About the Emperor [Major Spoilers for 4.4]

[Anonymoose]

Sub what now? I think I may need a post from you detailing the different kinds of retcons.

Luckily, there's a whole Wikipedia article! Though, again, most people just skip right over learning what the concept is and assume "retcon" always means "we're ignoring past information to add new information that directly contradicts old information" (subtraction retcon). In that light, FFXIV would rely heavily on "reframing" (addition retcon) or "new revelations" (alteration retcon).

Let's face it, the only way you're going to get through a 10+ year game is to have some wiggle room, and if you hate subtraction retcons (and the dev. team do), your only option is to rely on being vague where you can get away with it (so you can re-frame for new possibilities) and having information vectors that make mistakes (Dumb NPCs). Can't write all 10+ years ahead of time.

Any writing that's done recently that changes writing done previously, after the fact, in a way that wasn't intended at the time is continiuity ... retroactively. Even if it doesn't have any contradictions, but merely explains or adds new significance that wasn't intended from the beginning, it's still technically a retcon.

It's just that we tend to see only one subtype of it as plot poison. But if we're going to debate, we might as well be using the same operational definitions, yes? lol

I wonder if it is to believed that Varis only recently learned that his grandfather has been an Ascian for awhile and that his whole country for some time has just been one huge puppe

That's how I took it. In the 4.0 stinger he's acting like Rejoining is an entirely new concept to him and he doesn't know whether to trust it. In 4.4, Solus is saying You believe in our ideals, right? Not much time bridging those two concepts.

[Balipu]

Snip

This body double is an interesting idea. It could solve the aging, the dying, the sex. Everything. And by the way it wouldn't sound stupid for an Emperor to have body doubles anyway. But I'm pretty sure a proper Ascian could play Gaius like a violin. I mean Lahabrea could do it and everyone from Nabriales to Solus himself talk about Lahabrea as if he was the biggest moron out of all the Ascians.

[Guiballad]

If we take what we think we know about Ascians as definitive canon then we have two possibilities for what Solus is: The son of one of the most prestigious houses in the garlean republic that either got replaced/possessed by an Ascian at some point in his life to be used as a pawn OR that ended up "ascending" to the existence as a Ascian.

I think based on his dialogue we should take the first explanation as more likely as he sounds as if he's an actor playing a part (which makes for a nice reference to Emperor Solus being a patron of the arts as we learn in the Ivalice raid). Yet i doubt Solus would be the name of an actual Ascian and if we follow the actor metaphor he would have very little reason outside of player exposition to come back using the same name of a dead character. So at this point i believe either theory floats and it's down to preference.

However i think we can safely say the transformation from mortal man Solus, be it from ascencion or possession, into an Ascian happened fairly early in his life probably around the time he started rising in the military chain of command. I'd say the latest this could've happened was when he became a legatus as that is when he became involved with the whole magitek thing. Planning a whole empire out of whole cloth and rallying the support of the masses would take a fair share of time.

[LineageRazor]

Interesting seeing the various theories on just what it means for Solus to be an Ascian! I don't think there's enough presented information to completely discount any of the theories, but here's the one that I'm going with until it is explicitly shown, in-game, to be incorrect:

Solus was born a normal Garlean human being. At some point in his life, most likely before he became Emperor, an Ascian took him as a host, just as Lahabrea did with Thancred. Ascian!Solus proceeded to lead Garlemand in its conquest, ostensibly to combat the "primal menace" but really just to stir the pot and get a Calamity rolling. As his body was human, he lived, aged, and died, just as a normal human does. If he had special Ascian powers (and he probably did), he rarely or never used them, and it's unlikely that they could be passed to offspring even if he had them. After death, he vacated the body (as Ascians do after their host body dies) and went to "sleep" in some fashion, possibly a reward for a job well done, given how resentful he seemed at being woken from it.

As far as I can tell, this explanation is simple, and doesn't contradict any facts presented in the game OR the Lorebook. As far as any outside observer could tell, Solus was just a talented and ambitious Garlean aristocrat.

*ALC Spoilers*

Actually, if I recall correctly, it is explicitly stated in the ALC storyline that Sevarian was utilizing preservatives while he did his research. Additionally, the Stormblood ALC quests involved corpses that were free of decay, and this was treated as unnatural.

So, I think it's safe to say that dead bodies in-game do NORMALLY degrade just like real-life bodies do. In the case of Ascian possession, however, I wouldn't be surprised if Ascians are very skilled at restoring bodies when they take them over. How far gone a body can be and still be viable as a vessel is not clear, but I'm guessing an Ascian can, at the very least, patch one up that's just a bit bloated and worm-eaten.

[Balipu]

Well the artist formerly known as Solus zos Galvus, or however we should name him, said he created the Empire to cause chaos. So unless he is just lying to mess with Varis, and by proxy the players, we can assume that he was already an Ascian when the Empire was established.

[Cilia]

Interesting seeing the various theories on just what it means for Solus to be an Ascian! I don't think there's enough presented information to completely discount any of the theories, but here's the one that I'm going with until it is explicitly shown, in-game, to be incorrect:

...

As far as I can tell, this explanation is simple, and doesn't contradict any facts presented in the game OR the Lorebook. As far as any outside observer could tell, Solus was just a talented and ambitious Garlean aristocrat.

That was my take on it as well; I guess I must have been a bit unclear?

It does leave some questions that the answers to can only be speculated on, though in my opinion those questions aren't particularly pertinent. We know that Solus (?) was an Ascian who created the Garlean Empire solely to create conflict (and ultimately cause Calamities) on Hydaelyn while also maintaining the balance between Light and Dark; if he's an ascended mortal, why he's choosing to continue to identify as "Solus zos Galvus" (if he's one of the overlords), what body he's using now, etc... none of those feel particularly important to me, though the knowledge would be welcome.

[LineageRazor]

That was my take on it as well; I guess I must have been a bit unclear?

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that my chosen theory contradicted all of the other currently stated theories - just that it's the one I've accepted as most likely, for now. The fact that it happens to match your theory just means we're of a like mind.

As for identifying as Solus, keep in mind that the ENTIRETY of what we've seen of him so far has been one scene in which he spent the entire thing conversing with Varis, who only knows him as Solus. He probably didn't see much benefit in saying, "Oh, and call me X now - it's my TRUE ASCIAN NAME of EVIL. BWAHAHAHAHA!!!" He's likely fine with Varis continuing to address him as Solus, whether or not it's his true name.

[Cilia]

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that my chosen theory contradicted all of the other currently stated theories - just that it's the one I've accepted as most likely, for now. The fact that it happens to match your theory just means we're of a like mind.

As for identifying as Solus, keep in mind that the ENTIRETY of what we've seen of him so far has been one scene in which he spent the entire thing conversing with Varis, who only knows him as Solus. He probably didn't see much benefit in saying, "Oh, and call me X now - it's my TRUE ASCIAN NAME of EVIL. BWAHAHAHAHA!!!" He's likely fine with Varis continuing to address him as Solus, whether or not it's his true name.

No, I'm not saying you contradicted my theory; on the contrary, I had that idea from the beginning, and a lot of people seemed to feel I was unclear on that point. The problem is that it leaves a lot of questions unanswered, but that's the one idea I have that doesn't contradict any information presently available.

I agree that he's still using the "Solus" name because it's what people in his role as "Solus" knew him as, and it's easier if they just call him that. Could also be for emotional torment; Varis is clearly unhappy knowing that the country he loves is motivated by little more than a bunch of meaningless lies told to them by an immortal phantasm hellbent on causing chaos and mass destruction, especially when Varis' main goal is to bring order to the world to prevent it from destroying itself - and to top it all off, that immortal phantasm is his own grandfather. There can't be many worse gut punches.

The first Emperor was an Ascian who set the Empire up to cause conflict, not resolve it, and set that Empire on its course by giving them a power high through magitek and selling them a bunch of meaningless lies. Further details seem... unimportant to me.

[Remedi]

Luckily, there's a whole Wikipedia article! Though, again, most people just skip right over learning what the concept is and assume "retcon" always means "we're ignoring past information to add new information that directly contradicts old information" (subtraction retcon). In that light, FFXIV would rely heavily on "reframing" (addition retcon) or "new revelations" (alteration retcon).

Let's face it, the only way you're going to get through a 10+ year game is to have some wiggle room, and if you hate subtraction retcons (and the dev. team do), your only option is to rely on being vague where you can get away with it (so you can re-frame for new possibilities) and having information vectors that make mistakes (Dumb NPCs). Can't write all 10+ years ahead of time.

Any writing that's done recently that changes writing done previously, after the fact, in a way that wasn't intended at the time is continiuity ... retroactively. Even if it doesn't have any contradictions, but merely explains or adds new significance that wasn't intended from the beginning, it's still technically a retcon.

It's just that we tend to see only one subtype of it as plot poison. But if we're going to debate, we might as well be using the same operational definitions, yes? lol

Well tbh I think that this news of Solus is an acceptable retcon since tbf, we don't know yet the full extents of an ascian existance nor what was said of Solus was completely set in stone and him being an ascian might even not invalidate that either.

And tbf, I'm happy that we are actually going to meet Solus, I wasn't to keen of him being offscreene'd

[Bright-Flower]

Retcons only bother me when they make past events make less sense or they make things less interesting, which is subjective.

On one hand, ascians founding the Empire makes sense logically because while the Empire claims to have noble intentions the way they go about things plays into the goals of the Ascians so it makes sense to me that the Ascians have been pulling the strings.

The issue I have is that I find a well meaning but misguided empire more interesting than one that's secretly a puppet for the architects of calamities behind the scenes. And I fear that even if Varis somehow takes control, he'll be doing it with our help and not as an antagonist.