#(and the dead sea - tower of geddon from chrono cross)

[xwhitenoise]

why is the incredibly ominous track from the gauntlet of shar not on spotify, wtf

[getvalentined]

This is an excessively long and spoiler-rich ramble about a specific plot point in Chrono Cross and how it creates implications that explain a huge number of apparent plot holes in the game.

There is only one Miguel.

There's a bit in Chronopolis where one of the researchers says that Miguel was "installed" in the Dead Sea "at great effort" as a watchman/gatekeeper, at some point after Serge drowned. Likewise, Miguel mentions that the area wasn't always like this, but it was "transformed" into the Dead Sea at some point in the past. That doesn't seem to explain anything about the question of why there's only one of him when there's two of basically everyone else, until you remember that that Chronopolis is in Another World, so the researcher talking about "installing" Miguel in the Tower of Geddon implies that they pushed him through into the Home World timeline.

While characters in the game say over and over that the timelines diverged when Serge drowned, the researchers in Chronopolis actually refer to both timelines having existed prior to that point. Home World is referred to as 01 and Another World is referred to as 02; the temporal ghost of a researcher says that FATE lost the ability to make changes to 01 in the recent past, I think when Serge came in contact with the Frozen Flame. (I believe this is talked about in the room where you get the Radical Dreamers easter egg, if anyone wants to double check.)

This is…a huge plot hole, or at least it looks like one, but it's stated outright that both timelines already existed prior to Serge's death. To me this indicates that prior to Serge's death, Chronopolis was a point of temporal overlap that existed simultaneously in both timelines without having been split. Like if you jab a needle through a piece of paper, technically it's on both sides at once.

Also, it's not actually a plot hole. Serge's death isn't what caused his timeline itself to exist, not exactly, because we saw in the Tower of Geddon that the Home World timeline appears to be the one that eventually leads to the Day of Lavos in 1999. This was retconned out of existence in Chrono Trigger, which is why the ghosts go off on Serge when he finds them there. (Hence why the researchers in Chronopolis refer to it as 01, because it was the "original" take.)

The issue with this is that FATE was ostensibly built to make sure that timeline 02, the one the Trigger cast created, was the inevitable future; the fact that Serge died in 02 (Another World) but survived in 01 (Home) means that they lost the chance to get access to the Frozen Flame in the "good" timeline, which presumably caused some kind of fallout that resulted in Chronopolis losing its complete temporal overlap and led to the creation of the Dead Sea.

In the 01 timeline, Lavos appears in 1999 and Chronopolis is never built, so by losing access to the Frozen Flame in 02 and then ordering the death of the only person capable of accessing it, FATE created the one thing that couldn't be allowed to exist: a paradox. Chronopolis can only exist if the Day of Lavos never happens; the Day of Lavos will happen if FATE doesn't regain access to the Frozen Flame; Serge needs to be there for FATE to gain access to the Flame; Serge is dead in the timeline where Chronopolis exists. Oops.

Miguel's placement in the Dead Sea also explains Lynx's presence in Fort Dragonia in the Home timeline, without Kid and without the Amulet, because it implies that FATE still has the ability to push individual agents through the timelines under the right circumstances. This was already implied, with Lynx's earlier alliance with Porre and the Acacian Dragoons in the Home timeline even though it's pretty heavily implied that Kid killed him in 01 when saving Serge from drowning. However, it's pretty clear that FATE alone can't bring something from that timeline over to hers; Lynx can move back and forth, with effort, but he has to go alone, and he has to come back alone. (This is why Harle didn't know about what went on over there.)

Eventually, Lynx tried to get Lucca to help with FATE, and she refused—in 01, the Home timeline, she died. In 02, she literally cannot be dead because if she were, Chronopolis would never have existed. She and Belthasar worked together in the development of FATE. (This is why you only see the ghosts in 01, this is why the ghost of Lucca tells Kid that she is "no longer alive in this timeline.") Lynx took her to Chronopolis, and whatever happened there she still refused to help. We don't know where she is now, but she can't stay there forever because that would eliminate the timeline that FATE was allegedly built to maintain.

Eventually, FATE foresaw that Serge was going to slip through a gap in spacetime in the future, and set about trying to prepare for that event. At this point, FATE doesn't have direct access to 01 except through Lynx, and we know she can reach through into the echoes that Chronopolis left behind in that overlap space because of what happens in the Tower of Geddon. After the fight, Miguel says that FATE is going to destroy the Dead Sea to make sure that Serge can't come in contact with the Frozen Flame in the wrong timeline—this is weird, because Lynx already has Serge's body at this point so it shouldn't matter. FATE should be fully back online. The Frozen Flame should be fully accessible. For some reason, Lynx is taking his time.

This also looks like a big ol' plothole! Until you remember that Belthasar (and Lucca) designed FATE, they programmed it to fulfill a specific function and to "forget" when it came across anything that gave away Belthasar's actual goal, which was getting Princess Schala back—something that can only be done from 01, where Lavos still exists.

In order for Project Kid to be completed, the Dragons need to fuse back into their original form and then be struck down, releasing the Frozen Flame into the void so that Belthasar can use it in the creation of Chronopolis in 2300; this means FATE needs to die. The end purpose of FATE is to die at Serge's hands so that the seal on the Frozen Flame is broken in time for Harle to take it to the other Dragons, so that it exists when Belthasar needs it in the future. The existence of the Frozen Flame is a closed loop.

(Also, friendly reminder that Belthasar is a piece of shit who basically murdered thousands of people when he orchestrated the Time Crash to drag them all back so that he could save his favorite of the Zeal siblings, even though Magus is still very much alive and absolutely would have been willing to help with this. But Belthasar has always been a piece of shit when it comes to Magus, he clearly considered him to be the inferior sibling if he was willing to sacrifice thousands, maybe tens of thousands of lives to get Schala back but couldn't even be assed to talk straight with Crono about what Magus was actually doing with Lavos in Trigger. God I hate that guy.)

Moving on. Project Kid also explains the apparent issue with Lynx not eliminating Prometheus until Serge was there to witness it. He's FATE's biological interface, and if FATE was incapable of acting outside the bounds of Project Kid, then neither of them could have unlocked the Flame until Serge arrived, and neither of them would have even been able to question why.

There is only one Chronopolis, only one FATE, and there only ever has been. When Miguel and Wazuki arrived at the facility 14 years ago, they passed into a temporally fixed space, fusing with their counterparts without knowing they'd done so. Wazuki split again when he left, of course, just like Serge did, because one of them had to die in either timeline to set the final stages of Project Kid into motion.

Miguel never left.

He was in Chronopolis for at least four years before he was "installed" in the Dead Sea. He met the Acacian Dragoons when they followed Lynx's lead—after which Lynx was never seen in 01 again, because he crossed back over and left the Dragoons to die.

There's only one Miguel because nothing makes sense otherwise.