Ruby Weapon Questline

In regards to the current trajectory of the Ruby Weapon questline:

So all of these orphans are going to die to make us feel bad for Gaius right? Seems kind of generic Kill'em'all robot story. Even when they showed that Echo flashback, I didn't really connect with them at all. Unlike Emet-selch which we traveled around with a bit and got to know, these orphans feel like they were meant to be just killed off as a narrative tool.

Are you suggesting that a trial series inspired by Gundam is instead going to be a progression of increasingly impressive robot fights with thematically matching pilots woven into a narrative which pushes a global war into the backdrop so that everyone can focus on groundbreaking military hardware utilized in personal conflicts by youth consumed by interpersonal and family drama an- ... Oh.

...Is Gaius going to end up a temporary Char Clone?

...Do we need to find him an estranged sister?

...Is one of our allies secretly Cornelia bas Baelsar?

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Are you suggesting that a trial series inspired by Gundam is instead going to be a progression of increasingly impressive robot fights with thematically matching pilots woven into a narrative which pushes a global war into the backdrop so that everyone can focus on groundbreaking military hardware utilized in personal conflicts by youth consumed by interpersonal and family drama an- ... Oh.

...Is Gaius going to end up a temporary Char Clone?

...Do we need to find him an estranged sister?

...Is one of our allies secretly Cornelia bas Baelsar?

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As long as we get to pilot our own robot at the end, it'll all turn out great.

It's all Gundams and rainbows until it all comes tumbling down. Tumbling down. ...tumbling down.

For me it's more of an Eva thing as there is a sync ratio that they checked before launch. Then whole core switch thing taking over is a lot like Eva unit one going berserk. At least there's no ATV fields and hopefully this won't end up causing a third impact I mean another try at a calamity.

When is saw the scenes i though Evangelion not Gundam as well. The core taking over looks like a mix of the Dummy Plug with Eva going berserk and Rei(Nael) going Third Impact route

I'm kind of hoping that Cid, knowing about Gaius' feelings for his adopted children as well having intel on the nature of the Weapons finds a way for us to disable their Oversoul mode so at least some of them don't end up dead in the end.

That and it would get kind of stale for all of them to have a similar phase 2 twist even if the data is being borrowed is from different individuals.

Right now, I can't really say I feel terribly sorry for anyone other then Gaius because the Weapon pilots seem to know what they're getting themselves into (Millsandia seemed to understand that Oversoul is a last resort that will kill them, but not exactly how) and thus far it seems as though they're only in it for the sake of pursuing glory. It wouldn't surprise me if the new VIIth legion is forcing people from Werlyt to involve themselves in the Weapon project based on their compatability, though. It doesn't seem normal for the Garleans to entrust conscripts with that sort of technology, and it may simply be that they're the only ones who can use it.

Should've been a G Gundam-inspired questline. I want to see a Weapon use Erupting Burning Finger.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I'm kind of hoping that Cid, knowing about Gaius' feelings for his adopted children as well having intel on the nature of the Weapons finds a way for us to disable their Oversoul mode so at least some of them don't end up dead in the end.

That and it would get kind of stale for all of them to have a similar phase 2 twist even if the data is being borrowed is from different individuals.

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If they plan to use Rhitahtyn sas Arvina, I could picture a second phase being avoided with him recognizing Gaius and letting go of the pilot due to an order from Gaius, or merely due to his dislike of needless bloodshed. Assuming they want to go down that route and show that the system has a downside to it with the personality still having the same flaws and morals as the original, anyway.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

...Is one of our allies secretly Cornelia bas Baelsar?

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My first thought here was Mikoto for some reason. She is getting more screen time soon.

Some postings are a bit hypocritical. The pilots are most likely already dead once they enter the battlefield. If oversoul won't kill them during the fight, we probably will by finishing it. And if not, they die another way. Those kids are soldiers in a war - there is no hope left for them. Even if they don't mount a giant robot they will just send to another frontline or laboratory for 'the greater good'.

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Originally Posted by Pepsi_Plunge

Some postings are a bit hypocritical. The pilots are most likely already dead once they enter the battlefield. If oversoul won't kill them during the fight, we probably will by finishing it. And if not, they die another way. Those kids are soldiers in a war - there is no hope left for them. Even if they don't mount a giant robot they will just send to another frontline or laboratory for 'the greater good'.

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Well Gaius did survive Ultima weapon being destroyed(plus the exploding base to boot). Oversoul is the fantasy version of a suicide atack since it feeds on the pilot life.

Theres a difference between "might die" and "will die" on the battlefield otherwise barely no one would become a soldier if it would be a death warrant 100% of the time. The pilots here are basically human experiments to test and improve the new Ultima prototypes so either they win always or they die (and in some cases both)

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Originally Posted by Bhearil

Well Gaius did survive Ultima weapon being destroyed(plus the exploding base to boot).

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True, but Gaius is a hard boiled super soldier, not a kid in uniform. Any lower man or woman wouldn't probably survive what Gaius survived.

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Theres a difference between "might die" and "will die" on the battlefield otherwise barely no one would become a soldier if it would be a death warrant 100% of the time.

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Well, it's not like they all have a choice. And in war, there a lot of moments were sacrifices are made for a "greater good" or just because by the arrogance of a general or whatever. So I think it's still hypocritical to be shocked about the sacrifice of an enemy pilot when we have single-handedly killed thousends of soldiers ourself, most of them just beeing send to defend something we want to destroy. It's not like we've cared much in the past about all those pilots in their magitek-machines if they died or survived when we destroyed them.

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Originally Posted by Pepsi_Plunge

True, but Gaius is a hard boiled super soldier, not a kid in uniform. Any lower man or woman wouldn't probably survive what Gaius survived.


Well, it's not like they all have a choice. And in war, there a lot of moments were sacrifices are made for a "greater good" or just because by the arrogance of a general or whatever. So I think it's still hypocritical to be shocked about the sacrifice of an enemy pilot when we have single-handedly killed thousends of soldiers ourself, most of them just beeing send to defend something we want to destroy. It's not like we've cared much in the past about all those pilots in their magitek-machines if they died or survived when we destroyed them.

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I think the point is that we are not shocked by the 'sacrifice' but that said sacrifice was most likely much more painful and prolonged than the swift deaths that we and other soldiers would mete out against opponents, even if said opponents were driving magitek machina.

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Originally Posted by MrThinker

I think the point is that we are not shocked by the 'sacrifice' but that said sacrifice was most likely much more painful and prolonged than the swift deaths that we and other soldiers would mete out against opponents, even if said opponents were driving magitek machina.

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I'm not so sure about that. I mean, we've boiled people alive in our flamethrowers, slowed them down by freezing them and killed them slowly with poison DoTs. We propably could and did much worse to them then Ruby would. And if those weapons are somewhat 'humane', the pilot wouldn't feel anything anyway in oversoul thanks to anesthetic injections or something like that.

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Originally Posted by Pepsi_Plunge

I'm not so sure about that. I mean, we've boiled people alive in our flamethrowers, slowed them down by freezing them and killed them slowly with poison DoTs. We propably could and did much worse to them then Ruby would. And if those weapons are somewhat 'humane', the pilot wouldn't feel anything anyway in oversoul thanks to anesthetic injections or something like that.

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If I recall, Cid was very explicit that the pilot was in horrible pain.

I think they left out the "Die of agonizing pain from being used as a catalyst for summoning a primal" detail to the Weapon pilots.

I assume they were probably just told Oversoul is to be used as a last resort and nothing else, though I honestly doubt that the specifics of what it does would necessarily turn them away when they're already willing to resign themselves to death on the battlefield.

I feel like the fate of Werlyt as a whole is hinging on their cooperation in the Weapon project somehow, which may be why they didn't want Gaius to know the details...though he's coming after them regardless.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...7j1uj20j41.png

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Originally Posted by Pepsi_Plunge

True, but Gaius is a hard boiled super soldier, not a kid in uniform. Any lower man or woman wouldn't probably survive what Gaius survived.

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Well before StB where confirmation of Gaius still lives, he is presumably dead at the point. IMO they put him back into the plot because Maxi-second hand... I mean second in command guy makes too few an impact on "hey the empire has good guys too"

Also the real sacrifice is they got put into side stories, just like Omega. Which while important to the plot still an optional content, even if "oh hey that's unstoppable, but you can go stop it if you have time."

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Originally Posted by ReviaInfantry

Well before StB where confirmation of Gaius still lives, he is presumably dead at the point.

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The dev. team talked about this during one of the panels or interviews. If I remember correctly, what happened was that Naoki Yoshida, Natsuki Ishikawa, and Banri Oda all had no idea whether Gaius was canonically deader-than-dead or only-mostly-dead, and then when it came up as a story possibility they were all like, "Well, I thought you knew!" so he was Schrödinger's Legatus for a bit, there. I was hardcore on Team #GaiusLives, but it started out as a, "That didn't look like a convincing death for who they built him up to be...and the end makes his character arc very strange if you take 1.0, 1.18, and 1.23 into account." Then it turned into a meme because I got so much sh[KUPO]t every time I said it, so of course I said it every chance I got. (And it wasn't funny as much as frustrating until FusionX and Ethys started saying it, lol.)

I didn't think it'd really happen, tbh. But I'll be glad if his character arc and story is sensible at the end, whatever it is.

As for WHY they brought him back (aside from fan momentum), remember how when we went to Ishgard they dragged Estinien back into the story to be a sort of pilot navigating us through his homeland? That again. But for Garlemald.

I also figured Gaius was alive, because I thought it was really weird for a guy who was around since Legacy and was the face villain of the game to die before the protagonist even got their fancy title.

I'm just wondering if Sapphire Weapon will be a full trial or not. It was the "unfought" WEAPON in FF7 since it only appeared in an FMV.

Sapphire Weapon may be a dungeon boss instead of a trial if they follow on from how Four Lords went. 4.3's Four Lords instance was Swallow's Compass while the trial for that patch was used for the MSQ instead. I could see the same thing happening in 5.3, Sapphire in a dungeon and the patch's trial being probably Elidibus.

Seemed a lot more Eva than Gundam but hey I just like giant robits right?

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Originally Posted by JeanneOrnitier

Sapphire Weapon may be a dungeon boss instead of a trial if they follow on from how Four Lords went. 4.3's Four Lords instance was Swallow's Compass while the trial for that patch was used for the MSQ instead. I could see the same thing happening in 5.3, Sapphire in a dungeon and the patch's trial being probably Elidibus.

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No telling how it will go. Four Lords started with Hell's Lid into fighting Genbu. Then Byakko as a trial. Weapons thing is already offset by us doing a weapon without a dungeon.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

No telling how it will go. Four Lords started with Hell's Lid into fighting Genbu. Then Byakko as a trial. Weapons thing is already offset by us doing a weapon without a dungeon.

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Could also be a solo instance in the middle, whether or not we fight a Weapon in it. Like Warring Triad's solo re-run through ARF or the Tamatebako mishap in Four Lords.

(If I were to speculate, maybe it's a deep-strike mission to successfully prevent a Weapon from activating completely.)

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

Could also be a solo instance in the middle, whether or not we fight a Weapon in it. Like Warring Triad's solo re-run through ARF or the Tamatebako mishap in Four Lords.

(If I were to speculate, maybe it's a deep-strike mission to successfully prevent a Weapon from activating completely.)

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I could see us breaking into the Weapons facility, and taking down a weapon that's partially done in the same manner that we did in the Estinien Echo RP. Would be nice if we got a full dungeon out of the mix though. We'll find out in the future!

I hope the one with the green hair survives, he is seemingly the only one that is not sure that they will win and that their lifes are on the line. Other than that I have a hard time feeling with them since we barely know them and they are ready to destroy Eorzea with that..which in turn would have killed hundreds of innocent children.

I also dont feel that much for Gaius. I guess he will now see what such weapons will bring..he was willing to use Ultima against Eorzea too..also he seemingly had not seen them for quite some time since he did not even recognize them. I know that he has been in Eorzea for quite some time but they are also not that young anymore..

Hopefully we get some more interactions between Gaius and known characters like Nero. Would make it much more interesting for me.