Issue: Lavos pulls back Chronopolis

[ZeaLitY]

Chronopolis exposes itself in the Counter-Time Experiment, and Lavos pulls it back to 12,000 B.C.

Chrono Cross specifically states that "Lavos" did this. However, how can Lavos, from his present point of view in 12,000 B.C. at the Ocean Palace, be cognizant of the future? According to Flow Principle, an entity with free will in the present determines the future from their perspective; there is no predestination.

Possible solution: Lavos can refer to the Time Devourer pulling Chronopolis back from 2400 A.D., since it feared that Chronopolis would gain the power to enter the Darkness Beyond Time and stop its evolution. We're still sort of bending words, here, since we rely on the term "Lavos" meaning "Lavos" for the destruction of Home World's future with the Dead Sea issues. And that, too, is an issue with predestination (how can the future of Home World be in ruin if the player's perspective is at the "present" in 1020 A.D.?).

I don't ever want to cave on predestination. It goes against the central theme of the Chrono series—that you can make your own future by unleashing your will upon history.

[utunnels]

Sorry, but where in game does it specifically state "Lavos" did that?

--------
*Edit*

Hmm, i see, Belthasar said.

[Cous]

For my point of view, I would reverse the problem :

It's not really Lavos from 12000 BC who pulls Chronopolis back to this era, it's Chronopolis which, after the Time Crash was triggered, "lands" to this era due to the troubles in the space-time continuum Lavos did provoke here.
In the timeline in which Chronopolis exists in the future, Lavos previously created a kind of wormhole in the 12000 BC period after the new Ocean Palace incident. This wormhole will serve as a "landing point" for Chronopolis.

However, I wish to ask something.
In Chrono Cross, it's said that Chronopolis departed from 2400 AD to go 10 000 years in the past. So wouldn't the city arrive in 7600 BC rather than 12000 BC ??

[ZeaLitY]

Ah, that's a good solution.

As for the 7,600 B.C. thing, the Compendium originally used this date. However, people in Chronopolis and El Nido say "10,000 years" often, when they're really just talking about a long period of time. The best example is Chronopolis; they talk about a magical kingdom that disappeared "10,000 years" ago (Zeal), but from 2400 A.D., Zeal would have disappeared 14,400 years ago, not 10,000. So they're just using 10,000 as a colloquialism.

Once we determined this, we revised it to 12,000 B.C. to fit with Lavos's activity there. It also fits with this:



There is still ice in the tropical seas of El Nido, suggesting it was during the Ice Age (which only began to end in 12,000 B.C. after Zeal fell).

[Cous]

Pretty nice picture ! 

Right, I'm ok with this

[utunnels]

My quick and ugly translation of the chronology table from the CC Ultimania.

Notice the Time Crash pulled them back into an era after the Fall of Zeal.

[Thought]

According to Flow Principle, an entity with free will in the present determines the future from their perspective; there is no predestination.

Apply Time Error. From a regular, 4-D temporal perspective, the future is established. But, from a 5-D, Time Error, perspective, the future is malleable. Preserves the character's ability to change the future (note, to change something it must first exist) while still addressing Lavos' ability to know a future that it hasn't experienced yet. The Lavos that pulls Chronopolis back would, presumably, be a sort of Time Bastard. It is living after the Time Error event of its own defeat.

This seems to actually be a partially predicted outcome of the time crash. The experiment was to establish Chronopolis as a presence in history. One might say that this "detached" it from the standard timeline, making it like the End of Time. Lavos merely reattached it (which then begs the question, was Lavos aware of the End of Time under such a framework?)

EDIT: Hmm... uTunnels, it looks like "dimensional vortex" is, in Japanese, essentially just another word for Gate, correct?

A bit of an annoyance since that means that the dimensional vortex referred to in CC could potentially be called Gates as well.

[utunnels]

EDIT: Hmm... uTunnels, it looks like "dimensional vortex" is, in Japanese, essentially just another word for Gate, correct?

Hmm, no. For example, in CC, Sprigg's origin uses that name literally.
I always treate it as a term of time/space distortion, a gate is also such kind of thing.

Probably the Kingdom of Zeal were thrown into DBT through that "gate"?

But I don't think that is important to the chronology, what I want to show is that the Time Crash pulled Chronopolis into an era between 12000BC and 600AD, probably like what Cous said.

[ZeaLitY]

According to Flow Principle, an entity with free will in the present determines the future from their perspective; there is no predestination.

Apply Time Error. From a regular, 4-D temporal perspective, the future is established. But, from a 5-D, Time Error, perspective, the future is malleable. Preserves the character's ability to change the future (note, to change something it must first exist) while still addressing Lavos' ability to know a future that it hasn't experienced yet. The Lavos that pulls Chronopolis back would, presumably, be a sort of Time Bastard. It is living after the Time Error event of its own defeat.

This seems to actually be a partially predicted outcome of the time crash. The experiment was to establish Chronopolis as a presence in history. One might say that this "detached" it from the standard timeline, making it like the End of Time. Lavos merely reattached it (which then begs the question, was Lavos aware of the End of Time under such a framework?)

EDIT: Hmm... uTunnels, it looks like "dimensional vortex" is, in Japanese, essentially just another word for Gate, correct?

A bit of an annoyance since that means that the dimensional vortex referred to in CC could potentially be called Gates as well.

But can that be possible? Time is malleable because a person is at a 4D point with the capacity to change the future, but if a person's at a 5D point, they're outside the flow of time, and can view the evolution of history.

Then again, I wonder what does happen when Gaspar watches Crono go back in time to change something. The Compendium used to hold that his changes would register instantly, but Time Error should really flow on the "player's" time; Gaspar should be able to watch the changes. So perhaps this is possible, but I wonder about that malleable state...could we take some kind of quantum solution, and say that the most likely possibility is the one to exist once the Sea of Eden is observed? And so, for the Dead Sea, since Lavos erupts in the future without any likely resistance, that becomes the observed reality once the dimensions are split and the Dead Sea comes into existence with Miguel there to observe it. Likewise, Dinopolis would observe Chronopolis in 12,000 B.C., although a huge range of possibilities makes it coincidental that it saw the exact same Chronopolis that existed in 2400 A.D.

[Thought]

Thanks, Tunnels. I thought for a moment that the "gate" terminology was just an artifact of translation.

But can that be possible? Time is malleable because a person is at a 4D point with the capacity to change the future, but if a person's at a 5D point, they're outside the flow of time, and can view the evolution of history.

I would argue that they are not so much changing the future as changing the present, from which the future is determined.

A form of the future has to be set for time travel to be possible. When Crono travels to 2300, he sees a future, therefore a future must exist for him to see. Perhaps this is just the result of the likeliest of outcomes being the outcomes assumed by time. Things don't have to go that way, but unless the shadows of these events remain unchanged...

From the standpoint of 2300, any freewill decision in 1999 AD has already been made, but from the 1000 perspective, any freewill decision in 1999 has yet to be made. From a regular, 4D, time scale, both are true. But when one adds Time Error, 1000, 1999, and 2300 are all "in the past" (the events of each have already happened, and so freewill, if it exists, has already been factored into the equation that produced those time periods). From a TE perspective, regular time is static: change can't happen on that level. Thus, Time Error and time travel in general is what allows for a new variable to be entered into the equation of time. Freewill on a regular time scale exists but is already resolved. Freewill on a Time Error scale, however, is happening in the present.

Lavos Invictus existed in Time Error past; the Lavos that exists in Time Error present lives in a regular time world in which the future is just as set for "him" as it was when Crono first traveled to 2300 AD.

[Cous]

Whoo !
Pretty impressive !

[placidchap]

A form of the future has to be set for time travel to be possible. When Crono travels to 2300, he sees a future, therefore a future must exist for him to see. Perhaps this is just the result of the likeliest of outcomes being the outcomes assumed by time. Things don't have to go that way, but unless the shadows of these events remain unchanged...

Could it be said that the future doesn't exist and therefore is not set?  What I mean is that when Crono et al travel to 2300, they aren't going from 1000 to 2300 directly, as in point A to point Z but they are travelling along A to B to C...to Z but with a time differential in place.  Within the gates/Epoch they are within a time differential that pockets Crono and crew in 'normalized' time while greatly speeding up (that is, fast forwarding) the timeline (travelling to 2300) or inverting (rewinding) the timeline (travelling back to 1000).

I don't know if timetravel is really thought of as A to B to C....to Z (here at the CC) but I used to always think of it as A to Z and Z to A, until recently anyway.

About predestination, specifically each time one travels to the future, back to the past/present and then back to the future, does everything happen the same way each time or do/can things change?  For (a minor) example, a person in 1200 chooses to go to the bar one day and is killed in a bar fight, would this happen everytime Crono travels to the future or could it change each time (without Crono mucking up the timeline)?  I suppose this would only be a problem with the "time-differential-time-travel theory" since time fast forwards to Z each time.  With the A to Z time travel, I would assume that Z, is always the same based on the most probable course of events between A and Z. 
So in a sense, predestination could very well be a part of the Chronoverse (with A to Z time travel), just as much as free will.

[Thought]

Ah, that would be the Time Machine effect. Other than the fact that the future plays out exactly the same every time unless Crono and Co do something, it seems unlikely. However, there is no direct evidence against it.

[Chrono'99]

Kid:
   In the year 2400, during a
   counter-time experiment, the
   Flame goes out of control...
   This causes the dimensions
   to rip apart, resultin' in
   the Time Crash.
   Engulfed in an enormous
   dimensional vortex,
   Chronopolis was hurled ten
   thousand years back in time.
   Perhaps it was the awakenin'
   Lavos who pulled the Frozen
   Flame back through time to it.
   Maybe so that Lavos, who saw
   the possibility that some young
   adventurers might destroy it,
   could create a backup plan.

What's weird is that the game says "possibility" and "backup plan". If it were set in stone from that Lavos's perspective, wouldn't the possibility be a certainty and the backup plan a "plan B"?

[utunnels]

　１９９９年、少年達に滅ぼされる可能性を見たラヴォスが、新しい可能性を開くために。
Maybe that was Lavos who saw the possiblity that it'll be destroyed in 1999, opened a new possiblity.

Hmm, so Lavos pulled back the Chronopolis to disturb the flow of history, and Fate or the Chronopolis crew tried them best not to change the history?
---

Edit*

Perhaps Lavos sent Belthasar to 21 century was part of the plan.