So, I was wondering about this today, and read through a couple of articles, and figured I'd toss out a hypothesis. I managed to find this thread (I know it's old, but there's a few comments in here that are worth mentioning). but wasn't able to find any other information on the subject, so if this has been discussed at length before, I apologize for missing it. Anyhow, here goes:
The Home World Dimension was created in 1010 A.D. when Serge survives, thus creating two Dimensions of Home & Another World. According to the
Armageddon-Branch Theory the only Chrono that exists, exists in Another World, because during Chrono Trigger, that is the only dimension (up until the end of the DS credits).
According to the mechanics of the Time Crash Shift's unique type of time travel, it caused certain points in time to become part of the same region of other points in time. This explains why when the three Dimensional Vortices rip through into Another World (in the CTDS after credits) that they appear in vastly different times, (12000 BC, 1000 AD, & 2300 AD), because from the Dead Sea, these times and regions are all intertwined indistinguishably into the same location. This would mean that the Alabaster, Steel, & Crimson Shades
are, in fact the Ghost Children in Chrono Cross seen at a different point in their own contained, aborted timeline. The CC party seeing them when they're younger, and the CT party when they're the same age as their counterparts. Due to the nature of how time does (or doesn't) flow in the Dead Sea, it's difficult if not impossible to tell if there's actually a conceivable passage of time outside of the Dead Sea itself that would determine the appearance of the age of the three Shades. Due to the way that time and space is knitted together, they could conceivable be any or all ages at once, and just manifesting in a particular form at random, since they're just echoes of Marle, Chrono, & Lucca in a region of a Dimension where they don't properly exist.
Because their echoes exist in the Dead Sea, which is a location where discarded information and time are all merged together, this might also explain why they, have such intimate knowledge of so many different things that have and haven't happened, since they exist in many times at once (and none at all). This would also explain why once defeated by their other selves in Chrono Trigger, they merge together and awaked latent powers in themselves- they're connecting the Another World original with their Home World/Dead Sea counterpart that contains knowledge and other effects from being exposed to the Dead Sea Time anomaly.
Anyhow, thoughts?
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