Revelations from Patch 3.4

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Originally Posted by Cilia

The problem with time travel is you have to get used to fluidity in the flow of time. It's not too hard to grasp once you do, but it's like this:

1. Mide, Dayan, and the others are born in the (relatively) recent past. They assemble and summon Alexander.
2. The events of the Alexander raid play out.
3. Alexander sends Mide and Dayan into the distant past to live out their lives as members (or possibly as the founders) of the Hotgo tribe, taking with them Roundrox' Codex fragment and the idea of Alexander, leading to 1.

So, temporally speaking, our distant past is their future. It is, as Quickthinx says, a closed circle, just like with his attempt to make Alexander turn us into ash:

1. Quickthinx freezes us in time and tries to force Alexander to atomize us.
2. Our future selves, having been deemed worthy by Alexander, save us from being turned to ash.
3. We engage Alexander Prime and prove ourselves worthy, allowing our present selves to save our past selves. If we don't, it causes a temporal paradox that kills us.

Alexander did judge us, just as Quickthinx wanted - in the future - and found us worthy. So he was doomed to fail from the first. The "time is a closed circle" is really funny coming from Quickthinx, when you think about it. For a gobbie clank who considers himself enlightened, he sure is dim if he doesn't understand you can't change the past even with time travel...

As I said earlier, don't even ask where or when Alexander and Schrodinger / Shanoa began to exist. They're temporal singularities; there is no logical answer.

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Just one small correction:

Mide and Dayan never actually summoned Alexander. They attempted the summoning but were interrupted by the future Alexander jumping back in time. The original (and only) summoning of Alexander was when Quickthinx summoned him in the present.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

Just one small correction:

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Ohh, okay, that makes sense. So if I get it right, it's like this:

1. Dayan, Mide, and the other Auri treasure hunters assemble Alexander and attempt to summon him. However, it's actually Alexander from 3 years in the future jumping back in time.
2. The Illuminati properly summon Alexander, leading to the events of the Alexander raid.
3. Alexander sends Mide and Dayan back in time with Roundrox' Codex fragment and the idea of Alexander, and they live out their lives as the founders of the Hotgo tribe, leading to 1.

It all makes sense now! Or at least as much sense as it can when a temporal singularity is involved...

I think I covered it all in my first assembly of the timeline, which integrated all the loops and details. Why does it taste like copper in here?

In regards to the WoD, I had thought the Crystals of Light acted as their "anchors" to the realm of the living in the same way that Ascians use their Black Auracite (or whatever it is that those black crystals are.)

The deal was in giving their powers, and crystals, back to Hydaelyn, it would free the Word to reverse the flood of light, and they simply asked to be permitted to return to their own world's Lifestream verses fading into the Source's.


It makes me think the the crystals act as a resistor to one's own aether fading into the natural flow in the world you currently occupy.... But how do the crystals move?

Thanks all for trying to explain it. :D I think I understand it better now. Just still one small point:

If they are founders or their tribe they are still kinda their own ancestors right? Because they are born in our time thus they needed parents, grandparents and so on. But at least I know understand that they are not reborn :) Since they truly never died in our future.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Thanks all for trying to explain it. :D I think I understand it better now. Just still one small point:

If they are founders or their tribe they are still kinda their own ancestors right? Because they are born in our time thus they needed parents, grandparents and so on. But at least I know understand that they are not reborn :) Since they truly never died in our future.

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Yep, that's right, which is certainly kinda weird. I actually wonder how this all fits in with the rise of the Au Ra as a race in general..

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Thanks all for trying to explain it. :D I think I understand it better now. Just still one small point:

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Essentially, yes.

Mide and Dayan are their own distant ancestors, though to be fair there's probably some mingling among the Xaela tribes. Hey, at least it's better than that episode of Futurama where Fry goes back in time and becomes his own direct grandfather...

Breaking it down, there are no less than three time loops involving Alexander. I'm going to put them in chronological order from our perspective, though to be fair you can put the first as the last and vice versa.

The first surrounds his conceptualization.

1. Alexander returns Mide and Dayan to the distant past with Roundrox Codex fragment and the idea of him, and they found the Hotgo tribe and live out their lives. The idea is passed down in the tribe until near past Mide and Dayan work with the other Auri treasure hunters and assemble Alexander.
2. The events of the Alexander raid play out.
3. Mide throws herself into Alexander's core to shut him down, and Roundrox gives Schrodinger her Codex fragment who returns it to within Alexander, leading to 1.

The second surrounds his summoning 3 years ago.

1. The Illuminati summon Alexander after we defeat the Knights of the Round. A1 through A9 play out.
2. When we go to rescue Roundrox, she engages Alexander's time warp mechanism in her delirium, sending us three years into the past. Standing on top of Alexander, Schrodinger knocks Backrix' journal chronicling the events surrounding Alexander up through A10 out of his hands to the ground and tumbles down with it. The Illuminati kill the other Auri treasure hunters, Dayan is absorbed by Alexander, Mide seals Alexander in the lake, the Enigma Codex is shattered, and Quickthinx acquires Backrix' prophetic journal and adopts Schrodinger as his pet (renaming her "Shanoa").
3. With Backrix' journal as a guide, Quickthinx has the Illuminati summon Alexander in 1 above, leading to 2.

The last is the smallest and least intricate - it's how Alexander passed judgment on us.

1. Quickthinx traps us in a suspended time bubble and has Alexander pass Judgment on us. We're unfrozen at the last moment and survive.
2. We engage Alexander Prime in the Soul of the Creator and prove ourselves worthy, surviving Divine Judgment.
3. We go into the past and save our past selves from Alexander's Judgment in 1 above. Otherwise we've failed 2, and if we don't go save our past selves it creates a temporal paradox.

The latter two loops are nested in the first, but it is all ultimately one big loop. Nothing we did really changed anything, because the events of Alexander already happened and replay infinitely in a temporal loop. We couldn't change anything because then the circumstances setting up the events of Alexander wouldn't play out and it would create a temporal paradox like with "Judgment Loop 3" above.

Try not to think about it too hard. It'll just hurt your brain.

On the finale and Alisaie:

Between the whole fancy Aetherial Blade summoning, the this-is-blatantly-a-Limit-Break super move she did with full in engine animations, and her after action comments that what she did is a formal school of magic rather than just some trick she picked up on her journey of self reflection...

I can only assume that this is meant to be a 2.2 style teasing of a new Job. Presumably Mystic Knight or Rune Fencer, whichever translation they go with.

In case this hasn't been discovered yet, you can have a full on conversation with Urianger about the events of the patch, in the Waking Sands.

Who was the narrator for 3.4? Can anyone tell me? I thought it was Papalymo, but I wasnt sure.

is yda a princess???

The narrator was Papalymo. A bit hard to make out because it's the first time we've heard him in EN since the recasting, but it's him.

Despite popular opinion, do not think Yda is a princess. Her father was a prominent member of the insurgency against the King of Ruin, not the King himself. Go have another chat with Gundobald.