Marle Paradox: Let's change our point of view

[Acacia Sgt]

The model you had earlier was correct except it had too many timelines.  For whatever  reason, the timeline does not reset when Marle travels back in time - so all three of them arrive on the same, new timeline.  Other than that, the sequence was correct and in line with what Jutty posted.

And where does it says that when we start the game, we are in the original time line? We could now be in the second one, when it's Crono's turn to travel.

[Eske]

If Marle goes back in time  and resets the timeline, Crono would never have met her.  So it could only be a "Crono's Turn" scenario if Marle was never shown in 1000AD.

Also, while Crono is in the past, Lucca travels into the past after him.  By your logic, the game would have to skip a timeline to show Lucca's arrival

So we see that all 3 arrive in same timeline, from the same parent timeline.

[Jutty]

Then again Marle could have been taken to the end of time due to Leene's likely death coming up.

[chrono eric]

It isn't an exception to TTI.  TTI preserves nothing more than her arrival from the gate in 600AD - after that she, like everyone else, is fair game.

No, no Eske I meant an exception to the traditional idea that TTI makes time travellers immune to changes they make in the time line. I'm well aware that it is really a modified version of Time Bastard in action, if it is correct.

And where does it says that when we start the game, we are in the original time line? We could now be in the second one, when it's Crono's turn to travel.

This likely doesn't matter anyways, because Eske and I have shown that when two time travellers from the same timeline travel back in time apart from each other, they still end up in the same new timeline on the Time Error axis.

Ex:

Time Error 0: Marle travels back in time at Time X to Time X-400. Crono travels back in time at Time X+10 minutes to Time X-400+10 minutes.

Time Error 1: Marle arrives at Time X-400. Crono arrives at Time X-400+10 minutes.


The future isn't immediately sent to the DBT the moment Marle travels back in time.

[Lilka]

Then again Marle could have been taken to the end of time due to Leene's likely death coming up.

Time Error says no.  If Leene had in fact died, then maybe you would have a point of a sort.  But until things actually happen, they don't affect the timeline.  This is the most irritating part of the paradox.

[chrono eric]

Then again Marle could have been taken to the end of time due to Leene's likely death coming up.

Time Error says no.  If Leene had in fact died, then maybe you would have a point of a sort.  But until things actually happen, they don't affect the timeline.  This is the most irritating part of the paradox.

I'm confused as to what you mean by "Time Error says no" here. Time Error wouldn't really have anything to do with it. Time Bastard might, but only because Marle no longer exists in 1,000 AD to be TB'd away, so by Eske's theory that the timeline takes the "path of least resistance", Marle may instead be TB'd away in 600 AD. Which makes sense. Actually, it is the only logical explanation for the Marle paradox that anyone has come up with besides "The Entity did it", to tell you the truth.

But the question remains, why would Marle be TB'd away at that particular point if Queen Leene hasn't died yet? Well perhaps she doesn't have to. The future is a collage of possibility, a bunch of potential futures that haven't been actualized yet. Perhaps Marle's presence there in the castle at that particular time set a chain of events into motion that would eventually ultimately lead to the Queen's death unless Crono and Lucca intervened.

Or maybe not. I still think it's just developer oversight. It's definitely interesting thinking about it in a different way though 

[Lilka]

My view of "Time Error" is a bit different than most people's.  I view it as another continuous time axis that underlies the normal time axis.  So, for instance, in this situation:

Marle travels back from 1000 AD, 0 TE to 600 AD, 0 TE.
Time and Time Error Progress.
Crono arrives in 600 AD at X TE, to watch Marle disappear, where X is the amount of time between Marle going through the Gate and vanishing.
However, it's at a later time and Time Error when Leene is supposed to die.  Let's call this Y.
Due to the nature of the Chronoverse, a potentiality is not automatically actualized.  Therefore, it's at Y when the future is rewritten and sent to the DBT.  A time traveler going to the future after Y TE would see the new future without Marle in it.
If Marle were to vanish at all, it would be at Y TE, regardless of her position on the time axis.  Then again, TTI says she shouldn't vanish.

Once again, I probably have some assumption utterly wrong though...

[chrono eric]

It's pretty close actually. But the more useful and more general application of it would be to think of Time Error as a parallel time axis that only time travellers move though. Ie: A 5D time axis that only time travellers experience by time travelling. This neatly explains why Crono and co. seem to exist on a time axis of their own by time travelling. In your example, not only do time travellers move through time error to Time Error X when Crono enters the gate, but so do all normal people in the timeline as well. So if you were to think of Time Error this way, you would still need an extra 5D time axis to explain events in time.

So basically, whenever a time traveller actually time travels they make a 5D move through Time Error. So an entire timeline can be thought of existing at Time Error 0 without Marle in 600 AD. And then at Time Error 1 an entire timeline can be thought of existing with Marle at 600 AD.

But what is interesting that Eske pointed out in this thread is that two time travellers who travel separately from each other on the same timeline end up at the same point in Time Error:

Time Error 0: Marle goes to 600 AD at Time X. Crono goes to 600 AD at time X+10 minutes.

Time Error 1: Marle arrives at 600 AD. Crono arrives at 600 AD ten minutes later.

So you see, here I have accounted for the discrepency in time between when they have entered the gate, and also for their 5D movement through time. Time Error was not necessary for the time discrepency, just for the 5D movement. This example also shows that the two time travellers don't end up at different points in Time Error, and that a future isn't sent to the DBT every time someone time travels, which is a belief that the Compendium still holds.

Due to the nature of the Chronoverse, a potentiality is not automatically actualized.  Therefore, it's at Y when the future is rewritten and sent to the DBT. 

True. Chrono Cross confirms this by saying that the future is analagous to a collage of possibilities, depending on the actions taken by people in the present. But we were discussing the possibility of Marle not having to disappear at "Time Y" as you name it, or at the exact moment that Leene dies. If the future is undetermined until people make actions in the present in the Chronoverse, then what if the actions of some random soldier in Guardia castle for example make it 100% certain that Queen Leene would die in the future? Would Marle disappear at that moment or only when Queen Leene disappears? Why not at that exact moment, as that would be the first link in a change of causality that would ultimately lead to her death? Or would she disappear if Crono and co. would save her anyways?

[Eske]

I see the term "developer oversight" thrown around by 100 people in reference to the Marle Paradox.  But let's really think about this...

Does anyone really think the idea of "doubles" even occurred to the developers?
What about the idea that another version of Person A may not time travel at time X if something at time X-400 changes?
What about how Ayla is Marle's ancestor, but is completely absent for 65000000 years from the timeline, without Marle vanishing?
The fact that the End of Time is supposed to be what its name implies,  yet Gaspar can witness all of the changes to the timeline unchanged himself?

^^ THESE are developer oversights.  These are things that probably never occurred to them.

The Marle Paradox was an event in the game that was actually explained by Lucca with a little cutscene all its own.  It is intended - its supposed to show how things work.  We are the ones who looked a little too far into things and saw that the mechanics of the game fall apart if the grandfather paradox exists, but lets face it -- it was supposed to exist.

Many of the rules of the Compendium exist to explain and support the OVERSIGHTS, while shunning an actual, almost fully explained event in the game.

Sometimes there is just no way to reconcile the impossible differences we see in games, especially one that deals with time travel.
But if we are going to try, I think it's better to give the in-game events - that were meant to be highlighted - the attention they deserve and work from there.
[/almostangryrant]

I'm playing through CT again right now, hopefully I can work up a few basic rules that aren't upset by highlighted events in the game. wish me luck

[chrono eric]

Yeah, that's true Eske. I suppose me saying "developer oversight" is tantamount to me saying "The Entity did it.", which likewise pisses me off.

That is actually a pretty good argument in fact, and I would say the argument itself, separate from the mechanics of TTI and TB is evidence alone that the Marle paradox could be 100% explained by an unusual TB event.

I mean we've explained all of the actual developer oversight away with TTI, TB, and now DTI and DB - and they work remarkably well to explain and even predict plot points in the games. So why not make the Marle paradox fit with that instead of just writing it off as "The Entity did it" or "developer oversight?"

I mean why not, the entire Marle paradox can be explained by TB working in a way it doesn't normally work in. To say "but that's not the way TB works!" is rediculous. TB is a theory that was created to explain time travel mechanics, and it works remarkably well. So well in fact that I have said on multiple occasions that you cannot have a time travel story that is paradox-free without TB and TTI or something like them.

So I say hell, screw the Marle paradox. I think Eske has given an explanation for it that is not only better than the Compendium's current explanation but is actually potentially supported by the Compendium's own theories and by a rhetorical argument on what the developers of the game originally intended. If I may quote myself:

Actually, it is the only logical explanation for the Marle paradox that anyone has come up with besides "The Entity did it", to tell you the truth.

And I stand by those words.

I like the fact that we are systematically taking apart all of the Compendium's theories one by one Eske. Someone should really do something about that. Maybe we could be particular pains in the proverbial ass and see if we can dismantle TB and TTI and replace them with something better, or at least something equivalent? (I'll bet money right now that we can't though)

[Acacia Sgt]

I'm now convinced. It is a unique case. But I still don't see how it was created. Why her time travel didn't followed like the other time travels done in the game?

[chrono eric]

My viewpoint (Eske's is probably similar but might differ slightly):

Her time travel itself was fine, it was the same as all other instances of time travel - but her appearance there and subsequently being found by the soldiers in Truce Canyon changed history in such a way that the Queen eventually dies and Marle is never born. Throughout the rest of their adventure, they never change the timeline like this except for the ending where it is possible that Robo was never created.

So now you have a conservation of energy problem. Take a normal instance of time travel that doesn't cause significant changes to the timeline as an example. Timelines want to have a net balance of (0) when you are talking about conserving matter. For simplicity I'll assign a time travel disappearance event as (-1) and reappearance as (+1). The original instance of time travel doesn't matter:

Time Error 0: Time Traveller A goes back in time at Time X to Time X-400

Time Error 1: Time Traveller A appears at Time X-400 (+1). At Time X Time Traveller A' is deleted from the timeline (-1).

Net timeline value= (0).

Now look at the Marle case:

Time Error 0: Marle goes back in time at Time X to time X-400.

Time Error 1: Marle appears at Time X-400 (+1) but the future is changed so that she no longer exists at Time X. So there are two possibilities to balance the timeline now:

Possibility 1: All of the atoms that once composed Marle's body at Time X disappear simultaneously due to TB (-1). Net value=0

Possibility 2: Timeline takes the path of least resistance. Marle disappears herself at a certain point in time in the past. Say Time X-400+12 hours for example (-1). Net value=0


Either way matter is conserved. It's a perfectly plausible explanation that is 200% better than "The Entity did it!"

[Acacia Sgt]

Understood. I'm fully convinced now.

[chrono eric]

So between me, Eske, placidchap and all other contributers to our recent discussions, we've proven Dimensional Bastard and Dimensional Travellers Immunity, that the Pocket Dimension can't exist, that the Marle Paradox can easily be explained in an alternate way, and a new ending theory for Chrono Cross that passes Occam's razor better than the Compendium's current one.

This is fun. Now let's find something else to totally prove wrong. Suggestions?

[Acacia Sgt]

How about the Guardia Paradox? Or is it too much?