Quick question about 1.0

Copy-pasting my text from what I posted on the subreddit and discord server cause I couldn't get the answer I was looking for there. I mainly want a clear and helpful answer for the first question cause no one seems to be answering that one. I don't want to know "You don't need to know much of the 1.0 story to understand the rest of the game" or "Just watch the Waning of the Sixth Sun recap", cause that's not what I'm asking.

My questions are about 1.0 but be wary of potential spoilers from 1.0 to Endwalker! I've finished Endwalker msq so I'm open for discussions relating to that story if they are relevant =)
Basically, I've taken it upon myself to do a story recap for my friends who haven't played ffxiv in a while after Shadowbringers and has forgotten most of the story and wish to know it before Endwalker for the best experience.

In my research, I've found a couple of things (so far) that I don't quite get. The first is the whole story in 1.0 that takes place in the starting cities. I understand these events take place 10 years prior to the actual story of 1.0 and that we experience it through the Echo which worked differently back then. My question is, the WoL wasn't actually there at this point, right? Like, with Minfilia's dad being killed in Ul'dah and being on the ship with Y'shtola to Limsa? If this is the case, how are the scions already familiar with the WoL when the Path of The Twelve arc kicks in? I haven't watched the entirety of the 1.0 cutscenes cause it's 6 hours or something, so I might have missed something. I was just curious if anyone could explain where our character comes in to the story and all that, so I could explain the events in a timeline of sorts.

My second question is more to your personal headcanon I guess. If you are a legacy player, you're the same WoL that was teleported to the future cause of Louisoix's magic. If you started playing after 2.0 you're a new adventurer and that WoL died at the Battle of Carteneau? However, in the Coils of Bahamut raid, (spoilers for this raid btw) even if you aren't a legacy player, Louisoix looks at you and says he sent the hope of the future away or something among those lines. And I've seen people online say this means that your 2.0 WoL was at the Battle of Carteneau even if you aren't a legacy player. What do you guys think of this? Which do you prefer for your WoL? If you have any reason to rely on one over the other I would like to hear it! Personally, I like the idea of us being the WoL from 1.0 even if we didn't play it, and that instead of the scions remembering us like with legacy players, they just never do for my WoL. That's my headcanon for me, at least. Unless someone has a lore reason to disprove this xD

I'm sure I'll have more questions along the way as I make this recap, but these two are the biggest problems I've stumbled upon so far. Thanks for any serious answers and help!

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Originally Posted by LordAri

In my research, I've found a couple of things (so far) that I don't quite get. The first is the whole story in 1.0 that takes place in the starting cities. I understand these events take place 10 years prior to the actual story of 1.0 and that we experience it through the Echo which worked differently back then. My question is, the WoL wasn't actually there at this point, right? Like, with Minfilia's dad being killed in Ul'dah and being on the ship with Y'shtola to Limsa? If this is the case, how are the scions already familiar with the WoL when the Path of The Twelve arc kicks in? I haven't watched the entirety of the 1.0 cutscenes cause it's 6 hours or something, so I might have missed something. I was just curious if anyone could explain where our character comes in to the story and all that, so I could explain the events in a timeline of sorts.

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Yes, and no. There was no 'Warriors of Light' at that time, the player was just a regular adventurer newly arrived in town, but during their journey into the city they experience the infamous starshower and hear Hydaelyn's voice, thus awakening them to the Echo. This then causes them to jump in and out of other peoples' memories of ten years earlier when the Archons first arrived in Eorzea under direction from Loiusoix (when the Battle of Silvertear Skies occurred), while at the same time continuing their training as a new adventurer, thus leading to puzzled looks from others when they start rambling on about things that happened a decade before. This all culminates in the player's character collapsing, whereby one of Minfilia's 'watchers' (basically, they were Echo-awoken talent scouts employed by her to look out for those showing signs of the Echo) makes contact with the player's character and directs them to the Path of the Twelve.

The Warriors of Light were never mentioned in 1.0, it was a term that was added with ARR, originally to describe the fighters at the Battle of Carteneau who Louisoix teleported 5 years into the future, and which no one could remember their identities as a side-effect of the spell, only that their faces were obscured "as if by a bright light". Later on the term took on extra meaning and relevance, but in 1.0 the term was never mentioned.

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Originally Posted by LordAri

My second question is more to your personal headcanon I guess. If you are a legacy player, you're the same WoL that was teleported to the future cause of Louisoix's magic. If you started playing after 2.0 you're a new adventurer and that WoL died at the Battle of Carteneau? However, in the Coils of Bahamut raid, (spoilers for this raid btw) even if you aren't a legacy player, Louisoix looks at you and says he sent the hope of the future away or something among those lines. And I've seen people online say this means that your 2.0 WoL was at the Battle of Carteneau even if you aren't a legacy player. What do you guys think of this? Which do you prefer for your WoL? If you have any reason to rely on one over the other I would like to hear it! Personally, I like the idea of us being the WoL from 1.0 even if we didn't play it, and that instead of the scions remembering us like with legacy players, they just never do for my WoL. That's my headcanon for me, at least. Unless someone has a lore reason to disprove this xD

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The confusion over this particular point is partially due to SE making allowances gameplay and narrative wise for those 1.0 players who did not achieve a somewhat arbitary accomplishment in 1.0 (passing the Lunar Transmitter battle in 1.0). 1.0 players who passed this fight gained the special 'Legacy' story and opening when they started ARR where they were one of the original Warriors of Light incognito, with npcs eventually remembering their identities by the end of ARR's story.

1.0 players who did not pass this point alas had the same starting story of ARR as a new player, and it was pretty much just handwaved away what exactly you had been doing in the meantime - presumedly continuing training or something. There were some indications the game still considered such a 1.0 player character as being a veteran of Carteneau (remember, there were a lot of fighters and mercenaries there, and only a handful of 'Warriors of Light' teleported, if that), so that is what Louisoix was referring to.

My own personal headcanon as a 1.0 player who unfortunately did not meet the story requirement for the Legacy story, is that my character was at Carteneau (with her Path Companion) but nearly died in the ensuring storm, and was evacuated to the ALC's Guild in Ul'dah along with other wounded for treatment, her physical wounds healing quickly but her mental wounds took a lot longer (including some retrograde amnesia), requiring nearly 5 years to recover properly enough to restart her journey, which is why she returns to Gridania on the chocobo carriage.

That's just my own headcanon though, so other 1.0 players may have come up with different ideas to explain exactly where they were and what they were doing in that intervening period.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Yes, and no. There was no 'Warriors of Light' at that time, the player was just a regular adventurer newly arrived in town, but during their journey into the city they experience the infamous starshower and hear Hydaelyn's voice, thus awakening them to the Echo. This then causes them to jump in and out of other peoples' memories of ten years earlier when the Archons first arrived in Eorzea under direction from Loiusoix (when the Battle of Silvertear Skies occurred), while at the same time continuing their training as a new adventurer, thus leading to puzzled looks from others when they start rambling on about things that happened a decade before. This all culminates in the player's character collapsing, whereby one of Minfilia's 'watchers' (basically, they were Echo-awoken talent scouts employed by her to look out for those showing signs of the Echo) makes contact with the player's character and directs them to the Path of the Twelve.

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I see! Thanks so much for clarifying! Yeah, when I said WoL I was generally referring to the player character. So basically, in the starting cities' quest lines you do meet the Scions in "the present" but you see their memories of the past, correct? And due to how the Echo worked differently in 1.0, you (the player character) could interact more with these memories than how the Echo works in current FFXIV, right? It'll be a bit confusing pinpointing what specific events take place in the past and which are in real time for my recap, then. I'll just use the wiki for a more general retelling. Thanks a lot!

What made the events of the 1.0 echoes so confusing was that the distortions in the memories created by your presence seemed to carry from vision to vision. The Scions aren't in town at all during those quests. You don't meet them in meatspace until Futures Perfect. And yet as you move from echo to echo they seem to know you from memory to memory (even if you're in other peoples memories!); perhaps because you expect them to, idk.

Anyroad, if you're in a 1.0 intro and you see any of the following characters, it's 1562:

Y'shtola
Thancred
Yda/Papalymo
Sthalmann
Niellefresne
Khrimm
Emerick
Ascilia

If you see The Hermit of the Wood (adult Khrimm), Blackburn (adult Emerick), Minfilia (adult Ascilia), or Rostnsthal (disgraced Sthalmann), it's 1572.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

What made the events of the 1.0 echoes so confusing was that the distortions in the memories created by your presence seemed to carry from vision to vision. The Scions aren't in town at all during those quests. You don't meet them in meatspace until Futures Perfect. And yet as you move from echo to echo they seem to know you from memory to memory (even if you're in other peoples memories!); perhaps because you expect them to, idk.

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Wow, thanks so much for the clarification! The thing that confused me the most with the 1.0 story was how the Scions knew who you were even when you only met them in Echoes, this helps me understand it a lot better so thanks for helping! I guess they seem to know you just because of how the Echo worked in 1.0, which was later retconned of course.

The current Halloween suggests that the WoL from the cgi scenes are the canon WoL. A previous Rising event or maybe a Stormblood flashback shows the WoL started in Ul'dah.

I'd always thought 1.0 WoL's canon timeline is starting in Ul'dah, to meet Minfilia, and then on 2.0, restarts in Gridania to meet the person responsible of rebooting the Grand Companies, and gets the leftover Limsa Lominsa intro in 5.0. Someone in an older thread thought WoL should start in Gridania in1.0 because of Yda, but they aren't even the same person and no one likes the person anyway

There isn't a "canon Warrior of Light", or rather, your character is the canon Warrior of Light for your playthrough. All starting cities are equally valid. My understanding is that the Midlander in the cinematic (called the Meteor Survivor or "Derplander" by fans) is a stand-in for your own character. It's interesting to explore what Meteor's canon backstory would be like, though.

That the Halloween event lets you transform into him is a bit of fanservice for players (to let you act out scenes with other NPCs). (Last year, a few people showed up in Meteor's 1.0 archer outfit...)

Meteor is a legacy character because we see him as archer in the Shadowbringers trailer