Revelations from Patch 7.4: Into the Mist

It's that time again! Share your thoughts on the patch, but keep your comments concealed under spoiler tags [ HB ] [ /HB ] while the patch is new, and label by quest group.

For reference: map of where Arcadion characters can be found after completing the story
(Let me know if you spot a similar one for MSQ)

Big-ish MSQ spoils:

As expected, the alleged death of the Ninth has been greatly exaggerated. This was, of course, clear when we saw the sun rise at the end of the base MSQ once the dome was deactivated, but I had seen people be insistent that it was all gone except for Alexandria.

Edit:

Ah, so it was Halmarut, our Winterer Ascian. She seems nice.

Arcadion

As the saying goes, if I had a nickel for every time I got roped into some old guy's decades-in-the-making plan to make the world better by self-sacrificing while casting himself as the villain, while one of our close allies is secretly but not-evilly in cahoots with him, is now have two nickels but it's weird that it happened twice.

The ending didn't really land for me. I know people predicted it could all be fake, but it felt like a weak reveal and having to spin around and recalculate everything around "actually the president was a good man and you should feel sad about him now".

For the actual fights, nothing came near the fun of Dancing Green last time. First fight with all the dodging obstacles was decent; second fight with the surfers felt like the rhythm of the music was off from the pace of the fight and detracted from it.

I feel like we're maybe supposed to see the Tyrant as Zenos's shard (or at least I'm sure people will be drawing that connection), but my mind went to Foulques. He's not here (just) for the thrill of battle but because of what he thinks is the right and noble way of going about things.

During the first part of the story after two different groups of people had walked in unannounced, I was thinking how reckless it seemed that they were leaving the door unlocked – and then surprise surprise, our rivals break in and trash the place! Yaana can't say I didn't warn her.

Overworld cameos

Alpha and Omega have picked up a curious new companion: a black cat. It could just coincidentally be a normal cat like the one we had to chase down in an S9 sidequest, but it seems too specific for that, and potentially quite significant if it is meant to be Alexander's cat.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zero-ELEC

Big-ish MSQ spoils:

As expected, the alleged death of the Ninth has been greatly exaggerated. This was, of course, clear when we saw the sun rise at the end of the base MSQ once the dome was deactivated, but I had seen people be insistent that it was all gone except for Alexandria.

Edit:

Ah, so it was Halmarut, our Winterer Ascian. She seems nice.

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Are...Are she and Calyx even going to be villains?

I'm not sure what to make of the end of MSQ. Still isn't giving us much to go off of. Not in the fun, alarming way of 4.4, but it's not necessarily bad either. They're holding the cards for this next arc really, really close to their chests.

We knew more about the ascians at the end of 2.0 (though it wasn't much) than we do about the Winterers at the end of 7.4. They're taking a really long time to build up the next arc.

Freed from school but also now unemployed, I sat down and chewed through everything just tonight. Overall I'm going to have to give this one a solid B: good, but it didn't particularly wow me. Anyway...

MSQ

A sojourn onto the Ninth, passing through Ice Lightning Cavern Mistwake to find it's (dilapidated) incarnation of Treno inhabited solely by Lalafell. Mildly unnerving, to be honest - a racially homogenous settlement is quite strange in the wake of diverse Tural and Alexandria. Well, whatever. While it was cool to see a small-scale recreation of Treno, and Krile had some good plot beats, but we didn't really learn anything other than that settlements beyond Alexandria survived the Storm Surge... and that Halmarut is one of Calyx's Ascian collaborators, the latter of whom has been put into a monochrome Mica the Magical Mu plush toy. Oddly fitting such a menace should be put into such a harmless form.

And here we go with the cryptic bullshit! Honestly, as much as I may rag on the story for trying to portray Emet-Selch a bit too sympathetically in spite of the many terrible things he did even in recent history, just talking to us could yield a better end than fighting. You don't get to say "I told you so!" or "Looked what you screwed up!" when you run and hide instead of telling us anything, Halmarut!

I guess this was a formal send-off (for now) for Wuk Lamat, Erenville, and the Leveilleur twins. Here's hoping we don't see the latter in 8.0 after all that, but I'd bet dollars to donuts they'll be back sooner than later. >_> Nice to have Sphene around for one more adventure, though the fact she does next to nothing in the narrative tells me she was probably put there to pad out the Trust system with a healer. Don't see why we couldn't have just called on Urianger. (Where are Thancred and he?)

Still curious as to where we go next. Exploring more of the Ninth seems like the most likely direction, especially with the Doomtrain out of commission, but "lightning-ravaged wasteland" is already a little stale after Heritage Found and associated areas plus this short excursion to the surface of the Ninth. I can't see them making a whole expack based on that, and XIV Treno gave me "Zero's Domain" vibes...

And of course, despite having the Key since the end of 7.0 we still don't know anything more about it. Tune in next time, kiddos!

Arcadion: Heavyweight

Well, I was starting to get a sneaking suspicion the President was actually engineering our rise to the top, seeing as everything that transpires does so according to his design and it wouldn't make sense to possess a cure for psychonekrosis and not give it out (even from a business perspective). So he had just unwittingly mutated himself into a Lindwurm and needed us to kill him because of regen to get the cure out, and dressed it all up in kayfabe. Cool.

Wish we could have told the Xtremes they could come at us at the same time and it wouldn't make a difference, rather than saying that was the only way they'd win. You need to up your trash talk, WoL!

Anyway, fun fights, killer tunes. Vamp Fatale is a bit of a wringer because of all the dynamic AoEs, and the Xtremes are a little tough as a dual boss, but the Tyrant wasn't at all challenging and the Lindwurm was almost a pushover. (That directional knockback on the broken stage is a dirty move.) Even being rusty from not having played GNB for a long while and getting used to the tweaks, it was a fun romp.

Mildly annoyed they cheaped out on Hector / Brute Bomber's death, though.

All's well that ends well! ... or something like that.

This is a weird patch. Not necessarily bad, but it's got an odd energy, and both stories definitely have bad endings in my book, even though they're different kinds of bad.

MSQ:

That farewell scene at the docks is just fine, but it's really weird that it's the first scene of the patch; not only do I think it lands poorly because it doesn't have the momentum, but it's just weirldy unrelated to everything that happens afterwards.

Speaking of, most of what happens afterwards is extended fanservice to a very specific part of FF9! Not only can you see both Treno's auction house (which is explicitly called out) and the Tetra Master battlehall, but all three of the Mistwake bosses are three of the four enemies you fight in Treno's item shop; the fourth is the Behemoth, who turns up in the solo duty. The first area is also named after Vivi's grandfather. It's all pretty neat, but I'm not the biggest fan of 9, so I just sorta shrug and move on.

Similarly, Doomtrain is of course a summon from 8! Worth saying, though, something I learned recently: it's actually not a take on the Phantom Train! In Japanese it's actually called the Glasya Labolas--which, of course, was way too long to fit into a PS1 UI. Nothing much to say about the fight, it's just neat.

The story itself... I don't think I ever particularly bought Krile's whole crisis, and I don't think we particularly learned anything aside from 'Treno and other towns are still out there'. ...and I guess implicit confirmation that Ninth Au Ra are extinct? Or at least nowhere near Alexandria and Treno. I do think it's neat how heavily this one is tied to a specific Lodestone story, though; Zelenia's story both mentions Treno and introduced Thundran, the person who wound up building Treno's dome.

I also honestly don't think I like what Treno does to the overall story. Something I love about Dawntrail is that while it constantly references IX, it does it at a distance; it's building up IX's world as this abstract, idyllic past that you can't have; it's gone, you have to live with that. ...unless you live in Treno, in which case you can apparently have that no problem!

And then the ending... ugh. Is anybody genuinely happy that it's Halmarut? Or is it just 'hooray, I guessed right'? Everything potentially interesting about her is called into question by the fact that she's an Ascian to me; a green-horned au ra would be interesting... but it could just be a weird Ascian flex, like how Emet looked like Solus Galvus in Shadowbringers because he could. What she said at the end could be interesting... except that because an Ascian said it I don't believe it; there's a big damn asterisk somewhere in her statement, the question is where.



Naturally, Calyx carries the final scene; not because of the plushie design, that's just a pointless gag, but with the fact he has nobody to say goodbye to... because he was never doing this for anyone specific. He's not motivated by some smaller, baser or more selfish thing; he wants to save the entire world, no one person is more special to deserve it.

And the Arcadion:

Individually, all those fights and characters were neat, I liked most of them well enough. The reveal that everything was essentially a show wasn't honeslty a bad one, but I think it was let down by the president just... apparently not being a good writer. C'mon, man, you can't just make EVERYBODY heels! That's not a compelling stable! This is why WCW folded!

The final battle was disappointing, but in a... kinda weird way? The Lindwurm is a perfectly solid boss fight (although I think Hegemone did most of its schtick better), but it's not an Arcadion boss fight. The whole raid series has a strong and unapologetic aesthetic, and the Lindwurm just doesn't fit it at all. It could've worked, I think, if the cutscene afterwards was instead the actual second phase; random giant snake monster isn't a 'pro wrestling' thing, but a Royal Rumble breaking out because a bunch of wrestlers just run into the ring is ABSOLUTELY the vibe.

Part of me is happy that we can finally put the most annoying theory in all of Dawntrail to bed, though. Because we now finally know what the Arcadion's logo is, and we can stop pretending it looks like an Ascian sigil!

It's the Tyrant's combat form. Shoulderpads, horns, mohawk!

MSQ:

Krile having a crisis over whether she wants to stay on the Source or the Ninth felt rather abrupt since we hadn't been in Treno for very long at that point. Other than that, I didn't really have that many issues with the MSQ this patch.
I already like Halmarut. Up until now, the only Ascians we've seen who aren't inhabiting a Hyur's body were Emet-Selch and that one guy from 1.0. Not only that, but she's an Au Ra. I like how much sillier she is than the other Ascians we've seen. Her panicking after being spotted by the WoL was funny. I look forward to seeing more of her.

Arcadion:

I have mixed feelings on how the Arcadion questline ended. On the one hand, I'm glad that all of the fighters ended up surviving, even if such an outcome was kind of cheap. The president having secretly been good all along makes sense, seeing as it wouldn't have made sense for him to allow fighters to die if he had access to a cure.
On the other hand, I feel like the twist with the president undercuts the theme that the Arcadion had been building up until this point. This whole questline seemed to be centered around a bunch of teenagers (most of them Indigenous) living under colonial rule being exploited for entertainment at the cost of their lives. This would've been thematically consistent with Alexandria's depiction in the MSQ, but now it's suddenly been revealed that the system that was seemingly exploiting these kids was never actually planning on letting them die. This feels like a symptom of a larger issue Dawntrail's writing has in which it hints at certain themes but doesn't want to commit to them.

Things that stuck out to me from MSQ:

The opening scene having the DT crew say fond farewells really hammers that Dawntrail is good and over. It was a pleasant scene, but I just got this underlying vibe that the devs felt like they needed to make it explicitly clear Tural time is good and done for the haters without also putting down the DT fans.

The twins leaving surprised me, but I hope this means we'll finally see that growth spurt next time we see them.

I'm a bit confused on the time frame for the 9th. Krile's aunt seems super young since I was under the impression a few hundred years had passed for the 9th since Krile was given to Galuf. Unless it's Solution 9 that was going at warp speed for a bit there.

Pictomancy is terrifying. Oh my god, the insanity Krile can pull off. She absolutely ran herself ragged and well beyond her limits, and needed help of extra aether from the ladies, but the stuff she pulled was absurd.

G'raha casually talking about Lyna and waxing nostalgic over the Crystarium and his time on the First in a positive way is nice. How disgusting was that syrup Lyna forced on him that he compares it to "sin" when the guy's only dropped a single swear in his entire existence with us (during CT, btw).

Also, G'raha remarking Krile needs to be careful who she talks to about Treno because of their JOB as researchers and needing to reveal the info first for publication and not because of some cosmic necessity is new. Like, oh, yeah, this is what the Students of Baldesion do for income.

Man, I think I really love Krile. She's sweet, no nonsense, figuring things out for herself, and she gleefully takes the piss out of her friends whenever she can. Immaculate vibes. Let's keep her for longer, please. And the idea she and G'raha potentially replacing the Twins for a while as the pair that have really good, sibling banter has my full support.

I really like the fact the devs are just going all in on the fact that Calyx really is/was just a kid. His paradise for his "immortal" people was just a Disney theme park, and now he's content getting around in what is essentially a Mickey Mouse plushie. His immaturity is conveyed in such a unique way. Mica imagery is going to haunt the narrative from now on, I bet.

I'm also intrigued by how incredibly normal feeling and sounding Halmarut is. She's so unthreatening and unassuming but also casually discusses her Ascian status and dresses for the wrong era because time is meaningless to an immortal and that's what she likes. She's already shown to be self-serving, indulgent, and bad at being bad in a way that probably grinded against the other Ascians. Also, finally characters with green color schemes.

Like, both of them have me looking forward to the future regarding the Winterers because both are so unique to what kind of villains we've seen before.

Some gripes.

Yeah I think even though she finally got her spotlight and her arc, Krile being sidelined so much in 7.0 kind of hobbled her story. It was not properly built up at all. I think they need to learn to multitask better in 8.0 and on. Koana and Zoraal Ja also suffered badly from having their motivations not properly built up before they were "paid off," though Koana I think is a fundamentally dull character given how quickly he set aside his "technology at all costs" worldview and how few problems that even caused in the first place.

Some hopium.

Calyx remains the aspect of 7.X that I find most interesting and fun. Halmarut isn't as immediately arresting as Emet-Selch, but she might not even be a villain, and she holds some promise. The Winterers in general are an interesting concept. I just hate that we have to wait until April to learn anything more about wtf is going on. :P

MSQ:

Unfortunately this was my least favorite patch MSQ in DT, and has made me a little bit worried for the first time. This entire patch was a filler for Krile, yes she needed her arc to be closed, but I just really thought we would get some sort of overall story progression alongside it.

The worst part to me is that they, AGAIN, delayed giving us answers on the key. This is something that has been teased since 7.0, and I was 100% certain this would be the patch we finally get answers, but they managed to find a way to delay it again. At this point it feels massively dragged out

There were good things though. I think overall the story of Treno was nice, I loved that we finally got a duty where we play as someone else (last time was in 7.0 with Wuk iirc) and I missed those. Would've all been a lot better if Treno remained relevant in the future, but I severely doubt that.

Finally, the post-credit scene almost saved this patch for me. It was great, we finally have confirmation of who the Ascian is, and it gave us a lot to think about when it comes to future threats and the role of Calyx + the Winterers. The best part is that Halmarut doesn't even seem like she's evil, we could be looking at our first Ascian ally. These characters will definitely be prominent in 8.0, so that gets me excited at least.

Arcadion:

I think the story was good. Knowing this is all based on Wrestling made it pretty clear everything would be staged to a certain extent, so no surprises there at all. They tried to make us feel a little bad for the president, didn't land very well to me, but no big deal. Also I think the Brute Bomber should've stayed dead to add some weight to his plotline, but it is what it is.

As for the fights themselves... 10/10. I think the final fight is my favorite fight in all of FFXIV.

MSQ ending

Halmarut is referring to Ultima proper/lavos/jenova isn't she (not the high Seraph and Heart of Sabik both being only fragments)? Least that's the only thing that we know of currently that could have been behind the apocalyptic voice from within the star

Least from what we've seen, seems like they aren't seeking to be evil for evils sake. Only preserve humanity with any means necessary, even if that is killing everyone and copying their memories onto a computer.

Remembered Hildibrand released with the patch, so I picked it up while hunting the Arcadion fighters around S9.

Another goose chase, this time through Shaaloani. Tracked down a... giant wolf man soul transplant, who was trying to blow up the train with ceruleum bombs after causing a ruckus around the region by destroying buildings and stealing food. Unfortunately, he was a real rube who got played by Carnelian (the slime guy's true identity, an Eldite criminal mastermind who killed Hardiboiled's incarnation of Nashu when they lowered their guard after apprehending him) and the still-unnamed scientist behind the plot. After some runaround the wolf guy was apprehended and Nashu freed from jail (long story).

So apparently oglops are a thing on the Ninth, and Hardiboiled is deathly afraid of them like pretty much every character in IX not named Garnet or Vivi. No points for guessing what the ultimate reward for the Hildibrand quests this time will be. (Please?)

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

<snip>

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MSQ

Honestly, I wasn't 100% sure what the cave was supposed to be. On the one hand the intro shot is a 1:1 to Quan's Dwelling, but it seemed to be more of an Ice Cavern reference to me... still, one part of it is called "Quan Caverns," and the route you take into Treno is a compressed adaptation of a direct route there from the overlook in Quan's Dwelling so it's definitely the former.

It's not 1:1, but Treno has even more references. The slums and canals are prominent areas of Treno, and another architectural mark carried over is Queen Stella's gazebo. The railway is likely a reference to Gargan Roo or the nearby South Station cable car. It didn't feel like a step up to me because the back half of Dawntrail is drowning in IX references. (The front half is lots of XI.) We fought IX's final boss as the "true" final boss of Dawntrail, for cryin' out loud!

I'm not all that disappointed by Halmarut since we knew the Ascians were back in play after 7.3. I'm just... irritated she's doing the "If you knew what I know, we'd be on the same page" shtick Elidibus did back in 2.1, and this time entirely offscreen except in front of Calyx. She's understandably wary of us given our resumé, but you can't expect us to change onto the "right" course without even knowing what we're doing "wrong," let alone how to fix it. It's the usual "don't tell us anything and then blame us for not knowing" bit that's just... worn by this point.

MSQ ending

The story was ok since it is just starting but I am more curious where did our two antagonist go. Either way the Ninth remains but due to the state it is in, it will decline slowly until all life eventually ends even if it takes a very VERY long time. The people surviving now are just living their life until it all ends and nothing else. Simple and clean path in their life even if the world cannot be saved.

As for those two, I am guessing where they decide to go, it will be the Shard where our next expansion may take place. The context of their dialogue seem to suggest this new story arc after the God War is maybe focus on exploring all the remaining Shards. This can be good and bad since there is still much of the Source that has yet to be explored but the different worlds for the Shards can also open up different themes in culture and style of their culture. I honestly will not be surprised if a Shard is very similar to our world but with FF14 races instead of just Humans.

MSQ thoughts...

I'm pretty sure Halmarut will have a big role moving forward 8.0. It seems she got WAY too much care and polish to her unique Au Ra model and even outfit when they could've used one of the many similarly victorian dresses we have for players. The dialogue also seemed especially curated in a way to point Calyx's new existence as a non-threat, so I kind of wonder what role he'll have. Probably becoming Halmarut's sidekick?

A shame we didn't have any hint on what her agenda actually is.

One thing I started to speculate. She mentioned something like nature doing its thing, also a threat caused by the void that Hydaelyn left. I wonder if that means the Source is "naturally" drawing the reflections back to itself (just like she mentioned the Ninth doomed to die anyway), and an Ice calamity may be on the way, thus leading the adventure to that place. I really don't see a whole expansion taking place in shards already fully or nearly fully consumed by a Calamity, as it would be kind of one note, and universally, MMORPGs like to have diversity in exploration zones for content.

7.5+ Is probably be centered on finally solving how we activate the key. That object is getting way too much attention to just be shelved for now.

Edit: Also... am I thinking too much but, at Treno, the lalafell's aether radar seemed a very direct reference to Dragon Ball? Looked almost like a recreation of Bulma's design. Also in the Arcadion's story there was something that looked like a Genki Dama reference. I wonder if this was just a couple of random easter eggs or maybe <tinfoiling hard now> is a hint of a MSQ plot point.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

Remembered Hildibrand released with the patch, so I picked it up while hunting the Arcadion fighters around S9.

Another goose chase, this time through Shaaloani. Tracked down a... giant wolf man soul transplant, who was trying to blow up the train with ceruleum bombs after causing a ruckus around the region by destroying buildings and stealing food. Unfortunately, he was a real rube who got played by Carnelian (the slime guy's true identity, an Eldite criminal mastermind who killed Hardiboiled's incarnation of Nashu when they lowered their guard after apprehending him) and the still-unnamed scientist behind the plot. After some runaround the wolf guy was apprehended and Nashu freed from jail (long story).

So apparently oglops are a thing on the Ninth, and Hardiboiled is deathly afraid of them like pretty much every character in IX not named Garnet or Vivi. No points for guessing what the ultimate reward for the Hildibrand quests this time will be. (Please?)

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FYI, that one didn't come with this patch; Hildibrand's stuff is coming in the 7.x5 patches, and you just played the 7.35 one!

For what it's worth, while I was surprisingly on board with the 7.25 Hildibrand questline, the 7.35 one mainly got a reaction of 'wow, y'all found One New Joke'. Sometimes Hildibrand has a habit of going all-in on different variations on one gag, and this time they really hoped the Oglop joke was a massive hit.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

Honestly, I wasn't 100% sure what the cave was supposed to be. On the one hand the intro shot is a 1:1 to Quan's Dwelling, but it seemed to be more of an Ice Cavern reference to me... still, one part of it is called "Quan Caverns," and the route you take into Treno is a compressed adaptation of a direct route there from the overlook in Quan's Dwelling so it's definitely the former.

It's not 1:1, but Treno has even more references. The slums and canals are prominent areas of Treno, and another architectural mark carried over is Queen Stella's gazebo. The railway is likely a reference to Gargan Roo or the nearby South Station cable car. It didn't feel like a step up to me because the back half of Dawntrail is drowning in IX references. (The front half is lots of XI.) We fought IX's final boss as the "true" final boss of Dawntrail, for cryin' out loud!

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Mistwake is my new favorite dungeon. /10char

You can see the card stadium on the east side of Treno as well: it's inaccessable but you get some passerby dialogue referencing a tournament if you stand at the waters edge.
Also, the quick camera pan around the first mobs during the dungeon intro is itself a bit of a reference to the startup of IX's battles, it's a fun nod alongside the very nice arrange of the battle theme.

You can go back to Treno after MSQ but sadly you can't interact with the NPCs for dialogue anymore.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Part of me is happy that we can finally put the most annoying theory in all of Dawntrail to bed, though. Because we now finally know what the Arcadion's logo is, and we can stop pretending it looks like an Ascian sigil!

It's the Tyrant's combat form. Shoulderpads, horns, mohawk!

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Really? Looks way more like the President's Lindwurm form to me. What you're calling shoulder pads are its claws, the Mohawk is its crest, and the two side horns are actually is wing arms fading into the background. It'd be nice if they'd just tell us now that it's over and done with.

MSQ Spoilers/Thoughts/Inquiry

I really enjoyed this patch overall, happy to be moving forward with the next story arc too. The dungeon and trial were enjoyable, I liked seeing more of the 9th I assumed was still down there, and we even got another roleplay segment (as Krile no less!) Without going into wild speculations about our unintentional use of the key moving forward, I have the sneaking suspicion Azem had set this plan in motion long ago and we're the latest in the link to be fulfilling whatever it is, but I could easily see them taking this in many directions.

One thing has been bothering me though, and I'm hoping someone can help explain because maybe I'm just confused, but does Miyali still being alive not present a huge contradiction in the timeline? When she was presented as Krile's aunt I was instantly confused because I wasn't expecting her to find any living relatives there that weren't descendants.

Afaik Krile's parents (Robor and Alayla) were around during the Storm Surge, which we know from several accounts was 400 years ago, so how exactly would Miyali have known her sister, and still be around now? I was under the impression time flowed much quicker in the 9th, but maybe I'm missing something so any clarity would help a lot here, thank you!

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Originally Posted by Diclonius

One thing has been bothering me though, and I'm hoping someone can help explain because maybe I'm just confused, but does Miyali still being alive not present a huge contradiction in the timeline? When she was presented as Krile's aunt I was instantly confused because I wasn't expecting her to find any living relatives there that weren't descendants.

Afaik Krile's parents (Robor and Alayla) were around during the Storm Surge, which we know from several accounts was 400 years ago, so how exactly would Miyali have known her sister, and still be around now? I was under the impression time flowed much quicker in the 9th, but maybe I'm missing something so any clarity would help a lot here, thank you!

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The Storm Surge happened four centuries ago, but Preservation and all the interdimensional research stuff (at least the parts that Krile's parents were involved with) started much later.

I think it roughly went like this:

• Over 400 years ago, things start to shift towards lightning. Times gets hard.
• Roughly 400 years ago, electrope is figured out. Wars start to secure it. War intensifies the lightning aspect shift, the world is basically ruined as a result. Alexandria, Treno, and a few other settlements hunker down.
• Some point between then and now, Preservation starts researching interdimensional travel.
• Roughly 20 odd years ago, Krile's parents chuck her through a portal they helped make.
• The present day.

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Originally Posted by diamondedge83

Really? Looks way more like the President's Lindwurm form to me. What you're calling shoulder pads are its claws, the Mohawk is its crest, and the two side horns are actually is wing arms fading into the background. It'd be nice if they'd just tell us now that it's over and done with.

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Both of them can make a plausible case (and there's a viable way to say it's both), but I'm leaning towards my guess because all the 'parts' are correctly proportioned on a straight shot. For it to be the Lindwurm it'd need to be a very specific, stylized angle, while if it's the Tyrant then it's just a pretty straight shot of his head and shoulders.

Also, only one of those two was a public figure and image before the boss fight itself! It makes complete sense that the Arcadion logo is a stylized image of the champ.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

The Storm Surge happened four centuries ago, but Preservation and all the interdimensional research stuff (at least the parts that Krile's parents were involved with) started much later.

I think it roughly went like this:

• Over 400 years ago, things start to shift towards lightning. Times gets hard.
• Roughly 400 years ago, electrope is figured out. Wars start to secure it. War intensifies the lightning aspect shift, the world is basically ruined as a result. Alexandria, Treno, and a few other settlements hunker down.
• Some point between then and now, Preservation starts researching interdimensional travel.
• Roughly 20 odd years ago, Krile's parents chuck her through a portal they helped make.
• The present day.

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Also, minor nerd point on this one: it was slightly over twenty years ago on the Source's side, it's plausibly longer on the Ninth's side. (Further explanation of 7.4 stuff in spoilers!)

Miayli looks like she's probalby in her fifties or sixties, so I would probably estimate that on her side, Alayla made the trip maybe thirty or forty years ago.

The interesting extra factor here is what this means for Calyx. I'd always figured that Robor and Alayla made their trip roughly concurrently with the early Endless experiments with Otis and Sphene, early in the Storm Surge; this actually confirms that Calyx was active long before this, and had been an Endless for centuries at that point.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Part of me is happy that we can finally put the most annoying theory in all of Dawntrail to bed, though. Because we now finally know what the Arcadion's logo is, and we can stop pretending it looks like an Ascian sigil!

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I don't think so... Are you implying that they change the logo every time a new champ is crowned? The president's transformation into the Lindwurm happened relatively recently (3 years I believe they said), and there have been multiple champions that attempted to defeat him in those years, so the logo would've changed for each champion.

Maybe the logo is just the Lindwurm, since it's a legendary creature and has been for centuries, but this would mean that it's just a coincidence that the Lindwurm happened to play a very important role in the history of the Arcadion.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

I don't think so... Are you implying that they change the logo every time a new champ is crowned? The president's transformation into the Lindwurm happened relatively recently (3 years I believe they said), and there have been multiple champions that attempted to defeat him in those years, so the logo would've changed for each champion.

Maybe the logo is just the Lindwurm, since it's a legendary creature and has been for centuries, but this would mean that it's just a coincidence that the Lindwurm happened to play a very important role in the history of the Arcadion.

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Another wrestling trope: changing the (side) plates on the championship belt to reflect who the current belt-holder is. This could be seen as being a 'digital' version of that.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

I don't think so... Are you implying that they change the logo every time a new champ is crowned? The president's transformation into the Lindwurm happened relatively recently (3 years I believe they said), and there have been multiple champions that attempted to defeat him in those years, so the logo would've changed for each champion.

Maybe the logo is just the Lindwurm, since it's a legendary creature and has been for centuries, but this would mean that it's just a coincidence that the Lindwurm happened to play a very important role in the history of the Arcadion.

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If I recall, it's only been Tyrant that has attempted to defeat him, and nobody else has been able to defeat Tyrant.

Bit late to this one. I blame the three-hit combo of end-of-year work nonsense, Octopath 0, and most importantly Inazuma Eleven. (Seriously, Yoshi-P, if Hino Nohi is asking for another collab give it to him. Please. My team could easily make room for a few of the Scions, and there's a whole crossover gag you could do by making Alphinaud use Mugen the Hand. Please.)

MSQ!

The first quest felt like it was intended as the last quest of 7.3 and got pushed back a patch for some reason. It feels like that's not the first time this has happened either, but it really stuck out this time.

This is supposed to be the FF9 expansion, but this entire episode had big FF3 energy. Go to new town in dire straits, help out a bit, go out and punch something really, really big to solve two or three problems at once, pick up a mostly useless pointer to your next destination, and set out again as the whole town sees you off with a smile.

On that note, though, it's kind of a shame how self-contained it all is. Lumull is the most fun NPC we've had in a while, but he and the rest of Krile's surprise relatives are just going to be sort of there now. We might go back for a bit on a Porxie delivery if we need an excuse to run into Halmarut again, but other than that I don't see them doing much with Treno long-term.

And on that note, did I just hear Saori Hayami? She's definitely going to be around a while if they're bringing out the big guns. And Calyx is now a plushie. Chance of future minionization has increased by 300%. If they wanted to sell us on the Winterers not being our next batch of antagonists, it worked.

Overall, a good patch MSQ. Running with an FF-party-sized group (with Sphene in the NPC slot) always works better than trying to constantly find something for everyone to do. I'm kind of wondering where Thancred and Urianger got off to now, though.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

Another wrestling trope: changing the (side) plates on the championship belt to reflect who the current belt-holder is. This could be seen as being a 'digital' version of that.

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Yeah, this is what I'm thinking. Either this is just how it goes, or the Tyrant's been the champion long enough that he's become the branding.

Either that or he's the 80s Hulk Hogan of the Arcadion, and he's just the mascot regardless of championship status.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Yeah, this is what I'm thinking. Either this is just how it goes, or the Tyrant's been the champion long enough that he's become the branding.

Either that or he's the 80s Hulk Hogan of the Arcadion, and he's just the mascot regardless of championship status.

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He's outright stated to have never known defeat prior to his match with the Warrior of Light. So it's definitely this.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

The Storm Surge happened four centuries ago, but Preservation and all the interdimensional research stuff (at least the parts that Krile's parents were involved with) started much later.

I think it roughly went like this:

• Over 400 years ago, things start to shift towards lightning. Times gets hard.
• Roughly 400 years ago, electrope is figured out. Wars start to secure it. War intensifies the lightning aspect shift, the world is basically ruined as a result. Alexandria, Treno, and a few other settlements hunker down.
• Some point between then and now, Preservation starts researching interdimensional travel.
• Roughly 20 odd years ago, Krile's parents chuck her through a portal they helped make.
• The present day.

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Thank you for trying to help sort it out!

I'm still not 100% sure if that lines up though? I didn't think to check the Unending Codex entry for the Storm Surge until after making my post, but it explicitly dates it at around 450 years ago, which fits in with Sphene's account of things and the level 100 MSQ dungeon as well. The part that really made me think twice was the flashback during the patch itself, quoting Robor as saying "When lightning threatened this world, we attempted to use the key to flee again like our ancestors once did." and I thought that sort of implied they tried to use it during the time of the Surge?

Thinking more there's also the fact that only a few days at most passed in the Source when the dome showed up in Shaaloni, meanwhile *30 years* passed underneath it, indicating a very severe time difference. So if Krile in the Source is 22 years old currently, wouldn't that mean her parents would have dropped her off from the 9th a long time ago too?

All of this sort of points toward Krile's parents being alive a lot longer ago, and if that's the case, Miyali shouldn't still be alive (or have known her sister)?

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Originally Posted by Diclonius

Thank you for trying to help sort it out!

I'm still not 100% sure if that lines up though? I didn't think to check the Unending Codex entry for the Storm Surge until after making my post, but it explicitly dates it at around 450 years ago, which fits in with Sphene's account of things and the level 100 MSQ dungeon as well. The part that really made me think twice was the flashback during the patch itself, quoting Robor as saying "When lightning threatened this world, we attempted to use the key to flee again like our ancestors once did." and I thought that sort of implied they tried to use it during the time of the Surge?

Thinking more there's also the fact that only a few days at most passed in the Source when the dome showed up in Shaaloni, meanwhile *30 years* passed underneath it, indicating a very severe time difference. So if Krile in the Source is 22 years old currently, wouldn't that mean her parents would have dropped her off from the 9th a long time ago too?

All of this sort of points toward Krile's parents being alive a lot longer ago, and if that's the case, Miyali shouldn't still be alive (or have known her sister)?

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I think you might be thrown off by an ambiguous use of 'we'. Which is fair, I think everyone assumed the meaning you're taking at first, and we're realigning our assumptions based on that.

When Robor says 'we attempted to use the key', it's a non-inclusive, communal 'we'; 'we as a people', rather than 'we as a group that includes me, the person saying this'. He's saying that the milalla of the Ninth tried to use the key, not necessarily a group that explicitly includes him and Alayla.

As for the timeframe, it's always been established that time flows at different rates between reflections. It's a little hard to factor in the thirty year jump for Heritage Found specifically, because we don't necessarily know the 'science' of it (was Heritage Found running on 'Ninth Time', or was that a third entirely different time scale?), but it does mean that the time scale is unknown, albeit something we can roughly estimate; like I said last page, Miayli looks in her fifties or sixties, so while we don't know how much older Alayla was, we can reason that the trip that ended with the key and Krile going to the Source, on Ninth Time, happened decades ago. I estimated thirty or forty, but it could be much longer, especially if I'm misjudging Miayli's age and/or Alayla was significantly older than her sister. I feel like at maximum that trip could've happened a hundred years ago on Ninth Time; that'd be a surprising amount of time, but everything we know would still track.

This new time scale does make sense with all the known evidence; we aren't left with more questions than back when we assumed Alayla was alive 400+ years ago, just different ones.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I think you might be thrown off by an ambiguous use of 'we'. Which is fair, I think everyone assumed the meaning you're taking at first, and we're realigning our assumptions based on that.

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I appreciate the responses because this one bit had me scratching my head hahaha!

I had certainly considered the possibility of Robor using 'we' in that way, but the very next line in that same flashback, "Alas, no matter what we tried, we couldn't invoke its power. We had all but given up when Preservation approached us with an offer of partnership." made it sound especially self referential, 'us' being himself and Alayla, and it would be very weird phrasing otherwise. Being descendants of the Speaker, it would make sense for them to have had and tried using the key too.

I distinctly remember that bit about time being inconsistent and constantly in flux across the reflections from SHB, which is probably why I was basing the assumption of the 9th's time being much faster off of the dome discrepancy, but I suppose you're also right in that it could have caused a third, entirely separate, crunched time scale when the fusion occurred, and the 9th's flow of time is only slightly faster than the Source's.

Assuming this is all correct and Robor and Alayla were alive much more recently than 400 years ago, it does beg the question why those sentences were phrased in such a way, or why it took Preservation hundreds of years to reach out and look into the key if the Milalla coming from another world was common knowledge? I'm curious how Robor's dialogue is laid out in other versions/languages now too, I'm not sure if that might provide any insight either.

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Originally Posted by Diclonius

I appreciate the responses because this one bit had me scratching my head hahaha!

I had certainly considered the possibility of Robor using 'we' in that way, but the very next line in that same flashback, "Alas, no matter what we tried, we couldn't invoke its power. We had all but given up when Preservation approached us with an offer of partnership." made it sound especially self referential, 'us' being himself and Alayla, and it would be very weird phrasing otherwise. Being descendants of the Speaker, it would make sense for them to have had and tried using the key too.

I distinctly remember that bit about time being inconsistent and constantly in flux across the reflections from SHB, which is probably why I was basing the assumption of the 9th's time being much faster off of the dome discrepancy, but I suppose you're also right in that it could have caused a third, entirely separate, crunched time scale when the fusion occurred, and the 9th's flow of time is only slightly faster than the Source's.

Assuming this is all correct and Robor and Alayla were alive much more recently than 400 years ago, it does beg the question why those sentences were phrased in such a way, or why it took Preservation hundreds of years to reach out and look into the key if the Milalla coming from another world was common knowledge? I'm curious how Robor's dialogue is laid out in other versions/languages now too, I'm not sure if that might provide any insight either.

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So, my best reckoning on these...

Factoring in that extra line (I didn't remember it off the top of my head), the milalla were trying to get the key to work for a while. That 'we' is both historic and current; they probably were trying for hundreds of years. Probably not consecutively, I'm imagining 'every generation we give it another shot', but they just haven't succeeded.

As for why Preservation wouldn't have stepped in until very late? First of all, we can't assume that they would've necessarily cared for a lot of that time; they ultimately used it to solve a resource and energy crisis, so it's entirely possible it just wasn't an avenue worth pursuing/caring about for a long time. After all, Calyx was rather famously cool with going small and sustainable with the 'five thousand Endless' plan in the earlier patches. But on top of that, we don't actually know how accepted and recognized that fact is; we know that's true because of sources we found independently, but from Preservation's side? The milalla are just a cultural minority with a specific origin myth, and a religious artifact that doesn't do the thing they say it should. That doesn't exactly sound like something you'd pursue as Plan A to me.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

So, my best reckoning on these...

Factoring in that extra line (I didn't remember it off the top of my head), the milalla were trying to get the key to work for a while. That 'we' is both historic and current; they probably were trying for hundreds of years. Probably not consecutively, I'm imagining 'every generation we give it another shot', but they just haven't succeeded.

As for why Preservation wouldn't have stepped in until very late? First of all, we can't assume that they would've necessarily cared for a lot of that time; they ultimately used it to solve a resource and energy crisis, so it's entirely possible it just wasn't an avenue worth pursuing/caring about for a long time. After all, Calyx was rather famously cool with going small and sustainable with the 'five thousand Endless' plan in the earlier patches. But on top of that, we don't actually know how accepted and recognized that fact is; we know that's true because of sources we found independently, but from Preservation's side? The milalla are just a cultural minority with a specific origin myth, and a religious artifact that doesn't do the thing they say it should. That doesn't exactly sound like something you'd pursue as Plan A to me.

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That makes more sense, thank you for helping!

I'm guessing their lack of success is because the soul of Azem is needed to make the key function in the first place, and the Speaker was the only Milalla to be possessed of it since the time they fled the Source. Either way I still find it to be very questionable phrasing and I'm glad to know I wasn't the only one confused by interpretation.

I think Calyx and Halmarut know a lot more than they're letting on based off the latter's ominous foreshadowing, and Ascian plots tend to be rather far reaching from experience, so I do find it weird that they wouldn't have foreseen an energy crisis or sought out the key much sooner if they were knowledgeable about it. Then again, it's unclear how deep the extent of the Winterer's involvement in the 9th is just yet, so we'll have to wait and see if this is all part of the plan!

MSQ:

I should have taken notes the other day when I'd done the first part. I have probably forgotten a couple of things.

THE ENDING

Firstly, a couple of links I meant to share in the 7.3 discussion but misplaced for a while: an interesting Reddit post from 7.3 that draws some connections that are coming back now. Most relevantly, a connection between Halmarut (associated with plants) and the goddess Demeter, hinted at in 7.3 by the name Demetrius -- so perhaps we can assume that Halmarut has been involved with Preservation for a while. A separate discussion proposed that the then-mysterious Ascian might have been acting as the simulant Sphene too, rather than that being just a creation of Calyx, in which case for all Halmarut's quirky presentation here, she's already been acting as a competent villain against us.

It's curious that we now have a second example of a "green" Au Ra after Varshahn (though he just had green horns, not scales as well). Can we assume there's a whole clan of them somewhere? Though on the other hand both characters are "fakes" and Halmarut may have just made it look like that because she liked the colour scheme or something.

Halmarut's rambling seems to confirm to me that the term "Winterers" is metaphorical: withdrawing to a safe place to "outlast the great withering to come", indicating that this coming disaster is something temporary to be waited out -- but then that doesn't really seem to add up with the "world doomed to die" talk which suggests a more final destruction. Though maybe if the world dies it rejoins automatically, and that's what the Ascians wanted... but as Fandaniel indicated, the individual remaining Ascians are free of the Ancients' goal now. So what does Halmarut want? And why not approach us to warn us if we're genuinely endangering the world?


RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

They let Sphene be healer for duty support! I hope they fixed that for the Meso Terminal too.

It was cute that G'raha talked about Lyna, but also kind of odd because (once we were told we have to drink the medicine) I was anticipating a different reference back to when Chessamile forced us to take something similar, and I'm pretty sure she said something about having to force the Exarch to take it too. Though I suppose Lyna probably teamed up with her on that front.

Treno character outfits are an odd mix of different styles. Lumull and Eyaney in modern-looking Everseeker gear, but most of the others are in a mix of the new tome sets, Heirloom aiming top, Crested, and (another vibe again) the Mistic mage sets which seemed out of place and Turali-looking among the designs of last patch's dungeon sets and still don't seem like they fit in here. Is it supposed to be from some other FFIX culture? Also interesting that Miyali's costume is the one Historia set that had people saying "why is this here, it's not based on any FFIX character" -- I wonder if it was, at the time, sneaking in a design that they wanted to use for this NPC in the future.

There was a random unnamed character in white and red crafter gear who was playing with a dog on the farm earlier, and then at the end was on the main street apparently searching for a dodo, while down by the canal there was another character with a dodo. It could all just be a simple "the farm animals ran away when the monsters invaded the field" thing, but it seems like it could be a reference to something else.

And replies to other MSQ posts:

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

Things that stuck out to me from MSQ:

G'raha casually talking about Lyna and waxing nostalgic over the Crystarium and his time on the First in a positive way is nice. How disgusting was that syrup Lyna forced on him that he compares it to "sin" when the guy's only dropped a single swear in his entire existence with us (during CT, btw).

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"Sin" isn't a swear word, and "____ as sin" is an established phrase just meaning "very _____".

I don't recall him swearing during CT either, so I'm assuming it was something minor.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

I'm not all that disappointed by Halmarut since we knew the Ascians were back in play after 7.3. I'm just... irritated she's doing the "If you knew what I know, we'd be on the same page" shtick Elidibus did back in 2.1, and this time entirely offscreen except in front of Calyx. She's understandably wary of us given our resumé, but you can't expect us to change onto the "right" course without even knowing what we're doing "wrong," let alone how to fix it. It's the usual "don't tell us anything and then blame us for not knowing" bit that's just... worn by this point.

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Yes, that's my feeling too. It's no good muttering to herself about how the world is doomed if we don't change course, if she doesn't intend to warn us about our current course.

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Originally Posted by Diclonius

That makes more sense, thank you for helping!

I'm guessing their lack of success is because the soul of Azem is needed to make the key function in the first place, and the Speaker was the only Milalla to be possessed of it since the time they fled the Source. Either way I still find it to be very questionable phrasing and I'm glad to know I wasn't the only one confused by interpretation.

I think Calyx and Halmarut know a lot more than they're letting on based off the latter's ominous foreshadowing, and Ascian plots tend to be rather far reaching from experience, so I do find it weird that they wouldn't have foreseen an energy crisis or sought out the key much sooner if they were knowledgeable about it. Then again, it's unclear how deep the extent of the Winterer's involvement in the 9th is just yet, so we'll have to wait and see if this is all part of the plan!

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This does bring up a lot of questions about Azem though....

for starters, when was the Key created by him will be among the first set of questions people will be asking since the Shards did not exist until after the Sundering.

The other is what was his main goal with creating the ability to travel to other Shards?

How did it become lost in the first place until it was found?

and among many other things.

either way it seem this expansion was just setting up for the eventual focus on who Azem was.

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

This does bring up a lot of questions about Azem though....

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Also, this entire theory breaks down when we remember what the actual history of 'successful Key uses' is. ...In fact I'm not gonna spoiler tag this because this is all pre-7.4 stuff. We do have three unambiguously successful Key uses.

1. Use by Speaker Loquloqui to get from the Source to the Ninth.

2. Grafting of Alexandria onto the Source, by Preservation.

3. The 'twelfth floor' portal to Living Memory (or at least its closure, we don't know the whole process), also by Preservation, specifically Endless Sphene.

If you want to give partial credit of 'well you got the Key to do something even if it wasn't what you planned', Preservation gets at least one extra count through the failed experiments we learned about in 7.3, and plausibly the first use of the gate by Robor and Alayla, but we don't really know any details there. But crucially, there's one person who hasn't gotten a successful use out of the thing: us. As in, the only person that we can say with some degree of confidence does have Azem's soul.

So either Azem's soul is not actually in any way necessary, or Preservation have made some very alarming discoveries!

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

FYI, that one didn't come with this patch; Hildibrand's stuff is coming in the 7.x5 patches, and you just played the 7.35 one!

For what it's worth, while I was surprisingly on board with the 7.25 Hildibrand questline, the 7.35 one mainly got a reaction of 'wow, y'all found One New Joke'. Sometimes Hildibrand has a habit of going all-in on different variations on one gag, and this time they really hoped the Oglop joke was a massive hit.

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Well 7.3.5 was the Deep Dungeon, and I'm not at all fond of the mystery dungeon playstyle so I just kept to my usual crafting and dungeon grinds. As someone who is very fond of IX (while cognizant of it's shortcomings), seeing another small reference to it was very nice. There were other jokes in there, but I still want an oglop minion now that they're confirmed to exist in XIV's setting (and are far from the most egregious reference, even to IX).

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Also, this entire theory breaks down when we remember what the actual history of 'successful Key uses' is. ...In fact I'm not gonna spoiler tag this because this is all pre-7.4 stuff. We do have three unambiguously successful Key uses.

<snip>

So either Azem's soul is not actually in any way necessary, or Preservation have made some very alarming discoveries!

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A lot of this comes from how Azem's symbol (Sol) showed up when Queen Eternal started to invoke the Key's power, but it's very important to remember that we ultimately still know nothing about the artifact's creation and original owner. It sounds like something Azem would make, and if anyone could make something like that it would be the Ancients (Ascians), but we also know that Azem was sundered and would have no reason to make such a thing beforehand. It's able to defy known laws regarding travel across the reflections, but in such a way that remains unreliable to everyone other than Calyx... who has Ascian backers, so it's clear he knows more than we do at the moment. If anything the Key functions like Halmarut's recently revealed power to punch small holes in reality on a grander scale.

They can't keep us in the dark about this thing forever, and since I seriously doubt 8.0 is going to be a sojourn across the Storm Surged Ninth, answers will have to come sooner than later unless we're just going to meander across referenced but unexplored Source locations like the Blindfrost and Nagxia. That said... Halmarut's ominous foretelling might only apply to the Storm Surged Ninth, and there's a curiously unused gate in the park where we fought the Behemoth during the MSQ...

One last note regarding references:

The route into XIV Treno isn't a 1:1 reference to IX; after exiting the Electrope Mine you grind down a derelict railway into the Treno Lowlands, referencing IX's South Gate cable car. It's not necessary to take the cable car to get from Quan's Dwelling to Treno in IX. Clearly, jamming references in wherever they can. Additionally, IX's Mist Continent had a similar population spread but in a different direction (IX's Mist Continent cities had to be on highlands due to the denser than air Mist making surface settlements hazardous; in XIV they need barriers to protect themselves from the perpetual thunderstorm and levin monsters, and are connected through railways rather than by airship).

On top of Queen Stella's gazebo, the Stellazio coins themselves are scattered across Treno, locked away in metal cages similar to those Queen Stella kept them in. There's no way to interact with them, but it's a fun little Easter Egg.

In addition to the bosses referencing Treno's item shop, most if not all of the trash mobs are enemies fought in random encounters during IX (using XIV models and levin glowups, of course).

Doctor Tuphut, Sphene's Milalla tutor who took the barrier technology back to Treno, is a clear reference to Garnet's tutor Doctor Tot from IX who similarly lived in Treno.

The VIII insert Doomtrain still retains a reference to it's Japanese naming through it's demonic roots. It's original name, Glasya Labolas (also used for the second boss of Syrcus Tower), is one of the 72 demons from the Lesser Key of Solomon. VIII references this by requiring 6 copies of 3 items (666) and the Solomon Ring to acquire it as a GF. The name of it's trial in XIV, Hell on Rails, is a subtle but clever nod.

... and now I have to do PvP this season up to Rank 15 because they put an MGSD G-Warrior as a minion reward and MGSD is my favorite Gunpla line (Strike Noir / Vidar when Bandai?). God damn it.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

A lot of this comes from how Azem's symbol (Sol) showed up when Queen Eternal started to invoke the Key's power, but it's very important to remember that we ultimately still know nothing about the artifact's creation and original owner. It sounds like something Azem would make, and if anyone could make something like that it would be the Ancients (Ascians), but we also know that Azem was sundered and would have no reason to make such a thing beforehand. It's able to defy known laws regarding travel across the reflections, but in such a way that remains unreliable to everyone other than Calyx... who has Ascian backers, so it's clear he knows more than we do at the moment. If anything the Key functions like Halmarut's recently revealed power to punch small holes in reality on a grander scale.

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Yeah, the thing that always holds with me about the key that a lot of people seem to dismiss is that the Ancients and Ascians would have no use for this thing. There were no shards to make portals to in Azem's day, so they can't have made it, and the Ascians can already do this, so why would they need it? 'The key reflected Azem's symbol when we used the crystal' is pretty thin evidence of anything (how do we know it wouldn't do the same if we pulled out Pashtarot's crystal, or the PCT job crystal?), but people take it to a conclusion that just doesn't make any sense.

Also, one more little thing in the references that I feel like you--and probably others--will get a kick out of:

The internal name for Doomtrain/Glasya Labolas in the Japanese version of FFVIII is Devil Thomas. Which is not only hilarious, but also clears up some conceptual ambiguity about it: FFVIII Doomtrain isn't a ghost train, it's a demon train. XIV Doomtrain is pretty clearly demonic (and has an actual backstory besides), but the visuals in VIII were much more ambiguous, and thanks to the name change the Lesser Key of Solomon references didn't quite carry internationally.

We know that Azem created a series of concepts (fourteen of them, to be precise) meant to ease the burden of travel. Perhaps the Key is a modified version of one of those crystals. Or perhaps another one. Perhaps it was Azem's answer to the Final Days, as we know they were working on something.

I don't trust The Key, especially after Miayli's words of caution. I don't think Azem made The Key, but I do think they may have been in possession of it at some point. If that's the case, then I think what happened with them in the past is repeating itself now with the Warrior of Light.

Some speculation

Miayli told us that info about The Key is back in Alexandria, and so I think we're gonna learn about where the Millala are originally from before settling the South Sea Isles, and where they got The Key, and that will be the setting for 8.0.

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Originally Posted by Geriel

We know that Azem created a series of concepts (fourteen of them, to be precise) meant to ease the burden of travel.

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Where was that said? I don't recall it.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Where was that said? I don't recall it.

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It was in the fifth Tales from the Dawn, the one that was Ancient fanservice because either Emet or Hyth won that one poll. We don't know anything about any of those concepts, though; we don't even get information about the fourteenth one put forward in that story. Nor do I think that the Key could possibly be one of them, because...

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Originally Posted by mallleable

I don't trust The Key, especially after Miayli's words of caution. I don't think Azem made The Key, but I do think they may have been in possession of it at some point. If that's the case, then I think what happened with them in the past is repeating itself now with the Warrior of Light.

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I don't think the Key and Azem could have even existed concurrently, at least not in a way that is in any way relevant or worthwhile to us. Because the shards didn't exist when they did, so a means to travel between them would have been worthless. Real 'can opener invented before the can' energy, only somehow dumber.


Also, an interesting thing worth recalling: back when Azem's symbol appeared, we were assuming that 'the Key' was the entire apparatus, both the crystal and the chalice it was held in; back then a huge root for the theory that the Ancients made it was that it spirals and they're the only civilization that really does spirals. But, now we know that's wrong: 7.3 confirmed for us that the Key is just the crystal, and the chalice was some kind of additional system added on by Preservation; to this day we don't have a great idea what the chalice is doing, save that--again, going by Preservation's track record--it seems to be working.

Given that knowledge, can we be on any level certain that the Key made the Azem symbol, and not the chalice?