The State of the Ascians (Assume Spoilers as of TODAY)

[CyrilLucifer]

I absolutely agree, the timeline for Emmerololth is shaky at best.

Let's look at 2.X:

2.1 Elidibus confirms to the Scions that Ascians are immortal. Minfilia might have sent that information to contacts in Sharlayan and the Isle of Val.

2.2 The Isle of Val disappears and is sealed due to what we know of Eureka. This means that Emmerololth would have been killed around this time.

2.3 We start talking theories about Ascian metaphysics and how we might stop them. They're all theories at the time and we're unsure how to act on them.

2.3 Emmerololth appears, clearly neither dead nor sealed, having knowledge of the current events on Eorzea.

2.4 We again start theorizing, this time about unmaking Ascians. 2 full patches after Galuf is sealed in Eureka - he would not have access to this knowledge.

2.5 Nabriales is unmade, confirming the 2.4 theories.

2.55 Elidibus and Lahabrea -are shocked- that Ascians can be unmade, as this hasn't happened before. . .
3 full patches after Emmerololth was supposedly unmade in Eureka.

My guess is that Galuf was mistaken and that Emmerololth was not unmade, just banished. Unreliable narrator, perhaps.
I don't want to think they would make that big of oopsie regarding such an important topic.


On an unrelated note, Emmerololth being called "him" is a tad confusing because the Scion of Light titles are canon in the XIV universe. The Japanese lore book has them in the profiles and the English lore book mentions Mitron's title. And Emmerololth was the Holy Queen. It might not have been Emmerololth in the first place? A lesser, perhaps?

[Anonymoose]

2.3 Emmerololth appears, clearly neither dead nor sealed, having knowledge of the current events on Eorzea.

Here I was already trying to work out how the Emet-selch thing works. Well, maybe he didn't show up to the meetings because Lahabrea had Source representation covered. Maybe he was too busy pretending to be a bedridden emperor (2.0 - 2.2) or taking a post-victory nap (2.2 ~ 4.0). Maybe the writers just really wanted a Source overlord and bringing Lahabrea back from the dead was worse than a re-frame of the Ascian power structure in every conceivable way.

That kinda seems like small popotoes comparatively. And it's not as easy as swapping in a different name. How would 2.2 (to 2.4, even) Galuf even know the principles behind the act? The speculation about the nature of Ascian immortality was primarily explored in 2.3 and 2.4 as a prelude to Nabriales and the death of Moenbryda, who had yet to even arrive. And that was prompted mostly by the Sahagin elder in 2.2. Moving the timeline to draw out the battle between the Baldesions and Emmeroloth is likewise difficult due to the specificity surrounding the use of the spell.

On an unrelated note, Emmerololth being called "him" is a tad confusing because the Scion of Light titles are canon in the XIV universe. The Japanese lore book has them in the profiles and the English lore book mentions Mitron's title. And Emmerololth was the Holy Queen. It might not have been Emmerololth in the first place? A lesser, perhaps?

The very first thing I'd want to see is the actual kanji. It it always, specifically queen? If that's not true, the rest falls apart. I'm also trying to remember if there were any gender mismatches. Igeyorhm and Altima were the only females Scions I remember and Shemhazai and Ultma match. Famfrit's male, right?

EDIT: Looks like Emmeroloth's title is 聖王妃, and 妃 is universally female, as far as I know. Which does seem a tad at odds with:



Or perhaps that's part of the error. All of the Ascians in that scene are copy-pasted black-masks because the true red-masked models hadn't been made yet.

Look at how the overlords don't even have their shoulderpads.

Maybe Emmeroloth was assumed to be male, got the wrong model, and it snowballed?

I'd say let's just not think too hard about it, but speaking for the wider community, good luck with that in the long run.

Anyroad, I'm not sure that the transmigration set can even raise underlings on the Source. Of course, Lahabrea does still have a few of his in the wind. I wonder if Emet-selch has any; we never met any, as far as I know.

[CyrilLucifer]

That kinda seems like small popotoes comparatively. And it's not as easy as swapping in a different name. How would 2.2 (to 2.4, even) Galuf even know the principles behind the act? The speculation about the nature of Ascian immortality was primarily explored in 2.3 and 2.4 as a prelude to Nabriales and the death of Moenbryda, who had yet to even arrive. And that was prompted mostly by the Sahagin elder in 2.2. Moving the timeline to draw out the battle between the Baldesions and Emmeroloth is likewise difficult due to the specificity surrounding the use of the spell.

Yes! Exactly that; this is exactly the biggest issue, IMO. You can't just swap the name out to another Overlord and fix things. We spend 2.X doing groundbreaking research on Ascian metaphysics and only in 2.5 do we actually act on a very shaky theory that we aren't sure has any chance of success. We don't even come up with this theory until 2.4, which is well after Galuf would have lost all contact with the outside world.

The very first thing I'd want to see is the actual kanji. It it always, specifically queen? If that's not true, the rest falls apart. I'm also trying to remember if there were any gender mismatches. Igeyorhm and Altima were the only females Scions I remember and Shemhazai and Ultma match. Famfrit's male, right?

Emmerololth's kanji is "聖王妃エメロロアルス"~ read "せいおうひ". "聖" for Saint, "王妃" is "consort", "Princess", "Queen" (thanks to a Japanese friend of mine for helping me get this information)

Famfrit was "The Darkening Cloud," aka the Scion of Darkness representing Cloud of Darkness. CoD is genderless but I believe has always been physically depicted as female.

Edit: nm, you found it!

[Harmonea]

Maybe Emmeroloth was assumed to be male, got the wrong model, and it snowballed?

Even Igeyorhm used a male model in that 2.3 CS despite having previously appeared in the 2.0 epilogue with a midlander female face. She also later appeared with a male model repeatedly in 3.0, presumably because they hadn't created Ascian female battle animations (under the hood, both Lahabrea and Igeyorhm in ARF use a bit of code from Nabriales' battle).

I'm sure I don't need to tell you any of this, Moose, but it's good to have it here for those stumbling through the discussion We can't really look to the 2.3 CS for clues on gender, but despite that, they've always taken care with the text.... Until now :s

Unrelated:

Maybe he was too busy pretending to be a bedridden emperor (2.0 - 2.2) or taking a post-victory nap (2.2 ~ 4.0).

Solus "died" one year after the Calamity, no? So, well before 2.0?

[ObsidianFire]

Solus "died" one year after the Calamity, no? So, well before 2.0?

As far as we know he was alive (if close to dying) in 2.0. It would explain the orders and support Gaius got in building the Eorzean Castra. He didn't go rouge until right before 2.0 As in, when tensions in the Garlean Empire were at their maximum and no one was paying that much attention to a Legion so far from the Garlean Empire. The Garlean Civil War didn't fully break out until Solus died after all. It would be rather weird for Gaius to get the support from Garleamld to build the Castra if Garlemald was at war with itself. I also have a hard time seeing a country like Garlemald in a four year long civil war; their style of fighting is all about winning quickly.

This would also line up with when the Doman Rebelion failed. Until Solus died, the rebellion wasn't active. They only made a push for Doman independence once Solus had died and the Civil War had broken out. Once the Civil War ended, Zenos would have gone to crush the Doman Rebelion and Yugiri would have escape with a lot of the Doman's to Eorzea. The Doman's don't arrive in Eorzea until 2.2.

It's also about this time that the Eorzean Alliance learns of who won the Civil War. In general through, the Eorzeans have a very incomplete grasp on Garlean politics at this time.

[Anonymoose]

Famfrit was "The Darkening Cloud," aka the Scion of Darkness representing Cloud of Darkness. CoD is genderless but I believe has always been physically depicted as female.

This is an interesting point. Famfrit may appear masculine and be called "he" in FFXII, but his "traditional" counterpart in COD has often been femnine. I'm not sure how much it matters, but it's still neat.

I'm with you both on not taking the 2.3 scene too literally without giving an opportunity for Oda-san et al. to flesh out, shore up, and double-check so that everything's where they would want it, assuming it isn't already an we're just missing something.

Solus "died" one year after the Calamity, no? So, well before 2.0?

Now that you mention it, I do recall that there was a loose citation somewhere that messed up his timeline - I just can't remember where this broken one WAS. Let me look around. Most signs point to a relatively recent death; we first hear about it in 2.2 from the Domans who are fleeing their failed rebellion and throughout Stormblood they refer to the emperor dying 25 years after the fall of Doma (this year, despite saying the rebellion was a year ago sometimes in 4.0). There's also that the Emperor was 88 when he died, and 88 years from this in-game year is 1489, his birthday in the lorebook timeline.

There's also the precarious situation with the Populares / Optimates. Signs point to the emperor being incapacitated shortly after the Calamity, but bedridden and unable to name a successor from then until now, setting up the tension that exploded into the war of succession upon his actual death in ARR.

This also sets the stage for Gaius's going rogue; he knew the death of the Emperor was coming soon and, once he died, no matter who won the political scuffles that would sure follow, Gaius would get nothing from it. It was a no-win scenario for him to obey Varis.

EDIT: Rocl found it.

His reign would continue for more than 50 years until his death in the first year of the Seventh Umbral Era.

We theorize that someone said Umbral instead of Astral, in light of all the other dates pointing to him officially dying this year.