Tales From the Shadows Updated (SPOILERS ABOUND)

My main takeaway is that Middy is just waiting for the right moment and set of circumstances to spring back to life. If he chose to do so in this divergent timeline, he could well do so in the real.

Now there's something I've been wanting ever since 5.0 came and went. I'm not sure I even have the words to describe how satisfied this makes me.

Very good to see more of the Eighth Umbral Era—and it's good to see that it will continue to have a future, even if it's not one we'll see in FFXIV itself. Middy being back after his two hundred year power nap is quite lovely, too.

And the Keeper Of The Lake will become the guardian of those who work to bring the Eighth Astral Era. Hopefully another champion will rise and prevent a Ninth Calamity, but even if they don't, I like to think that Midgardsormr is still impressed by how mortals persevere, holding hope in the midst of ruin.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

So Midgardsormr gets to flex his full power in that timeline, 200 years after the end of Stormblood. Hmm. I wonder if ours will come back sooner.

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Chances are high, largely due to the time bubble. If Midgardsormr did come back at any point in the game's lifetime, and I think he very likely will due to how useful a plot device he is, it would be basically like he slept for a week or two between the Omega raids and whenever "now" is.

And Omega doesn't even need to be made mandatory, since it's not like Midgardsormr had been doing anything of note, so for those who haven't done Omega, it would just be "I didn't see a need to comment, so I took a nap".

My intention was to silently return to the shadows after having said everything I could about the previous tale, since I cannot say much about G'raha, but this game and these writers have the ability to blindside me in a glorious way.

Honestly, you give Midgardsormr and I will be immediately interested. Not only because dragons. Not only because Sormr was our aetherial companion throughout Heavensward. It is also the fact that he is the Guardian of Silvertear Lake and he is there to protect "the thing that we do not know it is but it is most relevant". And with this comment from Yoshi-P that we should be looking to Heavensward to get the idea for 6.0 (which I am doing with my latest alter after a very enlightening replay of A Realm Revamped) Sormr's surprise reawakening as harbringer of the next Astral Era in the alternate timeline is something to study from a narrative way and coupled with our previous tale.

I will explain myself. Besides the Dragonsong War being pretty much a smaller-scale-War-of-the-Ancients, I read a couple of in-depth studies related to Emet-Selch and his character progression, and while of course much is left to interpretation, the fact remains: we have Azem's crystal aka the encore-phone in our possession. Sormr was the greatest dragon that even after death lingered and decided to travel alongside us to see our worth and if we could end the cycle for himself. I assume you all can guess what is my point. Now we just not only have in our hands The Truth and basically sworn to give the Ancients their rightful place in history but we are seemingly about to tread into Garlemald, another cycle of conflict with the nations of Eorzea. Both of these plot points are straight-up connected to Emet.

In short: this story, I enjoyed, yes, but it further reaffirmed me in my belief that it is setting the ground for what comes next. The previous tale with Emet in the Lifestream and mentioning the pausing of the falling curtain "while their worth is far from sure". Sormr awakening from death to remind us that he exists and he put us through a very similar trial being there with us to observe (by stripping us of the Blessing of Light, no less!). Yes... I can start to glimpse where they were going with the Heavensward comparison. Let us see, then, how things unfold from here in 5.4 and 5.5. I think those will be key moments as well and they will stem from these last two tales.

This little story was everything I wanted from this series and more.

I love the fact that Midgardsormr seemed to regard the Omega "toy", that was a fantastic callback to the third story. And I'm ecstatic that the writers didn't forget about the Eighth Umbral Era, I've been wanting to hear from that lot since the Twinning. It's so good to see even they who worked so hard to ensure our future in the main timeline, finally get the happy ending they deserve, even if it means working just a bit longer.

Great story!

I wonder who was the young girl holding Omega. Biggs didn't seem to immediately recognize her and Middy focused on her first before looking down at the Omega toy. I would like to believe that Omega managed to regain its transformation ability over 200 years and made itself a small new body.

And if Middy is now watching over the survivors, that means that he can also rally the other dragon broods to help. Ishgard in this timestream on a whole other level?

I think I am more confused about the timeline after this

So the “bad future” is still around just now its crystal tower-less and survivors are ready to start salvaging it in earnest… which is why Graha didn’t poof when he saved the day… but doesn’t that also mean there is a future where the bad guys lived, the 1st shard destroyed, and Zodiark was 1 step closer to being set free?

otherwise, Middy and little Omega~ :o

Definitely a warm, fuzzy conclusion to the open-ended question of the Exarch's original timeline.

At least, until the fridge horror starts to sink in. Horray, humanity survives, and with Middy's help, they'll start to rebuild the world!

Exactly as planned. Ascian tactics 101 - bust the world back to the stone age with a Calamity, wait for the mortals to claw their way back from the edge of oblivion, and then hit 'em with the next Calamity! So it's been 200 years - so what? That's nothing to an Ascian. Operation Zodiark is right back on track. Even better, Hydaelyn was already barely able to put up a fight; it's unlikely she'll be able to raise another champion like the Warrior of Light again.

It might take another few thousand years, but in this timeline we can count the days until the remaining shards are eliminated (with all the accompanying genocide), the Source is made whole again (after several more Calamities), Zodiark is awakened, and everyone that's left gets fed to him to resurrect their fallen brethren. (Maybe. We don't kinow yet whether their plan will actually work.)

After all that, even if everything really goes exactly as the Ascians hope, Amaurot is restored (and sure, those other cities, too, why not) - they're back to square one. The Sound strikes again - now what? Time to feed Zodiark once again, I suppose!

But for now, at least, things are looking up!

That was really great story but holy cow did it leave me with more questions than answers and opened some doors that were probably best left closed.

Are alternate Emet-selch/Elidibus still alive in that timeline? Obviously Zodiark hasn't revived or everyone would be gone, but are alternate Ascians now working towards a ninth calamity?

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Are alternate Emet-selch/Elidibus still alive in that timeline? Obviously Zodiark hasn't revived or everyone would be gone, but are alternate Ascians now working towards a ninth calamity?

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As far as we know, yes, although I'd guess Emet's probably curled back up for a nap while Elidibus does his work on one of the other Shards to start priming it for a Rejoining.

But now that their opponents on the Source know how the Rejoining works, how the Ascians enact Calamities, and have Midgardsormr on their side, a Ninth Calamity isn't a foregone conclusion anymore and some new Warriors of Light - Warriors of Middy? - might pull off what ours and the Scions weren't able to do in the original "bad" timeline and stop them. We can hope, anyway!

I’m so glad to see that the doomed timeline isn’t meant to just fade out of existence quietly side-eyes Homestuck. Even though horrible things had happened, many lives were lost, and they won’t be the “real” timeline, it ties back in to the theme of man’s ability to endure and rebuild. Q~Q

It’s perfect closure for the Eighth Umbral Era, and I couldn’t be happier that SE decided to cap it off with the theme of hope. In this way, they are furthering hammering in the theme of how every little thing we do matters. We don’t have to be accomplished warriors or politicians or whatnot to be heroes. We don’t have to fight great wars. Just as long as we help out fellow man and work together to build a brighter future, we can turn things around and begin anew.

Nice to get confirmation that the split timeline... well, is a split timeline, and that it's not unravelling.

From the picture of G'raha, we can see that his right hand isn't crystallised yet so maybe he only bonds to the tower just before he leaves, or at least it hasn't started "paying him back" yet and most of his visible state as the Exarch was directly the price of his time-travel trip, since it's indicated that he looked like that when he arrived.

Omega sounds like he's getting old and senile... I'm kind of disappointed that nobody ever found out he was still in there. I was hoping it would have been their key to finally working out how to utilise the rift. It also spoils my idea that an eventual Twinning (Hard) would involve finding him skittering around the Crystal Tower.

And for anyone fretting that it's only a happy ending until the Ascians get involved again... the reborn Warrior of Light can get involved again too. And humanity as a whole is a lot more aware of Ascian involvement than they have been in previous eras, too.

/sigh With the eight umbral era not disappearing and the crystal tower remaining on the first seems to confirm my suspicions that the eight umbral calamity has not been averted. Two timelines can not exist together. Its a world of paradoxes. One timeline will take over the other.

If they had averted the eight umbra calamity, the tower would have gone back to erozea along with the scions. It is probably a different calamity altogether but it would facilitate the need to go back and avert it.

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Originally Posted by Grimr

/sigh With the eight umbral era not disappearing and the crystal remaining on the first seems to confirm my suspicions that the eight umbral calamity has not been averted. Two timelines can not exist together. Its a world of paradoxes. One timeline will take over the other.

If they had averted the eight umbra calamity, the tower would have gone back to erozea along with the scions. It is probably a different calamity altogether but it would facilitate the need to go back and avert it.

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They're averting the Calamity by preventing it from happening in this version of the timeline, even though it will still happen in the other timeline. In fact, that split actually prevents a paradox, because we're not raising that issue of "travelling back to prevent a historical event, thus erasing the event from history and removing your motivation to time-travel in the first place". Here, because the two timelines co-exist, G'raha can be aware of what happened in one version of history while still being able to prevent it in the other.

There's no reason at all for the tower to vanish back to Eorzea - the whole point of the split timeline is that there will be no unravelling and no resetting. Once the two versions of time have diverged, they exist as they are. The tower is in Lakeland and it's staying there unless someone fires up the TARDIS engine again (which won't be happening because we broke it).

The whole point of this story seems to be to confirm the opposite of your suspicions: that the split does not need to be resolved and the two versions of the timeline will continue to co-exist, despite each being inaccessible and undetectable to the other.

It's worth pointing out that this story is set 200 years into the future of the other timeline. Unless their story is going to overwrite ours again, which would defeat the purpose of the whole exercise, then it has not happened to them yet even though their world exists far beyond the limits of our modern-day time bubble.

I'm fairly sure that this story is simply to clarify that the other timeline has not been destroyed and is not in a hopeless situation. While you can never say never in this story, I don't feel like we'll be hearing from them again.



Edit to add: If you're of the impression that the Eighth Calamity can't have been averted until we see the tower and the Scions returned to their original places, that was essentially a working theory at the time, based on an incorrect assumption of the consequences. The Exarch expected that a successful aversion of the Calamity would cause time to unwind and the tower to revert to its rightful place in future Mor Dhona - but then here we are in that unwanted paradox state, asking whether that would also undo the very work that lead to the Calamity being averted in the first place. Of course that didn't actually happen and the timeline split instead of being overwritten, so the final outcome is different.

I'm glad this means Midgardsormr is just sleeping after Omega raids and not gone. Hopefully we seem him again in our timeline soon.

This was a sweet story, although not my favorite of the bunch. I never considered what happened to the future Ironworks after they sent G'raha back. I'm glad they got a hopeful ending. Isn't hope very appropriate for ShB?

This reeks of Chrono Cross where there are two parallel dimensions that diverge from a singular point. I just hope we don't get Time Assassins that come to kill us to ensure their timeline where they were born actually becomes the dominant one.

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Originally Posted by Grimr

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Gonna have to break this post apart because of character limit, but here goes:

That’s not how time travel works both by the consensus in the physics community (theoretically speaking, of course) and the game’s own darn rules established in the Alexander story (i.e. time travel can only occur as a result of a causal loop). But basically, you can’t actually change the future by changing the past. The only way you can travel through time is if you were meant to in the first place.

Maybe being a former Homestuck fan makes comprehending the concept of alt timelines resulting from time travel easier. But to some them up, in Homestuck there is an Alpha Timeline (i.e. the “real” timeline where everything happens as it “should”) and countless Doomed Timelines (i.e. things were not “supposed“ to happen this way due to a “bad” choice made by a Time Player, who all have the ability to time travel).

Homestuck had used a similar plotpoint somewhere in Act 3 where John was tricked into confronting his game world’s (fyi, Homestuck is about kids who play a game that destroy the world and forces them to create a new one in another plane known as Paradox Space before releasing it) Denizen, which are the giant NPC monsters inhabiting each player’s world. The result was that he was killed, which prompted Dave, his best friend and Knight of Time, to travel back to the point in time where he did not stop John from meeting Typheus.

There, he informed his past self of the Doomed John’s fate and thus Alpha Dave was able to convince John into reconsidering. Doomed Dave then merges with the sprite (i.e. the game’s magical guides that need to have an object or entity tossed into them), becoming Davesprite in order to continue assisting his Alpha counterpart and friends. Later on in the story, however, we learn that it was actually SUPPOSED to happen all along. Doomed John was not simply killed by Typheus; the Denizen was actually pleasant and simply told him about how his was not what’s “supposed” to happen. And so he was given two choices: He could live and allow everything to stagnate or he could die and ensure the Alpha Timeline continues on. John, dear boy he is, chose the latter, which prompted Doomed Dave to go back and ensure his Alpha self does not make the same mistake.

Of course, the difference between Homestuck’s doomed timelines and the one in XIV is that in Homestuck, doomed timelines ALL fade away, which also kills any survivors in them (although their ghosts are sent to an afterlife of sorts if they don’t find some way or transferring themselves to their Alpha selves). This is why Time Players often are warned of Bad Choices by coming across the corpse of a doomed self the moment they consider it; it’s Paradox Space’s way of ensuring the Alpha Timeline survives. This is also why the Beta Kids had MUCH FEWER doomed timelines than the Trolls did; Terezi being able to see what happens in the Kids’ future via a terminal means she could basically tell Dave exactly what he needs go do to avoid creating Dead Daves D34D D4V3S 4R3 TH3 3N3MY!

However, as the latest short story shows, the doomed timeline is able to continue existing and moving forward because there’s no force to prevent it from existing. Sending G’raha back simply caused it to become a branch in the timeline, which was speculated as a possibility both in the story and in-game (heck, the branch thing was emphasized in game because people were working for “a future they will never see” since it won’t change their situation at all. And there’s also the fact there isn’t some Greater Force(TM) to forcibly remove them like in Homestuck (which spends the majority of its time in the strange game/not-game world of Paradox Space).

Think of it like this diagram here:

https://imgur.com/download/gVSfMUx/

I color-coded each timeline in addition to the “base” where things happened the same. In the base timeline, G’raha was snoozing in the Crystal Tower. That holds true for both timelines, so think of it as the “trunk” of this “tree”.

The branching point is whether or not the 8th Umbral Calamity occurred. For the doomed timeline, it came to pass and things progressed horribly, which leads to the red “branch”. Breaking off from that branch though is G’raha being eventually awakened and sent back to the trunk at a point well before the Calamity. From here come the events leading up to and continuing until the end of Shadowbringers, where G’raha ultimately merges his mind and soul with his past self, which then continues off on the green branch.

Not pictured is doomed timeline G’raha’s body being left in the First as a lovely statue, but it only serves to cement that everything is as it should be. Because you can’t remove the trunk without removing the branches. That’s Time Travel 101.

In other words, by Occam’s Razor, time travel can never change what has already occurred; only create a new outcome independent of the original. This is actually why the vast majority of time travel plots drive me nuts (including Terminator as much as I love the first two films), but thankfully 14 managed to cleanly avoid that bad trope.

So in any case, yes, while the Ascians sure still exist in the doomed timeline, it’s not our problem. All it means is that a multiverse exists.

Dang, never thought I’d end up talking about Homestuck in detail again anywhere, but I guess it’s true you can NEVER escape the Homestuck. u.u

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Originally Posted by kujoestars

So in any case, yes, while the Ascians sure still exist in the doomed timeline, it’s not our problem.

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So long as nothing happens to bring us there, at least. The WoL is usually not the sort to look the other way. Though saying that, I find myself imagining the bizarre scenario of the WoL traveling to the Eighth Umbral Astral Era timeline and discovering that our own future reincarnation was recruited by Emet-Selch and Elidibus to shore up their ranks.

Thanks for the graphic. (I've been meaning to draw out a something very similar but I am terrible at getting around to things.)

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Originally Posted by kujoestars

In other words, by Occam’s Razor, time travel can never change what has already occurred; only create a new outcome independent of the original.

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I'm not sure that Occam's Razor (loosely: simple theories are preferable to complex ones) is the right thing to be invoking, but otherwise yes, more or less.

The time traveller can affect the world around them, but those actions either become part of "how it always happened" or, if they create a situation that is incompatible with what they know as history, that forces time to diverge so the new incompatible events don't affect the original version. The traveller can still remember the events of the original timeline, but they cannot return to it because they have forced themself onto a different path through time.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Thanks for the graphic. (I've been meaning to draw out a something very similar but I am terrible at getting around to things.)




I'm not sure that Occam's Razor (loosely: simple theories are preferable to complex ones) is the right thing to be invoking, but otherwise yes, more or less.

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The problem with applying Occam's Razor to fictional concepts like Time Travel is that Occam's Razor is kind of intended to determine what is the mostly likely scenario to explain a phenomenon we encounter in the real world. In fiction, the explanation for any phenomenon is only limited by the writer's imagination and the ability of the reader to suspend their disbelief which kind of makes a concept like Occam's Razor hard to apply.

“In those days, I could but dream of being counted with the likes of Cid, Nero, Biggs, and Wedge─indeed, I would still give my right arm to achieve half of what they achieved...”

...

/cough >_>


I always enjoy seeing G'raha wax poetic about his motives, so this was a great story for me. lol Old Man Middy waking up and laughing at Omega was amusing. Also, Biggs III thinking for a second that their shelter had just fallen down cus they hadn't repaired it properly. lol

Heck of a day, though: They wake up that morning thinking they might blink out of existence. They don't. Then their house caves in cus one of the walls decides to wake up, laugh at them, and possibly tell them to get off his lawn.

Glad we got some resolution to the eight umbral timeline, though. (I guess they're the original timeline, technically? Since they happened first.) The outcomes fit nicely with the time travel model DBZ introduced to me as a kid in the 90s. lol

Bit of a rant:

Loved this story. Still I question why they didn't just put forth the effort into fixing their world in the first place instead of setting up time travel?

I mean, I appreciate it. One of my favorite characters is part of my team now b/c of it. And it was a hell of an adventure.

But, from a practical standpoint, if I was a member of the people living in that timeline, I'd be a bit... miffed? I mean, apparently we aren't doomed. And we spent all this time building tech to accomplish time travel and, yes, we will get to use it for the rest of the world now, but shouldn't we have been doing that before? Plus, is the doomed world really even as doomed as we (and G'rraha) were kind of left thinking? Did Black Rose's effects even reach the rest of the world beyond Ilsabard/Aldenard/Othard?

I'm glad they're gonna rebuild. But the rebuilding seems to have been something that didn't result from their time travel efforts, so it begs the question of "Couldn't we have just been doing that before?"

Maybe I'm being cynical.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

From the picture of G'raha, we can see that his right hand isn't crystallised yet so maybe he only bonds to the tower just before he leaves, or at least it hasn't started "paying him back" yet and most of his visible state as the Exarch was directly the price of his time-travel trip, since it's indicated that he looked like that when he arrived.

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I noticed that, too. Maybe he only merged with the tower after he spoke with the survivors of the Flood and realized he'd need to extend his life span? (And need power to protect these people/himself in the meantime.) And *then* he was called Crystal Exarch, after a while. Or he was always called that cus of the tower in the first place, not his deformity.

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Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

So long as nothing happens to bring us there, at least. The WoL is usually not the sort to look the other way. Though saying that, I find myself imagining the bizarre scenario of the WoL traveling to the Eighth Umbral Astral Era timeline and discovering that our own future reincarnation was recruited by Emet-Selch and Elidibus to shore up their ranks.

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Azem wasn't tempered and left the convocation in protest against Zodiark. The sundered ascians they raise from soul shards are from shards of Ascians who are tempered and predisposed to go along with the convocation. There is no reason that our soul shard would be able to recruited as a member of the ascian ranks. If they get their memory back, they wouldn't willingly agree to it. And since Zodiark isn't whole, I think he can't temper anything, so they couldn't brainwash us, either.

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Originally Posted by LystAP

I wonder who was the young girl holding Omega. Biggs didn't seem to immediately recognize her and Middy focused on her first before looking down at the Omega toy.

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My guess....

Azem's slash our reincarnation, someone who has yet to embark on the grand adventures that will mark her as the harbinger of the Eight Astral Era much as we brought forth the Eight. A tale for another place, of another time and maybe for another time

That was a lovely story; a heart-felt glimpse and a drop of closure for something we were never meant to touch.

At the same time I think the main reason I'm able to say that is because, lore-wise, it confirms that we're not even trying to make the time shenanigans sound consistent or realistic anymore. I can set that whole mangled thing aside and never think about it again, lol. I think we're at straight-up, faerie-tale, "don't even think about how this works" wibbly wobbly timey wimey whatever, now, right? As long as there' a vague superficial pseudo-logic to it, Keep Calm and Blame The Rift?

Maybe one day... lol

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Originally Posted by Alleluia

Azem wasn't tempered and left the convocation in protest against Zodiark. The sundered ascians they raise from soul shards are from shards of Ascians who are tempered and predisposed to go along with the convocation. There is no reason that our soul shard would be able to recruited as a member of the ascian ranks. If they get their memory back, they wouldn't willingly agree to it. And since Zodiark isn't whole, I think he can't temper anything, so they couldn't brainwash us, either.

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We don't actually know the full details as to why Azem defected from the Convocation. We also don't know the exact details of how the Ascians ascend one of their lesser brethren—it's not even something we know they've done beyond what is strictly necessary (ie: There are 13 Overlords, but only 3 are Unsundered, so of course the other 10 had to be ascended to their positions). As for Azem's soulstone, I have to point out that it can not actually contain Azem's memories—Azem defected before it was even created, and what few apparent memories it does possess belonged to its creator, Emet-Selch/Hades. And as for Zodiark not being able to temper anyone, if that were the case, would the sundered Ascians even be tempered to begin with?

But all of that, I think, is fairly irrelevant to the idea. Elidibus was able to convince Ardbert and his companions into trying to cause a Rejoining with words alone. Is it really that farfetched to believe that they could do the same with our future reincarnation?

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Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

We don't actually know the full details as to why Azem defected from the Convocation. We also don't know the exact details of how the Ascians ascend one of their lesser brethren—it's not even something we know they've done beyond what is strictly necessary (ie: There are 13 Overlords, but only 3 are Unsundered, so of course the other 10 had to be ascended to their positions). As for Azem's soulstone, I have to point out that it can not actually contain Azem's memories—Azem defected before it was even created, and what few apparent memories it does possess belonged to its creator, Emet-Selch/Hades. And as for Zodiark not being able to temper anyone, if that were the case, would the sundered Ascians even be tempered to begin with?

But all of that, I think, is fairly irrelevant to the idea. Elidibus was able to convince Ardbert and his companions into trying to cause a Rejoining with words alone. Is it really that farfetched to believe that they could do the same with our future reincarnation?

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I wasn't referring to the soul stone when I said soul shard. I meant the literal shard of our soul that is present in the Source WoL that is Azem's reincarnation. The ascians, from how I understand it, raise up the shard of their sundered brethren by doing something that at least partially restores their memories, or at least puts them back in touch with their ancient self, and lets the tempering of Zodiark that's left some kind of mark on their soul to take effect.

And I thought we did know that Azem left the convocation b/c of the plans around Zodiark? We do know they weren't part of summoning him, otherwise they'd be tempered and we'd not be fighting against the rejoinings now.

I don't rule out Elidibus successfully lying to our future incarnation and getting them on his side like that. When you said recruited by Emet, I thought you meant like unsundered ascians. Nevermind, then.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Thanks for the graphic. (I've been meaning to draw out a something very similar but I am terrible at getting around to things.)




I'm not sure that Occam's Razor (loosely: simple theories are preferable to complex ones) is the right thing to be invoking, but otherwise yes, more or less.

The time traveller can affect the world around them, but those actions either become part of "how it always happened" or, if they create a situation that is incompatible with what they know as history, that forces time to diverge so the new incompatible events don't affect the original version. The traveller can still remember the events of the original timeline, but they cannot return to it because they have forced themself onto a different path through time.

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Originally Posted by Draginhikari

The problem with applying Occam's Razor to fictional concepts like Time Travel is that Occam's Razor is kind of intended to determine what is the mostly likely scenario to explain a phenomenon we encounter in the real world. In fiction, the explanation for any phenomenon is only limited by the writer's imagination and the ability of the reader to suspend their disbelief which kind of makes a concept like Occam's Razor hard to apply.

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Let’s just say I use looser definition of the principle to apply to more general things (and honestly, it isn’t even always true in science, but I digress). That said though, while that IS true, in works of fiction where the writer(s) has already established the rules themselves (which 14 has via the entire Alexander story where it turned out everything was a massive timeloop) and said writer(s) consistently follow their own rules (looking at you, JKR and letting Cursed Child through when the whole concept breaks your own established time travel rules), it applies pretty well within the rules of the story.

In any case, my point (as Iscah kindly summarized in two sentences) stands: If things were always meant to have occurred, a time loop is in place. If a paradox is created, then a branch in the timeline occurs where the time traveler still experienced the previous events but is locked in to the new timeline.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

That was a lovely story; a heart-felt glimpse and a drop of closure for something we were never meant to touch.

At the same time I think the main reason I'm able to say that is because, lore-wise, it confirms that we're not even trying to make the time shenanigans sound consistent or realistic anymore. I can set that whole mangled thing aside and never think about it again, lol. I think we're at straight-up, faerie-tale, "don't even think about how this works" wibbly wobbly timey wimey whatever, now, right? As long as there' a vague superficial pseudo-logic to it, Keep Calm and Blame The Rift?

Maybe one day... lol

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"Blame the Interdimensional Rift" sounds about right, yes.

Having Alexanders time shenanigans interact with the The Rift always struck me as the sort of thing that could cause things to Get Weird and give the laws of reality a bit of a wedgie.

The involvement of a different shard, essentially a copy of the world existing on a different quantum frequency/whatever you call it that also moves through time at a different speed from the world it was split off from might also have had something to do with it.

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Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

So long as nothing happens to bring us there, at least. The WoL is usually not the sort to look the other way. Though saying that, I find myself imagining the bizarre scenario of the WoL traveling to the Eighth Umbral Astral Era timeline and discovering that our own future reincarnation was recruited by Emet-Selch and Elidibus to shore up their ranks.

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Funny enough, I was just imagining a “what-if” scenario where my WoL somehow gets dumped into this timeline. I’m not sure the likelihood we’ll see this alt timeline anytime soon, if at all, but it sure would be an interesting way to revisit the Ascians if they ever become relevant again. I personally would like to avoid a Warlords of Draenor type of situation-oh wait, that’s literally ShB, lol. Correction: I would personally like to avoid a Blizzard-type of timeline hopping, but as long as Yoshi-P is still on the team, I’m sure they can pull it off.

While it is true the WoL can never turn away from people in need, they also wouldn’t just ditch their own timeline to fix one where their time was long past while there’s STILL a laundry list of issues. We only ended up on The First, after all, because G’raha pulled us over, and the other Scions were along for the ride by accident.And then it became a “while we’re here, we may as well” type of situation since we’d save the First anyway even if it wouldn’t benefit the Source at all (it was even outright stated). But it’s not something we’d be going ojt of our way to do; just depends if Yoshi-P ever wants to actually revisit that world or introducing even more convoluted time-world hopping shenanigans. Buuuuuuut for now, I’d be happy to not have a horrible repeat of WoW’s terrible time travel plot abuse.

It’s fun to imagine how our WoLs would react to meeting their alternate timeline reincarnation regardless. -w-

Perhaps we can have a sidequest in the future to mess around a bit.

I think the implication is that, when the result of time travel without traveling between shards would have a direct effect on that shard, the timeline self-corrects to be "fated" as it were. However, when traveling between shards, or perhaps doing so where one's actions don't have a direct effect on that shard (which I can't imagine would be possible), the result is a divergent timeline. After all, it's the actions on the First that prevent the Eighth Calamity on the Source, as opposed to any direct actions taken on the Source. Whereas, in the Alexander raids, everything happens as per a time loop, all actions have direct consequences for the Source, and all actions appear to be fated, disregarding Quickthinx's book.

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

My guess....

Azem's slash our reincarnation, someone who has yet to embark on the grand adventures that will mark her as the harbinger of the Eight Astral Era much as we brought forth the Eight. A tale for another place, of another time and maybe for another time

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I dont know i would like to think that

its Alpha's soul reincarnated. It would to me make it sweeter that he was able to find his little traveling companion again but as a "human". But thats probably just me.

That feeling when you're trying to work and your brain is more interested in trying to concoct a clear graphical representation of your thoughts on space/multiverse/timelines...

For now, I'll just say that I don't think the involvement of multiple shards has anything to do with causing the split timeline, and you could cause the same effect through time travel within a single shard. Each version of the timeline carries a copy of all the shards in it - like a higher-level version of the Sundering where each shard was a copy of the same original thing but is now free to evolve separately.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

lore-wise, it confirms that we're not even trying to make the time shenanigans sound consistent or realistic anymore.

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Funnily enough, it's perfectly consistent with how I've been trying to explain it all along. A simple Y-shaped timeline where G'raha can take one path first then come back and force the creation of the second.

*adjusts darksteel-foil hat, waves at wall full of notes*

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Originally Posted by Iscah

That feeling when you're trying to work and your brain is more interested in trying to concoct a clear graphical representation of your thoughts on space/multiverse/timelines...

For now, I'll just say that I don't think the involvement of multiple shards has anything to do with causing the split timeline, and you could cause the same effect through time travel within a single shard. Each version of the timeline carries a copy of all the shards in it - like a higher-level version of the Sundering where each shard was a copy of the same original thing but is now free to evolve separately.

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Just see it as a tree... a big tree with branches or limbs... and I thank Ben 10 Omniverse for this...

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Originally Posted by kujoestars

snip

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Doe't XI have alt timelines and traveling through them in more recent xpacs?

it would seem everyone needs a refresher on why they did time travel in the first place. Eight umbral calmaity hits black rose is used Garlemald magiteck is non functional and other city states are void of aether think the empty but on a larger no honestly think Novrant and the first cause its basically that but eorzea. Emet-set and elibus ( unless they were killed though out the timelines)still exist in that doomed era. I don't even know if middy can reverse that emptiness, not even cid could.

What the exarch said was true the tower needs to go back to eorzea to ensure the 8th calamity of that nature doesn't happen. Until it leaves the first, there will be a calamity of epic proportion that will necessitate the use of the tower again. Maybe when we defeat zenos the tower will vanish. But until it has nothing will have changed.

I will not discuss the 3 timelines of zelda here. My attempted knowledge comes from Chrono Trigger and loz MM ( song of time anyone)

It is simple cause and effect.

tl;dr old man yells at cloud of darkness

For whatever it's worth, my issue with it isn't that 5.0's time travel doesn't make sense in a vacuum - the Y-branch is pretty simple. Granted, one hopes it is only a Y, in that case. An infinite fractalling multiverse renders our world (also its own shattered multiverse) not only one insignificant speck in a sea of infinite universal possibilities, but one could argue that it really means we abandoned "our world" to its death to live in a preferable nearby alternative and pretend it's ok because our personal story of it is nice and it works out for us. Moreover, since there would be infinite worlds within which the existence of the Tycoon can never be fully erased, and thus is always potentially accessible, nothing we ever defeat is ever truly dead, and nothing we do cannot be undone, since it could just as easily come back from one of the millions of branches where it still exists. So yes, let us hope it's a Y.

(Recall that I was open to the two-world version based on the FR name for the Twinning being a play on crystal macles; one crystal's inverted lattice growing through itself.)

My issue is that there's no explanation for the seeming contradiction (or at least awkward jibe) in the cosmology and epistemology of Final Fantasy XIV spacetime aetherophysics put forward by the Alexander arc. Except having a debate about that requires understanding different theoretical forms of time travel, which is where said debate always breaks down. Hell, the Terminator movies are all supposed to take place in the same franchise but all use different theories of time travel, lol. No sooner does Agents of SHIELD use the Alexander approach than does Infinity War use the Shadowbringers approach ... and then I think SHIELD goes back and ... undoes the rules from the ... look, the Quantum Realm is the Rift is what I'm saying, apparently.

Though one could argue that perhaps while the infinite branching multiverse is does not concretely exist, it exists as un-manifest potential within the Rift, where all time and space co-exist at once, and by breaking the rules of the Rift we break the rules of time and thus branch what is manifest - creating a two-world limit where we only DOUBLE the amount of things that can come back and bite us, again, lol.

I can't stress this enough - the people in the game (and now the side-story) also recognize that it's weird, lol. This is the same expansion that inverted everything we knew about elements to resolve a contradiction a tiny fraction of this fandom would have noticed. If it's a contradiction puzzle, I try to find and solve it. But if "don't think too hard about it" is the answer then I can set it aside.

Final Fantasy as a long, proud tradition of occasionally not feeling any pressure to explain what just happened.

(Still, I'm a little surprised G'raha didn't give his blood memories to his sleeping self, thus revealing that the timeline with the Eighth Umbral Era was averted from the start because time from a 4D perspective had already been changed and the memories were from a time that "never was" but we still had to live it out subjectively from a limited 3D perspective. Clearly he just does that "next year"...)

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

Doe't XI have alt timelines and traveling through them in more recent xpacs?

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Wings of the Goddess is the time travelling expansion. It dealt with the Crystal War (pre-vanilla) where we (the playable races) beat Shadowlord's army. The expansion actually implied that the Shadowlord would've won if we had not interfered in Wings of the Goddess.