TTI/TB/TE Reformation Idea Collection

[Imaginos]

Hello all, I thought this would be as good a time as any to jump in after lurking for about 2 years.

Thought: I enjoyed your elastic-time hypothesis quite a bit, and I'd love to see some of the other Gurus weigh in. I especially the central tenant of Theme is Supreme - it seems to me that this is what I have been missing in a lot of Compendium theories over the years. Time Indexing also seems to work quite well.

I guess it  would not be a proper post without a rebuttal, however, so here goes:

1)I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the way you let Crono and Lucca retain their memories of Marle after her disappearance in the Marle Paradox. (and indeed the whole Time Reintegration idea) Conservation of information is a very important quantum phenomenon, but I am skeptical about its relevance to the CT universe and time travel in specific. Your Reintegration concept would seem to imply that, at the point of her disappearance,  Lucca and Crono should gain memories of lives where Marle never existed in addition to the ones that they currently posses.  In these memories, both Crono and Lucca would need a new reason to separately travel back in time to 600AD, as well as a new method of doing so, lacking Marle's pendant. This sounds like a tall order for elastic time, given the 400 year gap it has to work with. (not to mention that neither Crono or Lucca ever mention this 'alternate beginning')

To quote Zeality, from http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,6596.60.html

We know that Yuji Horii made that scenario, and we also know that Yuji Horii likes causal loops and the grandfather paradox. This means that it's a total developer oversight, because Kato's the one in charge, and Kato wrote the other parts of the series that supported TTI and TB.

and

But the Marle Paradox is still in the Plot Inconsistencies page, because we still recognize that the Entity solution doesn't work -- and that's because it's a developer oversight thanks to Yuji Horii's ideas about time fiction.

I wouldn't sweat the Marle Paradox too much for your elastic time theory: there is a decent case for developer oversight. If Entity theories don't bother you, elastic time is perfectly consistent with an outside intervention removing Marle in order to engineer Leene's rescue and prevent a Temporal Distortion Wave.

2) I've gotta say, having duplicate memories appear in peoples heads as a result of time travel seems to be a bit heavy-handed, primarily because it gives special status to sentient memory over, for example, information written in a book. (although it is great in that it allows for character continuity, ie. Robo in the future, and Theme IS supreme...) I also understand we need to invoke TTI or SOMETHING to replace it, or we end up with causality loops: Team Crono cannot learn about Lavos in 2300AD and decide to defeat him if a Time Distortion Wave starting in 1999AD has sent that future to the DBT.  I have an idea or two, but I should go review TTI first.

Cheers!

[Imaginos]

Upon review of TTI - it seems to be consistent with elastic time, so the only reasons that I see for considering Time Reintegration are
1) To help resolve the Marle Paradox, whose grandfather-paradox in-game explanation is clearly inconsistent with TTI.
2) To avoid time-traveling Robo and Doan showing up in a 2300 where they have no past. I do not think they would be time-bastarded out of existence, nor would their happy versions vanish, should they exist. Elastic time largely removes the need for the Time Bastard theory, and I don't have a problem with a few duplicates wandering around indefinitely if it takes a temporal change on a massive scale to create them.


My previous post covers my feelings about 1), and 2) does not seem to be such a terrible case that it violates Theme is Supreme the same way that, say, Robo being brutally shunted to the DBT does.

PS - The guard in 600AD does indeed appear to possess memories relating to both timelines, exactly as Time Reintegration would suggest. However, considering the extremely minor impact of this character, and the large number of other cases where we should expect to witness similar effects, I have to think this is another developer oversight - or, possibly, that the guard is dyslexic and was thinking of the hallway on the far side of the castle that is a mirror image of the one where he is standing. 

[ZeaLitY]

Ah, I've finally read this.

I knew this day would come; we're at the point where a significant alternate theory could cover the events of the games. In the meantime, our TTI/TB system has become institutionally ingrained, and has taken a life and merit of its own. It represents a distinct accomplishment that would be lost if completely eliminated and revised.

Thus, I'm not sure what to do, here. I agree that Thought should get Guru of Time, traditionally the analysis Guru post, for his exhaustive work. But to fully integrate it would lose something, so I'm at a loss on how to present it, since I'd like to maintain the existing system as an historical achievement and theory in its own right. It would be troublesome to have two sets of books, or to go through and analyze every mystery and Chrono series phenomena again.

Perhaps we could present it in some kind of Alternative Theory article on time? (I'll go ahead and close the review in the meantime. Finally...)

Edit: Almost forgot, new Guru...

 

[Thought]

Thanks, Z.

If you are willing to wait a while (RL is very busy for me right now), I can try to rework everything into a more article friendly format.

I whole heartedly agree that TTI/TB should be preserved. For one thing, CE was based on it. For another, TTI/TB has served the compendium, and chronodom in general, very very well. And for a third, TTI/TB is probably closer to real-world effects of time travel, while Elastic Time specifically discards real world assumptions in favor of thematic consistency (making one theory better for fan projects that want to be “realistic,” and the other better for fan projects that want to be thematic). Thus, putting this as an alternate theory would work quite nicely.

Perhaps, for ease of reference, the two models should be renamed ("The Lensmen Hypothesis" and "Theme Theory" or something as such), since each is really comprised of several different assumptions and corollaries.

Once an article is up, I can see about working through the various mysterious and phenomenon again, noting the different interpretations on them between the “Lensmen Hypothesis” and “Theme Theory.”

[ZeaLitY]

Okay, great. Feel free to name your theoretical framework. Honoring GrayLensman in name through the TTI/TB and the current system is a capital idea as well, so I'll work on that.

Damn, it really is odd that he's never been back. Even warmgun popped back in to see what his original analysis had become. I hope he's doing well.

[The Secret Skeleton]

I, too, believe Thought's "Theme Theory" to be the most probable explanation as to how the time line operates.  I have a variant view as to how it is changed, however. 

As there was a clear agenda behind the events of Chrono Trigger, those of the -Entity-, it can be safely said that the eight chosen points in the time line were specified for a reason.

Crono and many of the other characters within the game are all Chrono Triggers.  It was stated in Chrono Cross that by releasing strong enough feelings or desires one can change time.

Within these eight time periods, Crono and his friends found the desire to change the time line and then the power to do so.

Here is how I believe it works.

A Chrono Trigger who goes back in time and changes history does so out of desire to do so.  This asserts a governing principle behind "what will happen next."

Each time traveler is still relative to their own place in time, so changes made would reflect upon that.  Of all possibilities resultant from a change in the time line, the option closest to the desire of the Chrono Trigger is accepted into the time line.

This fairly well defines what "Chrono Trigger" means.  It is an initiation of events in time.

Please accept this as less of a scientific concept, and more something fitting within Thought's "Theme Is Supreme"...because it is.

I stated here http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,5571.msg181204.html#new that I believe that the Frozen Flame is a device with which Lavos alters potential events in time to best provide for its slumbering physical body.  So I state that the original time line before Crono passed first into AD 600 was one engineered to provide for the sleeping Lavos.  It was a time line where the Frozen Flame introduced changes to the original species to insure their proliferation and evolution so that Lavos could collect their DNA.

Arbiters of the Flame are people who are literally the thrall of Lavos through the Frozen Flame.  The Queen of Zeal did not build the Undersea Palace and Mammon Machine to empower Zeal...she did it because the Frozen Flame found humanity to be stagnating and in need of a "reboot."  The Black Omen was a tall hill from which the Arbiter could closely watch over the time line like a shepherd over sheep.

All of history was manipulated away from extinction or stagnation until Lavos was ready.

The -Entity- chose eight specific eras to combat Lavos, and it chose certain people within those eras, all Chrono Triggers, to guide the time line back to one where Lavos is not present.

There is no way for me to ascertain if whether Crono and his friends were empowered as Chrono Triggers, or they just always were.  The end of Chrono Trigger, with the Fall of Guardia, may suggest the former.  Maybe without the -Entity- letting them Will the future, they got caught with their pants down?

One point where the time line changes quite drastically is the Undersea Palace scene.

In it there is a conflict between the Chrono Trigger and the Frozen Flame. 

"The Chrono Trigger, if combined with the Frozen Flame, can (according to legend) grant unimaginable powers over time and space to the point that history can be shaped according to the will of the user of these two powers."

I believe that when Crono and party interrupted the ritual for Schala to activate the Mammon Machine, every person assembled was sent somewhere best suited to their unconscious desires.  Though they knew not the destination, their subconscious need to fulfill certain goals figured that out for them.

I am getting pretty sleepy, so I will state that this is my feeling on the way time can be changed, though it is far from complete.

The very nature of the Chrono Trigger touches on the concept of 'reality is perception.'

I think with the right discussion this could be properly fleshed out.  The game does evidence much of what I've said, just in subtle ways.

So?

[tjbk_tjb]

I just wanted to throw out a crazy idea I've had stewing in my head for a while now.

If you think of a rock on a hill, it naturally rolls downhill, seeking a state where it holds less potential energy. This "principle of least action" applies to many things, like molecules attempting to reach an optimal configuration. So too could this be applied to a timeline. If one says that certain things that one would call "impossible" make the timeline more energetic, such as a temporal paradox or a violation of the conservation of mass-energy, then the timeline will tend to assume the least impossible sequence of events. Usually, this rearrangement will manifest as TB and TTI, but if those are more impossible, weird stuff may happen. Something like that.