Expansion takes place in the future, Il Mheg < Ala Mhigo

Calling it now. Il Mheg looks like an easily derivable form of "Ala Mhigo" after a few centuries (or millennia) of sound changes. Given the repeated references to time, and Yoshida's cheekiness about revealing where exactly the expansion takes place, I'm convinced that for at least part of it we'll be traveling to various parts of Eorzea in the/a distant future.

Il Mheg of course would be a future version of Ala Mhigo/Gyr Abania. The mountainous terrain seems to match, and it looks kind of like you'd expect after the world has been blasted with way too much light. The Rak'tika Greatwood could easily be a future version of the Black Shroud, although it could also be part of the forest in Dalmasca/Nagxia, or even a part of the world that's not forested in the present.

Are there any place names we know of that could plausibly turn into Rak'tika or Amh Araeng? I'm still thinking we'll explore new areas in the present, but we'll probably have at least 3 zones that take place in the future, and Il Mheg is only one of them.

I'm leaning more towards it being another shard's equivalent of Gyr Abania if anything.

For Rak'tika, you have Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak

I don't think those two places look anything alike at all.

Il Mheg, if anything, looks more Sharlayan than Ala Mhigan

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Originally Posted by briarth0rn

I don't think those two places look anything alike at all.

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This is presumably a few centuries to millennia after an apocalypse. Of course it isn't going to look the same. We can't even be sure that specific geographical features would look the same. But, Il Mheg is mountainous, and so is Ala Mhigo, so that renders the theory plausible at least.

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Originally Posted by Chewy2nd

Il Mheg, if anything, looks more Sharlayan than Ala Mhigan

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After an apocalypse and colonization by pixies, we shouldn't expect it to look Ala Mhigan.

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Originally Posted by ShinShimon

This is presumably a few centuries to millennia after an apocalypse. Of course it isn't going to look the same. We can't even be sure that specific geographical features would look the same. But, Il Mheg is mountainous, and so is Ala Mhigo, so that renders the theory plausible at least.

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By that logic you could say anything is any other thing. Ishgard's kind of like a snowy future Skalla, isn't it? They're both made of rocks. Maybe the Dawn Throne in the Azim Steppe is Amdapori because they both made a lot of dome-shaped things. It seems like a massive stretch.

I'd say that it's honestly more likely to be another Shard than some sort of far-off post apocalyptic future. Minfilia went to the First shard. Said First shard is currently in danger of dying to a Flood of Light. We have to become Warriors of Darkness, the opposite of Light and its balancing point. The other scions went somewhere mysterious. Minfilia who went to the First Shard is confirmed to be with Thancred. Put the pieces together and they honestly fit pretty well.

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Originally Posted by CaesarCV

I'd say that it's honestly more likely to be another Shard than some sort of far-off post apocalyptic future. Minfilia went to the First shard. Said First shard is currently in danger of dying to a Flood of Light. We have to become Warriors of Darkness, the opposite of Light and its balancing point. The other scions went somewhere mysterious. Minfilia who went to the First Shard is confirmed to be with Thancred. Put the pieces together and they honestly fit pretty well.

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Well, there is the "this place certainly has changed" line

Fair enough, but at the same time they're known to be wrong/troll with trailers. So I'm not sure. I'm just pointing out the pieces where they lie.

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Originally Posted by briarth0rn

By that logic you could say anything is any other thing. Ishgard's kind of like a snowy future Skalla, isn't it? They're both made of rocks. Maybe the Dawn Throne in the Azim Steppe is Amdapori because they both made a lot of dome-shaped things. It seems like a massive stretch.

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The terrain of Il Mheg fits with Ala Mhigo. Positive evidence in favor of it being Ala Mhigo is the likely time travel storyline, Yoshida's cheekiness about telling us where we'll actually be going, and the very similar name.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Well, there is the "this place certainly has changed" line

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The Shards (as in, the First Shard, and the other ones), are also known as the reflections of the Source.

It wouldn't be too farfetched to assume that those Shards share similarities with the Source, without being exactly the same. Thancred could be at one of those places, and noticing how "this place certainly has changed", since he remembers the way it looked like in the Source.

Because of the repeated references to time and "if history must be unwritten" in the trailer, I actually was thinking the opposite and am expecting Shadowbringers to travel back to the past.

Maybe we're even going to a past Ivalice and it might hold the key to fixing things, as the area seems to have been ravaged by the Garleans (or at least Rabanastre).

The next story patch will be... interesting and I have no idea how they're going to lead into Shadowbringers. Them not sharing a location is curious so this can only mean time travel or Ivalice, no?

It would totally make sense. Mimicking ffxi's expansions. Sky, sea, far east, past... next there will be maws appearing through out the world and we will be traveling in time.

"if history must be unwritten", what if, WoL and Scions return to the past to act on the calamities ?
Like maybe prevent them (but what impact on the future ?) or provok them because this is their destiny.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

Thancred could be at one of those places, and noticing how "this place certainly has changed", since he remembers the way it looked like in the Source.

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Would Minfilia be too young to tell him where he's at? :rolleyes:

I'll be the first to admit I'm in over my head in regards to lore, and even what's actually happened/happening in this game lol. The Il Mheg / Ala Mhigo connection is pretty compelling though, and I suppose it could fit in to either the time travel or parallel world theme.

Dimensional Travel doesn't imply time travel.
Rak'Tika and Il Mheg could really just be regions not only our, but all reflections. Maybe we will visit them, just not in ours.

Now, the phrases "history rewritten" and "this place certainly has changed" imply heavily on time traveling. Then the options are way to broad to even consider them.

Time Travel I: Back to the past - We travel BACK in time to prevent some event from happening. It could be traveling to a previous calamity or the very first of them, or we might just trigger one about 4.55 and we are just traveling back in time to fix that one alone.
Time Travel II: Forward to the future - This doesn't seem to make sense, if our starting location is our present. Maybe we are transported back DURING 4.55, making our progression in 5.0 finding a way BACK to 4.5.
Interdimensional-Time Travel III: A shard to the past/future - We jump reflections AND travel in time, maybe we gotta prevent "The First" to fall and help Minfilia there, maybe we gotta go there and do the exact opposite and fight against her and Arbert and maybe even Thancred switching sides which would be so interesting but that is merely me being fanfiction. Anyway, if this is the case then we literally have no clue. We could go to reflections of hydaelyn so massively distorted by the different probabilities of their world events... Just too broad.

Since we are factually in the Source world from which all world's get reflected. I think we will have to either face the rejoining or we will have to prevent it. Face it would mean to go and solve every reflection's problems trying to tip the Source towards balance and Prevent it would mean time traveling and rewriting history.

In my wildest dreams, we totally become ascians and travel to other Reflection to actually kill Hydaelyn before the balance tips too much.

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Originally Posted by Alexandre_Noireau

Now, the phrases "history rewritten" and "this place certainly has changed" imply heavily on time traveling. Then the options are way to broad to even consider them.

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ok this two sentence don't means time travel, history rewritten is more about how the end of the first shard will happend....
the sentence "this place certainly has changed" it can happend after coming back to a certain place after a long time, we don't know when this event in the trailer will happend.

i will be clear, we can't be the warrior of darkness in the primal world.... because ascien act already as absolute darkness. then turn into the warrior of darkness in the primal world will serve no purpose.
the purpose to be the warrior of darkness is to fight the light and for this only one place is satured by light and need help from a warrior of darkness for change all.

the most important point about all of this story, is the fact that solus did told to the emperor that he will not be around for a time, when he can already teleport where he want.... means he is not anymore in the primal world.
finally and that the most important point of all.... if the ascien was able to time travel.... they will have done the fusion of the world a long time ago!

i'm quite nice and will add more detail that point in direction of dimension travel to the first shard:
1) the enemy shown in the teaser are all enemy light based
2) the sky in the battle between our character and the kuribu, the sky is covered by cloud, but the sky behind seems to be pure light.... like in the pixie area.
3) the only thing that can move throught dimension (from what we know) are soul... explaining why krill can't find the soul of the scion.

That's the problem with time travel is that it opens up a ton of "Why not just change *insert event*" scenarios unless they impose all kinds of weird restrictions on it.

As much as they keep saying history needs to be unwritten, they also keep mentioning that we should embrace fate and that it can't be changed, so I really have no idea how things are going to play out.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

The Shards (as in, the First Shard, and the other ones), are also known as the reflections of the Source.

It wouldn't be too farfetched to assume that those Shards share similarities with the Source, without being exactly the same. Thancred could be at one of those places, and noticing how "this place certainly has changed", since he remembers the way it looked like in the Source.

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Well, do bear in mind the point of divergence. The Thirteen Shards were formed a long, LONG time ago - literally before recorded history, before even the First Catastrophe. That is a LOT of time during which history could diverge, even if they were perfect mirror images to begin with. Add to that, the Source has undergone seven world-reshaping catastrophes during that timespan - unless identical Catastrophes happened on EVERY shard, EXACTLY the same way and same time on each occasion, that's an incredible amount of chaos to throw into the mix.

By all rights, there should be no resemblance between shards, geopolitically.

That said, writers don't always take scale into account, ESPECIALLY when cool things can happen if they deliberately ignore it. Take, for example, the mirror universe in Star Trek. While it's theoretically feasible that the original Enterprise could have encountered a universe that just happened to have an Enterprise full of evil versions of themselves, it REEEEALY stretches things when you get to Deep Space Nine and find that somehow, the same people in the same universe managed to have the same babies that would lead to evil versions of the cast for THAT show, in spite of the political upheaval caused by the events of the first encounter. But that takes a back seat to the opportunity to show Evil Kira in all her glory.

So, Il Mheg COULD be a distorted reflection of Ala Mhigo, but if that turns out to be the case anyone thinking logically will be banging their head on their desk.

If we are trying to avert a catastrophe, would it not make more sense to go back in time? I think more than likely we are being guided by a figure in the future. We'd see the future in an echo vision at best.

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Originally Posted by DSCH

If we are trying to avert a catastrophe, would it not make more sense to go back in time? I think more than likely we are being guided by a figure in the future. We'd see the future in an echo vision at best.

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Depends on which time theory you subscribe to.

The tricky thing with time travel is that these new zones have to persist going forward in game. If we go to these new zones back in time, then what need would there to be in the present once everything is done? Thancred's line about "this place has changed" could simply reference someplace he's been before. He's been back forth all over the map in his spying on the Empire for the Scions, so he's been all sorts of places we've never seen in game. Same with Urianger's lines. He's all about ancient tomes and prophecies since it's one of his key points of research with the Scions so it could easily match something he's read.

I could much more easily see someone coming back in time to our present or crossing dimensions then having the WoL time hopping all over the place. Time travel stories are messy even with the best writers and it just seems like more trouble then it's worth when they already have alternate Shards they could use instead.

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Originally Posted by GenBroadaxe

The tricky thing with time travel is that these new zones have to persist going forward in game. If we go to these new zones back in time, then what need would there to be in the present once everything is done? Thancred's line about "this place has changed" could simply reference someplace he's been before. He's been back forth all over the map in his spying on the Empire for the Scions, so he's been all sorts of places we've never seen in game. Same with Urianger's lines. He's all about ancient tomes and prophecies since it's one of his key points of research with the Scions so it could easily match something he's read.

I could much more easily see someone coming back in time to our present or crossing dimensions then having the WoL time hopping all over the place. Time travel stories are messy even with the best writers and it just seems like more trouble then it's worth when they already have alternate Shards they could use instead.

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I'm not sure about that since we repeat events in dungeons through the power of echo. Once you play through it on story that's one thing, but you wipe in a dungeon you cleared before? Plus Echo likes to make sure we get specific percentages in older content later on? WHY???

The zones really can't be in a state of "time travel". They are used for things other then the MSQ including Sidequests, FATEs, Beast-tribe quests, gathering, etc. Things like Sidequests and the Beast-tribe quests have always been portrayed as happening in the patch they are released in. It would be very, very weird for the normal passage of time to "stop" in very specific zones when the entire rest of the game portrays events as happening in sequence in the rest of the zones. This especially gets relevant when quests from the 4.x series are portrayed as happening in 3.x zones during the events of 4.x.

I don't foresee SE giving themselves some kinds of weird "time-traveled" zones that need to be able to be accessed by players at all times. Such ideas would work a lot better for something like Diadem or Eureka or a raid. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing that hints the revealed zones are simply somewhere on Hydaelyn we've never been before. I mean... If any zone would belong on some other shard, it would be a zone like the Churning Mists. But nope, floating islands made out of crystal are something on Hydaelyn. The revealed ShB zones are nowhere near the level of weird and alien that the Churning Mists are.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

The zones really can't be in a state of "time travel". They are used for things other then the MSQ including Sidequests, FATEs, Beast-tribe quests, gathering, etc. Things like Sidequests and the Beast-tribe quests have always been portrayed as happening in the patch they are released in. It would be very, very weird for the normal passage of time to "stop" in very specific zones when the entire rest of the game portrays events as happening in sequence in the rest of the zones. This especially gets relevant when quests from the 4.x series are portrayed as happening in 3.x zones during the events of 4.x.

I don't foresee SE giving themselves some kinds of weird "time-traveled" zones that need to be able to be accessed by players at all times. Such ideas would work a lot better for something like Diadem or Eureka or a raid. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing that hints the revealed zones are simply somewhere on Hydaelyn we've never been before. I mean... If any zone would belong on some other shard, it would be a zone like the Churning Mists. But nope, floating islands made out of crystal are something on Hydaelyn. The revealed ShB zones are nowhere near the level of weird and alien that the Churning Mists are.

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Emphasis mine, but I don't see it being a problem, there are many zones in which you cannot get into until certain events happen in a story. Since you're saying must be accessed at all times - this is a falsehood. You can't start at level 1 and enter the Doman Enclave for example. Also even the Enclave is in different states depending on how much you progressed on that area, but is shared by other players

We're in a game now that a lot of things that don't quite fit their lore or reasoning is generally explained by Echo, The Ascians, The Allagans like how Star Trek defaulted to the Space Time Continuum.

That said, I'm not exactly aboard the time travel theory, but just that I'm pointing out that people's reasoning against it is also not without its own set of flaws.

What I mean is end-game access. Whatever overworld zones turn up in the MSQ for a given expansion need to be able to accessed by all max level characters after the MSQ is finished for a given patch. You can't just have something like a zone be in the past and then have something happen in the MSQ that makes accessing the past impossible to do otherwise. We would always need to be able to access "the past" to get to that zone. Which starts to get a bit ridiculous and requires a certain level of "you are in a video game" to influence the lore and worldbuilding of FFXIV that's never gone so far before.

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Originally Posted by SmokeyTheSequel

It would totally make sense. Mimicking ffxi's expansions. Sky, sea, far east, past... next there will be maws appearing through out the world and we will be traveling in time.

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I sure hope not. Dimensional travel to paralell universe versions of an existing zone is bad enough, but FFXI's Wings of the Goddess expansion killed time travel as an enjoyable plot point for me. So for SE to simply copy and paste that idea here.... words can not describe my disappointment if it's indeed true. We'll see though. :(

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

I sure hope not. Dimensional travel to paralell universe versions of an existing zone is bad enough, but FFXI's Wings of the Goddess expansion killed time travel as an enjoyable plot point for me. So for SE to simply copy and paste that idea here.... words can not describe my disappointment if it's indeed true. We'll see though. :(

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exept we know that dimension travel will be involved since we did learn about the different shard.... however, don't forget that dimension traveling don't means only reach area that are similar, the split did happend very long time ago, multiple thousand years ago.... means civilization, technology and such did split more from what we know. then each shard can be really really different... that why when the calamity in the past did happend, new form of magic, new life form did appear... they was part of the shard that did collapse.

i will be blunt, they will not use time travel.... people are simply going too far in them speculation. like about the comment about rewrite story.... the first shard is already satured of light, the collapse is close and something we can't avoid right now.... rewrite story, means we can maybe bring back balance to the shard and avoid the 8th calamity!

because all the time travel theory, none did bring us why we will have a 8th calamity... none! because it's not time travel, but we will go to the 1st shard...

finally, involve time travel, means.... ascien can time travel.... or it will be easy to travel back in time for stop even the other calamity or the split... but if ascien was able to time travel.... why didn't they have win already? it was easy to send someone back and kill us before becoming a trouble? or come back in time for avoid the kill of all the ascien by gaius....

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

I don't foresee SE giving themselves some kinds of weird "time-traveled" zones that need to be able to be accessed by players at all times.

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Why not? This is precisely what they did in FFXI's expansion, "Wings of the Goddess". It's quite doable, and has a precedent. I don't actually think that's where the plot is going, but free access to time-travel zones does not have to be an instanced thing.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

I sure hope not. Dimensional travel to paralell universe versions of an existing zone is bad enough, but FFXI's Wings of the Goddess expansion killed time travel as an enjoyable plot point for me. So for SE to simply copy and paste that idea here.... words can not describe my disappointment if it's indeed true. We'll see though. :(

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I thought the time travel in WotG was actually handled pretty well, all things considered, even though I'm very much a supporter of "stable-time loop" style time travel rather than multiple timelines. Spoilers follow:

The introduction as Atomos as a being that consumes unused timelines was interesting. I also liked the concept that our timeline was a FALSE timeline, brought about by Altana's divine intervention because the original timeline, in which the Shadowlord was never defeated and the world was stuck in an eternal was, was just too sorrowful a fate for her to bear. Both of these facts gave the villains plenty of motive for why they were doing what they were doing - after all their struggle and sacrifice to hold the line decade after decade, to have that all thrown away potentially into Atomos's maw at a goddess's whimsy, must have seemed cruel beyond words. It's not at all surprising that they tried to undo what Altana had done, even knowing that the result would be a world of misery compared to the (relatively) peaceful timeline of the game's setting.

In the end, we were mostly successful in keeping the timeline pointed where we wanted it (there were a few changes here and there, but nothing that would have had any effect at all on the game's events up to that point, or on any other expansion - and since these changes were things we would not have had any opportunity to witness, we can assume that they were that way all along). The villains were out of luck, and their timeline would not be "primary", but Lilisette went to help them out and attempt to keep the timeline strong, and therefore a low priority for Atomos's consumption.

It was an odd take on the multiple timelines concept, but internally consistent!

And regardless of how you felt about WotG, there's no guarantee that FFXIV's take on time travel would be at all similar.

I think what is more likely is that 'The Caller' is from the future, and wants to rewrite history, which is current day in 4.5, he's actively trying to prevent the calamity now, trying to steer current events away from it. Judging by Y'shtoya's dialogue in the trailer, a couple of years maybe pass between 4.5 and 5.0

Or the Caller is from another shard *shrugs*

I might be biased because I'm really not a fan of the idea of going to another shard instead of expanding on the Source world that we know, but it just seems to me like going to another time period or dimension would carry a lot of logistical problems, and make the zones very underused after Shadowbringers is over. As things go right now, I can have quest NPCs tell me to go do something in Doma or the Ruby Sea, even if those are on the other side of the world, and it'll make sense. I can get assigned hunt mobs in any of the zones we've been to, I can expect other characters to show up in different places.

If we go to another shard, how will this work? Are we just going to go through a whole expansion where we only interact with the other Scions (who presumably come with us) and new characters that likely won't ever cross back to the Source? Is dimension hopping going to be easy to the point that we could hop back and forth between old zones and new ones for whatever quests we receive? All possible answers to these questions just seem to me like they'd be very, very contrived.

If there are shard shenanigans in play in Shadowbringers, I wouldn't be surprised if a partial rejoining happens instead, where some zones from a different shard get magically spliced into Hydaelyn. We already know moving landmasses is possible through Eureka, and that giant crystal wall in Amh Araeng tells me some big magical disaster probably happened there at some point.

I dunno, it's the perfect opportunity to show how the "world visit" works ;) *rimshot*

It's neither here nor there for me if it's time travel or shard hopping, as the zones we have seen could just be part of the existing map, and time travel/dimension shard hopping isn't actually part of the zones at all but left to dungeons or instances. I'm more behind the shard theory because it's been mentioned in this story as a slow drip it would be nice to have a payoff of something that's been teased about but little interaction other than the WoD making a visit.

That and I really don't feel that Matoya is possessing Y'shtola like people are theorizing I just find that to be a little silly that she would need to be taken over vs the other Scions facing the same fate, and I feel that unfortunately the devs are going into something more mundane as that is her Cover name because she's snarky like that ;) or she's a reflection of our Y'sh. *shrugs*

"Expansion takes place in the future"

and here I was hoping it'd take place in 1.X.

I am entertaining the thought we'll have to travel back in time and prevent our own WoL's succesful progress at some point, fighting ourselves and impeding the world to steer too much towards the light. But yeah, the way they've currently laid out things it can go anywhere. It seems also likely we'll head towards the first shard at one point to pick up Minfillia/Hydaelyn.

I honestly can't wait what SE has in store for us! Super hyped!

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Originally Posted by Alexandre_Noireau

Now, the phrases "history rewritten" and "this place certainly has changed" imply heavily on time traveling. Then the options are way to broad to even consider them.

Time Travel I: Back to the past - We travel BACK in time to prevent some event from happening. It could be traveling to a previous calamity or the very first of them, or we might just trigger one about 4.55 and we are just traveling back in time to fix that one alone.
Time Travel II: Forward to the future - This doesn't seem to make sense, if our starting location is our present. Maybe we are transported back DURING 4.55, making our progression in 5.0 finding a way BACK to 4.5.

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I'm not sure why travel to the future wouldn't make sense "if our starting location is our present". Where else are we going to start from? Why does it make sense to travel back but not forward in time from there?

But anyway.

The line in the trailer says that history must be unwritten, not rewritten.

This is a critical distinction that I think changes the reading.

Something rewritten would be altered but still generally exist; "unwritten" suggests it has to be erased entirely - we've hit a dead end and need to wind back to a point in time before it became unfixable.

Also from memory, it says the disaster that "must be undone" is greater than the Seventh Umbral Calamity. That means that whoever is telling us that is from either our present time or the future, to be aware of that event - and my gut feeling is that this new disaster would be taking place after it as well, though that's not as certain.


And then there's the issue of messing with the timeline.

I remain hopeful that any time travel will still be following the same time logic shown in the Alexander questline, both for consistency and because I think it makes for more enjoyable writing.