Draco ex Machina--Or, The Plot Device That Makes No Sense

[Kodokami]

If you could change Chrono Cross, how would you do it?

I've been thinking about this lately, as I'd like to "clean up" the story a bit for a future project. However, reading through that thread, I've yet to see one person bring up what is perhaps the most glaring and problematic plot device in Chrono Cross:

Dinopolis/Terra Tower, and, by extenstion, the Dragon Gods.

It is literally pulled out of thin air. It came from another dimension. It did not exist until the Entity or the planet or whomever willed it into being, and that does not sit well with me since it is such a fundamental part of the story.

Is there a way to logically retcon this into the plot?

[Manly Man]

Well, there could be some blending of it with the whole Lost Sanctum thing from CT DS. Don't know exactly how to do that, but then again, I'm also pretty tired right now.

[Berf]

I agree that pulling stuff from an infinitude of possible dimensions is pretty bad writing. Once this door is opened, virtually anything goes unless pretty strict guidelines for these alternate dimensions. Why didn't the Entity pull a magic fairy with the power to eliminate Lavos from another dimension?

One way to eliminate this nonsense from Cross while preserving the Dragons and stuff would be to make them an experiment from Chronopolis. Let's say, after being thrown to the past, Chronopolis tried to resurrect Reptites from genetic material they found. Eventually they escaped and formed their own society. After some centuries/millennia, they even developed their own form of magic. Eventually, Chronopolis felt threatened by their progress and attacked them.

[Lennis]

I've been experimentally trying to resolve this in a novelized format; something of a forward to a possible Chrono Cross novel.  It's nowhere near ready to post, but I can share a few ideas.  The universe of Chrono is split into two main timelines: The first timeline is the timeline of the Reptites.  It is the original history of the universe.  That history was rewritten when a biological construct of the Reptites/Dragonians - what would become known as Lavos - went back in time to destroy the history of its own creators.  This created a paradox in which the only possible outcome is a splitting of reality in which Lavos existed in one dimension while the Reptites/Dragonians existed in the other - up to the point, in theory, where the original Lavos was created and went back in time to cause the paradox.  The Dragonian timeline would then - probably - cease to exist since the precipitating event of the paradox would have passed and the universe would have no more reason to remain split.

Only things didn't quite work out that way.  Due to the destruction of Lavos in the timeline created by its own actions, a new species - humanity - came to approach a level of technology that the Dragonians had achieved at a later moment in their own history - eons before the creation of Lavos.  (The Dragon entities are something of a precursor to what Lavos would later become.)  The time-traveling outpost of Chronopolis unwittingly made contact with this dimension when it attempted a supposedly routine "counter-time experiment", and a series of tragic events were then set into motion - culminating in yet another dimensional split caused by the actions of Schala/Kid Ashtear in saving the life of Serge Krayton as a young boy.

It should be noted that this theory plays fast and loose with established canon, but I've basically thrown off those shackles to try and fix the narrative problems with the plot.  I stick as close as I can to the spirit of the original material, but I know that my own plot may turn out to be no less nightmarish than what Kato and co. had come up with.  Like I said, it's a work in progress.

[EgyLynx]

 
Or There was really some Dimmesions: Lavos lived one, Serge died second, Serge live tridh...
But how Porre take power up to Guardian all these?
One and most possible: at there 4 at where Lavos was killed with crono?

Or i think too much...