Expansion takes place in the future, Il Mheg < Ala Mhigo

[ShinShimon]

By that logic you could say anything is any other thing. Ishgard's kind of like a snowy future Skalla, isn't it? They're both made of rocks. Maybe the Dawn Throne in the Azim Steppe is Amdapori because they both made a lot of dome-shaped things. It seems like a massive stretch.

The terrain of Il Mheg fits with Ala Mhigo. Positive evidence in favor of it being Ala Mhigo is the likely time travel storyline, Yoshida's cheekiness about telling us where we'll actually be going, and the very similar name.

[Nezerius]

Well, there is the "this place certainly has changed" line

The Shards (as in, the First Shard, and the other ones), are also known as the reflections of the Source.

It wouldn't be too farfetched to assume that those Shards share similarities with the Source, without being exactly the same. Thancred could be at one of those places, and noticing how "this place certainly has changed", since he remembers the way it looked like in the Source.

[Crystaline]

Because of the repeated references to time and "if history must be unwritten" in the trailer, I actually was thinking the opposite and am expecting Shadowbringers to travel back to the past.

Maybe we're even going to a past Ivalice and it might hold the key to fixing things, as the area seems to have been ravaged by the Garleans (or at least Rabanastre).

The next story patch will be... interesting and I have no idea how they're going to lead into Shadowbringers. Them not sharing a location is curious so this can only mean time travel or Ivalice, no?

[SmokeyTheSequel]

It would totally make sense. Mimicking ffxi's expansions. Sky, sea, far east, past... next there will be maws appearing through out the world and we will be traveling in time.

[Ceasaria]

"if history must be unwritten", what if, WoL and Scions return to the past to act on the calamities ?
Like maybe prevent them (but what impact on the future ?) or provok them because this is their destiny.

[whiskeybravo]

Thancred could be at one of those places, and noticing how "this place certainly has changed", since he remembers the way it looked like in the Source.

Would Minfilia be too young to tell him where he's at?

I'll be the first to admit I'm in over my head in regards to lore, and even what's actually happened/happening in this game lol. The Il Mheg / Ala Mhigo connection is pretty compelling though, and I suppose it could fit in to either the time travel or parallel world theme.

[Alexandre_Noireau]

Dimensional Travel doesn't imply time travel.
Rak'Tika and Il Mheg could really just be regions not only our, but all reflections. Maybe we will visit them, just not in ours.

Now, the phrases "history rewritten" and "this place certainly has changed" imply heavily on time traveling. Then the options are way to broad to even consider them.

Time Travel I: Back to the past - We travel BACK in time to prevent some event from happening. It could be traveling to a previous calamity or the very first of them, or we might just trigger one about 4.55 and we are just traveling back in time to fix that one alone.
Time Travel II: Forward to the future - This doesn't seem to make sense, if our starting location is our present. Maybe we are transported back DURING 4.55, making our progression in 5.0 finding a way BACK to 4.5.
Interdimensional-Time Travel III: A shard to the past/future - We jump reflections AND travel in time, maybe we gotta prevent "The First" to fall and help Minfilia there, maybe we gotta go there and do the exact opposite and fight against her and Arbert and maybe even Thancred switching sides which would be so interesting but that is merely me being fanfiction. Anyway, if this is the case then we literally have no clue. We could go to reflections of hydaelyn so massively distorted by the different probabilities of their world events... Just too broad.

Since we are factually in the Source world from which all world's get reflected. I think we will have to either face the rejoining or we will have to prevent it. Face it would mean to go and solve every reflection's problems trying to tip the Source towards balance and Prevent it would mean time traveling and rewriting history.

In my wildest dreams, we totally become ascians and travel to other Reflection to actually kill Hydaelyn before the balance tips too much.

[silentwindfr]

Now, the phrases "history rewritten" and "this place certainly has changed" imply heavily on time traveling. Then the options are way to broad to even consider them.

ok this two sentence don't means time travel, history rewritten is more about how the end of the first shard will happend....
the sentence "this place certainly has changed" it can happend after coming back to a certain place after a long time, we don't know when this event in the trailer will happend.

i will be clear, we can't be the warrior of darkness in the primal world.... because ascien act already as absolute darkness. then turn into the warrior of darkness in the primal world will serve no purpose.
the purpose to be the warrior of darkness is to fight the light and for this only one place is satured by light and need help from a warrior of darkness for change all.

the most important point about all of this story, is the fact that solus did told to the emperor that he will not be around for a time, when he can already teleport where he want.... means he is not anymore in the primal world.
finally and that the most important point of all.... if the ascien was able to time travel.... they will have done the fusion of the world a long time ago!

i'm quite nice and will add more detail that point in direction of dimension travel to the first shard:
1) the enemy shown in the teaser are all enemy light based
2) the sky in the battle between our character and the kuribu, the sky is covered by cloud, but the sky behind seems to be pure light.... like in the pixie area.
3) the only thing that can move throught dimension (from what we know) are soul... explaining why krill can't find the soul of the scion.

[KageTokage]

That's the problem with time travel is that it opens up a ton of "Why not just change *insert event*" scenarios unless they impose all kinds of weird restrictions on it.

As much as they keep saying history needs to be unwritten, they also keep mentioning that we should embrace fate and that it can't be changed, so I really have no idea how things are going to play out.

[LineageRazor]

The Shards (as in, the First Shard, and the other ones), are also known as the reflections of the Source.

It wouldn't be too farfetched to assume that those Shards share similarities with the Source, without being exactly the same. Thancred could be at one of those places, and noticing how "this place certainly has changed", since he remembers the way it looked like in the Source.

Well, do bear in mind the point of divergence. The Thirteen Shards were formed a long, LONG time ago - literally before recorded history, before even the First Catastrophe. That is a LOT of time during which history could diverge, even if they were perfect mirror images to begin with. Add to that, the Source has undergone seven world-reshaping catastrophes during that timespan - unless identical Catastrophes happened on EVERY shard, EXACTLY the same way and same time on each occasion, that's an incredible amount of chaos to throw into the mix.

By all rights, there should be no resemblance between shards, geopolitically.

That said, writers don't always take scale into account, ESPECIALLY when cool things can happen if they deliberately ignore it. Take, for example, the mirror universe in Star Trek. While it's theoretically feasible that the original Enterprise could have encountered a universe that just happened to have an Enterprise full of evil versions of themselves, it REEEEALY stretches things when you get to Deep Space Nine and find that somehow, the same people in the same universe managed to have the same babies that would lead to evil versions of the cast for THAT show, in spite of the political upheaval caused by the events of the first encounter. But that takes a back seat to the opportunity to show Evil Kira in all her glory.

So, Il Mheg COULD be a distorted reflection of Ala Mhigo, but if that turns out to be the case anyone thinking logically will be banging their head on their desk.