*Spoilers* Major Hydaelyn/Timeline question

When we finally meet hydaelyn in the aetheric sea and call her Venat her response is:

"I see.... Thou didst journey unto Elpis"
"And now, the rivers of time converge"

That response does not imply that she remembers you at all, it implies that she understands that you time traveled back in Elpis like she hinted you should via the elpis flower.

Yet why would she give us such a response? If she remembered us from back then and we are on the same timeline the most logical response would be one that clearly implies that she remembers us and what we experienced back then together.

Argos clearly remembers us on the moon, so did Hythlodeus' soul yet why does hydaelyn not remember us specifically in the aethiric sea?

She does remember a promise she made to us so long ago(assuming she refers to the time back in the ancient past) before we time traveled, it sounds weird, as if she remembers us, then we time travel and then hydaelin's memory is not the same after we finish our latest time travel adventure.


Am i missing something? Could this be a writing mistake or possibly one of those time travel consequences such as multiple timelines aka rivers of time converging.

I took from it that the original timeline and the altered Elpis one were so similar as to almost overlap, and that at the point of that conversation they truly merge back together.

its basically happening after a bootstrap paradox loop. she does remember us but she has to wait till the loops complete and we remember her.

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Originally Posted by sidurgu-12

its basically happening after a bootstrap paradox loop. she does remember us but she has to wait till the loops complete and we remember her.

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At the start where she references that promise so long ago, yes it makes sense.

The thing is when we meet her in the aetheric sea and even call her Venat, it is clear we have gone through that and remember everything, yet why not say something that implies she remembers us and our adventure.

I am not expecting her to give details, but what she said gives no hint that she remembers us, only that she understands what we did and how the rivers of time work, which is not something you would say to someone who says "Oh hey, we met 9999999 years ago in the past"

I just run with the assumption that FFXIV time travel has always worked on Bill and Ted rules. Which is to say, if someone time travels into the past, then they have always time travelled into the past; the WoL always went back in time to Elpis for those events, there is no timeline where they did not.

It's how Alexander's time travel mechanics worked, and that was the most rigorous exploration of them.

She didn't necessarily know the exact moment that we journeyed back to the past. Any time "about 12,000 years after we met in Elpis" is probably as specific as she knew, up until we went to the moon. Then it was "some time after you went to the moon", so when we meet her in the present she finds out that our departure to and return from the past has happened by then.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I just run with the assumption that FFXIV time travel has always worked on Bill and Ted rules. Which is to say, if someone time travels into the past, then they have always time travelled into the past; the WoL always went back in time to Elpis for those events, there is no timeline where they did not.

It's how Alexander's time travel mechanics worked, and that was the most rigorous exploration of them.

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That’s how FFXIV time travel worked until ShB happened and now we have two separate timelines co-existing.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I just run with the assumption that FFXIV time travel has always worked on Bill and Ted rules. Which is to say, if someone time travels into the past, then they have always time travelled into the past; the WoL always went back in time to Elpis for those events, there is no timeline where they did not.

It's how Alexander's time travel mechanics worked, and that was the most rigorous exploration of them.

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As of right now, there are both bootstrap paradoxes and multiple timelines in the canon multiverse. The Midgardsormr guardian timeline that G'raha comes from still exists, and is trucking along under his guidance in the 8th era.

It's because 4 versions of this game weren't exactly tied together until Shadowbringers. So now they have to go back and make it work.

1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0

That said it was still well done overall but does leave you with head scratchers in some aspects of it.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

That’s how FFXIV time travel worked until ShB happened and now we have two separate timelines co-existing.

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Which even then makes sense. Every time we've gone back returned through time it has been a stable time loop and had to happen. The alternate timeline? It was a one way trip, G'raha was never going back, so the normal rules we saw to date did not apply for that one.