New Revelations: Time Shenanigans

[Lasana]

But doesnt that mean that all the Ascians in that future also exist? That we are death in that part of the dimension? Couldnt these Ascians still not just wake up their Zodiark and then destroy reality with it? How bad is it for those that hoped that their sacrifice would change the world only for their dimension to forever exist in misery? What about the souls of these people? Ugh my head..

I've been musing about this too, and the more I think about it, the more the Ascians themselves would probably regret having taken it this far.

Someone feel free to correct me if I've missed something, but:

Emet-Selch "wins" in this timeline by killing the WoL and the Scions, destroying the Eorzean Alliance, and causing the Calamity, but from what the Exarch and Urianger tell us, Black Rose was so overpowered by the Rejoining of the First that it eventually began to kill the planet's ability to sustain life. The Calamities of the past caused many deaths and immense destruction too, but they at least left the opportunity for life and civilization to flourish on the Source, even if the timetable for that was eons. Which makes sense, since Emet tells us the ultimate plan is to sacrifice the lives on the Source to Zodiark after the final Rejoining, and revive the fallen Amaurotines.

But Flood of Light-boosted Black Rose doesn't seem to leave to any room for that in the long term. Reading Biggs the Third's last message to G'raha after the Twinning makes me think so, anyway:

Biggs the Third
But you are our best chance of success. Our only hope. Your gift will allow you to become one with the tower and survive the journey through time and space. Were our technology as advanced as that of the Allagans, perhaps we could've gone with you.

[...]

Just promise me you'll spare a thought for those you leave behind. And we'll be thinking of you, too, for as long as this world lasts, though I fear it will not be for much longer.

He might have been talking about their timeline vanishing if the Exarch succeeded and history changed, but that line could have a much bleaker meaning: that the Source was looking at total extinction. If it had been 200 years since the Calamity and things were so bad that time travel was more viable than undoing the effects of Black Rose, maybe the planet itself was out of time.

So I don't know, it seems to me like in the "bad future" timeline, Emet and Elidibus might have screwed themselves out of their ultimate goal ten times worse than Igeyorhm ever did. If a Calamity messes up the Source too much, you don't have enough lives left on it to sacrifice to Zodiark, and this is with, what, 5-6 Rejoinings left to go? (I wonder if the Ascians of the Bad Future didn't bother to stop the Ironworks and G'raha because they needed that reset button just as badly, too.)

Oof. My head hurts too.

[Iscah]

He might have been talking about their timeline vanishing if the Exarch succeeded and history changed, but that line could have a much bleaker meaning: that the Source was looking at total extinction. If it had been 200 years since the Calamity and things were so bad that time travel was more viable than undoing the effects of Black Rose, maybe the planet itself was out of time.

Good point. Seeing as the entire plan relied on pinning their hopes to the intent of undoing their entire timeline, "fearing" that it won't last much longer seems counterintuitive.

Then again, it's probably reasonable to fear what's actually going to happen when you're about to see the world unravel in a time paradox...


Thinking over whether we should expect the Exarch to vanish if/when his timeline is erased... if anything including information can be allowed to remain beyond the undoing of its source timeline, then why not a person? It might be as simple as whether you're actually in the doomed world when the criteria for its prevention are reached.

But again, this is why non-stable time travel is horribly messy. (Though I'm willing to overlook some time paradoxes if it means the Exarch survives.)


I'm staring to replay the Alexander questline as well. (There were several people working on it while I was there!) I have to wonder if there's more to it than we've seen - it was always an oddity in the "sealed away forever" mechanism that Mide and Dayan eventually got out.

[Nalien]

Personally I'm going to go with "Exarch G'raha's future now exists separately from ours." Mostly cause this makes for a rather obvious xpac area to go to after dealing with Garlemald and the Ascians.

I'm woefully behind on the story still, so perhaps this comes up more clearly in some post-MSQ sidequest, but I kind of took the Exarchs "I wonder if that other age continues onward somehow, cut adrift from time's flow?" to be foreshadowing for YoRHa... How else can you describe his original timeline but as a Dark Apocalypse? I imagine if it was cast adrift from time somewhere, and that small remnant is why the Exarch is still with us, we'd be incline to follow that thread to its logical conclusion to save that world as well... Can't stop that Calamity from happening, but we can help shape the aftermath, much like we did following the 7th, thought this time presumably with android waifus...

[Allyrion]

I'm woefully behind on the story still, so perhaps this comes up more clearly in some post-MSQ sidequest, but I kind of took the Exarchs "I wonder if that other age continues onward somehow, cut adrift from time's flow?" to be foreshadowing for YoRHa... How else can you describe his original timeline but as a Dark Apocalypse? I imagine if it was cast adrift from time somewhere, and that small remnant is why the Exarch is still with us, we'd be incline to follow that thread to its logical conclusion to save that world as well... Can't stop that Calamity from happening, but we can help shape the aftermath, much like we did following the 7th, thought this time presumably with android waifus...

Interesting thought! I like it as a way to fit YoRHa into the game. But that might end up being pretty dark if

it turns out humanity is already all dead.

[Anonymoose]

...Time shenanigans and alternate timelines are very on-brand for Yoko Taro...

[Dualblade]

I'm woefully behind on the story still, so perhaps this comes up more clearly in some post-MSQ sidequest, but I kind of took the Exarchs "I wonder if that other age continues onward somehow, cut adrift from time's flow?" to be foreshadowing for YoRHa... How else can you describe his original timeline but as a Dark Apocalypse? I imagine if it was cast adrift from time somewhere, and that small remnant is why the Exarch is still with us, we'd be incline to follow that thread to its logical conclusion to save that world as well... Can't stop that Calamity from happening, but we can help shape the aftermath, much like we did following the 7th, thought this time presumably with android waifus...

It IS a possibility, however currently I am running under the assumption that the machine graveyard mentioned in one of the Dwarf sidequests and the androids mentioned in an Amarout sidequest will be what eventually leads us to it.

Of course it could be that we have that as part of the raid AND the alternate future also coming into play at the same time. Pro tip: Don't inhale any strange dust.

[Nalien]

It IS a possibility, however currently I am running under the assumption that the machine graveyard mentioned in one of the Dwarf sidequests and the androids mentioned in an Amarout sidequest will be what eventually leads us to it.

Of course it could be that we have that as part of the raid AND the alternate future also coming into play at the same time. Pro tip: Don't inhale any strange dust.

My current idea is;

While the Ironworks team on Source-b worked on timetravel, minds on the Garlean side also worked on a "solution". Naturally arriving at a fully autonomous, self replicating Magitek construct to bring peace, by force, and likely attempt to undo the damage caused by Black Rose. Naturally, as is always the case with such things, "bring peace" and "wipe out humanity" become synonymous. Obviously, the First can't really afford to send an army in to try and save Source-b from this scourge, so instead we opt to send in our own machine workforce of android waifus... With the Warrior of Light training them and supervising their mission... and accidentally teaching them humanity and making them self aware... which is already something Warrior of Light-ness has done to animals, so why not androids?

Naturally we'd need our androids to come from somewhere (or someone) on the First. Enter a beard-less Cid to match our lusciously locked Gerolt.

So I don't know, it seems to me like in the "bad future" timeline, Emet and Elidibus might have screwed themselves out of their ultimate goal ten times worse than Igeyorhm ever did. If a Calamity messes up the Source too much, you don't have enough lives left on it to sacrifice to Zodiark, and this is with, what, 5-6 Rejoinings left to go? (I wonder if the Ascians of the Bad Future didn't bother to stop the Ironworks and G'raha because they needed that reset button just as badly, too.)

You know... We're missing the "Sleeping race on the Moon" from FFIV, although one could argue at this point that Zodiark being sealed away there, with the intent to revive sacrificed Ancients works to that point now, but since I'm talking YoRHa... Moon Server... What if our immortal moon wizards spirited away some survivors to out last the Calamity they caused and reseed the planet later?

Sets up a nice late-patch plot twist; "Oh great! There are survivors on Source-b!", "Oh... They worship the Ascians as saviors... Guess we better wipe them out and let these sentient androids we made inherit Source-b".

[LineageRazor]

As much as I enjoyed this story, and as much as I love the Crystal Exarch as a character, I'll confess that the time travel rubs me the wrong way. Whether it still exists (cut adrift) or not, I don't like the idea of a "throwaway" timeline that exists primarily to send us a savior. It opens the box of worms wherein ANY problem could be solved with intervention from another timeline. Even if they DON'T, the question eventually becomes WHY NOT? There's nothing about G'raha's circumstance that implies that it was a one-time miracle that allowed it to happen - all it took was hard work and access to the Crystal Tower.

That, I think, is much more crucial an issue than trying to figure out how the wibbly-wobbly-ness jives with FFXIV lore; the notion that if things ever get too bleak, they can just rev up the old Crystal Tower and go fix things.

I agree that the Alexander storyline was much more tidy and self-contained.

[Riastrad]

"Throw wide the gates that we may pass...."

This implies that a group is trying to get into the source rather than ourselves being summoned to the First. It is my theory that G'raha Tia and the Scions in the 1st are actively attempting to travel back to the source in the future. We just got the message at the wrong time.

So in my proposed order of events: the summoning targets the WoL (and the Scions by mistake) and succeeds after a fashion. Shadowbringers begins. However, during the fight with an Ascian possessed Zenos (near the end of Stormblood), we receive a message from even further beyond that point, say from the end of Shadowbringers. I believe that we were being called by two different G'raha Tia's at two different points in time. This could lead to an opening of travel from the First to the Source and vice versa not just for ourselves, but for every soul on both reflections. A rejoining of sorts. We just need to open these gates (in the Crystal Tower i'm sure) and secure the route so that the Scions souls can make it back to their bodies.

I don't know if that makes any sense, but it's just a theory I have at the moment with what little information I have. Sorry if this is nonsense and a better theory is already out there.