Messages

1

Time, Space, and Dimensions / Re: A Quirk of Forward Time Travel

« on: November 25, 2008, 11:37:06 pm »

Warmgun, unfortunately your theory is in contradiction to the game itself. You said that one can never see a timeline that has been destroyed due to time travel taking place in your future. If that is the case, Crono himself could have never seen the ruined future because time traveling in his future (both personal and objective) led to the events that resulted in it being destroyed.

Regardless of the time travel mechanics, causality still applies.  Crono shouldn't see the saved future until he actually saves it (in his personal reference time).  Believing otherwise would introduce causal loops, right?  Crono could enjoy the saved future without actually saving it.  This also applies to Belthasar, I think.  He's directly responsible for aiding Crono in his quest, he built Epoch.  Also, we don't see Robo tilling the fields in 1000AD until we actually leave him to till the fields in 600 AD.  My example has a marked difference from these examples, James has no influence on the events that determine the future and no changes have been made to the timeline before James enters a gate.  This is what I meant by having all time travel occur in "his future" and why I placed him in 65000001 BC.  We don't have an example of anyone like this in the game.

James' destination doesn't exactly depend on Crono, not in the way you worded it. James ends up in both futures. When Crono visits the ruined future, he can stumble upon James. After Crono alters time so that there's a bright future, James still ends up in the future, from Prehistory. The same thing happened to Belthasar. Note that it's not a dimension split; it's just two versions of the same timeline in a different arrangement (James from the bright future can't meet James from the ruined one).

I don't see how there can be two James's.  I thought the time error theory makes a claim about which future James ends up in.  If James enters the gate too early, then he's in the ruined future.  Later, he'd be in the saved future.  Why would a James end up in both?  I don't think this applies to Belthasar for the reasons stated in my previous paragraph.  Belthasar HAS to exist in the ruined future because he's directly responsible for the saved future.



As an aside, I think we're conflating two ideas here.  Firstly is the idea of how time behaves independent of time travel, how it flows and is affected by external influences.  I would place the rules governing how changing the past changes the future in this category. Secondly is the idea of how the time travel occurs, what determined where and when the traveler ends up and how does it affect the perception of the time traveler.  I think time error theory belongs here.  In other words, we have a world with (1)physical laws that govern time and (2)technology, with its own rules, that allow time travel to occur without introducing paradoxes (otherwise it wouldn't be possible).  This is probably arguing semantics and maybe there aren't two distinct ideas, but it's been on my mind.

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Time, Space, and Dimensions / Re: The Red Lucca Gate

« on: November 20, 2008, 09:53:23 pm »

I thought we went over the redness...one major difference about the Red Gate that differs itself from the Blue Gates is that that alters both time and space (moving Lucca from Fiona's Forest to Ashtear Island)...

Hmm, that's true.

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Time, Space, and Dimensions / Re: A Quirk of Forward Time Travel

« on: November 20, 2008, 09:50:11 pm »

warmgun, I think the time-error theory addresses this issue, if I'm not mistaken. It essentially allows timelines themselves to be expressed in states of change. So it follows that the future James sees is all dependent on what time-error coordinate he is currently subjective to.

Edit: However, as time-error proceeds, the destination in which James will arrive will, in turn change, subject to intermediary changes or interference between the time left and the time arrived. Balthasar's case proves this point; instead of arriving in a destitute, post-apocalyptic world at say, t_e=1(initial condition of CT), he arrives at a flourishing future to found Chronopolis at say, t_e=2(CC).

The attached picture visualizes what I mean, in that a timeline is simply a derivative of time error flow at a certain point.

Hmmmm.  I didn't know about this time-error theory.  I read the encyclopedia entry this morning and I've been thinking about it all day.  I think I like it.  It makes a logical conclusion about consistency amongst the gates from a lot of different pieces of info given from the game.  Calling it a separate dimension of time is an elegant way to describe it.  And you're right, it would also give a clear answer to where James would end up. 

I need to think about it some more.  Its unnerving that where James ends up depends on how long Crono spends in some alternate timeline, that James would have to wait until Crono does something in the future to see the outcome of Crono's actions.  In an intuitive sense, waiting for something in your future to happen makes no sense, but I suppose this is a fundamental property of gates rather than of timelines, themselves.  Is there a dedicated thread for this theory?  I'd like to argue it in more detail.

4

Time, Space, and Dimensions / Re: The Red Lucca Gate

« on: November 20, 2008, 12:43:34 am »

How did this turn into a talk about the entity? xD

Since this red gate appears right after the game's first discussion of the Entity, its pretty clear, imo, that the game designers were telling us the red gate is from the Entity.  However, I don't think its necessarily true that all gates are from the Entity.  In fact, I bet coloring that gate red was to show that this gate is different because its the only one created by the Entity.  Blue gates could be naturally occurring phenomena, requiring a certain device to fully exploit.

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Time, Space, and Dimensions / Re: A Quirk of Forward Time Travel

« on: November 19, 2008, 07:36:21 pm »

You can't define how long something takes in "real time" in James' future.  You're suggesting that if James waits 2 months then he'll end up in the good future because it takes two months for Crono to kill Lavos?  Crono's personal time should have no influence on which future James ends up in.  When talking about time travel, it makes no sense, imo, to say something like James needs to wait for Crono to do something in the future.  Whatever Crono is going to do, he's already done it, relative to James, because it is in James' future.  Therefore, he'll wind up in the good future no matter what.

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Time, Space, and Dimensions / Re: A Quirk of Forward Time Travel

« on: November 19, 2008, 08:29:24 am »

Isn't 64,999,999BC a year after 65,000,000BC?

LOL, my bad.  It was late.  I've fixed the original post.

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Time, Space, and Dimensions / A Quirk of Forward Time Travel

« on: November 19, 2008, 01:21:23 am »

A quick hypothetical...

A completely insignificant male human named James in 65000001 BC encounters a gate to 2300 AD.  He enters the gate and winds up in 2300 AD.  Which version of 2300 AD does James see?  (Ignore Crono Cross)

Now if you're going to complain that you don't have enough information to predict which version of 2300 AD is the correct one, this means that you need knowledge of what time travel has taken place between 65000000 BC and 2300 AD.  In other words, does James enter the gate before Crono kills Lavos?  I think that question doesn't make any sense.  James isn't aware of Crono or Zeal or whatever.  Everything that Crono does is in James's timeline's future, chronologically.

We know what 2300 AD is like "before" Crono kills Lavos because we're following Crono.  But in my hypothetical, we're following dumb, ignorant James.   What does he see in 2300 AD?

My answer?  Well, if I strictly follow the time travel mechanics of the game, as I interpret them, then James ends up in the "final" 2300 AD, the bright sunny future of a slain Lavos.  It's impossible for him to see the ruined future we've seen because all of the time travel that makes up Chrono Trigger's plot happens in his future.  The cast of Crono never venture before 65000000 BC.  So I think this has be a general rule, and one that's consistent with the storytelling of the game.  You can never see a timeline that's been destroyed due to time travel taking place in your future.

What do you think?  Is this obvious?  I started this rant intent on proving that, with Crono Trigger's time travel rules, determinism must exist.  But now I think the opposite is true.

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Welcome / Birthday / Seeya! Forum / Re: Hello... again :P

« on: November 19, 2008, 12:43:10 am »

Thanks for the warm welcome!  Since I haven't played the games in a while, I'm going to crawl through the Time, Space and Dimensions forum and brush up on my temporal mechanics.  See you there!

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Time, Space, and Dimensions / Re: A debate my friend and I had about the "original, unchanged" time-line *Spoilers

« on: November 19, 2008, 12:27:32 am »

Maybe I forgot something because I haven't played the game in a while, but how do we know there is a timeline where Crono never time traveled?

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Time, Space, and Dimensions / Re: The end of time?

« on: November 16, 2008, 12:30:13 pm »

Time is an illusion, it's man made. it only exist as a marker for when things occur. yes it theoretically exist, but in the same sense it can't be seen, only the efects of time can be seen.

The second law of thermodynamics says that any spontaneous process in a system must always increase the system's entropy.  In other words, a system must always become increasingly disordered.  A consequence of this is that a series of events must go in a certain direction, and this is called the arrow of time.  A teacup can fall off the table and shatter, but a bunch of shattered teacup pieces will never spontaneously assemble into a teacup.  A human's perception of the second law is time flowing.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_of_time


As for the End of Time, here's an idea that fits well into the point of least resistance line.  Lagrangian points are points in space where the effects of gravity are at a local minimum.  There are several in the solar system and there are actually sever satellites at some of them.  So we could think of the End of Time as a temporal Lagrangian point.  Stuff just tends to collect there on its own and, for whatever arbitrary reason, four or more people entering a gate at the same time end up there as well.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point

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Time, Space, and Dimensions / Re: Are the gates relative?

« on: November 16, 2008, 12:09:58 pm »

I always thought of gates being defined by one, and only one, property:  the difference in time it sends you to.  One may be -400 years or +1 million years.  So I think you're right in saying they're all relative.  This is why I think time has to flow at the End of Time, because the gates there still record your time spent talking to Gasper, fighting Spekkio, etc.


As for the whole business with the Millenial Fair, I'd say the Square staff were too lazy to program new dialog for the people

12

Welcome / Birthday / Seeya! Forum / Hello... again :P

« on: November 14, 2008, 11:37:27 pm »

Hello everyone,

My name is Warmgun and I'm a recovering Chrono-holic. 

About five years ago, I followed a link to some site called the Chrono Compendium posted by Zeality on the OCRemix forums.  I had actually been replaying the two games and I was interested in the discussions going on.  I joined in and I had a whole mess of fun essentially deconstructing the series.  We tackled everything from love and war, science and history, timelines and dimensions, and everything in between.

Then a combination of real life and discovering big plot holes (damn you Marle's Grandfather Paradox!) squandered my enthusiasm and I went afk... for five years.


A couple of days ago I read an interesting tidbit of info about the upcoming DS port, namely that it might contain some rewrites.  Then I remembered my time here and decided to google the site.  I'm glad Zeality kept up the good work and turned the ramblings of a couple of bored gamers into a thriving community!  I'm also delighted that alot of my old posts are still around in one form or another.

Anyways, I'm going to lurk for a couple of weeks while I await the game's release and play it during the upcoming winter break.  I'll probably follow this with Crono Cross and relive the wondrous enigma that is its plot.  Maybe, in the mean time,  I'll argue some of the finer points: Belthasar Clairvoyance Inconsistency?!!?!!?  I THINK NOT!

13

General Discussion / Just Played FFX 4 the 1st Time

« on: December 19, 2003, 10:54:32 pm »

I want another FF6.  Playing FFX just makes me want to play the older games more.  Unless somthing changes over at Sqaure, their FF games are just going to be getting fluffier over time.

14

General Discussion / The Tragedy of Macbeth

« on: December 17, 2003, 01:29:39 am »

To say that Billy Shears has no meaning is just... I'm speechless.  I just love the image of Lady Macbeth walking listlessly in the night, dry washing her hands of the blood of those she killed.  How can you say there is no meaning in that?

15

General Discussion / PHEW!

« on: December 13, 2003, 07:05:54 pm »

Yea.  I flew in to Florida the day before last.  After two days of solid sleep I'm ready for some fun!  And some rousing debate about the Chrono universe...