I'll admit, I may have been a bit to hard on Cid in my initial disdainful view on his giving up on the world. I wasn't there, myself, and my only window into the world was the Tale itself. He may have well tried every possible option, before going whole-hog on the change-the past goal. Still rankles, though, in a game where we accomplish six impossible victories before breakfast, every day. :P

Quote Originally Posted by Alleo View Post
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.
You are correct that there's nothing in game that says whether the restoration was fast or slow. But we're talking about rejuvenating an entire planet. That doesn't sound like something that can be done in a hurry, even by a godlike Primal. As for whether it could wait a few years - why not? The Calamity was over, thanks to Zodiark's First Task, and the surviving Ancients could use their Creation abilities again (under Zodiark's careful supervision). They are immortal, they can create whatever food and shelter they want - they could easily last for as long as it takes to rebuild the world, now that there were no longer horrible monsters and rains of fire actively trying to kill them. Heck, they could have been waiting on the moon, if the world even had one, back then!

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.

...

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.
After eight rejoinings, Zodiark would be at more than half of his former power. We know that Zodiark was stronger than Hydaelyn, which is why she needed to Sunder him to beat him. What we don't know is how much stronger. Eight could well be the tipping point, the point at which Zodiark is strong enough to break the bonds that hold him. There's only so much she can do, and it sounds like Hy made a pretty darned secure prison if it was able to stay tight even after seven Rejoinings. There's plenty of redundancy there, already! You could just as well ask, why didn't she Sunder him ten thousand times, instead of just fourteen?

As for an official source as to eight being the last Rejoining needed to free Zodiark... I don't recall how I know this, or even whether it was in-game or the devs talking, but I'm pretty sure it was mentioned. Maybe someone else can confirm/deny that assumption?

Quote Originally Posted by Valenth View Post
I would say the devteam wrote themselves out pretty well of this one.
Quote Originally Posted by Berteaux_Braumegain View Post
Furthermore, also keep in mind that Emet-Selch kidnaps G'raha Tia during the lategame BECAUSE he wants to get his hands on the ability to time travel.
It doesn't matter. The fact that the Ascians don't know how to do it? Irrelevant. The fact that the heroes used one-shot MacGuffins? Irrelevant. The very fact that it's possible to go back and change the past means that it will always be out there as an option - an option which, up until now, the story hasn't had on the table. Even Alexander, with all of his time shenanigans, did not change the past in any way - everything that he did, had already happened.

Emet wanted G'raha because he was a SHORTCUT to time travel, not because he was the only option. Ascians are immortal - they have LITERALLY all the time in the world (and then some). If he wanted to, Emet could spend a few hundred thousand years and <ironman>BUILD ONE IN A CAVE, WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!</ironman>

It's a tougher sell for the heroes, but I see it in much the same way as Y'shtola's second rescue from the Lifestream: it might SEEM like a miracle, one-shot solution, but if it can be done once, it can be done again. And if the writers are bad enough, it will.