Is it even possible for the Ascians to succeed?

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

That's the closest I can find

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Oh, jeez; I guess I could see how that could be read multiple ways. That's gonna come back to haunt me for the rest of the summer, isn't it.

As far as I can tell from the other languages, this is part of the Ascians' sales pitch to her: not that the Thirteenth can be saved, but that she can redeem herself for its fall by rejoining the First. The Ascians are saying that her failure to prevent the Flood of Darkness is why the Thirteenth fell, and because the Thirteenth fell, the shard directly opposite (The First) it is damned to fall to an eventual Flood of Light because the cosmos likes equilibrium. Ergo, they're saying that a Flood of Light befalling the First is in part her fault. The Rejoining would prevent the First from becoming a void, and thus rejoining the First is her redemption. She could be part of preventing the First from becoming a useless "World of Nothing."

The plan was to put the "inevitable" rise of the Light under some semblance of control by setting the stage for a Calamity, beckoning the creation of Warriors of Light whom the Light would gather around. The Shadowkeeper secretly led to this, creating disasters to support their growth while using that influence to create more disasters; on and on the feedback loop turned. When the Light had gathered (tilting all elements umbrally and beginning the diffusion into the Source), she would strike them down, delaying the Flood while the Ascians triggered the Calamity on the Source and broke the membrane between dimensions.

I don't see anything in here that would fix the Thirteenth; does anyone else?

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Originally Posted by Big-Isaac

The whole "flood of darkness" thing doesn't make a lot of sense to me, tbh.
"Darkness" and "Void" are not supposed to be the same thing. Darkness is just another element like fire, water, light or wind. Void meanwhile isn't an aspect; it's the lack of all aspects. It's supposed to be some kind of entropic force that tries to reduce everything to nothing.
So if a flood of darkness turned the 13th into void, then how is a flood of light supposed to fix it?

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Terms in FFXIV are much more specific then how you are portraying them here.

Darkness is not an element in FFXIV. It is an energy type, specifically the energy type associated with "activity". In the same way, Light is not an element either, but the energy type associated with "stasis". All elements can be charged with either of those energy types. The effects of the charges are what the elemental polarities are. You have Astral polarity for "active" aether (aether with Darkness energy). And the Umbral polarity for "static" aether (aether with Light energy). Neither are better or worse then the other either. Both are needed and both can be bad under the right circumstances.

In a similar way, the Void isn't just void of elements. In fact, it's even void of entropy. Entropy would probably be considered "Darkness" in FFXIV as Darkness if anything. The Void is called the Void because there is no aether in it.

It is very, very likely that what the Ascians told Cyella was completely made up so that she would help them create the circumstances for a Calamity of Light on the 1st Shard. They do like manipulating people a lot.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

Spoiler-blocked for size and obvious spoilers for the final role questline:

https://i.imgur.com/EHqxeo2.jpg

That's the closest I can find, although I admit that it's phrased in implicit terms rather than explicit. If the intent of that dialogue was to say that a near-Flood of Light on the First would help "balance out" the Flood of Darkness on the Thirteenth, it kind of skips over the steps of how.

So I'm not actually sure if we're intended to read that dialogue in that way. Or if, as is the usual Ascian methodology, they heavily hint and imply but don't actually say it, because they're lying by omissions and implications, and content to let their patsies believe something erroneous in order to further their own schemes.

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The way I read it was that

The Ascians convinced Cylva that instead a Flood of Light was inevitable thanks to there being a Flood of Darkness, and the only way she could save the First and make up for her failure to save the 13th was to rejoin the First

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

We also were told that the Flood of Light would achieve the same result on the first, that it would be reduced to a void of light. As we have come to learn even the Empty, a place that is a void of light, can be restored through the use of the systems behind the flood.

It would also make for a good expansion story to be going and restoring the ability for the 13th to sustain life for the wayward souls that arrived on the source/first from that shard.

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Well then Koji must have changed his mind because as I heard he has told us that the Void is completely devoid of aether which is the reason why the voidsents try to come over to our world to eat the aether. Did he ever tell something similar to the flood of light? Or was that speculation on our part because of how we tought Light would work?

At least ingame it is now known that Light does not work that way. It just stops the flow of aether (which will kill anything alive) but it does not destroy aether. This is the only reason why we can even try to use Eden to restore the aether to the land. Can we then just assume that a "Darkness Eden" would just simply create life? Is it confirmed that Darkness can birth the different elements? And still even Eden needed aether that already exists to do stuff. I doubt that there would be another version of him that can create the necessary amount of aether and all its element out of nothing. They would need to take it somewhere and I doubt that would do good to the place where they took it.

Heck if the Ascians that lived for thousands of years after that mistake (and were masters of creation magic) seemingly cant save it and Emet even eyes time travel as a way to change that I doubt we will just find something that works. (Of course its not fully impossible...who knows what deus ex machina Urianger can suddenly pull out..)

@OP: I too wonder if the rejoining can fully happen now. Seemingly the Ascians continue to still do them so maybe that shard is not needed? Or do they just do that to have them done and still try to find a solution for that shard along the way? (And Emet would not have tried to use time travel or capture the exarch if that shard was not needed) Maybe they would take a not complete Zodiark and hope that the amount of sacrifice and the defeat of Hydealyn would be enough to give him the power up that he can restore it himself?

At least we know for sure that one more calamity does not wake him up! But does that mean he needs all back? Or are two more calamities enough?

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

I don't see anything in here that would fix the Thirteenth; does anyone else?

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I dont (and it could also just be her reasoning for doing all that or maybe she just simply misunderstood what the ascians said) but sadly I also have not all quests done so I cant say what the german language implies.

I do wonder if that balance even exists? Would the flood of light truly just happen even if the Ascians never had a hand in it? I really doubt that...because if that is true then the first would forever be damned to be destroyed (because balance would not suddenly be there) which is not something the game points out right now. Heck that would destroy all the work we just did. So we do see imo that the Ascians can lie.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Oh, jeez; I guess I could see how that could be read multiple ways. That's gonna come back to haunt me for the rest of the summer, isn't it.

As far as I can tell from the other languages, this is part of the Ascians' sales pitch to her: not that the Thirteenth can be saved, but that she can redeem herself for its fall by rejoining the First. The Ascians are saying that her failure to prevent the Flood of Darkness is why the Thirteenth fell, and because the Thirteenth fell, the shard directly opposite (The First) it is damned to fall to an eventual Flood of Light because the cosmos likes equilibrium. Ergo, they're saying that a Flood of Light befalling the First is in part her fault. The Rejoining would prevent the First from becoming a void, and thus rejoining the First is her redemption. She could be part of preventing the First from becoming a useless "World of Nothing."

The plan was to put the "inevitable" rise of the Light under some semblance of control by setting the stage for a Calamity, beckoning the creation of Warriors of Light whom the Light would gather around. The Shadowkeeper secretly led to this, creating disasters to support their growth while using that influence to create more disasters; on and on the feedback loop turned. When the Light had gathered (tilting all elements umbrally and beginning the diffusion into the Source), she would strike them down, delaying the Flood while the Ascians triggered the Calamity on the Source and broke the membrane between dimensions.

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The obvious question which rises is basically what is in it for Cylva. Why would she help the Ascians by fomenting chaos and discord on the First in order to draw out the Light of the heroes, in order to accelerate the Light, especially when the plan requires that she die at the end? If she has a death wish, surely there are easier ways. If she was trying to "atone" for being too weak to save the Thirteenth, surely causing even more evil to the First is counter-productive.

I'm also assuming that the Ascians who told her about this plan (presumably Mitron and Loghrif) were conveniently leaving out the fact that the Thirteenth fell into Darkness in the first place because of Ascian manipulations.

But yes, the subsequent dialogue boxes imply that this tipping of the First towards Light is just a thing that will happen no matter what (according to the Ascians), because natural laws of the FFXIV setting is weird and arbitrary like that. After all, the First was presumably completely fine until a hundred years ago (their time), until suddenly it's implied by the Ascians to not be fine anymore. Meanwhile, the Ascians have also caused aether imbalances in seven other shards, including one more try at Astral Darkness, which doesn't seem to have done anything to the remaining non-Source worlds.

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I don't see anything in here that would fix the Thirteenth; does anyone else?

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The other possibility people have noted is that of Eden, where Ryne says Eden could tilt the aspect of aether over a large area. But apart from the voidsent incursion that framed E2, I don't think there's any real indication that it will have anything to do with fixing the Thirteenth yet.

However, Eden apparently is linked to the Flood of Light on the First, as in it might not have existed if the Flood of Light, or at least the brink of the Flood of Light, hadn't happened. So if one is willing to stretch, it might be a possibility. We won't know until the rest of the Eden raids are released, of course.

EDIT:

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Well then Koji must have changed his mind because as I heard he has told us that the Void is completely devoid of aether which is the reason why the voidsents try to come over to our world to eat the aether. Did he ever tell something similar to the flood of light? Or was that speculation on our part because of how we tought Light would work?

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Gamer Escape's Lorecast 9 has the interview:

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Gamer Escape: Would a “Light-born” void differ from the “Dark-born” void we know?

Koji Fox: Actually, yes. There’s that that “blank, white perfection” line in the game. That’s accurate. The Dark void that we know is void of aether, but you still have the people and animals that were there and they’re aether-starved and trying to break through into our world and suck that aether back into their own. Whereas in a light void there’s NOTHING. It’s empty. Beyond that I can’t say anything.

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I don't know how far you want to take "The Dark void that we know is void of aether" in terms of how completely void of aether the Void is supposed to be.

Then again, it's likely that it's simply the lore writers changing their minds, because, well:

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Gamer Escape: This one slipped through the cracks of our last chat, so let’s start here. The properties of aetherial energies have gotten a bit confusing.

Once upon a time, the only binary in the game was [astral & umbral]. These polarities existed in all things, and seemed to be part of the six elements rather than independent forces. Since A Realm Reborn, a second binary exists: [Light & Darkness]. As one might expect, NPCs don’t seem very well informed about these concepts, using phrases like “void energy” and “umbral energy” and “Dark energy”. As time went on, we even started to see Dark and Light sprites! Can you help us understand the boundaries for these concepts? Are they in any way related?

Koji Fox: So, you have the elements—and it’s still six elements, there are no newly-discovered ones. Those elements have charges—umbral and astral. If something has “umbral energy”, it is one or more of those elements, individual or combined. So if elements have an umbral charge, it can be said that they are “umbral energies”. That’s where those terms come from, “astral energies” and “umbral energies” are not individual things, it’s a blanket term. Light and Dark are not elements, but they are energies…in a different sense. They are not elements, they are not of the elements, and they are not astral or umbral. It’s a different type of energy. You might see a Light and Dark sprite and think, oh, they must be elemetals, but those are made of an entirely different form of energy.

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Light and Dark are not elements, but they are energies…in a different sense. They are not elements, they are not of the elements, and they are not astral or umbral.

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shrug emoji

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

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Light and Dark are not elements, but they are energies…in a different sense. They are not elements, they are not of the elements, and they are not astral or umbral.

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shrug emoji

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Right now "Light and Dark" are getting used in two different ways and they're getting muddled.

There are the actual forces/energies of Light and Darkness, and there are arbitrary-logic labels that the people of the First applied to the active/passive elemental charges. They seem to have got it 'correct' compared to the observations we can make of the properties of [Light energy] and [Dark energy], but arrived at it by chance: "all the colours of life blend into black, so we'll call the active energy Darkness. And white light is tranquil, so we'll call the static energy Light."

Personally I think we need to drop the astral/umbral/dark/light terminology for elemental charges and just call them active/passive for clarity.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

-snip-

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

Technically it is possible. If there is a darkness version of something like Eden Prime then the Oracle of Darkness could get control of it. Given that Darkness is a creation attribute then it could generate the elemental aether needed to restore the desolate empty lands. If the Ascians somehow managed to get a hold of the Oracle of Light and control Eden by extension then if needed to prevent the elements from going out of control before preparations were done then they could use Eden to stabilize the individual elements. This would result in life coming back to the 13th shard and returning it from a void state.

After that it would be pushing it in a more controlled manner then last time to a darkness aspect and then do a rejoining. This is the kind of plan someone like Elidibus is liable to use as his Emissary role puts him in a better position to go over the first part of the plan to restore the shard.

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I mentioned it in a previous post. The idea of there being a darkness equivalent to Eden that can generate aether (which would fit with the Ancient plan to cultivate life if Eden and this opposite was made by the Ancients) and Eden could be used to stabilize said aether after it is generated. Also based on the fact that the aether being locked up results in life dying out, if a place is reduced to a void of aether then life does not fill it up but dies out because it has nothing to support it. The burn being an example of this as creatures can only survive on its outermost edge.

So far the way things look is that in a Void of Darkness all elements that made up and supported life become so charged with activity that they lose all definition and merge together. Causing life to cease to exist. In a Void of Light all elements that made up and supported life lose so much activity that they become inert. Causing life to cease to exist.

Which makes the Empty a Void of Light, but since we control the system behind the Flood of Light we can fix that. Now we just need to control the system behind the Flood of Darkness so we can start fixing the 13th.

Also take note that functionally (and visually) Sin Eaters and Voidsent are similar. Both seek out what Aether they can get their hands on. It is highly likely that if a Sin Eater cannot get a semi-regular meal then they inevitably will wind up ceasing to function because they have no more active aether. Just like how a Voidsent will die if it cannot get its hands on more aether.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

The obvious question which rises is basically what is in it for Cylva. Why would she help the Ascians by fomenting chaos and discord on the First in order to draw out the Light of the heroes, in order to accelerate the Light, especially when the plan requires that she die at the end? If she has a death wish, surely there are easier ways. If she was trying to "atone" for being too weak to save the Thirteenth, surely causing even more evil to the First is counter-productive.


Gamer Escape's Lorecast 9 has the interview:



I don't know how far you want to take "The Dark void that we know is void of aether" in terms of how completely void of aether the Void is supposed to be.

Then again, it's likely that it's simply the lore writers changing their minds, because, well:

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Well it could be that she simply feels like a failure and thus (since she would have died if she was not rescued) she wanted to make up for her mistake by at least saving another shard that seemingly was in danger because of her failure too. That seems to be quite enough of a reason to me.

Also about that interview: Well it makes sense. He says that the Void itself is without any aether but there are lifeforms in it that are starved of aether thanks to that. With the Light he calls it empy and that is true since no life can live there. So there is nothing simply there. But with the void he say that it has no aether while he does not say that about the Light, so I do believe that was his way to hint that with a Flood of Light people simply cant survive thus the world would be empty. So in a way it is a opposite to the void: One without aether but still some kind of lifeforms, the other full with stopped aether but without a single lifeform.

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

So far the way things look is that in a Void of Darkness all elements that made up and supported life become so charged with activity that they lose all definition and merge together. Causing life to cease to exist. In a Void of Light all elements that made up and supported life lose so much activity that they become inert. Causing life to cease to exist.

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That goes against Kojis own words that the Void is without any aether. In the end there should be nothing there which is the reason why voidsents come to our world to eat aether there. Sineaters need us simply because they might not be able to eat Aether that is there but stopped.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Also about that interview: Well it makes sense. He says that the Void itself is without any aether but there are lifeforms in it that are starved of aether thanks to that. With the Light he calls it empy and that is true since no life can live there. So there is nothing simply there. But with the void he say that it has no aether while he does not say that about the Light, so I do believe that was his way to hint that with a Flood of Light people simply cant survive thus the world would be empty. So in a way it is a opposite to the void: One without aether but still some kind of lifeforms, the other full with stopped aether but without a single lifeform.

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That kind of helps explain one of the odder parts of the issue between Light and Darkness, in that in RL, "darkness" is basically "absence of (visible) light".

And so, speculating wildly, the Light on the First is aether, but stopped and aspected too far umbrally to the Light, which makes the skies all shiny and bright.

Whereas the result of the Flood of Darkness on the Thirteenth is lack of aether, so there's no corresponding "Darkness" covering the world. And so this explains why, in the World of Darkness raid in the Crystal Tower series, the skybox has visible stars.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

That goes against Kojis own words that the Void is without any aether. In the end there should be nothing there which is the reason why voidsents come to our world to eat aether there. Sineaters need us simply because they might not be able to eat Aether that is there but stopped.

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Not really. Without life being naturally supported, because all of the aether that would support the elements of life having lost all distinction, whatever life that was trying to survive through it would have to adapt to what is there. Which is basically just pure aether. Leading over the course of tens or hundreds of thousands of years, depending on how fast or slow years are between the source and 13th, to the voidsent to devour all of the aether just to survive which is driving them to seek other sources.

But something to think about is voidsent still come to our world from the 13th when they should have all died out by now since it is void of aether aside from the few that had already managed to make it. Unless there IS something in there that is still generating aether, just not enough at the moment for the ever hungry voidsent. That something is likely Eden's opposite and a mechanism behind the original Flood of Darkness that hit the world. Get control of it, stabilize the aether it is pumping out to create a positive feedback loop for the world to start generating aether naturally again and the 13th can start the slow process of being repaired to where it can support life. Though the voidsent would be a constant problem till their population has been dealt with.