Let's Talk the Twins and Their End Goals

Okay.. just swung back into this thread and noticed that IRL politics wound up in here. Please do not discuss IRL politics in here.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

It's a lòie yes, but it has a truth in the fact that primals do kill the enviroment by draining the aether, as such it might aswell be a truth for them

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"Primals drain aether from the land" is a separate fact to "The Garlean Empire's mission is to stop primal summons" (which, knowingly or not, is a lie).

A lie, if believable enough, can become the truth... but until then no matter how tender or exquisite it may be, it remains a lie. With Varis at the helm the Empire may have been on the track to turning the latter quote into truth (albeit through very questionable methods), but that simply isn't the case with Ascians puppeteering the Empire. Even if it were the truth, unless it changes the questionable methods it's willing to use would put the Eorzeans in opposition to the Empire anyway.

But, let's try to get back on topic. I never gave my thoughts on the original bit so...

"Twin dooms" relating to the Leveilleur twins is a big stretch. A Flood of Light is mentioned, as is some kind of Calamity, and the latter is corroborated by Crystal samples identical to those before Meteor hit. A Flood of Light seems to be the first hinted doom, but what the other could be I don't yet know.

My point is that even if you tell them that they were lied about the burn, nothing will really change for them, perhaps nothing change either if you tell them about the ascians. If they bought the idea of primals killing the world, which is a fact and if they really are as savior complex as they think they are, they might simply enact a crusade to police the world off the ascians. which will be extremely bad because it worked wonders on the warriors of darkness world.
The situation is both extremely complex and hard to understand for the fact that we don't know what to do nor we have the full picture. Perhaps the ascian don't know either

As for the voice, was I the only one thinking that the twin dooms might actually be referred to hydaelyn and zodiark? Deosn't seems that either wants a flood to bring everything to nothingness

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Originally Posted by Cilia

A Flood of Light seems to be the first hinted doom, but what the other could be I don't yet know.

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Our last scheduled Calamity was the Warriors of Darkness planning to kill us. Elidibus is impatiently waiting for orders to come take us out. I know what my guess is.

IIRC the Calling mentions the Calamity first, then Light? So we lose to Elidibus and that's a Calamity, obviously not going to happen so we win, then keep winning, Flood of Light.

I can very much see this whole warning ending up with multiple meanings though, and given Alphinaud is hanging around a self-proclaimed Ascian slayer? We already know what beating all the Ascians has done for one shard... I can see it loosely applying to the twins in some way, but certainly not a "They were evil all along!" way, just a "Good intentions can have bad consequences" kinda deal. I can also see a Zorn/Thorn duo just showing up soon, with Meltigemini in the works, to fit the "twin dooms" motif, and of course there's Hydaelyn/Zodiark. I expect this to be a theme going forward given how much it can potentially apply to. Heck you could even potentially apply it to Elidibus and Zenos (twin Zenos'), or Elidibus and Solus (twin Ascians). I'd be very surprised if they don't drag this out, I'm sure we'll stop something by 4.55, but I can see 5.x making a habit of going "Is this "Twin Dooms"?"

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Originally Posted by Remedi

It's a lòie yes, but it has a truth in the fact that primals do kill the enviroment by draining the aether, as such it might aswell be a truth for them

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Don't forget that even without the aether-draining thing, Primals also can instantly and completely brainwash almost anyone at any time. That is ridiculously frightening, and a good reason to want to be rid of them even if they WEREN'T also walking environmental disasters.

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Originally Posted by Nalien

We already know what beating all the Ascians has done for one shard...

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Careful with this... The writers have been deliberately vague as to just what causes a Flood of Light, and we don't know that "beating the Ascians" is the cause. If anything, it seems as though the Ascians are working as mediators, regulating just how well a world's heroes progress, and Floods happen when they're either too heavy-handed (Darkness) or light-touched (Light). While, as the Warrior of Light, we know that "us vs the Ascians" is the true meta-game, the NON-meta-game is organized BY the Ascians, with the Warriors of Light on various eras and planets as the pawns.

We're supposed to be obedient pawns, as well, but that isn't working out so great, and Elidibus is clearly starting to get agitated.

Regardless, in the Ascians game, it's supposed to be "us vs ???", and when we do too well or poorly against ???, a Flood happens, so the Ascians try to arrange things so that neither extreme happens. They've failed twice, now (unless the Flood of Light was a deliberate effort to get Hydaelyn's attention focused elsewhere), which is a big reason why the meta-game arose in the first place. We've good reason not to place much confidence in the Ascians' ability to regulate things, even if they WEREN'T plotting multi-planet genocide. Anyway, the ??? noted above? We don't know what that is, and that's exactly what the writers want. I find it likely that we never will be told, either - the whole "balance of Light and Darkness" thing starts to fall apart when you go into any specifics as to just what is Light and what is Darkness.

The vagueness makes writing so much easier as well, as literally ANY ACTION WE MAKE can serve the Light or the Darkness, as the plot demands!

Wouldn't say they were vague about the cause, They literally ripped that line From FF3 it was a huge nod to the whole problem in that game that an unbalance of either light or dark would cause the flood and warriors from the opposite order would stop the flood

I think it is also why ppl think the voice is the warrior of darkness

Just going to point out that the Flood of Light had not yet happened on the WoD Shard. It was close to happening, but it hadn't happened yet. Then Hydaelyn comes through and saves the Shard from getting Flooded at all. And that's in spite of the Ascians meddling with things (working around an Ultima-weakened Hydaelyn), not because of it.

It seems there are more ways of regulating the Light/Darkn balance then how the Ascians are (supposedly) maintaining it, but those ways involve players the Ascians have purposely been gimping for long periods of time.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

Just going to point out that the Flood of Light had not yet happened on the WoD Shard. It was close to happening, but it hadn't happened yet. Then Hydaelyn comes through and saves the Shard from getting Flooded at all. And that's in spite of the Ascians meddling with things (working around an Ultima-weakened Hydaelyn), not because of it.

It seems there are more ways of regulating the Light/Darkn balance then how the Ascians are (supposedly) maintaining it, but those ways involve players the Ascians have purposely been gimping for long periods of time.

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Well Elidibus is the only ascians that care about maintaining it.The rest are more or less a Zodiark cult that cares about bringing their god back

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Originally Posted by MetalSnakeXI1

Well Elidibus is the only ascians that care about maintaining it.The rest are more or less a Zodiark cult that cares about bringing their god back

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And I do kind of wonder if he truly cares about it. For someone that talks all about balance he was quite ready to go out and kill us. We are the last main WoL on the source (as far as we know) thus the last really strong champion for Hydaelyns side. What would happen with the balance if we die? Wouldnt that mean that the Ascians have a free reign and would just create lots of calamities and with that also lots of Darkness too? One Ascians already destroyed a shard with too much Darkness, so could Elidibus really keep them in check?

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Originally Posted by Alleo

And I do kind of wonder if he truly cares about it. For someone that talks all about balance he was quite ready to go out and kill us. We are the last main WoL on the source (as far as we know) thus the last really strong champion for Hydaelyns side. What would happen with the balance if we die? Wouldnt that mean that the Ascians have a free reign and would just create lots of calamities and with that also lots of Darkness too? One Ascians already destroyed a shard with too much Darkness, so could Elidibus really keep them in check?

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Well, as it is hinted that there will be a Calamity of Light soon... Let's assume a Calamity / Flood of Light is caused by too much, overflowing light. As the WoL, we are an embodiment of light, so killing us would tip the scales towards darkness, making it more balanced than before - so maybe killing us is Elidibus' way of maintaining the balance.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

And I do kind of wonder if he truly cares about it. For someone that talks all about balance he was quite ready to go out and kill us. We are the last main WoL on the source (as far as we know) thus the last really strong champion for Hydaelyns side. What would happen with the balance if we die? Wouldnt that mean that the Ascians have a free reign and would just create lots of calamities and with that also lots of Darkness too? One Ascians already destroyed a shard with too much Darkness, so could Elidibus really keep them in check?

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That's one of my problems with the Ascians as villains for XIV,Elidibus's plans seems a little counterintuitive for his goal cuz he kind of went a little too far in some instances.Cuz if the Warrior of Light dies that's it there goes his plan of balance and yet another world gets destroyed

His current actions using Zenos's body kind of undermines the efforts he went through with Urianger in HW to resolve the problem of the WoD when you think about it.Honestly we need a bit more details than we currently have and it's a problem in SB since the Ascians were so downplayed here up until the Under The Moonlight MSQ patch

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Originally Posted by Remedi

Wouldn't say they were vague about the cause, They literally ripped that line From FF3 it was a huge nod to the whole problem in that game that an unbalance of either light or dark would cause the flood and warriors from the opposite order would stop the flood

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But FF3 was just as vague! Think back to FF3 - sometime in the past, Warriors of Darkness arose because the Light became too strong and they needed to tip back the balance. But HOW they did that is never stated! What actions does a Warrior of Darkness take to weaken the Light? What quests did they do? What enemies did they fight? It's implied that what the Warriors of Darkness did was good and necessary, because imbalance is Bad, but what they actually DID to restore that balance is vague.

It's EASY to portray Light's fight against Darkness, because you can give it all the trappings of standard Good vs Evil (even though the game TELLS us that Light is not necessarily Good and Darkness is not necessarily Evil). You have plenty of cackling villains to defeat, monsters to slay, dark temples to explore, and so on and so forth. Things start to fall apart, though, when you try to imagine it from the other point of view - when the representatives of Darkness are the heroes. What quality makes a cackling Light villain different from a cackling Darkness villain? How is a Light monster different from a Darkness monster? The writers never say.

All FF3 (and this game, as well) says is that Imbalance Is Bad, which is an easy, if pithy, notion to get behind, but exactly WHAT we're balancing is never spelled out. Light and Darkness are vague, meaningless terms on their own, and the writers can decide however they like as to just what things count as Light and what things count as Darkness.

Some posters have pointed out that Light and Darkness COULD represent Order and Chaos. Warriors of Light arise when society is collapsing, and Warriors of Darkness arise to shake things up when the world becomes too rigid and stagnant. Not a bad notion, but the game never makes that clear, so: vagueness. Even if we assume it's true, though, it's tough to look at the state of the world in game and say, "Boy, this world is so stagnant and orderly that we're on the verge of a Flood of Light!" Every city we've visited in the game seems like it could collapse into civil war if we did even a little bit of "shaking up".

Kugane has it's revolutionaries and deeply corrupt nobles. Ishgard has had a theological upheaval and the common folk are starting to wonder why they toe the line when the Houses aren't as "noble" as they were taught. Limsa Lominsa needs an iron-fisted leader just to barely keep its population of pirates from running amok. Gridania is forced to levy severe and seemingly arbitrary punishments against people at the whims of the Elementals, and is engaged in what could be called a small-scale war with poachers. Garlemand's current regime was explicitly created for the purpose of sowing chaos. Ala Mhigo and Doma are only just beginning to pick up the pieces to form stable societies after being liberated. Only Ul'dah could be said to be a bastion of Order, thanks to the self-serving desires of the Syndicate to maintain the status quo - and even that city has no shortage of malcontents. None of this paints a picture of a world so overwhelmed by order and stagnation that the forces of chaos need to step up to maintain the balance!

I'm almost positive Darkness is not a stand-in for Chaos and Light is not a stand-in for whatever concept is opposite Chaos in this 'verse (Levin an Impression gives the best hint for what it might be).

Solus says two things about the purpose of the Garlean Empire that indicated this this best. The first is, "If aught threatens the balance 'twixt Light and Dark, it falls to you to remove it." and the second, a few line later is, "The founding father was an Ascian! And he created the Empire solely for the purpose of sowing the seeds of chaos!". So there's two non-contradictory purposes behind the Garlean Empire's creation. One is keeping Light and Darkness in Balance. The second is spreading Chaos. That's really hard to do if both Darkness and Chaos are the same thing.

That also might do a lot to explain Elidibus. He always maintains that the wants to keep Light and Darkness in Balance. As far as I can find, he's never said if he's trying to curtail how much Chaos there is. Given how the various projects he's been involved with have turned out (or could have turned out), my gut feeling is that he does not mind if there's more Chaos rather then less once he's done.

I've been digging around in the game scripts to see if there's anything said about Light/Darkness and Chaos. I've still got a ways to go (the 2.x series is long) but there are some things that do stick out. The first people who associate the WoL with Light are the Ascians. Their first title for us is Bringer of Light, and they keep calling us that for the rest of the game. Except the part where Middy blocks our Blessing of Light. And the Ascians are immensely happy about that since it removes a barrier to what they really want to do. Also, the existence of the Warrior of Light is incompatible with the Ascians by their own admition. They can't do what they want to do while we're there. As it is, the Ascians are always associated with Chaos. Both by the Scions and by their own admission. Anything that furthers more Chaos serves their ends even it it keeps Light/Darkness balanced. As for the way the Ascians want to balance Light and Darkness... the way they think they can do this permanently is by killing Hydaelyn. Only, they can't do that without Zodiark being restored. Which can only come about from Rejoinings/Ardors aka shards being rejoined with Hydaelyn. The Ascians' true long-term goals are not to balance out the Source's Light and Darkness; they are to balance out all the light and darkness of the shards by killing what they see as the source of light after collapsing all the shards into the Source. Nevermind that will take out every other living thing on the Shards with it...

I can't help but think that the Light/Darkness dichotomy is a bit of a red herring to the real dichotomy of Chaos/????. Not to say the Light/Darkness dichotomy isn't important, it is. But that it's a welcome distraction that the Ascians can point at to keep the WoL and Co. from discovering what the real dichotomy is. And the Ascians really do want the Chaos/???? balance to stay as unbalanced as possible. They need more Chaos so they can pull more Rejoinings off. If the Chaos/???? balance is ignored, then the Light/Darkness balance will be maintained in the worst way possible. If indeed that really is what the Ascians are trying to do in the first place...

They aren't contradictory is the Empires purpose is to be the Dark side of the balance.
Sowing the seeds of Chaos is playing their part in maintaining the balance between Light and Dark if they're solely responsible for the Dark portion.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

But FF3 was just as vague! Think back to FF3 - sometime in the past, Warriors of Darkness arose because the Light became too strong and they needed to tip back the balance. But HOW they did that is never stated! What actions does a Warrior of Darkness take to weaken the Light? What quests did they do? What enemies did they fight? It's implied that what the Warriors of Darkness did was good and necessary, because imbalance is Bad, but what they actually DID to restore that balance is vague.

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It wasn't vague, the story of FF3 was very simple there were no hidden meaning, the theme was a balance of both power must be achieved for life to thrive, you are overthinking on a very simple story with the informations of now in mind.

Ofc it is not the same for FFXIV, what I meant with that they took a story element out of FF3 and put it in a new context, while the fact that an overaboundance of light is catastrophic for life is a thing, what it does for the whole setting fo FFXIV is not yet clear.
As far as we know Darkness void is a better void than a light void since it doesn't kill life it makes them aether starved, while as far as we know Light void scorches and destroy everything, but I'm sure there's more than that. That revelation was made to actually change everything of what we know at the time and make the conflict deeper and mysterious. However we lack proper knowledge to really ascertain the situation at the moment.

That said consider that how it was said in FF3 it was said to be a legend, which is the best way actually to add past events to a story, as far as writing is concerned

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Originally Posted by RicaRuin

Well, as it is hinted that there will be a Calamity of Light soon... Let's assume a Calamity / Flood of Light is caused by too much, overflowing light. As the WoL, we are an embodiment of light, so killing us would tip the scales towards darkness, making it more balanced than before - so maybe killing us is Elidibus' way of maintaining the balance.

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I do wonder if a calamity of Light can really be dangerous to us at all or if it can even happen on our source. First as far as we know we are only now finally catching up with the plans of the Ascians. We had 7 calamities already that are 7 times that Hydaelyn lost. She herself was was quite weak yet still protected us from harm against Ultima which made it impossible for her to communicate with us thus it seems that our survival was more important than her own state. She needed a vessel to do anything at all after that and only the crystals of the WoD and one of our own gave her enough strenght back to free Minfilia of her role and sent her with the WoDs to stop the Light from destroying anything. We have heard nothing else from her since then so it felt like she must have been able to stop that. So on one hand she is weak, lost a lot thus I just cant see how us freeing some states and killing three black Ascians (where one was even from a shard that is the void now) destroys any kind of balance that much that we will have too much Light soon. On the other hand we know (or believe right now) that Hydaelyn is able to take back Light if its growing too much. So why should too much Light even be dangerous to us?

Also if us stopping a big war from happening by trying to solve things with less direct fights will already be quite bad for that balance than what would that mean for our future? Will we have to let the Ascians win, by creating a calamity that will kill an unknown number of people on the source and will kill a whole shard? I still hope that this is all a plot by Zodiark so that he can get back sooner and that we at the end still stop another one from happening.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

So on one hand she is weak, lost a lot thus I just cant see how us freeing some states and killing three black Ascians (where one was even from a shard that is the void now) destroys any kind of balance that much that we will have too much Light soon. On the other hand we know (or believe right now) that Hydaelyn is able to take back Light if its growing too much. So why should too much Light even be dangerous to us?

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Currently, it seems there's a lot more... cosmic infrastructure... in place for Light to regulate itself. Or at least, there would be if Hydaelyn was allowed to function at full strength. She seems to have the power to increase the Light in a given situation when needed (the WoL) and also decrease it as well (her Emissary). Unfortunately, the Ascians make it pretty clear that Hydaelyn is weakening and that they are very happy about that.

As much as we, the WoL are a source of Light, we're not the only people giving the Ascians a hard time anymore. We now know there are people other then us out there who are taking on the Ascians and at least being a nuance (killing of the hosts the Ascians were possessing) or at best really killing them (the Ascians no longer exist). So people who are necessarily agents of Light are making the Darkness have a harder time spreading and who knows what that's doing to the Light/Dark balance. It's almost like there's a third party in play now and we have no idea how that messes with the balance just yet.

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Also if us stopping a big war from happening by trying to solve things with less direct fights will already be quite bad for that balance than what would that mean for our future? Will we have to let the Ascians win, by creating a calamity that will kill an unknown number of people on the source and will kill a whole shard? I still hope that this is all a plot by Zodiark so that he can get back sooner and that we at the end still stop another one from happening.

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There's two different Light/Dark balances that exist. There's the overarching cosmic one and the one for each shard. The Ascians plan to balance the Cosmic Light/Darkness balance by killing Hydaelyn. In order to do so, they need Zodiark to be restored. Zodiark can't be restored with shards that have had a Flood take place on them though. So the Ascians need to keep the Light/Dark balance of each shard intact until the Shard is Rejoined to the Source. Meanwhile, they also want the Source to have as much Chaos as possible since that is what leads people to summoning primals, which leads to more Rejoinings happening. Which leads to Zodiark reforming faster.

The fact that is seems there's a Calamity coming up with little to no warning (compared to the last one anyway) seems to indicate something has gone wrong and there's been lots of primal summonings somewhere on Hydaelyn. There's never been a Calamity that's come so soon after another one; usually there's a good millennia between Calamities. On the other hand, the 7th Umbral Calamity was a bit of a weird on, so may be that Calamity isn't really over yet?

I just wonder if the cosmic balance can really tip too much to the Light side if Hydaelyn can regulate it on her own. Thus if she can then why should we ever really care about a true balance (whatever that really is) on our source? Yes shards can be lost but that is something that needs to be changed on each shard. So wouldnt it be better to just kill all the Ascians, let Hydaelyn do the regulation of the Light and maybe use her power to sent emissaries to the shards that will overlook their balance so that they dont destroy themselves? Honestly I hope that this is the way that we will go in the end because it would not sit well with me if we have to let the Ascians do their things to prevent something worse.

Maybe the calamities are happening much sooner (if there is one truly coming) because the Ascians are getting tired of waiting? Or maybe because Elidibus is afraid of us? Because he seemingly now plays a more active role with Zenos body. Or maybe in the past a calamity often also destroyed the one party that they have used to create one, while here Garlemald still exists thus can be used to create another one. Maybe even because Eorzea was not destroyed thus did not need a long time to rebuild. (All of this is still just wild speculation)

In the end I dont think that it means our twins and I am not even sure if the warning is true at all.

We should know exactly what the gods really want in th first place to make some decisions.
So far writing-wise the fact that we are essentially doormats isn't really good

as just a pancake would say in a meme, our answer to everyone is

OK, I believe you

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Originally Posted by Remedi

We should know exactly what the gods really want in th first place to make some decisions.
So far writing-wise the fact that we are essentially doormats isn't really good

as just a pancake would say in a meme, our answer to everyone is

OK, I believe you

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Well that's a problem with deities in most RPGs in general.

Either they're evil or they do nothing

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Originally Posted by MetalSnakeXI1

Well that's a problem with deities in most RPGs in general.

Either they're evil or they do nothing

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To be fair, when the good gods actually intervene directly, the story tends to become boring. Deux Ex Machina is a derided trope for a reason! It only tends to work when the intervention needs to be invoked by the mortal heroes of the story, such as when Louisoix lead the prayer to the Twelve that capped off v1.0. Their triumph was overcoming adversity and paving the way for the miracle to come.

Evil gods intervening directly does not have that handicap, as it tends to up the stakes and make things MORE exciting. How can our heroes possibly prevail against a GOD? Handle with care, though - it shouldn't be EASY for the heroes to counter an evil god...

Well the concept of what is a god is actually very difficult to do well writing-wise.

Do we know if Louis actually communed with the actual Twelve and they for sure exist or if he 'summoned' them and they may not have been 'real?'

The only god(s) that can be proven to exist are Hydaelyn and Zodiark, as they have been shown to affect the physical plane (Ultima is a bit of Zodiark's power, while Hydaelyn passively grants the Warrior of Light power and directly shielded them from the aforementioned Ultima).

Whether the Twelve, the Doman kami, Azim, Nhaama, the Mol Old Gods, or any other deities actually exist remains unknown (although the Kojin Beast Tribe quests do strongly suggest the kami exist in some capacity).

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

To be fair, when the good gods actually intervene directly, the story tends to become boring. Deux Ex Machina is a derided trope for a reason! It only tends to work when the intervention needs to be invoked by the mortal heroes of the story, such as when Louisoix lead the prayer to the Twelve that capped off v1.0. Their triumph was overcoming adversity and paving the way for the miracle to come.

Evil gods intervening directly does not have that handicap, as it tends to up the stakes and make things MORE exciting. How can our heroes possibly prevail against a GOD? Handle with care, though - it shouldn't be EASY for the heroes to counter an evil god...

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If it's handled with the same build up and grace as Louisoix then I'll welcome it with open arms since that's one of the better example of deity usage in plot.

I dread both troupes equally but the troupe of evil deities have been used much more with most stories mostly highlighting that gods and religions are always evil which is a bit of an absurd overgeneralization.For me I like balance which is so far something XIV did a bit right in a way even if some leaning towards the evil deities troupe occured

Louisoix was very careful to invoke the Twelves' power rather then the Twelve themselves. Otherwise there would have been twelve new primals to take down right as a calamity was happening. And even with all the difference, a primal was summoned by everyone in Eorzea (Phoenix, Primal of Regeneration). Bahamut just managed to temper it immediately, which is why it wasn't an even worse problem.

It's odd that the tempering of a primal isn't addressed much in-game, considering the implications.
Well until 4.0 that is but even after noone actually commented on the ability to condition primals.

However I don't consider Zodiark and Hydaelyn gods yet, reason is that the setting has shown so far only false gods who are called gods because of their power to destroy and make other revere them. As such the very presence of gods is questionable, it could be that in the end both Zodiark and Hydaelyn could be very ancient primals. This is just a theory ofc and nothing more, but I question actively what defines a god in this setting in the first place.

I'm fairly certain that 'Twin Dooms' refers to Garlemald and Eorzea. A full out war would lead to staggering casualties on both sides. Almost everything that the Ascians have done recently or have been revealed to have done contributes to nudging Garlemald and Eorzea in a direction that sets them up for a war. If we look back at the War of the Magi none of the three cities survived. All were brought to ruin and utterly decimated. Of the survivors, only a handful actually managed to stick around.

The FFXII vibes are extremely prominent. Much like in FFXII, the closer we get to the Empire the more we learn that war is by no means the best option. Both sides do not necessarily want it and those that do want it are compromised and/or coerced.

5.0, then, is almost certainly going to be a story about compromise and working alongside Garlemald to cut away the Ascians and mitigate causalities in the process.

I suspect that Alphinaud will serve as the 'Larsa' for the Eorzean Alliance. Maxima and Gaius are solid candidates for the 'Larsa' on Garlemald's side of the fence, though we can't rule out a completely new character emerging to serve such a role.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I suspect that Alphinaud will serve as the 'Larsa' for the Eorzean Alliance. Maxima and Gaius are solid candidates for the 'Larsa' on Garlemald's side of the fence, though we can't rule out a completely new character emerging to serve such a role.

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Precisely one of the reasons Alphy continues to remain on my favourites list... and the possibility of a new Larsa-like character on the Garlean side adds to the excitement of how 5.0 could unfold. Can anyone imagine Zenos having a sibling or cousin that is the complete opposite of his current disposition? That will be fascinating.

"Twin dooms" comes immediately after mention of 1) a calamity, and 2) a flood of light. That's probably what they meant. We have to stop the Ascians from causing a calamity, but we also can't go too far and wipe out all darkness, causing a flood of light.

What will probably happen is that we/our allies get overzealous in response to a new (attempted) calamity, and forget what the WoD said about upsetting the balance.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

It's odd that the tempering of a primal isn't addressed much in-game, considering the implications.
Well until 4.0 that is but even after noone actually commented on the ability to condition primals.

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Actually, I believe they DID address this, during the Coil cutscenes. They explained the very specific circumstances under which Bahamut was able to Temper Louisoix. While I don't remember the exact wording, I believe the gist of it was that Bahamut, having been mortally wounded by Phoenix but not yet finished dispersing into aether, managed to catch Louisoix just as the latter was working to disperse Phoenix's aether to avoid it becoming a blight on the land. Basically, Louisoix was de-transforming, and became vulnerable in the process.

This suggests to me that, in general, Primals cannot temper other Primals - but they CAN temper mortals that have the ability to transform into Primals, and gain control of those Primals in that manner. Folks like Thordan and Yotsuyu provide such an avenue, but probably not Ysayle, since she has the Echo.

Mh I did forget the wording of that cutscene, so it was explained there that's good to know.

But did they comment on Zenos' feat? Because I don't remember them pondering on the possibility of siezing the primal's will with the echo, it could lead to us controlling him to banish itself

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Originally Posted by Remedi

Mh I did forget the wording of that cutscene, so it was explained there that's good to know.

But did they comment on Zenos' feat? Because I don't remember them pondering on the possibility of siezing the primal's will with the echo, it could lead to us controlling him to banish itself

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How many in the empire tho knows of Zenos's capture of Shinryu or the unethical experiments his legion conducted with Aulus to achieve the Resonance?Seems like not many if Zenos was secretive about it and even if they knew,the empire's policy still states that any sort of conduct with a primal is a big no-no

Tbh was thinking about the scions not the empire.
I guess that the empire itself don't know about what Zenos does, maybe Varis does since he has a network of spies, but otherwise no1 did know about Zenos tampering with primals.

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Originally Posted by MetalSnakeXI1

How many in the empire tho knows of Zenos's capture of Shinryu or the unethical experiments his legion conducted with Aulus to achieve the Resonance?Seems like not many if Zenos was secretive about it and even if they knew,the empire's policy still states that any sort of conduct with a primal is a big no-no

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It's worth noting that Aulus was exiled by Varis, who likely made it a point to keep an eye on him. He didn't approve of Aulus' experiments - and he outright considered Zenos to be a monster unworthy of the throne. It's an opinion likely shared by many within Garlemald - as we'll no doubt see with even more frequency than before once we head into Garlean territory.

Zenos also made it clear that he did not care much for Garlemald to begin with - he simply wanted a 'good fight'. Which is no doubt exactly why his father saw fit not to send him any reinforcements. Varis is also described as an excellent strategist within the lore book, so it's likely that he intended to conveniently do away with Zenos at the hands of the Warrior of Light. The unforeseen consequence is that Zenos ended up surviving in a different body...whilst his corpse is piloted by an Ascian.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

Tbh was thinking about the scions not the empire.
I guess that the empire itself don't know about what Zenos does, maybe Varis does since he has a network of spies, but otherwise no1 did know about Zenos tampering with primals.

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Oh,so you mean as in....the scions having the Warrior of Light do the same thing Zenos did with Shinryu?

That seems a bit too risky as I'm sure Zenos's Resonance,as similar to the echo as it is,would have some different priorities than the echo.

And even if they succeed,it isn't guaranteed that the Warrior of Light would survive the process the same way Zenos did(well....before he committed suicide)

The scions are relying way too much on the WoL as it is so pushing him/her further into becoming one with a primal is a bit too much

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Originally Posted by Theodric

It's worth noting that Aulus was exiled by Varis, who likely made it a point to keep an eye on him. He didn't approve of Aulus' experiments - and he outright considered Zenos to be a monster unworthy of the throne. It's an opinion likely shared by many within Garlemald - as we'll no doubt see with even more frequency than before once we head into Garlean territory.

Zenos also made it clear that he did not care much for Garlemald to begin with - he simply wanted a 'good fight'. Which is no doubt exactly why his father saw fit not to send him any reinforcements. Varis is also described as an excellent strategist within the lore book, so it's likely that he intended to conveniently do away with Zenos at the hands of the Warrior of Light. The unforeseen consequence is that Zenos ended up surviving in a different body...whilst his corpse is piloted by an Ascian.

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I can see why Varis would want the Warrior of Light to kill Zenos....as heartless as that is xD.

Tho I can imagine Zenos wont take Varis's behavior too well and I won't be surprised if he ended up traveling back to Garlemald using his new body and attempt to slay both his father and Elidibus

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Originally Posted by Remedi

But did they comment on Zenos' feat? Because I don't remember them pondering on the possibility of siezing the primal's will with the echo, it could lead to us controlling him to banish itself

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To my knowledge, they haven't really addressed the possibility of the WoL directly assuming control of a Primal in the way that Zenos did. From a gameplay perspective, it's unlikely we'll ever get that ability; if we did, there'd be no more Primal trial battles, since we could just step in and mind-control the thing! Additionally, the Echo (and probably also the Resonance) expresses itself in different ways in different individuals. Just because Zenos had the ability to control Shinryu does not mean that the WoL will be able to do the same.

It wouldn't surprise me, though, if another Echo/Resonance user managed the same trick sometime in the future. They likely won't live long afterwards, though, since it would be plot-inconvenient to have someone who can clean up Primals so easily!

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

To my knowledge, they haven't really addressed the possibility of the WoL directly assuming control of a Primal in the way that Zenos did. From a gameplay perspective, it's unlikely we'll ever get that ability; if we did, there'd be no more Primal trial battles, since we could just step in and mind-control the thing! Additionally, the Echo (and probably also the Resonance) expresses itself in different ways in different individuals. Just because Zenos had the ability to control Shinryu does not mean that the WoL will be able to do the same.

It wouldn't surprise me, though, if another Echo/Resonance user managed the same trick sometime in the future. They likely won't live long afterwards, though, since it would be plot-inconvenient to have someone who can clean up Primals so easily!

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And even if we got the ability to control a primal,the beast tribe that summoned it would probably need to be involved in that.

Like the only way I could see controlling a primal working....is maybe a boss trial where the beast tribes agreed to summon their primals to aid you for some reason and then you control said primal to maybe create a weakness for an otherwise immune boss.

According to Zenos, the effect of tempering is essentially your will subjugating the will of another, in a way he tempered SHinryu by having a stronger will, which is very similar to what happened with Phoenix.
Personally I think they are trying to tell us something. They have shown us that primals can absorb echo blessed soul orbs and ascians souls.
Then they've shown us that primals can be tempered by the use of the resonance which is essentially a copy of an echo, with Zenos giving us a possible explenation to it.
It's possible that they are telling us they way to seal having ascians without reliying to hard contriviancies like the sword of light, which've seen to be very hard to conjure.

Otherwise I don't get why repeating this plot points.
Granted the reason of why summoning got widespread was because of ascians and would be extremely Ironic if their gift would be their ultimate end.

One thing for sure, it's about time that the story tackles the primal problem seriously.
So far we've been medication at best, we need to find a cure