YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse (Pre-5.1 Speculation)

[Iscah]

the shard of the derplander

On a technicality, the Warrior of Darkness should not be referred to as the Derplander (ie. the "generic WoL"). They look the same, but it's not actually the same character.

The Derplander (my goodness I hate using that term) is the guy that appears consistently in trailers and promotional art, essentially as a very high-def "insert your character here" sign. In story terms, he is the player character, regardless of what you made your character look like.

The Warrior of Darkness - or Arbert, to use his actual name - is not you, and he's not the generic WoL. He's a separate character, and if there was a 'trailer version' of our fight against the Warriors, you would see both of them there fighting each other. And yet it's only "coincidence" that they resemble each other, because Arbert is a fixed character design that doesn't change to mirror ours.

So essentially you're describing the Warriors' home shard as "the shard of the [WoL]", which of course is not correct!

Rightfully it is the First Shard, or simply "the First".

[Theodric]

I'm going to assume that it'll be a lot like Return to Ivalice and revolve around a number of references from multiple games rather than solely Nier: Automata. Return to Ivalice was mostly focused on Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy XII yet it also had a handful of references to Vagrant Story as well. I thoroughly enjoyed Nier: Automata and the questions it raised in regards to consciousness and morality. The sort of themes explored within that game would lend themselves very well to FFXIV and I don't doubt that the crossover will fit just as smoothly as Return to Ivalice did. It's a major selling point for Shadowbringers for me, at least - and most people I've spoken with are equally as enthusiastic.

[Ceasaria]

Would be nice to see it connected to one of the Era we didn't see yet in game.

[Bright-Flower]

I wonder... are there any calamities that we don't know much about still? Because if they work in the lore of both Nier games and not just Automata, they could potentially tie in something there.

[EdwinLi]

I wonder... are there any calamities that we don't know much about still? Because if they work in the lore of both Nier games and not just Automata, they could potentially tie in something there.

Maybe a era before this whole Calamity cycle began?

If there is one thing about anime theme plots I learned is that there is always something much much farther in history that have been completely forgotten to the point people do not even believe that "era" existed.

Heck what if the planet once never had Hydaelyn nor Zodiark and was just a normal planet that had a civilization the depended on technology alone but one day someone or something use a advanace technology that brought them here and thus created the FF14 world we know today.

If there is one quote from Guild Wars 2 that I always follow it is "History never lies but Historians do."

[SannaR]

I don't think we really know much about the eras where a Calamity happened due to too much tech, or too much religion. Like many of the eras before the Allagans seem to not have many surviving records. I mean for something to survive a huge fire, earthquake, ice age, windstorms and a flood would have to had crazy wards, buried deeply or have a lot of fail safes or floating in the sky.

[Bright-Flower]

Maybe a era before this whole Calamity cycle began?

If there is one thing about anime theme plots I learned is that there is always something much much farther in history that have been completely forgotten to the point people do not even believe that "era" existed.

Heck what if the planet once never had Hydaelyn nor Zodiark and was just a normal planet that had a civilization the depended on technology alone but one day someone or something use a advanace technology that brought them here and thus created the FF14 world we know today.

If there is one quote from Guild Wars 2 that I always follow it is "History never lies but Historians do."

Maybe, though I don't expect us to see anything from before the first astra/umbral eras.

But there were two apocalypses of sorts in Nier, one between Drakengard and Nier, and another between Nier and Automata, so I wouldn't be surprised if we saw those weaved into calamity stories somehow.

[Anonymoose]

With people talking about the possibility of other NieR and Drakengard things to be borrowed ... would anyone else love to see a Final Fantasy XIV incarnation of Angelus? I would not be a stretch at all for a dragon like her to exist here. Now I'm just drowning in hopeful possibilities. Pod minion? Pod mount? Moose mount!? All I know is that if there's not some way to get Grimoire Weiss / Noir as SCH / SMN weapons, I'll be (the wrong kind of) heartbroken.

Ooh, but what about the good kind of heartbroken? I think a new incarnation of Devola and Popola could rek me all over again.

(And how many people would wear Zero's face flower? We already have them bears.)

[Bright-Flower]

I never played Drakengard but I'd love some original Nier stuff, even if it was just the occasional character outfit as a gear set and boss fight tossed in.

I wonder if they would mix locations too? Like how the lighthouse also had the clockwork city, and the ancient ivalice city under Dalmasca. Like if we had a city ruins stage that descended into the weapon factory from Nier. Makes me wonder what the three raid dungeons will be.

[Claymore65]

As far as another possibility to explain the Tech level for YoRHa-style androids, there is another far off star with the technology to build incredibly powerful machines like Omega. They could hypothetically come from that star somehow. It'd be a bit of stretch, but I don't think there is going to be an easy explanation for this one.