Chrono's Cosmology

Introduction

The following is an explanation that fully explains the entirety of the Chrono Trigger, Radical Dreamers, and Chrono Cross cosmology, originally it was a quickly made blog but after a while I decided to fully go all out with everything.

The Universes within Dreams

Before we can get into the overall expansive cosmology of Chrono we must start with people's dreams.

Dreams are alternate universes in Chrono, described by Masa and Mune along with the scholars of Zeal that the world within the dream is merely another world. With them even stating that "there are many different worlds as there are observers".

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For further elaboration, during a scene with Orhla's dying alternate dimension sister. Her sister goes into depth over her dream and how it is like alternate possibilities/potentialities.

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With these we come to understand that dreams are compared with possibilities and are a world that's "observed" in a sense. Along with this an alternate timeline Magus makes mention there are as many worlds as there are potentialities.

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With this I believe we can accept dreams in the Chrono series are alternate universes, with infinite possibilities to them. This would already make the cosmology 2-A.

Possibilities

Though for dreams with infinite possibilities to work, we need to see if possibilities spawn alternate universes, which we can do very easily. Within Chrono Trigger there are about 12 endings each with different possibilities to them. We know every ending in Chrono Trigger is canon, as in Chrono Cross, they bring up an ancient city of reptiles from “another dimension’s future”.

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This is important to Chrono Trigger as one of the endings you can get is if you defeat Lavos without facing Azala and the Black Tyranno, heavily implying Ayla dies to Azala without your help, which causes an ending where everyone becomes Reptites. To add on, there is even a future where only reptities exist is also shown in Chrono Trigger’s DS post-game.

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This would conclude that every dream, potentiality, possibility, ending, etcetera, is canon in Chrono Trigger. Along with this, each possibility spawns a universe.

Other Infinite Showings

During a conversation regarding how to get up to the floating Tower after the Dragon Gods betray Serge and his party, Glenn at one point states the world has infinite possibilities.

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Though if you do not buy simply Orhla stating Tia or Glenn stating there's infinite possibilities, look no further then when Serge from Radical Dreamers gets sent into the dimension of the Chrono Trigger beyond time and space and sees infinite versions of himself.

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So with this, we have clear cut confirmation there are infinite universes within the Chrono Trigger cosmology. For the base multiverse we have 2-A in size.

Higher Hierarchies

To start with, even the main multiverse is higher then 2-A in size, a while back in Chrono Compendium there was a re-translation project, giving a better translation for the original Chrono Trigger then even what the DS version gave. Within it, there is confirmation that there are multiple temporal dimensions within the Chrono universe.

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"Queen: This Black Dream flows across all temporal dimensions...... While waiting for that time when Lavos-sama will awaken..."

With this in mind, the safe conservative estimate would be to assume at least 2 time dimensions. This would indicate there's 3 spatial dimensions + 2 time dimensions which equates to 5 hierarchal layers in total. So the regular reality of Chrono Trigger is actually 2-A.

For this now we need to break into the higher realms and what they'd give the overall cosmology.

First we start with the possible higher realm, the Bend of Time. While it isn't directly called a higher dimension it is explained to be a dimension outside of time where people or monsters "cross dimensions". A consistent thing we will see down the cosmology is that places like these are beyond the flow of time, even in the same game this appears in and with this in mind I believe it's safe to assume it as a transcendence.

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This is the lowest level of transcendence as we see it still interacts with the main reality in some form though it is still a realm beyond it in a sense making it the first transcendence (Low 1-C).

The next area to go over is an area added to the DS version of Chrono Trigger known as the Arena of Ages. It is a place stated to be beyond the flow of time. It's even further elaborated by the head of the Arena of Ages that time flows different here, to the point that one could call it a "different dimension".

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This is the next level of transcendence as the arena of ages goes beyond even places like bend of time or end of time which both work similarly (Low 1-C+).

The next area is the realm inside of the Chrono Trigger is a place beyond all of space and time where Serge is able to view all infinite versions of himself and the entire multiverse.

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This is the next level of transcendence as the Chrono Trigger is beyond all scopes allowing one to see the entire multiverse from it's beginning to end and all of it's infinite variations (1-C).

The final area is a place so far beyond the multiverse it has no beginning or end. It is described as a place that exists a distant plane far beyond even the border of time’s eclipse. This is the description for it given in Chrono Trigger however, Chrono Cross this place is also known as “The Darkness Beyond Time”. For Serge and his party to even reach the Darkness Beyond Time they require an object that allows them to go beyond space-time. Something else interesting to note is that the darkness of time is a realm that's directly stated to be a darkness beyond the dimensions. Making is a dimensionless layer.

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This is the next level of transcendence as the Darkness Beyond Time is beyond everything in the already established multiverse, having no beginning nor end and being a completely blank place that one needs a specific item allowing them to go beyond all levels of space-time to reach (1-C+).

Now a core point of contention normally brought up with Chrono Cross is the existence of it's ending, as we learn in the ending the multiverse is merged into one higher-dimensional universe after the defeat of Lavos, however if you do New Game+, a canon element to the game, the multiverse is very clearly split apart and you can go back to fight Lavos. Though there are a couple of things to understand first.

For one when attempting to load New Game+ or more importantly, Continue+, a mode where you can bring your pre-established stats from a completed game and put it in a continue file, you cannot ever go back into your previous save, even if you try to load it normally the game will just send you to New Game+/Continue+[1].

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Along with this there exists an in canon save function known as the record of fate, not only is it directly told to you by three NPCs, but the Record of Fate also has massive plot relevance to the overall story of Chrono Cross.

Finally, a consistent canon ending to Chrono games is the developer ending, an ending where you can go and speak to all of the developers of the game.

So with this each save block contains it's own cosmology within it explained above. With each save block being a 1-C multiverse with infinite universes.

The final absolute layer applies to essentially a "Real world" this is derived from the developer ending as since concepts such as the save file is canon, then we can also go by the developers viewing the game as fiction. The developers can even jokingly reset all of reality back to the title screen. Along with this, the ending to Chrono Cross has Serge using the Chrono Cross to merge the multiverse into a single higher-dimensional universe, the developer ending can only happen too after Lavos is defeated, when Serge does the feat, with this we can conclude that the higher-dimensional universe is beyond even that of the previous 9-D multiverse (High 1-C).

One extra thing to note, this isn't about higher-dimensions but moreso any question regarding if something is beyond space-time why do some of the realms still have their own flow of space-time? Well as shown in the developer ending, which blatantly views the main multiverse as fiction, even it has alternate timelines. So there are just higher dimensional timelines that also happen to be beyond space-time. If you haven't noticed Chrono Cross is confusing and contradictory with a lot of what it does.

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Scaling

Dream Devourer: Schala stated she along with the Dream Devourer was going to destroy all of existence. With this in mind and the fact that we see in Chrono Cross Schala is aware of the Darkness Beyond Time, we can infer that Schala was referring to the entire cosmology sans the real world thus putting Dream Devourer at a likely 1-C if the statement of all of existence is serious.

Time Devourer: Time Devourer Lavos naturally exists in the Darkness Beyond Time and was going to destroy everything if Serge and party did not stop him, with this he should fully scale to everything that's not the real world.

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Chrono Cross: The Chrono Cross merged everything a higher-dimensional universe, interestingly enough the action of doing this is even how you can get to the programmer's ending, heavily implying Serge even merged the real world hence the higher-dimensional universe. So the Chrono Cross would fully scale to the cosmology.