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My own guess/theory is that the WoL is an artificial soul, a being constructed by Hydaelyn/Venat. Hydaelyn was getting weaker, the Ascians were getting bolder, a second calamity was coming just years after the last so they fished Azem's soul out of the lifestream and padded it with bits of the souls of past warriors of light to make a complete person. Then you wake up on a carriage or ship headed for the city with no past and nothing but a strong instinct to help people.
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Oct 21, 2021 21:21
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FuturePastNow posted:My own guess/theory is that the WoL is an artificial soul, a being constructed by Hydaelyn/Venat. Hydaelyn was getting weaker, the Ascians were getting bolder, a second calamity was coming just years after the last so they fished Azem's soul out of the lifestream and padded it with bits of the souls of past warriors of light to make a complete person. Then you wake up on a carriage or ship headed for the city with no past and nothing but a strong instinct to help people. It’s certainly possible but I would really hate that because I’ve come up with my own backstory for my own WoL in my head and I think that’s decently common.
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Oct 21, 2021 21:26
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Yeah that steps on backstories in a way the Azem stuff doesn't and I think the developers are aware that keeping the WoL's life before the start of 1.0 and/or ARR as vague as possible is something the community would prefer.
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Oct 21, 2021 21:40
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I'm me, he says.
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Oct 21, 2021 21:48
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jokes posted:How did you feel about *breathes in deeply* Minfilia- effectively written out of the story and then confirmed dead Yshtola- her dying in ShB would have been massively underwhelming and the ES bringing her back was neat Ascians- any ascians that we confirmed killed off permanently coming back would be bullshit and so far they haven’t, with the exception of ES’s curtain call Yshtola- being written as in indefinite peril, “lost in the aether” is not the same as dead” Middy- effectively out of the story, but was explicitly confirmed not permanently dead Zenos- him coming back was kind of bullshit, yeah. Ardbert- never killed off in HW, just went home only to become a ghost and then fusioned with us
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Oct 21, 2021 21:49
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Maybe I'm misremembering, but was Zodiark/Hydalyn tempering everyone actually confirmed? I remember Emet being asked that and he goes "hm, maybe, that'd explain a lot" but not going more concrete than that.
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Oct 21, 2021 21:50
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Pigbuster posted:Maybe I'm misremembering, but was Zodiark/Hydalyn tempering everyone actually confirmed? I remember Emet being asked that and he goes "hm, maybe, that'd explain a lot" but not going more concrete than that. you have to talk to him in between all the main story bits for grandpa's lore dumps. he outright says he's tempered
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Oct 21, 2021 21:53
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Pigbuster posted:Maybe I'm misremembering, but was Zodiark/Hydalyn tempering everyone actually confirmed? I remember Emet being asked that and he goes "hm, maybe, that'd explain a lot" but not going more concrete than that. At least one of the convocation stones makes mention of them feeling their own soul being changed - likely what we call tempering. A primal tempering all of their summoners, but not necessarily everyone else in the city/country/whatever, is in line with what we know about summoning. Presumably Hydaelyn tempered her summoners as well, the ones that survived anyways. Ysale/Shiva is a weird case, because she's the only direct summoner, but she still has prayer and stuff going her way. Other primals will by existence temper their surroundings, but it's a gradual and potentially slow process unless enforced by the primal's will.
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Oct 21, 2021 21:55
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CJ posted:Not sure how i feel about that moment. It was a cool reveal to find out he's helping you but it kind of takes away from the finality of murdering the last living Ascian when he's just chilling as a ghost.
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Oct 21, 2021 21:55
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Orcs and Ostriches posted:At least one of the convocation stones makes mention of them feeling their own soul being changed - likely what we call tempering. A primal tempering all of their summoners, but not necessarily everyone else in the city/country/whatever, is in line with what we know about summoning. Presumably the Ascians were Tempered more like Tiamat was, where they are aware of it, but able to ignore it somewhat unless the one that did it was, you know, right there.
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Oct 21, 2021 22:33
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Ruzihm posted:And it makes it that much cooler that emet-selch saves you from elidibus - he wasn't saving you because he realized zodiark wasn't likely capable - he saved you despite his old dream being within grasp. I wouldn’t go so far as to say within grasp. Elidibus was too hosed up and broken to realistically see the project through at that point. The dream died with Emet.
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Oct 21, 2021 22:51
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Captain Oblivious posted:I wouldn’t go so far as to say within grasp. Elidibus was too hosed up and broken to realistically see the project through at that point. The dream died with Emet. Yep absolutely. He did what he did because he knew what Elidibus was really like and that once he died, leaving this primal with holes in his memories would just be cruel. Even if Elidibus had killed us, he would never have been able to bring about the rejoining on his own. That's why Emet left behind the means for the WoL to defeat him should we take Emet out first.
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Oct 21, 2021 23:06
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I don't really get Elidibus's deal. Why did he sometimes oppose the Ascians? Was it to stop them loving up like the 13th? Even then, i feel like he wouldn't have to oppose them. It's not like they wanted another situation like that.
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Oct 21, 2021 23:09
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Captain Oblivious posted:I wouldn’t go so far as to say within grasp. Elidibus was too hosed up and broken to realistically see the project through at that point. The dream died with Emet. Theres no way to know for sure, and you're right that he was very messed up. At the same time, Unukalhai isn't shy about telling us that he thinks Elidibus could have still completed his mission were it not for the WoL
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Oct 21, 2021 23:18
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TGLT posted:Which ties neatly into one of the other major narrative threads in Shadowbringers - that the new have a right to their existence and the old don't have a right to take that away from them. Which is depressing when.... *waves vaguely at everything going on in the modern world*
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Oct 21, 2021 23:28
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CJ posted:I don't really get Elidibus's deal. Why did he sometimes oppose the Ascians? Was it to stop them loving up like the 13th? Even then, i feel like he wouldn't have to oppose them. It's not like they wanted another situation like that. Elidibus has a funky M.O., partly because he's mentally kinda broken. But generally speaking, he 'sometimes opposes the Ascians' to set up a win-win scenario; when both the heroes and villains of a story are their pawns, that means they never lose. Unfortunately for them, Heavensward hosed that one up on both ends, as both Thordan and the Scions found ways to throw off the shackles. The reason the Warriors of Darkness were brought in was to try to knock the remaining rogue pieces off the board; but then, like every other person on the planet at the time, Elidibus forgot about Urianger.
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Oct 21, 2021 23:43
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...No he didn't. He recruited Urianger, but did not account for a double cross.
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Oct 22, 2021 00:11
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He definitely forgot about Urianger after spending almost every one of his appearances in 2.55 and 3.X trying to court Urianger to his point of view. I don't know how you forgot this, it's how Alisae finally got added to the MSQ cause she started to trail The Nerd cause she thought he was doing bad poo poo.
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Oct 22, 2021 00:14
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SirSamVimes posted:...No he didn't. He recruited Urianger, but did not account for a double cross. Saying that he underestimated Urianger, while technically more accurate, doesn't work as well for the joke. But thank you for confirming everything else was accurate by jumping on the one thing I was saying as a gag.
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Oct 22, 2021 00:17
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It was a solid gag considering Urianger's lack of presence in the story. And yeah, the rest of the post seems about right.
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Oct 22, 2021 00:18
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CJ posted:Not sure how i feel about that moment. It was a cool reveal to find out he's helping you but it kind of takes away from the finality of murdering the last living Ascian when he's just chilling as a ghost. He's sleeping now 
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Oct 22, 2021 02:51
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Emet’s fail safe to ensure Elidibus passes on is interesting. Unulkalhai is probably right that Elidibus could probably do the rest of the rejoinings by himself. But Emet likely did not trust or believe Elidibus could bring the ancients back. And how could he? He doesn’t even remember his closest friends.
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Oct 22, 2021 13:36
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M.c.P posted:Emet’s fail safe to ensure Elidibus passes on is interesting. Unulkalhai is probably right that Elidibus could probably do the rest of the rejoinings by himself. I mean, it's not framed in the story as a passive failsafe, but as an active decision - and not just for Elidibus but for you and the rest of the Sundered. He makes his choice in your favor.
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Oct 22, 2021 18:39
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I interpreted it as, Emet was such a planner and a plotter and a schemer that he even planned for the possibility that he was wrong and you were worthy. But it takes souls some time to dissolve into the lifestream, presumably longer the denser they are, so it makes sense that he was watching and still had just enough self left to help.
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Oct 22, 2021 19:04
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CJ posted:I don't really get Elidibus's deal. Why did he sometimes oppose the Ascians? Was it to stop them loving up like the 13th? Even then, i feel like he wouldn't have to oppose them. It's not like they wanted another situation like that. Elidibus helping the heroes out kind of reflects his role in the big schemes the unsundered had going on. Emet created powerful and morally bankrupt empires that worked to create the conditions required to render worlds vulnerable to a Rejoining, Lahabrea created or helped put into motion the monsters required to catalyze the events of a Rejoining, and Dibs would manipulate the heroes in an attempt to ensure they were a controlled opposition. Basically my read is that the entire cycle of great threat, heroes vanquishing said threat is something they wanted to account for and to do that they needed to ensure both sides were dancing to their tune. Though by this point they have failed multiple times.
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Oct 22, 2021 19:15
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Xarbala posted:Elidibus helping the heroes out kind of reflects his role in the big schemes the unsundered had going on. Emet created powerful and morally bankrupt empires that worked to create the conditions required to render worlds vulnerable to a Rejoining, Lahabrea created or helped put into motion the monsters required to catalyze the events of a Rejoining, and Dibs would manipulate the heroes in an attempt to ensure they were a controlled opposition. yea, Emet made a great organized threat to serve as a basically permanent antagonistic force, Laha focused on creating and empowering massive unique threats that would kick things into overdrive, and Eli went around catalyzing heroic types and pointing them at the obvious dangers of the big unified empire or uniquely dangerous monster so they focused on that rather than investigating the Ascians
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Oct 22, 2021 19:37
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I figure that Elidibus occasionally opposed Ascians when they were getting out of hand. I got the feeling that they were a lot more narrow-minded and sometimes driven by more selfish motives. Broadly speaking, all the Ascians are aligned in their goals but some are more impatient and none of them have real oversight most of the time.
Argas fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Oct 22, 2021 |
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Oct 22, 2021 19:47
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Argas posted:I figure that Elidibus occasionally opposed Ascians when they were getting out of hand. I got the feeling that they were a lot more narrow-minded and sometimes driven by more selfish motives. Broadly speaking, all the Ascians are aligned in their goals but some are more impatient and none of them have real oversight most of the time. He might also have stepped in if Ascians were going mad with power in their off hours (or, potentially, if they were low-key helping the wrong people too much).
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Oct 22, 2021 19:57
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Nessus posted:I suspect some of the parts where Elidibus "opposed Ascians" were either when he could tell their plans were poo poo, or then they were burying one angle in favor of another one. Like they clearly shifted gears twice in fairly close succession (first from the Bahamut situation to Ultima, then from the Ultima Weapon to Thordan) and I imagine a lot of the low-grade Ascians were, basically, spies. I mean the low ranked Ascians were primarily just supposed to be causing chaos for the most part. In ARR you see Ascians trying to stir up a more general conflict between Ixal and Gridania, a zombie apocalypse in Ul'dah, and a series of mass kidnappings in Limsa. The were also presumably behind the whole situation at Haukke Manor. None of these things are supposed to cause a calamity, they're just there to give heroes something to do other than stop whatever major plan the Ascians actually care about.
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Oct 22, 2021 20:10
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Nessus posted:Like they clearly shifted gears twice in fairly close succession (first from the Bahamut situation to Ultima, then from the Ultima Weapon to Thordan) and I imagine a lot of the low-grade Ascians were, basically, spies. Small clarification, Bahamut *worked*. That was a legitimate Rejoining. The surprise was that the damage managed to be contained so well that Lahabrea could get greedy and try spinning another one up right away without waiting for the world to recover.
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Oct 22, 2021 20:20
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It's also crucial to remember that Emet's approach is rarely ever overtly causing calamities himself, he just creates societies with key points for corruption and decay. And a heroic struggle can, in itself, cause catastrophic side effects as a result of warfare. Overthrowing Garlemald for example may well be necessary to make it useful later for the Ascians, and even possibly cause Calamities as a result - the Black Rose crisis for example, which is a natural result of heroic opposition. Sensible empires don't want to destroy the world, they live there! But decadent, desperate autocrats drunk on privilege and the racism and selfishness of generations of decay from an initial point of prosperity just might., particularly if faced by a competent heroic opposition.
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Oct 22, 2021 20:21
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Basically the Ascians are constantly playing an exceptionally delicate and dangerous game with every shard. They need to prime reflections for a rejoining, but they also need The Source aligned to the same element/polarity, and neither of these can be allowed to progress beyond just the right amount of build up or you get the losing situation that turned the 13th to The Void and nearly saw The First similarly lost to light. Add in the fact that time can apparently flow at different rates across the reflections and the Ascians might have to forestall the doom they created that threatens to claim a reflection for years while they work to bring The Source into matching alignment (or vice versa). Not to mention usually having to give The Source centuries or millennia to rebuild its civilizations to the point conditions can be brought to a rejoining again after the last calamity. Galaga Galaxian fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Oct 22, 2021 |
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Oct 22, 2021 20:31
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So the Ascians wanted to rejoin all the shards and then … ? Remake Amaurot? Sacrifice everything to Zodiark? With what happened to the 13th they never would have been the same.
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Oct 22, 2021 20:32
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Zodiark would be mostly complete and that might be enough to sacrifice everything that's still around and try to repair some damage. He might be able to repair the 13th for that matter. Unukalhai seems to be planning something to that extent, and if people could feasibly fix it, the entity that can rewrite the laws of reality should be able to. It's either that and just give up, which they can't do for multiple reasons.
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Oct 22, 2021 20:39
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Every rejoining increases Zodiarks power, I assume once they’ve done enough he’ll break free of the ever-weakening Hydaelyn’s shackles and then Zodiark himself will have the power to finish the rejoinings and even probably fix the 13th (he fixed the very laws of reality after all… supposedly). There are undoubtedly flaws in the Ascians plans and Emet at least seemed to understand that (if tried to deny it) but from their perspective they just can’t give up because it might not work.
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Oct 22, 2021 20:39
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jokes posted:So the Ascians wanted to rejoin all the shards and then … ? I mean, they were working on a plan with Cylva to shunt the excess light from the First to the Thirteenth. The thing about the Ascian plan that makes it "make sense," though, is twofold. 1: The Ascians, fundamentally, do not think - officially - the Source and its reflections are real places. They see them as fragmented pieces of a real place, and their denizens as mere shattered fragments of the whole people they "ought" to be. So from that perspective, Rejoinings aren't omnicide, they're repair. Emet's plan is only something he can justify by, in effect, seeing it as fixing an injury. Sure, they say they'll sacrifice the inhabitants of the Source to Zodiark, but it's also something they go back and forth on - when Emet is trying to convince you he argues you personally will benefit, which given that Emet canonically never lies to us suggests that yes, he actually does think at least the inheritors of Ancient souls will ultimately be incorporated into the restored Source. And this comes back to what I've said before about how we're not actually sure what the identity of the "new life" that the Ancients were discussing sacrificed was. Certainly Emet threatens that they'll offer up the "remaining inhabitants of the Source in sacrifice," but that doesn't gel with his earlier descriptions or, honestly, his treatment of the Scions. 2: They're desperate and traumatized and desperately need therapy but are instead clinging to a utopian redemption and restoration. In a sense, most Ascians' attitude towards Amaurot is almost diasporic - it's not just A Place anymore, it's a redemptive, perfect state. It's what gets them through the eons. If they weren't Tempered, and weren't so haunted by the trauma of the Final Days, they'd probably have been able to accept that the prior Amaurot was gone forever and that their loved ones live on anew in the new worlds - but they can't do that, not least of which because their own memories and cultural isolation cut them off from any sort of community that could give them a place to belong again. Emet, remember, is heavily implied to have repeatedly wavered and gone native whenever he spent long enough building a given nation. Honestly, I almost wonder if part of the problem is that the soul crystals just dump all the trauma of surviving a literally apocalyptic experience right into the reincarnated Ascian's brain. Or maybe part of the problem is that from the Ascian perspective, the entire history of the Source and Shards - and we don't actually know how long the Shards' relative histories are, given the time differences; it's entirely possible the Shards are generally younger or generally older than the Source - is just the second-act threatened destruction of the world right before their heroic third-act "fixing everything the way it was, but better" puts it all to rights. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Oct 22, 2021 |
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Oct 22, 2021 20:42
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So what do you all think of the Pandaemonium description. quote:Far beneath the ground upon which mortals tread, steeped in darkness deep as starless night, ancient power lies dormant. Too hungry, too brutal, too monstrous─what cannot be controlled must be contained, here, in Pandæmonium. Dare you make the descent? Is it an forbidden Ancient summon? Is it the source of The Sound?
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Oct 22, 2021 20:52
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Dare you enter Lahabrea's magical realm?
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Oct 22, 2021 20:59
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I'm incredibly doubtful they'd put the source of The Sound in an optional raid. That said, it's not impossible. I would have said the same about Omega. My guess is it's some power the Ascians tried to make use of, but it went out of control in a way they couldn't make use of. Therefore, rather than fighting against the remaining Ascians, we're fighting with them.
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Oct 22, 2021 21:03
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Onean posted:I'm incredibly doubtful they'd put the source of The Sound in an optional raid. That said, it's not impossible. I would have said the same about Omega. My guess is it's some power the Ascians tried to make use of, but it went out of control in a way they couldn't make use of. Therefore, rather than fighting against the remaining Ascians, we're fighting with them. I mean, I feel like dealing with “The Sound” in a raid series would be a pretty decent way to handle things. If they want a clean break for stories beyond 6.0, you probably wouldn’t want to make The Sound the next major story because it ties too much to the current story, and, personally, I don’t find the concept interesting enough to carry a multi-expansion story arc. But that’s just my opinion.
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Oct 22, 2021 21:06
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