Crystal Tower theories

As an equal-opportunity pot stirrer, I can totally get behind that it's G'raha just to tie off a loose end and make a rather specific demographic niche of the fanbase happy (as like 100% of the feedback I've seen on him falls either directly on "he has the most punchable face" or "G'RAHA MY SWEET BOY I MISS YOU SO"), but they could at least point out that G'raha and the hooded man share a taste in color schemes. :rolleyes:

It's pretty much the first thing I pointed out, actually. :P



And I'd pretty much want to punch him and kiss him in either order. There's crap you just don't pull, man.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seraphor

Personal theory, to work in the whole 'rewriting history' angle:

---

My apologies if this has been addressed before, but for the line "If history must be unwritten, let it be unwritten", what verb do the other languages use? Everyone seems to be taking "unwritten" as "rewritten" (admittedly, this goes with the early line "this tragedy...must be undone"), but it could also mean "unrecorded". Is that a hint that maybe the WoL will have to act in a clandestine manner?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kiniun

My apologies if this has been addressed before, but for the line "If history must be unwritten, let it be unwritten", what verb do the other languages use? Everyone seems to be taking "unwritten" as "rewritten" (admittedly, this goes with the early line "this tragedy...must be undone"), but it could also mean "unrecorded". Is that a hint that maybe the WoL will have to act in a clandestine manner?

---

In French it says "Si l'histoire doit être réécrite, qu'il en soit ainsi" which translates like "If history must be rewritten, then so be it"
But the french verb "réécrire" can mean both 1 :un-write then re-write, or 2 : write something new based on something pre-existing.

In german its "Auch wenn dafür die Geschichte selbst umgeschrieben werden muss" which means basically the same, to re-write history.

I just rewatched the trailer, and I noticed something at the end when Derplander becomes the Warrior of Darkness: a structure very similar to the Voidgate from the Syrcus Tower is behind him....

just wanted to add during omega storyline in alphascape Cid looks back on past events including the crystal tower and G'raha Tia this is during talk with Nero about his father, lots of G'raha signs late in the expansion

i doubt we'd get time compression, with how 14 pulls things from other games in the series lore we'd be looking towards ff8...

but with gunblade tank man in the works who knows, i'd be amazed if they kept that sorta secret on lock and would lose my mind if the empire is some sorta crazy esthar setup in the end and we go in guns blazing on a garden

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zohar_Lahar

I just rewatched the trailer, and I noticed something at the end when Derplander becomes the Warrior of Darkness: a structure very similar to the Voidgate from the Syrcus Tower is behind him....

---

I saw it too! At first I thought it was just a cool background but more I looked the more it looked like a portal.

How suspicious should we be that it's not just a lingering slice in the Flood of Light from where the Warrior of Darkness just hit True Kuribu?
I thought those were connected.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Anonymoose

How suspicious should we be that it's not just a lingering slice in the Flood of Light from where the Warrior of Darkness just hit True Kuribu?
I thought those were connected.

---

I agree that its just an after effect of that sword swing, but I guess we'll find out the truth in 2 days.

oh gawd fanfest is in less than 2 days

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MrThinker

I agree that its just an after effect of that sword swing, but I guess we'll find out the truth in 2 days.

oh gawd fanfest is in less than 2 days

---

This will be a very long 38 hours. I'm getting popcorn ready for the inevitable meltdowns over whether or not viera and/or hrothgar are gender locked.

Yeah, so the Crystal Tower in the trailer is actually a different version that exists in the First, happens to be freaking identical, and also happens to have been constructed in roughly the same place, in spite of both being about 10,000 years younger than the cosmic split. So the mysterious hooded figure is probably not G'raha, but also probably an exact facial match aside from the crystallization he has going on (in spite of parallel world duplicates being practically impossible because of the nature of said split). Not at all sure how that's supposed to work yet, but apparently we'll be getting some more explanation this coming Tuesday.

Ascians can cross worlds and teach races the technology. It's likely Ascians taught Allags how to built the CT, they can share the knowledge in the first too and have a similar Dalamud/Bahamut like plot.

To think, the Warriors of Darkness could have just used the Crystarium to cross over instead of becoming not-Ascians.

It doesn't seem like they've left the First any recently. For there to be Legends of one who will bring back the Night.

My big question is how G'raha got from temporal stasis on the Source to opening portals in a Crystal Tower on The First with a new outfit and some gnarly dermal aetheriosis. Unless G'raha was in stasis for centuries / millennia, saw what the future had become, and somehow transported himself diagonally back to the first to build Crystal Tower there and bring us to stop it. But that's a HELL of a leap of logic, lol.

Yeah. It's too weird how he's all but confirmed, but so much doesn't add up. They even drew specific attention to how they can't name Yuma Uchida's character yet during Yoshi's talk show, which means either the name would be some kind of spoiler, or Ferne told Yoshida how they could yank a bunch of chains during Fanfest ahead of the patch. Since he's always watching over us...

For what it's worth, even now that we know we're traveling Shards and not Time Itself, the Voice is still on about waiting years and unwriting (or rewriting) history, which at least leaves that particular instance of time travel on the table.

My brain genius theory is that Crystal Tower itself is one single structure existing in every (possible) shard at once.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by domovoi

My brain genius theory is that Crystal Tower itself is one single structure existing in every (possible) shard at once.

---

That's what I'm leaning towards, especially with that shot of the weird observatory/cocoon that not-G'raha looked to be in. It'd also be a good way to reestablish the importance of Silvertear.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fenral

Yeah. It's too weird how he's all but confirmed, but so much doesn't add up. They even drew specific attention to how they can't name Yuma Uchida's character yet during Yoshi's talk show, which means either the name would be some kind of spoiler, or Ferne told Yoshida how they could yank a bunch of chains during Fanfest ahead of the patch. Since he's always watching over us...

For what it's worth, even now that we know we're traveling Shards and not Time Itself, the Voice is still on about waiting years and unwriting (or rewriting) history, which at least leaves that particular instance of time travel on the table.

---

I agree - in some ways it's the clearest they've shown it, and yet I'm not sure whether we're closer or further from confirming that it's him. We're missing critical pieces in the puzzle that affect how the whole thing fits together.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by domovoi

My brain genius theory is that Crystal Tower itself is one single structure existing in every (possible) shard at once.

---

It makes sense in some ways, and I wondered the same thing - but would that include the inhabitants of the Tower, or just the structure itself? If Xande is opening a voidgate at the top of "our" Crystal Tower, what happens on the other worlds?

Could people on the other worlds see that the door had opened when we entered the Tower?

Not shooting down your idea, just equally perplexed by what it might mean.

inb4 everyone gets into a debate about whether transdimensional Allagans built it or Ascians inspired its being built on every shard in the same place and it's just this one time with just this one dimension-hopping time-travelling catteboi.

I think most of the post-keynote rage has an outlet in the Hrothgar, so I suspect things here will stay pretty civil (for once). At this point all we can really do is throw crack theories at the wall and see where they decide to hang the dartboard come 4.56.

Totally no basis for this idea whatsoever, but I wonder if the Tower is able to be concurrent in two places/times at once?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Anonymoose

inb4 everyone gets into a debate about whether transdimensional Allagans built it or Ascians inspired its being built on every shard in the same place and it's just this one time with just this one dimension-hopping time-travelling catteboi.

---

NGL I was actually thinking it could have been something like the latter, although whether it was Ascians (/handgestures) or something else is something I didn't think about.

It might tie in to the different architecture of the "Labyrinth of the Ancients", where even the Allagans have their own "ancient history" that they might not be fully versed about. They rebuilt/repurposed an existing "Crystal Tower" to serve their own energy-production needs, possibly?

Also I was thinking about that old interview where Koji Fox mentioned that there was supposed to be Something Important buried under Silvertear Lake (beyond the whole "Lifestream nexus" and "Primals" thing), and it might have been shelved by the events of 2.0. If there is a version of the Crystal Tower in every Shard around the equivalent of Silvertear, might it be overseeing fourteen (now six) different versions of that Something Important?

(Fragments of Zodiark?)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by YianKutku

Also I was thinking about that old interview where Koji Fox mentioned that there was supposed to be Something Important buried under Silvertear Lake (beyond the whole "Lifestream nexus" and "Primals" thing), and it might have been shelved by the events of 2.0.

---

I have no idea! We've taken to calling this mysterious entity The Presence of Silvertear Lake, and I almost want to see them not mention it until all of this is over, then use it for a later [Eorzea II] expansion; end where we began, you know? But if they tie it to the Ascian / Zodiark story just to tie off the loose end, no qualms.

When it came up in conversation with friends we did this whole workshop about Silvertear being the wound where She launched Zodiark out of the Sea into space and SoMeThInG PoWeRfUl was imprisoned in the "cauterizing" of that wound so Midgardsormr could keep an eye on everything. But that's some fan-fic-y nonsense.
(Oddly in line with Ultima, though!)

We were supposed to be getting an explanation for what Middy was up to when the Allagans built Syrcus Tower on his lawn, IIRC, but then he sacrificed himself during the Omega storyline and was never brought up again. We could finally be getting to that.

I just feel the need to point out that the door of the First's Crystal Tower has the same markings as our Crystal Tower. (Two stylized regents facing each other with a palm outward)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Anonymoose

inb4 everyone gets into a debate about whether transdimensional Allagans built it or Ascians inspired its being built on every shard in the same place and it's just this one time with just this one dimension-hopping time-travelling catteboi.

---

No fair that is my horse!

See, I was thinking the explanation for two Crystal Towers could be a whole lot simpler... Xandes basically just copied the design... Plagiarism does seem to have been an Allag specialty...

We already have a precedent set for that with Amdapor copying the design of Sin Eaters... Perhaps dying lets one glimpse the other Shards in some capacity? Amdapor then raises the dead and they "saw" Sin Eaters and built off that... Naturally, Xandes died as well, saw the First and Crystal Tower, then copied it in the Source... Bonus points if that "justifies" him wanting to open the Voidgate; He saw a world consumed by Light, naturally you'd want to balance that out if you're a crazed despot... Or perhaps our current mysterious voice gave him unclear instructions... "Throw wide the gates...", didn't really specify which gates...

I can't quite recall when exactly our Crystal Tower was constructed though, have a nagging thought that it may have been built prior to Xandes revival, in which case... Disregard I guess!

A slide from the artist dev panel:

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

In case anyone wanted to yell at the censors.

Okay, from what I can tell, both of the words are 'years'. In further support, the kanji for 'year' appears similar to one of the kanji censored. As for the numbers in front of them, the first appears to be double digits and the second is a single digit, either 9, 8 or 6. The first digit of the first number is not 1, in fact, it has a rounded top, meaning it could be any of 2,3,6,8,9. The 2nd digit of the first number does not appear to be 0, 1, 2 or 7 as the digit appears to have that line running through the middle. What does everyone else see? My guesses are 94 years and 9 years atm.

The fact that the CT appeared, instead of being constructed, is the key bit. A question I now have is if that's also what happened on the Source, and Allag just claimed it as their own.

Japanese text says it "warped" to the First, which increases the likelihood of it being the original. Just, how?


Screw it, I'll start:

In the original timeline we won't experience, Solus turns the Flood of Light to his advantage using Black Rose (somehow?) and eliminates the Eorzean Alliance in an Eighth Calamity, securing a Rejoining and victory for Garlemeald. X years later, G'raha Tia awakens in Syrcus Tower, except instead of being greeted by a bright and hopeful future, everything sucks. By following the history of the WoL, he discovers when and why everything went sideways, and transports the Crystal Tower to the past on the First, overshooting by a number of years. He keeps himself in partial stasis, watching events unfold until that moment, later interfering by pulling the Scions out of the Source to prevent their demise, and lastly pulling the WoL, with the intent of restabilizing the First before it can be used in a Rejoining.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fenral

Japanese text says it "warped" to the First, which increases the likelihood of it being the original. Just, how?


Screw it, I'll start:

In the original timeline we won't experience, Solus turns the Flood of Light to his advantage using Black Rose (somehow?) and eliminates the Eorzean Alliance in an Eighth Calamity, securing a Rejoining and victory for Garlemeald. X years later, G'raha Tia awakens in Syrcus Tower, except instead of being greeted by a bright and hopeful future, everything sucks. By following the history of the WoL, he discovers when and why everything went sideways, and transports the Crystal Tower to the past on the First, overshooting by a number of years. He keeps himself in partial stasis, watching events unfold until that moment, later interfering by pulling the Scions out of the Source to prevent their demise, and lastly pulling the WoL, with the intent of restabilizing the First before it can be used in a Rejoining.

---

At this point, I'm open to anything, and this makes use of what little we know.

inb4 the crystal tower is essentially a giant interdimsional aetheryte

Its overall capabilities are so ill-defined it could do basically anything and we wouldn't have a basis to believe otherwise. That's definitely the real reason we sealed it away and forgot about it after 2.5, but that's also why introducing it to begin with was an irresponsible writing decision. There's disregarding conservation of detail, and then there's hog-tying it and tossing it down a ravine. I'm still trying to figure out if Yoshida knew from the beginning how and when he wanted to use it, or just had this idea that he wanted to do something with it at some point and had Ishikawa leave it vague.

Amazingly enough my knee-jerk shot from the hip guess is similar to this insanity for once:

The First's Crystal Tower is the same entity as the one from our dimension, but sent from our future to the First's past (somehow), causing them to both exist relative to one another at this point in time. The idea that there are two is an illusion resulting from this phenomenon. "Our" G'raha is still slumbering in "now" Crystal Tower, whereas the Voice is "future" G'raha, having woken up in the future.

Why do I like this theory all of a sudden? Because instead of ignoring Alexander it fits RIGHT in with the mechanics of timespace it established. It would also allow G'raha to spend a few years of Crystal Tower's future teleported to this period of time in different places. He could create the illusion that one is in every shard if he wanted to.

But, cannot stress this enough, wild guess here. Almost surely wrong.

The only issue with comparisons to Alexander is that it was a perfectly stable time loop. Mide's attempt to change the past is what actually caused Alexander to seemingly respond to her original summons, trapping Dayan and setting her on the path to re-summon Alexander. So where does that leave G'raha? He presumably wouldn't have had access to the historical records of the First, so it's possible that his intervention could be what led to our impending downfall in the first place. Otherwise, after stopping the Scions' plans the first time, he wouldn't know where to intervene when pulling the rest. It'd be ironically fitting for him to become a slave to destiny after finally deciding to choose for himself.

Given the overall statistics, I think there's a high chance Future G'raha is going to end up dead, but will somehow pass on to us the means to open the present-day Tower, short-circuiting the loop and leaving us with a less-powerful incarnation to take with us into 6.0 as we confront Allag's other legacy. Even failing that, I've been emotionally preparing myself for the best and inevitable worst for years now, so as long as he goes out at least as well as Tsuyu I probably won't be able to complain too much. Just cry a lot. For now I'm glad he (appears to be) getting an actual developed arc.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fenral

So where does that leave G'raha?

---

In this hypothetical scenario? Assuming that he would have to act to change then future when in reality he already did and always had and it never reached that final breaking point but he couldn't have known because he couldn't see time from a 4-dimensional perspective. And we don't know that Hydaelyn and Zodiark can't. Any accusation that Hydaelyn is vague or reckless goes out the window if all along She was saying exactly what She needed to set up the dominoes exactly how She wanted them.

(Again, almost ASSUREDLY wrong, lol.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fenral

Japanese text says it "warped" to the First, which increases the likelihood of it being the original. Just, how?


Screw it, I'll start:

In the original timeline we won't experience, Solus turns the Flood of Light to his advantage using Black Rose (somehow?) and eliminates the Eorzean Alliance in an Eighth Calamity, securing a Rejoining and victory for Garlemeald. X years later, G'raha Tia awakens in Syrcus Tower, except instead of being greeted by a bright and hopeful future, everything sucks. By following the history of the WoL, he discovers when and why everything went sideways, and transports the Crystal Tower to the past on the First, overshooting by a number of years. He keeps himself in partial stasis, watching events unfold until that moment, later interfering by pulling the Scions out of the Source to prevent their demise, and lastly pulling the WoL, with the intent of restabilizing the First before it can be used in a Rejoining.

---

So the question becomes if we'll know on Tuesday, or if we'll be left hanging for 3 months.