The State of the Ascians (Assume Spoilers as of TODAY)

Forgive the bump~

tbh Emmerololth in Hydatos was the first thing I checked with 4.56 and I was so happy to know that SE's either reading this thread or they're reading the localization forum where I recommended they change Emmerololth to a woman. I'm hoping it's the former so we can get a better explanation, but I fully expect the latter. Especially after fanfest where they gave a few dismissive answers that were essentially "we don't think we should explain everything."

Anyway, I did make a thread about it when Hydatos was released so it's unwise to assume Emmerololth's gender was changed in attempt to correct lore, unfortunately. It just means they were alerted to an error and they fixed it.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...%28spoilers%29

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

Ah, so they are going the "someone else took over Emmerololth's title" route. I highly doubt they will change the cutscene in 2.3 at all because it was voiced. And that's always way harder to change.

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That 2.3 Chrysalis cutscene where Emmerololth appeared was not voiced, you might be confusing it with the 2.0 cutscene where Pashtarot/Nabriales/Igeyorhm are unmasked and voiced. Are you sure you're not confusing Emmerololth with Pashtarot, who was definitely male? Because Emm being changed to "her" doesn't mean "someone took over Emmerololth's title." Emmerololth's title was always very specifically female in every language in FFXII; Emmerololth having a masculine pronoun initially was the localization oversight that gave any credence at all to the now fully debunked "maybe it's a different Ascian" theory.

Everything else is still fully valid and Eureka's Ascian involvement still deserves a huge "WTF SE?" however.

At this point I'm worried the best we'll get is a slight background a la Igeyorhm in the lore book, which, to be fair, made her a ton more interesting.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. the Scene in 2.3 uses the stock Ascian bodies for almost everyone in that scene and that stock body is male. While we do see that the Ascians have names of the Scions of Light from the Ivalice series, there's nothing that shows that the descriptions of those titles means anything in FFXIV. We don't see anyone calling Lahabrea the Abyssal Celebrant or Nabriales the Majestic.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

We don't see anyone calling Lahabrea the Abyssal Celebrant or Nabriales the Majestic.

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Yes, actually we do. Those titles are used at the top of the Ascian entries in the Japanese lore book. They were removed from the English lore book outright for some reason. Someday Koji will give us a reason why, or at least add them to the next lore book Ascian profiles are present.

Mitron, the Chastiser, however, is used in the English lore book.

That would make Emmerololth's swap to she a correction in localization.

Edit: Images for proof:

https://i.imgur.com/JXyH0Ab.png
https://i.imgur.com/fntFfse.jpg

2020-08-27

I've done a full overhaul of the OP for 5.3 because things are getting weird.

15 and 16 are probably just random Amaurotines who participated in Zodiark’s summoning since I recall Emet saying Ascians are specifically the Ancients who summoned Zodiark and thus tempered by him.

They are NOT necessarily Convocation members and frankly it wouldn’t make much sense given the number of untitled low-ranked black masked ones running around. Convocation members also canonically wore red masks (with Asem being a likely exception via Elidibus’ vision; offhand, I am convinced the Ancient wearing the OG WoL armor is Azem), which is in line with Gaius stating the red masked Ascians are the leaders while black masks are hero fodder underlings.

All 3 Unsundered Ascians are gone for sure. For the remaining sundered though, I think it’s a safe bet they’re still kicking if they weren’t offed or implied to be offed. I’ve....actually been wondering where the heck Pashtarot and Altima phooka’d off to for the past 3 expansions. Hopefully they’ll be back by 6.0 since that’s apparently where the Ascian arc will conclude.

All this said though: I don’t think Azem should be counted as an Ascian since, again, Ascians are specifically Ancients bound to Zodiark. Azem left the Convocation as soon as they decided on that, and then turned down the invitation to Hydaelyn’s summoning.

Also, in response to OP, Elidibus seems to have taken all the Convocation crystals with him into the Tower, but later when we went back in on the Source to retrieve G’raha, Azem’s (our) crystal dropped down from somewhere and we picked it up. Makes me wonder if Elidibus is now spread between both iterations of the tower and decided to give us a thank you gift for freeing him and helping him remember.

Betting my gil that the crystal will be important again later, and I’m hoping we’ll start remembering our old life. I’m also convinced that based on the revelations in 5.3, this would have been part of Emet’s proposal if we managed to absorb Innocence without being on the verge of exploding into a Super-Lightwarden. Good chance he’d be trying to bring back his dearest friend in the hopes he could convince them to assist in the Ardor (not likely to work given how opposed Azem was to all the Ascian BS from the start, but guess a man could dream).

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Originally Posted by kujoestars

All this said though: I don’t think Azem should be counted as an Ascian since, again, Ascians are specifically Ancients bound to Zodiark. Azem left the Convocation as soon as they decided on that, and then turned down the invitation to Hydaelyn’s summoning.

Also, in response to OP, Elidibus seems to have taken all the Convocation crystals with him into the Tower, but later when we went back in on the Source to retrieve G’raha, Azem’s (our) crystal dropped down from somewhere and we picked it up. Makes me wonder if Elidibus is now spread between both iterations of the tower and decided to give us a thank you gift for freeing him and helping him remember.

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Yep, Azem shouldn't really be counted as an Ascian, but they were a member of the organization that became the leadership of the Ascians after the summoning of Zodiark, so it is relevant.
Also, we didn't show Elidibus the Azem crystal, and it wasn't taken to the tower. The scene later would've been there to specifically show we still had it because it'd have been confusing.

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Originally Posted by Vulcwen

Yep, Azem shouldn't really be counted as an Ascian, but they were a member of the organization that became the leadership of the Ascians after the summoning of Zodiark, so it is relevant.
Also, we didn't show Elidibus the Azem crystal, and it wasn't taken to the tower. The scene later would've been there to specifically show we still had it because it'd have been confusing.

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Really? Because I’m pretty sure I saw an orange crystal in the pile and was pretty surprised at the time we apparently included ours in the mix. I’ll have to check my screenshots later, but if what you say is true, that doesn’t explain why the Azem crystal fell from the ceiling of the Crystal Tower after we ran at least 10 feet away. :1

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Originally Posted by kujoestars

Really? Because I’m pretty sure I saw an orange crystal in the pile and was pretty surprised at the time we apparently included ours in the mix. I’ll have to check my screenshots later, but if what you say is true, that doesn’t explain why the Azem crystal fell from the ceiling of the Crystal Tower after we ran at least 10 feet away. :1

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Okay, after checking my screenshots, turns out the “orange” stone was actually the yellow one, courtesy of the lighting, lol! It definitely didn’t have the sun so @Vulcwen is correct and I was wrong.

I also misremembered how far the Azem stone was dropped behind us, because it was actually just a step away for my WoL. So, it would seem it simply fell out of our pocket. GOSHDARNIT, I am STILL not immune to that in games it seems, >;[

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

2020-08-27

I've done a full overhaul of the OP for 5.3 because things are getting weird.

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I just reread your post, and god damn you weren't kidding. Instead of finally cleaning up the Ascian lore, they just dug the hole deeper!?

Maybe they'll give us a pair of two-who-are-one creepy twins or something (bonus points for Rie Kugimiya), and we'll find out they ascended the same Convocation member twice (or three times) just to see what would happen. That could fill at least one seat without compromising numerical significance.

Or maybe they're just flying by the seat of their pants and I just gave them an idea for another hotfix.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

I just reread your post, and god damn you weren't kidding. Instead of finally cleaning up the Ascian lore, they just dug the hole deeper!?

Maybe they'll give us a pair of two-who-are-one creepy twins or something (bonus points for Rie Kugimiya), and we'll find out they ascended the same Convocation member twice (or three times) just to see what would happen. That could fill at least one seat without compromising numerical significance.

Or maybe they're just flying by the seat of their pants and I just gave them an idea for another hotfix.

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Would be interesting to see a pair of evil twins, especially if their circumstances led to them being the same shard.

The scenario that would save Moose further headaches however, is somehow of "one mind, two bodies" scenario. Where raising two shards of the same ascian resulting in one personality being in control of both bodies.

Right now My assumptions/headcanon is that the 10 sundered seats had all been filled by the time of 5.3, that Emmeroth got a replacement in immediately after the Val incident, and that the astonishment at Nabriales' death was due to the means rather than it happening (or more frankly that it was possible to permanently kill them without drowning them in lifestream). Related, Gaius' destruction of the two ascians weren't permanent as he likely didn't know of the White Auracite.