3.4 speculation

[ChazNatlo]

If you talk to Matoya right now (I don't know if it was the same before finishing 3.3, it didn't occur to me to check), she talks about how Alphinaud was frequently visiting her cave to research, and from what she gleaned from his mumblings it was related to how untangle merged sources of aether.

Huh. So... It isn't a theory I follow, but it IS one I've heard around. That being that Lahabrea will be back. What would be the difference between pulling Minfillia out of Hydaelyn, and pulling Lahabrea out of Niddhog's eye? Beyond his Aether having been used up during Knights of the Round, possibly?

[Laili]

Man I really hope they don't bring Lahabrea back AGAIN. He's already had two chances to deal with us and got rekt both times, let's focus on Eddy for a while.

[AutumnHarvestwind]

I'd actually prefer Minfilia's fate to be sealed and tragic. .

This is something I'd like to see. Epecially with how much we've seen Alphinaud mature. I don't he needs any humbling, 2.5 did all that for him, but it could serve as learning lesson to another--maybe to Alisaie? Probably more likely to Y'shtola. I think Thancred already suffered enough from Lahabrea's possession to really get over confident--and he's more pragmatic now. I'm also feeding into Cilia's points about Hydaelyn being malevolent but also have the mind that it may have been unintentional consequences. Also, if were talking about evil!hydaelyn, I would also like to bring up tataru. She's definetely and ascian guys....calling it now.

[Berethos]

Huh. So... It isn't a theory I follow, but it IS one I've heard around. That being that Lahabrea will be back. What would be the difference between pulling Minfillia out of Hydaelyn, and pulling Lahabrea out of Niddhog's eye? Beyond his Aether having been used up during Knights of the Round, possibly?

As far as I know, the distinction would likely be that Minfilia and Hydaelyn are apparently merged but with aspects of both being present (unless WOTM was lying, which is still a possibility), as that is what the dialog with her after Antitower suggests.

What happened to Lahabrea seems to be the same that happened to the Sahagin Elder, in that in both cases their aether was essentially deconstructed to a more base version of aether by another.

[Nalien]

What happened to Lahabrea seems to be the same that happened to the Sahagin Elder, in that in both cases their aether was essentially deconstructed to a more base version of aether by another.

Lahabrea was a slightly different case... He was specifically shown being absorbed by Nidhoggs Eye in the Ascalon rather than by a Primal, which Thordan was indeed using as an aether battery, but last I checked batteries don't spend their charge instantly...

It's a slim possibility that he survived, and for me the window has passed... Well, one of my theories for his return has... A Nidhogg/Ascian fusion, similar to the Ascian/Ascian fusion we faced at the end of ARF, would have resulted in Shinryu and brought Omega into the plot, but Nidhogg is gone now...Lahabrea could still be sitting in the Eye we threw away like dummies, in which case his potential ambitions (which I'll admit, is conjecture based on minor dialog with Elidibus) could still come to fruition. After he spearheaded Ysayle becoming Shiva, and Pope Thordan becoming King Thordan, I expected Nidhogg to do something similar (maybe even becoming Bahamut... Que Omega...) at Lahabreas urgings, then Lahabrea to sneak off to become Zodiark, which is not the revival Elidibus wants. That would give us justification to actually buddy up with Elidibus and give Lahabrea a real send off...

I do think Elidibus has an interest in the Eye, but I do not think Lahabrea returning is anything more than a slim possibility now... After Nabriales was so keen to get his hands on Tupsimati, which wasn't powerful enough to one-shot an Ascian without throwing a sacrifice into the mix, I would imagine Elidibus has every reason to want two Wyrm Eyes... If Zodiark is going to be a Steps of Faith style final boss, I think it is somewhat fitting to give him Nidhoggs Eyes... I'd prefer having Lahabrea be the final antagonist, but I acknowledge it's very far fetched at this point...

Now that I'm reminded of Nidhogg though, we still haven't really gotten anything out of the news in 2.1 that he'd flown off to "skies unknown"... I would expect that to come to something eventually, I imagine the Eyes will come back into the plot and we'll get an Echo cutscene explaining what that meant, unless other translations spell an entirely different message for that 2.1 cutscene...

[Theodric]

It's possible that Lahabrea will return, I suppose, but it wouldn't sit well with me for him to come back only to...die again. Plus there's already not enough time spent fleshing out the current batch of antagonists - it's happening at a very slow pace or in the case of most of the Heaven's Ward we didn't really get to see their thoughts and feelings.

One of the reasons as to why I like Regula and Elidibus so much is because they get a decent amount of focus and they're not just subjected to the increasingly dull plot point that is the Warrior of Light showing up and ending them immediately. I've outlined in other threads why I find Primals/Eikons to be hollow threats for precisely that reason - they're summoned and then often don't really achieve anything beyond looking cool. Then the WoL swoops in, kills them and they don't even Temper any of our allies to force us to put them down and endure psychological warfare.

[Nalien]

Eh, I'm somewhat bias... I really don't view Elidibus or Derplander as particularly good antagonists to really develop at the moment... Garlemald I like, because that's a decidedly human story that I can potentially relate to, with a conflict that is, while perhaps questionable, somewhat understandable IMO... The Ascians? Immortal cartoony villains with a conflict stemming from some cosmic injustice that I'll likely be unable to really relate to... I very much expect the story to go down a "Hydaelyn created life, and thus death, before that there was no death so Zodiark is better!" route, which just isn't something I can get on board with... I just can't see a Zodiark revival being in our best interests... The Truth could be that Zodiark farts sunshine and poops rainbows, but coming from the mouths of a group that actively uses deception to sow chaos and ruin lives... Yeah... Actions speak louder than words, and Elidibus could say all the right things, but the only thing we've seen the Ascians do is be stereotypical shadowy villains... We may not have seen Elidibus doing anything himself, but we've seen the actions of those he associates with; Both the other Ascians and now Derplander, who basically attacked us on sight and further justified a staunch skepticism on our side of theirs... They'd need to do a lot to get me to relate to them at this point, and I don't think they can fit that in with where I think/want the story to go...

I only let Lahabrea off on this because, in the narrative I'd want for him, he has greater ambitions that "Kill Hydaelyn, Revive Zodiark, Throw Party", he wants to be Zodiark, hence the experiments in Primal summoning and the "Lahabrea> By my will", "Elidibus>> No no, by His will" thing... That not only makes him somewhat more interesting IMO, but it also gives Elidibus a bit more room for development... Right now I do not see the possibility of us working together with him ever happening, we're far too polarized at the moment... Make Lahabrea a common enemy for us both to defeat? Jolly Cooperation all round! That also maybe lets us keep Elidibus/Derplander around for longer... I expect 3.55 to end with a closing of the Ascian plot... Mostly just because I'm tired of it and hope 4.0 can give us more human stories than cosmic ones... Give us a dramatic confrontation with Derplander/Elidibus and I don't think they'll see much more development, and if we take down Elidibus I doubt the Ascians will ever resurface... That'll be that done... Give us a dramatic confrontation with Lahabrea, who has just come back from the brink and thrown a wrench in Elidibus' plans? We team up, they get much more development, we finally defeat the games first real antagonist in a satisfying manner, and Elidibus backs off since his plan just flopped... We move onto more human antagonists, but the threat of Elidibus returning and a final confrontation with Zodiark still looms about for 6.0 or something...

It's entirely possible that they don't intend for us to have a finish to Elidibus/Derplander before 4.0 of course, but I see that being what the remainder of the patches before 4.0 will focus on for now... If they're still just milling about, and will be for all of 4.0 as well, I'll honestly be sick to death of them... I'd rather a scenario in which we force them to back off, then when Elidibus shows up in the #.55 teaser after a long absence, I'd lose my shit in excitement... It's also entirely possible that we can force him to back off in 3.55 without anyone like Lahabrea pulling a last minute revival, but I'm not sure of any other candidates... A situations in which we fight Elidibus/Derplander, but they back off rather than being defeated seems fairly lackluster to me...

[Laili]

snipperoni

Well if the 3-4 of the Heaven's Ward we interacted with in the MSQ are indicative of the whole there wasn't much to develop there anyway. they were pretty much just "Loyal to Throdan and see themselves as above everyone else". Unless you count SICKNESS MUST BE PURGED as character development.

[SaiphaeWiloh]

Either way I'm personally banking on Hydaelyn being bad news. JRPG's are notorious for making religion and religious figures into antagonists after all.

You know, this actually got me thinking about something. JRPGs and Anime are notorious for making mainstream religion into the antagonists, but there seems to be a lot of love for the mystical versions of same. Take for instance Neon Genesis Evangelion. The Angels are the bad guys, they are named similar to Judaeo-Christian angels, etc. However, the EVAs have Kabalah/Qabalah symbols they use for their abilities. Kabalah symbols that good guys use is also popular in several SE games (Star Ocean).


Now in FF14 we have Hydaelyn being the supposed good guy, however, she also seems to take the role of "Idiot God". I don't want to get into a discussion about Gnosticism, but long story short, there is a type of Christianity that believes the God of the Old Testament is the "Idiot God"/Satan/Demiurge, and the New Testament is Jesus as the Savior figure and representative of the True God, who overthrows the rules of the Demiurge. From a Gnostic point of view then, Hydaelyn would be the demiurge, the god of the realm of flesh, and Zodiark could be the God. I think it would be a very interesting plot twist to find out we've been working with the demiurge this entire time. Zodiark's world might be one of pure spirit - no flesh, no death. We see this a little in the powers that the Ascians have.

This would create a moral dilemma that could be fun to explore, would our characters and the Scions choose to help bring forth a world of pure spirit where death would no longer take our loved ones (Moenbryda, Haurchefant) from us? Or would the desire to stay flesh and blood and remain what they always have been cause them to follow the demiurge. I think this is more appropriate for a Single Player game with multiple endings and a moral compass system, like Mass Effect, rather than an MMO where we would be forced to choose a particular path based on story progression, but it's fun to think about.

[Alisa180]

I'm back from my hiatus!

Since when has the Echo given us foresight, though? It lets us see past events, not future ones...

The Echo has always given us foresight.

You know the Echo buff in dungeons? When we 'wipe', the failure in-lore is considered a possible vision of the future. This gives us insight, which manifests gameplay-wise as increased stats and power.

For it to even have had any function in the events of 2.55, she'd also have to have been in contact with those involved to use Echo hacks to gain any insight into what was going on and it would have to have been on the spot, which doesn't give a lot of time to recover and set a clear course of action to aid us...

Still seems far fetched to me, though it could make for an interesting plot detail (though equally, it could make for a terrible one...), but really... If Alisaie has the gift of foresight through the Echo, she sure as hell isn't displaying it... If I had that gift and Derplander sniffed me out, I wouldn't have been shocked, I'd have known he was about to find me and I'd have known Thancred was about to jump to my rescue... I really don't think she has any such gift,

We actually have a canonical example of someone who manifested future vision as a part of the Echo. Moreso then the foresight given to the WoL.

In the very first trailer for FFXIV, Derplander received what was confirmed as a vision of the future as a result of his Echo, which involved him fighting alongside yet-to-be met companions. After receiving it, he then set off to find the adventurers he'd seen. By the time of the End of an Era, he's found them and they fight alongside him during the Battle of Carteneau.

If Alisaie does have foresight via the Echo, it probably manifests similiar to Derplanders. She doesn't see visions of everything to pass, just as we don't see everything in that has already happened. But she sees enough.

As for the rest, we've actually discussed the issue of timing before. Several months ago. I actually proposed the 'Alisaie has the Echo and it gives her the gift of foresight' theory there.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...the-Fall/page2