Tales from the Shadows

[LineageRazor]

Nice to see that the fan theory regarding OMG has panned out. Always thought it was a waste for Omega to have its epiphany only to die moments after. I have to admit, though, that this story focuses on my least favorite part of the ShB plotline: the whole "send someone to the past to prevent a dark future" thing. I don't like the idea that, no matter how bad things get, we always have time travel as a back-up plan. The fact that all kinds of unlikely things had to come together to make it possible doesn't matter; the fact that it's possible at all cheapens our accomplishments, in my mind. It also tends to ignore the fact that the BAD GUYS could use this kind of cheap trick, as well - and being immortal, they have plenty of time to figure out how to do it WITHOUT the handful of MacGuffins the heroes had to cobble together to get the job done.

It also leaves a bad taste in my mouth that Cid would just give up. "Nup, things are just too awful. Time travel is the only option!" This isn't the first Calamity the world has gone through, and even if it's the worst of them, it seems too early to assume that it's impossible to recover. The time travel option should have been, at most, a side project, while they focused on the true task of guiding what they can of civilization through the Umbral Era. Of course, WE know that the Ascians plan to revive Zodiark has succeeded, and everyone will eventually be doomed no matter what they do, but THEY didn't know that - all they could see is that the world was a crapsack. The world has crawled back from the brink seven times previously; why were they so sure that, nope, wasn't gonna work this time?

And maybe I'm a cold-hearted curmudgeon, but the efforts of the story to tug at my heartstrings fell flat. Probably a large part of that is because this is all an erased timeline anyway, so nothing that happens in it really matters.

And no I think this future has shown that there would need to be more rejoinings to happen before Zodiark is free.

Well... Not necessarily. We don't know the time scale that Zodiark works at. Stopping the Calamity? Healing the world? We're never given any estimate of how long those things took to do, and the Ancients are immortal beings. If he were to be revived right now - well, Hydaelyn left him an AWFULLY big mess to clean up. I could easily see the Big Z spending a few hundred of years cleaning up all those Shards while the folks on the Source stew in their squalor and wipe themselves out. Just because we don't see any evidence of Zodiark for a full two hundred years does not mean that he's not awake and active.

Basically, just because Zodiark isn't doing stuff on the Source, right now, doesn't mean that he's not out there doing his thing. Powerful as he might be, we don't know that Zodiark can simply snap his fingers and do anything he wants in an instant. Additionally, he wouldn't be at full power, with only eight-fourteenths of him rejoined. It could be that eight was enough to free him, but not fully restore him - eight was enough to give him enough agency to finish the job himself, but it doesn't have to be a quick process.

[Ilenya]

It also leaves a bad taste in my mouth that Cid would just give up. "Nup, things are just too awful. Time travel is the only option!" This isn't the first Calamity the world has gone through, and even if it's the worst of them, it seems too early to assume that it's impossible to recover.

Honestly, after reading the Tale, the whole thing is reminding me of an Episode of Warehouse 13.

In it, Pandora's Box gets destroyed, literally destroying all hope in the world. Everything basically goes to hell, and time travel is used to fix it, because things are that broken.

It's a similar train of thought. There aren't enough people *willing* to listen to Cid at this point. It points out that Cid and company were trying to fix things the normal way, but they kept losing people. "While their deeds earned them the support of many like-minded individuals, the number of comrades gained paled in comparison to those lost in the days which followed."

It's not surprising Cid gave up hope.

[Brightamethyst]

Wow. Was certainly not expecting that PoV.

[SannaR]

Oh man that story. Also press F to a will they wont they ship of two lalafells.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

but I will say this.... OMG!!!!

I see what you did there.

Is it weird that I'm glad Omega survived?

Honestly, after reading the Tale, the whole thing is reminding me of an Episode of Warehouse 13.

Personally it reminds me of Virtue's Last Reward and Zero Time Dilemma. Only there are less stupid complex motives.

[Ilenya]

Personally it reminds me of Virtue's Last Reward and Zero Time Dilemma. Only there are less stupid complex motives.

Unfortunately I do not have context for this, so I will take your word on it.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

Unfortunately I do not have context for this, so I will take your word on it.

They're visual novel games that are part of the Zero Escape trilogy (Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors/Virtue's Last Reward/Zero Time Dilemma). If you want context, here it is (keep in mind that the following detail is a major spoiler for the second game, VLR):

A killer virus gets released on Earth and kills most everyone, creating a terrible situation for the planet. While I think about two million manage to live and get life back to being somewhat sustainable, circumstances are still pretty bad. The main "villains" of the game, who are admittedly not exactly the most ethical people even if they are well-meaning, want to send someone's consciousness back to the past in order to prevent this future from happening.

[Valenth]

I have to admit, though, that this story focuses on my least favorite part of the ShB plotline: the whole "send someone to the past to prevent a dark future" thing... It also tends to ignore the fact that the BAD GUYS could use this kind of cheap trick, as well.

This is not entirely the case in ShB though. There is some nuance to things to take away the foul taste of "convenient time travel solution to everything and all".

First thing first, we destroyed the time traveling machine in The Twinning, so that other wouldn't get their hands on it and it's technology (and we can't use it anymore). Second, it's not actually sending someone back into one's own past. The Exarch and the Crystal Tower were sent back into the past of an alternative timeline. The own timeline of the Cid we see in this part of Tales of the Shadow is doomed, won't change. Lastely, there is only a hand full of people who know how things happened, and Emet was the only Ascian who was even close to figuring out how the time travel worked (which he wasn't as the Exarch wasn't talking).

I would say the devteam wrote themselves out pretty well of this one.

[Alleo]

It also leaves a bad taste in my mouth that Cid would just give up. "Nup, things are just too awful. Time travel is the only option!" This isn't the first Calamity the world has gone through, and even if it's the worst of them, it seems too early to assume that it's impossible to recover.



Well... Not necessarily. We don't know the time scale that Zodiark works at. Stopping the Calamity? Healing the world? We're never given any estimate of how long those things took to do, and the Ancients are immortal beings.

Well badfuture!Cid was the one who lived in that timeline, we never did, so I have a hard time saying if he was giving up fast or not. We do know that the soil turned bad, that the whole states collapsed and that the people that did not want to turn into true savages tried to bring people over to them. So its not like they did not try but maybe they knew enough to see that this wont end well. Its also just a small glimps into their life and we dont know if other groups did not try to bring the socities back up and left the rest to Cid and Co. It might not be the first calamity but seemingly it was one that affected the whole world, destroyed the societies, made the soil bad and even destroyed Garlemalds energy sources. And even 200 years after the calamity happened, people were still fighting against each others and the lifes seemingly did not get better otherwise these generations might not have done this plan.

About Zodiark: We do know that the end goal after Zodiark is free, is to sacrifice the remaining people of the source to get back the Ancient ones. Since there is no talk about this at all and there is also no talk about Ancient ones we can probably assume that he is not free. It would also be strange if they would create a prison for him which can only hold him up to 8 rejoinings.

There is no hint ingame either that he needed big amount of times to redo the world after the ancient calamity. I mean they needed to sacrifice more of their own people because the whole planet was kinda death. That does not sound like something that can wait a few years.

In the end is there any hint ingame that Zodiark would be able to break free after only 8 calamites? If not then its much better to assume that its not the case and that he would not be free.

[Naria]

That one was definitely my favorite from the year's series so far, although I have enjoyed them all. The "Tales. . . " series is always one of my favorite parts of The Rising. I now have an urge to try and track down Alpha and OMG in-game--I've only come across them once by accident. Maybe we will see them again in a side quest or seasonal event this year?