How Would You Retcon Dawntrail Out of the Story (Purely for Fun)

Okay so most of us agree that Dawntrail's expansion has been pretty bad.

What fun ways would you retcon Dawntrail completely out of the story to move on to other things?

Example:

The Hero wakes up after a terrible nightmare. You're still in Old Sharlayan. You're sweating profusely. There was never a character named Wuk Lamat. You still saved the Thirteenth and you're on your way to Meracydia. Tulliyolal? Never heard of it, maybe it's where the Blue Mages all live or something, idk who cares any ways. ;)

The WoL comes out of a machine surrounded by Loporrits. The Scions and Loporrits have been working together to create simulations of what would happen to Etheirys should similar situations occur that ended other worlds. A terminal lights up noting that simulation 4327 detailing the end of Etheirys through complete lack of conflict thanks to the power of friendship and love and peace has been catalogued. The WoL walks away, the experiences in Tulliyollal already fading from their memory.

Heritage found and tuliyolal area get yeeted to another shard without warning by some big bad. This leaves the area forced to actually learn about each other and how to work together. All this happens while we go deal with some other things so we get a break from the expac and gives time for writers to actually think about the zones and characters and give them more depth and personality. So I guess I wouldn't completely retcon it, more just do a 1.0 ish calamity to have an excuse to shake it all up.

Apologize to the Ironworks for killing their alternate timeline Alexander and ask them to make another so you can go back in time, or go to the Hinterlands and summon it back and obtain the aether to summon it by having half of Etheirys sacrifice themselves.

Maybe we can get a DeLorean mount and increase our mount speed to 88mph. That way, we can travel back in time and tell our younger selves that Wuk Lamat is dangerous and defeat her in an 8-player trial.

I wouldn't. Dawntrail set up hooks for the future, so I'd just do what comic books do when there's a bad art; salvage what I can and move forward from there. Retconning it out of existence would be petty,

With WoL snapping out of a daydream all the way back at the scene when we're about to meet Wuk and having our grand new adventure be to somewhere else.

That said, I wouldn't retcon it there were things I have liked about Dawntrail and I think they can definitely use the seeds planted in this expansion to their advantage going forward.

i would have us yanked to a timeline where we didn't go to tural but everything still happened and resolved and it would then require us to do another expansion in tural and redo the whole journey with wuk lamat.

I'm praying for them to make Dawntrail optional.

The easiest & laziest would be giving an option for a 'fresh start timeline' where 2.0 - 6.0 (no I don't count post EW they're supposed to be optional trials IMHO and nobody can change my mind) is a distant memory, and the player character we use is a 'seasoned adventurer' that has little to no connection to 2.0 - 6.0 period.

A drunken nightmare after almost dying at the edge of the universe to a bored psychopath.

I'd just say no to joining Wuk Lamat back in Sharylan

I swear there was something in that first Taco Wuk Lamat handed me, just when I was about to tell her to GTFO and leave the job to someone better suited... the rest is a hazy dream of kids in ponchos and giants, cowboys and spaceships, a futuristic city plunging out of nowhere, and a young girl in a fancy dress that desperately wanted to talk to me about agriculture after she admited being responsible for alien robots attacking my people.

Man, I'm so glad that nightmare's over. No more Tacos for me!

that it was a nightmare removing the reason to wipe the world and become the new villain x)

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Originally Posted by Gwenkatsu

I swear there was something in that first Taco Wuk Lamat handed me, just when I was about to tell her to GTFO and leave the job to someone better suited... the rest is a hazy dream of kids in ponchos and giants, cowboys and spaceships, a futuristic city plunging out of nowhere, and a young girl in a fancy dress that desperately wanted to talk to me about agriculture after she admited being responsible for alien robots attacking my people.

Man, I'm so glad that nightmare's over. No more Tacos for me!

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HAHAHAHA I'm dying.

Tacos laced with Ecstasy and LSD.

NOW the story makes sense.

WoL wakes up and it was all a dream, still on the boat preparing for the real adventure.

Tataru slaps you, and tells you to go dig more trenches in HER private island you're a serf in. It was all a dream, and she took you in after you escaped Ul'dah, now you're in debt slavery.

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

Tataru slaps you, and tells you to go dig more trenches in HER private island you're a serf in. It was all a dream, and she took you in after you escaped Ul'dah, now you're in debt slavery.

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The worst timeline! :D

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Originally Posted by DreadCrow

I wouldn't. Dawntrail set up hooks for the future, so I'd just do what comic books do when there's a bad art; salvage what I can and move forward from there. Retconning it out of existence would be petty,

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While I agree with your conclusion. I do have to ask. What hooks? Outside the hourglass macguffin at the end, Dawntrail left almost nothing to build from in future expansions. Everything from Tuliyollal tied up with a pretty bow and Solution Nine is more of an isolated problem. We won't know for certain until 7.5 rolls around, but I'm just not seeing these big hooks.

There is blackness but I hear someone screaming in the distance. I can feel someone lifting my head and placing it into their lap followed by a familair warmth. More screaming, something wet touches my face, I am able to breath. Then slowly I open my eyes and the world comes into focus. Alisae is holding my head as Alphinaud, Urianger and Y'shotla's faces are pinched in concentration. I can feel my body mend, the hunger and pain that has plagued me for what feels like a millenia, slowly fades. Then I am able to open my eyes, I can see the blues and purples of a clear sky. Graha is standing with Thancred, looking down at me, they both turn around and wipe their eyes as Alphinaud falls exhausted to the side and Urianger and Y'shota, sweat on their faces, finally open thier eyes.

Slowly, carefully Estinian lifts me from the ground, he places something on my chest and presses it. The world spins and I fall into darkness. I later wake in a room with white marble walls, there is a girl sitting beside me. She stands and runs from the room screaming for assistance. Ameliance comes in, sees me awake and tells the girl to gather the scions. She helps me drink some water and tells me my friends are on the way. Slowly they all gather, there are tears and laughter as they explain what happened. That they thought I was lost when my teleporter returned to the ship without me. They couldn't, no...they refused to just leave me. And when they made their way back to the place we battled the Endsinger, they feared the worst, for they found Zenos's corpse first. It took time to find me, it seems in a delirium I had wandered, but they found me.

As a doctor checks me, I tell them of a dream or hallucination I had, about a golden city and a strange princess, but the memory was already fading.

Weeks later I am mostly healed and having a cup of tea with Tataru. Who, after what could only be called too many scones, tells me a story she heard in a tavern, a story of Alzadaal III...

After the events in 7.3, Sphene congratulates you on a job well done and you see the world around you begin to look like static. Then the scene changes where it was a simulation and you see Sphene (I want her character to live on) is a scientist for Garlond Ironworks that was working with Omega and Alpha on a simulation. Through Omega's ability to traverse dimensions and create complex simulations, Garlond Ironworks was able to take a peak into the 9th, so Alexandria and such still exist but are in their shard. I honestly wanted Alexandria and the 9th be an entire expansion revolving around the Storm Surge and the cataclysms brought by it. It would have had Alexandria's high tech world stay in the 9th and I think the reception would be more positive as I understand many are not a fan of it existing in the Source since it interferes with the high fantasy aesthetic of the Source.

Not a retcon but more like post 7.3 events :

You were actually in that boat en route to Tural, but the storm caught everyone off-guard and the Leviathan devices didn't worked out. As you wake up in a vat filed with green liquid, you see a bunch of scientists in traditionnal Allagan gear rush to you and open the vat. One of the scientist looks like Salina, the last princess of Allag Empire and after a long recovery, she explains that your boat wrecked on the northern coast of Meracydia but through a network of spies, they already know who you are and what you're capable of.

So yeah, they have been running some tests to see if after all your adventures you're still able to determine what's best for people but also capable of thwarting menaces from another shards. Truth is, this group of Allagan resistants, all clones of mens and womens that stayed in Meracydia to help rebuild after the war already have the Azem's Key and the simulation you were in showed that, yes, you're ready to help them, help Meracydia but more importantly, you're ready because "they" are coming and you're informed that the 9th reflection were nothing compared to what's coming.

You've been unconscious since the end of base endwalker, that fight with zenos really took its toll. Everything since was a bad dream

i wouldnt retcon so much as i would simply re-write the prologue to make it more meaningful and impactful i would also make it so wuk lamat actually has some real emotion and character development to her.

firstly Sphene would be teased very early on but not in physical appearance but rather as a voice trying to reach out and this where ketenram and the dawn servant would come into play where they unofficially enlist the scions to investigate the source of the disturbance this would be unrelated to the rite of succession an would make it so the scions have a viable reason for being there in Tural.

with Wuk Lamat being introduced i would have it so that she teaches us about her family an their shared history together and rather than fighting against her siblings she is trying to find a way to bring them together as this would show the qualities of a true leader resolving conflict thru peace rather than violence.
so to that end she recruits the hero of eorzea/the star to seek our wisdom and guidance an for our dialogue choices to reflect that we are a mentor figure here an not just a glorified shield or protector.

after the rite i would have wuk lamat side lined until the confrontation with Zoral Ja happens and we show up to aid her and koana to bring back order in the absence of their father this meaning that we explore the dome alone with Erenville and the twins. and this how we officially meet sphene and erenville's mother.

meanwhile the scions learn from Ketenram that the key to the golden city was stolen but krile thinks she has the way in after she learns she is not from the source but from the dome an is working with G'raha and Y'shtola to operate the doorway to the city which is what helps later on in the plot when we return from our foreway into the Dome an learned of the events of the 9th shard and its people living within the dome

and all and all wuk lamat and koana would just take a backseat until the 7.1 story where wuk lamat learns about the struggles her people had within the dome but were given sanctuary by the queen and after all that is spoken for an people from the dome are returned we help koana come to terms with his past next.

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Originally Posted by Rinoa_353

It would have had Alexandria's high tech world stay in the 9th and I think the reception would be more positive as I understand many are not a fan of it existing in the Source since it interferes with the high fantasy aesthetic of the Source.

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To be fair, that already went out the window when the society of convenient plot solutions built a space ship so we could travel to the end of the universe, not to mention the sci-fi bunnies on the moon...

Deleting the Alexandrians from the Source would not fix the completely scuffed level of technology that the world now operates on.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

To be fair, that already went out the window when the society of convenient plot solutions built a space ship so we could travel to the end of the universe, not to mention the sci-fi bunnies on the moon...

Deleting the Alexandrians from the Source would not fix the completely scuffed level of technology that the world now operates on.

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Glad to see someone agrees that they are fastforwarding the techlevel of their world "just because the plot demands it" instead of respecting it. The spaceship was farted out of nowhere because our ddus ex machina smart people have studied everything. The "magical old unreachable Allagan tech" is reduced to "oh we made this offscreen np" and now the bunnies can just creation magic everything. Why even bother. They have so little respect for their former worldbuilding. Im already preparing for the screech of "ff always had scifi" when it has nothing to do with worldbuilding being botched. The other ff's had believable tech. Ffxiv just does what it wants when the devs want to insert anything from Gundam to spaceships.