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The Garlean Empire's main export is war crimes. The Allagan Empire's main export is absurd doomsday tools.
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Jan 9, 2021 11:57
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Absurd doomsday tools that usually rely on war crimes for fuel
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Jan 9, 2021 12:26
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The crystal tower was designed to open a portal to shadow-hell and was fueled by the endless agony of thousands of dragons imprisoned on an artificial moon praying futilely to their father for rescue. Allag goes beyond war crimes and into some sort of fantastical hyper-atrocity paradigm.
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Jan 9, 2021 12:32
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Allag was the ascians loving around for an era to see what they could get away with and make enough doomsday devices to last them a dozen rejoinings
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Jan 9, 2021 12:36
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Asimo posted:The crystal tower was designed to open a portal to shadow-hell and was fueled by the endless agony of thousands of dragons imprisoned on an artificial moon praying futilely to their father for rescue. Allag goes beyond war crimes and into some sort of fantastical hyper-atrocity paradigm. I thought it was designed to be a big solar battery and the hell portal and dragon moon prison was later
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Jan 9, 2021 12:36
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NachtSieger posted:Emet-Selch created the Allagan Empire, whose main cultural exports are war crimes. yeah I'm not really sure what he was going for with the allagans beyond 'cause more calamities' you'd think a smart guy could figure out some kind of religious approach to the rejoining and use that crystal tower technology to pull people from the shards and rejoin them with their source counterpart i think the main problem is the ascians just not seeing the fractured as people at all. I guess it's like the metaphysical equivalent of your friend being blown to pieces and the parts keeping on moving afterwards. you're probably not gonna be super concerned about the rich life experience of a severed finger thats crawling around on the floor, you'd rather stitch your friend back together. is every person a fractured piece of an original ascian? or are some the descendants of the life that sprang up after zodiark was summoned the first time? i figured that unless there were a trillion ascians or something there must be some people whose souls were never an ascian. emet's point about how reduced the world is would be a bit more compelling if amaurot was more than an art deco city where everyone is an identical bird face in a glowy robe. I know some of that is just the constraints of the medium, but it also seemed like kind of an annoying and conformist bureaucracy from the sidequests you do there. kind of like the weird immortal hippy society from Zardoz.
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Jan 9, 2021 14:05
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thetoughestbean posted:I thought it was designed to be a big solar battery and the hell portal and dragon moon prison was later
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Jan 9, 2021 14:20
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juggalo baby coffin posted:yeah I'm not really sure what he was going for with the allagans beyond 'cause more calamities' First of all: Yes, his plan for the Allagans literally was to cause more Calamities. It was to set up so many potential Calamity-causers that not only will one definitely work to wipe out Allag, but there'll probably be some leftovers to cause future Calamities, which is useful because usually they have to start from scratch every time (Louisoix preventing Bahamut from killing the whole planet was the exception to that rule). And it worked out, in fairness; not only did the launching of Dalamud cause the third Calamity, Dalamud coming back down caused the Seventh, and the Warring Triad very nearly caused the Eighth. He doesn't need a 'smarter plan' than that, because something else important to remember about the Ascians is that the Ascians are very stupid. They're so used to having power to the extent that they can brute-force solutions that they really struggle with creativity; it's why Emet-Selch never really figured out the Exarch, why Elidibus walked right into a trap that he had every single piece to figure out beforehand. Similarly, they're also not used to being in a position where they have to treat an opponent as a threat; that's what killed Lahabrea, because he genuinely didn't consider the notion that Thordan might turn on him. So... he never needed to think of a better plan than the Allagan Empire, because the Allagan Empire already worked pretty drat well. How fragmented souls work is pretty unclear, but the way I understand it is like this: After the world got sundered, all the Ancient souls broken up and got thrown into the Lifestream and put into a cycle of rebirth. These are the people capable of having the Echo. Among those, there's eleven souls on the Source and each shard that are sundered versions of the Convocation; the three remaining unsundered Ascians (Lahabrea, Elidibus, Emet) pick them out to give their old memories, and if they ever manage to get perma-killed (which seems to be rare for them by the fact it seemed like a new prospect after the Chrysalis trial) then they grab a version of that same guy from another shard. The rest of them the Ascians probably consider irrelevant; if they die they'll just reincarnate, so eventually the original Ancient will be back and full, but until then they're basically just 'Fred's severed hand' but, you know, with arms, legs, and self-agency. But, there's also everyone else on both the Source and shards. From what I understand, they have what I'll just call 'Other Souls'; they're the souls that were cropping up after Zodiark first did its thing. They aren't capable of the Echo because they were never Ancients, although some of them still have some deep-seated memory of Amaurot's days, and whether or not they reincarnate as the same mass going in and out of the Lifestream or not is inconsequential for this explanation, because the Ascians don't consider them people. At any given point on the Source and the shards, there's always around the same number of Ancient souls in the system, constantly getting reincarnated. Everyone else on that world has one of the Other Souls. It's why there seemed to be such heavy concentration of Ancient souls capable of the Echo on the first--a lower population means more of that population has Ancient souls. But it also explains why some people just don't get the Echo ever, no questions, too bad (like, for example, the Scions who had every opportunity to awaken to it over 5.2 and 5.3). And finally, yes, Amaurot fuckin' sucks and seems really small and irrelevant the way we see it. That's actually intentional and brought up in the text, because the Amaurot we see is specifically Emet's memories of it, and and sin'ce Emet's far-as-we-know a lifetime politician, he remembers Amaurot's version of, essentially, the D.C. politics bubble. This is exactly the reason you go to Anemnesis Anyder; to get a look at Amaurot how it actually existed, rather than how Emet remembered it. And as an aside, to me Anemnesis cements exactly why we shouldn't take the line of 'Amaurot deserves to live again' that the Ascians have: we got exactly one look at the lives, feelings and opinions of Amaurot's people outside of the Convocation's/Ascian's bubble, and that one look was 'people agreeing to let Amaurot die so others may live'. Going by that, and the fact that side summoned a primal strong enough to kick Zodiark's rear end, that seems like the 'let Amaurot burn' party was probably pretty substantial. Cleretic fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Jan 9, 2021 |
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Jan 9, 2021 15:30
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Cleretic posted:And as an aside, to me Anemnesis cements exactly why we shouldn't take the line of 'Amaurot deserves to live again' that the Ascians have Uhhh yeah that's what the entire final confrontation in 5.0 is textually about. Not just the actual fight with the villain but your long digression talking to Hyd who tells you the specifics of what happened. Him telling you that was just there for exposition to show "No a lot of us just wanted to let the world move on.". Through your resolve and strength you even turn the villain (Not just in that fight but well before it given the Azem stone and contingency plan). It's why Hades's last line isn't "Please save them where I failed" it's just "Don't forget that we were here". It's why Elidibus's plan and fight is framed as such a desperate final struggle that ends with a child finally remembering and crying about just missing his friends before moving on. It's why you can repeat Emet's words back at him with "No fight left to fight". It's not sinister or you mocking him or taunting him, it's the truth. There was never a fight in the first place. The summoning of Hyderlyn was your people very bluntly saying "We don't want what you're fighting for any more." This is all explicitly what Emet's character arc and role in the plot was about. The 5.X stuff is just corroboration and confirmation that No He actually wasn't lying the whole time. ZenMasterBullshit fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Jan 9, 2021 |
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Jan 9, 2021 17:00
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Yeah, Emet's whole chance at being turned was his suicide by WoL. He understood that if he stopped viewing the sundered as shadows, he'd be guilty of some heinous poo poo. To me in Emet in ShB, he's someone who does what he does because it's all he's been able to do for far too long and he's looking for a way out. It's why he wants to show all this information to you, he wants you to agree with him. Though with my interpretation if that's actually Emet in the Seat of Sacrifice fight it kind of hurts what I like about his story. Namely that Emet had the foresight to not only plan if he won, but to plan if he lost, if you were worthy. Like the stone being an image of him and not him is so much more powerful to me because it helps add to his complexity as a character when he's still alive, rather than him being 'redeemed' in death. Also you know considering he got probably the biggest crystal death of all, it really begs the question of do these auracite things do poo poo at all if he can come back at any time?
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Jan 9, 2021 17:25
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Eimi posted:To me in Emet in ShB, he's someone who does what he does because it's all he's been able to do for far too long and he's looking for a way out. It's why he wants to show all this information to you, he wants you to agree with him. This has been my reading of him for a while, too. I simply don't think his actions at Mt. Gulg make any sense as a "real" villain. He's telling you where he is, and giving you ample reason to find him, because he thinks you might be the one person who's genuinely capable of finally stopping him and good-hearted enough to continue to protect and shepherd the new world that he cannot bring himself to love.
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Jan 9, 2021 17:34
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It's mentioned in the CT lore that Emperor Xande is a complete bastard and everyone hates him so that counts to Emet being a bastard manufacturer count imo 
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Jan 9, 2021 20:21
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Nah, the resurrected Xande was a bastard, the original is of unknown bastardy, but is assumed to be low.
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Jan 10, 2021 00:25
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He was still the ruler of an expanist empire forged by Emet-Selch to do conquest and imperialism, so at best he was a Gaius-tier idiot who didn't understand the consequences of his actions
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Jan 10, 2021 00:39
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Cleretic posted:it's why Emet-Selch never really figured out the Exarch Honestly, if any one of us were in Emet-Selch's position and fancy coat would any of us guess "the half rock catboy who nakedly wants to do the dirty with the warrior of light is a time/space traveler"?
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Jan 10, 2021 11:40
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Emet must have been loving pissed when he heard about Alexander breaking after learning it could travel through time.
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Jan 10, 2021 11:47
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the ascians should have just done what garlond ironworks did and figure out how to go back in time and prevent the final days, rather than commiting mega-genocide trying to rejoin everything. i guess that kind of sums up the difference between the fractured and the ascians; the people of future garlond ironworks were willing to give up their own lives for a chance at preventing the eighth umbral calamity, which if it succeeded would undo the timeline that led to their birth. but the ascians were willing to sacrifice everyone BUT themselves to save their world. the surviving unsundered even wanted to undo the willing sacrifice of their fellow ascians, who all seemed content to stay dead to let new life bloom. i do kind of get the vibe that the three unsundered we mostly interact with are just the three ascians who couldn't let go. it's most explicit with elidibus, but they all seem to have basically gone mad from grief. they're a super powered version of blackbosom, essentially. the thing that came out of nowhere to me was elidibus being a little kid. was it just symbolic of him being restored to a pure state, or did the OG ascians really sacrifice a child to power their god?
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Jan 10, 2021 11:58
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juggalo baby coffin posted:the thing that came out of nowhere to me was elidibus being a little kid. was it just symbolic of him being restored to a pure state, or did the OG ascians really sacrifice a child to power their god? There's a bit of argument RE: Elidibus being a "kid", but there's a side-story that at least depicts him as a youth, and he's possibly the youngest member of the Convocation. If he's not literally a kid or a teen or something, he's at minimum The New Guy. I'd like to think he's basically Alphinaud/Alisae's age.
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Jan 10, 2021 12:25
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NachtSieger posted:Honestly, if any one of us were in Emet-Selch's position and fancy coat would any of us guess "the half rock catboy who nakedly wants to do the dirty with the warrior of light is a time/space traveler"? No, because crucially he's not aware that time travel is even a possibility, because he can't do it. Since the the Ascians are the most capable people on the star just by nature, and they can't time travel, why would it ever be on the table? But if he were less intellectually lazy and capable of recognizing others have skills he doesn't, he'd probably have figured out that's plausible. Ascians are capable of time magic in a lesser sense (Nabriales cracks it out in the Chrysalis, and I believe other time-stops or similar have been used by them elsewhere but my memory's failing me), so it's not a complete non-entity to him that time can be manipulated. After that, you've gotta figure out a solution that accounts for the Crystal goddamn Tower appearing on the First out of nowhere. The Crystal Tower is obviously still there on the Source, so it can't have just been picked up and dropped off in the First without some extra factors. Yet at the same time, it's also clearly the exact same tower with the same Allagan workings (which, you know, he'd be able to recognize), rather than a case of parallel development. It still takes a few more logical connections to factor in that time travel was used, and even more to figure out precisely how, but I feel like 'time shenanigans' could've at least been somewhere on his mental corkboard. But then, maybe Nabriales' tricks were even looked down on among the Ascians for all we know.
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Jan 10, 2021 12:27
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FeatherFloat posted:There's a bit of argument RE: Elidibus being a "kid", but there's a side-story that at least depicts him as a youth, and he's possibly the youngest member of the Convocation. If he's not literally a kid or a teen or something, he's at minimum The New Guy.
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Jan 10, 2021 15:04
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I was watching the scene in the 2.X ending cutscene sequence where Alphinaud has his hood up, which includes a aether detector mask thing. Said mask is of a (now) quite familiar style. drat Sharlyans being knock-offs again.
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Jan 10, 2021 16:01
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Remember that the time travel in ShB did not, in fact, undo anything, it only created an alternate timeline. In the original timeline as witnessed in Tales from the Shadows the 8th umbral calamity happened as planned and both Emet Selch and Elidibus are presumably alive and well. I absolutely wouldn't put it past Emet to have realized this in 5.0, reasoned that restoring Zodiark only mattered in the original timeline, and decided to indulge his suicidal tendencies while arranging to mercy kill a heart of Zodiark who is permanently cut off from the actual thing.
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Jan 11, 2021 00:23
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I would, because again, Emet never figured out the 'time travel' angle. He neither had the evidence that such a thing is possible, nor the creativity to conceptualize that it was plausible. In the original timeline things were still going according to plan for the Ascians, they were just going according to a long plan. Umbral Eras usually last for centuries while the world gets back on its feet, and during that time the Ascians don't have a whole lot to do aside from quietly set up dominoes in the background. That's what they would've been doing. By the way: in terms of time travel rules, FFXIV appears to be on Back to the Future or Chrono Trigger rules, but without the 'timeline changes affect the traveler' part that both of them use (and Chrono Trigger forgets it included very quickly). So there's no aborted timeline variant that the Exarch came from floating around the multiverse, that future's just gone.
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Jan 11, 2021 01:01
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Cleretic posted:So there's no aborted timeline variant that the Exarch came from floating around the multiverse, that future's just gone. Except the tales from the shadow show the exact opposite of that. The 8th Umbral Era timeline still exists. We even see a bit of a hint at how their 8th Astral era would begin.
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Jan 11, 2021 01:09
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Is it explained what happened to Emet, Elidibus, and Zodiark in that timeline? Did the Rejoining happen and it's a totally separate world from that timeline's Source? Or did it fail, and Team Zodiark killed a shitload of people for nothing?
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Jan 11, 2021 01:17
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I wouldn't be surprised if alternate timeline Zenos hunted them down as soon as he learned what happened to us
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Jan 11, 2021 01:22
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Eox posted:I wouldn't be surprised if alternate timeline Zenos hunted them down as soon as he learned what happened to us Or the black rose that was connected to light aether just...hosed up all those shadow ghosts real strong. All the ascian plans around this rejoining, from Ultima to Thordan to The WoDs to Black rose all seemed really really slipshod and slapped together, especially on their timeline. Really wouldn't be surprised if they got got by it.
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Jan 11, 2021 01:26
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:Except the tales from the shadow show the exact opposite of that. The 8th Umbral Era timeline still exists. We even see a bit of a hint at how their 8th Astral era would begin. Yeah, that's explicitly what happens. The bad future still exists in a separate timeline even though the Black Rose calamity was prevented in our timeline. Even G'raha comments on it when he doesn't just disappear and instead keeps on existing after you kill Emet. So presumably in that timeline, the remaining Ascians are still alive and well and one step closer to their goal. I'm sure another WoL will pop up sooner or later, plus they have Midgardsormr's help, but Team Zodiark certainly seems to be winning that timeline. Chillgamesh posted:Is it explained what happened to Emet, Elidibus, and Zodiark in that timeline? Did the Rejoining happen and it's a totally separate world from that timeline's Source? Or did it fail, and Team Zodiark killed a shitload of people for nothing? They're not mentioned in either of the two Tales from the Shadows stories, but seeing as how they were planning for another calamity and the WoL just died instead of going to the First, I don't see why it wouldn't have worked out in their favor seeing as they can just go chill for however many hundreds of years. It's like in Terminator where the original bad future still exists separate from the altered non-apocalyptic timeline (T3+ doesn't count).
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Jan 11, 2021 01:29
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Chillgamesh posted:Is it explained what happened to Emet, Elidibus, and Zodiark in that timeline? Did the Rejoining happen and it's a totally separate world from that timeline's Source? Or did it fail, and Team Zodiark killed a shitload of people for nothing? It isn't made clear but odds are pretty good everything went to poo poo anyway. The First was an iota away from turning into a new Void and honestly had probably either fallen or was just about to fall. Remember that in the original timeline there was no Crystal Tower Catboy and no Warrior of Light so it was basically Vauthry unopposed. Black Rose seemed to have just hosed poo poo up really good and it's very possible that between those two they accidentally ended up creating another Void situation where a world couldn't rejoin and so the Source was scoured for nothing and now they have to wait for the next potential Calamity. If you also take into account all the removal of Catboy's Deus Ex Call then the Warrior of Light also probably wrecked Elidibus-in-Zenos's poo poo which meant Zenos couldn't get his body back and he probably got Black Rose'd too. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Jan 11, 2021 |
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Jan 11, 2021 01:32
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Chillgamesh posted:Is it explained what happened to Emet, Elidibus, and Zodiark in that timeline? Did the Rejoining happen and it's a totally separate world from that timeline's Source? Or did it fail, and Team Zodiark killed a shitload of people for nothing? Unclear, but again, presumably they pulled off that Rejoining and moved back into the shadows. The Ascians normally do their work deep in secret, it's only in the course of the game as it is right now that they've been working more openly, mostly because the fact they got to do another Calamity so soon caught them off-guard and they had to make some more overt plays to get another one going. The 'Ascian usual' is basically how they were in 1.0: barely there, and only appearing in very sketchy and plausibly-deniable ways to set potentially Calamity-causing things in motion. They tend to have a lot of those balls rolling because they can't perfectly predict which one will end up most suitable.
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Jan 11, 2021 01:36
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ImpAtom posted:It isn't made clear but odds are pretty good everything went to poo poo anyway. The First was an iota away from turning into a new Void and honestly had probably either fallen or was just about to fall. Remember that in the original timeline there was no Crystal Tower Catboy and no Warrior of Light so it was basically Vauthry unopposed. Black Rose seemed to have just hosed poo poo up really good and it's very possible that between those two they accidentally ended up creating another Void situation where a world couldn't rejoin and so the Source was scoured for nothing and now they have to wait for the next potential Calamity. Elidibus shanks Catboy and says his spirit is unusually strong so I assume that means from his future the rejoining actually went through and he's got that extra soul in him from the First.
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Jan 11, 2021 02:35
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they said that in the eighth calamity timeline black rose was made extra strong by a flood of light aether from the impending rejoining with the first. light is the element of stasis and black rose stops the flow of aether in people. i guess now that the first is no longer being destroyed by light, black rose would be much weaker in the source even if it was unleashed.
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Jan 11, 2021 03:34
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Bruceski posted:Elidibus shanks Catboy and says his spirit is unusually strong so I assume that means from his future the rejoining actually went through and he's got that extra soul in him from the First. That could also just be because he's from the Source, while Elidibus was expecting someone from the First.
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Jan 11, 2021 03:40
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juggalo baby coffin posted:they said that in the eighth calamity timeline black rose was made extra strong by a flood of light aether from the impending rejoining with the first. light is the element of stasis and black rose stops the flow of aether in people. i guess now that the first is no longer being destroyed by light, black rose would be much weaker in the source even if it was unleashed. Yeah, this is confirmed basically by Bahamut compared to the Heavensward dragons. Bahamut was empowered by the rejoining which is why he was such a big drat deal; he would've likely been as strong as any of the rest of the First Brood (or even Shinryu, the other primal formed out of the full strength of a dragon), which is still nothing to sneeze at, but the rejoining provides a huge influx of aether that then got used.
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Jan 11, 2021 03:48
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Zack Ater posted:That could also just be because he's from the Source, while Elidibus was expecting someone from the First.
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Jan 11, 2021 04:13
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When you talk to G'raha when he's hanging out after returning to the Source, but before starting the 5.4 MSQ, he confirms that the memory/soul transfer granted him the extra soul density that the Exarch had from experiencing the 8th rejoining. (Also that the other pieces of his soul that were shared in common resonated in some manner, but did not further increase in density. So he's currently in the same 9/14ths rejoined position as the WoL, and not some 17/14ths Super Ancient soul-haver.)
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Jan 11, 2021 04:13
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Cleretic posted:No, because crucially he's not aware that time travel is even a possibility, because he can't do it. Since the the Ascians are the most capable people on the star just by nature, and they can't time travel, why would it ever be on the table? I think you're letting your dislike of Emet-Selch cloud your thinking, because we, as in the human us, aren't aware that time travel is a possibility, because we can't do it, and I'm pretty sure if some person showed up and was like "sup, time travel exists," every single person would be "loving excuse me?" I'm not sure this is a track that should or could be taken.
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Jan 11, 2021 06:00
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:Or the black rose that was connected to light aether just...hosed up all those shadow ghosts real strong. All the ascian plans around this rejoining, from Ultima to Thordan to The WoDs to Black rose all seemed really really slipshod and slapped together, especially on their timeline. Really wouldn't be surprised if they got got by it. It does make a bit of sense, considering most Calamities have a gap of centuries between them while this one was cut off before it could completely destroy the world thanks to Louisoix. So they might as well get started on the next early. Then Logrif and Mitron hosed up the First and suddenly they needed a light-aspected Calamity ASAP or else another shard goes the way of the Thirteenth, so they just started throwing plans at the wall in the hopes that something sticks.
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Jan 11, 2021 07:35
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NachtSieger posted:I think you're letting your dislike of Emet-Selch cloud your thinking, because we, as in the human us, aren't aware that time travel is a possibility, because we can't do it, and I'm pretty sure if some person showed up and was like "sup, time travel exists," every single person would be "loving excuse me?" That said, small-scale time manipulation magic is common enough in the setting that you might expect a millennia-old archmage to give the occasional thought to upscaling it. We don't live in a world where astrologians exist, for instance.
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Jan 11, 2021 08:00
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BisbyWorl posted:It does make a bit of sense, considering most Calamities have a gap of centuries between them while this one was cut off before it could completely destroy the world thanks to Louisoix. So they might as well get started on the next early. Yeah, this is more or less what happened, although we can generally infer that the required timing for a Rejoining is at least a little generous. We know that Ardbert loving up Loghrif and Mitron was roughly around Heavensward, since the 'Plan A' for the whole thing was actually Thordan; the Eden Incident wasn't exactly according to plan, but from 3.0 through to 5.0 it was salvageable. It was Minfilia and Ardbert's crew that saved the First from becoming a Light-Void without a Calamity to meet it, but only because we were choking every single other contingency plan they had to cause one; Alexander, Elidibus' plan for Ardbert's crew (although that might've just been Elidibus trying to get us out of the way), likely the Warring Triad, and finally Shinryu. After Minfilia it was on the brink, but it was a brink that they could've pushed it over; the struggle was getting the Source ready, not the First.
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Jan 11, 2021 08:21
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