Thoughts on the Ascians so far?

[MetalSnakeXI1]

Note:At the time of the OP post of this thread I've just finished all of Heavensward MSQs so please try to keep Stormblood spoilers at minimum if possible.


As much as I love the lore for Final Fantasy XIV so far,the ascians in particular.....are kind of my least favorite aspect of it.

To start positively,gameplay-wise,they offer some of the best boss fights/trials in the game as I loved all the battles they offered (minus the first Lahabrea battle in ARR's pretorium which was fairly easy).

It's the way they've been implemented so far that leaves me a little confused.

I know their goal is instruct Beast tribes and Eorzeans alike to summon primals which in turn drains more aether from Hydaelyn,weakening the mother crystal in the process which would hasten the summoning of their god Zodiark........but that's about all they do and in some cases it also defines the personality of each Ascians save for maybe Elidibus who seems a bit of an enigma so far from what I've seen

They feel very secondary especially in comparison to the Garlean Empire heck Lahabrea,the self-proclaimed leader of the Ascians,is offed very quickly by Thordan the moment he became a primal(the irony was delicious tho xD).

feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on anything I've said(while keeping spoilers at minimum),but I kinda wish in the future they'd make the Ascians more involved in the plot outside of primal summoning,give some personality and motivation for why each member desires the summoning of their god.I liked what they did with Elidibus so far especially his talks with Urianger but I wanna see more of that done to other Ascians

[Anonymoose]

I've just finished all of Heavensward MSQs so please try to keep Stormblood spoilers at minimum if possible.

Stormblood deliberately avoids doing pretty much anything with the Ascians aside from an underling cameo and Elidibus coming back later.

Stormlood's follow-up patches on the other hand... be wary of spoilers for those, lol.

I know their goal is instruct Beast tribes and Eorzeans alike to summon primals which in turn drains more aether from Hydaelyn, weakening the mother crystal in the process which would hasten the summoning of their god Zodiark

This is how it is commonly explained by some circles of loremongers, but in my humble opinion it's not the best way to say it. This whole "draining aether" thing is usually connected to the "forcing Hydaelyn to eat other worlds" theory and none of it is confirmed.

What we know is that when Hydaelyn expelled Zodiark, the fabric of the cosmos was compromised and "cracked", creating thirteen reflected copies of the original ("Source") dimension. The Ascians are trying to cause such catastrophic disturbances that the barriers between these dimensions are "blown out". When a barrier between the Source and another dimension collapses, the reflected dimension (aka "shard" dimension) is "deleted". Everything there dies, the dimension vanishes; reduced to aether and returned to the Source dimension and the aetherial sea.

Because Hydaelyn and Zodiark's powers were cast through fourteen walled-off dimension, along with an enormous about of aether, reconsolidating them is the only way the Ascians can bring about Zodiark's resurrection and free him from whatever moon rift he's trapped in. I assume targeting the consolidation of Zodiark's power while forcing Hydaelyn to expend what little energy She can get (raising and protecting Warriors of Light who have thus far ultimately failed to prevent Rejoinings) is just part of that strategy.

The Ascians just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks in terms of trying to get conflicts going so they can escalate them towards people being willing to use weapons powerful enough to cause a disturbance capable of causing a calamity. Sometimes the plans fizzle out, sometimes they go nowhere, but eventually they'll get two equal-ish parties willing to throw pretty catastrophic forces at one another.

Most (if not ALL) of the Ascians are just ex-mortals who've given in to Darkness. Even the fourteen overlords might just be ex-Mortals directly touched by Zodiark's power, one from each dimensions with the power to raise the underling, black-masked soldiers.

Teaching mortals a deliberately-flawed summoning spell to manifest whatever they truly, deeply, zealously desire (essentially an overpowered elemental unbound and acting like whatever people believe it is) is merely a quick way to get there because they require so much aether to stay manifest and are so easy to make go to war against one another.

The Ascians are made to be such a big threat because they were so poorly understood for so long. For all we know Zodiark doesn't care about them at all and just needs agents because it's impossible for Him to act on His own (just like Hydaelyn).

That they're moustache-twirling cartoon villains is almost appropriate, lol.

[MetalSnakeXI1]

"Mustache twirling cartoon villains" xD

Lol that's one way to put it.

So far Elidibus is the only interesting one with the whole plot with him and the warriors of darkness in which he was in talk with Urianger about since they came from one of the dying worlds...tho sadly the WoD's plot was wrapped up a little too fast.
Kinda wish they'd wrap up the Ascians plot soon and put much more focus on the Garlean empire(which from what I've seen might seem to be the case) if their role isn't expanded beyond their usual shtick.Part of me think that we probably didn't need them for stuff like Nael Van Darnus's meteor project or Illberd's flawed summoning of Shinryu even.

But hey that's for Yoshi P to decide

[Anonymoose]

I think Elidibus is more interesting mostly because his mission is more complex than "cause problems", lol. I agree that the Ascians have dragged on a bit too long (I think they're nervous that people will assume Final Fantasy XIV is "pretty much over" if they end the Ascian arc, but it only gets more likely if they drag it out farther than need be.) And I agree that the Warriors of Darkness wrapped up a bit too swiftly. They seemed to struggle to balance the pacing of ending the Dragonsong War, the Warriors of Darkness, and the Griffin while maintaining the right content sequence.

Elidibus, I theorize, is the most connected to Zodiark - as much as Minfilia to Hydaelyn. It makes sense we'd save him for last, especially if (as I hope) he transcends his past role and becomes the big bad. I like an antagonist that fractures the trust of the audience and has a few good points. I'm rooting for Elidibus to be an outright snake.

Though I actually think I'd actually do it in the opposite order you were laying out here; the Ascians always try to encourage the consolidation of powers and turning them against one another. For example, you can see Lahabrea's plan to turn Thordan into a God King with global ambitions. After wiping out the dragons, Thordan would have "united" Eorzea and taken on Garlemald, at which point the Ascians would have given the Empire resources to escalate that war against Thordan's crusade and hopefully hit a Calamitous crescendo.

I speculate that Elidibus has merely modified this plan and interwoven it with a secondary layer involving that whole "new god" angle he brought up 2.3 and 3.4. Now the Eorzean Alliance and its allies will be the focus of the Garlean forces riled up for war.

However, if we wrap up the war with the Garlean Empire, we can ally with them against Zodiark, which should make for a pretty epic ending.

But who knows, lol.

[ObsidianFire]

The coming patch seems like it will involve the Ascians quite a lot. So some questions will probably be answered and more will be raised.

As for the Ascians and the Garleans, at the moment, it seems the Garlean threat is a byproduct of the Ascian threat. The Ascians need someone putting pressure on everyone else so that they feel desperate enough to summon eikons and it looks like the Garleans are the ones they have chosen to play that role. Solving the Garlean threat won't solve the Ascian threat; it'll just remove one of their players from the game.

The other difference is the nature of the two threats. The Garlean threat is confined to this shard and could probably be solved by "natural" means (politics, war, etc.). The Ascian threat isn't just on this shard, but to all the other ones as well. Solving that threat will involve much more "supernatural" means.

[Wyssahtyn]

The Ascians were reduced to a non-threat the moment Nabriales was dealt with.

[Cilia]

The Ascians were reduced to a non-threat the moment Nabriales was dealt with.

I wouldn't quite say that.

Even if we can defeat them in direct combat (without the Blessing of Light), actually killing them is beyond our normal means.

The main danger the Ascians present isn't direct anyway - it's their ability to impersonate others and move pieces against the heroes protagonists that makes them truly dangerous. Case and point with (probably) Elidibus playing Garlemald to his tune by whispering the right words to Varis while using Zenos' status to get Garlemald doing what he wants it to do.

[MetalSnakeXI1]

The Ascians were reduced to a non-threat the moment Nabriales was dealt with.

Nabriales was kinda just there,the only difference is that he went straight to get Tupsimati from Minfillia rather than sticking to Lahabrea's plan

But yeah,while the Ascians seem very low key to the overall plot so far,I'll at least keep an eye on Elidibus.Hopefully he can finally make them more interesting than what they currently are

[Theodric]

I'm currently on the fence.

As it stands, the Ascians have been confirmed to have been involved in enough schemes so far that the protagonists should realistically ask themselves if Ascians are playing them like a fiddle whenever any new threat emerges. Elidibus is intriguing, especially now that he has possessed the corpse of someone who stands to give him quite a bit of sway and political power. On the other hand, the other four major Ascians we've encountered as of ARR and onwards are no longer in the picture. The stakes don't feel very high. If Elidibus makes a move, it'll probably be Garlemald that suffers the most from his scheming. Meanwhile, there's a good chance that everything will wrap up neatly for everybody else.

In my opinion for the Ascians to truly be an effective threat they need to kill off a major character. Not a secondary character. Not a minor character temporarily elevated to a higher position. Someone who has been a part of the story for a while and isn't expected to die. I know some people will counter that by stating that death for the sake of death is silly, though that isn't what I'm pushing for. What I want to see is realistic, meaningful losses. Powerful and imposing antagonists only seem powerful and imposing when they're allowed to score the occasional victory. Otherwise they just end up standing around making vague threats before having their plans thwarted.

[AdamuKun322]

I'm currently on the fence.

As it stands, the Ascians have been confirmed to have been involved in enough schemes so far that the protagonists should realistically ask themselves if Ascians are playing them like a fiddle whenever any new threat emerges. Elidibus is intriguing, especially now that he has possessed the corpse of someone who stands to give him quite a bit of sway and political power. On the other hand, the other four major Ascians we've encountered as of ARR and onwards are no longer in the picture. The stakes don't feel very high. If Elidibus makes a move, it'll probably be Garlemald that suffers the most from his scheming. Meanwhile, there's a good chance that everything will wrap up neatly for everybody else.

In my opinion for the Ascians to truly be an effective threat they need to kill off a major character. Not a secondary character. Not a minor character temporarily elevated to a higher position. Someone who has been a part of the story for a while and isn't expected to die. I know some people will counter that by stating that death for the sake of death is silly, though that isn't what I'm pushing for. What I want to see is realistic, meaningful losses. Powerful and imposing antagonists only seem powerful and imposing when they're allowed to score the occasional victory. Otherwise they just end up standing around making vague threats before having their plans thwarted.

The one main character death that I think would just hurl the WoL over the edge would be Y'sholta being killed since she's been around a lot and plays a rather large role in the overall story from 1.0 to 4.3 and 4.4 it seems. There's also Alphinaud.