I cannot believe how far in advance the story has set itself up. (spoilers of course)

[MrThinker]

Doma's crisis was set up in the 2x series.

Sharlayan's main city has been set up since awhile ago.

Thavnair is a thing.

Bukyo is a thing.

They do a lot of setting up. Just wait. We will see all these places and many more someday.

And the New World

And Meracydia

And the Moon

[JeanneOrnitier]

Thavnair is a thing.

Soon please YoshiP xoxo

[Hezzlocks]

And the New World

And Meracydia

And the Moon

Oh I do so hope that if we ever do go to the moon it'll be because of something like this

https://youtu.be/3yMy7JuGpJM

[ICountFrom0]

I'll just gently point at the lost city of amdapor (hard), and the rather similar art style, and how this is just another reflection of the great war of the mages.

[silentwindfr]

If what Solus has said is true, then Hydaelyn is not the Mother Crystal. The Crystal existed before the sundering. The entity before Zodiark and Hydaelyn is also not the Mother Crystal since the planet also existed before its summoning. While it may or may not have been foreshadowing it's still cool, you could also apply this kind of thing to what Ifrit said in 1.0. Just to grab a quote from the wiki "The true nature and origins of the Echo are unknown, but according to Ifrit, there's a deity who gave the power of Echo to everyone who currently has it, but not even he seems to know who the deity is." He knows who Hydaelyn is, so Hydaelyn didn't give us the Echo, and we've had the Echo before receiving the Blessing of Light. There's lots of stuff we can say is foreshadowing or as stated above just left open so they can come back later to expand upon it.

you doubt solus have told us everything....
- by example, what was the cause of the apocalypse? we know that a sound did come out and people did loose control of them power.... but they have never touch on the reason of this sound?
- same some shadow in the city have let us understand that 14 people was part of the council, but in this time one of them did leave the council. while waiting for the pass to the capitol the shadow did let us know that maybe we are the descendant of the 14 the councile member....
- he say that some have come out and create hyadelin for counter zordarck since they didn't stop to sacrifice people to him. acting like if hyadelin was the bad one... but i think Hyadelin was created for counter the power the ascien did begin to use (the one that allows to turn life into aether)

technically Hyadelin is the mother crystal, the one that did split the world into 14 part, probably for stop the use of the power the human was abusing.

but a point disturb me greatly... with the power the ascien (old human) was having how they wasn't able to create weapon for fight against the trouble? if them power out of control was really behind creating this hellish situation, they why it wasn't possible to create something for protect themself against the sound and it effect?

here a food for your though.... what if actually the whole situation was created by someone else... what if ascien by overusing them power did lure something else into them world that did lead to that?

all in all, we have only have the word of solus.... can we really believe everything he have said? can we believe that soo much time didn't affect his memory?

i still think that something else did spread the light, maybe a primal born from the prayer of the aurora religion that was strangely spreading, it said that at the start only elven was following, then hume did follow, but the stranger part is them enemy the drahn and galdalfen did decide to switch religion... another point, Solus did told us that light was diminishing him... then how they did create this whole situation by just killing one person with the help of the hero of the first shard...

i feel we haven't seen the whole story yet... far too much loose end remain...

[RopeDrink]

technically Hyadelin is the mother crystal

We're in a situation now where we won't know whether she really is a Primal or whether it was all smokescreens and misdirection from a chaos-spreading Ascian until Square deem it necessary to flesh out that story-thread. If there's a hint of truth behind Emet's lessons, murals, the finale, or anything of that kind, then calling Hyde the mother-crystal won't be accurate in the slightest. We don't know the full story of what really befell them back then but (assuming the majority is true) we've been given a decent template to work with (that can be fleshed out whenever Square desire to push the story a certain way).

As for the WoD's - I understand how divided people are about them but I really enjoyed that mini-story when they were introduced, thus I thoroughly enjoyed getting some more on that score in Shadowbringers. They were set up back then as a blatantly obvious mirror for our own WoL and friends, which is why it resonates with some people. The simple concept of people just like you who are forced/goaded/tricked into doing something different than you would, for a goal that good/evil as a matter of perspective, but ultimately unjustifiable from any morally sound perspective on our side. It is not that much different to the ShB climax either, or the Emet-Road-Trip where he's attempting to point out that it's all a matter of perspective. Funny how he baulks at the 'we are the same' trope from Alphinaud whilst simultaneously demanding to know why we keep struggling... Well, the same reason he was struggling, or reliving his old days, or trying so desperately to rejoin everyone - to bring back / fight for / protect what they were/are/had. Whether someone is a hero or villain for doing whatever they deem necessary to achieve that will often be moulded by history or individual perspective.

The WoD's weren't evil - but they did do very evil things under misguidance, desperation and ignorance - and as was confirmed by the finale, Arbert was indeed a sort of splinter of the WoL. I don't think many will argue if you call Ascian's evil, though with a blind eye and a few things kept hidden under a rug you could half-convince people they were somewhat heroic in their own tragic way.

Do bear in mind the cloning tech. I highly doubt we're genuinely an Ascian down just yet. Could all have been just another mindbending scheme.

[silentwindfr]

no, we did kill lahabrea and emeth mostly because what we did destroy is them soul, not them body.

with them capacity to creation magic we can expect the part about zordiarch and hyadelin to be a sort of primal to be true. the question about if hyadelin is the mother crystal is.... simple.... from the old world perspective she is not. from our perspective, hyadelin did create the world and his shard, she is litterally the one that did create it.

the point is how far can we trust the info we did get.... i doubt the part about how the apocalypse did happend and the creation of the two spirit is false.... the question is more do like emeth have said zordiarch is a spirit that really try to help.... from what i have get, it's a primal that is quite glutton in terms of aether consumption, in the dungeon of akademia it was said that the new method for create aether was really powerfull and they did use half them population for summon him.... and another time half of them population for save them world. if they had continue more and more people will have die....

what did lead to the creation of hyadelin because the power the ascian was using is corrupt, yes they was able to create a spirit for stop them destruction, but this spirit was slowly destroying them. the question is more about viewpoint at this point.