Ultima the High Seraph.

So having no idea who the next big bad will be. There is a possibility that Ultima the High Seraph. Or rather the true Ultima and not the High Seraph we face in the Ivalice raid, we know so little who and where Ultima is.

And we also know Athena made contact with Ultima, and gain Auracite form the being. We still don't know when she came into the Etheirys and where she landed. We have little lore in the pandemonium, but it feels like we're getting preb to face the real Ultima in later expansion.

Someone made a really long video on this theory months ago and it was a fairly good watch. They compiled all the little lore bits and hints to show she is out there biding her time and seems to be an even bigger threat than Hydaelyn was when she was at full power. And she split a world into 14 pieces and commited mass geno on all species of Etheirys. So they could do a lot of fun things with her.

Now the big questions are, will a writer they bring in have the chops to do it well? Will Yoshi PR be wise enough to allow a good writer to do it justice or will the character plot armor be so thick it hurts the story again? Will she be an actual threat or do we just need to invite her over for some tacos? Can they be more creative with her than reducing her defeat down to the power of friendship....again? Frankly there is so much potential, but at this point I don't really feel SE has the ability to do a story with so much potential, justice.

I think it's too early to tell for sure where this next story arc is headed, but as an Ultima fangirl, I do hope it leads to Ultima. It would be great to have a pure evil cosmic horror big bad to contrast against all the sympathetic villains we've faced.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

Someone made a really long video on this theory months ago and it was a fairly good watch. They compiled all the little lore bits and hints to show she is out there biding her time and seems to be an even bigger threat than Hydaelyn was when she was at full power. And she split a world into 14 pieces and commited mass geno on all species of Etheirys. So they could do a lot of fun things with her.

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Oh for the love of... I thought we'd moved on from this nonsense? Venat was right to sunder the world because the Convocation were just going to keep sacrificing more and more of the remaining Ancients and other life to Zodiark without any resolution and would have eventually ran out of sacrifices to do so, with Meteion's Song of Oblivion still threatening the universe, something they were powerless to stop without being able to directly interact with Dynamis. And Venat was the only one who realized this. Faced with this, Sundering the world was literally, the least abhorrent choice (and lets face it, if she hadn't, there would be no you), end of story.

As for the OP, given Ultima's whole connection to the Ivalice raids, that would kind of end up requiring SE to mandate completion of those raids just to make sense with any hypothetical introduction of her into the main scenario, and, well, given the last time SE mandated a raid series was required for the main scenario did not go down well with players (Crystal Tower for Shadowbringers), I don't see SE repeating that. Ultima's appearence during Pandaemonium was merely a callback to earlier in the game that Endwalker was already full of, it was not reflective really of her being pushed into a bigger role (and besides, do we really need yet another dull 'From Outer Space!' threat?).

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

As for the OP, given Ultima's whole connection to the Ivalice raids, that would kind of end up requiring SE to mandate completion of those raids just to make sense with any hypothetical introduction of her into the main scenario, and, well, given the last time SE mandated a raid series was required for the main scenario did not go down well with players (Crystal Tower for Shadowbringers), I don't see SE repeating that. Ultima's appearence during Pandaemonium was merely a callback to earlier in the game that Endwalker was already full of, it was not reflective really of her being pushed into a bigger role (and besides, do we really need yet another dull 'From Outer Space!' threat?).

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A bit of an elephant in the room, but if we expect to uncover the rest of Ilsabard in a future expansion, we're going to have to tackle Ivalice lore in the MSQ somehow.

The struggle with Ultima as the Big Bad Villain is that... well, we kinda already beat her. Quite a while ago, in fact!

That's not an insurmountable obstacle to overcome in writing, but it is one: to do Ultima as a new, big villain that would feel fresh and interesting, you need to package it in a way that makes it more than just 'the boss we beat in Orbonne 30+ levels ago' (chances are good it'll be 40+ by the time they get to do anything), and importantly, feels like it. You need to frame and build up to this theoretical Ultima reprise in a way that doesn't feel like a rerun, or it'll just feel like a waste of time to a lot of people. The last thing we want to feel from a story is like we're watching a rerun.

As a bonus, if you do this right it also solves the 'make Ivalice mandatory' problem. If Theoretical MSQ Villain Ultima has an appreciable level of difference from Ivalice Raids Villain Ultima, then rather than requiring a previous reading we can be in the realm of 'healthy amount of optional dialogue but you still mostly get the idea if you haven't'. Something on a similar scale to, say, Omega's presence in Endwalker.


...All that said, there's also a new problem to this one that wasn't there most of the other times this idea's come up: that now, there's another villain named Ultima who's from space and had a storyline of appearing on the planet long ago and whose influence has caused some serious problems ever since both directly and indirectly. ...In a game that happens to share an awful lot of names in its credits with FFXIV. So now Theoretical MSQ Villain Ultima not only has to be appreciably different from Ivalice Raids Villain Ultima, it also needs to be different from FFXVI Villain Ultima, which is probably gonna be a harder job since most of the points of differentiation between XIV Ultima and Final Fantasy Tactics Ultima are actually exactly the things she shares with XVI Ultima!

Devil's Advocate - to me it feels equally awkward - big picture - that a thing worthy of the name ULTIMA, THE HIGH SERAPH was ever something we would beat in a sidequest chain 30 levels ago in the first place.

(Not insurmountably so, of course - game's gotta go on.)

But still, if we were told that the thing we faced in Ivalice, while powerful, was but a shade of the real thing... a primal-like manifestation of the fear inspired by a GLIMPSE of the genuine article ... I'd probably buy it.

Would be a lot of pressure on the art team to make it newer and cooler and bigger and badder, but they've lived up to the challenge before.

I admit that I felt like the end of Pandaemonium was explicitly threatening us with a lingering plot hook - attached to nothing for now - perhaps attached to nothing ever - that Ultima and Athena have touched more of history than we yet know.

That's why I keep making jokes about "Ultima Prime", lol.



...You know what, since this is FINAL FANTASY XIV, obviously the Greek version of the name is the genuine article. We should live in fear ... of Eschatos (...Eschate?)

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Devil's Advocate - to me it feels equally awkward - big picture - that a thing worthy of the name ULTIMA, THE HIGH SERAPH was ever something we would beat in a sidequest chain 30 levels ago in the first place.

(Not insurmountably so, of course - game's gotta go on.)

But still, if we were told that the thing we faced in Ivalice, while powerful, was but a shade of the real thing... a primal-like manifestation of the fear inspired by a GLIMPSE of the genuine article ... I'd probably buy it.

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Putting on my Mythology Nerd Hat, I would say that if we took the title 'High Seraph' to be literal, then it would be the highest of high second only to God itself. But that even the raw existence of a High Seraph implies that one higher figure.

...but only if you take it to be Christian. If you instead look to Jewish beliefs, then they're either first, third, fifth or tenth. So it's entirely possible that there's a few ranks higher.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Putting on my Mythology Nerd Hat, I would say that if we took the title 'High Seraph' to be literal, then it would be the highest of high second only to God itself. But that even the raw existence of a High Seraph implies that one higher figure.

...but only if you take it to be Christian. If you instead look to Jewish beliefs, then they're either first, third, fifth or tenth. So it's entirely possible that there's a few ranks higher.

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Perhaps Ultima, The High Seraph was actually a lower level angel, but declared herself "High Seraph" in our world.

just as a bit of an important detail, the lore books heavily imply that Ultima isn't some kinda alien, even with what we learned about Athena's interaction with them. Rather, it suggested that Ultima was originally just a chunk of rock that was the focus of worship and myth for ages till it gained sapience and became the high seraph we eventually fought.

In other words, Ultima is just yet another naturally occuring Primal resulting from collective faith in something.

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Originally Posted by Lunair

just as a bit of an important detail, the lore books heavily imply that Ultima isn't some kinda alien, even with what we learned about Athena's interaction with them. Rather, it suggested that Ultima was originally just a chunk of rock that was the focus of worship and myth for ages till it gained sapience and became the high seraph we eventually fought.

In other words, Ultima is just yet another naturally occuring Primal resulting from collective faith in something.

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It is possible, but so far we have no evidence that Ultima was just a chunk of rock. We don't know if it came from other space or came from an higher plane of existence. But i do feel like we might see beings like Ultima in this new saga.

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Originally Posted by Lunair

just as a bit of an important detail, the lore books heavily imply that Ultima isn't some kinda alien, even with what we learned about Athena's interaction with them. Rather, it suggested that Ultima was originally just a chunk of rock that was the focus of worship and myth for ages till it gained sapience and became the high seraph we eventually fought.

In other words, Ultima is just yet another naturally occuring Primal resulting from collective faith in something.

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Could I ask for a citation on this one? The only descriptions I could find (surprisingly the Encyclopedia and Triple Triad cards have identical descriptions, which isn't common) just describes it as 'an embodiment of pure ruination'. That's more evocative than it is descriptive; that could be a perfectly valid description for a dragon, a bomb, or a meteor.

And while it's not a particularly strong piece of evidence, I did happen to check it, and Ultima's Triple Triad card doesn't mark it as a primal, despite the description saying it became what it is 'by a process not unlike the prayer-fueled creation of a primal'. It's hard to tell how much weight to give that, but the list of primals does almost entirely scan (except Bahamut for some reason), so my read is that 'not unlike a primal' does not actually mean 'a primal'.

I often come back to the box for the statue, which describes Ultima as "extradimensional" - a "being of pure destructive power" from a "higher plane of existence far beyond our ken" that could wield magicks capable of "unfurling the very threads of Creation". That box does describe her as a "living primal" after being infused with mankind's worship of that which might destroy them. But that idea that she's more of a force than an entity always stuck with me because that's how the Presence of Silvertear lake was originally described. Seemed ripe for reconning into something cool.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Could I ask for a citation on this one? The only descriptions I could find (surprisingly the Encyclopedia and Triple Triad cards have identical descriptions, which isn't common) just describes it as 'an embodiment of pure ruination'. That's more evocative than it is descriptive; that could be a perfectly valid description for a dragon, a bomb, or a meteor.

And while it's not a particularly strong piece of evidence, I did happen to check it, and Ultima's Triple Triad card doesn't mark it as a primal, despite the description saying it became what it is 'by a process not unlike the prayer-fueled creation of a primal'. It's hard to tell how much weight to give that, but the list of primals does almost entirely scan (except Bahamut for some reason), so my read is that 'not unlike a primal' does not actually mean 'a primal'.

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There's a reason I said "naturally-occuring primal." The deeper we look into the lore about Primals and aether, the more apparent it becomes that more than a few things are created as part of the same process of collective faith, something supported by dev statements. Auspices are probably the most substantial example of a "naturally occuring primal" where the collective faith of the far east is focused on animals because of the local religious beliefs and mythologies, but there's plenty of others, with Susanoo being the most blatant case where we actually SEE an example of a Primal-like being being created due to collective faith reaching a certain threshold, but plenty of others like Tural vidraal, tsukimogami, and even the archbishop of Ishgard all being examples of beings that were previously normal becoming abnormally powerful (the Archbishop was explicitely able to temper the Heaven's Ward even before he got the eye out for transformation.) due to the collective faith of a region. They're not all considered Primals due to particular details differing, but the underlying principles which result in their creation are all consistent.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Oh for the love of... I thought we'd moved on from this nonsense?

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Nope. If you don't want to hear opposing viewpoints and only high praise for the writing, go to the main reddit page. I will stand firm, always, that Hydaelyn was a genocidal villain and this game is a good example of how easy it is to convince ppl that complete eradication of not only one, but multiple species, by one person who took it upon themselves and refused to even consult anyone else about, is a good thing. If they wanted to make her sympathetic or that her actions were not only just but necessary, they needed waaaaaaaaaaay better writers and more than one expansion for that.

And also "no me?" lol that is just one of the many things you said that is just plain wrong. I am Azem, therefore I would exist, in my original unbroken form, happily traveling around solving problems, like I do now. Also sacrifices were voluntary and done in a way that all who were sacrificed could be restored. And sure the sundering was a good solution when the problem of metion and her sisters was an unknown, but as soon as we not only discovered this information, but relayed it to her and a few others, the problem was known, and if a bunch of broken shards could solve it, sorry if 1 broken shard could solve the problem, I am sure millions of unsundered ascians would have had no issues. They would have been a minor annoyance at best. But a true villain is the one who withheld all the information and decided to sunder her world and every single plant and animal on it because she felt she was right after meeting only 1 of those shards for an hour at best. Emet also felt what he was doing was right, and you have no problems calling him a villain. And his actions were also restorative, even if he had to cause pain. Sort of like when you have to rebreak a bone for it to heal correctly. It hurts like crazy, but in the end its the only thing that will make the bone whole again.

And one last thing, ppl can interprit things differently, some with media literacy some without, but we are not the ones who are still to this day having fits and get irritated when we hear casual opposing views about the EW storyline.

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Originally Posted by Lunair

There's a reason I said "naturally-occuring primal." The deeper we look into the lore about Primals and aether, the more apparent it becomes that more than a few things are created as part of the same process of collective faith, something supported by dev statements. Auspices are probably the most substantial example of a "naturally occuring primal" where the collective faith of the far east is focused on animals because of the local religious beliefs and mythologies, but there's plenty of others, with Susanoo being the most blatant case where we actually SEE an example of a Primal-like being being created due to collective faith reaching a certain threshold, but plenty of others like Tural vidraal, tsukimogami, and even the archbishop of Ishgard all being examples of beings that were previously normal becoming abnormally powerful (the Archbishop was explicitely able to temper the Heaven's Ward even before he got the eye out for transformation.) due to the collective faith of a region. They're not all considered Primals due to particular details differing, but the underlying principles which result in their creation are all consistent.

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Well you're not describing a helpful distinction, then, because you're mixing actual primals (Susano and King Thordan) with things that aren't primals (the Auspices and Tural Vidraal). And in fact the Auspices aren't really comparable, because it seemed to be that they actually don't get power from worship, they just get power from living for so damn long that they collate enough aether to become comparable in power anyway. Some of them are worshipped, but that seemed to come afterwards; you see a big flaming bird and build a religion around it, rather than building a religion that involves a flaming bird that then gets summoned. It's entirely possible that worship is the source of the difference in behavior between Auspices and Tural Vidraal who definitely aren't worshipped, but at that point we're dipping into vibes-based speculation.

Now, the actual comparison point that's valid to bring up is the Twelve. Their process of deification was also explicitly compared to primals, but they also aren't primals (again, Triple Triad cards don't mark them as such, but also the story makes it pretty clear itself); they were extant figures of great power, that then got shaped by a lot of collective belief over a lot of time. That does sound roughly like Ultima, especially if we add in the evidence that Ultima was on some level of 'around' since before the Sundering as evidenced by Pandaemonium. We don't know when Ivalice was, but it's safe to say that thousands of years passed, which would give Ultima a similar series of conditions to the Twelve: it was something that had so much belief that it was 'the High Seraph' that it became that, regardless of what it was before.

You still haven't shared the evidence that 'suggested that Ultima was originally a chunk of rock', but this approach would at least hold for that theory: this is a setting where faith has an effect over a long enough period of time, so it's not impossible that Ultima was just a big, radioactive rock that got deified over time.

I would argue that a big, radioactive rock doesn't make for an especially compelling 'arc villain' to build up to, though. If they're gonna do an amped-up version of Ultima, that's probably not gonna be the reveal.

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Originally Posted by Lunair

just as a bit of an important detail, the lore books heavily imply that Ultima isn't some kinda alien, even with what we learned about Athena's interaction with them. Rather, it suggested that Ultima was originally just a chunk of rock that was the focus of worship and myth for ages till it gained sapience and became the high seraph we eventually fought.

In other words, Ultima is just yet another naturally occuring Primal resulting from collective faith in something.

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That reminds me a bit of Jenova.

I'd love Ultima for a major arch villain... Something we spend the whole 8.0 figuring out what it is. But the story certainly need more sub-villains, unless they mean to exhaust her in just one expansion worth of storytelling.

Ultima may not be the next big villain, in fact I agree with Cleretic's points that it would take a lot to make this villain interesting considering the fact that we already defeated a version of it, but its existence opens the doors to other potential threats. I haven't been able to find confirmation that Ultima is an extradimensional being, but during the events of Pandaemonium, Lahabrea says he believes she's "not from this star". This would be the only instance that we know of where an alien comes to Etheirys.

I find this single line to be interesting though:

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Originally Posted by Claudien

The Allagans made little progress toward penetrating [the Heart of Sabik's] mysteries, but some scholars attribute the fact that they were able to use it at all to theoretical encounters between Allag's researchers and the High Seraph.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this implies that the Allagans may have somehow contacted Ultima directly, which either meant that she visited us again, or that they had enough technology to find a way to contact her.
This scenario is somewhat similar to our current predicament with the Interdimensional Key, where we are able to use it but not understand it. Since the most likely theory is that the key is a piece of Auracite and also considering that Alexandria has equally advanced technology compared to Allag, this could be the way they find to connect these two stories.

Regardless, I think the most interesting questions are where did Ultima come from, and are there other beings like her?

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Originally Posted by Cassar

I haven't been able to find confirmation that Ultima is an extradimensional being, but during the events of Pandaemonium, Lahabrea says he believes she's "not from this star".

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Original citation is the box for the meister quality figure, which I understand is not exactly a "well, that settles that, then!" sort of source; I suspect anyone who wants to disregard it will do so without much cognitive dissonance, but it says what it says so I keep it on the citation list for now.

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Also known to ancient Ivalicians as the Angel of Blood, Ultima made her descent to Hydaelyn countless centuries before the rise of Delita and his storied unification of the realm's kingdoms. Hailing from a higher plane of existence far beyond our ken, Ultima was a being of pure destructive power, able to weave magicks that could unfurl the very threads of Creation. Yet like moths to flame, so are the weak drawn to strength, and it was not long before mankind's fear towards the high Seraph gave way to reverence, feeding the extradimensional traveler's empty soul until it brimmed with a force completely alien to Her - a sense of self. and thus thought the collective desire of mankind to worship what might bring him low was Ultima made a living primal.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Venat was right to sunder the world because the Convocation were just going to keep sacrificing more and more of the remaining Ancients and other life to Zodiark without any resolution and would have eventually ran out of sacrifices to do so, with Meteion's Song of Oblivion still threatening the universe, something they were powerless to stop without being able to directly interact with Dynamis.

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I recently stumbled upon a super interesting video that challenges this view called "Venat: Why She Failed". It's a long watch, but enjoyable overall. Even if you disagree with their opinion, they way it's presented gave me much to think about.
Venat is objectively a deceptive character. But the writers wrap it around this idea that she does all of this out of love, so it's okay. It's a great exercise for WoL character development for those who like that kind of stuff.

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Originally Posted by Lunair

just as a bit of an important detail, the lore books heavily imply that Ultima isn't some kinda alien, even with what we learned about Athena's interaction with them. Rather, it suggested that Ultima was originally just a chunk of rock that was the focus of worship and myth for ages till it gained sapience and became the high seraph we eventually fought.

In other words, Ultima is just yet another naturally occuring Primal resulting from collective faith in something.

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I watched this video recently that had a very similar theory!

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

...All that said, there's also a new problem to this one that wasn't there most of the other times this idea's come up: that now, there's another villain named Ultima who's from space and had a storyline of appearing on the planet long ago and whose influence has caused some serious problems ever since both directly and indirectly. ...In a game that happens to share an awful lot of names in its credits with FFXIV. So now Theoretical MSQ Villain Ultima not only has to be appreciably different from Ivalice Raids Villain Ultima, it also needs to be different from FFXVI Villain Ultima, which is probably gonna be a harder job since most of the points of differentiation between XIV Ultima and Final Fantasy Tactics Ultima are actually exactly the things she shares with XVI Ultima!

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Actually, it doesn't have to be that different from XVI Ultima.

FFXVI spoilers:

The Ultimas from XVI had to flee their planet because a natural disaster attacked it. Like the Ea, they lost their physical forms at some point and were using the Bearer breeding program to try to get the humans on their new planet capable of becoming hosts for at least one of them. I assume Clive as Mythos was only intended to become the first new host body. (Hello, slightly borrowed plot from FF9.) However, the ecosystem of Valisthea was not conductive to the humans having magic naturally, which is why they had to make the Mothercrystals as aether batteries and teach humanity magic. And when the humans realized they were being manipulated by their own gods and rebelled against them, they ended up getting subjugated by the Ultimas for the next 800 years.

Anyway, the implication is that the XVI Ultimas, of which there were originally 8-9 that we know of - were the only survivors of their disaster that made it to the world in XVI.

What if others made it to the world in XIV? Hitched a ride in white or black auracite, where Meteion couldn't get to them, and landed on planets where they could bide their time and try to make the local wildlife strong enough to eventually become hosts?

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Trimmed.

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Oh wait. I went back just to check, and she WASN'T noted to be a rock, rather "an embodiment of pure ruination". The exact line is on page 200 of Encyclopaedia Eorzea Vol 3, and reads;

"Ultima, the High Seraph"
"So named for her ability to wield the ultimate form of destructive magic, the High Seraph was once nothing more than an embodiment of pure ruination. Yet, over time, the terror in which people held her shifted to reverence, and by a process not unlike the prayer-fueled creation of a primal, this worship quickened within Ultima a sense of self-awareness."

This directly suggests that she's only achieved the level of self awareness we see due to the collective beliefs of those aware of her. That said, what "an embodiment of pure ruination" actually translates to is vague as hell.

As for the thing about auspices and tural vidraal, I mention those cases because during a particular interview, it was asked why there're so many primals, auspices, kami, and so on in the far east when they were basically unknown in Eorzea, and it was stated that it was due to the regional beliefs in that area. they believe in these things, and so these things exist. it begs the question of how the original inspiration for the beliefs came to be, but does seem to indicate rather heavily that the auspices and similar existences fall into the same category, and the parallels between Tural Vidraal and Auspices gets mentioned in Dawntrail. (I'm looking for the interview to cite it, but trying to find a particular dev interview is always a pain in the ass, so it may take a minute so to speak.)

Also, while I WAS referencing the archbishop earlier, it was specifically prior to his transformation into Thordan that he tempered the Heaven's Ward, during the first time all of the Heaven's Ward were granted audience with him at one time. https://www.4gamer.net/games/199/G019924/20210810055/

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Originally Posted by Lunair

Oh wait. I went back just to check, and she WASN'T noted to be a rock, rather "an embodiment of pure ruination". The exact line is on page 200 of Encyclopaedia Eorzea Vol 3, and reads;

"Ultima, the High Seraph"
"So named for her ability to wield the ultimate form of destructive magic, the High Seraph was once nothing more than an embodiment of pure ruination. Yet, over time, the terror in which people held her shifted to reverence, and by a process not unlike the prayer-fueled creation of a primal, this worship quickened within Ultima a sense of self-awareness."

This directly suggests that she's only achieved the level of self awareness we see due to the collective beliefs of those aware of her. That said, what "an embodiment of pure ruination" actually translates to is vague as hell.

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Yeah, that's all the exact same stuff I said before, and the description's also present on the Triple Triad card. But I would point out that 'self-awareness' is a very abstract concept itself, and is hard to both quantify and to apply to things that we aren't; not only is it hard to define what self-awareness is, it's hard to define what does or doesn't have it. Yeah, a rock definitely wouldn't have self-awareness, but what about, say, a beetle? A wild tiger? A crow? How aware are they of their own selves in relation to the greater world? Hell, what about a hive insect like a bee? They're abundantly aware of their own presence and role in relation to the rest of their hive, is that self-awareness? If Ultima didn't have self-awareness before but did later, where did it start? (And a side-question given that all these sources are in-universe and therefore fallible, who figured this out and wrote it down?) If we look at Ultima's form, how much of that was made by that process of communal belief shaping its form, and how much was what it was originally?

My gut feel based on both what we've got and what could be interesting if they did 'Major Arc Villain Ultima' is the Jenova comparison that Raikai brought up. Perhaps Ultima was something akin to an insect or a virus, and was merely acting instinctually, and perhaps in service to a role in something greater (a society? A hive? An entire organism?) until eventually it gained enough self-awareness to make more conscious decisions. Then you've got that leading question of exactly where it came from, that inevitably has an answer of 'something bigger, scarier and capable of being a cool boss fight'.

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Originally Posted by Catwho

Actually, it doesn't have to be that different from XVI Ultima.

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I'm gonna be brutally honest here, I would balk and walk out at the reveal that we're literally and explicitly getting FFXVI leftovers.

FFXIV is in a funky position with basically every FF game after XIII (debatably including XII), that it already borrows so much from them in terms of aesthetic and literal assets and resources that it can't reference them in the same way as older games, because it would actually look lazy. Doing their own Necron, or more directly even their own version of FFT Ultima, looks and feels like the tribute it is because they self-evidently had to do significant effort to recreate it; you couldn't do that with any of the HD-era games, because it would look easy.

That problem is even worse for FFXVI, because at least someone else made the other games! Literally and explicitly going 'we're doing XVI Ultima but in XIV' would look like reheating their own work, and that'd just feel exceptionally lazy and desperate, especially for a major villain.

(I also hate FFXVI, which doesn't help but is largely an unrelated extra problem.)

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

The struggle with Ultima as the Big Bad Villain is that... well, we kinda already beat her. Quite a while ago, in fact!

That's not an insurmountable obstacle to overcome in writing, but it is one: to do Ultima as a new, big villain that would feel fresh and interesting, you need to package it in a way that makes it more than just 'the boss we beat in Orbonne 30+ levels ago' (chances are good it'll be 40+ by the time they get to do anything), and importantly, feels like it. You need to frame and build up to this theoretical Ultima reprise in a way that doesn't feel like a rerun, or it'll just feel like a waste of time to a lot of people. The last thing we want to feel from a story is like we're watching a rerun.

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Ultima arrived on Etheirys before the Sundering, so there are pieces of her on other Shards. I think, hypothetically, that's how she could come back. But whether or not that'd feel stale, IDK.

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Originally Posted by StormChase

Ultima arrived on Etheirys before the Sundering, so there are pieces of her on other Shards. I think, hypothetically, that's how she could come back. But whether or not that'd feel stale, IDK.

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I mean it is possible. If so, then we could get a Jenova situation where the pieces of Ultima is trying rejoin with each other. Like the Reunion from 7.

I don't think we would deal with a sundered Ultima that's trying to put itself back together, and I would not want another 'rejoining' plot. However, an idea that could be entertaining is that the original Ultima spell had been split up, and scattered across the cosmos. Someone like an Ultima Prime or another big bad could then try to piece it back together, and declare themselves a god. Perhaps the magick in the Heart of Sabik, and The Key are parts of the original Ultima spell.

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Originally Posted by StormChase

Ultima arrived on Etheirys before the Sundering, so there are pieces of her on other Shards. I think, hypothetically, that's how she could come back. But whether or not that'd feel stale, IDK.

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Not if she was contained with the Heart of Sabik and Lahabrea had it on his person when the Sundering occurred, as Lahabrea remained Unsundered, so therefore there would be no 'parts' of her on the Shards. Of course feel free to contradict me or add clarification to that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by StormChase

Ultima arrived on Etheirys before the Sundering, so there are pieces of her on other Shards. I think, hypothetically, that's how she could come back. But whether or not that'd feel stale, IDK.

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This is assuming that she arrived and stayed on Etheirys during the Sundering. I'm under the impression that Ultima is an entity that has visited us at least twice - once when it left the Heart of Sabik for Athena, and another time during the Allagan era (hence the quote I mentioned earlier).

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Originally Posted by Cassar

This is assuming that she arrived and stayed on Etheirys during the Sundering. I'm under the impression that Ultima is an entity that has visited us at least twice - once when it left the Heart of Sabik for Athena, and another time during the Allagan era (hence the quote I mentioned earlier).

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It's also assuming that she landed on Etheirys before or during the Sundering. What I think could be possible in that 'there's no evidence it didn't happen' way is that Ultima was in (or itself was) a meteor that perhaps scraped the planet before the Sundering, and only crashed into it afterwards. The Heart of Sabik would therefore be part chipped off beforehand, while Ultima itself turns up later.

On the subject of Venat's morals: I think 7.3 is the story proving she was correct. Solution 9 had many of the same advantages that the Ancients were accustomed to. Everyone lived comfortably, never wanted to anything, and the regulator system allowed them to avoid the most difficult pains of death. But Sphene STILL got through to them because they had the tiniest amount of grit, collective empathy, and emotional development that naturally built up in most people just on the nature of how the new sundered worlds work. The ending of so many Alexandrians being each other's shoulder to cry on upon experiencing loss was the exact thing most of the Ancients just did not have the capacity for.
Zodiark put their death spiral on hold, never actually fixed anything and the plan of sacrificing more and more would only worsen things, and Venat rewrote the laws of the world to make it so future generations would actually have the tools needed to exist in spite of despair. Venat herself says that what she did was horrific and reprehensible. But her cruel plan worked, and that's the issue. (There is also the Lopporitt contingency plan.

Also, Emet-Selch's comment of, "Do you think half your people would sacrifice themselves for the other?" Actually, yes, they had, considering the Exarch was from a doomed timeline where a massive collective of survivors over several generations and their many supporters were happy to sacrifice themselves at the mere possibility of G'raha Tia making a timeline that the 8th calamity didn't happen, assuming they might even blink from existence in the process. Emet-Selch has at least every bit as much vile cruelty to answer for as Venat, and actually murdered untold billions with the rejoinings and calamities, but it was still hype as can be when we call him for help in the end, because we can see why he was the way he was.


Anyway, with all that in mind, Ultima, the High Seraph, would feel like the writers just going all in on a flatly evil villain after the moral quagmire left behind. It might be wholly refreshing, though, at this point, to fight against a force like that.

I made a theory video on this very such a few months ago if you are interested.
https://youtu.be/jTNABE610_s