Well, the mark it leaves is fairly simple--some people actually remember. I suppose that those that weren't shifted in time don't (because for them, time simply stopped, as Sir Bahamut suggested, and picked up after TC), but Squall, for instance, remembers it, as I expect would Xu and the CC Group, and anyone else whom managed to travel through time in that method. It wouldn't surprise me if a few things didn't come back to where they needed to be quite right, or some people got lost, of course, because as Time Compression ended, existence seemed to be somewhat malleable. That, however, is outside the purview of this theory.

I think, especially by the idea that time was static, it becomes difficult to try to think of time in a two-dimensional way, because many things /did/ happen at the same time and at different times simultaneously. It might be possible to try to simplify it, as your methods show, but I think that a relatively complex angle approaches it better--and I'd be willing to give the benefit of the doubt that space-time was considered to be something tangible in and of itself.

Well, my support for the three-points idea is that this, to me, might well allow Ultimecia to step partially outside time, but more importantly, would have enough weight to draw in the rest of time. Clearly, Time Compression was a gradual process--two points wouldn't have been enough to pull in the whole of time, only one side, like in a tug-of-war. With three points, however, one can 'pull' at either end, and then 'pull' at the center to draw /those/ all in on one another. It's the motion that made me think that it required the three, and the fact that Ultimecia needed all three times. Then, I suppose it's /possible/ that she ony needed the far past, too.

Personally, I think that she chose Edea's time because that's the only time she could choose--you have to know the person you're being sent to, using Ellone's powers, and because Edea literally had Ultimecia's powers (assuming that time is one, and that the events at the end in the past had already happened), there was enough of a bond that Ultimecia could possess Edea. Now, whether she needed three times or whether this just wasn't /quite/ far enough, I'm not sure, but it seems to be that needing three times is the simpler option, and offers a better explanation than needing a specific time without any discernible reason.

Now, the times aren't very far separated, but the Sorceress power is power over reality itself, so that might have been enough to start the chain reaction that I saw as Time Compression. Of course, you're probably right about Square's thought processes, but we do make do.

Don't worry about sounding harsh; you haven't. I think we have slightly different perspectives, too. I'm fine with complex, as long as it's consistent, largely because my vantage point is as a theorist, sure, but more to the point as someone who writes in the fandom. If it's at least consistent speculation, that seems not to contradict canon, I can use it. ...And, of course, I do enjoy trying to figure out a few reasonable methods for this.


(Oops, I've been ninja'd.) But really--time is set in stone, sure (since we're operating under that idea in FF8 right now), but so is reality. If the Sorceress can manipulate reality, think about the amount of Sorceress power involved in absorbing all of reality. It's not unreasonable to think that something that could rewrite existence could alter time a bit, too.