Revelations from Patch 6.2: Buried Memories

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Originally Posted by Veloran

Still though, I'd be pretty disappointing if we were just done in the past at this point. WoL kind of just left abruptly with no big closure with Themis, Eric, or Lahabrea.

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In german at least they say at the end that they will try to find out more and that until that we should go back. So I guess that we will see them again for the finale.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

In german at least they say at the end that they will try to find out more and that until that we should go back. So I guess that we will see them again for the finale.

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Even in English Themis tells us that Lahabreha and him should be able to wrap things up for now and to come back later so they can take a look at the memory stone.

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Originally Posted by WellGramarye

You, who are naught but the bitter dregs of Athena and I─the very worst of us!

Dregs (n) - the most worthless part or parts of something.

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You're assuming that he means literal parts and not character traits. Like their obsession as researchers.

Pandaemonium

P8S has Hephaistos transform into some grotesque monstrosity, one arm covered in eyes...

Yeah, if the Pandaemonium tier final bosses are intended to echo bosses from horror game franchises, he's probably based in "G" from Resident Evil 2.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

Pandaemonium

P8S has Hephaistos transform into some grotesque monstrosity, one arm covered in eyes...

Yeah, if the Pandaemonium tier final bosses are intended to echo bosses from horror game franchises, he's probably based in "G" from Resident Evil 2.

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Pretty much.

If Hesperos is supposed to be an homage to Dracula and his forms from Castlevania, Hephaistos is an homage to Resident Evil with Albert Wesker and the G-variant monster.

Which then brings the question of where the third leg will go!

We hit Castlevania-style Gothic horror and Resident Evil/Parasite Eve-style biological horror, let's hit up Silent Hill and Eternal Darkness for some psychological horror.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Which then brings the question of where the third leg will go!

We hit Castlevania-style Gothic horror and Resident Evil/Parasite Eve-style biological horror, let's hit up Silent Hill and Eternal Darkness for some psychological horror.

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That's what I'm hoping for too. Perhaps a very unsettling arena, eyes throughout the background watching the player's camera, location swap mechanics, eerie whispering in the background, etc. It's the final type of horror we're missing.

10 chars....

About the raids: With Pandaemonium now being in the present days, I wonder if this is how Elidibus and Lahabrea survived the sundering. Could it be that they were in the present days when the sundering occurred?

About the patch as a whole and my tinfoil hat theory:
I have a theory that we haven't seen the last of Fandaniel's crazyness.
All this 'buried memory' thing just reminded me of Kairos, which served this exact purpose in the 6.0 MSQ: burying memory.
In his final moments, Amon said something interesting about Kairos too. He said that, due to Fandaniel's soul returning many times to the lifestream, it regained most of the memory that Kairos deleted. Therefore, Amon also regained the memories from Elpis when he became an Ascian. Memories that Emet did not have.

Which means that Amon/Fandaniel knew about Kairos' power, and about memory manipulation.
It could also partly explain why Fandaniel was surprised to hear that Zenos had memories from the Final days: because he didn't expect Emet to gain knowledge on how to manipulate memory.

Zero also seems to have a selective memory. It seems that there are some things she doesn't remember. And from what Y'Shtola said, it sounded like Fandaniel is the one who chose Zero as Zenos' voidsent. Must be a reason for that.

In 6.0, when learning about Kairos, Emet says something along the line of : "Pashtarot would never approve of such a thing".

Pashtarot in Ivalician lore, is the scions of light associated with....Zeromus... (I know this meant nothing for other Ascians, but I still find it interesting)

Pashtarot is also one we haven't seen in quite a while, and theoretically one of the few remaining Ascians...

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Originally Posted by Garnix

10 chars....

About the raids: With Pandaemonium now being in the present days, I wonder if this is how Elidibus and Lahabrea survived the sundering. Could it be that they were in the present days when the sundering occurred?

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About the beginning of your text

That would not make sense with the lore we have. Elidibus and Lahabrea need to stay in the past because they are necessary to summon Zodiark. Eldibius is even his heart.

And the devs have already confirmed that the unsundered basically survived because they went into a rift between the worlds.

Not sure if it has been mentioned much in the thread, but I highly recommend everyone with an interest in lore to do the Shadowed Past side quest that unlocks after you do 6.2, just below the Meghaduta.

Was really cool seeing the histories of Scarmiglione and Barbariccia, along with how Golbez got them to his side. Looks like it will be continuing it too, so likely see more of the other Fiends backstory after we dispose of them.

I feel kind of dumb for not noticing it sooner but...

*safety spoiler*

there's now an unusual sphere of light floating in the northern skyline of Ultima Thule.

It seems to be MSQ-related because it disappears when I activate NG+ for the Endwalker MSQ. I had also seen some theories that it was related to the Omega sidequests, but triggering NG+ on those does not cause it disappear whether for the raid series or Beyond the Rift.

If it only shows up in the wake of the 6.2 MSQ, I feel like this could be some Dalamud-esque ominous foreshadowing. Otherwise, it's probably just tied to the Omicron tribe quests

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I feel kind of dumb for not noticing it sooner but...

*safety spoiler*

there's now an unusual sphere of light floating in the northern skyline of Ultima Thule.

It seems to be MSQ-related because it disappears when I activate NG+ for the Endwalker MSQ. I had also seen some theories that it was related to the Omega sidequests, but triggering NG+ on those does not cause it disappear whether for the raid series or Beyond the Rift.

If it only shows up in the wake of the 6.2 MSQ, I feel like this could be some Dalamud-esque ominous foreshadowing. Otherwise, it's probably just tied to the Omicron tribe quests

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It's most likely Omicrons-related. They tend to introduce the 'base' version of a tribe's area in the major patch just before the minor patch that brings the tribe in; the arkasodara tribe's base was added in 6.1, for example. This isn't exactly that, but it's likely similar 'scene-setting'.

Someone confirmed it shows up after doing the Sigma Dreamscape, so I guess it's almost certainly Omicron-related.

Judging from the preview of the Omicron quests in 6.2 trailer, it almost seems like it might end up becoming a recreation of an entire star.

For that matter, I'm wondering if maybe those weird jellyfish are the physical bodies the Ea eventually settle on utilizing given the identical halos they possess.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

About the beginning of your text

That would not make sense with the lore we have. Elidibus and Lahabrea need to stay in the past because they are necessary to summon Zodiark. Eldibius is even his heart.

And the devs have already confirmed that the unsundered basically survived because they went into a rift between the worlds.

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Well, actually....

I assume that Pandaemonium would be sent back to the ancient times by the time we are done with it. It's still unclear at this point whether it is basically time travelling or not.

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Originally Posted by Garnix

Well, actually....

I assume that Pandaemonium would be sent back to the ancient times by the time we are done with it. It's still unclear at this point whether it is basically time travelling or not.

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Ancients and Acians had no idea that Time Travel was practically possible (bar Venat). A more accurate reason for Pandaemonium appearing in the present was that it likely frozen in a bubble at some point in the past until it rematerialises in the present.

Post raid thing

You can go into the Aitiascope and find three researchers looking at Pandeamonium. The glyph one us using seems to have a nautilus spiral on it?

P8 TT card note

Which is Hephaitos's card says "Born from dark shades of Lahabreha's emotions and memory, Hephaistos was a mirror that the chief keyward could not bare to look upon. Although sealed away in Pandeamonium's deepest circle, he was liberated by an unknown force, and devoted himself to seeing Athena resurrected. By fusing his being with mythic creations, Hephaistos unlocked the hidden secrets of creation magicks, and his hands could mold the very concept of life itself."

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I feel kind of dumb for not noticing it sooner but...

*safety spoiler*

there's now an unusual sphere of light floating in the northern skyline of Ultima Thule.

It seems to be MSQ-related because it disappears when I activate NG+ for the Endwalker MSQ. I had also seen some theories that it was related to the Omega sidequests, but triggering NG+ on those does not cause it disappear whether for the raid series or Beyond the Rift.

If it only shows up in the wake of the 6.2 MSQ, I feel like this could be some Dalamud-esque ominous foreshadowing. Otherwise, it's probably just tied to the Omicron tribe quests

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Do you know where said thing can be seen in the zone? I tried to find something akin to like the Void Ark, but didn't see anything. I just noted how pretty it was during the special weather there.

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but enemies (or at least bosses) killed in the World of Darkness raid now use the "Voidsent Death Animation" (exploding into clouds of dark aether).

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Originally Posted by SannaR

Do you know where said thing can be seen in the zone? I tried to find something akin to like the Void Ark, but didn't see anything. I just noted how pretty it was during the special weather there.

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It can be seen in any zone really I saw it both in the dragon area and the omnicron area. It's not like the void ark just a big ballish looking white light that goes away in NG+

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Originally Posted by SannaR

P8 TT card note

Which is Hephaitos's card says "Born from dark shades of Lahabreha's emotions and memory, Hephaistos was a mirror that the chief keyward could not bare to look upon. Although sealed away in Pandeamonium's deepest circle, he was liberated by an unknown force, and devoted himself to seeing Athena resurrected. By fusing his being with mythic creations, Hephaistos unlocked the hidden secrets of creation magicks, and his hands could mold the very concept of life itself."

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Emphasis: Hephaistos caused a lot of trouble, maybe even everything that was going on so far, but he is not the ultimate culprit. Given his goal was resurrecting Athena, she couldn't have been behind it either... except through a postmortem gambit, perhaps. He's gone now, though, so...

Please look forward to it!

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Originally Posted by Cilia

Emphasis: Hephaistos caused a lot of trouble, maybe even everything that was going on so far, but he is not the ultimate culprit. Given his goal was resurrecting Athena, she couldn't have been behind it either... except through a postmortem gambit, perhaps. He's gone now, though, so...

Please look forward to it!

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Since you mention that...

Considering Athena merged souls with Lahabrea for a bit, it wouldn't be out of the question for her to have left a tiny piece of herself in Lahabrea to take control. After all, we've seen all the keywardens up until now controlled by other organisms through corruption. I'm betting money that Athena was the one who unsealed Hephaistos in Pandaemonium, and may be part of why Lahabrea went insane and became the man we fought in ARR and HW. She's likely also the final boss of Pandaemonium, and is why it has shown up in the present time.

I wonder...

Abyssos:

I think that Lahabrea excised his emotions, which is why the people around him likely now perceive him as cold. I'm curious if those who knew him from before (llike Emet and Igeyorhm) would have described him the same way as Eric or even Elidibus. That's very much reinforced by the P8S phase transition, where he talks about how how he longs for his reunion with Athena. It's also interesting that he seems to have merged his soul with all of the same creations as his followers, with a few additional ones as well like Phoenix and Ifrit.

Shadowed Pasts sidequest

The backstory stuff was okay but not really enthralling. Scarmiglione was pretty straightforward though I'm not sure if we were supposed to see Barbariccia as villainous or tragic in the end. Maybe just both.

Kind of random but I feel like it could/should have been a thing in her backstory (maybe with some changes to her exact situation) to explain her weird obsession with her hair, by having it that after running away the first time she was punished by having her hair cut short, and that's why she associates the opposite with freedom.

Anyway, the rogue hecteyes seems like the most interesting bit of the plot – whether they're being genuine about just living in peace here. I hope so. Nice to have more voidsent on our side. I wonder if they / any of them were someone important?

I found out that if you choose the tend to your island option when asked what your WoL will do next by Vrtra after you arrive back in the Source his reply is kinda funny. He says that if he had known the WoL was into that sort of thing he would have asked them to spruce up some of the isles nearby in order to gain more visitors.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Shadowed Pasts sidequest

The backstory stuff was okay but not really enthralling. Scarmiglione was pretty straightforward though I'm not sure if we were supposed to see Barbariccia as villainous or tragic in the end. Maybe just both.

Kind of random but I feel like it could/should have been a thing in her backstory (maybe with some changes to her exact situation) to explain her weird obsession with her hair, by having it that after running away the first time she was punished by having her hair cut short, and that's why she associates the opposite with freedom.

Anyway, the rogue hecteyes seems like the most interesting bit of the plot – whether they're being genuine about just living in peace here. I hope so. Nice to have more voidsent on our side. I wonder if they / any of them were someone important?

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10 characters

With how the Echo works, it does imply that they each have to have either been or consumed (which is effectively the same thing?) one of the people present in those scenes for us to see them in the first place.

On the subject of Pandaemonium...

That creepy eyeball in Tartaros is making me wonder if rather then Lahabrea, Athena left some portion of her soul in Pandaemonium and effectively became a hemitheos with the entire facility itself.

It would make Themis referring to the place as the "dread beast Pandaemonium" more apt if it turns out it's somehow alive.

Character locations post-story (MSQ and raids)

I hadn't seen anyone mention these before, and I missed seeing Zero earlier despite having walked straight past her while doing the Shadowed Pasts quest.

Zero is at the airship landing in Radz-at-Han, marvelling at the sky. A nice little detail.

Meanwhile over in Pandæmonium, Lahabrea and Erichthonios are working together on fixing stuff. Sadly it seems we don't get to raise the issue of the facility turning up in our time but perhaps we're a bit hesitant to do that after all that happened in Elpis. Plus it would mean having to admit to the time travel being a thing, which we've avoided so far here.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Character locations post-story (MSQ and raids)

I hadn't seen anyone mention these before, and I missed seeing Zero earlier despite having walked straight past her while doing the Shadowed Pasts quest.

Zero is at the airship landing in Radz-at-Han, marvelling at the sky. A nice little detail.

Meanwhile over in Pandæmonium, Lahabrea and Erichthonios are working together on fixing stuff. Sadly it seems we don't get to raise the issue of the facility turning up in our time but perhaps we're a bit hesitant to do that after all that happened in Elpis. Plus it would mean having to admit to the time travel being a thing, which we've avoided so far here.

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Elpis thingy since I'm too lazy to cut stuff on a cell phone

I'm kinda figuring we may say a little something about it when the next portion comes out cause I doubt we're done with Pandaemonium yet

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Originally Posted by Rannie

I doubt we're done with Pandaemonium yet

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Of course we're not done with it. There's always a third instalment, and it ended on a cliffhanger.

Still, it feels quite jarring that most of the key players in the story are now unaware of its biggest new development.

On the one hand, revealing the time loop to them is probably not viable, and then the story would have to invoke memory wipes again (or do a really good job of revealing that Ascian Lahabrea – whoever he is, exactly – recognised us all along.

Still, there's at least hypothetically a window of opportunity to influence the past so that the reason for the facility's appearance in the aetherial sea is somehow beneficial or playable to our advantage. Though being a story, it probably has to end up messy one way or another.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Of course we're not done with it. There's always a third instalment, and it ended on a cliffhanger.

Still, it feels quite jarring that most of the key players in the story are now unaware of its biggest new development.

On the one hand, revealing the time loop to them is probably not viable, and then the story would have to invoke memory wipes again (or do a really good job of revealing that Ascian Lahabrea – whoever he is, exactly – recognised us all along.

Still, there's at least hypothetically a window of opportunity to influence the past so that the reason for the facility's appearance in the aetherial sea is somehow beneficial or playable to our advantage. Though being a story, it probably has to end up messy one way or another.

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Stupid 10 character limit *mumbles grumbles*

I get where you're coming from with saying it seems jarring. I guess the way I'm thinking of it is more along the lines of yeaaaaah, they're probably not having them say anything or have us tell them about it since it is a cliff hanger and are wanting surprise us during that third installment. =) That's just my way of thinking though.

Also what if we did end up telling both Themis and Lahabrea the truth too... we already know what happens with Elidibus but they could explain Lahabrea not remembering still with his constant body swapping. If they go that route that is.

It's also making me curious as to which direction they'll go in with it and if that other memory crystal was the one that Lahabrea used to seal that part of himself into it a the end of the fight was the one that wad found by c boy ( terrible with names) and is what could have caused Pandaemoniumto show up. So many interesting ways they can go with it.

Technically 6.1X but not worth dragging up an old thread for: I discovered today that Jessie at Rhalgr's Reach has new comments following on from Beyond the Rift.

Was nice to get some bookends for Ul'dah in the variant dungeons, though it makes me wonder if they intend to do that for all of the ARR city states or if they'll be pushing into the expansions for the future ones.

Limsa's problems were already fairly well-addressed in the MSQ and role quests proper, while Gridania is a...weird case because the elementals are firmly ingrained in their culture despite being a source of both weal and woe and I can't see that changing easily.

Spoilers for Variant Dungeon Quests:

There’s a nice little wrap up quest once you explore all possible routs within the dungeon and get all the notes. It wraps back to that fateful meal you had with Nanamo waaaay back when. Given the retrospective mood of this dungeon, and also the sort of self contained (and possibly not too tricky to replicate) nature of it - I wouldn’t be surprised to see them do at least two (or four?) more for all the city states/major cities. I get the sense that these are being used to wrap up loose ends for the players - possibly before 7.0 shakes things up.

Partway through the Omicron quest, and spotted a character that can be chatted to while not an active story character.

One of the two Nibirun is at Reah Tahra, northeast of the aetheryte. I spotted them when we were sent there to talk to one of the dragons, though they might have been hanging around here since they first cameoed in a previous progression quest. I had a look for the second one but couldn't see them in any of the towns.

It seems like they're only around while you actually have specific quests active, so I'll have to keep a look out during the later reputation quests.

It kind of bugs me that you're able to miss out on their dialogue entirely since I was the most curious to learn about their circumstances and how similar/different they were from the Ancients they were supposedly meant to parallel.

Omicrons at rank 7

The story ending was nice, although we haven't resolved the Nibirun yet and surely we must be getting their pretty golden scenery before this ends, so I expect we'll get that in rank 8.

I had wondered if there might be a plot twist and the "Omicron home world" section of Elysion might turn out to be the Nekropolis after all, but I like the direction they went with calling up a whole forest of those trees.

It feels a bit off that the Grebuloffs are cutesy otter-people. Given their backstory of starting out as aquatic and moving onto land, I was expecting that they were fish-people and the "diving suits" were actually the opposite; a water-filled suit so they can breathe on land.

Also, I wish there was a bit more water in their part of Elysion – a really nice wide beach and swimmable water under that starry sky would have been lovely. The zone seems to have been built mainly with gathering in mind, but it could have been a spearfishing spot.

Staring at the glowing ball in the heart of Elysion, I have to wonder – the default science-minded assumption is "it's a star" – an actual star, a sun, not a planet – but then perhaps that isn't right in this setting. A planet's crust is coalescing around it. Could it actually be the planet's aetherial sea?

Also I wonder if there was some intent to imply the Omicrons were originally Earth humans, given the specific nod to Omega/M-017 in-universe deriving its name from M17 in the real-world Messier astronomical catalogue. Then again, it's entirely possible that the "real" catalogue got invented by a fictional race in the same way that anything else recognisable in the story-world has to have a fictional history.

Still, that sent me wondering if N-7000 is also an astronomical reference for naming purposes or just a number the writers pulled out of nowhere, so I consulted Wikipedia and the NGC catalogue does go up that high, but it turns out to be the somewhat boring and definitely not lore-friendly North America nebula. It's in the constellation Cygnus though. We could nickname N-7000 "Cygnus". Sigma? Kind of funny because just yesterday I was thinking that "gawky space robot addressing someone as Sir" put me in mind of Sigmund from Ratchet & Clank. I liked him. I'm wandering a mile off course now but I need to play those games again sometime.

Omicron design is extremely gawky though, and not in an endearing way. Everything about their stance and proportions looks off.

Also, as with Omega, having a character using "it" pronouns just messes with my mind (and more importantly grammar) in a weird way. People aren't meant to be "its", and "it" is used as a placeholder for the non-person thing in a sentence.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

It seems like they're only around while you actually have specific quests active, so I'll have to keep a look out during the later reputation quests.

It kind of bugs me that you're able to miss out on their dialogue entirely since I was the most curious to learn about their circumstances and how similar/different they were from the Ancients they were supposedly meant to parallel.

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Yeah when I was doing the last quest for rank 7 I saw one in the Omicron base. I went there again after the quest was done and he was gone too. I flew to every location but could not find any trace of them. So I wonder if they only appeared when you have a active ranked quest...which means that I missed the other ones. (There seems to be one in each location, others have seen them with the Eas too)

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Yeah when I was doing the last quest for rank 7 I saw one in the Omicron base. I went there again after the quest was done and he was gone too. I flew to every location but could not find any trace of them. So I wonder if they only appeared when you have a active ranked quest...which means that I missed the other ones. (There seems to be one in each location, others have seen them with the Eas too)

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I think there's at least one around in the main place where the upgrade quest actually sends you. I know there's one hanging around the dragons when you recruit them. They're hitting the classic balance where they want you to see them, but don't want them to be the FIRST thing you see, so they're nearby but not at center-stage.

I think they're easiest to notice when they're hanging around the Omicron side of things because their robes are about the same tone as both the dragons and the friendly Ea, so they kinda blend in around them, while they don't look like the Omicrons at a glance at all. I wonder if that's intentional, or if it's just coincidence.

EDIT: For the record, while I'm going off memory they actually seem to like the listless malaise of the dragons, their dialog there is basically 'these guys get it, they know life sucks'.

So the questline is finished and this is a repost from the other thread that I have wrote in:

After we ask around if the customers like the cafe we get a report that Elysium has changed again. We go there and the first thing we see is a new baby dragon. I was like "awww" and then so happy. Finally the dragons have their children again.

Then we see the huge tree of the Nibirun, now part of the Omikron map. Its absolutely beautiful. The Nibirun are there too and are bascially wondering about the reason to life. At the end everyone of the new races come over and invite them to some nice discussions about the universe and the existance.

That finishes the story. I do say that the solution for the Nibirun was a bit fast. I guess the combined happyness of the other races got to them in the end.

I love that in their zone we have them talking with the Omicrons about trees while they just love discussions with the Ea.

And at the cafe you have one that is really fascinated with the joyfulness of the newborn dragon.

Also the Omicron gives new information about the Nibirun. They bascially managed to destroy any illness and violence and achieved eternal lifes. They reached harmony across the whole race which in turn meant that they never had any conflict anymore. But that was their end. Without pain and all the negative emotions, the positive ones also lost their meaning in time and thus they wanted it to end.

All in all a great storyline, with some emotional points and a very stunning Elysium.