Revelations from Keynote II

[Lauront]

They were a little coy on the topic of Titania's nature.

That aside, I wonder if the pixie zone will be set on the First. I'm leaning towards "no", because I think any such content mostly be dealt with via instanced content, however it's certainly the most ethereal and "otherwordly" zone so far. Which of course means nothing, per se. The architecture is reminiscent of Gridania, so they may tie it into that region's lore, maybe linking it to some cultural cross-pollination of some sort.

Now, since Dalmasca has been heavily hinted at in Orbonne, I think at least a few (1-2) zones will be there, and the Rak'tika Greatwood near it. If they stick with the pattern of 6 zones per expansion, and it's not on the First, I'm guessing at a zone in the southern provinces of Ilsabard. I wouldn't rule out Sharlayan yet, but I've a feeling they may reserve it and even the rest of Ilsabard (and maybe the moon if it plays no role for now) for 6.0, particularly as there's some hints at possible Ascian influence there - it'd be an obvious point of interest to them due to its heavy magic prowess and as the origin of most Scions. Fits in with the timing for the wrap up of the Zodiark/Hydaelyn arc.

Regarding G'raha, he makes the most sense to me for that character. I had thought Fordola, due to the tattoos and facial structure, but the body is too clearly male and the face is basically the same as he's got, plus the "tattoos" differ. The real questions will be who's in him (assuming there is but the robes suggest it is likely - the unusual colouration could be hinting at Elidibus), what caused the corruption and what role is he playing. We'll probably need to wait till 4.57 to get a better indicator.

[DarthSanguine]

So I kinda maybe, sorta, prior to Lore Book 2, had started coming up with a back story involving YoRHa in XIV that would have involved the First Astral Era civilization. Then I finally got to read it and realized the interpretation I had of the First Astral Era being about as technological as Allagans were ended up being wrong (I'm not even quite sure how I got the notion.)

So Allagans it has to be if it isn't more recent, so long as XIV YoRHa were made on Hydaelyn.

Shouldn't that be lore book 1? Since book 2 didn't have anything on past eras (at least not that far back).

[Guiballad]

Titania does kinda looks like the twins don't they?
If we are going to the future then maybe Titania is how an idealized version of one of them looks like.

But with all the sheer weirdness we are seeing in the previews alone i think we might be in for a "reality break" scenario rather than a time travel plot. The reason they still haven't given us a map is because each zone is in one of the shards. That would certainly explain a Nier raid (which just made me 300% more hyped for the expansion).

[Lauront]

Titania does kinda looks like the twins don't they?
If we are going to the future then maybe Titania is how an idealized version of one of them looks like.

But with all the sheer weirdness we are seeing in the previews alone i think we might be in for a "reality break" scenario rather than a time travel plot. The reason they still haven't given us a map is because each zone is in one of the shards. That would certainly explain a Nier raid (which just made me 300% more hyped for the expansion).

Could be where they're going with it. Not a bad suggestion, actually. They'll devote one or two to Dalmasca, plus we're getting the Rak'tika Greatwood, but for the rest (they may not even stop at 6), if they want to reserve Ilsabard for 6.0, they could certainly do that, and bring in some realm-hopping. It'd tie in with some of the fortunes from the current seasonal event.

I'd be more partial to Shard hopping than time travel, even with an awareness of the hints towards such a story arc... if they limited any time travel to one character coming back from the future, I'd be ok with it. It's one of those things that's best left on the shelf unless it really enhances the story narrative in some way.

[Guiballad]

Could be where they're going with it. Not a bad suggestion, actually. They'll devote one or two to Dalmasca, plus we're getting the Rak'tika Greatwood, but for the rest (they may not even stop at 6), if they want to reserve Ilsabard for 6.0, they could certainly do that, and bring in some realm-hopping. It'd tie in with some of the fortunes from the current seasonal event.

I'd be more partial to Shard hopping than time travel, even with an awareness of the hints towards such a story arc... if they limited any time travel to one character coming back from the future, I'd be ok with it. It's one of those things that's best left on the shelf unless it really enhances the story narrative in some way.

The team did a really good job on the Alexander storyline so i think they could handle a time travel plot quite nicely if they set some REALLY hard rules for it. But honestly i feel like time travel is always tricky to include in any story and can lead to some really frustrating plot holes or bad conclusions.
Breaking some in-universe rules to allow us to shard hop, even in a limited fashion, would give the team a lot of liberty to do some cool stuff without threatening much of the game's internal consistency.

[Dualblade]

Shouldn't that be lore book 1? Since book 2 didn't have anything on past eras (at least not that far back).

The first lore book has more direct info, but doesn't actually say much about the technological level they would have been at by the end of the First Astral Era into the Second Umbral, just that the Second Umbral/Astral didn't advance that much as they believed many of the advances made during the First Astral helped lead to their undoing.

The Second book doesn't really have much yes, but one little line at the start of the weapons section is what got me. "The image of a cyclop's cudgel may provide a glimpse at the type of simple weaponry prevalent during the First Astral Era."

On time travel: SE in general has been mostly good when it comes to the Stable Time Loop type of time travel. Any time travel for ShadowBringers seems like it wouldn't work as a loop though, and thats where things get messy unless we are never allowed to go back to the present.

[Kalise]

On the topic of time travel...

There's some potential for very messy ways to make it work.

Such as if we and G'raha Tia go back in time to visit another shard (Such as, say, the First) before it was engulfed by light in order to prevent said engulfing in light, thereby changing the future of the shard and thus our past (Since the Source wouldn't be affected by the First being engulfed, in addition to the WoD's we met no longer having a reason to visit us), then it would mean that we wouldn't have to then go back in time to do this thus creating an alternate timeline.

So there's one timeline where we fail to prevent the destruction of the First where we go back in time to fix it which we can travel between at will and one where we prevented the destruction of the First and thus don't have to time travel, which becomes the new canon timeline when the story progresses forwards.

Basically, allowing the retconning of events, but with a reasonable explanation that we are involved with. Potentially also allowing memories of the events to be kept for those involved, while others would be none the wiser (If those involved ended up taking their places in the "New" timeline)

With of course, the multiple timelines allowing us to freely move between the "Past" and the "Present" with ease, because we're really just shifting between the timelines.

Also, it would be funny to start causing a hassle for the WoD's we met while they're the WoL's and we're the invading WoD's see how they like it! xD

P.S. I spend too much time thinking about time travel...

[Lauront]

Time travel on another shard is how I could foresee it working, but I'd want them to introduce some plot element, if they were to go down that route, that made it prohibitively difficult to accomplish, so that it remains a "limited use" plot device. Still, we're missing many elements of the puzzle, which will most likely appear in 4.57. I can't wait for late March.

[Kalise]

Time travel on another shard is how I could foresee it working, but I'd want them to introduce some plot element, if they were to go down that route, that made it prohibitively difficult to accomplish, so that it remains a "limited use" plot device. Still, we're missing many elements of the puzzle, which will most likely appear in 4.57. I can't wait for late March.

Well, I imagine that it would take an extraordinarily high amount of Aether to accomplish such a feat.

Not to mention, limitations within who and how it can work.

For example, why the chosen few scions? Why are their souls gone from their bodies? The answer to those questions being a factor in why they wouldn't be able to just pull this plot device out whenever they felt like it.

[Cybylt]

I'm iffy on time travel as a plot element because mechanically going to these places can't function any differently than changing zones currently does. And say we jump ahead in time, why is Rebuild Ishgard a thing? Shouldn't they have dealt with that themselves by then? It also rubs time bubble issues right in your face constantly because it can't take away any content and they've been careful to limit the points where we do cross it.