Il Mheg 1/2 of two mirrored zones?

[Mansion]

I kinda see things that way :

Imagine a timeline T² where the Call does not happen. We fight Garlemald in Ghymlit, and it's the no turn point where the Flood of Light is inevitable in this course of actions. And nearing this End, some powerful magician uses anything to use the Call. (for me the voice is an older Alphinaud in that scenario). The time travel happens there, somehow off screen. Once they do this, the T² timeline disappears. Chrono Trigger flashbacks maybe

But we are actually in timeline T. We have done a bunch of light aspected stuff, until it gets too much. We don't know that but we have a faint idea because of the Call's speech. So here we are in Ghymlit, we strike Elidizenos, and Light is getting visibly too much. Yet conveniently, someone from the future manages to solve things by warping us wherever is needed (we can assume it's the First Shard but who knows, it could be a serie of action on the Source as WoD) to mend the situation.


But it could be something completely flat (with no timeline plots), so that the voice Calling is having some kind of overview of the Source form their Shard, sees the problem on the Source, knows the solution is on their Shard, warps us there and that's it.

[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

[Masha_Awandah]

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 says her grandfather has made passing mention of Geomancy in the past as a foreign magic as well and he's a master of Astromancy, an aged scholar of the nation. Again suggesting no proper study of it within Sharlayan itself.

There's always the posibility that she's not as well versed in that field of magic, and simply doesn't know about how much other Sharlayan Scholars know of it. For example, a fresh student not knowing about something that the more advanced students consider common knowledge. Or alternatively, there's a group studying it that's less known among the scholars due to the group not being too large.

Or something along those lines. Her lack of knowledge doesn't mean that the scholars also lack it.

[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.

[Iscah]

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.

You're misunderstanding that quote - or at least we are both interpreting it very, very differently.

For reference, Mide and Dayan's entire conversation from Judgement Day:

MIDE
My love...! What...what is this place?

DAYAN
How best to put it? We stand inside a mathematical simulation, calculated and projected by the device at the heart of the colossus. One might equally say it is the dream that Alexander dreams...

MIDE
And what of our companions? Are they...?

DAYAN
...Their fate was not mine to change, Mide. All that came to pass did so for a reason. History is as it was─as it should be─free of the paradoxes that spelled its undoing.

From this place─unfettered by the mortal construct of time─Alexander looks out upon past, present, and future, seeing infinite possibilities. I see what it sees, and feel what it feels─this perfect machine, born from yearnings for an ideal world.

Oh, if you could see the worlds we have seen! A world in which the Illuminati rule history with an iron fist, every nation brought under their yoke. A world in which Alexander spread wide the wings of time and swept the lesser moon from the heavens, averting the Calamity...

Alexander dreamed all the realities imaginable─all the realities mathematically computable─and in the end, reached a single, logical conclusion. It would change nothing, and erase itself from existence.

MIDE
But...why?

DAYAN
Alexander possesses the power to travel through time and space, and reshape history for the better─but such power comes at great cost. The sheer quantity of aether consumed in the process means that Alexander itself would─mayhap not immediately, but inevitably─bring ruin to this world. This perfect machine, this supreme manifestation of logic and science, deemed its own existence a threat.
And so it chose to do nothing. To leave history untouched, and the future in the hands of man, with all his imperfections. Such was Alexander's divine judgment.
A time will come when the fate of this world is placed in the hands of one warrior. For reasons hidden to me, the future from that day forth remains shrouded in mystery─beyond even the colossus's ability to calculate. And yet Alexander chose to believe in that woman, and the light within her.

MIDE
I met that woman, my love... I believe in her, too.

DAYAN
There was but a single time Alexander was spurred to action─not to change history, but to preserve it. The summoning of the colossus, and the events that followed, had potentially disastrous consequence for our reality. Its fabric strained to accommodate an infinite number of potential futures separated by nary a thread.

Were the wings of time to fall into the hands of the Illuminati, the repercussions would be dire indeed. History would be rewritten over and over again, each time bleeding the land of aether. And in the end, the colossus would usher in another calamity.

To prevent this tragedy─to preserve the circle of time as it had already been set in motion─Alexander sent forth a humble servant to do its bidding.
A clockwork coeurl, an eternal child, to gently nudge history back onto its proper path.

And now but one task remains.
Having become one with the horn, the core is well-nigh indestructible. It would only regrow itself until it bled the world dry. And so we must heed Alexander's wish, and seal it away─far from the reach of man.
A closed pocket of space-time, a fraction of an instant that will repeat in perpetuity for all eternity. That is where the core must go─and us with it.

MIDE
Don't you see, my love? We are already there. In coming here─to you─I have closed the circle of time. I am all but certain of it.
When I accepted the horn all those years ago, the man who gave it to me said that it had the power to grant any wish. And so, as I took it in hand, I prayed and prayed with every onze of my will for the one true desire in my heart...
To be with you...forever.

Alexander's "dream" is not a dream at all but a computer simulation explained in poetic terms - alongside the factual one.

There was no alternate timeline that had to be erased - those "worlds" never truly existed, but were merely simulated. Alexander calculated all the possibilities of what might happen.

It calculated a possibility that the Illuminati would win and enact their plan.

It calculated a separate possibilty that it could interfere in the timeline and avert the Calamity.

But in the end it concluded that it should not change anything at all.


The "single time" that Alexander acted is a little vague, but was either our brief trip through time, or (more likely) deliberately sending Shanoa/Schrödinger out to keep the time loop "on track".


They actually do mention that Alexander's continued existence would risk another calamity - but not because of time travel itself. Instead it's the amount of aether that it would drain from the land in doing so.

Also worth noting: the fates of Mide and Dayan's companions "were not his to change" - ie. no meddling in pre-established events, even if he wanted to save them - and he seems to regard history as currently "free of the paradoxes that spelled its undoing" even with the time loop in place, which suggests that the mere existence of a time loop is acceptable, as long as it plays out neatly and doesn't break anything.

And actually, Mide's closing line suggests that the entire loop wasn't a thing that happened inexplicably, but was orchestrated "from the middle" by Alexander itself.

[Illuminati and prevented calamity] - 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.

This isn't the source of that aether, and it isn't covered in a single "off-handed mention" - it was discussed in more detail earlier in the story. Basically there's a magic artifact in the core that is drawing in large amounts of aether, causing it to grow rapidly, no time travel required.

In The Coeurl and the Colossus, Y'shtola questions Mide for more detail about the summoning, and she explains:

MIDE
I fear it will not avail us, but...very well. It all began with a curious encounter in my younger days. I was out playing on my own one day when a stranger appeared before me. He told me anything my heart wished for could be mine if I but heeded his words.
In my youth, I did not fully comprehend what the man was proposing at the time. Nevertheless, his words seemed to burn themselves into my very soul. “Reunite the scattered shards of the Enigma Codex,” he said, “and perform the sacred rite before the ruins that yet stand strong against the river's flow. Then, and only then, shall your hopes and dreams become reality.”
With that, he handed me a relic─a horn, with a tip of metal─which seemed so foreign as to hail from another world. It would serve as a catalyst for the “summoning,” he explained. “A gift from your friend Travanchet.” And then he was gone.

Y'SHTOLA
Travanchet? I know the man. Our paths crossed during my time in Limsa, in the days before the Calamity. I might have guessed that the Ascians had a hand in this.
The horn of which you speak was once rumored to reside on Seal Rock. It is a lost relic of the ancients with the power to manipulate the aetheric energy in the very air around us. The Scions have long pursued the horn, fearing the devastation that might ensue were an artifact of such power to fall into the wrong hands.
Finally, I do begin to see...
If I have the right of it, Alexander's third core is using the horn to draw aether from far and wide. 'Tis little wonder our plan failed. Even without moving an ilm, the primal possesses the means to drain not just this land of aether, but our very star.

...oh, and on a totally random note, from checking the script, the cat's name "Shanoa" finally makes sense. It's tagged as Chat Noir.

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.

I'm not sure how I'm stunting future stories, and I'm not necessarily proposing "controlled" time travel either, even if I've maybe talked about it as an example of time travel before. (My example about Gaius was just, well, an example of how time travel could be involved in pre-existing events in a story. I'm not proposing that's what happened.)

I think I keep wandering between my actual thoughts on the plot and my general thoughts on writing timetravel stories because you keep proposing ideas that aren't what I'm thinking of for this plot but I do have thoughts on them regardless. And then I go off the track.


Anyway, for consistent time travel to a functional game zone, I would expect a fixed portal that moves you from "Current Time Bubble A" to "Future Time Bubble B", and the pre-established handling of time within the game continues.

What it would allow is a reversible "timeskip" to a future part of the timeline.

Then the overall timeline would look something like:

(( [1.0]---[ARR]---[HW]---[SB]---[5.0 TIME A]---[6.0]---[7.0]---[etc.] ))------???-------(( [5.0 TIME B]---[6.0 time plot] ))

Future stories in the main timeline just keep happening in the 'red bubble', always being placed prior to the first event in the 'blue bubble'. They'll never join up or overlap.

Ultimately it probably doesn't make much difference to the function of the game. It would act like another zone, just with different storytelling rules. You could even make a lore basis for aetherytes and teleportation working normally between past and future zones by saying they can be mapped across space-time rather than just physical space - it's just that nobody ever timetraveled before to discover they work like that.


Remember that I am coming up with this from the starting point of "the story seemed to be hinting at time travel - how would they make that function?"

[Rosa_Frandlia]

I kinda see things that way :

Imagine a timeline T² where the Call does not happen. We fight Garlemald in Ghymlit, and it's the no turn point where the Flood of Light is inevitable in this course of actions. And nearing this End, some powerful magician uses anything to use the Call. (for me the voice is an older Alphinaud in that scenario). The time travel happens there, somehow off screen. Once they do this, the T² timeline disappears. Chrono Trigger flashbacks maybe

But we are actually in timeline T. We have done a bunch of light aspected stuff, until it gets too much. We don't know that but we have a faint idea because of the Call's speech. So here we are in Ghymlit, we strike Elidizenos, and Light is getting visibly too much. Yet conveniently, someone from the future manages to solve things by warping us wherever is needed (we can assume it's the First Shard but who knows, it could be a serie of action on the Source as WoD) to mend the situation.


But it could be something completely flat (with no timeline plots), so that the voice Calling is having some kind of overview of the Source form their Shard, sees the problem on the Source, knows the solution is on their Shard, warps us there and that's it.

I have a question, does the voice say "Throw open the gates so that we may pass" or "Throw open the gates so that you may pass"? Is it not possible that in a cut scene only we go to the gates (possible last scene in 4.5 trailer), open the gates so that whoever is calling us (and maybe the called scions?) can pass to the Source and then we go straight back to the Source to work with them?

I'm asking this as I haven't seen many postulating it based on the actual words of the voice, not just the fact that going back to all the current zones and housing would be unfeasible. A time jump and my house, will it have the yard overgrown and cobwebs everywhere inside? For shard jump, teleport to the house and someone else lives there? While interesting, it throws a wrench there unless we gain the ability to shard/time jump at will. If we get that ability, I'd love to see all zones have changes made in between them.

[ObsidianFire]

The exact words the Voice is saying probably are not as important as the fact that in all languages, the Voice is saying the Warp Spell from Tactics. Which is not a Time Travel Spell. It is a teleport spell. Specifically one that puts Ramza and Co. in a place they didn't know existed in their present time.

It will be very interesting seeing how big a reference what the Voice is doing is to the events surrounding that spell in Tactics. However, time travel is not something that ever comes up in those events. Getting teleported somewhere we don't know we could get to on the other hand? Oh yeah.