The Ascians in 2.1 (spoilers!)

[Saikou]

Urianger makes mention to the fact that those who have gone off to explore new lands have often circled back to their ancestral homes and not recognized the tattered banners of their forebears. I don't think Urianger's statement was just a means of complimenting the player on having a sense of the bigger picture. I think it's a way for the devs to push home the point that, as Elidibus said, "humanity" had contact, even diplomatic contact, with what we now call The Ascians millions of years ago. Elidibus implies this to be the case, implies that it was millions of years since he had entered our plane of existence and spoken the common tongue with "humans." This being the case, Urianger is hanging a lantern on the fact that previous users of the echo didn't do a very good job of passing down their knowledge and wisdom and perhaps, not even knowing he is doing so, doing some exposition on why we find ourselves in our current situation. Elidibus even expounds on the failings of oral traditions. He talks at length about how only those with The Echo have an easy chance to see them, that even with The Echo we are only seeing crude approximations of what they actually look like.

Alberel may be correct in asserting that Elidibus believes we would be of one mind through mastery of The Echo because we'd be able to experience the event that lead to what the Ascians perceive as an unbalance between haedelyn and zodiark.

Another theory is that The Echo may be some form of Hive Mind or Collective Consciousness. Minfillia was aware that you'd taken a dive into her encounter with Elidibus when you found her collapsed, of course. The exact function and limitations of The Echo are not fully known. Elidibus may have been quite literal when he was saying that "we would be of one mind." We don't know if Ascians have the same capability.

The epilogue was interesting. It's always fun when the antagonists have multiple factions. Lahabrea's group is clearly proceeding with their plan by encouraging more summonings (GKMM13) and more powerful (and therefore aether-draining) summonings. When you attune to Garuda EX, a black-masked Ascian can be seen briefly. It was like a subtle reminder that these more powerful summonings are no accident. This whole segment of the main storyline seemed to serve 2 purposes: To shake up the antagonist situation by dropping hints about our enemies and allies (Elidibus and Krile / Beldesions respectively). The other is to move our headquarters to Endgame Hub while providing a satisfying conclusion to the Ul'dah 1.0 storyline.

On a completely unrelated note, I feel like, despite joining The Scions, F'lhaminn has been completely sidelined. Though I suppose there's only so much time to spend developing each NPC... I didn't play any of the other 1.0 city states, but I'm hoping that if they had any loose threads that they will eventually get the same treatment Ul'dah got in this patch. Leviathan is coming next patch, maybe Limsa will get it's day in the limelight. If the next patch follows the example of 2.1, Leviathan will be necessary for story progression.