Pocket Dimension - When is Lavos defeated?

[ZeaLitY]

Before I dismantle the pocket dimension completely (which involves editing a ton of pages and the Chronology), I want to determine with certainty or consensus what year Lavos is defeated.

12,000 B.C.?

• Black Omen is canonical, and you can't defeat it by going to 1999 A.D.
• After completing the Black Omen, Lavos seems to arise from the ocean floor
• Chronopolis's account of Lavos in Chrono Cross doesn't mention an eruption or appearance event in its history, but notes it happened in other timelines

1999 A.D.?

• You can leave after defeating the Black Omen and turn around to face Lavos in 1999 A.D.
• Losing to Lavos after the Black Omen plays the bad 1999 A.D. ending (though this could simply mean Lavos went back underground and waited as normal)

In the last analysis review, I wrote this to avoid the problem of removing the Pocket Dimension, since I didn't have time:

This paradox is negated partially by Chronopolis, and partially by gameplay. Firstly, even if Lavos were defeated in 1999 A.D. after a failed eruption, Chronopolis would still be unable to glean any data from the resulting magmatic hole in the ground. Lavos predated Chronopolis and the fact that he's no longer in his Pocket Dimension would prevent the time research facility from obtaining any hard evidence of Lavos, short of time traveling to points like Magus's summoning or the eruption itself. And Belthasar is the only one who can do this in the future, as he alone has the Neo Epoch. Next, the handling of the game is also skewed and can invoke gameplay negation. If you complete the Black Omen in 12000 B.C., Lavos seems to erupt from the ocean. But if you lose to Lavos at this point, the ending scene in 1999 A.D. plays with Lavos already erupted in that era! Due to the way the game handles the myriad ways you can approach the Lavos fight and the "game over" ending, it's tenuous to try and pass off these actions as canon. In this case, Chrono Cross can simply establish what actually happened, and in this case, Lavos's defeat can still canonically occur in 1999 A.D. without error or Pocket Dimension negation. If further justification is needed, one can assume that the party defeated the Black Omen and retreated to face Lavos in 1999 A.D., or that they entered Lavos's Pocket Dimension at the time of his eruption.

~

Which are we going with? The Pocket Dimension can go easily enough, but 12,000 B.C. will destroy the Armageddon-Branch theory. This shouldn't matter in your deliberations, of course.

This analysis review really is huge, so I'll be posting this here and moving on to adding Cross models to the encyclopedia for the time being. Once I finish with that, I'll return and we'll try to get all this updated.

[stenir]

Let's go through the points you mentioned:

12,000 B.C.?

    * Black Omen is canonical, and you can't defeat it by going to 1999 A.D.
    * After completing the Black Omen, Lavos seems to arise from the ocean floor
    * Chronopolis's account of Lavos in Chrono Cross doesn't mention an eruption or appearance event in its history, but notes it happened in other timelines


1999 A.D.?

    * You can leave after defeating the Black Omen and turn around to face Lavos in 1999 A.D.
    * Losing to Lavos after the Black Omen plays the bad 1999 A.D. ending (though this could simply mean Lavos went back underground and waited as normal)

For 12,000 B.C.; canonically you are supposed to let Zeal fall, then defeat Lavos through the Black Omen, correct?

I think the Black Omen thing was an oversight on programming (it looks like it, I know I would have missed it). The second point, yeah, you can skip it due to Lavos going back underground and then popping up in 1999, but for the first thing, I think when Black Omen was programmed, they didn't intend for you to go straight through to Lavos and go from there. The natural assumption, and I think everyone would agree with me on this, is that given the option of wiping out Lavos in 1999, 1000, 600, or 12000 BC, we'd wipe him out in 12000 BC. The others are just gameplay mechanics from programming for the Black Omen, since they all run the same way. You end up fighting Lavos, and that's at one specific point in the programming, so when you try to leave it assumes you got there via 1999. Nothing more than that.

Kinda like old programming. Label A is 12000 BC, Label B is 600, Label C is 1000, Label D is 1999. The Lavos fight is at Label E. Label D takes you straight to Label E, and everyone probably got lazy during the programming stages, meaning they just redirected Label A, B, and C's Lavos fights to Label E. Label E, if you try to leave, takes you to Label F. Oh look...the bucket. I think, because we are looking at this as if it held true for a real world and not a game, we can ignore 1999 AD as his death point, because it's just programming locations.

I personally think the Pocket Dimension is of similar construct to the Darkness Beyond Time (no linear motion, it's just there). I think in its current form it is incorrect (after all, if it ages 6 million years, it's seen as 6 million years, but then it's also seen as the age of every second before that?). I think it should still exist, but it needs a revamped description on it. Which may, or may not, depending on the use of the current PD description, mean editing those pages. Mainly, the PD and DBT have a time value, like our world, and it corresponds to it. So, if you went to the DBT and PD 6 minutes and 02 seconds after the start of that timeline (big bang being 0 for everything), then you would arrive in the DBT and PD 6 minutes and 02 seconds at that point (the Mammon Machine is probably tied to one specific moment when Lavos had a large amount of power, thus why you can "canonically" jump to the same point fighting Lavos after defeating the Black Omen).

Otherwise, 1999 is just a gameplay oversight. 12,000 B.C. is the right choice and lines up with both CT and CC.

[utunnels]

Did Black Omen exist in every era of history?

* It didn't appear in the original Ocean Palace Incident(since we don't see it until the second Ocean Palace Incident).
* Such a huge thing floating in the sky should cause some change in history. What if people from "modern" era tried to examine it?
* Queen Zeal in the Black Omen said different things if you enter the Omen via different eras(for example, 600AD,  "Within 1,400 years he will emerge to  become ruler of this world!"), which hints that time flows normally inside the Black Omen?
* If you defeat it, it disappeared in every era of history, as if it never existed.

[Zephira]

* If you defeat it, it disappeared in every era of history, as if it never existed.

If you defeat the Black Omen in 1000 AD, it disappears from 1000 AD but is still accessible from 600 AD and 12000 BC. Defeat it in 600 AD, it disappears from 600 AD AND 1000 AD, but is still in 12000 BC. If you defeat it in 12000 BC, it disappears from the whole timeline.
The strange part is, if you defeat it in 1000 AD then go back to 600 AD, some of the bosses won't appear there (Lavos Spawn and those big mutants, for example). I think the treasure chests are already opened, too. So you can fight Queen Zeal and the Mammon Machine three times (I think), but you only fight the Lavos Spawn, certain monsters, and gather chests once.

[utunnels]

Oh, so I missremembered.
The chests made me thought the Omen is in its pocket dimension.

[stenir]

The Black Omen was one of those things that I believe the developers only really intended for you to accomplish once: in 12,000 B.C. It goes with canon, after all, that you defeat Lavos from that point.

I think they only programmed it once, and each time you access it, it draws from the same point. This explains why the bosses are not able to be fought, except for the main bosses. My reasoning is that once you reach that point, you are able to leave the Black Omen; the dev team didn't want you to have to fight any of the bosses again, so they did the common "switch" thing for them. Once you beat it, switch goes on and you never have to fight it again. EVER.

The difference with the final bosses in the Black Omen is that the dev team only planned for you to fight them once, but since they were at the end of the Black Omen, you shouldn't have been able to fight them again. So...chances are they just ignored putting a switch on to prevent fighting them again.

It's a "we only mean for you to do it in 12,000 B.C." programming thought mixed with "oh crap we overlooked something" for a release. Works in our favor for gameplay (yay for charming that dress three times). If we stop at fighting it in 12,000 B.C. first and nothing else, we have a canonical playthrough; if we fight it all three times or even two, and try to make it canonical, then we run into problems.

It's suggested that Lavos is defeated in 12,000 B.C., after the destruction of Zeal, after the Black Omen is completed (gameplay completed, not construction completed).  So, the intention is to defeat him at that point.

[Thought]

Question: In 1020 does the Epoch exist?

If yes, Lavos was defeated in 12,000. If no, Lavos was defeated in 1999 (as the Epoch was destroyed by crashing into Lavos).

Course, it might have also just been dismanteled by Lucca. Or it might have been hidden somewhere. However, if FATE had Lucca, and Lucca had the epoch, it seems likely that FATE would have obtained that information and could have just have Lynx fly back to before Serge came in contact with the flame and killed him then. Or, alternately, steal him as a babe and release the lock.

Damn it, 12,000 and 1999 both make very good possibilities.

[Cous]

If Lavos ceases to exist in 12 000 BC, is that not a problem for Chronopolis to come to this era ??

[Thought]

Not necessarily, particularly if we apply 3-D dimensional physic concepts to Time Travel thingies: an object in motion tends to stay in motion. Lavos could have started to pull Chronopolis back in time but then stopped. Temporal drag may have then slowed down Chronopolis' backwards journey until it came to rest wherever it did. Depending on the original force used and the temporal drag, one could imagine that Chronopolis would end either at a temporal location after Lavos was destroyed, or even before Lavos exerted the power to drag it back in the first place.

Hmm... alternate question: assuming we can apply such concepts to time (and we have no evidence to suggest we should, mind), then we could also say that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. By pulling Chronopolis into the past, Lavos may have been attempting to pull itself to the future.

[ZeaLitY]

Did Black Omen exist in every era of history?

* It didn't appear in the original Ocean Palace Incident(since we don't see it until the second Ocean Palace Incident).
* Such a huge thing floating in the sky should cause some change in history. What if people from "modern" era tried to examine it?
* Queen Zeal in the Black Omen said different things if you enter the Omen via different eras(for example, 600AD,  "Within 1,400 years he will emerge to  become ruler of this world!"), which hints that time flows normally inside the Black Omen?
* If you defeat it, it disappeared in every era of history, as if it never existed.

People in 1000 A.D. comment on it; "The Black Dream is sparkling again..." comes from an old man, who probably saw it all his life and accepts its existence. It's a good question about why people in 1998 B.C. don't send probes or airplanes to research, but perhaps it is beyond the developers' scope.

[stenir]

IIRC, when Lavos erupts for you to fight him after each completion of the Zeal battle, he's always erupting from the ocean in 12,000 B.C. That's what I saw while playing PSX CT. I'm assuming they didn't change the programming for the Black Omen in CTDS, so what's that look like? When you complete the Black Omen (preferably in 1000, then 600, then 12,000 B.C.), what does Lavos erupt from? Land, or the ocean?

In all honesty, I think it's nothing more than something which needs to have gameplay-negation enacted for it.