Revelations from Patch 4.4

[Fenral]

MSQ:

Garlemald's militarization and quest for global domination was Ascians all along. Of course it was. It manages to both be completely stupid and make perfect sense, all at once.

Oh! Mega:

Really liked the ending. Haters gonna hate, but I liked getting confirmation that the long-awaited Omega storyline was Chocobo Tales: The Raid all along, warm fuzzies included.

Seeing G'raha in-game again (albeit very indirectly) after almost four years as a complete non-entity feels, well, complicated. I'll leave it at that for now.

And that leads us to...

Allagans, though:

More Allagan ruins, more Allagan descendants (Sadu, in case you missed her copying from the Royal Allagan Spellbook), and yet another new discovery that makes a certain defanged solar power plant feel, well, completely harmless on the sliding scale.

Currently on the table we have:

• The Binding Coil: AKA Dalamud bits everywhere. Deactivated, destroyed, and sealed by the Scions.
• Syrcus Tower, sanitized and then (suddenly) sealed on (an interpretation of) Salina's orders that it might provide "hope" at some unspecified time in the future.
• Azys Lla, everyone's favorite research facility/gift shop, still just sort of there, even without the Triad. Active and airship-accessible. Even to Garleans.
• Omega. Apparently a more direct instigator of Allag's rise to technological dominance, in addition to killing/sealing Bahamut. And wrapping Shinryu up with a bow on top for Zenos to find.
• Heaven-on-High, a completely useless training ground that was important enough to die for. Also built on Salina (and/or Desh)'s orders, though it hasn't stopped a Calamity yet.
• Za Baan, which we didn't even know had anything to do with them until this patch, because sure, why not? Azys Lla came from here, not Meracydia.
• The House of the Crooked Coin, that other giant Allagan power source that basically nobody knew about until now, because sure, why not? Used to power the launch of both Azys Lla and Dalamud, and possibly the real cause of The Burn.

And the bonus round:

• Boulder Downs, an Allagan Ruin unearthed in the calamity that isn't a part of Dalamud, but hasn't really been brought up by anyone (besides Yoshida), in spite of being right there, with a (badly) sealed entrance and everything, since 2.0.

In a vacuum, free from meta concerns about "required" versus "side" content, something has to tie it all together.

And we still don't know what happened to Nero's modded scanner. It could have been what led him to Omega, which would have been a feeble but valid payoff for Unei's last moments, but it's very specifically discarded before Nero makes his way to Omega and reactivates it. It found something very close to the Tower, and it's just been sitting there beeping for ages. Actually, it's probably out of batteries by now.

No need to remind me that none of it means anything, and none of it is going anywhere. I mean, of course not. But come on.

[Iscah]

To be fair, while he may not exactly be fond of the work, we have to assume Solus has done the mundane business of rulership before and is capable of doing so again. He founded, and to the best of our knowledge, ruled the Garlean Empire for over fifty years.

Solus has previous experience running the empire, but he can't be the face of it again. That has to be Varis's role - the recognised, living emperor - or 'Zenos' if the Ascians decide Varis has outlived his usefulness. (As much as anything, maybe that's why they haven't just killed him and replaced him - they'd rather leave the mundane work to him while they... I don't know, sit around scheming and looking dramatic.)

Allagans, though:

More Allagan ruins, more Allagan descendants (Sadu, in case you missed her copying from the Royal Allagan Spellbook)

[...]

And the bonus round:

• Boulder Downs, an Allagan Ruin unearthed in the calamity that isn't a part of Dalamud, but hasn't really been brought up by anyone (besides Yoshida), in spite of being right there, with a (badly) sealed entrance and everything, since 2.0.

What Royal Allagan Spellbook?

Although I saw a theory somewhere that the original Garuda might have been an Au Ra, and if they were indeed involved with the original Ixal who are confirmed to be Allagan creations.... hmm.


Also if I remember correctly, the Boulder Downs ruins were being used by the heretics as part of the same tunnel network as Snowcloak?

(Anyway, yet another reason for the eventual Back To Ishgard story arc. Right, Square Enix? Right??? please?

so I was wondering considering what happened

if someone completes 4.4 MSQ without ever unlocking coil or EX primals in ARR....... is he locked out of them until 4.5?

This got brought up in another thread the other day.

Urianger is now absent from the Waking Sands UNLESS you still have quests to collect from him.

But that reminds me of something else I noticed and wondered about - one of the Omega cutscenes shows...

characters from the Crystal Tower and Alexander raids. I wonder what happens if you haven't cleared those?

[Fenral]

What Royal Allagan Spellbook?

I didn't mean it literally,

just that Sadu uses multiple spells first seen used by either Scylla (the donut staves) or Xande (the meteor countdown). Probably just meant as a shorthand way of showing that at least some Allagan magic has survived on the outside since then. Which makes sense, given the connection between Nhaama and a certain Allagan artifact.

[Remedi]

This got brought up in another thread the other day.

Urianger is now absent from the Waking Sands UNLESS you still have quests to collect from him.

Thank you, I imagined something like that, but it's good to have a confirmation anyway

It also means that they have a technology that makes them free of killing ppl around with minimal problems