Question regarding the Shards... *story spoilers*

[Cilia]

This was answered before - while the shards and Source do occupy different dimensions, the dimensional fracture is localized to the planet on which the game is set.

To use a real-world analogy, if something like that happened to Earth there would still be only one Alpha Centauri. Exactly what an outside observer would see, well... that's what I want to know.

[Gaethan_Tessula]

But then, how is it that G'raha Tia continues to exist in the First?

I find that it's still possible that the protagonists lose and A G'raha Tia needs to sent back in time again.

If that's the case, we're not going to see Exarch G'raha vanish until the possibility of the or an 8th umbral calamity is truly past.

[Iscah]

I was not talking about them lining up with anything in the real world, but if the Source and the Shards line up with one another. If they do, it means their stars have been copied as well, along with whatever the stars are (fires on a crystal shell, an actual galaxy, a whole universe of stellar objects...). It could go a long way to answering the cosmological questions.

That's not necessarily the case. If the shards are localised parallel dimensions then it's possible they all still look out to the same universe - like different floors of a building seeing the same view through the windows.

I find that it's still possible that the protagonists lose and A G'raha Tia needs to sent back in time again.

If that's the case, we're not going to see Exarch G'raha vanish until the possibility of the or an 8th umbral calamity is truly past.

I agree it's possible that we haven't resolved the Calamity threat yet, and that's the reason why G'raha Exarch is still here.

But I don't think that means he'd be sent back in time again. That would mean we have a second Exarch influencing events right now.

It would just mean he's here until we do successfully change the timeline.

[Hazama999]

This was answered before - while the shards and Source do occupy different dimensions, the dimensional fracture is localized to the planet on which the game is set.

To use a real-world analogy, if something like that happened to Earth there would still be only one Alpha Centauri. Exactly what an outside observer would see, well... that's what I want to know.

Oooh that is very interesting, and yes, I'm curious as to how an outside perspective would be.

[FJerome]

Is this a good time to bring back the speculation about the Allagan Space Program?

[TinyRedLeaf]

Oooh that is very interesting, and yes, I'm curious as to how an outside perspective would be.

Probably like this:



or this:



...smaller Shards orbiting a far larger Source.

[Iscah]

Probably like this:

or this:

...smaller Shards orbiting a far larger Source.

That's the view from the aetherial sea. Hydaelyn from the outside is an earthlike planet - we've seen it from Elidibus's favourite lurking place on the moon.

[Enkidoh]

That's the view from the aetherial sea. Hydaelyn from the outside is an earthlike planet - we've seen it from Elidibus's favourite lurking place on the moon.

^This. Hydaelyn the world is an actual planet like Earth, it's roughly spherical and looks just like Earth does from space. You see a brief shot of this right at the very start of the game in the opening cutscene aftrer creating your character (where Louisoix narrates the story so far). The same shot was used also in trailers for ARR just prior to the game's launch and both clearly show Hydaelyn as a spherical planet (a still from which is below):



Hydaelyn the Mothercrystal however is technically inside that planet, in the 'aetherial sea'/Lifestream/river of aether/afterlife whatever you want to call it. This is why the Sharlayans built the Antitower in the Dravanian Hinterlands, it was a place that the Lifestream was unusually close to the surface and so allowed them a means of interacting with it slightly (and so we used it to take a shortcut straight to the Mothercrystal outselves).

Those small pieces of crystal 'orbiting' the main Mothercrystal however, I think are merely for decoration and are not the 'Shard' versions of Hydaelyn (lets' not forget the 'dark Hydaelyn' crystal, that presumedly is meant to represent a post-rejoined Zodiark, seen through the Echo in the final scene of ARR's main story looked exactly the same complete with shards, so that doesn't work). So they're merely decorative and are not meant to represent the 'Shard' Hydaelyns 'orbiting' the Source (also don't forget how the Shards are represented in the in-game exposition as part of a circle alongside the Source, and don't orbit it like moons orbiting a planet). The Shards exist side-by-side with the Source, they're not surrounding it.

[LineageRazor]

I'm sorta interested about that line of space debris in Enkidoh's image. Allagan satellites?

("Many worlds" is depressing. No matter what you do, you're just in the one version of the world that got lucky, while the bad stuff you were trying to prevent still happened somewhere else.)

That's the glass-half-empty way of looking at it. Just as correct - no matter what mistake you made, there's someone out there who got it right.

In fact you may well be immortal; somewhere out there, the incredibly improbable situation aligned where there's a you that has all of your thoughts and memories, and also has flipped all of the quantum coins the right way to prevent their body from degrading any further, ever. That you, in fact COULD WELL BE YOU. You just don't know it yet. And even if it's not you, that you does exist somewhere else.

No matter how many yous spiral into oblivion, there's some that will fulfill your every wildest dream. I suppose that could be a source of comfort OR jealousy, if you feel like you're one of the former.

[Enkidoh]

I'm sorta interested about that line of space debris in Enkidoh's image. Allagan satellites?

Oh ignore that, that screenshot was taken from this really old trailer, and that 'debris', are simply the letters of the game's title which ends the trailer (which came into view from that side and then spelled out the title and game's logo superimposed over Hydaelyn). So good guess, but alas, sadly it's nothing lore related at all.