Il Mheg 1/2 of two mirrored zones?

[Iscah]

I should preface this by mentioning that I am not unshakeably tied to the idea of this being a time travel plot and not dimensional travel, but I simply don't see any overwhelming evidence in favour of one and against the other. There is an argument for both at this point.

That adds to and expands that point however, the scions souls traveled Krile was able to track them moving then vanished and if she would think to go to the location they traveled to they are likely to find a gateway circle to ?somewhere?.

So again
the Scions are not dead. Their souls have not returned to the live stream
Their souls are not in their body's
Their souls are not on the source.
based on the spell used to do this their souls have through a gateway.

That gateways other side isn't on the source as their souls aren't on the source that leaves the most likely option another shard still.

Just based on that information, both time travel and 'space travel' are still viable - either way it is disrupting the natural progression of being able to follow someone's trail through normal space at a normal progression of time.

Think of it as if we were following a physical trail of footprints. If that person got pulled across space, they would no longer be in that location and the trail would come to a sudden end.

If they got pulled across time, they are no longer in that location at that time and the trail comes to an equally sudden end.

We can't tell which event happened just by observing the trail of footprints - which is basically where we are at this point.


I'm also not sure (but would have to check the cutscene) that we know they are not on the Source - simply that the aetherial trail has gone cold, and that may mean we have no chance of finding them even if they were still here.

But if they aren't here, then being elsewhere in time may be every bit as untraceable as being elsewhere in physical space.

Yes everyone starts their story and its turning 5 years after the 7th calamity with them playing time passes for their character

[...] I hope your not widening the goal posts for "time travel" to time passed in a normal manor in one direction = time travel

Time has passed in game while follow the MSQ.

I'm not trying to "widen the goalposts", I was just pointing out the very odd goalposts as officially stated by the lore writers. Time in this game is a wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey bubble where events happen, and you can even maybe trace how long those events took, but - at least for the sake of game-storytelling and keeping everyone on the same page - time itself is not "counted".

It's correct that we started our story five years after the Calamity.

The ending of the Dragonsong War was also five years after the Calamity.

So was the liberation of Ala Mhigo.

And when we, say, finally visit Meracydia in 8.0? That will be happening five years after the Calamity.



All that said, for the sake of real storytelling then yes, time has passed.

Just don't try to pin down how much time because the official answer is "none at all".

As I said, don't try to think too hard about that, just go with it.

Implied by G'raha Tia maybe, however Biggs and Wedge had other ideas [...]

I really hope we get Biggs bellowing wake up princess at G'raha tia waking him up, and his 1st waking image as he opens his eyes Biggs and wedge doing a pucker up emot at him lol

I would be entirely fine with that.

crystal tower side note that also brings Noah back to mind and also makes geomancers the likely healer for the expansion. Well if it comes with the return of stone skin sure I fine with that,
and im left waiting for the next expansion for dancer

Geomancers are already in the game if you did the Lv60-70 AST quests, but it just seems to be a Far Eastern branch of conjury-cross-astromancy.

[fay2]

Seems I didn't submit my last edit in the post I did >_< so an abridged version of what never made it

If we can go by the New Year's poem, "fate" and "history" seem to be used as opposite concepts here. Fate (or destiny) cannot be changed, but history can be guided by our actions. This seems to tie into Urianger's line in the 5.0 trailer - essentially their fate cannot be denied, but they can decide what to do about it.

Yet the warriors of darkness are of a different mind about fate

And when we, say, finally visit Meracydia in 8.0?.

It maybe a lot sooner than that, if

very unlikely tho

Geomancers are already in the game if you did the Lv60-70 AST quests, but it just seems to be a Far Eastern branch of conjury-cross-astromancy.

Yes Geomancers were finally named in StB even a few unique casting assets that Kyokuho casts during the relaying of the wards in one of the AST StB quests, but we have had one under our noses since ARR

Rammbroes here has been sporting that Geomancers wand/bell since ARR. I can say that because few people in the fc I'm in liked the look of it back then and we went through every duty trying to find it as a drop whether it was WHM or BLM . It's been a thorn in my side ever since we sent a huge amount of time running all available duties in the hope of it being a drop came up with nothing at the time, we were left speculating that it may have been a left over from when arcanist didn't use books.
The moment I saw Kyokuho's weapon , I had a "THAT WAND! no not all this time" moment.

[Iscah]

The main issue with proper controlled time travel being throwen into the game at this point is it's a slippery slope to where

Out Comes and Concequences become irrelivent

Without those whats left of the heros story?
What is there to invest in story wise? why bother with the MSQ they we'll just go undo it all anyway? why bother at all really?

It's the raise issue with npcs death in MSQ, while a caster with access to raise or have a phonex down couldnt we just save then? but for any aspect people don't like in the story.
1st stop we going back to save little Noraxia so there are no dead sylphs

However even with time travel added to MSQ in a controlled manor were we on MSQ rails and to our character time seem not to change out comes for us as we live it in our perseved time line because a 3rd party has come back in time to alter events, it still means the time line has changed from the time line they are from that future they came from.

This is very dependent on how you approach the logic of time travel - and again, why I'll point to the Alexander story (and similarly designed "stable time loops") as an example of how it can be handled without bringing up issues of "what if we went back to change X?" because the gate to that slippery slope is firmly closed.

Rule #1: If you know it happened, it cannot be changed.

Rule #2: If you don't know exactly what happened, time travelers (including future-you) may have been involved in the details.

Any "changes" we might attempt to make to past events aren't changes at all - they become part of the single flow of time that is the way it always happened.

We saw Noraxia die. We saw her body and carried her home to the Twelveswood. Nobody can swoop in and save her, because they didn't.

But... let's go with an actual conceivable example in the game... how did Gaius safely escape the burning castrum? How did anyone know to come and look for him there? Suppose a time-traveler dropped into the right place at the right time to save him...?

In that case, we could be that person. We would be going into the past, rescuing him (even as our past-self is rescuing Thancred), and returning to "our time". That doesn't mean there was ever a version of the past where we didn't rescue him - it just happened. It always happened.


My best example of a stable time loop playing out "differently" according to characters' perception is the climax of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. At its simplest explanation: having warped back in time to just a few hours earlier, the characters think they're interfering with the events that happened "the first time around", but actually are an integral part of causing those events to happen in the first place.

Another thing they can do with dimensional travel is
Burn Rak'Tika Greatwood to a crisp in one dimensional maybe giving us the box art?

I don't see a burned forest in that image at all. It's a smudgy nondescript background to a black-and-white drawing. It could be anywhere, though I'm inclined to think of Odin in the (unburned) Twelveswood.

Rammbroes has it because it's what they toss on any caster who doesn't fit into existing classes. If I remember correctly, it was wielded by someone who identified as a scholar in 1.x which didn't have Arcanist, Scholar, or Summoner. Might have even been Rammbroes.

I think Rammbroes still is a "scholar" in the broad sense of a "studier", not the gameplay-class which is specifically a Nymian battle-scholar.

It maybe a lot sooner than that, if

very unlikely tho

You know what I mean, though? I just pulled out a random location name that we might go to sometime in the future but probably not for a while yet. Whatever we do in future expansions, it'll still be happening "five years since the Calamity".

And seeing a Southern Cross in some swirling crystals (I assume they're in motion and that's a chance arrangement in the screenshot) is really too much of a long shot - particularly seeing as we're in another world with its own constellations.

[fay2]

Fair, but why would a student of Sharlayan be so aggressively ignorant of an art she professes to be so similar to her own if it is a subject of study in the homeland? Why would it not be studied as being within the same family of magics?.

She comes from a long line of powerful astrologians what else dose she need to be or study?

There is the fact most present day "Geomancers" are charlatans working against its credibility tho.

Again suggesting no proper study of it within Sharlayan itself.

However Rammbroes isn't in Sharlaya right now something picked up in other explorations if not studied there ?
I still think it is, however Sharlayans focus on astrologians being the preferred form of divination.

This is very dependent on how you approach the logic of time travel - and again, why I'll point to the Alexander story (and similarly designed "stable time loops") as an example of how it can be handled without bringing up issues of "what if we went back to change X?" because the gate to that slippery slope is firmly closed.

Actually Alexander itself is preventing changes in time from time travel, as it came to the conclusion that any time paradoxes will lead to calamity and that Calamity is bad. So stop any and all.

We'll likely see Alexander come the 13th calamity.
Which I'm petty sure should be a temporal calamity.

But... let's go with an actual conceivable example in the game... how did Gaius safely escape the burning castrum?

He teleported away to safety.

I don't see a burned forest in that image at all. It's a smudgy nondescript background to a black-and-white drawing. It could be anywhere, though I'm inclined to think of Odin in the (unburned) Twelveswood..

It's not Odin

It's the WoL/D with "Midealyn" in arm on a Grani {the collectors bonus mount}

Whatever we do in future expansions, it'll still be happening "five years since the Calamity".

I Guess that point is the real rentch in any time travel if everything is the same time, how do you travel to the right point if its all that point.

And seeing a Southern Cross in some swirling crystals (I assume they're in motion and that's a chance arrangement in the screenshot) is really too much of a long shot - particularly seeing as we're in another world with its own constellations.

They aren't swirling.
If you not up to it. I'm sure someone else can confirm it for you.

I think this has hit the crux of why I'd rather time travel stay in Alexander land.

If we can change things, consequence is meaningless.
If we can't change things, we've jumped ship of five years of building up WoL as the absolute unknown variable that makes any outcome possible.
If we can't change things up to this point but can make things the "same" to set something up down the road, that's just a convoluted and contrived way of reaching the same conclusions you would have had without time travel... so why have time travel?

Indeed.

Alexander has the monopoly on actual time travel.
So the moment we see that black clock work coeurl again we'll know have time travel appearing in story.

till then TIME TRAVEL

[Iscah]

Actually Alexander itself is preventing changes in time from time travel, as it came to the conclusion that any time paradoxes will lead to calamity and that Calamity is bad. So stop any and all.

We'll likely see Alexander come the 13th calamity.
Which I'm petty sure should be a temporal calamity.

Actually, it's the opposite. Alexander deliberately withdrew and chose not to make any changes to the timeline, because it calculated all the possibilities and concluded that its own aether-draining existence had a greater negative effect on the world than any positive changes it could implement.

[Gaius] teleported away to safety.

That's the thing. As far as we know, that's probably what happened (either that or he just survived the blast and staggered out afterwards), and what we would assume happened in a non-time-travel plot. But we didn't see it happen and thus there is room for something 'unexpected' to have happened without our knowledge.

Again, referring to Harry Potter as an example - for the "first time through" the time loop, the reader has no idea time travel is a plot element until several chapters later. Things seem to happen one way, from our (and the characters') perspective, and it's only later when we revisit them on the "second time through" that we see how it actually played out.

It's not Odin

It's the WoL/D with "Midealyn" in arm on a Grani

I realise it's probably not Odin, and the child is almost certainly Minfilia, but we don't know for certain that it's the WoL. It could be Thancred. It could be someone else.

Regardless, it calls to mind the image of the dark rider we know in the game as Odin, who appears in a forest setting.

We do get the Grani mount, but that doesn't mean it belongs to us in the story. You can get Odin's mount too.

And in any case, as I said, it's an indistinct background that doesn't suggest a burnt forest (or anything specific) in any way. It's grey and black, but so are the figures in the foreground. There's no colour in the entire image.

I Guess that point is the real rentch in any time travel if everything is the same time, how do you travel to the right point if its all that point.

Okay, forget the "five years since the Calamity" thing. Time moves, things happen one after the other. I was just saying it's an oddity of the storytelling that you can't actually say "when" they happen.

They aren't swirling.
If you not up to it. I'm sure someone else can confirm it for you.

No need to be snarky. I don't have the game running 24/7 and couldn't check at the time - and it does look from the image that they could be in motion.

In any case, having rewatched the scene, I still think it's drawing a very long bow. The leap from "holding some crystals in a formation that looks like anther world's southern constellation" to "we're off to Meracydia!" is too far for me. Nothing in her dialogue suggests a hint of future travel plans.

I also feel like it could be a reference to her distinct "Grand Cross" spell, if anything.

If we can't change things up to this point but can make things the "same" to set something up down the road, that's just a convoluted and contrived way of reaching the same conclusions you would have had without time travel... so why have time travel?

To bring back G'raha without having to force the Crystal Tower plotline. >_>

[fay2]

Actually, it's the opposite. Alexander deliberately withdrew and chose not to make any changes to the timeline, because it calculated all the possibilities and concluded that its own aether-draining existence had a greater negative effect on the world than any positive changes it could implement.

As well as the paradoxes of time travel will case a calamity in of them selves too.

It made one.
To stop time travel from being used by the illuminati at the point it started.

Right now Alexander is in a state like schrodinger's cat
{rather apt the black coeurl I guess}

Alexander also couldn't calculate out comes around the WoL/D.

We do get the Grani mount, but that doesn't mean it belongs to us in the story. You can get Odin's mount too.

Apples and Oranges both fruit but not the same thing.
Grani is a collectors mount
Odin's Sleipnir is mogstation purchase mount {where you can buy other lore braking items}

Granted tho the mythos from Norse mythology is, Grani is offspring/descendant from Sleipnir.
so maybe Oranges and Mandarins
but before someone gose "Grani is offspring/descendant from Sleipnir" see time travel
The Sleipnir we have is not the same at the Sleipnir in Norse mythology. It's missing 2 legs to start with and its brought into being by the odin primal which is really a sword in ffxiv.

All that makes me think that the new zones overlap the old zone on the other dimensions.
It would certainly bring back life to the old FFXIV zones if some of the new zones over laped old ones and we had to pop back and forth.

So far of the collectors mounts (Fat Chocobo, Griffin, Syldra)
The Griffin has found a rider other than the WoL/D and that was the expansion(StB) after the expansion it was got in(HW).

And in any case, as I said, it's an indistinct background that doesn't suggest a burnt forest (or anything specific) in any way. It's grey and black, but so are the figures in the foreground. There's no colour in the entire image.

Been in the aftermath of a intense forest fire before? grey and black is about it.

Okay, forget the "five years since the Calamity" thing. Time moves, things happen one after the other. I was just saying it's an oddity of the storytelling that you can't actually say "when" they happen.

Yes its an oddity.
Have you asked yourself is there another reason for it that could explain it in game?

In any case, having rewatched the scene, I still think it's drawing a very long bow. The leap from "holding some crystals in a formation that looks like anther world's southern constellation" to "we're off to Meracydia!" is too far for me.

Yes, I did state that I would find it funny if we ended up in meracydia in the original post because it was completely over looked.

As for very long bows look at last expansions fanfest job hint t-shirt for samurai

As well as the "holding some crystals in a formation that looks like another world's southern constellation".
That "other world" is where the creators of this world live. The real world and they pull references from it, to in rich this world that FFxiv is found.

To bring back G'raha without having to force the Crystal Tower plotline. >_>

Yes it is a mute point

They don't need time travel because they will repeat the way they have treated it in the past
-force it in to a clear condition (1st 3 Primals ARR)
-ignore the fact you have yet to do or have done (estinien drg 30-50 post HW)

It will most likely be the 1st, as they did make it a lot easier to get to the labyrinth of the ancients, no to long ago removing the fate aspect form the lead in quests. Reducing the time to unlock it immensely.

[Iscah]

As well as the paradoxes of time travel will case a calamity in of them selves too.

Where are you getting that from? I don't recall it being stated anywhere.

As I recall - would have to double-check, but from memory the issues with Alexander were firstly the Illuminati's plans to go back and rewrite history in their favour, and secondly the inherent danger of Alexander existing and draining the land of aether, even if its power was used "for good", so it sealed itself away "in time" to prevent that.

Apples and Oranges both fruit but not the same thing...

I'm not even going to try to argue your fruitbowl analogy.

But it's still not proved that Grani is "ours" just because it's not a cash shop item.

If you exclusively receive it from an "out of game" source, whether purchased or preordered, that means we don't receive it from a source within the game.

Our battle chocobo is ours - we received it from the GC when we signed up.
The black chocobo was a gift from Haurchefant.
Maggie the magitek armour came to our rescue in Castrum Meridianum.
The manacutter was built for us by the Ironworks.
Midgardsormr agreed to carry us once we proved ourselves worthy to him.
We earned the right to ride a Yol in Bardam's Mettle.
That ridiculous Starlight bear apparently just followed us home after we bonded over throwing presents at gaudy treants.

Those are the mounts I earned from quests. They have stories behind them. You can only ride them once that individual character reaches the logical point in the MSQ where they receive or gain access to it, and everyone gets them equally. (Give or take "equally" for the seasonal mount, but equal for everyone who was able to complete that quest.)

If a Grani Horn drops into my inventory as a special-edition gift, when did my character earn the right to ride such a thing? Why did my not-special-edition-purchasing friend's character not earn the same right? How has my Lv20 alt character acquired this creature when he's only barely earned his chocobo licence?

Making it a collector's edition mount makes it less likely that it will be ours within the course of the story, unless it's a different version of the creature somehow. (Though I'd be pretty unimpressed if I'd wanted the mount, paid extra to get it, and then we get practically the same thing within the game as well.)

Been in the aftermath of a intense forest fire before? grey and black is about it.

But it's a black-and-white image. (With some blue highlights, but clearly not "true to life" colour.) The picture is drawn in black and grey regardless of whether the things represented in the image are black, green, brown or purple. Compare the colouring on the girl - she looks like a white ghost, not Minfilia as we saw her in the trailer.

And even as just a silhouette, those undefined background shapes look like something more solid than burnt-out trees.

Yes its an oddity.
Have you asked yourself is there another reason for it that could explain it in game?

No, because the creators have said it's done for the sake of consistency and not having to update scripts to reflect the passage of time.

[fay2]

Where are you getting that from? I don't recall it being stated anywhere.

Reality barely coped with one very short time travel jump with the WoL/D involved but unaware it was at the time.

As I recall - would have to double-check, but from memory the issues with Alexander were firstly the Illuminati's plans to go back and rewrite history in their favour,.

The Illuminati did go back and rewrote history then kept editing. Also removed the 7th calamity, in a time line. That's where Alexander got that "huge amount of aether in such a" seeming "small amount of time" as cid mentions off handedly when we get to the heart. those time lines are all gone from existence now leaving it as little more than a "dream" for Alexander.
Alexander went back and stopped it at the point it all started when it went from "plan" to executed .

and secondly the inherent danger of Alexander existing and draining the land of aether, even if its power was used "for good", so it sealed itself away "in time" to prevent that.

Yes the cost of time travel is huge.

No, because the creators have said it's done for the sake of consistency and not having to update scripts to reflect the passage of time.

Instead you want to stunt any future stories by having them add time travel. Where do they go in future expansions when the controlled time travel jinn is out?

If you found a viable lore answer they my take it up.

Example; It has been made all the same time by someone/thing to prevent time based interference with the WoL/D as they grow into their power to contend with Zodiark.

All that makes me think that the new zones overlap the old zone on the other dimensions.
It would certainly bring back life to the old FFXIV zones if some of the new zones over laped old ones and we had to pop back and forth.

Expanding on that thought. If a zone overlapped old zones on a dimensional level.


the green line being dimensional zone map on the 1st.
the yellow dots being gating points from the source to the 1st.
the brown line being "new" old zones on the source.

A benefit would be bring life back into the old ARR zones as you'd need to gate in from one of those.
They could add the western shroud as a link to it too, giving something for the ffxiv1.x players something to reminisce with. Got to through the gates?.
{that could even be where the WoL/D is in the trailer}

They could even give you a passage to Othard with out the ship voyage or direct teleport.