The 8th umbral calamity

With endwalker showing that time travel uses the closed loop design, what is up with the 8th umbral calamity timeline?

The crystal tower and graha tia still exist, and also in the first while at the same time in the source. Without the 8th umbral calamity Graha would never come to the first.

The closed loop design implies that the 8th calamity wasnt really stopped but there's no Garlemald anymore to deploy black rose, so even if another shard ends up going full light the source has been changed to a very big degree for closed loop to be a thing.

There's a closed timeloop, but Tales from Shadows also established that divergent timelines are a thing and it's why G'raha did not simply cease to exist once he fulfilled his mission, as the bad timeline continues to exist/progress with a glimmer of hope kindled by Midgarsormr's reawakening.

Though given all the later revelations, it seems exceedingly unlikely that Etheriys is going to survive in that timeline regardless due to Hydaelyn banking entirely on us to save the world.

It's not a time loop per say, but a branching timeline based on the 'many worlds interpretation' (aka, paralell universes), in our current or 'new' timeline the 8th Calamity never occured, and now never will (especially with

all three of the Unsundered Ascians now defeated/killed for good, Venat/Hydaelyn gone forever and Zodiark completely destroyed, so further Rejoinings would serve no purpose, and the Empire destroyed, Varis dead and Black Rose's production shut down for good.).

But yes the Crystal Tower from the original '8th Calamity' timeline still exists, and as one of the stories on the Lodestone confirms, it's now an 'alternate timeline' seperate from the one the player's character is now on. 'Set adrift', to use G'raha's words, but still existing, which is why Future!G'raha/the Exarch and the Crystal Tower did not disappear - the timeline they came from still remains but no longer one the 'present' leads to.

Whether it will play a role in future storylines or just remain yet another orphaned plotline remains to be seen though.

They used both a closed loop and diverging timelines. The issue is there is a diverging timeline within the closed loop, which really messes with things. If they kept them separate, then there wouldn't be any real issues.

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Originally Posted by Adeacia

The issue is there is a diverging timeline within the closed loop, which really messes with things.

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I don't see the issue with it. The diverging timeline splits off from the world in which the Elpis time loop is completed, and occurs alongside the loop timeline while not being directly involved in it.

That said, the divergence is one of the components of the loop, because the Crystal Tower time machine wouldn't be available to us if G'raha hadn't brought it back to us here in the looping path of the timeline. But the simplest version of the premise ("events at Elpis caused the Final Days which caused us to travel to Elpis") is already a causal paradox loop and adding the extra detour ("events at Elpis eventually lead to a diverged timeline where a time machine is built and is brought to our present, allowing us to travel to Elpis") doesn't make it any harder to believe.

(And if you were going to say there's a specific issue with our other self dying before they can travel to Elpis, that's not actually a problem. It was always us that went to Elpis, even in the past as perceived by the survivors of the Eighth Calamity if they could look back that far.)

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

With endwalker showing that time travel uses the closed loop design, what is up with the 8th umbral calamity timeline?

The crystal tower and graha tia still exist, and also in the first while at the same time in the source. Without the 8th umbral calamity Graha would never come to the first.

The closed loop design implies that the 8th calamity wasnt really stopped but there's no Garlemald anymore to deploy black rose, so even if another shard ends up going full light the source has been changed to a very big degree for closed loop to be a thing.

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As covered in other posts, the story runs on a combination of closed loops and splittable timelines, though we have several examples of loops and only one known split.

My personal take on it is that either can happen depending on the actions of the time traveller while they are in the past. If they change something they know to be true in their future, they create a paradox and cause the timeline to split. If they don't break anything, a loop forms.

G'raha knew the exact circumstances of the calamity and so was able to avert it. By contrast, we don't know anything about Elpis before we go there, and can't change something we are unfamiliar with.

There actually is no loop. It's ALL divergent timelines, we're just in the one at the end of all the branches

To be honest, I'm surprised that the 'End Days' weren't considered to be the 8th calamity in our timeline, all things considered.

The 8th UC world split from the Source, similarly to the other reflection except a century in the future instead of millennia in the past, and it only exists within the mess of thoroughly sliced and diced space-time where Etheirys is.

It's all part of one big time loop, the 8th UC world included. That's my theory at least.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

To be honest, I'm surprised that the 'End Days' weren't considered to be the 8th calamity in our timeline, all things considered.

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It's definitely an interesting question from a societal perspective. Given that the societal definition of a Calamity is essentially 'big damn disasters that enormously fractured, destroyed, or changed society as it was at that point', and it just happened that they lined up exactly with the Ascians' Rejoinings, you can definitely make a claim that the End of Days is a functional Calamity for how badly it hit everyone, especially Garlemald, who like it or not was an enormous influence on Eorzean civilization. Hell, it's debatably even more of one than the Seventh, which was actually pretty localized all things considered.


As to G'raha's timeline: It's working on Dragon Ball rules, it's the same as Trunks' future. The events that led to that future no longer exist, but the timeline still exists somewhere out there in reality. It's effectively orphaned and inaccessible, but it's not clear (and not relevant, or at least won't be for the forseeable future) if that's because it's literally just completely inaccessible by the laws of the universe, or if it's potentially possible but not with any level of current technology or understanding.

An important thing to remember with stories involving time travel is that time travel does not exist, and so does not have objective scientific rules. FFXIV's time travel works however FFXIV needs its time travel to work, and does not need to adhere to any rulesets beyond its own--and being that the game has control over its own rules, it doesn't exactly have to stick religiously to any rules it previously stated, either.

Which is fine and good; both Chrono Trigger and the Terminator were inconsistent with their rules, and just stuck with what worked for the story they were trying to tell.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Which is fine and good; both Chrono Trigger and the Terminator were inconsistent with their rules, and just stuck with what worked for the story they were trying to tell.

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That's fair enough for a story, but XIV is also a world. Only a fraction of my time in that world is spent experiencing the story.

Personal preference I suppose, but I prefer my MMO worlds to feel like they could theoretically be actual places, and that requires reasonably consistent rules about how things work. Not that I think the time travel is written inconsistently, but, y'know, hypothetically.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

The 8th UC world split from the Source, similarly to the other reflection except a century in the future instead of millennia in the past, and it only exists within the mess of thoroughly sliced and diced space-time where Etheirys is.

It's all part of one big time loop, the 8th UC world included. That's my theory at least.

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I think we may have had this debate before, but that doesn't make sense at all to me. It's shown that both the 8UE timeline and ours have (or had) their individual copies of both Source and First, and presumably all the other shards as well. It's not just another shard that has splintered away and exists in isolation, equal to the Source and First we know.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I think we may have had this debate before, but that doesn't make sense at all to me. It's shown that both the 8UE timeline and ours have (or had) their individual copies of both Source and First, and presumably all the other shards as well. It's not just another shard that has splintered away and exists in isolation, equal to the Source and First we know.

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All I can remember seeing of the 8UC is a few empty locations in a flashback or short story, can't remember which. Nothing of the wider universe/multiverse.

Makes sense to me that the Source would splinter when the Ironworks time machine set off. They were trying to create a paradox by undoing events that led to them going back in time, timeline doesn't like that, world fractures and the 8UC branches off, the time machine travels back in time on the Source to before the calamity and we get to have our second attempt.

And yes, we've had this conversation before, a few times I think.

I'm praying they just let go of the timey wimey shenanigans for good once the Pandaemonium raids are done and dusted, but I feel like it's always going to be something on the backburner in case they run out of ideas for future content/expansions.

I could totally see them deciding to either get the 8UC timeline involved in something or sending us off on more business in the unsundered world if we encounter another problem down the line that we're unable to find answers to in the present.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

All I can remember seeing of the 8UC is a few empty locations in a flashback or short story, can't remember which. Nothing of the wider universe/multiverse.

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We don't see it, but we are told that their scientists have done their research and know that it is the First which was rejoined to their world, which is the Source, which is the only shard that other shards are rejoined to rather than being obliterated into pure aether.

If they have the technology to work that out, then they should also have the technology to notice that they aren't actually on the Source but a weird splintered version while the real Source is fine. That does not appear to be the case.

We have never at any point had the story suggest the possibility of shards being sundered by events other than the original Sundering, and the story has presented it as purely about diverging timelines. I don't see a good reason to reject the reason they gave us and invent one that relies on a different mechanism.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I'm praying they just let go of the timey wimey shenanigans for good once the Pandaemonium raids are done and dusted, but I feel like it's always going to be something on the backburner in case they run out of ideas for future content/expansions.

I could totally see them deciding to either get the 8UC timeline involved in something or sending us off on more business in the unsundered world if we encounter another problem down the line that we're unable to find answers to in the present.

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It does seem like they're bringing it into the present....

Considering this scene in the Pandemonium 8th Cutscene:

Where the facility appears in Sharlayan
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...70/unknown.png

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Originally Posted by Iscah

We don't see it, but we are told that their scientists have done their research and know that it is the First which was rejoined to their world, which is the Source, which is the only shard that other shards are rejoined to rather than being obliterated into pure aether.

If they have the technology to work that out, then they should also have the technology to notice that they aren't actually on the Source but a weird splintered version while the real Source is fine. That does not appear to be the case.

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They would be on the Source at that time. They're only not the Source after the split.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

We have never at any point had the story suggest the possibility of shards being sundered by events other than the original Sundering, and the story has presented it as purely about diverging timelines. I don't see a good reason to reject the reason they gave us and invent one that relies on a different mechanism.

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I wouldn't either, if they had given us a reason. They haven't though.
We know the 8UC survived, and that is pretty much all we know for certain.

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You were right by the way, we have had this conversation before, a couple times actually. Seeing as we have no new information to work with since the last time we had this conversation, maybe we should just skip the back and forth and agree to disagree instead of doing it all again? :p

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Originally Posted by Jandor

That's fair enough for a story, but XIV is also a world. Only a fraction of my time in that world is spent experiencing the story.

Personal preference I suppose, but I prefer my MMO worlds to feel like they could theoretically be actual places, and that requires reasonably consistent rules about how things work. Not that I think the time travel is written inconsistently, but, y'know, hypothetically.

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I think you've created a completely artificial way to declare FFXIV to be magically different from other examples.

Chrono Trigger is an RPG with a well-defined, constant world that you're largely intended to explore and experience, both within and without the context of direct storytelling. The Terminator series has gone on for decades across, most likely, more mediums than I'm aware of it ever touching, all creating a singular world filled with numerous different stories. Are they not worlds beyond their individual stories? What about Star Trek and Doctor Who, two other long-running series with beloved worlds and... less than consistent rules about their fictional sciences, both related to time travel and not?

And FFXIV... well, its in-universe rules don't exist in a pure vacuum. Everything about its worldbuilding exists to serve a story somewhere; it's full of them, after all, some big, many small. They don't just write things in complete isolation; even the descriptions of Ishgard's Communal Salt Lick is written to color in the world of Ishgard, to add backing to the stories set in it. And sure, you probably do spend a lot of time doing things that you don't consider 'experiencing the story', but... well, let's take the weekly Abyssos raids I assume you're doing. Do you truly do them without caring one whit about Agdistis and Hephaistos? And if you truly don't, or we instead talk about a part of the game as 'story-divorced' as possible like the Island Sanctuary... well, does your enjoyment of that really get impacted at all by in-universe science off on the other side of the game universe?

I don't think you care more about FFXIV's rules than other examples because it's somehow different, I think you care more because you just like the game more. Which is absolutely fair, (I know I don't exactly bring up the Terminator because I like the series), but let's not pretend it's anything else.

I still think the only reason the 8UC timeline still exists is because of Alexander. The primal of time itself is essentially anchored in every possible timeline of the world, and so it wouldn't be hard for it to guarantee that one timeline remains, it's completely within the scope of its power. Which is ridiculous, but it's a literal Deus Ex Machina with unlimited power over time (and technically space since it cordoned off itself and the immediate space around it into a bubble of time).

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

It does seem like they're bringing it into the present....

Considering this scene in the Pandemonium 8th Cutscene:

Where the facility appears in Sharlayan
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...70/unknown.png

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I don't think we're necessarily going to have to return to Elpis again to get answers about what the heck is going on there, not to mention doing so would necessitate us having to tell Themis and company the truth of things, which while something I feel they deserve to know, would by necessity have to create some manner of contrivance to ensure that it changes nothing about the future.

Ah, I think I see part of the confusion here.

The shards themselves are more akin to 'parallel dimensions' than 'parallel timelines' (think more Chrono Cross than Chrono Trigger). When Argos sunders himself, he produces multiple identical copies. The same is true for the shards of Etheirys, except that their histories diverged about twelve thousand years ago, such that there are similarities and differences to each. For example, Norvrandt, the part of the First that survived the Flood of Light, is essentially just Eorzea. Eulmore is Limsa, Rak'tika is the Shroud, Amh Araeng is Thanalan, Il Mheg is Ishgard, and Lakeland is Coerthas. There are differences of course, to account for our different histories. Midgardsormr used to sleep by the aether rich waters of Lake Silvertear, entwined with the wreck of the Agrias. Bismark instead sleeps in the aether rich waters of the Source on the First. There's very much a 'Light World'/'Dark World' vibe in this. I'm pretty sure that I turned into a rabbit when I first arrived in the Dark World.

How the shards influence each other hasn't been clarified yet, but that's the really interesting part. The main relationship between them is likely the lifestream. Why is it, for example, that an event that wipes out all life on a shard causes a rejoining? If the lifestreams are all connected, then perhaps the souls all just migrate back at the same time, the force of which pulls the two shards together. There's also the question of how the elemental alignment of the shards are linked. For example, Mitron explains that when the Ascians brought about the Flood of Darkness and transformed the Thirteenth into the Void, the shard that was most influenced by this was the First, which strongly shifted its polarity towards the Light. Which is why the First is actually the Shard that the Ascians were trying to rejoin for the longest. So why is it that the First and Thirteenth have such a close relationship in particular? And if so, what other pairs of worlds have a similarly close association?

This is the sort of thing that I really want to understand with regards to this game's dimensional travel.

The timelines are different in that they represent 'possibilities'. So each timeline in which the sundering exists should contain the various shards simultaneously. When Dayan meets Mide in the mathematical simulation generated by Alexander's core, he explains that Alexander's creation generated an infinite number of potential futures separated by 'nary a thread'. Each one represents a potential outcome across all the shards. In one of them, for example Alexander prevents the Seventh Umbral Calamity by punching Dalamud out of the sky. In that timeline, the Seventh Shard still exists. In all other timelines, it doesn't. Likewise, in the Eighth Umbral Calamity timeline, the First no longer exists, while it still exists in our timeline.

The short story 'Tales from the Shadows: An Unpromised Tomorrow' seems to suggest that these individual timelines are completely disconnected from each other once the 'flag' event has passed. When Biggs III and his team transported G'raha back in time, the Crystal Tower disappeared from their skyline entirely. The implication being that they couldn't backtrack into our timeline. There is of course the question of what happened in the time between the Warrior of Light's death and G'raha's departure from the Eighth Umbral Calamity timeline. You still have the likes of Emet, Elidibus, Hermes, and Meteion floating around. But I think the main point of that story was to show that humanity would find a way forward on its own, even without the Warrior of Light's interventions.

'Though we shall remain forever on different pages of history ─ and different books, besides ─ I take comfort in knowing we strive for a future of the selfsame brightness.'

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

(and technically space since it cordoned off itself and the immediate space around it into a bubble of time).

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Final Fantasy time magic has always been more of a 'space-time magic' thing anyway (I wish I could pinpoint an actual reason why, either culturally or in game design, but I never have). Even its first implementation in FFV gave it Gravity, Banish, Teleport, Comet and Meteor. And Silence, but I feel like that was just a 'we need to put it somewhere' thing.

Which I've always felt like was completely fair. Straight-up time magic is actually a pretty narrow space in the context of 'RPG spell kit', and lacks some particularly important elements, most crucially 'direct damage options'. Giving it space-focused spells is a pretty natural way to extend its niche.

The 8UC remains what it is, and it's not going to see the light if day even once more in all likelihood. It's part of Endwalker's dirty laundry, and is better off buried for the good of the narrative insofar as the devs are concerned.

As for time travel itself, I too believe they'll likely bury that hatchet post-Pandaemonium. It's a consistently convoluted plot point that they see no further need for at this time.

In Tales from the Shadows there's a very nice story about what happens to the 8UC timeline immediately after the Crystal Tower is teleported, and it branches off the timeline. The ending could be seen as a cliffhanger and they might mention it again in the future, but maybe not.

As to how time travel works in this world, it's a little complicated, but I've spent months looking into official stories, re-watching cutscenes, watching QnAs with the devs and (the most helpful of all) asking around in this forum. Here's my conclusion:

The game uses both the alternate timeline method (Avengers Endgame), but also the unique timeline method (Back to the future). What defines when they use each might seem as a "mess" or as something completely arbitrary, but it actually makes sense. See, the timeline is only branched when the actions made in the past were detrimental enough to make it so that the original timeline couldn't possibly exist anymore. And so, instead of disappearing, the timeline simply branches off and allows for both possibilities.
And yes, there is a causal loop in the story, but that doesn't mean that the loop needs to be completed every time, because if it doesn't, the timeline would simply branch. So for example, in the 8UC timeline, the WoL never went to Elpis, and therefore the loop couldn't be completed, but that's fine, the timeline will simply branch off but will still share the same origin, because there's always going to be at least one timeline in which the WoL does go to Elpis and ensures the loop exists, and every other timeline can enjoy freedom from this obligation and do as they please! (At the cost of being branched off, of course)

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Originally Posted by SentioftheHoukai

As for time travel itself, I too believe they'll likely bury that hatchet post-Pandaemonium. It's a consistently convoluted plot point that they see no further need for at this time.

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I certainly hope they do. Time travel is a very difficult thing to write well, and Endwalker has proven that the writers can't use it properly.

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Originally Posted by AwesomeJr44

I certainly hope they do. Time travel is a very difficult thing to write well, and Endwalker has proven that the writers can't use it properly.

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Again, I think Radiant Historia was the only game I've seen do time travel well. I'd include Chrono Trigger, but well...you notice cracks in that one if you stare too hard.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

And yes, there is a causal loop in the story, but that doesn't mean that the loop needs to be completed every time, because if it doesn't, the timeline would simply branch. So for example, in the 8UC timeline, the WoL never went to Elpis, and therefore the loop couldn't be completed, but that's fine, the timeline will simply branch off but will still share the same origin, because there's always going to be at least one timeline in which the WoL does go to Elpis and ensures the loop exists, and every other timeline can enjoy freedom from this obligation and do as they please! (At the cost of being branched off, of course)

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I don’t think there was a causal loop involved. Believe Elidibus called it a “convergence of timelines”. The way I understood it, there’s basically two timelines, one where we went to Elpis and one where we didn’t. But since those timelines are almost identical, except for the memories of a few people, the timelines didn’t split, but kind of just collapsed into each other. That’s why Elidibus mentions that he both remembers us being there and us not being there, he has memories of both timelines, even though they conflict with each other.

It’s also why he’s very adamant that we don’t change anything, since doing so would cause a split and would most likely have left us stranded in that timeline (and would have left the original timeline short of one WoL). Admittedly we did a pretty bad job at that, but the memory wipe thing as well as Venat making sure to repeat history despite her new found knowledge made sure that our time there was ultimately of no consequence.

That is, until Pandemonium. Who knows where that is gonna lead.

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Originally Posted by VigilanteXII

I don’t think there was a causal loop involved. Believe Elidibus called it a “convergence of timelines”.

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I don't think Elidibus ever called it that, although Hydaelyn did - but then it could have simply been a poetic way of saying that the time loop is going to be completed soon.

It's worth noting that the description for the Argos mount highlights that we earned his trust prior to our first meeting with him on the moon "owing to the quirks of time travel", and of course Hydaelyn herself is also aware of those events already or she couldn't comment on it when we met her on the ship, indicating that we are already in the time-travel-affected timeline by the beginning of Endwalker.

So it cannot be that we change the timeline by travelling to Elpis. Those changes were already in place.

My own take on Elidibus's inconsistent memory is that it could be due to his fragmented memory being somewhat restored by receiving all of the Convocation's memory stones, which were partly produced by Emet and therefore just might contain his subconscious memory of meeting us in Elpis.

I had a similar interpretation to Vigilante when I finished Endwalker.

When you first meet Hydaelyn on the boat ride to Sharlayan, she tells you the following:

'Even bereft of guidance, you and your companions have accepted the burden of this star's troubled past. A conjunction has begun to form; an intertwining of your time and mine.'

Again, just prior to your departure from Elpis, Venat uses the same words:

'You may find your world to be very different. Or perhaps the erasure of our friends' memories has sown the seeds of a conjunction between us.'

Both these lines seem to imply that the loop wasn't always there, but rather that certain conditions had to be first fulfilled in order for the conjunction to occur, such as G'raha preventing the Eighth Umbral Calamity, you putting Venat's clues together and travelling to Elpis, and then the Kairos memory wipe. I suspect that only because you fulfilled the prerequisites that some of the consequences of the loop (like Argos recognizing you, or Elidibus having memories of you on Elpis) started to manifest in our timeline. That's what is meant by 'forming a conjunction'.

Likewise, when you call out Venat's name in front of the Mothercrystal, only at that point does she realize that the loop has been successfully completed:

'I see... thou didst travel into Elpis.'

If the loop was always predestined to occur, then she would have just taken this as a given. So it was also possible that you might not have met the requirements for the conjunction to happen and you might have travelled to the Mothercrystal without travelling to Elpis.

Venat is not an exception to the loop, merely a key participant thereof. It could repeat ten thousand times, and she would always be just as unsure if it had been completed successfully until the revelatory moment. We've seen nothing in-game or out to indicate Venat has any kind of special awareness that transcends that of other major players in that part of the story. If anything, her awareness seems a bit more limited on some levels.

That's only true for an iterative loop, not a stable time loop.

In her past, Venat met us. So she ordinarily would know for certain that we travelled to Elpis and that the loop exists. The only way in which she wouldn't be certain is if there was another timeline in which the loop didn't originally exist, and the two formed a conjunction with each other after the appropriate criteria were met, merging into a single timeline.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

That's only true for an iterative loop, not a stable time loop.

In her past, Venat met us. So she ordinarily would know for certain that we travelled to Elpis and that the loop exists. The only way in which she wouldn't be certain is if there was another timeline in which the loop didn't originally exist, and the two formed a conjunction with each other after the appropriate criteria were met, merging into a single timeline.

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Meeting the WoL in the past doesn't mean she would know whether or not the one she would later meet in the lifestream would be the same one. For all she knew her plan could've gone awry somewhere along the way, resulting in the WoL she would meet down there being one that never traveled to Elpis in the first place. Alternatively, she may think it could be they would meet before the trip to Elpis. There are any number of variables that would leave Venat unable to tell whether or not she was meeting the "you" from Elpis or from different point along the journey.

No offense to anyone, but; this is why I dislike most time travel plotlines. Yes, there can be some cool stuff happening - look at Chrono Trigger - but it usually just ends up being extremely complicated by the end.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Likewise, when you call out Venat's name in front of the Mothercrystal, only at that point does she realize that the loop has been successfully completed:

'I see... thou didst travel into Elpis.'

If the loop was always predestined to occur, then she would have just taken this as a given. So it was also possible that you might not have met the requirements for the conjunction to happen and you might have travelled to the Mothercrystal without travelling to Elpis.

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I don't see how that demonstrates that the loop didn't exist before. All it does is confirm to her that you have the full story now and she can talk freely about what happened there, instead of having to keep silent so you don't learn anything you didn't know when (by her perspective) you previously came to Elpis.

When she meets us on the ship, she knows we must be getting close to the point where the loop is complete, because we probably told Venat about that encounter as one of the most recent events that we need to make sense of. The beginning of the Final Days would confirm it is even closer, but she probably still can't be exactly sure how things fit together, and there could be some chance we could have the idea of paying Hydaelyn a visit without having gone to Elpis yet, even if it is definitely going to happen soon.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

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You could come up with any number of alternative explanations as to why she would be unsure, but it doesn't explain the earlier lines about a conjunction forming. There's a reason that I provided the direct quotes.

Again:

'Even bereft of guidance, you and your companions have accepted the burden of this star's troubled past. A conjunction has begun to form; an intertwining of your time and mine.'

'You may find your world to be very different. Or perhaps the erasure of our friends' memories has sown the seeds of a conjunction between us.'

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Originally Posted by Lyth

You could come up with any number of alternative explanations as to why she would be unsure, but it doesn't explain the earlier lines about a conjunction forming. There's a reason that I provided the direct quotes.

Again:

'Even bereft of guidance, you and your companions have accepted the burden of this star's troubled past. A conjunction has begun to form; an intertwining of your time and mine.'

'You may find your world to be very different. Or perhaps the erasure of our friends' memories has sown the seeds of a conjunction between us.'

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"Sowing the seeds of a conjunction" can definitely be read to mean "erasing their memories means that the present situation is consistent with the future you told us about, so this might be the beginning of a time loop that connects up to your pre-existing future".

Then she appears to us on the ship. From her perspective the time loop has been slowly progressing all this time, and now at last it looks like she's reaching the conclusion of it, recognising the more recent waymarks of events that you must have described to her all those years ago. She's approaching the conjunction point where you depart this location on the timeline to visit Elpis and come back, completing the loop and ending that uncertain state where the loop could potentially fail somewhere along the way.

It was a bit silly in endwalker when Elidibus says ‘you cannot change the events of the past to save the future’ while this is literally what Graha did with the crystal tower, having both timelines and loop at the same time is a bit problematic

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

It was a bit silly in endwalker when Elidibus says ‘you cannot change the events of the past to save the future’ while this is literally what Graha did with the crystal tower, having both timelines and loop at the same time is a bit problematic

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It literally isn't. What G'raha did with the tower changed nothing about the future he came from, he can't go back to it and he's no longer sure it even exists. We the players know it exists and we know that sending the crystal tower back changed nothing.

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

It was a bit silly in endwalker when Elidibus says ‘you cannot change the events of the past to save the future’ while this is literally what Graha did with the crystal tower, having both timelines and loop at the same time is a bit problematic

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There's more nuance to it than that, especially if you look at the full conversation and not just a single quote that can be taken two ways.

There are two parts to his instructions. One is that we probably are going to be an intangible little wisp that can't interact with anything, only observe.

The second part is a warning: that even if we do find ourself able to interact with people in the past, our ultimate goal in visiting Elpis is to learn what happened in the past of this timeline, and to return to the present to apply that knowledge and halt the second coming of the Final Days. To achieve this, the events we observe in Elpis must be this timeline's events so it is actually really important that we don't cause things to play out differently, but must observe this past tragedy exactly as it happened or we won't be able to save our own present world from destruction.

So that's what he means when he says you cannot change the past (if indeed those were the words he used, and not something less ambiguous). It's not simply that you could not if you tried, but that you must not or your mission fails. It's an order, not a statement of possibility.


That said, G'raha knew exactly what he was doing when he changed his timeline, at a practical level, and came to the past already armed with the information he needed to be able to change it. He knew the Calamity was caused by Black Rose triggering the First's unstable light aether, perhaps in as much detail as knowing the particular date, and set about preventing it by eliminating one of those factors.

We can't do the same in Elpis, because we have absolutely no idea what happens until we see it play out. We know the end result on a large scale but none of the details or the steps it took to arrive there.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

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I don't think that your explanation shows the reasoning behind those statements. A conjunction has begun to form. The erasure has sown the seeds of a conjunction. Look at the tense. These were not pre-existing; they were not predestined. That's why it's a bit more nuanced than a stable time loop, in which everything in-between the loop is predestined to occur.