The connection between the Echo and the Asceans

Okay so right we know that the Ascians have knowledge of the Echo, enough to trigger it in 2 cases (one directly and another indirectly through a Sahagin priest). I want to discuss the connection between the Asceans and the Echo

Also note that Since we got the vision, of Zodiark, Hydealyn has gone silent. I don;t thin this is a coincidence. In fact I think the two might have something to do with the Asceans knowledge of the Echo

Huh… I didn't even think about Hydealyn going silent. That actually kinda gives me chills a little.

As Annonymoose and I discussed in a past thread which I'm still trying to find a link for, it seems the reason Hydaelyn has 'gone silent' is that She probably feels that we can basically be left now to manage on our own without Her having to hold our hand every few steps, as the 2.0 story was pretty much the

Mothercrystal carefully preparing us to become a Warrior of Light, to face down the Ascians who were the real power behind Gaius's throne and thus foil their plan to rebirth Zodiark - giving us the tools and the knowledge to do so (ala, the Echo).

With Gaius defeated, Lahabrea's hold on Thancred broken and the Garlean advance into Eorzea effectively ended, if not for good, we've attained the necessary level of power needed, and thus she gives her 'goodbye and goodluck' speech in the ending, leaving the future of Eorzea solely in our hands.

She's still there, but like a mother whose children have grown up and left home, She trusts in us to make the right decisions on Her behalf, without Her taking any active role in our Path.

As for the vision of the

'dark Mothercrystal' seen in the ending, the 2.3 story pretty much shows that Crystal is not Zodiark. Zodiark is shown to be an actual physical god, vaguely in the same shape as his FFXII namesake, in stasis and not a crystal, so what exactly that 'evil Hydaelyn' vision was of is anyone's guess. Considering the Echo cannot actually view the future but only past events from a person's memories, suggests that it might have been a glimpse of things before the First Umbral Era. Which then raises the question, 'whose memories did that come from then'?

Damnit, where's my darksteel foil hat again?

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

...Damnit, where's my darksteel foil hat again?

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I see, but that still doesn't explain the relationship between the Asceans, Zodiark and the echo. Though I have a feeling the memory question might hold at least part of the answer

Actually if you look at the fight with Ultima Weapon, then Lahabrea, Hydaelyn is actively aiding you by pulling out primals and buffing you beyond belief to protect you. It's rather clearly stated that she used up a lot of her strength and she was weakened from what I remember. Obviously we have not gone up against a threat since that she has needed to give an active hand to help...

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

As Annonymoose and I discussed in a past thread which I'm still trying to find a link for, it seems the reason Hydaelyn has 'gone silent' is that She probably feels that we can basically be left now to manage on our own without Her having to hold our hand every few steps, as the 2.0 story was pretty much the [HB]Mothercrystal carefully preparing us to become a Warrior of Light, to face down the Ascians who were the real power behind Gaius's throne and thus foil their plan to rebirth Zodiark - giving us the tools and the knowledge to do so (ala, the Echo).

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That's all based on assumption though.

The battle with Ultima Weapon sees Hydaelyn directly intervene in a way that we'd never seen before. First we cannot even scratch Ultima Weapon so she gives us the strength to do so, then she extracts each of the primals from the Weapon in order to weaken it for us, and THEN she shields us from a ground zero Ultima detonation. Immediately following this even Lahabrea notes that she no longer has the power to intervene any further.

Based on all the events we see up to that point it's very possible that the dark crystal we see is Hydaelyn drained of aether, which is possibly what Lahabrea was trying to accomplish all along. Remember that the Echo allows us to see the past AND to see the aetherial realm.

In 2.3 Minfillia even mentions that Hydaelyn has been strangely silent and directly implies that something is seriously wrong. That would not be written into the narrative if it were not the case. It is simply bad story telling to foreshadow events that will never take place. I'm quite sure that Hydaelyn is weakened in some way.

As for the statue in the Ascian 'world', we have no idea at all what that is yet. It might just be a statue.

With regards to the OP: The implication so far is that the Sahagin's 'ascendance' was an advanced form of the Echo which was not at all subtly similar to the Ascians' own incorporeal form. Given Elidibus' teases that we do not fully comprehend what the Echo actually is yet, and that we apparently might see eye to eye if we did understand, I don't think it would be too far fetched to say that the Ascians themselves are Echo users.

Where they got the Echo and how they are able to give it to others remains unexplained though.

Maybe so, but I disagree that Hydaelyn was so drained shielding the player from Ultima that She 'no longer can assist the adventurer beyond that point' - She's clearly seen doing just that, She pulls both the adventuer and Lahabrea into her realm where the player reprises the very first scene seen in the game (where they use the Crystals of Light to form the 'Blade of Light'), thus driving out Lahabrea from Thancred, then summons the players allies (Cid, Alphinaud, Minfilia et al) to go all Captain Planet on Lahabrea to resoundingly defeat him.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Maybe so, but I disagree that Hydaelyn was so drained shielding the player from Ultima that She 'no longer can assist the adventurer beyond that point' - She's clearly seen doing just that, She pulls both the adventuer and Lahabrea into her realm where the player reprises the very first scene seen in the game (where they use the Crystals of Light to form the 'Blade of Light'), thus driving out Lahabrea from Thancred, then summons the players allies (Cid, Alphinaud, Minfilia et al) to go all Captain Planet on Lahabrea to resoundingly defeat him.

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Maybe she drained herself to such a weakened state that made her vulnerable to attack from another Entity, maybe even Zodiark. The Asceans seem to always be a step ahead of us at any given moment. Could it be then that Ultima Weapon wasn't the end of their master plan and they knew that Hydaelyn would use the better half of her powers in order to assist us in the defeat of the Ultima weapon? If this were the case then they meant for Hydaelyn to be in a weakened state so that Zodiark could then corrupt her, possibly siphoning energy from her in order to make his grand entrance onto the playing field. The reason that she has "gone silent" wouldn't be that she is too weak to communicate with us, but that she is currently under attack.

As for the Echo's vision we received: It might be a vision of the future. While it is true we have only seen visions from the past so far, it has been made clear that we do not fully understand the Echo at this point. Perhaps our use of the Echo as expanded now that we have gained experience in it's use, or maybe even Hydaelyn buffing us has kickstarted expanded use of the Echo.

Well, Hydaelyn does assist us in first weakening Ultima Weapon so we can actually scratch the damn thing and then works on pulling each primal out one by one. She used all of her power to shield us from Ultima (imagine if BLM's had that spell), and was pretty weak afterwards.

When Lahabrea says: "Van Belsar, your enemy's shield is broken. The rest I leave to you."
Skip over that next line: "Come Adventurer, let's see who is mightier." This was a fight of pure strength against a Machination, but Lahabrea still was working behind the scenes.

Now during our fight with Lahabrea (needs to be harder) we see Hydalyn assisting us once again, but I think it was only once and whatever power she had left drag both Lahabrea and ourselves into the realm and that was just an epic scene. So, my guess is indeed the Mother Crystal is drained of strength and I think 3.0's story will see us trying to fight off Zodiark based on all lore until now.

Maybe there needs to be some form of balance of power between Hydaelyn and Zodiark, Equality to maintain the equilibrium of Light and Dark. But with Hydaelyn being weakened due to her direct intervention during the Ultima battle, it allowed Zodiarks power to increase thus throwing the scales of balance even more out of alignment.

As a numerical example of the point I'm making. Say both Hydaelyn and Zodiark are at 100 power each. Balance is maintained. But Hydaelyns power dropped to 50. In that case Zodiarks power will increase to 150 due to that "energy" not being able to disappear. Science 101, energy cannot be destroyed.