The Enterprise in the Calamity

[Mysterysword]

snip

Thanks! So, to summarise: The Enterprise went from Gridania to Coerthas, landed near the Stone Vigil (was it a crash/emergency landing or their destination?) and the knights there took it into custody (because... Who knows?) and then dragons happened with the Calamity and the whole place fell to ruin and so the Enterprise just sat there for the next 5 years?

And then Cid either went from Gridania or Coerthas to Carteneau, and then from there to Thanalan. I'm honestly more interested in finding out the details of the latter journey, because presumably by this point he'd lost his memories. An even better question is how he lost his memories and why meeting us unlocks them.

[Anonymoose]

So, to summarise: The Enterprise went from Gridania to Coerthas, landed near the Stone Vigil (was it a crash/emergency landing or their destination?) and the knights there took it into custody (because... Who knows?) and then dragons happened with the Calamity and the whole place fell to ruin and so the Enterprise just sat there for the next 5 years?

That's definitely the basics of it. I'm still digging into why it went to Coerthas and why it landed and how (if Cid was there) he was able to get two regions away so quickly. But the Enterprise definitely just sat there for 5 years after the Dravanian Horde took over the Vigil.

I'm honestly more interested in finding out the details of the latter journey, because presumably by this point he'd lost his memories. An even better question is how he lost his memories and why meeting us unlocks them.

The latter part is actually the easiest. The Calamity messed with everyone's memories, but Cid got hit particularly hard; he not only lost the Warriors of Light and the precise events of what happened when the bright light took Louisoix and Bahamut away, but he lost himself. He was taken in by the lichyard in Thanalan, who assumed he saw terrible things, broke from the trauma, and would have died in the desert if they hadn't taken him in (and named him Marques).

When you're flying towards Garuda, Cid's trying to scratch at the walls in his mind (because flying the Enterprise towards probably-certain-death for the greater good of the realm is just something he feels RIGHT doing and he can't identify WHY) and he's all he's getting for his efforts is angry. He pulls the goggles off of his forehead, which have been with him even through his time as Marques, and declares that he doesn't even remember where those came from. The Warrior of Light then hits Cid with the Echo, and whatever screwy effect the Calamity is unraveled. They go about untangling the memories, from his childhood through his estrangement from his father, designing magitek warmachines for the Empire, defection after the Bozja incident, and (if you progressed far enough in 1.0), flying you to the Rivenroad to slay Nael van Darnus.

It concludes with this weird little scene of a ghostly, floating Warrior of Light handing Cid's goggles to him. I've always taken it as kind of a fluffy, metaphorical scene where the Warrior of Light is literally handing him his memories in the shape of the object he was fixating on at the start. Maybe it was a symbolic scene, maybe it was what Cid saw through his third eye, who knows. But it was definitely the Echo that set him straight.

[Mysterysword]

The latter part is actually the easiest. The Calamity messed with everyone's memories, but Cid got hit particularly hard; he not only lost the Warriors of Light and the precise events of what happened when the bright light took Louisoix and Bahamut away, but he lost himself. He was taken in by the lichyard in Thanalan, who assumed he saw terrible things, broke from the trauma, and would have died in the desert if they hadn't taken him in (and named him Marques).

I think my biggest question is just how he got from Carteneau to Thanalan. I mean, that's a long way to wander, and presumably he didn't fly there.

[Belhi]

I think my biggest question is just how he got from Carteneau to Thanalan. I mean, that's a long way to wander, and presumably he didn't fly there.

He had 5 years and there was a lot of refugees moving about. A man without memories quite likely could have been caught up with one of those groups. Since a lot ended up heading towards Ul'dah, it wouldn't be that surprising for him to end up in Thanalan.