Solution 9 - Unfounded Speculation!

My guess is that we're looking at some kind of barge rather than a port or something, so technically Solution Nine's location doesn't really exclude it. It's not like North America is a completely dry slab of land, either; you've got the great lakes that could plausibly make for a situation like this. This might be a Shaaloani thing, since that's apparently got a big lake.

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Originally Posted by Teah_Kaye

I thought that might be the case before they announced the CE/preorder and started playing FF9 on a work trip a few weeks ago, maybe I'll make an effort to finish before June 28 to see if it reveals any epiphanies to me about Dawntrail... I'm trying not to let my speculation go any wilder because it'll be here so soon anyway, we'll all know what's up with this weird cyberpunk city and their silly soul supply in a few months. But it couldn't hurt.

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FF9 is kind of an acid trip, and if they take the cues they could from it then the back half of Dawntrail will be a catastrophic cosmological shakeup with far-reaching consequences. Or it will have almost nothing to do with it aside from a few locales and musical cues until we get some kind of big unrelated thing in the post-game story. (Here's a casual reminder that G'raha started out using Zidane's hair model.) There's always some missing piece we won't get until the patch actually drops (like Amon in Endwalker).

Couple of ideas regarding solution 9:
- One of the surviving reflection evolved into a technologically advanced civilization and decided to invade the source. (it could happen for any number of reasons - it could be a combination of ascians not being around to keep them in check or creating calamities over there, and time passing much faster there relative to the source etc.)
- It comes from the future somehow by the way of time travel (replaying EW recently, I was thinking about how Hythlodaeus mentioned that we might meet again in this life or the next - assuming that there is anything to it, the only way the WoL in their current incarnation might meet reincarnations of Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch is if they time travel from the future)

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Originally Posted by Fenral

There's always some missing piece we won't get until the patch actually drops (like Amon in Endwalker).

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Still kicking myself for not saying more often that the pre-Endwalker theory of 'Amon is Emet-Selch' doesn't make sense because the personalities and M.O.s don't line up at all, and a far closer match would be Fandaniel.

I didn't say it much because it felt absurd that an alliance raid midboss based on a forgettable FFIII character could possibly be relevant.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I didn't say it much because it felt absurd that an alliance raid midboss based on a forgettable FFIII character could possibly be relevant.

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Not sure if you were around for it, but you'd be amazed at how far people went to debunk "The Crystal Exarch is G'raha Tia" back in the day, so it's probably for the best.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

Not sure if you were around for it, but you'd be amazed at how far people went to debunk "The Crystal Exarch is G'raha Tia" back in the day, so it's probably for the best.

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I was around but not active in the way I am now. Up-to-date and semi-regularly roleplaying, but so distant from the game's community that I had to learn second-hand that we were getting Nier raids. I don't think I had any feelings or theories whatsoever about the Exarch at the time.

I remember that I also heard about the 'Zodiark and Hydaelyn are primals' trailer-reveal second-hand, and my response was essentially 'why am I supposed to care'. Which I just think is funny, because I've kind of wrapped all the way around to hitting that same response from the other direction now; my response to a big reveal isn't 'why should I care' because I don't, my response is 'why should I care' because I want to and think that starting with the intended emotional response, even if I don't have it, is helpful.

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Originally Posted by diamondedge83

Assuming this trend continues, Dawntrail should have FFV references and story beats. We already have Krile stepping up to be a more important role, her namesake being from FFV. The main story element that I think they'd use is two worlds once separated remerging into one, but of course that's nothing new for FFXIV.

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I think sol9 is definitely heavily inspired by the ff9 stuff, but there's also FFV's ronka ruins. Ronka (in the first) is *also* heavily inspired by mesoamerica, and ties directly into y'shtola's arc (finding a way back to her furry boyfriend).

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Originally Posted by Cilia

Is it possible Solution Nine will have some link to the Ancients / Ascians? Yes, but I don't want it to on account of their story arc having concluded and going back to them (or their proxies) for MSQ content would kind of defeat the purpose of having done so.

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I mean, it is very possible, so far the main ideas are :
- 9th solution of the ancient, whatever this implies.
- Civilization surviving an old rejoining, the one of lightning.
- Just any old asciens involvement like Garlemald, Allag and who knows what.

Like, I feel it can't just be "somehow there's that super advanced civilization living *just here* that didn't care to invade/interact with the rest of the world with their super techy tech.

The fact they use the regular alphabet implies that they aren't aliens. Or if they are, they integrated with a post sundered civilization but at this point, what would be the motivation?

I feel like there will be asciens involvement, it just won't be so directly tied to Zordiark / Hydealin as they are no more. But if it has anything to do with the sundering, indirectly, it is asciens involvement.

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

Like, I feel it can't just be "somehow there's that super advanced civilization living *just here* that didn't care to invade/interact with the rest of the world with their super techy tech.

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I think it's poor logic to leap from "they have advanced technology" to "owning advanced technology should make them desire to do a specific thing with that technology".

Additionally, I've said before, it could easily be the case that this technology is built around the specifics of existing in a highly lightning-aether-charged environment and simply won't function if taken elsewhere.

A pretty solid theory I've seen on Twitter for that red sign in the Arcadeon that people were fixated on: What if it's the Armodullahan from FFIX?

https://i.imgur.com/unOhnZ1.png

https://i.imgur.com/1TkqP7b.png

It's got the right claws and horns, and if you approach it from that angle then the weird mass of lines in the middle can read as a pretty decent approximation of its face maybe biting down on something.

Of course, the Armodullahan's a pretty 'nothing' boss from FFIX, so if that's true then it's also a guarantee that it's a 'middle of the first tier' filler fight, like Catastrophe or the Hippokampos. ...which, in turn, means that we can intuit jack squat about its actual story, because the Armodullahan's hardly a stretch to fit in to an FFIX-inspired expansion with a high-tech corner of it.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

A pretty solid theory I've seen on Twitter for that red sign in the Arcadeon that people were fixated on: What if it's the Armodullahan from FFIX?

https://i.imgur.com/unOhnZ1.png

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It looks like part of Ultima’s glyph from FFXII upside-down now that I see it closer. And that’s where the Ascian glyphs come from.

I don’t exist on Twitter/reddit, was this possibility already discussed there?


Edit: my extremely rough analysis:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...c37c36be7373a&

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

It looks like part of Ultima’s glyph from FFXII upside-down now that I see it closer. And that’s where the Ascian glyphs come from.

I don’t exist on Twitter/reddit, was this possibility already discussed there?


Edit: my extremely rough analysis:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...c37c36be7373a&

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That theory came from Twitter, and is extremely easily debunked, because they don't look anything alike.

The Ascian glyphs are exact pulls from parts of the XII Esper sigils, one-to-one. They don't look 'sort of maybe' like part of it, you can overlay them near-perfectly. In fact, I have done that in a video to prove exactly this point; the imperfection here comes from the fact Emet's face is at a slight angle, not any alteration to the sigil.

https://i.imgur.com/hHeZnlx.png

People saw a red sign and wanted it to be an Ascian, it doesn't track whatsoever.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

That theory came from Twitter, and is extremely easily debunked, because they don't look anything alike.

The Ascian glyphs are exact pulls from parts of the XII Esper sigils, one-to-one. They don't look 'sort of maybe' like part of it, you can overlay them near-perfectly. In fact, I have done that in a video to prove exactly this point.

People saw a red sign and wanted it to be an Ascian, it doesn't track whatsoever.

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Obviously it's not 1-to-1 and it's not on an actual person's face, but it looks like it could be a stylized version of it copied over and over for a long time to a point where it's lost its original meaning.

I think the three lines on each side + horns + spiky crown + mess in the middle + wavy line on the bottom stand out and makes a more compelling or at least more interesting argument than an obscure boss.


Until release we can say just about anything since we don't have anything to really go on and this is the unfounded speculation thread.

If I wanted to really get my tin foil hat on I could say that the script under the 6 vertical lines is proto-Eorzean for "X", "upside-down L", "T", "I", "backwards M", "upside-down S": "Xltims", and that after getting killed by Gaius and reforming incompletely, Altima suffered amnesia/soul damage and can barely write her name or form her glyph anymore but a half-remembered mission on a shard resulted in her bringing a whole bunch of people to the Source in Solution Nine. Or she did show up long ago on a shard and the gylph became a symbol of being saved and over thousands of years became what we see now.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

Obviously it's not 1-to-1 and it's not on an actual person's face, but it looks like it could be a stylized version of it copied over and over for a long time to a point where it's lost its original meaning.

I think the three lines on each side + horns + spiky crown + mess in the middle + wavy line on the bottom stand out and makes a more compelling or at least more interesting argument than an obscure boss.


Until release we can say just about anything since we don't have anything to really go on and this is the unfounded speculation thread.

If I wanted to really get my tin foil hat on I could say that the script under the 6 vertical lines is proto-Eorzean for "X", "upside-down L", "T", "I", "backwards M", "upside-down S": "Xltims", and that after getting killed by Gaius and reforming incompletely, Altima suffered amnesia/soul damage and can barely write her name or form her glyph anymore but a half-remembered mission on a shard resulted in her bringing a whole bunch of people to the Source in Solution Nine. Or she did show up long ago on a shard and the gylph became a symbol of being saved and over thousands of years became what we see now.

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Okay, then what's this part?

https://i.imgur.com/s4w9SiE.png

Because here's the thing: that red sign wasn't the only thing in that art. It wasn't even the central thing in that art; my eyeballing says it's not even 10% of the picture. It's just the only thing most people are speculating about, because 'what if it's an Ascian' caught on as a theory really quick and some people really want that story arc to not be put to bed, despite its evidence being tenuous as hell. But I've never once seen the theory stretch to include any of the rest of the art.

If we accept that the red sign is reflective of a probably-filler boss that we may or may not have seen in a previous Final Fantasy game, these demon heads track: obviously those are another boss even if we don't have an ID for them, they certainly don't resemble anything in FFIX. But they're clearly deliberately designed, all three heads have different horn shapes, so it's not just a generic 'here be demons' sign.

So if the red sign is against all odds an Ascian, what are the demon heads?

That's really interesting. Actually, the red 'glyph' in the picture also looks like it could represent three horned heads, now that I look at it.

Perhaps it's a historical insignia of a triple-headed Mamool Ja who founded the place.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

It's just the only thing most people are speculating about, because 'what if it's an Ascian' caught on as a theory really quick and some people really want that story arc to not be put to bed, despite its evidence being tenuous as hell. But I've never once seen the theory stretch to include any of the rest of the art.

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The theories we have for anything right now are tenuous as hell, which is why it’s easier to hang onto the ones that are interesting. The artwork is designed to tease and it’s done more than its own fair share apparently.


The thing about the “glyph” is that there’s not just one of it. Look down at the bottom and you can see there’s ANOTHER of the same exact red glyph mostly cut off at the bottom of the image spread on a billboard.
https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...ZyKjq4WxCM.jpg
A hologram of it floating above the city and also on a billboard down below seemingly makes it more important than a potential trash mid-boss based on a forgettable boss from long ago. The past 2 raid artworks featured teasers key to the story of the raid more than the content anyway.


As for the 3 demon heads, my baseless speculation is that they’re the Alt(ima)-rock band that’s playing from the concert venue across the street from the Arcadion where all the purple lasers are coming from. Linkshellhead is known across Solution Nine for their song Paranoid Mammet and will be our introduction into the raid.

Arcadia
noun
an image or idea of life in the countryside that is believed to be perfect
etymology
1. A regional unit of Greece in the central and southeastern Peloponnese. Tripoli is the capital and main city with a population over 47,000.
2. A mountainous region of Ancient Greece, named for Greek mythological hero Arcas; legendary home of the rustic god of nature, Pan.
3. Million places in america, named for 1. and 2.
4. Somewhere in Tucumán Argentina.

Arcadian
adjective
1. relating to or constituting an ideal rural paradise.
"the region was not quite the Arcadian idyll he had depicted"
noun
1. an idealized country dweller.
"the dark satanic mills inspired new generations of Arcadians from Blake to William Morris"


2. a native of Arcadia in Greece.

etymology: late 16th century: from Latin Arcadius, from Greek Arkadia.

It looks like a misspelling/variation on a Greek derived word. If it is meant to convey Greek, then it could be to do with the ancients given the naming convention used for them. Allag also uses greek names - scylla, amon etc and is typically portrayed more technologically than the ancients. The three headed icon could be a reference to cerberus (greek, but also world of darkness) as the heads look vaguely canine. The circle effect on some of the billboards is reminiscent of the control panels in azys lla - if you go to helix then up the ramp toward the computer area, the terminal on the left as you enter has a similar pattern flickering in and out over the blue ball in the control panel. This may just be the way projected screens are portrayed by the artist though and not necessarily relevant. As an addendum, outside of the fandaniel echo flashback in tower of zot, I don't remember any allagan technology that doesn't predate the fourth umbral calamity, so well maintained allagan cities may look different than we are used to. There isn't really much information to go off though and I don't know if allag went over to the new world in any capacity. Maybe they're going for a Rome/Constantinople style thing, but roman imagery is usually reserved for the garleans so probably not.

Unless it's sarcastically titled the likely meaning of the word doesn't really align with what we know about the ancients. Unless they want to really lean into the outer wilds spoiler

dreamworld/vr/matrix angle. Echoes of the eye has similar themes of a destroyed original world and retreating into a shared dream. This could be an interesting avenue to explore.

There's also the possibility that it's not one of the convocation's glyphs, but someone of similar status from far away lands. We know there were other cities because the amaurot npcs mention how it's sad that they got exploded or whatever. Presumably they had someone nominally in charge there, even if they were subservient to the amaurot society. There might be a musical motif shared with the solution 9 music and amaurot, but I lack musical talent. Finally the soul suppository translated text could be to do with the ancient's inability to create souls intentionally, could be placeholder or could be some as yet unknown group. It could also be similar to the resonant process - the floor mural in castrum albania looks pretty stylised.

I'm bored of speculating again and will probably forget I posted this in 5 minutes.

Those three faces at least when blown up look male AU Ra-ish to me. And until I noticed that there were three mouths I had thought it was a very stylized male Au Ra face. But now they sort of remind me of the hobgoblins of the 1st. We will be getting moblins so maybe it's stylized moblin faces with their masks on.

That's it! It's Alexander 2.0 but this time it's a rave cause the Moblins are all about that techno. They heard the Loporrits's radio broadcasts and went "we can do better than that." and "everyone's" favorite minor Elezen Ascian picked up wind of their love for techno and edm music and told them he could hook em up.

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Originally Posted by Teah_Kaye

I think the juxtaposition of the proto-alphabet and chocobo signage means something and is probably the closest thing we have to a clue regarding Solution 9's origins.

I don't think it's possible to say for certain what it means at this point, but it's very odd because up until now we've only seen the proto-alphabet associated with Ancients and their creations and we've only seen chocobos associated with parts of modern-day Etheirys.

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My theory here is that this could fit with Solution 9 being from the Levin-blasted 12th shard.

Each rejoining starts with manipulation by the Ascians to tilt the balance of a shard. This could have come in the form of advancing a civilization by giving them incredible technologies then stepping back and watching them overuse it. This also would tie into some themes we're seeing hints of in DT with a ceruleum rush in Tural. A bit of green theming or messaging there, maybe. We're hastening the ruin of our own world by chasing ceruleum and meeting people who have already ruined their own world with levin.

Just throwing something dumb into the ring. I highly doubt it’s a thing, but why not.

So, S9 appears to be electric/lightning based right? Sure!

Zeus enters the chat. (Pashtarot?)

Also, Arcadion itself can be broken down into Greek:

Arcadia in Ancient Greek is a place, and means essentially a Utopia with an emphasis on the land and harmony with nature. -ion as a suffix just makes it a “thing”. So it’s a thing that is or does or makes utopia. The fact that it appears to be hyper-urbanized/“electric” is an interesting juxtaposition.

Using Greek based vocabulary seems to support Ancient meddling (though not necessarily Ascians). Also Utopia (the book) being strongly related to much of the Ascian storyline/naming through Shadowbringers.

(I’m pretty sure and hope this is not the case…also we don’t know if Pash is alive or not, nor do we know his Greek “real name”.)

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Originally Posted by Grivvaint

My theory here is that this could fit with Solution 9 being from the Levin-blasted 12th shard.

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I’m actually really curious if a “rejoining” is just the shard dissolving into ..say..an atomic level and being reabsorbed, or if rejoining actually involves entire chunks of land being ripped into the Source. At least with earlier attempts were the Ascians were still figuring it out.

We have a lot of weird geography in the world (like the Cataract), that might be explained by this kinda nonsense.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

I’m actually really curious if a “rejoining” is just the shard dissolving into ..say..an atomic level and being reabsorbed

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We've already been told that's the case, and logically that has to be correct.

Rejoining isn't just an effect on the planet but on every living creature, body and soul, and we're not having random chunks stuck in people.

Every aetherial atom must snap into place, like for like, pinpointing its matching shard.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

We've already been told that's the case, and logically that has to be correct.

Rejoining isn't just an effect on the planet but on every living creature, body and soul, and we're not having random chunks stuck in people.

Every aetherial atom must snap into place, like for like, pinpointing its matching shard.

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Yeah, but is it -actually actually- the case with the land itself? With the rate established lore seems to change (Dynamis; the Elementals now being some kinda Ancient creation, etc), I’m not sure if I fully believe the narrator, so to speak.

In other words, are we sure the land itself doesn’t warp in the vein of FF5?

As an example, I get that it’s easy to pass off the upheaval of the Shroud as a result of Bahamut’s destruction, but a lot of where he caused damage resulted in crystallized blast rings like in La Noscea. Rather, lots of established places completely move between 1.x and 2.x. Places like the Lifemend Stump.

(I know it’s because map design was bad in 1.0, but in-game explanation is weak)

Solution 9 is the moblin base of operation. Moblins are so named because they use magitek, in the way Goblins are named for their gas (steam) themed technology. This of course implies the existence of Soblins (not soblyn) who have a stone based society. Said Soblins may have access to the ability to manipulate crystals (possibly making them Coblins), which is of course a fundamental underpinning of the hydaelynian setting. With this advanced ability, the Coblins will pose enough of a threat to be a plausible antagonistic force for the foreseeable expansions.

That or solution 9 is an early ascian attempt at rejoining on an individual level. It's just like a blender where corresponding kidnapped people from each shard are put and whooshed together. It also doesn't work but looks cool and that's what really matters. Since the ascians couldn't get it running, they left and the locals moved in, similar to idylshire.

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Originally Posted by fulminating

With this advanced ability, the Coblins will pose enough of a threat to be a plausible antagonistic force for the foreseeable expansions.

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https://www.planetbroadcasting.com/w...anelorigin.jpg

My new joke speculation. The succession story of Dawntrail will conclude about halfway or near 2/3's into the MSQ. Solution 9 will take up the last chunk.

That being said, the final boss is some Etheryis impression of a "v-tuber/holo-idol" gone completely bonkers and we have to destroy it to free the denizens of the place. You'll see it's likeness plastered all over the area. If anyone watched the Simpsons, it's sort of like that TreeHouse of horror where Flanders takes over the earth and brainwashed everyone.

The Dawntrail promotional website doesn't give us a whole lot of new story info (except about the field operations, which I'm EXTREMELY excited about but that's not related to this), but it does give us a description of the actual storyline of the Arcadion.

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Here at the Arcadion, you'll find a grand spectacle unlike any other. The realm's greatest fighters pit fist against fist and magick against magick, putting their lives on the line as crowds howl and clamor, each clash more visceral than the last. Step into the arena if you dare, and either rise to become champion, or fall forever in ignominy.

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It's a tournament arc! A straight-up no-nonsense tournament arc, too, no extra weirdness like Omega's. At least, that we know of at this point. Which, incidentally, does start explaining those billboards; we're not looking at viruses, or sigils. We're looking at fighter promo art.

Still no clear evidence that the Arcadion is in Solution Nine, but we're still in 'where else could it be' territory.

FFXIV's official Instagram is posting sections of Solution Nine artwork piece by piece and someone on Reddit pasted them together to show the picture we have so far.

Anything anyone can glean from this? I notice a bunch of viera but I'm not sure if that means anything.

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=htt...c1qq9tc4d1.png
https://www.instagram.com/p/C7wEdHbxHot/

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

FFXIV's official Instagram is posting sections of Solution Nine artwork piece by piece and someone on Reddit pasted them together to show the picture we have so far.

Anything anyone can glean from this? I notice a bunch of viera but I'm not sure if that means anything.

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=htt...c1qq9tc4d1.png
https://www.instagram.com/p/C7wEdHbxHot/

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Definitely unclear how much any of this means, but I can see every playable race except miqo'te, roegadyn and hrothgar here; the viera are obvious, you can make out the horns of both xaela and raen, the person below the southmost tree is too small to be anything but a lalafel, and there's some exaggeratedly pointy ears that definitely read as how you'd draw 'this is clearly an elezen' from a distance.

So, sadly a net cast too wide to read much into, but it might be worth noting that au ra and elezen weren't visible in Tulliyolal, while elezen were.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Definitely unclear how much any of this means, but I can see every playable race except miqo'te, roegadyn and hrothgar here; the viera are obvious, you can make out the horns of both xaela and raen, the person below the southmost tree is too small to be anything but a lalafel, and there's some exaggeratedly pointy ears that definitely read as how you'd draw 'this is clearly an elezen' from a distance.

So, sadly a net cast too wide to read much into, but it might be worth noting that au ra and elezen weren't visible in Tulliyolal, while elezen were.

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I spotted at least one and maybe three or four total miqo'te in the picture, you can see their ears and the one that's turned around has their tail clipping through their cloak.

A previous Solution Nine artwork also showed what seemed to be a miqo'te's eyes in a holographic advertisement.

I don't think we can glean much from the artwork considering we had similar for Radz-at-Han and, I believe, Eulmore before expansion drop... because they're the endgame hubs and the artwork is meant to represent adventurers hanging out together in said hub.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

FFXIV's official Instagram is posting sections of Solution Nine artwork piece by piece and someone on Reddit pasted them together to show the picture we have so far.

Anything anyone can glean from this? I notice a bunch of viera but I'm not sure if that means anything.

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=htt...c1qq9tc4d1.png
https://www.instagram.com/p/C7wEdHbxHot/

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I notice lots of robes/cloaks on the people below. Prolly just to save on time on the art, but also might be a hint at tie to the ancients? Also viper!Meteor (?) in the right is now sporting a very cyberpunky undercut.

My off the wall speculation is that this city is somehow tied to that city across the sea we heard about in Glamaurot. The name like "Archadion" sounds very ancienty to me. Also there's the tech level and the seeming proto-alphabet.

Also, I think it might be a VR city, literally data stored inside the tower above Heritage Found, which is a server kept powered by all the leven.

Yeah I am starting to become completely unsoundly convinced that Solution 9 is just Tron, it is cyberspace.

Wild Speculation #3421:

So, an Ascian is a spirit that can inhabit any body they choose as a vessel, yeah?

So, what if it chooses an inanimate object as a vessel. Or an interconnected city?

“Zeus” == Master Control Program from Tron, and is running the city, possibly going HAL.

Arena battles to the death because hey, death releases aether and a city’s gotta eat!

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Originally Posted by kaynide

Wild Speculation #3421:

So, an Ascian is a spirit that can inhabit any body they choose as a vessel, yeah?

So, what if it chooses an inanimate object as a vessel. Or an interconnected city?

“Zeus” == Master Control Program from Tron, and is running the city, possibly going HAL.

Arena battles to the death because hey, death releases aether and a city’s gotta eat!

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I don't think this is plausible, but I would say this is the most interesting pitch I've heard for an Ascian related to Arcadion/Solution Nine, by far. (Also I would pitch Deudalaphon as the one doing this, because there'd be a fun echo with their historical role being the head of architecture.)

I still think a lot of Solution Nine theories are struggling with both overcomplexifying their angle by taking other people's theories as fact, and with the actual position of Solution Nine in the game. Like, we need to build into every single theory about Solution Nine that it's the secondary city of the expansion; it's the Eulmore or Radz-at-Han. That means that not only won't it dominate the story (because Tulliyolal still needs its half of it), but it also needs to still exist afterwards. In fact, it needs to exist in an even more functional state than it first appears in, because the vendor NPCs become available after the MSQ ends, not before.

New picture just dropped.

If we don’t get boombox emote, we riot.

https://www.instagram.com/ffxiv/p/C7ypPQAxc6-/

How do we tie Solution 9 to a unified theme with rest of the expansion? I don't remember if I am making this up, but was not Tulliyolal set up as a naturalist society that tries to reject technological progress at the cost of nature. A cybercity would be a clear counterpart.

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Originally Posted by Ayche

How do we tie Solution 9 to a unified theme with rest of the expansion? I don't remember if I am making this up, but was not Tulliyolal set up as a naturalist society that tries to reject technological progress at the cost of nature. A cybercity would be a clear counterpart.

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Shaaloani in Xak Tural (Fantasy North America) is described as maintaining their traditions despite all the changes occurring including the construction of a railroad due to the discovery of ceruleum.

Solution Nine is described as being a wholly separate civilization from Tuliyollal


There seems to be a theme of changes and technological progress already going on. Wuk Lamat’s brother Koana, one of the other heirs to the throne, is already technologically minded and has been attending the Studium. In the Dawntrail trailer there are a lot of miqo’te wearing more “non-native”-looking clothing like suspenders, who may be from Shaaloani. There’s also a shot from Shaaloani showing a bar that is very clearly labeled in Eorzean but I don’t know if it’s because that region is colonized or because the devs decided everyone writes Eorzean now (except Solution Nine).

I wonder if a part of the plot may involve discussions or attempts to bring Solution Nine into the Tural fold. We know one of the brothers is a warmonger and there’s shots of burning Solution Nine-looking architecture.

Though there’s also scorch marks on a cliff side in Yok Tural in the Andes-looking region and that’s where the warmonger brother is in the benchmark.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

Shaaloani in Xak Tural (Fantasy North America) is described as maintaining their traditions despite all the changes occurring including the construction of a railroad due to the discovery of ceruleum.

Solution Nine is described as being a wholly separate civilization from Tuliyollal


There seems to be a theme of changes and technological progress already going on. Wuk Lamat’s brother Koana, one of the other heirs to the throne, is already technologically minded and has been attending the Studium. In the Dawntrail trailer there are a lot of miqo’te wearing more “non-native”-looking clothing like suspenders, who may be from Shaaloani. There’s also a shot from Shaaloani showing a bar that is very clearly labeled in Eorzean but I don’t know if it’s because that region is colonized or because the devs decided everyone writes Eorzean now (except Solution Nine).

I wonder if a part of the plot may involve discussions or attempts to bring Solution Nine into the Tural fold. We know one of the brothers is a warmonger and there’s shots of burning Solution Nine-looking architecture.

Though there’s also scorch marks on a cliff side in Yok Tural in the Andes-looking region and that’s where the warmonger brother is in the benchmark.

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Basically, given all the individual pieces of the expansion that we have, it is fairly likely that there's some kind of 'traditionalism versus modernity' thing going on, but nothing has explicitly been said. Ayche probably just jumped a couple reasonable conclusions ahead, and then forgot she did.

I suspect it's not the whole thing, and there's probably more facets to it all, but I would expect a major element of the central conflict is in how much Tulliyolal should stick to what's already worked for them, versus how much they should modernize and become more like their neighbors from the north (possibly by taking said neighbor's stuff). It'd actually be a fairly clean way to slot in that inter-Scion conflict that's been hanging over the plot, that I feel like we should be speculating more about and just don't have enough info to do so; out of every Scion I could easily see Thancred being the one to take the side of modernity, and meanwhile there's a few Scions I could pitch as being the types to stand in support of 'there's no need to throw out the old ways', G'raha's one of the ones most likely to in my book. (The actual most likelies being Estinien and Y'shtola, who are still wildcards.)

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Basically, given all the individual pieces of the expansion that we have, it is fairly likely that there's some kind of 'traditionalism versus modernity' thing going on, but nothing has explicitly been said. Ayche probably just jumped a couple reasonable conclusions ahead, and then forgot she did.

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I went back to the NA Fanfest stream because I was sure I heard this from somewhere, and I think I got the idea from this line that Kate translates about Tulliyolal. "Unlike some other places we have been to, this city is not very industrialized because it is inhabited by myriad people who prioritize living with nature."

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

New picture just dropped.

If we don’t get boombox emote, we riot.

https://www.instagram.com/ffxiv/p/C7ypPQAxc6-/

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I'm surprised we didn't get any radios as orchestrions post 6.0. Also can't wait for those who are highly opposed to anything modern in an FF game to get very angry at the drink fountain cup the Miqo'te is holding. I do love that the hat they're wearing isn't lopping off their ears.

I know this has probably been said already and maybe even in this thread, but the one screen shot of Solution 9 that's on the official site just screams the Persidium on the Citidel. So, even if I don't expect to get any ME representation or jokes put in I'll be a little sad I don't have a hologram that tells me either to not to poke a squat praying mantis looking thing with a backpack on it or a random button nearby.