Ascian Motivations [Spoilers]

Apologies if this is a topic that has already been covered, I did my best to search for it. I am having trouble grasping exactly what the Ascians are trying to do.

Before I was under the impression that the black robed Ascians are trying to cause a flood of darkness to bring the world under Zodiark's control. Elidibus speaks about balance instead, which makes sense since he kind of stands alone from the other Ascians.

But now it seems like Solus is also talking about balance, but also talking about how the Garlean Empire was created to cause chaos. Do you think Solus is of the same camp as Elidibus? If he also wants balance, how is he possibly achieving that by being the driving force behind most of the chaos in the world right now?

There's a few different layers to what the Ascians are trying to do. On a macro scale, they want Hydaelyn dead. Only to do that they need Zodiark's help. But currently, Zodiark us imprissoned in the moon. To help Zodiark get stronger/Hydaelyn get weaker, the Ascians cause Calamities. Calamities happen when the walls between a Shard and the Source are destroyed, causing the aether of a Shard to be Rejoined to the aether of the Source.Thing is, a Shard that has been Flooded can't be Rejoined. So on a micro level, the Ascians are trying to keep the Light and Darkness of a Shard balanced, while causeing enough chaos on the Source to cause a rejoinging.

Ultimately, the Ascians are trying to destroy the world as we know it. However, doing that isn't simple and they have to everything in the right way and order for it to work.

The primary thing that the Ascians consistently agree upon is that Zodiark (the will of Darkness) is the one true god. When Hydaelyn (the will of Light) excised Him from the sea and cast Him into the sky, She wounded the dimensional plane, which spawned thirteen copies of this dimension. This scattered the powers of Light and Dark. The Ascians believe that by compressing those dimensions back into the one they spawned from, they can resurrect Zodiark.

Thus, the Ascians work to trigger dimensional compression (Rejoining). To bring about a state where worlds can be Rejoined requires a great deal of "chaos," catastrophic destruction and death. To bring about catastrophic destruction and death, the Ascians manipulate mortals into acting on their ambitions in a way that inspires conflict. Whatever conflict succeeds in taking root, they carefully tend to it, making sure neither side ever wins and both sides use increasingly destructive technology. Eventually, this will cause such devastation that it will cause the membrane between the Source and one of the other dimensions to buckle. The wall between dimensions destroyed, the "copy" is "deleted," everything there dies, all of its aether returns to our dimension. We experience this as a "Calamity."

There are those that say this is because the destruction causes "aether loss" and that Hydaelyn is deliberately eating the other worlds to "get aether back" and thus survive. This is pure speculation without basis beyond the foundational logic. They often leave this out and just call it fact. It is not confirmed.

The whole balance thing is about how if there is a sudden and violent lurch in the balance between Light and Dark, rather than a Rejoining, the dimension will fall victim to a flood of Light or Darkness, annihilating the aether of that dimension and rendering it (at least) useless to Zodiark, and (at most) permanently un-Rejoinable.

The void as we know it (source of the voidsent) was created by such an event; the remnants of the Thirteenth copied dimension after it fell to a flood of Darkness. A Light-born void, however, in theory, would leave no such monstrosities in its wake - just "blank perfection." (Does that mean it can't be temporarily assaulted by empyrean horrors like the trailer suggests? No. But now often are trailers fully accurate?)

The Ascians in black robes have a different mission than Elidibus. We don't know what those missions are, but we know [a] all of them believe both missions to be assigned by Zodiark Himself, and [b] all of them are are aware of this, and believe that they serve the same purpose in different ways. At a glance, it looks like the black-robed Ascians exist to raise soldiers and cause chaos, whereas Elidibus babysits and makes sure floods don't happen. There's probably more to it than that.

The black-robed Ascians tend to be a little more gung-ho about "burning Hydaelyn out like a cancer," whereas Elidibus claims he just wants to heal the universe and make Hydaelyn and Zodiark one, again. Because the separation has caused so much trouble, one might be tempted to think that's a good thing...but is it? We don't know. I suspect not. For one, Zodiark was stronger at the division; that's why He was cast out - taking more than His share. Would restoring Him not merely allow Him to overpower Her? Would he? And it's claimed that mortal life was created by Hydaelyn out of fear of Zodiark; if we exist post-distinction, we can we exist in a pre-distinction state?

Of course there's always the off-chance that Zodiark is merely misunderstood and that his emissary is trying to make things right. But I don't buy it. At best I think Zodiark is a slave to His own nature as the will of Darkness, and that His nature as a force of entropy is necessary, but ultimately not in our best interest to harken to the desires of.

But that's all me, don't let me bias you, lol.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

On a macro scale, they want Hydaelyn dead. Only to do that they need Zodiark's help.

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I think you have the priorities reversed here. Sure, the Ascians want Hydaelyn dead, but mostly because she opposes their ultimate goal of awakening Zodiark. Zodiark is the one true god that the Ascians serve, and Hydaelyn is their enemy because she is Zodiark's enemy.

Maybe, both those goals are certainly intertwined to some degree. I was more basing that chain of reasoning off the only explanation that mentions it in-game. Which is Lahabrea's speech in the Praetoruium. When he gives it, he starts with Hydaleyn needing to die to restore balance and only after that does he bring Zodiark up as a means of doing that.

The other reason I put it in that order is that if it somehow turns out that Zodiark isn't interested in killing Hydaelyn anymore, the Ascians might still be very interested in doing so...

I don't have too much to add since Anonymoose did such a great job in his post, but I can give a few of my own thoughts on the matter. First off, the goal of the Black Robed Ascians seems to be bringing back Zodiark, mainly by causing chaos. They do want rejoinings, and would rather avoid floods. Igeyohrm, for example, is mentioned in the Encyclopedia Eorzea as being shamed and/or punished for letting her shard get flooded by darkness instead of being rejoined. Our white robed friend appears to work hard to prevent those things from happening, sending Unukalhai to prevent the Warring Triad from draining Eorzea being a perfect example. Each Ascian seems to have their own pet projects and preferences as well. Lahabrea (despite being titled 'The Warrior') tended to favor manipulating mortals, the Minor Ascian Order in the Summoner Questline sought to cause chaos through magic (specifically necromancy), Nabriales preferred direct force, while Solus created the Garlean Empire. This means they can sometimes work at seemingly cross purposes, and the ire which Solus had for Lahabrea indicates they don't always get along even if they're united in goal. This also makes them ideal MMO villains since they have general/vague enough goals to be involved in nearly any conflict. That being said, there is something else going on as well....

Elidibus (who's practically our 'main' Ascian at the moment) seems to have different goals, and especially different aims, from the other Ascians. The rest of them seem to regard him with some caution, even if they agree he is 'good at his job'. Solus's wary nature towards him is the clearest evidence of this, but there are even bigger ones. Elidibus is implied to have specifically taught the Scions how to kill Ascians after all, through teaching the Sahaguin priest how to use the Echo to use Ascian style immortality. The fact that Nabriales immediately moves into kill mode after realizing this shows how the others probably weren't in on that particular plan. He also claims that if the Scions master the echo enough, they will 'be on the same side' as him, whatever what means. My personal pet theory is that he actually wants Hydelyn and Zodiark to fuse again and create 'true balance', even if it would logically wipe out all mortal life since Hydelyn is the thing that creates/sustains it. Either way, he is a man of mystery, and his plans seem to ebb and shift around. Now he's in possession of an especially powerful body both physically and politically. Who knows what his plan is?

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Originally Posted by CaesarCV

Each Ascian seems to have their own pet projects and preferences as well.

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That's probably a good way of putting it. Lahabrea is clearly considered an arrogant fool by his comrades for being far more interested in his pet projects than actually succeeding the goal the machinations existed to serve. Remember when he said "my will" and Elidibus had to remind him "Zodiark's will"? Who knows what he could have accomplished if he'd taken the Warrior of Light out early instead of using them as a shortcut to inspiring the beast tribes to use more crystals and deeper faith to summon more powerful primals. Who knows where Heavensward would have gone if he'd have even considered Thordan's duplicity beforehand.

Meanwhile Nabriales begrudgingly serves Project Shiva at Lahabrea's behest, chides you for undoing all his hard work in actually pulling off the main/primal merger, and abandons ship to cause his own Calamity at the first opportunity because he believes that he, not Lahabrea, should "sit at Zodiark's right hand".

Solus is an interesting oddity. Occam's Razor would suggest that he's just been listening to Ascians since he was a legionnaire and everything's been going great; he raised an empire, he transcended mortality, they're going to fix the world or whatever. "Obviously, just do whatever Elidibus advocates, it worked when I answered to Lahabrea, even in spite of his idiocy, so it'll work now."

(Of course, there's always the possibility that Emperor Solus zos Galvus is an entirely fabricated identity created by some hitherto unknown Ascian who just possessed a guy for a while, but that's a whole other layer of assumptions required to make it work, which opens the door to a whole other layer of questions in need of answers, so let's burn that bridge when we get to it.)

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Originally Posted by CaesarCV

Elidibus (who's practically our 'main' Ascian at the moment) seems to have different goals, and especially different aims, from the other Ascians.

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I'm going to die if he was an even bigger snake than I claimed and even the black-robed Ascians are just a faction of fanatics he built as pawns and is going to wipe them off the board the instant Zodiark is back. Once upon a time I dreamed of Elidibus being the true big bad of this game - that he'd somehow usurp the whole thing and Time Compression the cosmos into a new Genesis in his image (to save it from the war of the crystals, the unstable and fractured dimensions, the whimy and fragility or mortals; you know, villain with a good point but has to die anyway stuff).

Except that too is a whole other layer of assumptions. So far everything we know suggests Elidibus is completely loyal to Zodiark, which means (for now) it makes sense to assume Zodiark wants all of this. (Except for the part where it goes sideways in 4.5, which might explain the Mystery Voice...). And to be honest I see no reason why Zodiark would harbor any love for His agents, who've practically been Team Rocket for eons, once he no longer needs them as proxies.

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Originally Posted by CaesarCV

Elidibus is implied to have specifically taught the Scions how to kill Ascians after all, through teaching the Sahaguin priest how to use the Echo to use Ascian style immortality.

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Hmm...

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Originally Posted by CaesarCV

My personal pet theory is that he actually wants Hydelyn and Zodiark to fuse again and create 'true balance', even if it would logically wipe out all mortal life since Hydelyn is the thing that creates/sustains it.

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This theory could also be forked mid-way and assume that the merger itself is what allows Zodiark to destroy Hydaelyn safely, considering He was stronger than Her at the division. A unification could simply allow Him to smother Her will from within the sea.

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Originally Posted by CaesarCV

Now he's in possession of an especially powerful body both physically and politically. Who knows what his plan is?

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The last we saw of him in 4.4, he wanted to kill the WoL. And he wanted Varis' permission to do it. Elidibus has also been relatively hands-off in how he manipulates situations. Until now anyway. As you say, he's in a powerful body and and an instantly recognizable one at that. It seems like he's done working in the shadows and is now working in broad daylight.

I'll be very interested to learn why he changed up his MO so drastically.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

I'll be very interested to learn why he changed up his MO so drastically.

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I've said this before so forgive me if I'm being a broken record, but perhaps 7~8 Calamities is enough to recreate "Zodiark's majority share" and they're so close to victory they don't need to be as patient/cautious. If they can secure this win, it doesn't matter who knows what caused it and who their enemies really were.

Been off the forum for a while, so sorry if I'm bringing up overdone topics or beating any dead horses.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Hmm...

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Funny that right after Elidibus talks to us about how we need to know more about the Echo we get a good chance to figure out how Ascian immortality works. Just saying. ;)

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Solus is an interesting oddity. Occam's Razor would suggest that he's just been listening to Ascians since he was a legionnaire and everything's been going great; he raised an empire, he transcended mortality, they're going to fix the world or whatever. "Obviously, just do whatever Elidibus advocates, it worked when I answered to Lahabrea, even in spite of his idiocy, so it'll work now."

(Of course, there's always the possibility that Emperor Solus zos Galvus is an entirely fabricated identity created by some hitherto unknown Ascian who just possessed a guy for a while, but that's a whole other layer of assumptions required to make it work, which opens the door to a whole other layer of questions in need of answers, so let's burn that bridge when we get to it.)

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Honestly, with the way that Solus was speaking, I tend to assume that he's more or less an Ascian that took over a random legionnaire and grew into the Emperor. I imagine that there was a Solus Vos Galvus at some point, but he was nothing but a minor Garlean Patrician before being possessed by the Ascian that we know. After all, he did dramatically talk about how Solus Vos Galvus 'was an Ascian' and all of his crusades was 'nothing but a lie.' If Solus basically did everything he said he did but had a little help, it's really not much of a lie now is it? Not to mention that he claimed he was recently 'allowed to retire' and then got brought back. Which kind of lines up with the fact that the Emperor Solus died recently. He was ready to just sort of relax and probably hang out in whatever interdimensional space the Ascians like to live it up in, drinking shadow mimosas and pondering the nature of Zodiark. After all, his work was done. He made the perfect tool to cause calamities, to the point that they'll do it even without him trying! But then those stupid Populares were going to ruin everything, and Lahabrea had to die like an idiot, and the Scions had to kill Nabriales, there's a possible flood of light about to destroy the world, and now he has to deal with all of this junk again.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

The last we saw of him in 4.4, he wanted to kill the WoL. And he wanted Varis' permission to do it. Elidibus has also been relatively hands-off in how he manipulates situations. Until now anyway. As you say, he's in a powerful body and and an instantly recognizable one at that. It seems like he's done working in the shadows and is now working in broad daylight.

I'll be very interested to learn why he changed up his MO so drastically.

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There's a few things to think about here. One of them is considering who he is talking to and why. Basically, in that conversation he is complaining that Varis is not doing what he should be doing. Varis is kept around since it makes running the Empire simpler, and in return he's supposed to keep doing what the Empire was formed to do. As in, go to war a lot, take actions that could cause Calamities. But Varis knows about that now, and he's rather cross about it. So he's been holding things like going to re-conquer Ala Migho off, and it's even possible he legitimately wanted to let the whole Doma Peace thing go well just to spite them. Elidibus kind of broke that plan down through manipulating Asahi, which was easy to do since he had access to Zenos's body. During the conversation in the throne room, Elidibus is basically reminding Varis to do his job. As for asking permission, even if Varis is a puppet behind the scenes, he is still the visible leader of Garlemald. If 'Zenos' goes on the warpath on his own, without Varis's order, it'll cause confusion in the ranks and a bunch of weird optics. Sure they could possess Varis if it really came down to it, but that's a pain and it's implied the Ascians are kind of low on members at the moment with so many dying in this short span of time.

Also, since it's implied from the trailer, the whole 'warrior of darkness' thing, and the mysterious voice that the player's many victories are about to cause a Flood of Light and maybe doom a plane (ours?), it's possible that Elidibus's hand is somewhat forced, and he's got the right tools to finally deal with that stupid chosen hero.

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Originally Posted by CaesarCV

Honestly, with the way that Solus was speaking, I tend to assume that he's more or less an Ascian that took over a random legionnaire and grew into the Emperor.

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A lot of people seem to be going in this direction and want this to be true - to a degree that some of them claim it's the only obvious answer and should be preemptively considered fact. I definitely see it as one possibility, but I see others, and no way we can possibly tell. It's an event without precedent. Though if it was true, I'd have so many extra follow-up questions:

We saw all 14 Overlords in the same place at the same time, both before Solus was confirmed dead (he died this in-game year, five years from the Calamity) and while Solus was "resting." So if he's an overlord, that's strange behavior. And if he's not, who is he? Some up-jumped black-mask? We've never seen a sub-overlord come to our world from another, and we've never seen a sup-black-mask that can leave our corporeal world. And black-masks are ex-mortals, so why is it more likely or more cool that some other ex-mortal transcended and possessed the mortal Solus than that mortal Solus himself transcended? So many questions.

Just because of that, I'm hesitating from moving beyond, "What if it's just the Sahagin elder thing again? A Source-born mortal who got tangled up with the Ascians, transcended the flesh, and is being considered for taking up Lahabrea's fallen post?" Nabriales drew the line between Transmigrationist (often translated as "Reincarnated", but I'm using the less specific version of it) and Original as being "not from this world, or from this world", and Elidibus would want someone local for Lahabrea's station, no?

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Originally Posted by CaesarCV

Varis is kept around since it makes running the Empire simpler, and in return he's supposed to keep doing what the Empire was formed to do. As in, go to war a lot, take actions that could cause Calamities. But Varis knows about that now, and he's rather cross about it. So he's been holding things like going to re-conquer Ala Migho off, and it's even possible he legitimately wanted to let the whole Doma Peace thing go well just to spite them. Elidibus kind of broke that plan down through manipulating Asahi, which was easy to do since he had access to Zenos's body.

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I saw this same oddity on FFWiki today. Most of this is correct; Varis found out about the Empire's connections to Ascians much more recently than his rise to the throne. In 4.0, when Elidibus first comes to him as Zenos, he's not really clear on the difference between Elidibus and his black-robed brethren and is mulling over whatever this "Rejoining" thing is. He goes along with what Elidibus says, step by step, but often expresses concerns, which Elidibus allays with "Don't you want to save the star?" every time.

But how do we get from there to "Varis wanted the peace treaty with Doma"? The entire Doman peace plan was a farce orchestrated by Elidibus. Asahi shows up claiming that Varis personally promoted him to ambassador and sent him to Doma to treat for peace, knowing full well that this was a lie and believing he was following Zenos's orders. Why would anything else Asahi said be true? Elidibus was trying to use a loyal puppet to make it look like the Populares were given a chance to do things there way and got rekt by a primal summoned by treacherous savages. It was a carefully calculated move to fan the flames of war in a larger plot in which Elidibus promised Varis Garlemald would be able to conquer the world, and the only thing Varis had to say about it was, "I said no eikons." to which Elidibus replied "Don't you want to save the star?" and he shut his mouth. Kind of a big assumption to make, no? I see it as a moment of weakness before he found some measure of resolve in 4.4. Though perhaps he did secretly want the Ascians to botch it, but the idea that Elidibus backstabbed a legitimate peace offer feels like a big stretch.

I definitely can't be sure on any of this. Especially for Solus, we have perilously little information. The previous patch included that huge revelation mostly as a twist, and the ramifications of it have not honestly been fully felt or considered yet. Given that Solus vos Galvus was featured in the keynote as one of the prime villains of Shadowbringers, I imagine that we'll have our answers then. I agree with your follow up questions, but there are a few points I'd like to touch on anyway. Glad to be having this discussion by the way!

First off, I'm basing the idea that he's an 'external Ascian much more off of non-diagetic grounds than purely diagetic ones. The idea that Solus vos Galvus is an Ascian kind of really shakes things up. Rather than being a purely human created Empire, the whole foundation of the Empire is as an Ascian tool. Thus, it's kind of more logical to say "he was not at all what you thought he was" (Ascian the whole time) rather than "oh, he was mostly what you thought he was, but working with the bad guys" (Originally human Solus). It fits the needs and purpose of the story a bit better. It's also a bit cleaner since we don't have to worry about when he got possessed as much. That being said, I could totally be wrong. This is all speculation until we get the inevitable dramatic cutscene (or blurb in the Encyclopedia Eorzea III) that actually explains this.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

We saw all 14 Overlords in the same place at the same time, both before Solus was confirmed dead (he died this in-game year, five years from the Calamity) and while Solus was "resting."

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Honestly I wouldn't put too much stock in these sorts of things. Those sorts of cutscenes are generally meant more for drama and looking cool than complete accuracy. He could totally be one of the people behind the masks in that cutscene, or they might not have really thought to much about it. I wish I could say that Square Enix was perfect about these things (and they generally do a great job!) but they ain't perfect. I mean we had Hraesvelgr attacking Ishgard at one point. Messing up the number of Ascians seems pretty likely. I'd honestly just discard that as evidence for the moment.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

I saw this same oddity on FFWiki today. Most of this is correct; Varis found out about the Empire's connections to Ascians much more recently than his rise to the throne.

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Eep. I'm surprised they would put that in there. That was more or less just personal speculation. Where and what Varis's plans are is kind of a big question that has to be answered in the future. I agree with your logic more or less. It could be either way. No matter the truth on that particular matter, I'm fairly certain that Varis will remain a 'bad guy'. He might believe in the mission even though it's a lie. We have two Garlean figures who have had their faith in the Empire shaken. One of them, Gaius, has been presented as somewhat noble, but ruthless and misguided. The other, Varis, has been shown as rather cruel and cold. Having both of these characters develop in opposite directions related to it (especially when one is currently an ally and the other an enemy) is just too logical in a narrative sense to really ignore. But who really knows at this point? Either way it's kind of fun that Varis went from a boring bad guy to someone a lot more intriguing ha ha.