Interesting Question Regarding Voidsent.....

Thanky for that Kage. I knew it was either salvation or saviors more leaning to the saviors part of it ao it sounds right. Especially since savior and salvation carrry the same base word. Appreciate it alot. Honestly it may be antagonistic and I'm still on the fence on if it's our 13th shard or not cause that also sounds like something Zenos would say.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Their plan was to, once Zodiark was together enough to be operable, sacrifice lives to Zodiark to fix the Thirteenth, then do a proper Rejoining.

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I think you accidentally typed this in the wrong tab. Please switch back to the tab with Fanfiction.net open and continue writing your fic.

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Originally Posted by Jemachu

What is the source for this? Which cutscene/dialogue specifically, because I do not recall ever coming across this plan regarding the Thirteenth.

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So, this one's really complicated in terms of finding actual proof for this, I apologize for the ensuing wall of text.

Potential evidence for this one is scattered... about as far as it's possible to get for this game. Potential information could be in the Heavensward MSQ, it could be in incidental quest dialog in Shadowbringers, it could be in live letter Q&As, it could be in convention Q&As. And frustratingly, since the most details on the Ascians' plan was in Shadowbringers, we don't have an Encyclopedia Eorzea to refer to, which is disappointing because this is exactly the kinda stuff the Encyclopedias Eorzea tend to clear up. So here's everything I could glean from talking to multiple people and checking some old topics both here and on Reddit:

The actual details of the Ascians' plan for the Thirteenth have never been discussed. In the ShB role quest capstone it was said that 'a world of darkness needs a mirror of pure light', but given that was specifically said by an Ascian to a survivor of the Thirteenth we can't really take it as evidence; it could easily be a complete lie, given that Elidibus' explanation given to Ardbert's crew was also a complete lie. However, we do know that they have a plan to make something of it, because their overall mission statement doesn't make sense if they don't. They can't return the world back to how it was if the Thirteenth is completely unsalvageable, therefore they must see the Thirteenth as salvageable.

So then comes the question of how, and the 'how' is the big enigma. We know that there comes a point where Zodiark is strong enough that he can be awakened and used for this; Hydaelyn in the post-Antitower scene implies this point is after the Eighth Umbral Calamity, but we know that explanation was a bit fuzzy, and the Tales from the Shadows short story doesn't suggest that the Ascians are active in G'raha's future. That might mean that they still had to do more Rejoinings and it's just that the Eighth was the last chance to stop them, or it could mean that they're just off doing something else that Omega isn't privvy to in that story--perhaps that getting Zodiark functional requires a few more steps, maybe something like 'he needs more sacrifices and there ain't enough on the Source, let's go drain the Fourth'. No matter what, Zodiark is eventually an active factor. We know from the Void quests in Shadowbringers' patches that fixing the Thirteenth is possible but slow; that sounds exactly like something you get Zodiark to shortcut, but it also might possibly not be necessary for them to fix it in the first place. We do know that we've never seen any evidence of them trying to fix it though, which lends credence to the theories of either 'they can't right now' or 'they don't want to'.

So in short, we know that the general structure of the Ascians' plan is 'step one is get Zodiark together, step two is ???, step three is Amaurot'. And we know that the Thirteenth isn't an insurmountable barrier. The overall theories I've seen basically fall into two categories:
1. Zodiark fixes the Thirteenth by basically speedrunning the technique Unukalhai landed on, then they do the Rejoining proper.
2. Zodiark just forces all the Rejoinings anyway, and then fixes the consequences of one of those shards being a little bit wack.

And of course either way, we know that Zodiark is powered by sacrifices, so some of those are happening either way.

So in short: Apologies for jumping the gun a bit on this, it turns out this is among the most complicated questions to answer unless Natsuko Ishikawa's office is down the hall from yours. However, all evidence does suggest that whatever their plan was, it is either somehow hinging on 'sacrifice lives to Zodiark', or by slim chance the explanation given to Cylva by the Ascians actually was accurate, which would... still require a huge amount of death anyway.

This is complicated, and it's possible that one of the people I asked for confirmation might still be able to pull up a Gamescom Q&A or something, but it looks like it's less in the category of 'this is confirmed somewhere' and more 'all evidence trends towards something like this'. At the very least, the immediately present evidence leans so far towards 'their plan is Zodiark' that an argument otherwise would need to find some pretty convincing evidence, and to my knowledge that definitely doesn't exist.

That's a lot of text to avoid saying it's your headcanon.

Anyways, OP, since we've witnessed reincarnations of Minfilia on the first, and we know that Ardbert was an incarnation of Azem's soul shard, all evidence seems to point in the direction that each shard has its own localized cycle of rebirth.

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Originally Posted by Jemachu

What is the source for this? Which cutscene/dialogue specifically, because I do not recall ever coming across this plan regarding the Thirteenth.

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There isn't anything to pin down other than head canon. To the point where it seems to have left other posters across a number of different FFXIV lore discussion venues scratching their heads:

https://i.imgur.com/TuoIVqO.png

In other words, there isn't any real solid evidence to speak of and any attempts to claim otherwise will very likely fall prey to bias and attempts at filling in gaps with a particular narrative.

Sorry to not be of more help!

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Originally Posted by anhaato

That's a lot of text to avoid saying it's your headcanon.

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It's a lot of text saying 'I jumped the gun and I apologize, but here's all the evidence that got me there'. Whatever their plan was for the Thirteenth, all evidence suggests Zodiark was a part of it.

It's always important to question your preconceived notions; the things that you internally take as a given, but have perhaps forgotten why you landed on that. Oftentimes it ends in things like this, where there's a few possible readings but it was never resolved and is no longer relevant, so you accidentally go from 'I think it's like this' to 'I'm sure it's like this'. Thanks, Jemachu; asking for evidence when it isn't clear is always important.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

It's a lot of text saying 'I jumped the gun and I apologize, but here's all the evidence that got me there'. Whatever their plan was for the Thirteenth, all evidence suggests Zodiark was a part of it.

It's always important to question your preconceived notions; the things that you internally take as a given, but have perhaps forgotten why you landed on that. Oftentimes it ends in things like this, where there's a few possible readings but it was never resolved and is no longer relevant, so you accidentally go from 'I think it's like this' to 'I'm sure it's like this'. Thanks, Jemachu; asking for evidence when it isn't clear is always important.

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I'm a longtime lurker in this section of the forum because I always find it hard to post between the childish debates that go on in here, but because of said lurking I'm well aware of your derangement towards the ancients. So forgive me if I find it quite hilarious that you've essentially made up a headcanon about their plan and used it to color your discussion of them in this thread, especially when said thread had nothing to do with the ascians to begin with, and are unable to back it up. Funnier still, despite what you said about jumping the gun, you're still doubling down by saying "but it's LIKELY" as if we should believe you anyway.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I think it was implied that you can't truly kill voidsent unless they bring their physical bodies over to the Source, as their soul is simply banished back to their original body back in the void should their vessel be destroyed.

That said, I feel somewhat doubtful we've seen the last of some voidsent like Diabolos because while did he did get blown up by the Nullstone, it was stated that it nullifies pacts by destroying the vessel involved, not necessarily the soul occupying it.

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Well, there was his entire manifestation within the Diabolos Armament in Zadnor.

Voidsent definitely have that whole, "Assuming Direct Control" thing that Harbinger did with the Collectors in ME2.

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Originally Posted by anhaato

I'm a longtime lurker in this section of the forum because I always find it hard to post between the childish debates that go on in here, but because of said lurking I'm well aware of your derangement towards the ancients. So forgive me if I find it quite hilarious that you've essentially made up a headcanon about their plan and used it to color your discussion of them in this thread, especially when said thread had nothing to do with the ascians to begin with, and are unable to back it up. Funnier still, despite what you said about jumping the gun, you're still doubling down by saying "but it's LIKELY" as if we should believe you anyway.

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'Derangement about the Ancients', starting off on a great foot. You should be able to notice pretty quickly on a re-read that I wasn't the first person to mention them by any means.

So what do you think their plan was for the Thirteenth?

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

'Derangement about the Ancients', starting off on a great foot. You should be able to notice pretty quickly on a re-read that I wasn't the first person to mention them by any means.

So what do you think their plan was for the Thirteenth?

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The issue isn't what I think their plan was; we don't have enough information for what restoration of the thirteenth entails, other than a need to rebalance the aether somehow. We don't know if 13/14 rejoined Zodiark is powerful enough to do that, and because we don't know any of this, I won't go so far as to make assumptions as to what their plan was. What you were doing was essentially, "Ugh, I just know those sacks of shit were going to sacrifice more lives to fix the thirteenth!" It's your confirmation bias in action; knowing that Zodiark required potent sources of aether past that of typical crystals in order to maintain essentially an aether barrier which propelled the ancients to offer up their own bodily aether in absence of any better sources, and that they later needed more aether sources to reembody the souls within him, you assume that this is required for every action he could possibly take because it supports your image of the ascians/ancients in general as cultists feeding their blood god. You got rightfully called out for stating a confirmation bias headcanon as fact without any evidence to actually back it up. Trying to say "well what do YEW think they were gonna do, huh!?" is trying to posit yourself as right, again, without evidence, by deflecting instead and implying that the assumption is that you're correct unless someone can be "more correct" in their headcanon. How about we try discussing facts here instead?