After finishing Chrono Cross, and reading the theories about the relationship between Schala and Kid, I'm really wondering... Was the Time Egg in Cross meant to be similar to the Time Egg in Trigger, or was it fundamentally different?
There are a couple of serious differences between the two, but what hit me the most is that there was a clone involved in both cases.
In CT, you had to get the dummy clone of Crono to save him from being vaporized by Lavos. But the way the Time Egg functioned was essentially like the "save state" function of game emulator programs, letting you go back to a specific important point in history (actually, I think the specific point in history idea is a little questionable, but I'll get to that). Time didn't start up again once there, but they were able to swap the dummy Crono for the real one in space time, and bring the live one back to the real world.
Now, here's what's odd about Cross.. was that Time Egg designed to not need a clone? Let's assume that the CC Egg still transported you to a specific point in history. I'm going to go out on a limb, and assume that the point chosen was right at the point that she merged with Lavos. If events were carried out similar to CT, you'd have a dummy clone, swap it with Schala, and Lavos would absorb the dummy.
But that didn't happen.. unlike the CT Egg, the CC one warps you to a battle, and time isn't frozen. Also, you don't wind up swapping Kid for Schala (or do you?). Plus, last I checked, Kid wasn't a dummy, but a fully developed clone.
I have to ask anyone who's completed the game without Kid in their party.. Does she still tag along to the battle, similar to how she waited by the boat at Terra Tower?
Now, on the idea of merging Kid and Schala... if the Time Egg follows the rules of time travel, and only 3 people can go at once, saving Schala puts someone in a bad spot. Since the Time Devourer is defeated, there's no reason to swap Kid for Schala... so what happens to the extra person?
If it's anything like Chrono Trigger, the fourth person should get warped to the End of Time.. but the Time Egg isn't a normal time distortion. When you consider that the battle against Lavos where Crono dies looks like it's contained within its own separate space-time (as is the battle with the Time Devourer), the Time Egg doesn't look like a time travel device so much as a "debug mode" for time itself, like something that puts you on the outside looking in, with the ability to swap things around.
Replacing Crono with the dummy may have ensured that the events following his death would remain unchanged, to keep from altering the current timeline, but still allowing him to survive. For instance, if he hadn't charged at Lavos that last time distracting him, Lavos may have wiped out everyone before Schala could get the rest of them out. Keeping those events intact allowed everyone to escape, and resurrect Crono later. This may go against TTI somewhat, but the other alternative could get very complicated, especially if they suddenly wiped out the timeline where they all still existed. Also, since the battle appeared to be outside of normal time, TTI may not even apply.
Anyway, my thought was this... If they hadn't replaced Crono's body with the dummy clone, what would have happened? Because that's pretty much the case in CC. They saved Schala, but never had to replace her with a clone. So, could the Time Egg have physically and mentally merged Kid and Schala into one being?
Or, since it appeared that the Time Devourer was already living outside of normal time, when Schala was freed, where would she go? All the battles with Lavos took place in a type of separate dimension, as with the Time Devourer. Schala was able to open gates to warp people out at the first battle in 12,000 BC, but I think she used the pendant to do it, and then had to remain within the distortion herself.
Anyway, I'm getting way off my main point... Is it possible that Kid could have been meant to be used as a dummy replacement for Schala, but Lucca (possibly after getting attached to Kid) made changes to the Time Egg that made that unneccesary?
Edit:
Heh.. had another thought after re-reading this... the Chrono Cross can transfer memories, which is essentially how they brought Schala's mind back to normal. So, who's memories did they transfer, and why? Assuming the memories were Kid's, this makes a lot more sense. I can't remember if the Chrono Cross was said to transfer memories, or copy them, but let's assume transfer is correct for the moment. So, Kid's memories were beamed straight into Schala's head, leaving Kid effectively the same dummy clone required by the original Chrono Trigger Time Egg. (Errrr.. rather, see below)
That doesn't quite explain the Time Devourer dying though (unless you view the swapping of Schala with the now empty Kid as the equivalent of replacing a majority of the Time Devourer's brain with a rock). I'd think simply removing Schala would revert the Time Devourer back to Lavos's original form. The only option I see is that enough of Lavos's own mentality had migrated permanently to Schala that when her memories were rewritten by the Chrono Cross, there wasn't enough of the original Lavos left for it to survive in its original form (sort of like moving all your computer files to a new hard drive, leaving no backups, then having the new drive fail).
Edit 2:
One more time...
I realized that it makes much more sense the other way, if they used the Chrono Cross to transfer all of Schala's memories OUT, directly into Kid, merging their personalities. So, rather than replace Schala with a dummy clone, they just pulled her memories out, and left the Time Devourer with an empty brain.
The possible implications of this one just BEG for a sequel though. You have to wonder whether Schala's memories would be perfectly intact, or if they may have pulled some of Lavos along with her...
Sorry if this last part's been discussed endlessly, since it deals more with the Chrono Cross itself than the Time Egg. I did a search on the Time Egg to start with, and didn't come up with anything, which is why this topic even exists. I'll sometimes start on one subject, and then it expands more and more, eventually becoming something else that everyone already knows about.
I've seen the issue of Kid and Schala merging discussed a lot, it seems to be a rather large point of contention.
