Saving the Void? (Time travel) - future expansion idea?

[Ayuhra]

I'm saying going full Ancient, whether the WoL changes form or not, is endgame possibly. No more Final Fantasy XIV after that, at least no more story.

It's only one way the story could go....Hydaelyn can fight Zodiark too. Or fuse with it.

Of course they could well introduce a bigger bad than Zodiark and the Rejoining... Like what threat was it that created the sound that threw off the creation magic of the Ancients in the first place? That seems a fact worth knowing. The source of that might still be out there.

Maybe Zenos brainjacked the Crystal Tower against all lore and restored its time travel and went back and disrupted their magic so he'd have monsters to fight!

No, but really, please don't let it be that.

[Iscah]

There's a major issue with the concept of "regaining our lost soul fragments" - they're other people.

We could rejoin with Ardbert because he is conveniently dead already, but I can't see the ethics of seeking out and rejoining with the remaining, presumably-living individuals as being enjoyable or in line with the story. At very least it seems a time-consuming plot exercise to repeatedly introduce these individuals and justify why they have to merge with us - and not going through that would probably be worse.

Plus it introduces even more shards and realities and takes ever more focus away from the world-building of the two we already have.

[Ayuhra]

Even if the WoLs rejoined who's to say they couldn't be fractured again and go back to their lives? Hydaelyn could probably do it.

[Absimiliard]

Even if the WoLs rejoined who's to say they couldn't be fractured again and go back to their lives? Hydaelyn could probably do it.

A second sundering would in effect be committing murder all over again. Death of personality is still death.

[Ayuhra]

I mean if the remaining WoLs rejoined into an Ancient to cast down something like Zodiark, and it was the same ancient who summoned Hydaelyn to preserve new life...

The Ancient would probably turn to Hydaelyn again and ask to be sundered because the Ancients' time is over and the worlds as they are now need their Warriors of Light. Hydaelyn sunders the Ancient, the WoLs are restored to their previous forms and go on to continue protecting their worlds.

How would they be restored rather than just scattered into the Lifestream? I dunno, man, but there's lots of ways to get around that in lore.

....I seem to have derailed the thread, sorry OP.

[LineageRazor]

Wouldn't the WoL lose their own racial identity and become an Ancient if they fully Rejoined their soul? From a meta perspective, I don't think the player base would be cool with losing their avatars.
The Ascians are using meat puppets to appear as Hyurs so maybe the WoL could just possess a fake copy of their old body? But this seems convoluted to me, I don't think FFXIV is actually taking the side that the Rejoining is actually a good thing. I get the overall impression that FFXIV celebrates diversity so that destroying other Warriors of Light to absorb the souls for more power would be what a villain would do. Heck I even remember a movie where Jet Li was playing the villain and was trying to do just that.

"The One" was the name of the movie, as I recall, but I didn't see it myself. I DID think of it, though, when I learned that we were regaining soul fragments, and that Emet considered us to be more "whole" as a result. Needless to say, I tend to doubt that the plotline will ever see the WoL traveling from shard to shard to murder his soul-buddies for Moar Powah. XD

As for losing our body and possessing a new one - I don't think that would be necessary. Ascians may not have physical bodies - but from we could see in Emet's recreation of Amaurot, the Ancients DID have physical bodies. I suspect that shedding their body was part of the reason why the Big Three were able to avoid the Sundering, and also a useful tool for Ascians in general to allow them to travel between Shards and avoid normal forms of death.

[Mixt]

One possibility for the WOL to survive the destruction of their physical body.

Hijacked Garlean Cloning Facility.

We killed Emet-Selch after all, i'd say we are entitled to loot his stuff once we get into Garlemald.

[RyuDragnier]

There's a major issue with the concept of "regaining our lost soul fragments" - they're other people.

We could rejoin with Ardbert because he is conveniently dead already, but I can't see the ethics of seeking out and rejoining with the remaining, presumably-living individuals as being enjoyable or in line with the story. At very least it seems a time-consuming plot exercise to repeatedly introduce these individuals and justify why they have to merge with us - and not going through that would probably be worse.

Plus it introduces even more shards and realities and takes ever more focus away from the world-building of the two we already have.

Any future rejoinings we have with our other soul fragments will in most likelihood be consensual. Considering how Yoshi-P basically mentioned things were going to get frantic after 5.3, expect something to happen which will result in that happening naturally over the course of the next few expansions, WITHOUT going to other worlds. After all, Elidibus DID mention he was going to throw other WoL at us, I wouldn't put it past him to throw our other soul fragments at us. Meaning we fight, things get explained to them, some catastrophe ends up happening that can destroy all the shards and the source, and they proceed to willingly combine with us so we can stop it.

[Absimiliard]

Any future rejoinings we have with our other soul fragments will in most likelihood be consensual. Considering how Yoshi-P basically mentioned things were going to get frantic after 5.3, expect something to happen which will result in that happening naturally over the course of the next few expansions, WITHOUT going to other worlds. After all, Elidibus DID mention he was going to throw other WoL at us, I wouldn't put it past him to throw our other soul fragments at us. Meaning we fight, things get explained to them, some catastrophe ends up happening that can destroy all the shards and the source, and they proceed to willingly combine with us so we can stop it.

There is also the possibility of those fragments being absorbed as a result of the WoL killing their other selves. Should be theoretically possible since they wouldn't be fighting on even footing anymore. That whole rejoining with Ardbert thing gives an edge up.

[Iscah]

Considering how Yoshi-P basically mentioned things were going to get frantic after 5.3

I saw someone say that was meant to be translated as "the second half of Shadowbringers" which might mean patches or might be 5.0 itself. The story certainly got pretty frantic on major lore reveals in its second half.

There is also the possibility of those fragments being absorbed as a result of the WoL killing their other selves. Should be theoretically possible since they wouldn't be fighting on even footing anymore. That whole rejoining with Ardbert thing gives an edge up.

It would be completely at odds with the ideals of the story and everything we've done so far. How could we possibly justify killing our other selves violently, in a narrative where the heroes place emphasis on the value of individuals, and on not sacrificing people for causes?