Ascian Motivations [Spoilers]

[Anonymoose]

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.

A lot of people seem to be going in this direction and want this to be true - to a degree that some of them claim it's the only obvious answer and should be preemptively considered fact. I definitely see it as one possibility, but I see others, and no way we can possibly tell. It's an event without precedent. Though if it was true, I'd have so many extra follow-up questions:

We saw all 14 Overlords in the same place at the same time, both before Solus was confirmed dead (he died this in-game year, five years from the Calamity) and while Solus was "resting." So if he's an overlord, that's strange behavior. And if he's not, who is he? Some up-jumped black-mask? We've never seen a sub-overlord come to our world from another, and we've never seen a sup-black-mask that can leave our corporeal world. And black-masks are ex-mortals, so why is it more likely or more cool that some other ex-mortal transcended and possessed the mortal Solus than that mortal Solus himself transcended? So many questions.

Just because of that, I'm hesitating from moving beyond, "What if it's just the Sahagin elder thing again? A Source-born mortal who got tangled up with the Ascians, transcended the flesh, and is being considered for taking up Lahabrea's fallen post?" Nabriales drew the line between Transmigrationist (often translated as "Reincarnated", but I'm using the less specific version of it) and Original as being "not from this world, or from this world", and Elidibus would want someone local for Lahabrea's station, no?

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.

I saw this same oddity on FFWiki today. Most of this is correct; Varis found out about the Empire's connections to Ascians much more recently than his rise to the throne. In 4.0, when Elidibus first comes to him as Zenos, he's not really clear on the difference between Elidibus and his black-robed brethren and is mulling over whatever this "Rejoining" thing is. He goes along with what Elidibus says, step by step, but often expresses concerns, which Elidibus allays with "Don't you want to save the star?" every time.

But how do we get from there to "Varis wanted the peace treaty with Doma"? The entire Doman peace plan was a farce orchestrated by Elidibus. Asahi shows up claiming that Varis personally promoted him to ambassador and sent him to Doma to treat for peace, knowing full well that this was a lie and believing he was following Zenos's orders. Why would anything else Asahi said be true? Elidibus was trying to use a loyal puppet to make it look like the Populares were given a chance to do things there way and got rekt by a primal summoned by treacherous savages. It was a carefully calculated move to fan the flames of war in a larger plot in which Elidibus promised Varis Garlemald would be able to conquer the world, and the only thing Varis had to say about it was, "I said no eikons." to which Elidibus replied "Don't you want to save the star?" and he shut his mouth. Kind of a big assumption to make, no? I see it as a moment of weakness before he found some measure of resolve in 4.4. Though perhaps he did secretly want the Ascians to botch it, but the idea that Elidibus backstabbed a legitimate peace offer feels like a big stretch.

[CaesarCV]

I definitely can't be sure on any of this. Especially for Solus, we have perilously little information. The previous patch included that huge revelation mostly as a twist, and the ramifications of it have not honestly been fully felt or considered yet. Given that Solus vos Galvus was featured in the keynote as one of the prime villains of Shadowbringers, I imagine that we'll have our answers then. I agree with your follow up questions, but there are a few points I'd like to touch on anyway. Glad to be having this discussion by the way!

First off, I'm basing the idea that he's an 'external Ascian much more off of non-diagetic grounds than purely diagetic ones. The idea that Solus vos Galvus is an Ascian kind of really shakes things up. Rather than being a purely human created Empire, the whole foundation of the Empire is as an Ascian tool. Thus, it's kind of more logical to say "he was not at all what you thought he was" (Ascian the whole time) rather than "oh, he was mostly what you thought he was, but working with the bad guys" (Originally human Solus). It fits the needs and purpose of the story a bit better. It's also a bit cleaner since we don't have to worry about when he got possessed as much. That being said, I could totally be wrong. This is all speculation until we get the inevitable dramatic cutscene (or blurb in the Encyclopedia Eorzea III) that actually explains this.

We saw all 14 Overlords in the same place at the same time, both before Solus was confirmed dead (he died this in-game year, five years from the Calamity) and while Solus was "resting."

Honestly I wouldn't put too much stock in these sorts of things. Those sorts of cutscenes are generally meant more for drama and looking cool than complete accuracy. He could totally be one of the people behind the masks in that cutscene, or they might not have really thought to much about it. I wish I could say that Square Enix was perfect about these things (and they generally do a great job!) but they ain't perfect. I mean we had Hraesvelgr attacking Ishgard at one point. Messing up the number of Ascians seems pretty likely. I'd honestly just discard that as evidence for the moment.

I saw this same oddity on FFWiki today. Most of this is correct; Varis found out about the Empire's connections to Ascians much more recently than his rise to the throne.

Eep. I'm surprised they would put that in there. That was more or less just personal speculation. Where and what Varis's plans are is kind of a big question that has to be answered in the future. I agree with your logic more or less. It could be either way. No matter the truth on that particular matter, I'm fairly certain that Varis will remain a 'bad guy'. He might believe in the mission even though it's a lie. We have two Garlean figures who have had their faith in the Empire shaken. One of them, Gaius, has been presented as somewhat noble, but ruthless and misguided. The other, Varis, has been shown as rather cruel and cold. Having both of these characters develop in opposite directions related to it (especially when one is currently an ally and the other an enemy) is just too logical in a narrative sense to really ignore. But who really knows at this point? Either way it's kind of fun that Varis went from a boring bad guy to someone a lot more intriguing ha ha.