Chrono Trigger/WMG

The recording of the Day of Lavos is incomplete.
The recording show Lavos getting out of the ground and launching his attack at the same time, then stops. We don't know what happened latter though, or what made the world be destroyed. We assume it is just what is shown on the screen, but: 1- The scene is the one in the Lavos Ending, where the place is destroyed and evacuated mid-attack. 2- As said, the video is from Lavos coming to the surface... where it already is when Crono & Co. fight him, meaning it is already past the video. Thus the real reason for the Endofthe World As We Know It happens latter. Thus, if Crono and company saved the world there was a full footage of it somewhere, which Belthasar could very well have used -- maybe even together with Lucca -- to make them see that incomplete version during their accidental first time travel, sending them back to keep the cicle going and avoiding a paradox.
 * To be fair, every time travel story in existence- whether the characters visit the future or the past- has this problem, so the general rule is that the characters' memories can't be altered. A better question is, how is it possible that their massive interference in the past doesn't eliminate their own births?

The Main Characters are now stuck in a never-ending time loop.
The motivation for them going after Lavos was witnessing the record of him burrowing to the surface in 1999 and destroying the world...which won't happen now that Lavos is dead. The ensuing time paradox caused the continuum to wrap back around itself, hence the New Game Plus. This also explains how Porre was able to take over Guardia in Chrono Cross - in the normal, unaltered timeline, the Mayor's ancestors weren't taught the value of sharing, and Crono et al are still happily reliving their halcyon days as saviors of the world. (Uh...I'll need more thought on how Lucca manages to start an orphanage and raise Kid.)
 * Time Traveller's Immunity.
 * The canon in the DS almost seems to imply a tier system where Lavos merges with Schala to become the Dream Devourer who then on near defeat merges with the new fangled dimension power with other near defeated Dream Devourers, which after all Dream Devourers are either killed or merged becomes the Time Devourer. So by time Chrono Cross comes about all Lavos, lavi?, have been defeated in all dimensions. So either there are many parallel parties doing this, as hinted by the "evil" clones merging with the main characters, or there are a limited number of parallel universes of this type.
 * The Chrono Trigger timeline has a way of correcting such paradoxes, shown when Marle is torn apart from the inside out because of her ancestor never being saved.
 * Chrono Trigger definitely ends in a temporal paradox. The whole point of Chrono Cross is to undo that paradox by making the defeat of Lavos part of the true timeline. In the original timeline, Lavos emerged in 1999AD and destroyed the world. The events of Chrono Trigger created a paradox where it became possible to have a different outcome, that being the defeat of Lavos. The events of Chrono Cross then made it possible to take that newly created outcome of defeating Lavos and replace the outcome where Lavos destroys the world in the original timeline, thereby completely remaking the truth of the original timeline. By the end of Chrono Cross, we've closed the paradox from Chrono Trigger while simultaneously ensuring that Lavos will always be defeated in ALL timelines. Of course, this was all a MASSIVE Batman Gambit by Belthasar. The Belthasar in 2300AD of the ruined future had to not only help orchestrate the events of Chrono Trigger, but he had the foresight to realize that if Crono succeeded in defeating Lavos, it would create a temporal paradox that would have an alternate version of himself in the newly created good future who would then realize that a paradox actually existed in the first place. Knowing himself, Belthasar knew that the alternate Belthasar would then seek a way of closing the paradox in a way that would result in always ensuring that Lavos was defeated, and he did this through orchestrating the events of Chrono Cross. And to top it all off, 2300AD Belthasar masterminded this entire scheme knowing that if his plan was successful, it would ultimately result in him having never existed since the ruined future would be completely replaced by the good future in the true timeline. Belthasar was basically the ultimate Chess Master.

The Mystic-Human War was deliberately arranged to distract Magus.
In 12,000 B.C., mankind gets its hands on magic by tapping into Lavos's power. Eventually, however, they get too close to it, and Lavos responds by bringing Zeal to the ground and cutting off the power source. Janus, one of the queen's children, falls into around 580 A.D. and eventually becomes Magus, leader of the Mystics. Lavos is at least partially outside time (Chrono Cross establishes that it is aware of alternate timelines, thus the Cosmic Horror Story bit), and knows that Magus will eventually attempt to destroy it. Therefore, it alters human DNA so that certain humans will be able to wield magic... but are also hideous in the bargain. Man rejects them, and they become bitter about humanity. When Janus emerges in 580, a pointy-eared boy with magical talent, they embrace him as a leader. Thus he spends his life leading the Mystics in their war and not fighting Lavos; indeed, the Mystics come to think he created Lavos (witness Heckran's dying comments). By the time he tries to attack Lavos directly, Frog (and his allies) have broken into the fortress and interrupt him. Lavos's existence is secured.
 * But in the original, pre-Crono-et-al-finding-time-gates timeline, nobody breaks into Magus's fortress, but he is killed by Lavos after summoning him, ending the Mystic War. If he had succeeded in defeating Lavos at that point, Guardia, already losing the war, would have been conquered.
 * Magus however, doesn't seem to care about the Mystic-Human conflict. All he really cares about is Lavos. If Magus had beaten Lavos, he could have stopped caring about the war and the humans would win. Or perhaps he was mortally wounded in the battle.
 * The monsters on the Mountain of Woe seem to imply that Mystics already existed before Zeal's fall; however, it's possible that they were created in advance of Janus even being born.

The Chancellor and Emperor Gestahl are one and the same.
Seriously, take a look at them. Pretty strong resemblance, wouldn't you say? The main difference is hair color -- obviously, some time after he went from Chancellor to Emperor, his hair turned white.

C(h)rono's last name is Trigger.
Somehow, I doubt the Chrono Trigger is the only eponymous thing.

Chrono coming back to life is canon.
Chrono Cross doesn't seem to drop any hints.

Lavos was artificially constructed by an alien race.
When you fight the inside of Lavos it looks less than organic. It looks like a machine, with cables connecting it to the shell. An alien race constructed Lavos as an interplanetary weapon and sent it to the Chrono Trigger planet, or Lavos revolted against its creators and launched itself into space, eventually coming to the Chrono Trigger planet.
 * Or it had humanity develop technology based on itself.
 * In the beta, certain promotional materials, etc. shows the second form's chamber as clearly more mechanical in nature. Taking into account time altering powers, distance travel, ability to reproduce, etc. perhaps it was post singularity product of said race gone horribly wrong.

Lavos was a Arena of Ages product.
The new DS Mini Game has you breeding monsters, feeding them and equipping them with items to change states and having them fight each other, then training their skills in different time periods to evolve into stronger monsters. And apparently there's an entire sect of Time Travellers who do nothing but this. Lavos is a Million to One Chance evolution to the 7th Tier. The Time Devourer is then another Million to One Chance evolution to the 8th Tier; and he "equipped" Schala to do it. Since the Arena of Time was a Place Beyond Time, it's already native to Temporal Paradox and was totally at home in the Darkness Beyond Time.

Crono was not the one originally intended to be saved by the Trigger.
Gaspar said that the person has to be "important to the flow of time." Yet this version of Lavos can be defeated without Crono in the party! No, what the party was supposed to have done was rescue Schala instead. Yes, there are no Schala clones; Marle was supposed to have dyed her hair and relinquished her necklace. Both she and Chrono would have died, but the Time Devourer would not have come into existence.
 * Norstein Bekkler probably could've made a Schala clone, though Crono still couldn't have come back.
 * Post Chrono's rescue, you can win clones of everybody else in your party if you put them in the lead. Too bad you can't get extra Time Eggs...

Crono is from the future.
In 1999 AD, Crono's father is a scientist specializing in time travel. When a sudden increase in seismic activity hints at the approaching apocalypse, he sends his wife and son back to 1000 AD to avoid the cataclysm - and hopefully find a way to prevent it. Something goes wrong during the transition and both end up with amnesia. But because Crono finds himself inexplicably attracted to Lucca (a very intelligent and tech-savvy character, centuries ahead of her time) and Marle (a member of a very prominent family that's still going strong in the 'future'), Hilarity Ensues and they eventually end up saving the world.
 * Conversely, this troper once heard a theory that Crono was from the Dark Ages/Antiquity. The main support for this theory was his unusual hairstyle (on par with the other citizens of 12,000 B.C.), his love of sleeping (displayed during the game's opening and a few of the endings, and shared with the people of Enhasa), and the fact that Schala knew his name, having stated it right after she sends the rest of the team away in the Ocean Palace. The last point can be explained easily, since the rest of the team had been shouting his name mere moments ago, when, but the other two make a strong point. There's also the fact that Lightning/Light magic users don't seem to be terribly common.

== Right after Crono went back after Marle, while attempting to replicate the results, Lucca was pulled into the Temporal Research Facility at Chronopolis to develop the Gate-Key. She returns, but chooses not to tell anyone. == Yes, she's good...but nobody is that good. Later she instantly knowing how to operate computers and fixing robots thousands of years into the future. She lectures about how robots are only evil when programmed that way as if she's deeply familiar with the subject; yet is supposedly from a medieval time period where nobody except her has ever programmed robots.
 * This is also how her name shows up in the Chronopolis records; as well as why Chronopolis shows up in her "alternate universe" in the DS.
 * Also, consider Doan. He shows up at the good ending to congratulate the heroes for saving the future, but if it was changed, he wouldn't have any memories of an apocalyptic one...unless he'd done some temporal hopping to pick up Time Traveler's Immunity. Sounds like someone's been taking passengers and making trips to the future behind everyone's backs. No wonder Miss Ashtear was so many centuries ahead of her time.
 * Robots existed in 1000 AD, even before Lucca's supposed visit to Chronopolis - Gato was built by Lucca, so she must have at least some knowledge of robotics. We could also assume that off-screen, Lucca takes a screwdriver to the defeated robot enemies for scientific research, allowing for the repair of Robo (and possibly the knowledge of computer systems - you can't use any computer systems until defeating the Guardian robot, which would have a lot of future-circuitry to educate oneself with...)
 * Ah yes. Gato. Another weird anachronism. One of Lucca's dialogues when you talk to her says nobody has been able to design a bipedal robot. Yet...Gato already is one! The only answer is that Lucca didn't design Gato; she recovered him. The Cybots from the Black Omen are a Palette Swap of him, and chronologically they came first. We know in the original pre-Crono timeline; the Underwater Palace never became the Black Omen, so its ruins were presumably still underwater. Perhaps a Cybot came loose and floated up to the shore near Truce Village? Or Someone "arranged" for her to discover the trashed Cybot and it was just conveniently inactive enough for her to learn how to reprogram it; AND learn how to design little toy Robo as seen in her ending where she finds Kid.
 * She's supposed to say that the miniaturization of bipedal robots is exceedingly difficult. Note Gato's size. Then look at Robo, much more advanced, and human-size. And then see the new Medley Exit, which features Lucca testing out a miniaturized Gato. The meaning of that got lost in translation.

Lavos was afraid of humanity from the beginning
...and was retarding human evolution as a result, to keep it from getting too powerful. There is no other explanation for humanity remaining almost exactly the same in 65 million years, the time it took real-life humans to go from ratlike creatures to monkeylike creatures to apelike creatures to Homo sapiens sapiens. Also note that the only change Crono-verse humanity made was development of magic, which, in part, draws on Lavos, making it less likely to be useful against it than a development entirely under human control.
 * Of course he's afraid of humanity. Look at what Ayla can do at level 99! Good thing he replaced their "Hand" abilities with just magic.
 * Perhaps humanity died out in the ice age after 65000000 BC, and had just evolved back to the point of humanity again by 12000 BC?
 * Except that Kino and Ayla where mentioned as Marle's ancestor in one of the endings.

The "Entity" is actually the Integrated Thought Entity
Lavos, given his reality bending powers could be a self aware form of Haruhi. Or maybe Lucca or Schala is Haruhi, given both of their talents. The "pocket dimensions" are actually closed space and the magic is a result of the Entity. Possible interfaces include: Robo, Magus and Spekkio.

Crono is an Avatar.
Or some variant. This world divides them differently, though. Light, aka "Heaven" includes Air (Cyclone and Wind Slash) and Lightning. Instead of Earth, we have Shadow, which also results from mixing any of the other three. Crono is the earliest character that can use any element by teaming with his True Companions, because he's a natural at it. Furthermore, he's a fully realized avatar and enters the Avatar State when using Luminaire.
 * Magus can control other elements, so he's a fully realized Avatar. Maybe Crono has a little bit of Magus kicking around inside him?
 * They're both Avatars! Magus was born 12000 years before Chrono. Chrono is his reincarnation.
 * Crono is Aang, Robo is Toph, Lucca is Zuko, Frog is Sokka, and Marle is Katara. Only with this Avatar, his earth(ish)bending friend is a Defector From Decadence, and not Ayla and Magus aren't part of the Five Man Band, so I'm not counting them.
 * Ayla is Suki. (Ty Lee fits her better, but eh.)

Time-Travel was different for Marle the first time because she didn't have a foci and the Gate wasn't fully developed.
She dropped her necklace before getting sucked into the portal. Thus she was susceptible to the Back to The Future disappearing effect. Similar actions later in the game don't have the same results because the Gates have solidified due to the Time Key.
 * I like this one. At every other non-1000 AD point in the game, you have (or at least, can potentially have) the Gate Key, Marle's pendant, if not both.

The kid being chased by Alfador the cat after the Kingdom of Zeal collapses is Janus.
Originally as seen in Magus's flashback, Janus tried to rescue Schala with the help of the three Gurus. All four of them get sucked into different time portals. In his Anti Villain way, Magus tried to save the Gurus from getting sucked into Gates by having them confined elsewhere. Thus this second time around, though, Janus doesn't get sucked into a Gate! Using the same powers to send the Necklace to Marle, she erases the "second" Janus memory (she really likes doing that), and removes his Zeal hairdye and make-up.
 * For those keeping score, this means there are three different Jani seen in the game. The one from the original timeline who became the Magus that you either kill or allow to join your party, the one becomes someone new in the "second" Antiquity, and the one who challenges the Devourer at Time's Eclipse; but gets memory erased (apparently into Guile.)
 * IIRC There's a person who tells the party that Janus was sucked into a strange black portal.
 * Said person was an Earthbound One who would never have been at the Ocean Palace to witness what he described. More likely he witnessed this occurrence while Melchior and Janus were at Terra Cave. The circumstances altered because of Crono & co's interference.
 * That's this troper's theory. In the original timeline Janus and Melchior are sucked into black portals in the Ocean Palace. When Crono and co. interfere; the same events occur - they vanish, they just happen to be with the Earthbound Ones.
 * In relation to the DS remake's Magus, he seems to recognise Crono and co (clearly stating "we"; though because I didn't kill him, who knows if the line can be different) so it is likley he is the same Magus from the original timeline (and the one who joins your party) just from the future without Lavos.

The Gurus never gave up seeking a way to defeat Lavos
If you look carefully, you'll notice that Magus, Melchior, and Belthasar all based themselves at around the same point on their respective World Maps, as does the Black Omen. We know this is true with Magus because he specifically worked to summon and destroy Lavos. Belthasar was near Death Peak (where Lavos' spawn were) working on the Epoch. His stated reason is to return home, but he also leaves behind a message for whoever claims Epoch asking them to save the world. Melchior was in the worst position, but remained at his home and it's no coincidence that one of the first things he does in-game is try to get ahold of Marle's pendant. Even Gaspar, at the End of Time, had a Gate specifically to go to the Day of Lavos set up and worked on his Time Egg, which proved of invaluable aid to those who would eventually defeat Lavos.
 * Chrono Cross

The kitty gags are all Crono's cat from the ending
The ending with the intact Epoch has Crono's cat running into the Gate just before it closes for good. Subsequently, all of the kitty gags throughout the game; the cat in the future sewer, the one that defeats Ozzie, etc, are Crono's cat having its own adventure across time and space.
 * That...makes a crazy kind of sense.
 * Alternately, since the more cat food you win from Norstein Bekkler the more cats you get, they're different cats, but they're still all the cats Crono owns and the ones that jump into the time gate during the regular ending.

Dalton didn't break the fourth wall when he said to stop the music

 * He actually had someone playing music during his battle, and told them to switch because he needed something more appropriate.
 * Given his inflated ego and show-off attitude, that actually makes a lot of sense.

Lucca is a descendant of the Enlightened Ones.
Think about it. Blue hair with purple streaks was common amongst ladies in Zeal, and Lara actually had blue hair. There's also Lucca's somewhat reserved, intelligent and science-driven personality.
 * Given that she has very strong magic, I would say that's probably true. She seems like a Kajar descendant. Perhaps her mom's anscestor came through a portal to 600 AD.
 * Aren't everyone (except Ayla and Robo) technically a descendant of the Enlightened Ones? For all we know, there are more people who have seemingly unusual hair colours, but they're rare and we can see numerous houses in the world map that we don't get to enter.
 * Yes, but it irritates me when people go on in fanfiction about blue being such a rare hair color in the world when a pretty notable non-Zeal NPC has it.

"English" in the game isn't the native human language.
The reptites in the past speak perfect English, but the humans speak it in a garbled manner plus mentioned a native language. "English" is the Reptite language that humans picked up and adopted as their own. Possibly even a in universe "Reptoid Conspiracy" is why it never changes. The Reptites maintain their language flawlessly, somehow, as part of their race, and force human "english" to remain relatively the same to make their conspiracy easier to pull off. "Ayla: 'Azala... me not forget..."
 * This actually comes up in a fanfic that this troper read once. When the party first meets Ayla, she wonders why they're speaking the Reptite language. This makes sense in the game's plot since it's possible Ayla had the humans adopt the Reptite language to honor Azala after the latter's death.


 * It would really suck if Ayla decided to go back to the first human language after her victory. The rest of the gang would go back to their times unable to understand anything said to them.
 * Languages evolve faster than creatures. There is no way the people from 1000 AD would sound just like the people from 600 AD (Eyes Cream notwithstanding). But to say that people from 12,000 BC speak the same language as people in 65,000,000 BC AND 2,300 AD is just nonsense. So I must assume that the main characters all have some kind of invisible translator key item.
 * Or...

The Entity is translating everything.
Everyone is speaking their own language. Ayla is talking in a series of grunts. Frog is speaking incomprehensible Shakespearean English (not faux Shakespearean but the real thing). Magus is likely speaking the same, with an occasional Zealean word tossed in when he's talking about something for which the 600 AD people would have no word (complex magical things, certain objects, etc) or when he's feeling particularly emotional. Crono Marle and Lucca are speaking Modern English, and Robo may even be speaking in beeps and whistles, or possibly just Future English. The Entity, however, is producing a TARDIS-like translation field, simultaneously causing everyone to understand everything spoken around them regardless of language, and causing them to not question this fact.

Norstein Bekkler was from Zeal.
If you think about it, how else could Belthasar know of his existence and how he likes fairs, and how else does he have the ability to create extremely accurate clones/dolls of anyone, even if he has never seen them? My theory is that Norstein Bekkler was once a normal person from Zeal, but at some point, Queen Zeal banished him and changed his form. When Lavos woke up in the Ocean Palace, the time distortion affected Bekkler and sent him to 1000 AD or some time before. Either that, or he was sent to the End of Time and showed up shortly after Gaspar did, and figured out how to travel through time. Either way, he found a job at the Millenial Fair, which kept him happy during the events of Chrono Trigger. It also explains why he was willing to make a Chrono clone, as he understood the events of the Ocean Palace, how much of a corrupted monster Queen Zeal was thanks to Lavos' power, and was happy to help anyone who could defeat Lavos.
 * This actually comes up in a fanfic that this troper read once. He's currently looking for it as he's typing this. when he finds it, he'll edit this.
 * Belthasar knew Bekklar was at the fair because he also worked at the fair, remember? And being one of the only human-esque magic users of the era, he might have had an interest? The others are interesting points.
 * Umm, no. Melchior was at the fair. Belthasar was in 2300 A.D.
 * Don't forget about the room where you fight Queen Zeal in the Black Omen(before she transforms). There are a bunch of clones of the party there. Maybe Bekklar was responsible for that.
 * Look at Norstein Bekkler, now look at what the Queen Zeal transform into at the top of the Black Omen.

The Lost Sanctum Bonus Dungeon in the DS remake is an alternate timeline.
Specifically, the timeline visited in Chrono Cross, where Lavos never fell, Humankind was defeated, and the Reptites became the dominant species of the planet.
 * This article on the Chrono Compendium notes it as a mass of land somehow separated into it's own dimension before the events of 65,000,000 BC. IIRC, the Reptites there don't even recognize humans either. So you are right in some aspects, but it's probably not visited in Chrono Cross.

The DS remake represents a completely different timeline than the one seen in Chrono Cross
Specifically, a timeline where Guardia will not fall. In the Dimensional Vortex, Chrono and Company encounter Dalton for one final boss battle, after which he tells them that he's going to raise a Guardia-conquering army in Porre. Chrono, Marle, and Lucca have defeated Dalton before, and they can do it again when he shows up. More importantly, they know where, if not precisely when, he's going to show up. So, after the Moonlight Festival, Chrono, Marle, and Lucca use their pull with the King, and their knowledge of Dalton's plans, to stop the war before Dalton has a chance to start it. Bam! Dalton's been stopped, Guardia remains, the heroes don't die, and everything's peachy.

"What about the Dream Devourer and the Sequel Hook?", I hear you ask. That's actually pretty simple. The alternate-timeline Magus that initially tries to stop the Dream Devourer is from Chrono Cross's initial timeiline, where the Dimensional Vortex never appeared, Dalton conquers Guardia, and a mindwiped Magus goes searching for Schala. He gets sent back to a different part of his own timeline, not the one where the Dimensional Vortex appeared and Dalton gets stopped. Which is why "the fall of Guardia" plays after we see him, and nobody else. Like he said, "there are as many worlds as there are potentialities."

The party has a different hit point ratio compared to the bad guys.
Magus deals more damage when he is a PC than when he is an NPC but he has more HP as a villain. I believe this is because PCs have hit points that are proportionately worth more (so a PC hit point compared to an NPC hit point is like an American Dollar compared to a Mexican Peso)

Azala predicted the 'Day of Lavos'.
When she said 'we have no future' just before she died, Azala wasn't referring to the end of the dinosaurs, but to the end of everything when the Day of Lavos occurs in 1999 AD.
 * Jossed by the DS remake. She no longer says this and instead asks for the humans to take care of the planet.

Yakra and Lavos are related.
They both have needle-based attacks.
 * Lavos has partaken of the genetic diversity of the entire world. Perhaps he took that from the Yakras.

Lavos is a Mycon Deep Child.
He seems to be both biological and yet artificial. He crash landed on the planet from space and promptly burrowed into it. He spent time buried under the earth, incubating and preparing, before erupting forth and essentially terraforming the planet for purposes of the production of Lavos spawn, which would then crash into other planets and repeat the process. Juffo-wup indeed.

Lavos is a Reaper, and the universe runs on Mass Effect rules
Lavos indoctrinates several people over the course of the series. Queen Zeal was like Saren, and many other Zealians and Earthbound were subjected to similar treatments. Lavos harvests evolution, as explained at the end. He also employs the tactic to allows races to live and abruptly end them. Compare Lavos physically to a Reaper, and he is actually very similar looking. The talons, the pronged mouth, the spaceship-like interior... Also, it is said that he lives in a pocket dimension. Could it be similar to mass relay technology? Naturally this makes Magic also based off of Biotics, which appears to be much more advanced than other biotics, since it is themed on nature. This is probably Lavos' motive. 65,000,000 years ago is much longer ago than 50,000. Maybe Lavos is a different generation of Reaper, or a rogue Reaper. This WMG remains as it is whether the universe is a parallel universe, spin off, future, past and/or different planet from Mass Effect.
 * This... May be the greatest WMG in the history of anything. In fact, one might even be able to prove WHAT Lavos was doing sitting on a single planet for those millions of years. It's been well established that the Reapers are absolutely ancient, and one can come to the logical conclusion that Lavos was Reaper damaged by some form of weapon by a species predating the aliens which destroyed that Reaper over Mnemosyne. Noting a planet with some serious evolutionary potential, he landed, burrowed within the ground, and unleashed the ultimate indoctrinating artifact, the Frozen Flame. As luck would have it, the inhabitants of the planet had even more biotic potential than the asari, essentially giving them near-magical abilities. Simply by guiding the planets evolution, Lavos' ultimate plan would have been to use these humans to repair itself fully, returning as what would likely be an immensely powerful being, even by Reaper standards, and torch the planet after it was finished with it. Thankfully, a Shepard-esque figure, Crono, would rise up and kill him before it was too late, saving not only their planet, but perhaps the entire universe from 'Lavos the Super-Reaper.'
 * Perhaps Lavos is a proto-Reaper, the species that became the Reapers. At some point, a one of the Lavos-entities decided to evolve itself into a mechanical form.

Robo is Rick Astley
Okay, okay, okay! This is not the first time this has been brought up, but we know that his theme does in a ways sound like Never Gonna Give You Up (as heard here). Apparently, Rick Astley's fame on the internet had him preserved in some way and he winds up years later as.

Guardia and the Magic Kingdom are matriarchies, following the tradition set by Ayla.
Ayla was the strongest, and ruled because she was the strongest, but it's not too farfetched to imagine that, as time went on, it became a tradition for the female to rule, and to pick her husband, like she did. Queen Zeal mentions her husband, at most, once or twice, and barely anyone else mentions him at all, except in regards to her Start of Darkness. And as for Guardia, the present king rarely does anything but sit around and be an Obstructive Bureaucrat, and the king from 600 AD seems completely focused on the Mystic War. When Lucca is explaining why Marle disappeared, the line of Marle's ancestors is entirely female, and they're all wearing Pimped Out Dresses. The 1000 AD king didn't get all Knight Templar Parent just because Marle's his only child (still a very reasonable reason), she's also the royal heir. And, to get completely speculative, it's why Marle's wasn't stuck in an Arranged Marriage with an airheaded prince/noble (like, say, Dalton).
 * Unfortunately for this theory, before they're seen in dresses, the queens use the commoner sprites, but this could possibly be Hand Waved that the royal family has a penchant for Rebellious Princesses, or just that they didn't want to make whole new 'young princess' sprites that would show up for all of ten frames.
 * Crono is, at one point, accused of being a kidnapper, and trying to "confuse the princess and take over the throne".

EVERYONE of the member of the party are
. Robo could be made from Lucca's descendant, so, technically, he can be a member of the family. Ayla's descendants could be the first ones in receive magic and, quickly, become the leaders of the new world. Century's later, in 600 A.D, the blacksmith who made the bell, is hinted to be Lucca's ancestor, why he can't descend from Magus sister? Now is Marle. She could descend from Magus, Frog or The king of 600 A.D mainly because there is an ending showing that Frog have a children with queen Leene, obviously, Frog have the Royal blood in his body. Magus...only because when we travel for the first time, ino one noted that Marle hasn't the necklace. Magus could gave it to her as a proof of love. The last one is Chrono. There are three possibilities: The main reason is...well three persons from different ages thrust three teenage childrens with weird clothes and weird habits like ten seconds after know them why is that, where the hell that thrust come from? my only theory is that they can feel they have a connection.
 * He is Frog's descendant
 * This is manly because Frog say that Chrono was really good with the sword. Yeah, Chrono use a katana and Frog use a classic sword, but still. that could be because Chrono inheritace frog's ability with the sword.
 * He and Lucca descend's from the blacksmith.
 * And that's why they are so good friend, thay discovered that they have an ancestor in common and that's was the start of a good friendship.
 * He descend's from ''another" line of heritage.
 * Note that basic population genetics shows that a past individual ancestral to any particular present individual will (and must!), if sufficient time has passed, be ancestral to all other present individuals too. Since it's canon that Ayla is an ancestor Marle, and 65 million years is plenty long enough, Ayla and Kino are, in fact, common ancestors of all the other human characters in all the other time periods in the game.

Dalton is supernaturally charismatic.
Unlike the other Enlightened Ones, Dalton shows no real talent for magic or combat - even after he gets megaboss music privileges in the Dimensional Vortex, he's still a complete joke. However, he manages to get in deep with the queen, have a loyalist usurper faction ready to go when the opportunity prevents itself, control a family/species of powerful monsters, and allegedly stir up hell between Trigger and Cross.

The only way any of the above makes sense is if all his magical ability lies in manipulating others, and for all his showmanship he's actually pretty good at the political game - he only seems like a blowhard because 1) the party is explicitly throwing a king-sized spanner in the works during Antiquity, and B) he activates his magic by overacting - Spekkio says magic takes strength of character, he takes it Up to Eleven.

All his actions and abilities are based on this principle - when he loses a battle, he gets so spiteful it manifests as one last attack. He can convince enough powerful people to band together and, over time, build up an outlying town enough to take over an unprepared kingdom. He can even magically force the party to fall for a blatant Go Look At the Distraction long enough to knock them out with his limited attack magic. It all boils down to a sophisticated Jedi mind trick.

Azala was a Well Intentioned Extremist, as were the rest of the Reptites
When Azala dies, she asks Ayla to "take care of this world." This may indicate that the Reptites were only trying to kill humans because they believed that the humans' mannerisms indicated that they were unsuitable to be the dominant species on the planet.
 * I never saw it as a 'good vs. evil' kind of conflict. Just two species struggling for territory and resources until one of them is gone. Given that, it could be seen as a Worthy Opponent kind of thing.

Frog is Marle's ancestor even outside the joke ending

 * Since Magus had to die sometime, maybe that made the curse go away (and if Magus joined, maybe he undid it at the end because you see him in the cutscene at the end of the DS version) he turned back into Glenn (I guess that after saving the queen in Manolia Cathedral, not being able to tell her yet, and sulking in Cursed Woods for a while without being given the Masamune made him make his move even if he is a frog) and got with the Queen. When you travel through time with Frog, then since Frog was never there, King Guardia was the ancestor, so that at the end when Frog goes home, Frog's the ancestor again.

Spekkio is somehow related to Lavos.

 * Spekkio has the ability to grant people magic power. The Frozen Flame, a piece of Lavos itself granted the human race magic power.

Lavos is related to Jenova
.
 * I was always under the impression that Lavos and Jenova were related somehow. We don't learn a lot about either of their histories or origins, but both Lavos and Jenova are incredibly resilient cosmic parasites that can absorb DNA and memories to modify themselves. Jenova doesn't show any of Lavos' time-space warping powers, and in general it seems to be less intelligent, so perhaps at some point after absorbing the Lifestream, it mutates into a giant space flea and attempts to become the ultimate life-form.

The Planet itself is the great entity that created the time holes

 * The planet (which somehow had sentience of some sorts) knowing the end was near, remembered key moments of it's life before it finally laid to rest. That is why each of the times you can go to are either essential to Lavos destruction of the world or were about important milestones to humanity. This coincidentally helped save the planet and create a better future.
 * You're not alone in thinking this- this Troper has had the same thought for years.

There is no entity, the gates are formed of the energy of intelligent lifeform annihilation

 * There is no entity, no dying planet, whatsoever, the gates are formed in period where mass annihilation took place and just before said annihilation take place:
 * The reptite extinction in 65M B.C.
 * The fall of Zeal Kingdom in 12k B.C.
 * The war between humans and mystics in 600 A.C.
 * The day of lavos 1999 A.C.
 * The human extinction in 2600 A.C. at the hands of the machines.
 * Something that was about to happen in 1000 A.C. Could be the fall of Guardia or a second Human Mystic war.

Chrono Trigger's timeline is partially the future of the Dragonball Z world in some way.

 * Although this is just guessing, it may be a bit possible that not only due to the timeline it took place (at least in 1000 A.D. wise), but also some of the influences that was seen (ex. characters designed by Akira Toriyama), the Chrono Trigger Present Time may have taken place long after the Dragonball series had ended, but this is just a theory.

Magus could have beaten Lavos without Crono and crew's interference
Or at least his outer form. The reason why he stood a chance in 600 AD and not 12000 BC is one: Lavos did not have access to the Mammon Machine for a power up, and two: Magus had his spells in preparation which allowed him to shield himself against some of Lavos' attacks. Crono and crew screwed that up.
 * The game is pretty explicit in insinuating that Lavos killed Magus AND destroyed his castle in the unaltered timeline. I think the 1000AD Mystics refer to Magus attempting to summon Lavos before "mysteriously vanishing", which eventually led to the humans winning the war with the Mystics in 600AD. Even as strong as Magus is with magic, he still vastly underestimated the power of Lavos. Crono and co. technically saved his life by interfering with the summoning ritual.

Every time the party time travels, a new world is created
In Chrono Cross, the second dimension is created when travels back in time to save  If time travel is capable of making new universes once, doesn't that mean that a universe is created whenever the party time travels, and that Lavos is only defeated in the few universes (one in standard playthrough) in which he is defeated, and that he destroys the world in all the others?
 * Time travel alone doesn't cause timelines to split. You can only get temporal paradoxes this way. Split timelines occur in the CT/CC universe when something that exists outside of the flow of time directly affects the timeline in question. This happens in Chrono Cross when In the original timeline, and by changing that event it caused the timeline to split in two. Crono's party does a lot of time travelling back and forth in their timeline, but they always exist within their timeline. , exists outside of the timestream from that point on and as such does not require time travel to affect the timeline.
 * Well, it's never addressed how big of a change splits two dimensions. Why does the universe care more about Serge than a Reptite you may have killed in 65,000,000 B.C.? What if the Reptite had descendants, and they all vanish from existence? That's enough to constitute a different reality to some degree, even though the changes don't affect the main characters. Since nothing changes before the only incident of time travel in Chross, that means that a change only needs to affect part of all of the time in a universe. If you leave footprints in a time period that weren't there before time travel, then a short period of time is now altered. Also, as  says when he meets the party before   "There are as many dimensions as potentialities."

A new universe is created whenever the party dies
When the party dies, the player goes back to a point in time and does something different, to create one, ultimate timeline in which Lavos is defeated, and one in chich the characters die.