Ascian Motivations [Spoilers]

[CaesarCV]

Been off the forum for a while, so sorry if I'm bringing up overdone topics or beating any dead horses.

Hmm...

Funny that right after Elidibus talks to us about how we need to know more about the Echo we get a good chance to figure out how Ascian immortality works. Just saying.

Solus is an interesting oddity. Occam's Razor would suggest that he's just been listening to Ascians since he was a legionnaire and everything's been going great; he raised an empire, he transcended mortality, they're going to fix the world or whatever. "Obviously, just do whatever Elidibus advocates, it worked when I answered to Lahabrea, even in spite of his idiocy, so it'll work now."

(Of course, there's always the possibility that Emperor Solus zos Galvus is an entirely fabricated identity created by some hitherto unknown Ascian who just possessed a guy for a while, but that's a whole other layer of assumptions required to make it work, which opens the door to a whole other layer of questions in need of answers, so let's burn that bridge when we get to it.)

Honestly, with the way that Solus was speaking, I tend to assume that he's more or less an Ascian that took over a random legionnaire and grew into the Emperor. I imagine that there was a Solus Vos Galvus at some point, but he was nothing but a minor Garlean Patrician before being possessed by the Ascian that we know. After all, he did dramatically talk about how Solus Vos Galvus 'was an Ascian' and all of his crusades was 'nothing but a lie.' If Solus basically did everything he said he did but had a little help, it's really not much of a lie now is it? Not to mention that he claimed he was recently 'allowed to retire' and then got brought back. Which kind of lines up with the fact that the Emperor Solus died recently. He was ready to just sort of relax and probably hang out in whatever interdimensional space the Ascians like to live it up in, drinking shadow mimosas and pondering the nature of Zodiark. After all, his work was done. He made the perfect tool to cause calamities, to the point that they'll do it even without him trying! But then those stupid Populares were going to ruin everything, and Lahabrea had to die like an idiot, and the Scions had to kill Nabriales, there's a possible flood of light about to destroy the world, and now he has to deal with all of this junk again.

The last we saw of him in 4.4, he wanted to kill the WoL. And he wanted Varis' permission to do it. Elidibus has also been relatively hands-off in how he manipulates situations. Until now anyway. As you say, he's in a powerful body and and an instantly recognizable one at that. It seems like he's done working in the shadows and is now working in broad daylight.

I'll be very interested to learn why he changed up his MO so drastically.

There's a few things to think about here. One of them is considering who he is talking to and why. Basically, in that conversation he is complaining that Varis is not doing what he should be doing. Varis is kept around since it makes running the Empire simpler, and in return he's supposed to keep doing what the Empire was formed to do. As in, go to war a lot, take actions that could cause Calamities. But Varis knows about that now, and he's rather cross about it. So he's been holding things like going to re-conquer Ala Migho off, and it's even possible he legitimately wanted to let the whole Doma Peace thing go well just to spite them. Elidibus kind of broke that plan down through manipulating Asahi, which was easy to do since he had access to Zenos's body. During the conversation in the throne room, Elidibus is basically reminding Varis to do his job. As for asking permission, even if Varis is a puppet behind the scenes, he is still the visible leader of Garlemald. If 'Zenos' goes on the warpath on his own, without Varis's order, it'll cause confusion in the ranks and a bunch of weird optics. Sure they could possess Varis if it really came down to it, but that's a pain and it's implied the Ascians are kind of low on members at the moment with so many dying in this short span of time.

Also, since it's implied from the trailer, the whole 'warrior of darkness' thing, and the mysterious voice that the player's many victories are about to cause a Flood of Light and maybe doom a plane (ours?), it's possible that Elidibus's hand is somewhat forced, and he's got the right tools to finally deal with that stupid chosen hero.