Josh, I noted while working on my FAQ that a man in Kajar refers to the Ocean Palace as 'Eternal Palace,' without using any articles and capitalizing the latter word. Perhaps the Ocean Palace had a formal name?
His "Eternal Palace" statement may well have been simply a boast. It did seem like the Queen and her top people were pretty frenzied about the prospects of becoming immortal with the completion of the palace. But at the same time, in Japan the Black Omen was called the Black Dream, and I suppose the Ocean Palace may well have been called something else in the original Japanese. Given the nuances of the Japanese language, ol' Ted may have decided that "Eternal" fit that line better than "Ocean."
I can tell you that it was my research into the Japanese original text that compelled me to suspect that the Entity is the planet (of which I had theretofore remained unconvinced), and perhaps the Japanese name for the Ocean Palace will shed any amount of light onto a closer understanding of the game.
Please excuse me if I make a few inquiries here, as this topic seems fit. I believe I may have identified one of the sources of players' confusion of Dreamstone with the Frozen Flame; it is a book in Kajar's secret room that reads,
It all began aeons ago, when man's
ancestors picked up a shard of a
strange red rock...
Its power, which was beyond human
comprehension, cultivated dreams...
In turn, love and hate were born...
Only time will see how it all ends.
This also begs the question of whether plot past the scope of Trigger had been planned at this point. One of the common conceptions is that neither Dreamers nor Cross had been thought of, as Trigger was an attempt at beginning a new series and such tries are risky.
I definitely believe that no formal plans at all had been made beyond Chrono Trigger during its creation. The development team
may have taken the occasional step here and there to leave things open enough for a sequel in the general sense, but just by looking at RD and CC you can see right away that they are the sort of sequels that could have been written for any story; they did not require specific setup in their predecessors; they simply made good use of the original material.
In Chrono Trigger, there simply was no such thing as the Frozen Flame--not that it couldn't have existed in-character, but that there was never any mention of it. The red rock bit excerpted from above is a reference to dreamstone. I believe that in RD the dreamstone was given some greater meaning, and that in CC that was tweaked just a bit more to make it a piece of Lavos (which I personally consider a step back, but hey).
Lastly, I wonder why the Nu mentioned Lode Shields, if such a thing and class of armor does not exist. Perhaps they would have been equippable as an accessory.
You've already done a good job showing just how much material from CT was never released. The special gear in Zeal may have been scrapped from the game due to plot or time constraints. RPGs generally tend not to mention anything specific without the implicit promise that you'll get to deal with it somehow.
~ Josh
