Revelations from the Shadowbringers E3 Trailer

[Alleo]

one true god does that mean primal zodiark or the being before the split?

But that would include Hydaelyn too wouldnt it? So wouldnt they want to fuse them together again instead of just killing her?

In the end even if its the combined one, it was still seemingly just a primal too.

[Daralii]

But that would include Hydaelyn too wouldnt it? So wouldnt they want to fuse them together again instead of just killing her?

In the end even if its the combined one, it was still seemingly just a primal too.

Ultima became a "living primal" after the early Ivalicians provided sufficient prayer and aether, turning an alien entity of destruction into a being with a consciousness. It's possible that the Rejoinings will ultimately erase that spark from Hydaelyn, recreating the original Will of the Star with no consciousness but Zodiark.

[Lauront]

It's all fairly complicated, because you have questions about whether the Crystals and the Primals are the same thing, or is the latter just an extension of the other (or even the reverse, i.e. the crystal forming as aether coalesced to form the star)? Was the "star" itself formed through aether and prayer, to act as an escape from a calamity plaguing another world (maybe this is where Eden ties in, either as the original Primal-inside-a-Star, like the Garden of Eden, or something else entirely?) In turn, can you destroy their "will" (the manifestation that is the Primal), or would doing so end up in a situation as with Zodiark's banishment, where the Source split into the 13 reflections, or this time entirely destroyed?

Excellent point; I've completely forgotten about that.

So apparently "Balance" for Ascians means "balanced to my side, and screw yours".

It may be but at the same time, it may not be, depending on how carefully he is choosing his words, and whether the floods become inevitable if just one Primal exists. Let's say the Crystals have to exist in order for the world not to collapse on itself, such that they're a given in the equation, which to me seems plausible - given the nature of man, darkness and light become inevitabilities too, and with a powerful Primal aspected to one of these cosmic forces, you may well end up with a situation where you get inevitable floods that threaten to erase all existence in the direction of that Primal, whether they will it or not. That to me seems like a logical case as to why an Ascian might come to tolerate her existence, even if they consider their god to be the true one due to his primacy. Of course some may be more nihilistic and welcome the eventual flood.

That could all just end up being idle speculation but I certainly think there's a good possibility of the inevitability of the floods being the case given all the above conditions.

But that would include Hydaelyn too wouldnt it? So wouldnt they want to fuse them together again instead of just killing her?

In the end even if its the combined one, it was still seemingly just a primal too.

It wouldn't, necessarily, especially if she came to the party later on. In that case their view becomes quite understandable - perhaps not compatible with the desires of those living in the world, but they would consider the existences of these beings to be predicated on a falsehood. Thus it becomes a conflict of wills. Obviously it'd still be the case even if it were simply a scenario of them wanting their Primal/god to reign supreme, but it gives further dimension to some of the things lines they use, if true.

[Nalien]

But that would include Hydaelyn too wouldnt it? So wouldnt they want to fuse them together again instead of just killing her?

In the end even if its the combined one, it was still seemingly just a primal too.

My guess is "one true god" is aether based.

The mural has Zodiark, alone, with a double halo; He claims 100% of the stars aether. One True God™
Then Hydaelyn shows up for some reason, both have a single halo; They each claim 50% of the stars aether, both are "lesser" as a result.
Finally, Hydaelyn stomps Zodiark to the moon, gains the double halo; Hydaelyn now claims 100% of the stars aether.

I imagine once a Primal controls literally all the stars aether, the usual worry of them draining the stars aether goes away; They are the stars aether. Small time Primals like Ifrit disrupt that on a local scale, maybe temporarily claiming 0.1% of the stars aether, though that number should grow the longer we leave them roaming. The worry has always been the Primals will drain the land dry of aether, but if say Ifrit was able to drain 100% of the aether, I'm now imaging he'd essentially make a new land, likely solely for his faithful, although given the belief that went into forging him, perhaps he'd be unable to sustain an entire star...Alexander was likely the closest to a self sufficient Primal that could work with 100% and keep people alive, given he was a living/robo-City. Of course, that hinges on him being able to claim 100% of Hydaelyns aether to begin with, and we already know Hydaelyn can put up a fight when push comes to shove, although that fight is literally world shattering...

[Lauront]

It makes sense, especially with their representations as crystals (and I imagine these are quite literal, with all the references to the Mothercrystal in the lore being an actual thing), which in turn are solidified aether - in their case, huge quantities of it.

Also, some interesting observations from reddit.

The first does make a lot of sense, when you consider that Zodiark would have to be ejected from somewhere from the insides of the planet, and also tie in with Nero's device picking up something there at the end of the CT scenes, and may explain the tower's great powers, including its ability to open gates across worlds when adequately powered. Which is probably what led to the Allagan re-purposing it. It makes sense that if it was a physical feature of the world at the time of the split, it'd be replicated on all of them.

That makes the second interesting, too, given how this figure has assumed control over the Crystal Tower on the First, and is using it to bridge the gap between worlds. His callings did have a tinge of darkness to them. I'm not going to leap to the assumption of "vessel of Zodiark" (which, frankly is a destiny I'd expect for Unukalhai, if anyone), but I think it all lines up pretty nicely, if this point of emission is in fact Zodiark's crystallised aether. It's also interesting to me that the crystal in his staff is of a similar shape to the hole in this doorway in the Chrysalis... especially if the Chrysalis has an abstract representation of what became the CT. It's just funny how many things there are hidden in the game, which you can easily miss, as well as cross-references to the other games in the series.

Alexander was likely the closest to a self sufficient Primal that could work with 100% and keep people alive, given he was a living/robo-City. Of course, that hinges on him being able to claim 100% of Hydaelyns aether to begin with, and we already know Hydaelyn can put up a fight when push comes to shove, although that fight is literally world shattering...

Which does put a different perspective on his decision. I have to wonder how it is that Primals gain knowledge at this point, like Ramuh - as in, if he's correct about being light and dark being the consequence of man's nature, how does he know this? Certainly, it's unlikely that the Sylphs themselves possess this knowledge. So where do Primals gain any knowledge they claim to have? Maybe the aether being used to summon them contains it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[ObsidianFire]

When I saw those murals, I didn't think they were reading from left to right chronologically. I thought they were reading from the middle outwards chronologically. That is... there are two concurrent chronologies on either wall. One deals with Zodiark, the other with Hydaelyn.

[Theodric]

Thanks for sharing, Lauront! It's an interesting theory and one I suspect has merit. At this point I'm fairly confident that the story is not going in the direction of 'Hydaelyn = Good, Zodiark = Bad' given the answers to certain recent interview questions and the direction of the game's story and character arcs thus far.

There's just under two weeks until we get our answers, at any rate. As well as more questions to tide us over until 5.1 and beyond.

[RopeDrink]

My take on it is simple.

If they were not actual gods then that just reaffirms that there was one non-god entity before them, as has been said. The mural shows people revering one entity (which, oddly enough, has a double-halo). We know the Ascians consider the sundering a big stain that needs to be remedied via rejoining, thus it's not so much about "ZODIARK IS THA BESTEST", it's more a case of Hyde having been created via divided worship of this being, which caused an eventual split. For all we know, Ascian's might have been OK with that, at least until Hyde (supposedly) banished Zodi under claim of greeding for power (which I imagine would not go down well with Zodi-worshippers). Given Hyde is represented as a massive light-aspected chunk of aether, we can assume Zodiark is simply the opposite - and the two (previous to the sundering) where quite literally just one chunk of aether, enough to give power to the prayers in the first-place.

The mural clearly shows one being being worshipped by a group of people - later two groups of people (light and dark in colour) worshiping a light & dark version, now with single-halos, with another showing splitting of the singular entity into Zodiark and Hyde with a very 'sundering'esque' explosion between them, and we know the Ascian's blame Hyde for this (or what followed the split, thus are trying to have Zodi literally absorb her). In short, one big fat chunk of aether, people on said world prayed for whatever and manifested the crystal -- faith eventually divided and thus this divided the crystal. One side blames the other when infact it was likely never in their direct control.

On top of Solus' comment about "Through prayer and sacrifice, the will of the planet/world/whatever was made manifest", implying that this essentially birthed the initial primal/being, which likely resided in the planet. For all we know, it could have simply been the largest crystalized deposit of raw aether known to the pre-sundered world, and enough faith/prayer/calling for a god gave it life -- and then people worshipped it in different ways, thus it split.

Just think of them literally as primals and tie it up to what we've seen countless times in our 'Oh no, Joe Soap is praying to their primal... And they have aether... Whelp, they've gone and summoned it... Better call the Scions and beat it to death!'. Now just think of the same process and attribute it to the worship-into-creation of the first entity, later being split into our two favourite chunks of crystal thanks to people being people and having their own individual beliefs rather than all being unified in one belief.

Whether this is accurate, who knows, but I do know that we won't know how much influence the revelation has outside of in-game story-telling. It may cause some character-debate and a little drama/concern between the Scions, but it also may never become the main plot point if SE decide to stall it (or not follow up on it at all). Unless they do, this revelation doesn't change much of anything, unless they want it to. They could quite easily throw 'grey' on Hyde and make it out like we were tempered from the beginning (very unlikely), or brush it over and focus on other things.

[Lauront]

I think you raise some good points and I agree, it may or may not be immediately plot relevant depending on how they choose to make use of it. So much of it will depend on details about what those scenes depict etc, which we may only find out later in any depth. We can speculate but this has only created more questions. Exactly why he felt comfortable dropping it in the trailer I guess.

[Cilia]

I'll try to condense my thoughts on how the timeline went, which is a bit more important than actually fighting Sin Eaters in the long run.

1. Zodiark exists as the sole god of the star. The Ascians are his children.

2. At some point in the past, Hydaelyn arrives, and the two coexist for a time.

3. Zodiark eventually seeks to oust Hydaelyn from the planet.

4. Hydaelyn, desiring to protect Her children (mortals), supplants Zodiark's status as "true god" of the star and banishes him as the moon (in essence, she successfully pulls off what Terra tried to do to Gaia in IX). His aether is split up and used to make the reflections.

5. This has disastrous consequences. If Varis is to be believed, this is what split the spoken races into their imperfect selves. With their god's corporal form reduced to a lifeless husk and his energy split up into parallel dimensions, the Ascians begin their labor of restoring him by causing Calamities on the Source - in doing so, Hydaelyn is weakened by needing to heal the damage (a la Sephiroth and the Black Materia / Meteor), destroying the dimensional barriers between a Reflection and Source, causing that Shard to be Rejoined.

That's... the best I got right now... with the information we have. The Ascians call Zodiark "the one true god" because he actually is. That is the biggest issue I have with the available information, and is the only way to reconcile their describing Hydaelyn as a "parasite" with Zodiark's status as "the one true god."

Waiting with bated breath.