About the other shards.

Heyo

I have been thinking about something which might be a bit true.

Basically we know that the time in the first flows different aka faster kinda then in the source.
And crystarium seems to kinda advanced building and technology wise (thanks to the crystal tower) compared to the stuff on the source (except garlemald).

Could that mean that there is one shard which is really modern due to the time flow differences.

Just an hypothesis tho

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Originally Posted by foussi

Could that mean that there is one shard which is really modern due to the time flow differences.

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The game already takes place is a very modern world. Just not 'real world' modern.

Remember, Hydaelyn already has a lot of very advanced, even futuristic by real world standards, technology. The reason people still use swords and chocobos isn't because the technology isn't there, but because magic exists to compensate for shortcomings. Guns aren't the ultimate weapons when magical shields and healing exist. Telephones are kind of pointless when linkpearls and other long range magical communication exist. Medical school is mostly pointless when any fledgling arcanist can cast physic, etc. We're already playing in a very modern and advanced world. It just doesn't look like earth.

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

The game already takes place is a very modern world. Just not 'real world' modern.

Remember, Hydaelyn already has a lot of very advanced, even futuristic by real world standards, technology. The reason people still use swords and chocobos isn't because the technology isn't there, but because magic exists to compensate for shortcomings. Guns aren't the ultimate weapons when magical shields and healing exist. Telephones are kind of pointless when linkpearls and other long range magical communication exist. Medical school is mostly pointless when any fledgling arcanist can cast physic, etc. We're already playing in a very modern and advanced world. It just doesn't look like earth.

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You're not wrong but I feel like that's not really getting the point of the OP's question.

As for the question, it's definitely possible that another shard evolved in such a way that it's a more familair sort of modern, only with magic. Like something out of FF15, to use another example in this franchise. I've thought about it before myself. Either way I doubt we'll ever see it though.

For this kind of speculation, it's important to note that this difference is inherently relative.

Within each individual shard, time is passing at the same pace. However, due to the chaotic nature of the Rift, time is apparently "at different places" between shards relative to each other. This also oscillates. One shard might be "faster" than another at one point, and "slower" than that same shard later on. This was the case with the Source and the First, with them just "passing one another" and "catching up to each other' at this present moment. (How convenient for the plot!)

So if a shard is, right now, "ahead" of the Source, yeah, it might be more advanced. It might also be more advanced simply by virtue of existing just as long as us, but without having seven Calamities. Or perhaps it might be less advanced since the Ascians aren't meddling in their wars and inspiring technological breakthroughs!

TL;DR it's ALL on the table

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Originally Posted by foussi

Could that mean that there is one shard which is really modern due to the time flow differences.

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That depends what you mean by "modern". Amaurot was very modern and that pre-dates the shards.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

For this kind of speculation, it's important to note that this difference is inherently relative.

Within each individual shard, time is passing at the same pace. However, due to the chaotic nature of the Rift, time is apparently "at different places" between shards relative to each other. This also oscillates. One shard might be "faster" than another at one point, and "slower" than that same shard later on. This was the case with the Source and the First, with them just "passing one another" and "catching up to each other' at this present moment. (How convenient for the plot!)

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I know they wanted the Scions to be established on the First, but I always wonder why they went for that particular excuse plot.

The jury rigged dimension hopping time travel tech being operated by a dude with terrible aim seems a far more convenient excuse.

Makes me wonder if the wobbly time stuff between shards is going to be relevant again at some point.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

The jury rigged dimension hopping time travel tech being operated by a dude with terrible aim seems a far more convenient excuse.

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I think the idea might be that he'd already deliberately aimed wide by several months (by Source time) and then had the time dilation on top of that.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

I know they wanted the Scions to be established on the First, but I always wonder why they went for that particular excuse plot.

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I think the big thing is that they needed what we saw in 3.4 to have taken place during the fall of the First, but also needed for enough time to have passed for the First to actually fall into a new status quo and not be mid-disaster. Almost everything we see on the First has a status quo that would take 100 years following the Flood of Light to establish. The wibbly wobbly timey wimey shenanigans helped establish more deeply-rooted fear and understanding of sin eaters, the entrenchment of the Light Wardens, the rise of Eulmoran culture, the raising of Crystarium, the politics of the fae realm, the conflicting sects of the religion of the Dark, the Warriors of Light becoming mythological villains rather than recently-living people who might be realistically understood, etc. Think about how much of the discussion with NPCs starts with, "Well, a hundred years ago..."

It was basically an excuse to make sure there was enough video game content and a new/interesting world setting.

Depending how you define modern. We've already had Allag thousands of years ago with some Ascian / Omega help, and they were way beyond futuristic.

Given that shards don't have to deal with cataclysms as often as the Source does, its possible some civilization might have evolved to that point. It's doubtful how long they'd be around though, given the ascian tendencies to axe off the more advanced nations in some way.

Actually, I don't believe that any of the Shards would have evolved beyond a roughly medieval level given that from the Shards we do know that they appear to have been more or less stuck in a time warp development wise (the First had no technology whatsoever before the Flood and was basically at a roughly Early Middle Ages level of development with chain mail, knights and stone buildings - their most advanced technology seemed to be magical stone golems.

Until the Crystal Tower materialized shortly after the Flood of Light, they didn't even seem to have guns - not for good reason has the Crystarium resulted in a bit of a technology uplift to them (and even then they're simply using recycled Allagan technology like the defense shields under the Exarch's direction. And although nothing virtually remains of the Thirteenth, given the only two known survivors of that world also seem to have shown no sign of knowledge of advanced technology beyond swords and armour and magic spells, I'm liable to regard the Thirteenth never got that far either before it became the Void).

The most technological societies on the Source known have both been created directly as a result of Ascian interference (by the same Ascian to boot!), so unless Emet was going around to the other shards uplifting them technologically like he did on the Source with Allag and Garlemald, I doubt none of the other Shards have ever had societies at a technological level slightly better than medieval European low-fantasy lands.

That's not to say that the other remaining Shards aren't advanced, or the ones that were rejoined were not before their destruction and rejoinings to the Source , just that I consider it highly unlikely for those aforementioned reasons.