Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes Plot Development

[JossiRossi]

I'm reading the plot, so far it's been pretty good not too much to gripe about but there are some issues regarding the effects of time.

Now I know that it's a bit wonky in CT how time travel affects the party, but here's an example of something I'm not sure of.

The team demands to know what happened, and how his predictions on the outcome of the Porre event could be in error; Belthasar explains that the timeline has been not only changed, but fundamentally altered by a catastrophic error, but he is unable to pinpoint its source, since the changes are subtle;

So what had just happened prior is that Belth said "Don't worry it'll be fine nothing bad will happen" then the 3 go back and the bad thing happened. After they return to the future Belth says, "Oh that's wierd that shouldn't have happened."

Again it depends on how we treat the time travel but this leads to some issues. I haven't played CC so I know nothing of FATE or Chronopolis directly but we can't assume all players to have played CC in the first palce so the concerns need to be addressed I think.

If you go back in time and things get altered, when you go to the future, those altered events are now the ONLY past that exists. So when the 3 go back to Belth after seeing things go wrong, Belth would say, "What do you mean? Of course stuff went bad, that's what happened, I have to reason to say otherwise"  

Nor would he be able to track timeline changes due to subtlty. If the changes are too small to be able to pinpoint that means Belth is using a fact checker to determine changes. You'd in theory have an "old" database for comparison to a "new" changed database. However this can't exist because as the timeline changes so would the "old" change. This is a bit rambly and hard to follow so.

How will timetravel actually affect things? Because if we have 3 different styles of time travel effects it's going to be wierd (the reason I dislike that Marle disappeared and then reappeared because her ancestor returned, it doesn't fit the same mold as much the rest of the affects.)

[Hadriel]

I'm reading the plot, so far it's been pretty good not too much to gripe about but there are some issues regarding the effects of time.

Now I know that it's a bit wonky in CT how time travel affects the party, but here's an example of something I'm not sure of.

The team demands to know what happened, and how his predictions on the outcome of the Porre event could be in error; Belthasar explains that the timeline has been not only changed, but fundamentally altered by a catastrophic error, but he is unable to pinpoint its source, since the changes are subtle;

So what had just happened prior is that Belth said "Don't worry it'll be fine nothing bad will happen" then the 3 go back and the bad thing happened. After they return to the future Belth says, "Oh that's wierd that shouldn't have happened."

Again it depends on how we treat the time travel but this leads to some issues. I haven't played CC so I know nothing of FATE or Chronopolis directly but we can't assume all players to have played CC in the first palce so the concerns need to be addressed I think.

If you go back in time and things get altered, when you go to the future, those altered events are now the ONLY past that exists. So when the 3 go back to Belth after seeing things go wrong, Belth would say, "What do you mean? Of course stuff went bad, that's what happened, I have to reason to say otherwise"  

Nor would he be able to track timeline changes due to subtlty. If the changes are too small to be able to pinpoint that means Belth is using a fact checker to determine changes. You'd in theory have an "old" database for comparison to a "new" changed database. However this can't exist because as the timeline changes so would the "old" change. This is a bit rambly and hard to follow so.

How will timetravel actually affect things? Because if we have 3 different styles of time travel effects it's going to be wierd (the reason I dislike that Marle disappeared and then reappeared because her ancestor returned, it doesn't fit the same mold as much the rest of the affects.)

Yeah, that's basically what Belthasar says to them.  You're pretty new to the site, so you might not have read all of the various theories on time travel that have been established.  Like any model or set of models, there are limitations to their utility, but they're the best we've got right now to explain the various phenomena seen in the series.  There are two concepts from CT that lend to this formula of a timeline that dynamically changes; they're loosely based on real-life situations in relativistic physics.

Concept number one is Time Error.  It basically states that if you go back 400 years into the past and stay there for five minutes, when you return to your era, five minutes will have passed in the present.  Gates propel you a set "distance" forward or backward in time, not to a certain point.  If they only took you to a certain point, they wouldn't be visible or usable at any other time coordinate, anyway.  Corollary to this effect, temporal changes are not visible to observers until a point in Time Error at which they're actually put into effect.  Without King Zeal's interference in the Porre/Guardia situation, it would have panned out more peacefully, but he doesn't actually put his plan into effect until between the team's arrival in 2302 and their return.

Concept number two is Time Traveler's Immunity, which is a bit bizarre and irregular.  Basically, once you've traveled in time, you're immune to changes in the new timeline; you've already created another timeline just by being there, and you have no origin in this new timeline.  Therefore, nothing done within that timeline will erase you, and it's impossible to access lower-order timelines or Time Errors except under special circumstances.  Equivalent forms of you get Time Bastarded and sent to the DBT; this isn't like being killed, it's merely being subsumed into a more "senior" form of yourself from a lower-order timeline.  The only way to actually eliminate someone with Time Traveler's Immunity is either to kill them manually, or to go back to the timeline in which the lowest-order form of them originated and destroy them there before they acquired their immunity.  Normally, this isn't possible.  However, the Chrono Break is explicitly designed to do this.  

The Marle paradox was abnormal, as it was effectively a grandfather paradox, a feature that the series doesn't focus heavily on; it's best to say that Crono and Lucca were unaffected by the results, but Marle was, or that they ended up in one of two possible timelines that resulted from the paradox.  Either way, outside interference is required to resolve this, and that's what Crono and Lucca provide.

As for Belthasar, he possesses Time Traveler's Immunity from being sent to 2300 A.D., so he can observe the changes in the timeline.  He performs similar activities in Chrono Cross.

[GrayLensman]

As for Belthasar, he possesses Time Traveler's Immunity from being sent to 2300 A.D., so he can observe the changes in the timeline.  He performs similar activities in Chrono Cross.

Since Belthasar time travelled to 2300 AD, his past world-line in Zeal is protected, but not anything that happens after he arrives.  Remember, after the Ocean Palace disaster, Melchior did not act as if the Black Omen suddenly appeared in 1000 AD from his perspective.  He would remember it being there for the entire time since he warped in from 12,000 BC.

If Belthasar stayed in 2300 AD while the other time travellers changed the past, he would only remember the events of the new timeline after the point he warped in from Zeal.  You will need to think up another way for Belthasar to preserve his memories and records of the previous time-line.

Edit: I suggest the time egg.

[JossiRossi]

Yeah time travel immunity is not some kind of persistent ability. If you've ever played the Journeyman Project, the game addressed some of these issues. Basically it made it so that time changes weren't instant it was like a wave would go. They had devices set up to detect time changes so that an agent could basically miss the wave (the player jumped to a time where the wave already occured and thus was not affected by it).

It wouldn't necesarily work for the game to have a realistic time change model because if you see a problem in the future, you'd go to the past and change it, thus changing your very own past experinces making it so that in your mental past the problem never actualy existed.

I dunno, I don't mind having a time theory that isn't really scientific or necesarily enirely logical, I just would like for it to be a consistent theory that doesn't get broken all the time.

[Chrono'99]

Time Bastard is kinda hard to follow sometimes. If we apply it to CT:CE, Schala shouldn't time travel because her pendant would disappear (because Marle's pendant, the same item, already has Time Traveler Immunity). And there's already a similar inconsistancy in CC: Kid time travels with Schala's pendant...

[Hadriel]

As for Belthasar, he possesses Time Traveler's Immunity from being sent to 2300 A.D., so he can observe the changes in the timeline.  He performs similar activities in Chrono Cross.

Since Belthasar time travelled to 2300 AD, his past world-line in Zeal is protected, but not anything that happens after he arrives.  Remember, after the Ocean Palace disaster, Melchior did not act as if the Black Omen suddenly appeared in 1000 AD from his perspective.  He would remember it being there for the entire time since he warped in from 12,000 BC.

If Belthasar stayed in 2300 AD while the other time travellers changed the past, he would only remember the events of the new timeline after the point he warped in from Zeal.  You will need to think up another way for Belthasar to preserve his memories and records of the previous time-line.

Edit: I suggest the time egg.

Chronopolis is in a Pocket Dimension for most of the game; that could qualify as a protection mechanism.  Though Belthasar wouldn't know of any imminent threats to his continued existence before the Pocket Dimension is triggered, he would likely have had the mechanism installed as a fail-safe device.  CE's conception of Chronopolis isn't just there to look good and provide a base of operations, it's supposed to be a fully functional military research facility, and in order for this to work, it has to be realistically designed and engineered with multiple fail-safes and backups and a layout that doesn't easily allow infiltration.

As for the pendant issue, thanks for catching me on that.  Schala needs another one for gameplay anyway, so that little roadblock is the least of our worries.

As far as the preservation of memories, Time Traveler's Immunity is probably the easiest route we're going to find.

Any other technical issues?

[JossiRossi]

If Belthasar has TTI then he'll remember the destroyed future Lavos made and all the despair, pain, and lonliness that drove him mad right?

Or also important if Belth has TTI then although the future changed and was saved, the TTI would mean that all those changes did not affect Belth himself, so he'd still be crazy and dead.

[GrayLensman]

As far as the preservation of memories, Time Traveler's Immunity is probably the easiest route we're going to find.

As I stated earlier, TTI would only protect Belthasar's past world-line previous to his arrival in 2300 AD.  If Belthasar is inside Chronopolis protected by a pocket dimension, then there should be no problem is the time travellers change the past.

[Hadriel]

If Belthasar has TTI then he'll remember the destroyed future Lavos made and all the despair, pain, and lonliness that drove him mad right?

Or also important if Belth has TTI then although the future changed and was saved, the TTI would mean that all those changes did not affect Belth himself, so he'd still be crazy and dead.

As GrayLensman pointed out, only his past life in Zeal is unalterable at this point.  He had limited immunity up until the main bulk of the CE plot starts; the pocket dimension affords him the rest of his protection.

[Hadriel]

A double post/bump for the sake of an issue I'd thought of.

If Schala's only able to be implemented in the form of a child, I imagine that would require differing storyline points and a completely different characterization for her.  In that case, Magus would likely take upon even more of the role of a protective older brother, and Schala's memories would be fragmented.  However, I'm wondering if it's possible to escape the overwrought cliches associated with that "powerful/precocious but terribly naive and vulnerable child" syndrome if that's what it comes to.

[Mystik3eb]

*Pst* This thread is tacked. There's no need for bumping.

^_^

As for a condensed plot summary...wasn't there word of it being sent around to people? I'd LOVE to get my hands on it, if so. Cuz honestly, I don't wanna go through 43 pages of this thread to get it all. Call it lack of commitment, laziness, impatience, lack of focus, whatever you want.

I do like what I've seen/read already, though, in the demo and last page or so.

[Hadriel]

Yeah, I sent it to a bunch of the members of the development team about a week ago.  I had to use another comp because I can't send stuff for some reason.

[Janus Zeal]

Hmmm, slow week...

[ZeaLitY]

Aye, we're probably going to wait until TF is updated before moving on. Right now, there's a problem with importing strings. We could conceivably remove all the strings, export the event files, and then add them back in, but a new version of TF will have other fixes as well (and I'd like to just play it conservative). Nonetheless, that option is still available if someone wishes to try it.

[DivineDragoonKain]

Mmm...