Il Mheg 1/2 of two mirrored zones?

[fay2]

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.

Sure your take on Alexander.
I look at it from a butterfly effect stand point. Every time a jump was made to alter history the previous past to that point could be describe as little more that a dream or a delusion for anyone who didn't do the time jump.
Its a machine and it thinks in calculations and it still needs to get the data from somewhere.
Plus instead of make a heap of jumps and through try a failure like in butterfly effect, it calculated the best point to stop it all and jumped to it.

It went straight to the start of time travel and said "I hate you" to Quickthinx Allthoughts lol

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".

That one time was in this sequence of events.





Alexander time jumped in from where ever in time you feel it was to this moment to stop time travel.
I feel it jumped from the "dreamed" history lost after stopping time travel here

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.?"

Not even a slide but more a BOOM
Out comes and Consequence are meaningless

Things yet to happen in the "past" in its future expansions wont haven taken effect in the "future"'s past form the start.

It has stunted any farther story telling in the "past"

However what your suggesting the isn't time travel because they never join .

You've been fooled into thinking its time travel but they aren't connected by time. What you have here is dimensional travel where one dimension looks like it might be the future of the other but it is not the case because changes made in the other past like dimension don't have an effect on the future dimension, they are separate dimensions .

[Mansion]

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.

It says "Throw wide the gates that we may pass" so Shadowbringers could take place on the source, with Ahm Araeng and all that being somewhere on the map we have never been (Ilsabard, Sharlayan...), with the help of someone/something from outside. The gates do not necessarily mean the passage between shards (although it makes sense).
There is still the shift to Warrior of Darkness that we have to include in the equation. Is the voice a form of darknes and we must "open the gates" meaning give into the darkness so that our actions on the Source are now Dark aspected? Do we need to travel somewhere to make that shift ? There's a series of possible scenarios where time travel does not have to happen.

[Iscah]

Not even a slide but more a BOOM
Out comes and Consequence are meaningless

Things yet to happen in the "past" in its future expansions wont haven taken effect in the "future"'s past form the start.

It has stunted any farther story telling in the "past"

However what your suggesting the isn't time travel because they never join.

That's the complete opposite of what I'm intending - and perhaps why this conversation is going nowhere if you are picturing such a different outcome of what I am trying to explain.


The timeline as I mapped it is intended to be the timeline as it would appear to an outside observer. If we time-jump from 5A to 5B, the events of 6.0 onwards - despite being unknown to us - will have already taken place. We skipped over them and haven't personally experienced them yet, but they happened. Adding more expansions and stories means that the list of "things that happpened in the main time bubble" keeps getting longer, but is not directly constrained by the future bubble's existence.

That's what I mean by the bubbles "never joining" - within the course of the game, that is. Of course time has to progress between them at some point, but it strictly happens between the two bubbles of events that we directly experience.

However many new stories get added to the game, they are officially happening in "Year 1 of the Seventh Astral Era", five years after the Calamity.

If the time skip was a short one - let's say only three years, a deliberately small number for the sake of this argument - then it would logically seem that we should start hitting that bubble quite soon, simply by counting how much time should have passed during events of the story. But we never actually would because of the narrative time bubble rules, 6, 7, 8.0 would still be set in Year 1, and the future bubble remains located in Year 4.

At the opposite end of the scenario, if time was counted normally in the story, but the timeskip took us a hundred years into the future... it would be pretty safe to say that those two time periods would never join up in the course of the story, but that wouldn't stop it from being time travel.



For a more focused example of why I was proposing this idea in the first place... the Crystal Tower plotline again.

(( [ARR]---[CT1]---[now]---[5.0 TIME A]---[CT2]---[END] ))---- time passes ----(( [5.0 TIME B] ))

The Crystal Tower rightfully happens at the point CT1, but it's possible that the player hasn't done that at its intended time. If they complete it at some future point after playing 5.0, then it happens at point CT2, still within the standard time bubble.

Regardless of when it happened, at the "end" of the time bubble, located after all the events that will ever be set in the normal time of the game, then G'raha must be currently sealed in the tower at that point. (Assuming there wasn't a reason to have already let him out, in any case.)

Then we jump to a point in the timeline that is definitely located after that event. So we can be sure that the event happened from an observer's perspective (or G'raha's perspective, for that matter), even if we haven't seen it happen ourselves.


That's the same logic I'm applying to entire future expansions. We haven't experienced 6.0 yet, but if that story is set in the normal time bubble then it will have taken place before we reach that "end of the bubble" point. And the "hypothetical future bubble" is located after that end point.

You've been fooled into thinking its time travel but they aren't connected by time. What you have here is dimensional travel where one dimension looks like it might be the future of the other but it is not the case because changes made in the other past like dimension don't have an effect on the future dimension, they are separate dimensions.

Only by your version of thinking. I am arguing that in this design of time travel, changes in the past do affect this future - or rather, they already have affected this future. We don't get to "meddle" with things in the future time bubble by changing things in the past, because those attempted changes have already had their effect "before" we did it (from an outside perspective), because all we did was change something in a slightly later section of the past. It's all just "the past" as far as the future bubble is concerned.



This is all based on the type of time travel logic that I see in effect in the Alexander storyline - but if you don't even see that the same way, then I'm not sure that we're ever going to come to an agreement on this, because we're not actually talking about the same idea.

[Rosa_Frandlia]

It says "Throw wide the gates that we may pass" so Shadowbringers could take place on the source, with Ahm Araeng and all that being somewhere on the map we have never been (Ilsabard, Sharlayan...), with the help of someone/something from outside. The gates do not necessarily mean the passage between shards (although it makes sense).
There is still the shift to Warrior of Darkness that we have to include in the equation. Is the voice a form of darknes and we must "open the gates" meaning give into the darkness so that our actions on the Source are now Dark aspected? Do we need to travel somewhere to make that shift ? There's a series of possible scenarios where time travel does not have to happen.

Those are good questions too, where is the voice from? I agree with somewhere on the map we haven't seen, especially as The New World isn't even shown on the map we have and we've met NPC's from there. I hope some questions are answered later this month in 4.56 and we get new questions there.

I'm with you though, us letting something through is more likely than us going to another time or shard, but thinking of the possibilities on changes to zones is fun after games like Chrono Trigger.

[Cilia]

Oh, more on Alexander huh?

Well, in the instance we experienced yes it was a self-contained loop, but that doesn't mean it had... or has, I guess, to be that way. While we can't observe or experience them that's not to say other possibilities don't exist - they're just not real from our limited perspective.

By Alexander's admission he could stop Calamities or perhaps allow the Illuminati to win... he just chooses not to because things are better that way. We can't alter the past because we can't move through time and aren't self-observing like Alexander, but if we could... in theory...

[fay2]

Oh, more on Alexander huh?

Well, in the instance we experienced yes it was a self-contained loop, but that doesn't mean it had... or has, I guess, to be that way. While we can't observe or experience them that's not to say other possibilities don't exist - they're just not real from our limited perspective.

By Alexander's admission he could stop Calamities or perhaps allow the Illuminati to win... he just chooses not to because things are better that way. We can't alter the past because we can't move through time and aren't self-observing like Alexander, but if we could... in theory...

Yes Alexander could alter the past if it wanted, and did alter time one time too.

If Alexander hadn't popped into our time line at the spot it did and stopped the Illuminati. The Illuminati would have gone on a changed time.
Alexander changed time once under Alexanders own will and stopped the illuminati from happening the reins of time.

If the WoL/D has time travel. The antagonists have to have a greater control over it or there is nothing for the hero to rise up to beat or no threat to worry about because time travel.

If the ascians had time travel the would change time for the worse. they see reality as horribly warped already. they are eternal beings by all rights {unless unmade} they could go as far back as the wish and not run into any "grandfather paradox", they would just lop off the branches of time they didn't like.

If we had time travel we would change time, and by we I mean the players of their hero. If not you some would.
I have a few characters I've played out events in different orders.

Iscah while having a "time travel agender" is working the principle view that time has to be set in stone and immovable no mater where you go it wont change because it has happened, Consequence don't exist because they can't . Which is flawed to lock your view to when talking fantasy and it is fantasy.
Also there is evidence that this set in stone view is it not the case in the ffxiv universe and time branches around the WoL/D and is changeable because anything is possible to WoL/D.

Also that we don't need to have time travel added in a manor that prevents change because it already exists in the form of the ECHO
echo echo

That's the complete opposite of what I'm intending - and perhaps why this conversation is going nowhere if you are picturing such a different outcome of what I am trying to explain.

Then the fault lies in your explanation.
Try again, because you still have the same issues I see from the 1st time you tried to explain it.

"real world" events for 7.0 and on have yet to be written.
"real world" events for 6.0 are still being fleshed out.
"real world" events decided on happening in 5.0 to 6.0 could still change last minute.

Putting a future bubble in at 5.0 inhibits/stunts the writing choices of 7.0 and on.

Lets not forget

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.

The concept of time travels fatal flaw being that.

For a more focused example of why I was proposing this idea in the first place... the Crystal Tower plotline again.

You flog that dead horse! flog it!

Time for a GROUNDHOG DAY!

No need for a convoluted addition of time travel for Crystal Tower.

The cannon time line is as it was released. If you do it out of order your fault, also the echo fixes the issue anyway.

They won't add time travel to fix your preserved issue of Crystal Tower any or all reasons
◾they don't need to as the "leak" was false.
◾they can lock it into a clear condition. (1st 3 primal HM ARR)
◾the way its handle in the past with similar issues will continue and ignore the fact you have yet to do or have done (Estinien, DRG30-50, post HW / Nanamo ,end of ARR to when woken, CUL50 / Krile, Warring triad, mid-StB captive to zenos / Y'shtola & Urianger, Warring triad, post calling / Alisaie, post HW, binding coil / Alphinaud, binding coil, post becoming an envoy for Doma / Nero, after omega story arc, Crystal tower) leaving "you forgot" or "the echo" the answer.

Maybe all they'll do is a dialog addition if you haven't clear Crystal Tower where G'raha Tia may say something like "What is it friend you act like its our first meeting don't tell me you forgot the adventure we shared traveling to this tower an on to the world of Darkness, jog your memory?"

[LineageRazor]

I've been watching the debate between fay2 and Cilia and, honestly, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. fay2 has very particular ideas about time travel that don't leave room for Cilia's interpretation of events, and doesn't seem likely to budge.

While, personally, I see Cilia's interpretation as the correct one, what Cilia, fay2, or I believe is ultimately unimportant. Can the writers incorporate more time travel into the plotline? Of course they can. There's nothing stopping them. There's even wiggle room granted by the time travel they've already implemented - while I feel the Alexander storyline seems to support a single-timeline model (even if fay2 would disagree on that point), the fact that Alexander calculated multiple timelines and chose between them indicates that he COULD have picked a different path - something which hints at multiple timelines being possible.

So, yes, time travel could be a future element - even if fay2 is right and Alexander is "preventing changes to the timeline" (I still don't see any evidence supporting that claim, but whatevs). Alex could change his mind, or in his calculations could have decided that certain changes would be permissible and others not - or the changes could have been PART of Alex's grand plan. The writers still have a lot of avenues to follow that do not retcon events as we know them in any way.

Regardless of the interpretation of time travel you use, introducing it to the story is not letting the genie out of the bottle unless you LET it be. The Warrior of Light will never be given a key item that allows them to travel to any place and time they desire. If they're allowed to travel through time, it will be in ways that have strict limitations. Circumstances will prevent the WoL from going willy-nilly on a "fix everything" spree. What those circumstances are, is up to the writers. In fact, it's a silly argument to begin with - we ALREADY have time travel in the game, and it did not let the genie out of the bottle. If we bring time travel in AGAIN, there's no reason that will suddenly change.

As for the Crystal Tower / Gr'raha thing, I agree that you don't need time travel in order to incorporate an optional sidequest into the Main Scenario. However, I personally believe that it's too soon for G'raha to emerge, unless he's fighting a fire of some kind. At the end of the Crystal Tower raids, he decided to guard the Crystal Tower until the world was ready for its secrets. It'd be hilariously silly if the world becomes "ready" less than a year later! If we're going to see G'raha again, it makes sense to me that it would be decades, maybe even centuries in the future - hence the need for time travel. However, if he's emerging for an unexpected development that could be another story. I could certainly see story paths leading to that. Like, for example, Solus's meddling starts to flood the world with light, the Crystal Tower reacts by attempting to bore a new hole into the Void to reduce the pressure, G'raha recognizes this as Bad and leaves the tower to seek help. That would be one way to get him into the picture sans time travel.

[Iscah]

If the WoL/D has time travel. The antagonists have to have a greater control over it or there is nothing for the hero to rise up to beat or no threat to worry about because time travel.

Which is why I'm proposing a time travel mechanism (fixed portal) that doesn't give us personal control over time.

And also the rule, in the unlikely case of "free" time travel, that we still wouldn't be able to interfere in events that we had already witnessed.

I feel like I'm going around in circles and you just keep seeing a different concept entirely. I've described ways of setting up a time travel plot without giving us the ability to change past events, and you just keep saying "but it won't work because it'll let us change events".

You flog that dead horse! flog it!

Time for a GROUNDHOG DAY!

Why, yes. Yes, I feel like I'm in one.

Heaven forbid I bring up one of the core points of my argument again to demonstrate what I mean, because my previous attempt at explaining it seemed to have been misunderstood.

Or am I supposed to explain how I'm envisaging time travel to work in conjunction with the Crystal Tower plot, without mentioning the Crystal Tower plot?

This debate is going nowhere. I've had enough. I'm not going to try to keep arguing against your perception of what I'm suggesting because it's just achieving nothing.

◾the way its handle in the past with similar issues will continue and ignore the fact you have yet to do or have done

Estinien, DRG30-50, post HW
Nanamo ,end of ARR to when woken, CUL50
Krile, Warring triad, mid-StB captive to zenos
Y'shtola & Urianger, Warring triad, post calling
Alisaie, post HW, binding coil
Alphinaud, binding coil, post becoming an envoy for Doma
Nero, after omega story arc, Crystal tower

leaving "you forgot" or "the echo" the answer.

I had been thinking over this last night, and why I feel like the Crystal Tower is a different circumstance.


For characters who have two possible entry points into the story, and the first one is in an optional quest, if you missed their intended introduction (Estinien in DRG 30; Nero in CT; Alisaie in Coils) then they are introduced at their second point (post-ARR, post-HW) as if you haven't met them before. (Edit to add: If you never pick up the first Coil quest, Alisaie at Lv60 will specifically say that we haven't met since our early encounter around Lv20.)

But if you then go back to the sidequest that you had skipped over, they also introduce themself there as if you haven't met them before. It's not quite changing when those events happened, but it's more like whether those events happened.

In all these cases the characters' state at the end of the optional questline is much the same as it was at the beginning. Alisaie has been on some kind of vaguely-defined journey between Lv20-Lv60, whether you met up with her partway through it or not. Likewise for Nero, who hasn't noticably changed from the Praetorium to smugly turning up at Lv60 and declaring he can control Omega. Estinien is dark and brooding regardless, and didn't go through any noticable personal growth during the DRG quest. That's all saved for MSQ.

The key factor is that if you haven't yet done the optional quest, characters react to you as if it never happened.

The events at the Crystal Tower seem more critical. It changed the state of something in the world that we (may) now have to interact with again. Is the tower sealed full of Allagan nasties, or cleared out and currently home to one catboy?

It's harder to introduce G'raha as if we haven't met him yet, because the first story was such an integral part of who he is and why he's sealed in the tower to begin with. He cannot be there if the CT raids didn't happen. If you didn't play the CT raids, other characters (thus far) do not recognise that they happened - and I've actually found proof of this.

Cutscene #2 of the quest 'The Obvious Solution', where Nero makes his grand (re)entrance by barging into an Alliance meeting, has variable dialogue based on whether or not you've completed the Crystal Tower. You can test this by watching it with or without the "Reflect quest progression" box ticked.

I won't quote the whole conversation as I can't get the script from Garland Tools, so I have to type it out by hand, but this is the core of it:

NERO
[Omega is capable of containing Shinryu.] And, as luck would have it, I am graciously offering you the use of my considerable expertise.

CID
[version 1]: And what, you just expect us to accept? Why would we trust the word of a man who furnished the Black Wolf with the means to subjugate Eorzea?
[version 2]: And what, you just expect us to accept? You're a fool if you think your deeds at the Crystal Tower were enough to earn my trust, Nero.

If it needed to be established as happening regardless of player completion, this seems like the perfect opportunity to only have the version of the script that indicates it already occurred.

It's also worth noting that Nero's "introduction" in this scene is entirely directed at the Eorzean leaders, who don't know him even if we do, so it plays out the same even if we don't personally need an introduction to him.



Essentially, I feel like the rules for making sense of this game's timeline are:

1. Things don't happen until you see them happen*; BUT
2. Once you've seen them, they happened at a set point in the timeline, regardless of when you personally played them.
3. Characters can seem to exist in multiple places at once, but they're actually located at different points in time.


* although with one minor exception I'm aware of. There's definitely a callback to the DRG quest even if you haven't played it - Nidhogg still says (at the Aery, I think) that he possessed Estinien once before. So it happened, but we haven't yet witnessed the details. Or perhaps it played out differently in a story where the WoL is not a dragoon.


For the other examples you brought up (Nanamo appearing in CUL 50 while 'dead', Krile in Lv60 sidequest while captive in Lv6X MSQ, etc.) it fits with the "slotting new events into the pre-existing timeline" mindset.

Nanamo is in the CUL quest because we were supposed to have done that sidequest before she died (or so we would think at the time). Krile isn't being held captive when you play the Warring Triad story, because these events took place before she got captured; likewise for Y'shtola and Urianger, these events are happening before they were Called. And Urianger who may or may not still be at the Waking Sands post-4.4 (for EX primal quests and the Binding Coil) is also essentially from an earlier point in the timeline, only still there because the game's flexible handling of time requires it.



And if it's as simple as "'you forgot' or 'the Echo'", can somebody please remind us about Unukalhai already?

I've been watching the debate between fay2 and Cilia [...]

*Iscah, not Cilia.

But thankyou for what you wrote.

[fay2]

I've been watching the debate between fay2 and Cilia

2 posts? /jk
Yup you are one of the people that clarified the calling voice issue.

Also assuming you mean Iscah and not Cilia.

and, honestly, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Well yes, the debate over which the plot hints at for 5.0 between dimensional travel over time travel.
Went to dimensional travel the moment.

I wouldn't call it a time travel spell in Tactics, they're casting Warp. Calling upon what is referred to as the Reeve (magistrate, ruler) of Time to throw wide the gates and open a portal from Orbonne to Mullonde. Nothing suggests time travel like that, there are no plot factors of it as time travel, so much as the interplay of Space and Time and crossing a great distance in an instant is technically time travel.

The spell in question was used by a Temple Knight to teleport from Orbonne to Mullonde, using a magic circle of sort on the ground in both places. [...] In other words, it wasn't time travel but long distance teleportation, despite the use of time in the incantation.

Thankyou for clarifying that. The original post comparing the two didn't make it clear.

Now its either shifting goal posts or hanging on for extra time in the hope that 4.57 gives a better "hint".
Its been the only presented time travel suggestion of the plot of 5.0 to date and founding genisis of Iscah time travel agenda was that it was a time travel spell.

My guesses while speculating after patch 4.4 were all time-travel based, since the Voice's words are mostly taken from (if I remember correctly) a time-travel spell in Tactics.

Was false, therefor its words are redherring at time travel at best. Those that have been reading are aware of Iscah option of redherring.
I personally dont mind people hanging on to it in hope to the words of the spell being a hint so long as they extend the same curtesy.

It would reck of hypocrisy in Iscah case to continue.

(([5.0 TIME A]))------???-------(( [5.0 TIME B]---[6.0 time plot] ))

considering Iscah was yet to concede the "debate".

Not to mention there is also the elephant in the room.

hints wise here is some:
-Minfilia going to the 1st shard with the warriors of darkness (like QT_Melon stated).

That still remains unaddressed in favour of the plot hints for dimemensional travel.

fay2 has very particular ideas about time travel that don't leave room for Cilia's interpretation of events, and doesn't seem likely to budge.

Why is it i am singled out as unlikely to budge here?
This "debate" was thrust on me.

I get that 1st shard travel is a common pet theory but there's really no evidence whatsoever or even hints that that's what going on. On the other hand they've practically thrown the time travel suggestions in our faces all throughout the leadup to shadowbringers.

Which Iscah took up. Aggressively I might add.

I did say it's speculation from the 1st post.
Also I'm not set in my views. evidence here.

2+4=6
13-6=7
What about the other seven?

Rejoined in previous Calamities, and no longer in existence.

I worked my numbers again on that assumed knowledge as Iscah answered.
However even from Iscah's point of view about time they should still existence in "history".
I thought about it speculated and changed my view.

If those 7 are in flux, so there but not there. You would need a temporal barrier to visit safely in the least if not time travel at that point.

Iscah failed to jump on that bone I threw out for them there.
Time and Dimension travel hand in hand would get you to those shards.
Requires the concession to Dimension travel from the time travels.

The MSQ rails of WoL/D fixed personal time wouldn't change history. From a lore stand point the ascians have what they want from these 7 shards and have no need to mess with them any farther expect in the case of preventing the WoL/D from undoing them.



There is also alot of middle ground. Time within Dimemsion traveling being one

theoretical example

source time
-----1-----2-----3-----4-----5-----6-----7-----8-----9-----10 days
1st shard time
-----1-----2-----3-----4-----5-----6-----7-----8-----9-----10 years
13th shard time
-----1-----2-----3-----4-----5-----6-----7-----8-----9-----10 minutes

If you jump from say the 1st to the 13th in this example and spend 10 minutes there to return you would find 10 years had pasted in the time you where away a time skip.
or you jump from the source to the 1st shard and spend 10 years there, then returning you find 10 days have passed since you left.

As for the Crystal Tower / Gr'raha thing, I agree that you don't need time travel in order to incorporate an optional sidequest into the Main Scenario. However, I personally believe that it's too soon for G'raha to emerge, unless he's fighting a fire of some kind.

Yup that is another way to get the Crystal Tower to open up without time travel.

At the end of the Crystal Tower raids, he decided to guard the Crystal Tower until the world was ready for its secrets. It'd be hilariously silly if the world becomes "ready" less than a year later!

Looks like i needed to add some word to this picture

Since this point in their{Biggs and Wedges as well as Cid and Nero} personal time lines. Have had a chance to play with omega level tech, something the allagans had to play with to help get them to get to where they were in technology to make the crystal tower in the 1st place. I can see them finding away to brake and enter the crystal tower now.

[ObsidianFire]

I have to say that this "debate" is getting rather tedious to read or even bother caring about responding to when both people in the debate are talking past each other. Also that both of them are ignore the third, even simpler option, which is that no time travel or Shard travel is going to take place.

Instead of time travel and Shard Travel being red herrings for each other, both of them could be red herrings for the fact that all the travel we do will be taking place in the same shard in a linear fashion as the MSQ has always done. It's not like there's plenty of places to go on the Source that we've never been to before.