, but it doesn’t really matter). The problem posed by the Guardia Royal Line Paradox (GRL Paradox) is that the future she will travel to wouldn't have her in its past at the age of 30 in order for her to have the children that would then establish the Guardia Line. Thus those children don't exist, thus the Guardia line doesn't exist.
As a person’s actions are not predetermined, the timeline can't assume that Ayla will come back. However, neither can the timeline assume that she doesn't return. As in the original timeline Ayla wouldn’t have had a child until she was 30, that child can neither be born nor not-born until Ayla reaches 30. If her travels through time at the age of 25 made her child she bears at age 30 cease to exist, then we have a problem of fate; time is assuming that Ayla will not have children at 30, a choice that for her is still in the future!
Thus, Ayla's Time Index must be 25 + 5 before the issue of her children can even be addressed (25 being her original age when she first departed her timeline and 5 being the time that needs to pass before she would have originally had a choice in having children); as Ayla's Time Index never reaches 30 in-game, there is never a chance, in-game, for the GRL paradox to come into effect.
This, of course, leaves the question then of what time would actually look like from an outside perspective (say, for Gaspar at the End of Time). He would see the original timeline, which is all of Ayla's life played out properly, with children. Then he would see Chrono and the others arrive and leave with her, establishing a new timeline. At that point, Ayla's history up until she left would be the same but what of her history (and her effect on all of Time) after she left?
As a timeline can only change based on real actions (and not just probability), the events in her life can't change until she is old enough to be at the appropriate spot in her own personal timeline to make those "real actions" or to not make them. Her own personal Time Index (her departure point + her personal time error) must match the Time Index of the event (the specific point in the timeline when an action would have been completed) before the outcome can effect the timeline. Until such a point, the action remains unresolved and in a state of flux.
As such it would seem that the timeline proceeding from the point that an individual leaves their timeline and the point in which they would have naturally died (if they hadn't time traveled) must be in a state of flux until such a point as the specific Time Index of the time traveler matches the Time Index of the event. Only then can the event’s flux be resolved into a definite outcome. So, for every second Ayla is trekking through time, the timeline is actually being re-written with Ayla being missing from her own era for that one extra second.
One might wonder what the timeline might look like, at time index “Ayla is age 30,” when Ayla is only 29. It must, alas, remain in a state of flux. As the future must still exist, and it must be calculated based on the lives of those who lived before, I would suggest that the future would simply be based on the last valid timeline. After all, a timeline can’t be replaced until an action has occurred to change it, and no action can occur or not occur until the two Time Indexes (that of the Traveler and that of the Event) match.
As most characters aren’t gone from their timeline long enough to really miss out on any major events, the GRL Paradox doesn’t manifest. There is only one exception to this; Robo. He “travels” through time for more than 400 years. Thus, any event that the original-timeline Robo did from 2300 AD to 2700 AD would be erased. Alas, Crono and the gang never travel so far into the future in order to test this theory. As Robo is back in 2300 by the end of the game, presumably all the events in his life from 2300 to 2700 would be changed to have a new Time Index.
Nicely, this theory does get around the “The Entity Did It” argument, and really it is quite simple (which makes Ol’ Occam happy, I’m sure); the Guardia Royal Line still exists after Ayla has time traveled because time is then in flux and it defaults to the last valid timeline, which just happens to have the Guardia Royal Line existing.
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o.o Well said. but There is a thing with Robo. Without lucca intervening he might possibly ave sat and rusted for another 400 years so not really that big a loss aye?
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All right! A real challange to my theory... I will try to take this on, as best I can.
I'd been meaning to answer your post since a while back, but couldn't find myself to make time for it.
Oh well... here we go!
Actually, Time Error seems to be the perfect explanation as to why the Guardia Royal line doesn't vanish once Ayla leaves her own time period.
Time Error isn't exactly the answer to this problem in particular. Actually, I'd say that Time Error is the problem here.
Let me just make a quick link to it, so as to establish a reference point in my post:
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Principles_of_Time_and_Dimensional_Travel.html#Time_Error
Time Error, as I understand it, is that the specific instance a gate will open up into is its original period + the time error. Or, in other words, if the gates original period is Noon, June 1st, 1000 AD and the Time Error is 3 days, (the amount of time that Crono, Lucca, and Marle were gone on their first trip), then the gate would open onto June 4th, 1000 AD, at noon.
Time Error is, basically, another axis of time that runs perpendicularly to normal time line and its there to establish the possibility for Crono and his team to actually have a chance at making changes to the timeline, like they originally planned. Without Time Error, nothing would make any sense as they could pretty much do anything they wanted while time travelling (like going back to a same time event (only a little earlier) that they had already previously gone back to, and doing something different that could potentially disrupt the whole space-time continuum!
Let us then apply that general concept to Time Travelers themselves. Any event that occurs in a time traveler’s life after they have first traveled is the period of their original departure + their own personal “time error.” Let us call the product of this equation a “Time Index.” Specifically, it is the Time Traveler’s Time Index. An event in that traveler’s life might also have its own Time Index that would match the traveler’s index when the action occurs.
You see, what you call a 'Time Index' is actually what the Time Error concept represents. Time Error is precisely just that, a record of what a Time Traveler has done so far in his own Time Line. This record is kept, though I don't know by whom or what (probably the very fabric of time, since it is activated every single time in that someone time travels, by whatever means) so as to not allow him to go back to a previous event that he has already been to and interacted with. (Note that this also works quite well with what the concept of Time Traveler's Immunity establishes).
Let us say that Ayla is going to have children when she is 30, as established by the timeline from Crono’s perspective in 1000 AD. When she leaves on her adventures through time, however, she is only 25 (well, her age is never given, but it doesn’t really matter). The problem posed by the Guardia Royal Line Paradox (GRL Paradox) is that the future she will travel to wouldn't have her in its past at the age of 30 in order for her to have the children that would then establish the Guardia Line. Thus those children don't exist, thus the Guardia line doesn't exist.
First of all, you can't assume at which point Ayla is actually going to have children. Fate isn't a constant in the Chrono series, and as such we can't make assumptions based on such a concept. And yes, the Guardia Royal Line Paradox is the problem posed by Ayla's disappearance (and therefore that of her whole descendants) from her own time line, during the time in which she spent with Crono saving the world.
As a person’s actions are not predetermined, the timeline can't assume that Ayla will come back. However, neither can the timeline assume that she doesn't return. As in the original timeline Ayla wouldn’t have had a child until she was 30, that child can neither be born nor not-born until Ayla reaches 30. If her travels through time at the age of 25 made her child she bears at age 30 cease to exist, then we have a problem of fate; time is assuming that Ayla will not have children at 30, a choice that for her is still in the future!
That's not the only thing that you presuppose that Time is assuming here. And yes, you are indeed correct.
The main problem here is that of fate. Time simply can't assume anything, regarding the ultimate fate of the Time Traveler. You say that the choice to have children is hers for her to make, and yet claim that she must somehow have a predetermined moment in her time line and which she must have this offrsping that will ultimately establish the Guardia Line.
Thus, Ayla's Time Index must be 25 + 5 before the issue of her children can even be addressed (25 being her original age when she first departed her timeline and 5 being the time that needs to pass before she would have originally had a choice in having children); as Ayla's Time Index never reaches 30 in-game, there is never a chance, in-game, for the GRL paradox to come into effect.
As I explained before, and to make it even clearer: A Time Index for each time traveler is actually what the Time Error stands for. We just never really see this in-game because you are always traveling in a party of three! (As stated by Gaspar, because otherwise it would cause a disrpution in the time-space continuum, which is why you ended up there in the first place)
This, of course, leaves the question then of what time would actually look like from an outside perspective (say, for Gaspar at the End of Time). He would see the original timeline, which is all of Ayla's life played out properly, with children. Then he would see Chrono and the others arrive and leave with her, establishing a new timeline. At that point, Ayla's history up until she left would be the same but what of her history (and her effect on all of Time) after she left?
Yes, he might be able to (fact is, we don't know) see what all of the main time line, for all the main charecters, looked like before they time traveled. He wouldn't be able to, however, to see what the end result of the whole journey would be... otherwise, that would actually make him the Entity. As such, he also can't see into a Time Line where Ayla never had children in the first place!
As a timeline can only change based on real actions (and not just probability), the events in her life can't change until she is old enough to be at the appropriate spot in her own personal timeline to make those "real actions" or to not make them. Her own personal Time Index (her departure point + her personal time error) must match the Time Index of the event (the specific point in the timeline when an action would have been completed) before the outcome can effect the timeline. Until such a point, the action remains unresolved and in a state of flux.
If that were truly the case here, I am more than fairly certain that it would cause a major problem to all of the space-time continuum. Just imagine what it would be like, to keep tags at everything at every single moment in a time traveler's life, just so that a major event can be kept in existance for that peron's sake! Think of the amount of moments/events that would have to be kept in a state of 'flux' just for this to work!
As such it would seem that the timeline proceeding from the point that an individual leaves their timeline and the point in which they would have naturally died (if they hadn't time traveled) must be in a state of flux until such a point as the specific Time Index of the time traveler matches the Time Index of the event. Only then can the event’s flux be resolved into a definite outcome. So, for every second Ayla is trekking through time, the timeline is actually being re-written with Ayla being missing from her own era for that one extra second.
Again, you are presupposing the concept of 'Fate' into the whole mix. Fate doesn't exist... at least not in the Chronoverse. There is just no way/no how that a person's death (or any other event, for that matter) can be predetermined in anyone's life. This would imply the fact that, if someone time traveled to the right particular moment in time; they might be able to in fact, prevent their very own death.
One might wonder what the timeline might look like, at time index “Ayla is age 30,” when Ayla is only 29. It must, alas, remain in a state of flux. As the future must still exist, and it must be calculated based on the lives of those who lived before, I would suggest that the future would simply be based on the last valid timeline. After all, a timeline can’t be replaced until an action has occurred to change it, and no action can occur or not occur until the two Time Indexes (that of the Traveler and that of the Event) match.
Everything that you are suggesting can be equitable to one other concept that has been established by another medium, in which this theory would actually make sense: Back to the Future. You just presentend in a very organized and succinct manner, so that it could be also applied to this game.
As most characters aren’t gone from their timeline long enough to really miss out on any major events, the GRL Paradox doesn’t manifest. There is only one exception to this; Robo. He “travels” through time for more than 400 years. Thus, any event that the original-timeline Robo did from 2300 AD to 2700 AD would be erased. Alas, Crono and the gang never travel so far into the future in order to test this theory. As Robo is back in 2300 by the end of the game, presumably all the events in his life from 2300 to 2700 would be changed to have a new Time Index.
And herein lies the biggest problem of your little theory. Let's pretend your theory made sense... what of Robo's ultimate 'Fate', then? As per what your theory states, everything that he actually did from year 2300 to 2700 AD would have to be rewritten. Unfortunately this would also include all the events that took place during Chrono Cross. Meaning no 'Prometheus Circuit', and therefore no designation of Serge as 'Arbiter' of Time. Quite a big problem it poses, wouldn't you say?
Nicely, this theory does get around the “The Entity Did It” argument, and really it is quite simple (which makes Ol’ Occam happy, I’m sure); the Guardia Royal Line still exists after Ayla has time traveled because time is then in flux and it defaults to the last valid timeline, which just happens to have the Guardia Royal Line existing.
Yes, it was a nice little theory that presented quite a challange. However, I still think it only 'tries' to circumvent the problems posed by the 'Entity Did It' arguments, but that it does actually manages to at least stay somehow within Ockham's Razor Principle. Still, you also misinterpreted, in my opinion, what the concept of Time Error stands for.
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Dankun, thank you for taking the time for such a thorough response. Before I launch into a response to your response, please let me make sure I am clear on your points (makes no sense to address an issue if no one thinks it is an issue).
1) You are claiming that my understanding of Time Error is incorrect
1a) As a sub issue, you stated that Time Error is the cause of the Guardia Paradox.
2a) You also indicate that what I call Time Index is actually Time Error.
2) You state that as fate does not exist in the series, one cannot reference a point that is in a character’s future. Specifically, this is referencing an example I used; you state that one cannot assume at what point Ayla will have children.
2a) As a sub issue to this, you also indicate that one also cannot claim that Ayla’s personal timeline has a predetermined point in which she would have children. (That is, fate in general and in specific do not exist)
3) You state that as I express Time Index (regardless of the above problems), it would create a major problem to the timeline itself since tabs must be kept on every single moment in a time traveler’s life, as my theory states that specific events that would have happened in a time-traveler’s future remain in flux once time-traveling has been introduced into that traveler’s own personal timeline.
4) You state that my theory relates to a theory established by Back to the Future and would work for that series, but that I merely ordered things in order for it to fit in with the Chronoverse.
5) Even assuming my theory is correct, you also find a problem with the theory in regards to Robo; you state that my theory would negate the originating events of Chrono Cross (the Prometheus circuit and so forth) since my theory would necessitate Robo’s future be rewritten.
6) A somewhat minor point, but you also state that my theory only tries to avoid the “Entity Did It” copout-I-mean-argument while being only marginally more inline with Occam’s Razor.
That is a lot to respond to. I will try to do so in a concise and ordered manner, but I am afraid this is a friggenly huge post.
Problem #1
I reread the article and I must maintain that my original interpretation is correct and that, indeed, your take on it does not conform to the article that you linked to.
I stated the following: “Time Error, as I understand it, is that the specific instance a gate will open up into is its original period + the time error.”
The Principles of Time and Dimensional Travel article (which you linked to) states, under the Theories Section, Sub section Time Error (1.2.2), 1st bullet point, states “time portals within the standard time axis flow through time and Time-Error at equal rates.” An example is then given: “A time portal is created at time X and Time-Error 0. At time X+T, the Time-Error of the Portal is T.”
I can find no significant divergence between my statement and the article’s in this instance. Mathematically, they are saying the same thing. You then state:
You see, what you call a 'Time Index' is actually what the Time Error concept represents. Time Error is precisely just that, a record of what a Time Traveler has done so far in his own Time Line. This record is kept, though I don't know by whom or what (probably the very fabric of time, since it is activated every single time in that someone time travels, by whatever means) so as to not allow him to go back to a previous event that he has already been to and interacted with.
This does not match up with the article on time error. Going back to the example used in the article itself, “at time X+T, the Time-Error of the Portal is T.” To represent this a little more simply, we have a basic equation: X+T=I. Time X is the exact point in time at which the portal was originally created, the article clearly states that Time-Error is T, and I am proposing that Time Index is essentially I (the result of that equation). Time Index cannot be the same as Time Error since Time Index is Time Error+X.
Furthermore, Time-Error is not a record of what a Time Traveler has done. To quote the article again, paragraph 1, sentence 2: “Time Error is the way time flows in places like the End of Time compared to the way it flows in the rest of the world.” Time Error represents time in a place, not for a person. A person can experience Time Error but only in a place that already has Time Error and only as the result of Time Error on a portal. This is confirmed in the 2nd paragraph of the article, sentence 2: “Only time portals and locations outside the axis of time (such as the End of Time, the inside of the Black Omen, or the Darkness Beyond Time) exhibit this flow.” Time Error is how time flows for portals and locations, not people. Thus, Time Error cannot be a record of what a Time Traveler has done. At best, it could be described as a record of a Time Traveler’s actions while in areas of Time Error, but not in normal time.
Before moving on to the other problems, please allow me to try to clarify Time Index a bit more.
That is really the heart of my argument; previously Time-Error was a concept that can only be applied to locations, I am proposing that a variation on that theory could also be applied to animate objects (aka, people like Chrono and Ayla). To be fair, I am not using Time Error exactly as expressed in that article either. I am using Time Error as the difference between one value and another (that is, the moment that Time Travel has been introduced into a specific section a timeline and any event that follows after). This value will always be equal to the article’s exact definition of Time Error, but I am applying it in a manner that wasn’t expressed by the article.
To try to illustrate what I am proposing Time Index is, allow me to compare it to Time Error. If Time Error flows perpendicular to normal time, then Time Index potentially flows in (essentially) a scribble to normal time. It doubles back on itself, it skips ahead, it falls behind, etc. Despite this, Time Index still flows in a straight line; it is only in comparison to normal time that it takes an odd shape. Compared to Time Error it is also a straight line.
Time Index represents the Time Traveler’s travels through time in chronological order, which do not necessarily match up with the chronological order of normal time. According to normal time, Chrono and Co enter 600 AD (Marle disappears in the teleporter accident), leave 600 AD (after rescuing her), leave 1000 AD (Marle disappears in the teleporter accident), enter 1000 AD (their successful return from saving Marle). According to Time Index, these events happen more along the lines of how the player sees them; Chrono and Co leave 1000 AD, enter 600 ad, leave 600ad, and enter 1000 ad. From the perspective of normal time, Chrono and Co arrived in 600 AD before they left in 1000 AD (specifically, they arrived 400 years before they left). From the perspective of Time Index, just before Marle steps onto the teleporter, 600 AD is actually in the future. Just after Chrono goes through and enters 600 AD, 1000 AD is then in the past.
Problem #2
I actually quite agree that fate does not exist in the series and that one cannot determine the point in Ayla’s future that she will have children. However, my argument is actually drawing from the past in order to determine a hypothetical “when” for Ayla to have children. The specific “when” that I used (30) is just for the ease of discussion. Really, if we assume that Ayla is the ancestor of the Guardia line, and the Guardia line exists, then we know that Ayla must have had a child at time X. I merely assigned an arbitrary value to that variable, but we can leave it as a variable if you prefer. However, it is a variable because we don’t know it, not because it hasn’t happened.
I am not talking about fate, I am merely talking about the past. This is, again, at the heart of Time Index. In the original Lavos timeline, pre-time travel (the various timelines are illustrated in the following document: http://www.chronocompendium.com/images/wiki/b/b1/Timelines.png ) did have a child at time point X, which we know because the Guardia line does in fact exist in 1000 AD. She lived her life, she had her child, she made her choices resulting from freewill, and she died. By Time Index standards, however, ALL of the original, pre-time travel timeline is in the past. The timeline was that way, but something new happened; time travel was introduced. Ayla having a child can be treated as having already happened simply because it has already happened, in the pre-time travel timeline. When she joins up with Chrono and the others, even though having children is in her future, it is still in the past.
Time Travel is introduced into the timeline by the Entity. This doesn’t necessitate change (indeed, it can’t necessitate as that would be fate) but it allows for change to occur. These changes, however, cannot occur until they occur. Ayla having a child can’t change until it changes. Until a future for the future is established, the future is based on the past. It makes sense if one follows Time Index, but not normal time.
To offer a different example: Chrono doesn’t defeat Lavos until he actually defeats him. Time Travel allows for this change, but it is a variable, it is potential. Until that change is made, Lavos remains undefeated, just as in the original pre-time travel timeline. Once Lavos is defeated, we have a new timeline. 2300 AD on the pre-time travel timeline, according to Time Index, is in the past compared to 12000 BC on the new, post time travel timeline.
So to my original argument, in the original, pre-time travel timeline, Ayla had a child. Her travels in time allow for the possibility for that event to change. However, that event doesn’t change until it changes. This isn’t because she is fated to have a child; it is because she DID have a child in the past (even though the past is her future). At point X on the original pre-time travel Ayla had a child, thus in the post-time travel timeline point X cannot be changed until it is changed, and it can’t be changed until Ayla reaches point X. Even though point X is in the future for Ayla according to normal time, it is in the past for Ayla according to Time Index and it can’t be changed until that past (her future) is overwritten by her present (which from the game’s perspective will be in the future).
This isn’t to say that due to time travel she couldn’t have children later or earlier or not at all, just that the events that proceed from Point X can’t change until Point X itself changes, and that change can’t occur until Ayla reaches Point X. This isn’t fate, this is how the timeline existed before time travel was introduced and how it remains to exist until changed.
Thus, I am not talking about a predetermined future for Ayla; rather I am talking about a post-established past that continues to exist until changed.
As I explained before, and to make it even clearer: A Time Index for each time traveler is actually what the Time Error stands for. We just never really see this in-game because you are always traveling in a party of three! (As stated by Gaspar, because otherwise it would cause a disrpution in the time-space continuum, which is why you ended up there in the first place)
Partially correct; Time Error relates to locations, Time Index relates to Time Travelers and how they interact with timelines (both current and past). Time Error cannot exist for specific individuals as this would allow Chrono, Marle, and Lucca to travel through time only to have Frog, Ayla, and Robo follow after changing the very events that C, M, & L changed. Time Error must be universal and impersonal.
Problem #3
Now to address Problem 3, which is actually easier to respond to than anything yet. You are stating that having the entirety of a person’s life as it would be, from the moment before they are effected by time travel to the point that they would have died (and any subsequent effects that life would have had on history), pre-time travel, would create a major problem for the timeline. As you said, “just imagine what it would be like to keep tags on everything at every single moment in a time traveler's life just so that a major event can be kept in existence for that person's sake.” Well actually, it would be for time’s sake, not the person’s sake, and it would be so that all events, not just major event, remain in existence. They remain simply because they do not change until changed. Essentially, you are claiming that it would be a major problem to keep tabs of a bunch of stationary objects (things that currently aren’t changing). Yeah, that isn’t that difficult.
But I made the mistake of using the word “flux” when I should have said something more along the lines of “infused with potential.” The events in traveler’s Time Index beyond their point of departure remain exactly as they were until changed, the only difference now is that they have the potential to change (remember, by Time Index standards these events are in the past, not the future, and remain in the past until the present overwrites them to create a future).
To offer a real life example of the underlying principles: take a bowling ball from the 1st floor of a building to the roof. You just gave it a good amount of potential energy. The bowling ball is exactly the same, nothing changed about it, only in its relation to everything else; it now has potential. In the same way, Time Index events after a time traveler’s departure remain exactly the same, only with potential for change. As there is only a potential change, they are no more difficult to keep tabs on than before that potential was introduced.
If you still find this to be a major problem, then I would recommend reading up on Schrodinger’s Cat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger's_cat) and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle). Given that at any moment most of the Universe exists in multiple states until observed (seemingly), it is really a small thing for a comparatively few moments of comparatively few people in just one out of countless worlds to be held in a state of “flux,” or potential.
Problem #4
As for problem 4, I must confess that I have no idea what you mean by:
Everything that you are suggesting can be equitable to one other concept that has been established by another medium, in which this theory would actually make sense: Back to the Future. You just presentend in a very organized and succinct manner, so that it could be also applied to this game.
Which “other concept” from Back to the Future is my theory equitable to? Additionally, why does it matter?
At its heart, Time Index can be summarized as “things don’t change until they change.” Everything else I have said is just an explanation of that concept and how it (maybe?) makes sense. Indeed, the explanations themselves could be summarized by the phrase “The enemy’s gate is down,” a quote taken from the book Ender’s Game, which essentially means that when a frame of reference has been removed (gravity in the book, a set direction of time for the Chronoverse) and no other references are necessitated but a frame of reference is still needed in order to act, then one should choose the frame of reference that best suits the situation. The GRL Paradox is avoided by the future happening in the past, a different frame of reference than has yet been suggested.
Problem #5
Problem 5 is easier to address than problem 3. As I have laid things out, Robo’s personal Time Index is messed up at the end of the game. All the events left over from the original, pre-time travel timeline, from between 2300 and 2700, have been rewritten. You find this to be a problem.
As per what your theory states, everything that he actually did from year 2300 to 2700 AD would have to be rewritten. Unfortunately this would also include all the events that took place during Chrono Cross. Meaning no 'Prometheus Circuit', and therefore no designation of Serge as 'Arbiter' of Time. Quite a big problem it poses, wouldn't you say?
This is quite easy because the posed problem is coming from a misunderstanding. Everything he did from 2300 to 2700 on the original, pre-time travel timeline would have to be rewritten. Chrono Cross, however, does not take place on that timeline. Any rewriting of Robo’s history resulting from the Time Index theory would have been re-rewritten due to the successful defeat of Lavos and the saving of the future. Thus, the Prometheus circuit would have no problem existing because even though Robo’s 2700 is being rewritten, as that is in the past when compared to the Prometheus Circuit in 2400, via Time Index.
Problem #6
And finally, because I haven’t written a long enough response, allow me to address the 6th problem. The Entity did it argument essentially states that an outside force prevents the GRL Paradox from happening. Time Index, however, essentially states that the [GRL Paradox doesn’t need to be prevented since the events that could trigger such a thing haven’t occurred. Such events might occur in the future (from a Time Index POV), but nothing in the game necessitates that they have or will occur. If my theory is valid, it doesn’t circumvent the problems presented by the Entity Did It argument, it fully stops before we get to an “it” that the Entity may or may not have done.
Occam’s Razor is happy because the theory really is quite simple; things don’t change until they change (and nothing has changed to cause the GRL Paradox, so the GRL paradox hasn’t happened).
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Dankun, thank you for taking the time for such a thorough response. Before I launch into a response to your response, please let me make sure I am clear on your points (makes no sense to address an issue if no one thinks it is an issue).
Thought, thank you for taking the time to write such a thorough refutation to my already in-depth reply to your theory. And to answer your first question; yes, you understood all of my points perfectly, it seems.
That is a lot to respond to. I will try to do so in a concise and ordered manner, but I am afraid this is a friggenly huge post.
I'm afraid that it's only going to get worse with my current reply. But I will also try to do so in an orderly fashion, while trying to be as clear as possible on everything I say. I also apologize again for taking such a long time to even consider replying to your post. However, as you so adequately put: it was a HUGE post to reply to, and as such, not an easy challenge to take on.
Solution #1
I reread the article and I must maintain that my original interpretation is correct and that, indeed, your take on it does not conform to the article that you linked to.
My understanding of Time Error does not differ or contradict anything of what is already stated in the Compendium's current definition . The only thing that I suggested (that you misinterpreted) is that, instead of thinking of it as a separate mathematical equation from normal time; to simply view it as a sort of 'tracking' to a any given personal timeline, once that person has time traveled and effected changes to his life.
Think of it as a track record accessible to all time travelers, so that they can actually modify the things that they want changed. Also, so that they don't cause any time-traveling related problems like paradoxes and such.
The Principles of Time and Dimensional Travel article (which you linked to) states, under the Theories Section, Sub section Time Error (1.2.2), 1st bullet point, states “time portals within the standard time axis flow through time and Time-Error at equal rates.” An example is then given: “A time portal is created at time X and Time-Error 0. At time X+T, the Time-Error of the Portal is T.”
I stated the following: “Time Error, as I understand it, is that the specific instance a gate will open up into is its original period + the time error.”
I can find no significant divergence between my statement and the article’s in this instance. Mathematically, they are saying the same thing.
Yes, you are indeed correct. So far, everything you said about Time Error holds true under that definition. However, later on, you go on and add several other observations that actually twist the definition of Time Error and therefore make this statement a fallacy. You do all this, in order for you to try claiming that there is absolutely nothing wrong with your theory and that it effectively resolves the Guardia Royal Line Paradox. When in fact, the only thing that you manage to pull off up by doing this is contradict yourself. How? By stating two completely different things, and at the same time, holding them both to be true statements.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what is actually called an incorrect foundation for a fact? Basically, you can't say something is true if what originated your 'thought' in the first place is an incorrect observation. Simple logic, that states that anything deduced in this manner automatically makes it a false observation and therefore not a valid argument for your theory. And I do believe that it indeed is your central argument for it, as you base everything else you say off from it. So, in consequence if it can be proven to be wrong time and time again, there should be no questions left as to the 'status' of your theory as a bogus one.
This does not match up with the article on time error. Going back to the example used in the article itself, “at time X+T, the Time-Error of the Portal is T.” To represent this a little more simply, we have a basic equation: X+T=I. Time X is the exact point in time at which the portal was originally created, the article clearly states that Time-Error is T, and I am proposing that Time Index is essentially I (the result of that equation). Time Index cannot be the same as Time Error since Time Index is Time Error+X.
You purposely misrepresented what that equation would really look like, so that you could actually differentiate what Time Index is from the definition of Time Error.
In the formulae that you propose you state the following: [TI]= X+T. Of which, TI is Time Index, X represents the timeline and T stands for the amount of Time spent added to the original timeline.
This is the part that never gets justified with the rest of your explanations!
You did a very poor job on trying to validate your whole theory solely through this argument. Indeed, everything else you say is in direct opposition of what you’re trying to say here by trying to make them look as two different concepts.
Let's us take a look at the very same example you used, for the sake of argument.
In that example of the article, the formulae that can be deduced from it would actually look like this: (X)+(x+T) = X'. As explained by the article, x is the modified timeline, T is the amount of time spent during Time Error that needs to be added to said timeline, which in turn then needs to be added to X or the original Time at which the timeline started; and the result of that equation is X', which is a different location as to where the timeline initiated at which is also known as: TE (Time Error).
Now let's compare both formulas. Shall we?
[TI]=X+T & [TE]=(X)+(x+T)
Isn't that essentially the same exact formulae?
However, a more precise formulae can be created to correctly address all problems. Or at least, that actually explains what I was trying say in the first place. To calculate a Time Record (or 'track') the formulae for Time Error would have to be modified and it would then read as: TE = (X)+[R(x+T)]. Wherein: TE is Time Error. X is the original location at which a timeline is accessed and R (which is the result of x+T, representing the amount of time spent added to a personal time on that timeline) is the 'record' of the whole endeavor (what that traveler actually did to his timeline), kept by Time itself, the Entity, or whatever.
Furthermore, Time-Error is not a record of what a Time Traveler has done. To quote the article again, paragraph 1, sentence 2: “Time Error is the way time flows in places like the End of Time compared to the way it flows in the rest of the world.” Time Error represents time in a place, not for a person.
Not according to what the article currently says about Time Error, fair enough. However. I believe that the above explanation of what a time track/record actually is, does not contradict anything already stated by the Time Error theory, as opposed to your cheap, soundless theory which almost invalidates it.
A person can experience Time Error but only in a place that already has Time Error and only as the result of Time Error on a portal. Time Error is how time flows for portals and locations, not people.
Not entirely. That is, at least not when you consider other suggested possibilities, like how a Time Record can be applied to Time Error concept. A Time Record isn't just everything that a traveler will do while in reaches of places with a Time Error flow principle. It is a complete duplication of what the Time Error timeline would look like for every time traveler.
Thus, Time Error cannot be a record of what a Time Traveler has done. At best, it could be described as a record of a Time Traveler’s actions while in areas of Time Error, but not in normal time.
Apparently, it would seem that you didn't quite misunderstood what I was trying to say. However, as each person can be said as to having their own individual timeline, a record needs to be created for each and every one of them. Thus, exonerating the idea that the Time Error concept needs not only be applied to portals, places or locations.
That is really the heart of my argument; previously Time-Error was a concept that can only be applied to locations, I am proposing that a variation on that theory could also be applied to animate objects (aka, people like Chrono and Ayla). To be fair, I am not using Time Error exactly as expressed in that article either. I am using Time Error as the difference between one value and another (that is, the moment that Time Travel has been introduced into a specific section a timeline and any event that follows after). This value will always be equal to the article’s exact definition of Time Error, but I am applying it in a manner that wasn’t expressed by the article.
I'm afraid not. Not according to what I just pointed out. My initial critiques and observations are still very much valid. You didn't exactly differentiate much of anything! The only thing you did was change the nomenclature of what the result of the equation would have to be called.
To try to illustrate what I am proposing Time Index is, allow me to compare it to Time Error. If Time Error flows perpendicular to normal time, then Time Index potentially flows in (essentially) a scribble to normal time. It doubles back on itself, it skips ahead, it falls behind, etc. Despite this, Time Index still flows in a straight line; it is only in comparison to normal time that it takes an odd shape. Compared to Time Error it is also a straight line.
Hardly. A time'line' wouldn't exactly be a line if it isn't straight, now would it? Is just doesn't make sense... at all! Think about it, you first claim that Time Index isn't really a line, more so than it is a scribble, but then you say "Time Index still flows in a straight line"! Now, I don't know about you, but if you can’t see that as a contradictory statement I honestly believe there must be something wrong with your head. Just listen to how that last sentence actually sounds like... or better yet, read this again and tell me that it actually rings logical to you:
Time Index represents the Time Traveler’s travels through time in chronological order, which do not necessarily match up with the chronological order of normal time. According to normal time, Chrono and Co enter 600 AD (Marle disappears in the teleporter accident), leave 600 AD (after rescuing her), leave 1000 AD (Marle disappears in the teleporter accident), enter 1000 AD (their successful return from saving Marle). According to Time Index, these events happen more along the lines of how the player sees them; Chrono and Co leave 1000 AD, enter 600 ad, leave 600ad, and enter 1000 ad. From the perspective of normal time, Chrono and Co arrived in 600 AD before they left in 1000 AD (specifically, they arrived 400 years before they left). From the perspective of Time Index, just before Marle steps onto the teleporter, 600 AD is actually in the future. Just after Chrono goes through and enters 600 AD, 1000 AD is then in the past.
...Preposterous, indeed.
Solution #2
I actually quite agree that fate does not exist in the series and that one cannot determine the point in Ayla’s future that she will have children. However, my argument is actually drawing from the past in order to determine a hypothetical “when” for Ayla to have children. The specific “when” that I used (30) is just for the ease of discussion. Really, if we assume that Ayla is the ancestor of the Guardia line, and the Guardia line exists, then we know that Ayla must have had a child at time X. I merely assigned an arbitrary value to that variable, but we can leave it as a variable if you prefer. However, it is a variable because we don’t know it, not because it hasn’t happened.
Wrong again!
It isn't a variable just because we don't know it, but also as a result of not knowing when/how/where or whether or not it's even going to happen! Why? Because if it isn't assigned any value (as it should, cause there is no Fate in the Chronoverse), as a variable it should remain as such, simply for the reason that we don't know what the outcome is going to be if, and when is replaced by an actual value in the equation. Why should it matter then, that because of this the variable may be negated existence? Because that number can also be a negative value! Or maybe, if you prefer, simply one that's beyond her lifespan or even better, one that is actually just past the point in her life in which she can in fact, have those children!
I am not talking about fate, I am merely talking about the past. This is, again, at the heart of Time Index. In the original Lavos timeline, pre-time travel (the various timelines are illustrated in the following document: http://www.chronocompendium.com/images/wiki/b/b1/Timelines.png ) did have a child at time point X, which we know because the Guardia line does in fact exist in 1000 AD. She lived her life, she had her child, she made her choices resulting from freewill, and she died. By Time Index standards, however, ALL of the original, pre-time travel timeline is in the past. The timeline was that way, but something new happened; time travel was introduced. Ayla having a child can be treated as having already happened simply because it has already happened, in the pre-time travel timeline. When she joins up with Chrono and the others, even though having children is in her future, it is still in the past.
This is an assumption (and an incorrect one) made by you. As is demonstrated by the very same document that you provide, such point X is never mentioned in either Timeline. Ayla's exact role in the Lavos-timeline is ultimately unknown. We pretty much don't know anything about this timeline. As a result, you can't assume that she did, in fact, have children and was actually the one who started the Guardia Royal Line. Time Index is a crackpot theory that would only make sense in Yuji Hori's head, I'm afraid.
Time Travel is introduced into the timeline by the Entity. This doesn’t necessitate change (indeed, it can’t necessitate as that would be fate) but it allows for change to occur. These changes, however, cannot occur until they occur. Ayla having a child can’t change until it changes. Until a future for the future is established, the future is based on the past. It makes sense if one follows Time Index, but not normal time.
Says who? Only you and your ludicrous Time Index theory.
And since Time Index does not make any sense at all whatsoever... Yeah, you're right, I guess this could make sense, if you’re crazy enough to believe all that nonsense.
To offer a different example: Chrono doesn’t defeat Lavos until he actually defeats him. Time Travel allows for this change, but it is a variable, it is potential. Until that change is made, Lavos remains undefeated, just as in the original pre-time travel timeline. Once Lavos is defeated, we have a new timeline. 2300 AD on the pre-time travel timeline, according to Time Index, is in the past compared to 12000 BC on the new, post time travel timeline.
Bad example. As this is even used for an explanation of what Time Error is. You are basically stating that Time Index and Time Error are, indeed, the exact very same thing. Hmm.. Now doesn't that completely invalidate what you had previously said about what Time Error and Time Index represent? Precisely.
Let me quote you again, so as to remind you of a little something you said earlier:
previously Time-Error was a concept that can only be applied to locations, I am proposing that a variation on that theory could also be applied to animate objects (aka, people like Chrono and Ayla). To be fair, I am not using Time Error exactly as expressed in that article either. I am using Time Error as the difference between one value and another...
See what I mean? If that is not a self-contradiction of your theory, I don't know what is! Thank you for proving my point, by using that example.
So to my original argument, in the original, pre-time travel timeline, Ayla had a child. Her travels in time allow for the possibility for that event to change. However, that event doesn’t change until it changes. This isn’t because she is fated to have a child; it is because she DID have a child in the past (even though the past is her future). At point X on the original pre-time travel Ayla had a child, thus in the post-time travel timeline point X cannot be changed until it is changed, and it can’t be changed until Ayla reaches point X. Even though point X is in the future for Ayla according to normal time, it is in the past for Ayla according to Time Index and it can’t be changed until that past (her future) is overwritten by her present (which from the game’s perspective will be in the future).
And now, what you're just basically doing is to claim that while Point X is not supposed to be determined with a value, it should only rather have a definite location point in her personal timeline that does not actually move around that much (read: not at all). Yeah, that makes sense. About as much sense as what you said when you assigned a specific value to the variable!
This isn’t to say that due to time travel she couldn’t have children later or earlier or not at all, just that the events that proceed from Point X can’t change until Point X itself changes, and that change can’t occur until Ayla reaches Point X.
This isn’t fate, this is how the timeline existed before time travel was introduced and how it remains to exist until changed.
The point of this paradox is that due to time travel she can't be expected to either 'have children later or earlier or not at all'. Not that there somehow exists a specific point X which in some strange bizarre way isn't malleable to anything else that can or could ever be modified in her own timeline. Think about it that way. Doesn't that sound ridiculous to you? Or at least on some level, as something that completely obliterates all known Principles of Time mechanisms currently known for this game?
Thus, I am not talking about a predetermined future for Ayla; rather I am talking about a post-established past that continues to exist until changed.
That cannot be ultimately changed, right? And only has the 'potential' to be changed?
Like I said... Yeah, this makes perfect sense.
Solution #3
Now to address Problem 3, which is actually easier to respond to than anything yet. You are stating that having the entirety of a person’s life as it would be, from the moment before they are effected by time travel to the point that they would have died (and any subsequent effects that life would have had on history), pre-time travel, would create a major problem for the timeline. As you said, “just imagine what it would be like to keep tags on everything at every single moment in a time traveler's life just so that a major event can be kept in existence for that person's sake.” Well actually, it would be for time’s sake, not the person’s sake, and it would be so that all events, not just major event, remain in existence. They remain simply because they do not change until changed. Essentially, you are claiming that it would be a major problem to keep tabs of a bunch of stationary objects (things that currently aren’t changing). Yeah, that isn’t that difficult.
Not if you factor in the idea that everyone has a personal timeline (within the multiple 'dimensions' of the Chronoverse Timelines)! Which you have, personally, alluded to in your own theories. You're saying that it wouldn't only be done just for one person's but for all of Time's sake, but if your consider this fact what the word 'Time' is only referring to, is to Ayla's Time. In other words, her very own personal timeline. An argument based on a semantic difference of what a word could potentially mean is by no means a good one.
All you've done so far is evaded providing an answer to this question: How can her timeline (Ayla's) have any possibility of remaining in a constant state of 'flow', if and when all of her future events are indeterminate? Not a big enough problem for you? How about doing that very same thing, for all events of every time travelers' personal 'Time' that could ever show up in a given Timeline? What do you think would happen if that were true? Time would most definitely cease to flow! At least as far any of the Time Travelers’' is concerned. Talk about a real Time's scar. And that's just to say the least of what could happen, as many other potential problems would definitely arise!
But I made the mistake of using the word “flux” when I should have said something more along the lines of “infused with potential.” The events in traveler’s Time Index beyond their point of departure remain exactly as they were until changed, the only difference now is that they have the potential to change (remember, by Time Index standards these events are in the past, not the future, and remain in the past until the present overwrites them to create a future).
Potential to change = No change at all! That is, at least, until another external force is made present in that person's life (which should be read as Fate). This may actually sound stupid to you, but, the potential to anything isn't really anything until it actually is! It's non-existent, it doesn't matter, it doesn't make any difference... because it isn't there! Or even if it would be there, it can go away just as easily!! I'm sorry, but that is just the way it is, and will continue to be so as long as something (anything) else is needed in order to help generate the actual change in that person/object/timeline.
To offer a real life example of the underlying principles: take a bowling ball from the 1st floor of a building to the roof. You just gave it a good amount of potential energy. The bowling ball is exactly the same, nothing changed about it, only in its relation to everything else; it now has potential. In the same way, Time Index events after a time traveler’s departure remain exactly the same, only with potential for change. As there is only a potential change, they are no more difficult to keep tabs on than before that potential was introduced.
And to help you understand what I'm saying, I will use the very same example you provided.
That bowling ball is still just going to sit there at that roof, no matter how much time passes. It will always be there sitting, waiting, doing absolutely nothing at all! Sure, it has potential to crack someone's head open. But will that eventually ever happen, unless something else causes this ball to fall down? I.e. the wind, some mischievous brat, whatever?
If you still find this to be a major problem, then I would recommend reading up on Schrodinger’s Cat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger's_cat) and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle). Given that at any moment most of the Universe exists in multiple states until observed (seemingly), it is really a small thing for a comparatively few moments of comparatively few people in just one out of countless worlds to be held in a state of “flux,” or potential.
I'm not the one who matters here; at least not as to what should even be considered a potential problem to your theory! What constitutes a problem to a theory can't be as simple as a different point of view of any given person. Problems exist because of the simple fact that when and if a legitimate question is raised that simply can't be answered without leaving any shadow of a doubt as to its validity as a theory.
Furthermore, while both of those theories have very little application to the real problem (the Guardia Royal Line Paradox) at hand, they have absolutely nothing to do with what is being discussed at the moment. And even if they did, they still would offer no solution whatsoever to this problem in particular, as they are in fact also just theories!
Solution #4
Which “other concept” from Back to the Future is my theory equitable to?
I don't believe that it has an established concept or name, by which it can be easily distinguished from any other; or at least not in the sense of canon. But I think you know exactly as to what part I was referring to. There was a previous poster on this thread that summarized it pretty well.
Additionally, why does it matter?
It matters because, if indeed you were trying to adapt rules and time traveling mechanics from a different source you are faced with the problem of bending somewhat another concept or theory that has already been previously established by the medium that we are currently discussing (in this case, the Time Error Theory and part of Chrono Trigger's Time Traveling Mechanics and Principles).
At its heart, Time Index can be summarized as “things don’t change until they change.” Everything else I have said is just an explanation of that concept and how it (maybe?) makes sense. Indeed, the explanations themselves could be summarized by the phrase “The enemy’s gate is down,” a quote taken from the book Ender’s Game, which essentially means that when a frame of reference has been removed (gravity in the book, a set direction of time for the Chronoverse) and no other references are necessitated but a frame of reference is still needed in order to act, then one should choose the frame of reference that best suits the situation. The GRL Paradox is avoided by the future happening in the past, a different frame of reference than has yet been suggested.
No it can't. It doesn't. I believe I have demonstrated to you enough that this really is NOT the case! And apparently, perhaps it was a different source altogether, which gave you this idea. My mistake. It's still a valid point though, even if I 'thought' that the source was originally a different one.
Solution #5
Problem 5 is easier to address than problem 3. As I have laid things out, Robo’s personal Time Index is messed up at the end of the game. All the events left over from the original, pre-time travel timeline, from between 2300 and 2700, have been rewritten. You find this to be a problem.
Ha! Again with this? I find it to be a problem?.... Yeah right, as if that matters as to what constitutes a problem.
Not at all! This is a real problem that still needs to be addressed, just as much as all the other ones, before your theory can even be considered a valid one.
Okay, I admit that perhaps I exaggerated a bit as to this problem's status as the biggest problem of your theory. There are many other bigger problems, which have (curiously in descending order) already been listed; and that, as of yet, not one of them has been successfully solved.
Unfortunately for you, as will be shown, Problem #5 still poses a pretty big problem to your theory! Indeed, the very fact that you can't even see it as a problem doesn't help your theory at all... and it questions your logical reasoning, even further.
Now, allow me to quote the core issue of this problem, so as to not to repeat myself:
As per what your theory states, everything that he actually did from year 2300 to 2700 AD would have to be rewritten. Unfortunately this would also include all the events that took place during Chrono Cross. Meaning no 'Prometheus Circuit', and therefore no designation of Serge as 'Arbiter' of Time. Quite a big problem it poses, wouldn't you say?
As such it would seem that the timeline proceeding from the point that an individual leaves their timeline and the point in which they would have naturally died (if they hadn't time traveled) must be in a state of flux until such a point as the specific Time Index of the time traveler matches the Time Index of the event. Only then can the event’s flux be resolved into a definite outcome. So, for every second Ayla is trekking through time, the timeline is actually being re-written with Ayla being missing from her own era for that one extra second.
Let it be noted than, that you are indeed claiming that the Robo whose Time Index should have to be rewritten, would be the one who stays behind to fix Fiona's Forest. Therefore, as one who has actually time traveled, in as much as for he stays there as long as he does, should have his personal Time Index be rewritten accordingly to his new actions in the Middle Ages, for all of the 400 years that correspond to his own time period; that is from 2300 AD to 2700 AD.
So what does this all mean, exactly? It means that this Robo, has very much so, time traveled before (and with the Team, as well) and is not the 'original-timeline' Robo that you so conveniently claim wouldn't have this problem because of never having time-traveled before.
Now, it is true that once he returns to the future, all time traveling methods become unavailable to him, as all the gates are closed to him after that point. However, this by no means equals to, having his old 'Time Index' not be overwritten by a new different one. Remember, this is only as per what your theory states, as all of the 'rewriting' actually takes place during the time in which they remain time traveling (in this case the 400 years he spent in the Middle Ages).
Now, allow me to quote yourself, so as to establish what your theory has previously stated in this regard:
As most characters aren’t gone from their timeline long enough to really miss out on any major events, the GRL Paradox doesn’t manifest. There is only one exception to this; Robo. He “travels” through time for more than 400 years. Thus, any event that the original-timeline Robo did from 2300 AD to 2700 AD would be erased. Alas, Crono and the gang never travel so far into the future in order to test this theory. As Robo is back in 2300 by the end of the game, presumably all the events in his life from 2300 to 2700 would be changed to have a new Time Index.
The 'original-time-line' Robo is the only one that doesn't time travel. He has nothing to do with this problem! So why don't you just leave him alone gathering up dust at Proto Dome, where he belongs? You also seem to believe, for whatever reason, that once he goes back to 2300 AD at the end of the game, everything that he did should return to normal; his whole time traveling experience should go up in smokes, as if it never even happened. Do you even know how absurd that is? It's almost as moronic as saying that he wasn't in fact, time traveling at that very instant in order to get to his own time period!
This is quite easy because the posed problem is coming from a misunderstanding. Everything he did from 2300 to 2700 on the original, pre-time travel timeline would have to be rewritten. Chrono Cross, however, does not take place on that timeline. Any rewriting of Robo’s history resulting from the Time Index theory would have been re-rewritten due to the successful defeat of Lavos and the saving of the future. Thus, the Prometheus circuit would have no problem existing because even though Robo’s 2700 is being rewritten, as that is in the past when compared to the Prometheus Circuit in 2400, via Time Index.
I'm afraid that the only misunderstanding here came from your end.
I never said that Cross took place in the exact same timeline that Trigger did. You, however, did misinterpreted almost every single event in which Robo actually travels through time. That is, in as much to say, because you actually claimed that Keystone-T1 Robo had never time traveled before or that in some mysterious way, it would be just as if he never did by the end of the game, just so that you could validate your own theory. This of course is wrong; not just for the reason that only the Robo from the original-timeline (the one in which Crono never interferes because there aren't any time gates, called the Lavos-timeline) never actually time travels (just like Crono), but also because it is impossible to even consider that after Lavos is destroyed all other time related side-effects would simply disappear (especially considering Chrono Cross' revealing plot).
Solution #6
And finally, because I haven’t written a long enough response, allow me to address the 6th problem. The Entity did it argument essentially states that an outside force prevents the GRL Paradox from happening. Time Index, however, essentially states that the [GRL Paradox doesn’t need to be prevented since the events that could trigger such a thing haven’t occurred. Such events might occur in the future (from a Time Index POV), but nothing in the game necessitates that they have or will occur. If my theory is valid, it doesn’t circumvent the problems presented by the Entity Did It argument, it fully stops before we get to an “it” that the Entity may or may not have done.
Finally, you're right! Only because this isn't nearly long enough yet! Yeah right.... I think I may have reasoning problems myself.
Except that only everything about common sense would necessitate such events from actually occurring! Otherwise what you are indeed claiming is that random things can actually happen as a predetermined occurrence... and that things don't need to change at all because all they need is to have the potential for it, and thus don't actually need to be random at all!
And this is where you leave Occam's Razor Principle to rest, I believe.
Occam’s Razor is happy because the theory really is quite simple; things don’t change until they change (and nothing has changed to cause the GRL Paradox, so the GRL paradox hasn’t happened).
No. Occam's Razor will never be 'happy', as long as all of this problems aren't completely solved in this particular theory.
And with that said, I declare this the biggest post the Chrono Compendium's Forum has ever seen!!!
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I know I'm late to this thread, but I once posted a time-clone theory about the idea of time-clones; that their purpose is to preserve the timeline if the time-traveler would leave time. I actually dislike this theory a lot now, but it something to concider methinks:
It was originally made, becuase from what I understand Crono, Lucca and Marle travel to 2300 AD despite the fact that it is the future of their present. This shouldn't happen, since the minute they leave their time, the timeline would be altered, menaing Crono, Lucca and Marle shouldn't have been able to visit the future, especially a future with Marle's future relative.
The simple theory is those nifty clones we see are used as placeholders for the time-travellers (perhaps put in place by the entity, as a kinf of reverse-time-bastard.) to live their life for them, in order to preserve the future. This was based on observations of the use of the Crono dummy, as well as their presense in the Black Omen, were they'd be used to preserve th Omen's own existance.
It's not my favourite theory, since it's an extention of an 'entity did it' approach, but what do you guys think?
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It's not my favourite theory, since it's an extention of an 'entity did it' approach, but what do you guys think?
It is a theory that certainly fits the necessary parameters of explaining your situation (why 2300 doesn't change as soon as Marle, Lucca, and Chrono leave 1000) but anything that seems like "the entity did it" or an extension there-of leaves a bad taste in my mouth (despite the fact that, at least for Dinopolis, the entity DID do it). However, this clone theory would help "solve" the Marle Paradox too. Even if Marle is removed from time, regardless of TTI, her "time clone" would preserve history as Chrono and Lucca knew it, so they could still function as seen in the game.
However, I would still maintain that timelines don't change until they change. That is, the timeline doesn't change to take into account that Chrono, Lucca, and Marle are no longer in their present (say, 1001 AD) until such a time as they aren't there (essentially, for 1001 AD, Chrono and Co's absence would only matter if they were gone for a full year). To try to sum up my "Time Index" theory, discussed above, I'd maintain that until Chrono himself is at an age that matches when an event "would have" happened, sans time travel, that event is preserved in the timeline. As we see, time doesn't change on potential alone, only actual actions. Thus, for the future to change just because Chrono and the others travel in time, their bodies would have to reach those time points that would change and either do or not do whatever the original timeline would have had them do.
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Correct me if I'm wrong here, but according to your theory, wouldn't Ayla technically be able to meet her future-self, so long as she time-travels to a point beyond her total Time Error count?
Herein lies the problem, it wouldn't just apply to removing someone from a timeline, it would apply to all changes made by a time traveller. Essentially all this does is introduce the idea that time changes at the same rate as the displaced item's Time Error, as opposed to instantly. According to your theory, if Crono and crew defeated Lavos in 1999 AD, 2300 AD would change extremely slowly. The time-travellers have to wait 301 Time Error years (After defeating Lavos) before they could access the 'good future' version of 2300 AD.
Whilst this would solve the 'Doan paradox', Robo makes it clear at the end of CT that they're travelling to a 'new' future which, I'm afraid to say, blows your theory out of the proverbial water, unless you can provide a reason.
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Correct me if I'm wrong here, but according to your theory, wouldn't Ayla technically be able to meet her future-self, so long as she time-travels to a point beyond her total Time Error count?
Herein lies the problem, essentially all this does is introduce the idea that time changes at the same rate as the displaced item's Time Error, as opposed to instantly. According to your theory, if Crono and crew defeated Lavos in 1999 AD, 2300 AD would change extremely slowly. The time-travellers have to wait 301 Time Error years (After defeating Lavos) before they could access the 'good future' version of 2300 AD.
Whilst this would solve the 'Doan paradox', Robo makes it clear at the end of CT that they're travelling to a 'new' future which, I'm afraid to say, blows your theory out of the proverbial water.
I guess Ayla could meet her future self, but alas there are no examples of this (though Robo, Magus, and Lucca sort of meet their past selves).
But I never said that changes to the timeline don't happen instantly; indeed, I maintain that they do. But I also maintain that the changes have to happen before they can effect the timeline. Chrono can't change an event that would have happened when he was 30 years old until he is 30 years old. By leaving the timeline, Chrono is actually rewriting history second by second, but the changes to the timeline are instantaneous. For every day he is gone, for every second, time is changed so he is gone for that one extra second/day (as it can only be when that event is reached that Chrono can either be or not be there). There isn’t one change, there are countless changes to the timeline as it can resolve itself.
Defeating Lavos in 1999 AD (technically 12,000 BC) instantly changes the future even for Robo and the others for three reasons:
1) Because Lavos isn't a time traveler and therefore not subject to Time Index.
2) Even if Lavos were subject to Time Index, Time Index arises out of unresolved potential. After Chrono first leaves in 1000AD, he may be presented in 1001 AD to perform an event that the original timeline has him performing, but he might not be present. There is potential for both outcomes and so time cannot resolve which to function off of. As no change is possible based on possibilities, the old timeline remain until changed (a concept clearly stated in the games). Death, however, is the end of possibilities (unless we want to get spiritual). Even assuming that Lavos were subject to Time Index, the moment he dies his potential is resolved. Thus, his Time Index collapses and his personal future (and the whole future based on his personal future) can be resolved.
3) Even assuming Lavos is effected by Time Index, and even assuming death doesn’t resolve his potential, after Lavos dies he never leaves his timeline. Thus, he has reintegrated to his own timeline and I would propose that Time Error is no longer a valid factor (Time Error effecting Gates, extra-temporal locations, and as I propose it Time Index). Not that Time Error ceases to exist; rather it just isn’t important for non-time travelers.
Consider that Janus leaves 12,000 BC, travels to approximately 580ish AD, ages until he is Magus, yet can still travel back to 12,000. Even Time Error would indicate that if a gate originally opens to 12,000 BC, after 20ish years of Time Error it should open to 12,020 BC. Janus/Magus appears to be on a different Time Error than Chrono and Co (but still on some semblance of Time Error). From this example, it is implied that Time Error doesn’t need to be universally uniform. However, to offer a counter-argument, it isn’t like Janus left 12000 BC through a standard gate. I may well be drawing too much significance from a potentially anomalous event.
Anywho, if Time Error is no longer a factor, the Time Index Equation changes from Original Time + Time Error = Time Index to Original Time = Time Index.
This is a bit of a curiosity as we never definitively see what happens AFTER a time traveler stops time traveling, so I am sure some people will disagree with this point.
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Correct me if I'm wrong here, but according to your theory, wouldn't Ayla technically be able to meet her future-self, so long as she time-travels to a point beyond her total Time Error count?
Herein lies the problem, essentially all this does is introduce the idea that time changes at the same rate as the displaced item's Time Error, as opposed to instantly. According to your theory, if Crono and crew defeated Lavos in 1999 AD, 2300 AD would change extremely slowly. The time-travellers have to wait 301 Time Error years (After defeating Lavos) before they could access the 'good future' version of 2300 AD.
Whilst this would solve the 'Doan paradox', Robo makes it clear at the end of CT that they're travelling to a 'new' future which, I'm afraid to say, blows your theory out of the proverbial water.
I guess Ayla could meet her future self, but alas there are no examples of this (though Robo, Magus, and Lucca sort of meet their past selves).
But I never said that changes to the timeline don't happen instantly; indeed, I maintain that they do. But I also maintain that the changes have to happen before they can effect the timeline. Chrono can't change an event that would have happened when he was 30 years old until he is 30 years old. By leaving the timeline, Chrono is actually rewriting history second by second, but the changes to the timeline are instantaneous. For every day he is gone, for every second, time is changed so he is gone for that one extra second/day (as it can only be when that event is reached that Chrono can either be or not be there). There isn’t one change, there are countless changes to the timeline as it can resolve itself.
Dude, listen to what your saying. This is a complete and utter contradiction. You say they happen instantanously, and then you say that Chrono can't change an event that he does when he is 30 years old until he is 30. Thus the changes now have to happen gradually, as Crono's Time Error clocks up. Sorry, but it just doesn't work.
Defeating Lavos in 1999 AD (technically 12,000 BC) instantly changes the future even for Robo and the others for three reasons:
1) Because Lavos isn't a time traveler and therefore not subject to Time Index.
But Chrono is, and he defeats Lavos, just as Ayla gives birth the Guardia Line. It's not about a person being a time-traveller it's about the changes that occur as a result, otherwise the Guardia Line Paradox wouldn't exist.
Besides the Lavos example was just one, I could apply it to every instance of time-travelling in the game: If your theory is true then the heroes wouldn't be able to make any change in the timeline at all, since they would have to wait for time-error to catch up to them again.
2) Even if Lavos were subject to Time Index, Time Index arises out of unresolved potential. After Chrono first leaves in 1000AD, he may be presented in 1001 AD to perform an event that the original timeline has him performing, but he might not be present. There is potential for both outcomes and so time cannot resolve which to function off of. As no change is possible based on possibilities, the old timeline remain until changed (a concept clearly stated in the games). Death, however, is the end of possibilities (unless we want to get spiritual). Even assuming that Lavos were subject to Time Index, the moment he dies his potential is resolved. Thus, his Time Index collapses and his personal future (and the whole future based on his personal future) can be resolved.
This is where your mistake stems from: The idea that Chrono can't be assumed to come back, but neither can it assume that he WON'T come back. But of course, your overcomplicating it. This isn't about potential, it's about the actions that the team make. Causality. Chrono dissapears from history, becuase he makes the choice to leave his timeline. Cause and effect; nothing 'potential' about it. Randomly habving him reappear in the future before he has even made the choice to come back, is breaking this causality.
My point: No assumptions are being made when a time-traveller leaves, the timeline doesn't include them becuase they physically left. Cause and effect.
3) Even assuming Lavos is effected by Time Index, and even assuming death doesn’t resolve his potential, after Lavos dies he never leaves his timeline. Thus, he has reintegrated to his own timeline and I would propose that Time Error is no longer a valid factor (Time Error effecting Gates, extra-temporal locations, and as I propose it Time Index). Not that Time Error ceases to exist; rather it just isn’t important for non-time travelers.
Once agian: this isn't anything to do with Lavos. It's all about Chrono, who changed history.
Consider that Janus leaves 12,000 BC, travels to approximately 580ish AD, ages until he is Magus, yet can still travel back to 12,000. Even Time Error would indicate that if a gate originally opens to 12,000 BC, after 20ish years of Time Error it should open to 12,020 BC. Janus/Magus appears to be on a different Time Error than Chrono and Co (but still on some semblance of Time Error). From this example, it is implied that Time Error doesn’t need to be universally uniform. However, to offer a counter-argument, it isn’t like Janus left 12000 BC through a standard gate. I may well be drawing too much significance from a potentially anomalous event.
Yeah it was a different gate. Imagine, the gates as timeless windows with time progressing on both sides equally. If he touched the gate he came to 580 AD from, in 600 AD, then yes he would arrive 20 years after the Zeal incident. (Which BTW is 11,980, not 12,020, don't forget we're dealing with BC years here.)
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Ah, terribly sorry I hadn't responded earlier; I just now noticed that you had posted.
Dude, listen to what your saying. This is a complete and utter contradiction. You say they happen instantanously, and then you say that Chrono can't change an event that he does when he is 30 years old until he is 30. Thus the changes now have to happen gradually, as Crono's Time Error clocks up. Sorry, but it just doesn't work.
Changes don't happen until they happen, but when those changes happen they effect all of time instantly. How is that a "complete and utter contradiction"? Let us imagine a real life situation; Bob will go to the store. He can’t go to the store until he is actually going to the store (it isn’t like he can arrive there before he leaves), but once he goes to the store he then is going to the store. This is a bit repetitive, but it is only so because the Guardia Royal Line Paradox seems to inherently assume that someone like Bob went to the store before he actually did so, arriving before he left (or, in terms of the paradox, that Ayla didn’t give birth to the royal line at age 30 before she was even age 29).
And of course Chrono can't change an event that he does when he is 30 until he is 30; can you change an event that you'll do in 10 years until those 10 years have passed? How would that even work?
Now we could imagine that Chrono at age 16 might be able to travel into the future and meet himself at age 30, however here we have a curious problem; the series never has a person meet their future self (only past selves), so we really don't know how this would effect things. But in this case, we'd actually have two Chronos; young Chrono might change the events surrounding old Chrono, but he isn't directly changing old Chrono or old Chrono's actions. Indeed, by time index, things change because what Chrono 16 is doing would be in the past, for both himself and Chrono 30, after he has done them. At no point would he be changing Chrono 30 at 30 while himself at 16.
But Chrono is, and he defeats Lavos, just as Ayla gives birth the Guardia Line. It's not about a person being a time-traveller it's about the changes that occur as a result, otherwise the Guardia Line Paradox wouldn't exist.
What in the who now? Could you try explaining your point? It is entirely about being a time traveler because the changes that occur as a result of time traveling only occur as a result of time traveling. If there is no time traveling, there are no changes.
Lavos is defeated, thus he doesn't exist in the future. Action happened, thus the result effects the timeline. Ayla has neither given nor not given birth to the Guardia line, therefore the action hasn't been addressed and therefore there are no results to effect the timeline. Time Index happens specifically at the individual level.
Besides the Lavos example was just one, I could apply it to every instance of time-travelling in the game: If your theory is true then the heroes wouldn't be able to make any change in the timeline at all, since they would have to wait for time-error to catch up to them again.
Time-Error is a universal constant that seems to sync the various gates and extra-temporal locations of the game. That is, spend 3 days in 600AD and you've spent 3 days away from 1000AD. Let us say that an event happens at Time Index Q (such as the change that occurs to the Mayor of Porre). Time Index is a function of two values; the state of the timeline at the point of a time traveler's departure and time error. This results in a value that can then be matched up with an event in that time traveler's future (like an index of a book). So, then, the Mayor's ancestor is not a time traveler so the first value is Null (not even 0). This leaves only time error. Not the time error that is the universal constant, but what time error will be at the time of the event. Ah, but as the Mayor's ancestor is not a gate or an extra-temporal location, she isn't effected by time error either. That means the equation can't work and Time Index does not apply to her (as, indeed, Time Index does not apply to ANY non-time-traveler). Thus, there is no "time error" that needs to catch up to them (or anyone else). Even happens, it effects the timeline.
Now, from Chrono's perspective, he can only give the Mayor's ancestor jerky (and thus, change the future) when his personal time index matches up with the event. The event is at original departure point + X, where X is a value equal to the time between the two. At X-1 or less, Chrono cannot change the Mayor's ancestor. At X, Chrono gives her jerky. All points in time that are equal to or greater than X+1 will then be effected by this action. You can test this in the game yourself if you don't believe me; go, play Chrono Trigger and see if you can change the Mayor of Porre before X (X being when Chrono gives his ancestry the jerky). You can't. Chrono's time index only effects what HE will do in his life, not what other people will do (though, to the extent that they will react to his actions, they are effected).
As this is my theory and it does allow for changes to occur, I must propose that you did not understand my theory. I am terribly sorry; if you can identify where my theory looses you I will try to elucidate the matter.
This is where your mistake stems from: The idea that Chrono can't be assumed to come back, but neither can it assume that he WON'T come back. But of course, your overcomplicating it. This isn't about potential, it's about the actions that the team make. Causality. Chrono dissapears from history, becuase he makes the choice to leave his timeline. Cause and effect; nothing 'potential' about it. Randomly habving him reappear in the future before he has even made the choice to come back, is breaking this causality.
My point: No assumptions are being made when a time-traveller leaves, the timeline doesn't include them becuase they physically left. Cause and effect.
Actually, I am being terribly simple. If you haven't noticed, time index matches up exactly with the player's sense of time (rather than the internal sense of time of the game). Time Index is as simple as playing the game.
Time Travel is what gives Chrono and the others an option; it is what brings the potential of change to time. If it wasn't for time travel, 2300 could never change. But introducing time travel doesn't change the future, it merely offers the possibility of change. Thus, my theory's claim is similar. Time travel is what gives a person an option; it is what brings the potential of change to their personal timeline. If it wasn't for time travel, Ayla would give birth to the Guardia line. But introducing time travel doesn't change the future, it merely offers the possibility of change. Ayla's time traveling adventures no more inherently destroy the guardia royal line than Chrono's time traveling adventures inherently destroy Lavos. It can happen, but only (everyone say it with me) when it happens, and not a moment before.
Yes, Chrono leaves 1000 AD and "disappears from history." Cause and Effect. But that is just one action, so you are extending that "effect" too far, going into predetermination (which is inherently contrary to the game). The effect of Chrono leaving 1000AD is that he is not in 1000AD, cause and effect. However, the effect of Chrono having been absent for 3 days has a different cause, and that cause is Chrono spending those three days elsewhere. He can't be gone for three days until he is gone for three friggen days. When he has only been gone for two, he hasn’t yet been gone for three. When he has been gone for four days, he has already been gone for three. Five is right out.
Once agian: this isn't anything to do with Lavos. It's all about Chrono, who changed history.
Then perhaps we need to define what "this" is. I confess, I have been working under the assumption that "this" is my theory, Time Index, and if it is a plausible explanation to the Guardia Royal Line Paradox. As Time Index is always personal and specific to the time traveler in question, "this" is always about the individual in question. As you brought Lavos up, "this" is then about Lavos. However, "this" can also just as easily be about Chrono (but the two are separate).
Your original supposition is that after Chrono and the others killed Lavos they'd have to wait 301 years before 2300 would change from its post-apocalyptic state. Chrono and the others kill lavos as a very specific point; their original departure point + X, where X is the amount of time that passes between that departure and Lavos' death. At any point before X, 2300 is a wasteland. At any point after X, 2300 never had an apocalypse (until Serge somehow changed it back in ways that I don't understand). Indeed, it could be said that Lavos' death changes Chrono's personal timeline entirely; gone is the Chrono at Age 30 in a world with Lavos, and come is the Chrono at Age 30 in a world without Lavos. Doesn't mean that whatever Chrono would have done at age 30 (in either timeline) is set in temporal stone. It changes the possibility, but it doesn't resolve that possibility. There is no waiting; Time Index, like Time-Error, is apart from the normal flow of time. Indeed, I am not even sure where you are getting the idea that waiting would be necessary for non-personal effects to happen (and for personal effect, there would be no way of observing that wait except through living; in which case the objection is nonsensical).
To be honest, I am not seeing where your objection is stemming from. Perhaps we should start over?
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Mmm... well, maybe I'm in an error... and after all this is a theory. But I think this work some sort of this way.
Life (yeah, it exist) is about possibilities, which means that our actions tend to change in small or big scale the way the world continue to exist, his shape, in simple words, but we cannot backtrack them.
So time travel is still into that kind of possibilities only that it works in a different sense. Think about time travelling just in the way that a writer look upon a book. When something is wrote you can change it from the outside of the written world, but from the inside it's seen as a unchangeable reality. (A bit of Deux ex machina if you ask me.... or in this particular case "Entity ex machina")
Time traveling then alows you to rewrite the temporal equations, because as we all know there are a lot of ways to reach a result, be it the same or different, sort of what happens in chrono cross.
My point here, to make this short and simple is that perhaps we are thinking that leaving a place changes ALL the possible futures... while in truth, things only change if they are o aren't realized.
If we see it this way, the last theory makes pretty much sense. Because Ayla travelled BEFORE having kids.. so the story didn't change... or we can see it in the other way that no matter when an event happens it's his fullfilling what matters. (This last point allows the changes made because that lapsus of time possible, but still mantain the great design unchanged).
Seeing it this way, and setting something as an example, we can take the bad end. If our heroes died before the defeat of Lavos, then all the options to change the future would had been futile, cuz they dissapeared in the stream of time. But this didn't mean that they never existed... they simple dissapeared from their timelines, probably alterating the future with unexpected consequences. (Like Guardia waging a war to find princess Marle... or the events of Chrono Cross being unable to happen, in the way they happen)
Well, that is. Sorry for pointing the obvious... but well, hope it serve in some way.
That's it. Bye
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Simply because Ayla went to the future she was already back and had children. That was written when she came back...