I would say that the primary dispute between us is the perspective from which we consider this question, in that you insist on the scientific method while I prefer artistic evaluation. Nothing else about our contention matters, until this point is understood.
When I first joined the Compendium I saw it as a great leveling ground, a place to get all the facts straight about these Chrono games. And then, to my (naďve) dismay, I realized that nothing of the sort would happen. People proceeded to put forward ideas which sometimes bordered on the inane, connecting the stars in the sky into a sea of colorful constellations entirely of their own making, and then daring to pass these off as celestial truth with words like “theory.” But I tell you, despite its procedural airs, the Compendium is not a scientific undertaking. It is an artistic one.
Our folly here is that we have tried with such passion, for ever so long, to define a physically consistent world from out of a piece of art. Certainly, to some extent our work here can clarify facts, or reveal obscure canon, but in the greatest sense there can be no reconciliation of the Chrono world with a physically consistent reality, because the Chrono games were not written to be interpreted literally. In your own words:
The only facts are what the player observes during the game; everything else is theoretical.
And I do retreat from my earlier phrase “obvious facts.” Apparently they aren’t obvious, and in a scientific sense they aren’t objective facts. Rather, I was nudging from that word the connotation of artistic intent. To the extent we can quantify the world of art with the codification of elements and principles, I rather brazenly intended by “obvious facts” that it was supposedly obvious that Lavos was the power source in that Ocean Palace scene, for the reasons I discussed earlier and of which you are well aware. And I stand by that. But in a broader sense,
you are right. Only the canon is unequivocally true; everything else is speculation.
Your attempt to abide by the scientific method is noble. Nevertheless, your premise is in error. You are treating the Chrono world as a legitimate physical system, consistent throughout itself, governed by common physical laws. But paint a picture of an apple, and what you have is not an apple, but only a representation of one. In the Chrono series we are dealing with a virtual world where the laws of objective reality only
appear universally consistent. Nothing guarantees that. In fact, there will be gaps in this representation, and contradictions. These can be explained away quite creatively, in the best
artistic tradition, but the poor scientific method is helpless. It breaks down at these gaps and contradictions.
A
scientific theory must be testable, as well as falsifiable. But how would we test your theory? This is a piece of art we’re talking about; not a physical system. And so we are limited in our appeals to the one source of Chrono information that is irrefutably true: the canon. And if the canon is silent, there can be no theory!
Does the Epoch fly around the world before it warps through time? How are the dimensions reconciled? Is Lavos a sentient being? We ask all of these questions, and there is great room for speculation here, but there will never be a concrete scientific answer. At best, there will only be a canonical one. That is the limitation of art. And let me give you an idea of how this applies to your theory:
The dimensional distortion itself appears to be dangerous, and could be Lavos's main threat in the Ocean Palace, directly or indirectly.
As far as scientific theories go, you would have to quantify this “appearance” of dangerousness. Artistically we perceive a threat via the frenzied reactions of the Gurus, Schala, and Janus. Scientifically, there is no data. We have very little information about the dimensional distortion. There is no way to
prove it is dangerous. You can’t walk a playable character into the dimensional distortion and observe what happens. You can’t isolate the dimensional distortion so that you are confident that there are no outside factors corrupting your information. There can be no scientific evaluation. You are reduced to appealing to the same, unscientific sense of “likeliness” that I used to argue for my contention that Lavos was the power behind these Ocean Palace gates.
This is a good reason why the Entity would warp important people to safety when they encounter Lavos.
A good “reason”?
Intuitively, you can argue that, and we would have a legitimate argument. But
scientifically? There is no such “reason”! You would have to define the Entity’s motives, support your definitions, and establish a connection between them and the Ocean Palace scene. To do that, you would need empirical observations, and a way to express these relationships analytically. No dice!
I suggest that the dimensional distortion in the Ocean Palace and Magus' Castle is not the source of the time portals, but the reason the entity created the portals to transport Janus, the Gurus, Magus and the Time Travelers to safety.
This is what I’m talking about by “procedural airs.” You are the honorary Guru of Reason, and you have excellent form! I respect you as one of the most intelligent members on the Compendium, and one of the most knowledgeable in Chrono series minutiae. Nevertheless, in pursuing a scientific framework for characterizing and quantifying the phenomena of the Chronoverse, you are doomed to failure from the very start. Despite the pretenses of scientific methodology that you maintain very well, almost all of your reasoning is intuitive, circumstantial, and deductive. There is nothing
scientific there, in the sense of following the observe-hypothesize-experiment-evaluate method of science in explaining these Chrono phenomena. You “suggest” that the dimensional distortion is not the source of the Time Gates. Okay. Prove it. Give us a theory that can be tested.
And I say that rhetorically, because the challenge is impossible. We cannot do science inside the fictional reality of a piece of art.
This may not have the dramatic appeal of Janus being exiled to 600 AD due to the malicious action of Lavos or Queen Zeal, but it is a sound theory.
In scientific terms, it is
not a sound theory. It is not a theory at all. It is pure speculation, uncorroborated by the slightest bit of measurable truth.
But in
artistic terms, you may rightly call it a theory—in the sense that it is your interpretation of the canon that is the substance of the game. And this brings me back to the beginning of my post. If we are reduced to arguing on artistic grounds rather than scientific ones, then here is where we are:
I agree that Queen Zeal creating the time portals is the more appealing theory, but that does not make it true.
You are completely right. It isn’t “true” in the objective sense. That truth is beyond us, for there is no science to take us to it. But it is the more
appealing idea, and really that is the motivation for my contention…and for all my contentions, when it comes to analyzing the nature of the Chrono series.
