Tales from the Shadows

[Ilenya]

Beautiful story, easily my favorite of the ShB Tales.

I'm still full of questions about the Bad Future timeline, though: if the Source is actually dying there, what does that mean for the Bad Future!Ascians' plans? I thought they needed life to be able to continue on the Source after all the Rejoinings were complete (Emet tells us the plan is to sacrifice the life left over to bring back their fallen Amaurotines), and it seems like that won't be the case in this timeline. Emet and Lahabrea are both presumably still alive in the doomed future, so maybe they're planning to undo the Black Rose effects and get civilization going again at some point, finish off the remaining Rejoinings and call it a game?

Why would Lahabrea be alive? He died before the timelines would have converged (A point which I believe may have been the Exarch talking to us after we fought Elidizenos). Also, the entirely of the world was not affected by the Black Rose, as far as I can see. Garlemald, by all appearances, wasn't directly affected, and I don't think lands beyond Eorzea were, either. It's possible Limsa avoided the worst of it, as well. The story specifically mentions Ala Mhigo, the Shroud, and Thanalan...The areas closest to where the weapon was deployed. It's possibly Coerthas got a hit of it as well, but I suspect the part that would make everything uninhabitable didn't go too much further. The effects of the area no longer working as intended would have reached far, but not necessarily the initial effects.

[Gula]

Why would Lahabrea be alive? He died before the timelines would have converged (A point which I believe may have been the Exarch talking to us after we fought Elidizenos). Also, the entirely of the world was not affected by the Black Rose, as far as I can see. Garlemald, by all appearances, wasn't directly affected, and I don't think lands beyond Eorzea were, either. It's possible Limsa avoided the worst of it, as well. The story specifically mentions Ala Mhigo, the Shroud, and Thanalan...The areas closest to where the weapon was deployed. It's possibly Coerthas got a hit of it as well, but I suspect the part that would make everything uninhabitable didn't go too much further. The effects of the area no longer working as intended would have reached far, but not necessarily the initial effects.

Makes me wonder if the Steppe was affected beyond the Mol and Qestir who would be closest to foreign issues. Dotharl might find the new world to be pretty rad though.

[Lasana]

Why would Lahabrea be alive? He died before the timelines would have converged (A point which I believe may have been the Exarch talking to us after we fought Elidizenos).

My goof! I meant Elidibus, I know Lahabrea's been out of the picture for a while.

Also, the entirely of the world was not affected by the Black Rose, as far as I can see. Garlemald, by all appearances, wasn't directly affected, and I don't think lands beyond Eorzea were, either. It's possible Limsa avoided the worst of it, as well. The story specifically mentions Ala Mhigo, the Shroud, and Thanalan...The areas closest to where the weapon was deployed. It's possibly Coerthas got a hit of it as well, but I suspect the part that would make everything uninhabitable didn't go too much further. The effects of the area no longer working as intended would have reached far, but not necessarily the initial effects.

IDK, Urianger and the Exarch's scenes about in ShB make it seem like the effects spread past Eorzea and Garlemald and into the Far East too. We could also interpret those scenes to mean that civilization across the globe collapsed from both the Black Rose's effects and the whole "Mad Max" fall of civilization, but they keep using the word world, not just Eorzea.

Grand-Biggs' last message to the Exarch at the end of the Twinning also has him saying he doesn't expect the world to last much longer. YMMV how literal he's being about that - to me, it doesn't make sense that EVERYTHING would go to hell as badly as it has in the Eighth Calamity if the damage to the planet (where apparently, they can't even grow crops anymore!) was just limited to where BR was deployed.

It's something that has me (morbidly) curious, and I really hope we find out more about the Bad Future in the patches. It's amazing to me that after all Ironworks accomplished, Cid still found it more practical to invent time travel than heal the damage from Black Rose.

[Ilenya]

My goof! I meant Elidibus, I know Lahabrea's been out of the picture for a while.



IDK, Urianger and the Exarch's scenes about in ShB make it seem like the effects spread past Eorzea and Garlemald and into the Far East too. We could also interpret those scenes to mean that civilization across the globe collapsed from both the Black Rose's effects and the whole "Mad Max" fall of civilization, but they keep using the word world, not just Eorzea.

Grand-Biggs' last message to the Exarch at the end of the Twinning also has him saying he doesn't expect the world to last much longer. YMMV how literal he's being about that - to me, it doesn't make sense that EVERYTHING would go to hell as badly as it has in the Eighth Calamity if the damage to the planet (where apparently, they can't even grow crops anymore!) was just limited to where BR was deployed.

It's something that has me (morbidly) curious, and I really hope we find out more about the Bad Future in the patches. It's amazing to me that after all Ironworks accomplished, Cid still found it more practical to invent time travel than heal the damage from Black Rose.

I'm not saying it's not impossible that everywhere was affected, but it seems strange that...Well, everything wasn't affected if that were the case. Can there be immunity to sudden aether disruption? I would love to actually get more information, but I have no idea how likely that would be. Along the same lines, there wouldn't be anything like Eden on the Source. It's possible that, with what all they had, Cid just...Couldn't figure out a way to fix the aether. He has, however, run into Alexander, Omega, and the Crystal Tower (I love that he was there for all of these. Makes me wonder if this was planned). Having the basics to work with, plus whatever notes they had access to, could have made it the more logically viable option.

Also, I have been wondering if Elidibus was alive or not. I've been assuming the turning point was when the Exarch talked to us, interrupting our fight with Elidizenos. I'm wondering if, not interrupted, we'd have had the Scions help (likely) and had another White Auracite to deal with the Ascian (Admittedly stretching it). It's possible in the dying timeline, Emet-Selch was the last Ascian.

[YianKutku]

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?

Not a strong confirmation, but I also recall the Eighth Calamity being described as the "Eighth And Final Calamity", during one of the Fanfest slides in the keynote. Sadly, I don't have any screenshots of that slide, so I could also be misremembering.

And even if I am recalling it correctly, this is about as reliable as Fanfest slides are, including the one that says Shadowbringers is when we "finally take down the Garlean Empire". So caveats apply.

Why would Lahabrea be alive? He died before the timelines would have converged (A point which I believe may have been the Exarch talking to us after we fought Elidizenos). Also, the entirely of the world was not affected by the Black Rose, as far as I can see. Garlemald, by all appearances, wasn't directly affected, and I don't think lands beyond Eorzea were, either. It's possible Limsa avoided the worst of it, as well. The story specifically mentions Ala Mhigo, the Shroud, and Thanalan...The areas closest to where the weapon was deployed. It's possibly Coerthas got a hit of it as well, but I suspect the part that would make everything uninhabitable didn't go too much further. The effects of the area no longer working as intended would have reached far, but not necessarily the initial effects.

Black Rose affected the entire world as the Tales says, due to "cascading environmental repercussions". Garlemald specifically had their ceruleum go inert, which would probably be about as serious to them as if every bit of fossil fuel suddenly gave no more energy for us. This is on top of crops failing and mutating due to Black Rose, which spread across the world.

(Presumably Black Rose was so effective now, compared to its initial deployment in Bittermill, because it is now part of a Rejoining, which exacerbates all the effects. Without a Rejoining, it would be plausible to believe that the effects would be limited in scope, like what the Empire did to Gaius's allies.)

[Ilenya]

Black Rose affected the entire world as the Tales says, due to "cascading environmental repercussions". Garlemald specifically had their ceruleum go inert, which would probably be about as serious to them as if every bit of fossil fuel suddenly gave no more energy for us. This is on top of crops failing and mutating due to Black Rose, which spread across the world.

I feel like people are missing what I was saying. Black Rose, as I understand it, could not have been spread all over the world. The effects of it, sure, to a limited degree, but the actual thing, no. Unless it turns out there's some sort of immunity to it, any area it touched would be basically lifeless at best. The area being a focal point of a spreading appears to be true, but if the imbalance caused that much issue, I would have thought the Burn would have caused similar issues just by existing. Eorzea was probably for the most part wrecked, but going further afield, the main issue would be people fleeing Eorzea and trying to take over the supplies of where ever they went. And we know people were still in Eorzea after Black Rose hit, we see an Echo of people in Ishgard.

In regards to time travel, could the old timeline basically have ceased to continue the moment the Exarch went back? Everything leading up to that point would have had to happen to fix things, but anything afterwards just...Ends. There's a phrase for this, but I can't recall it offhand.

[Alleo]

Why would Lahabrea be alive? He died before the timelines would have converged (A point which I believe may have been the Exarch talking to us after we fought Elidizenos). Also, the entirely of the world was not affected by the Black Rose, as far as I can see. Garlemald, by all appearances, wasn't directly affected, and I don't think lands beyond Eorzea were, either. It's possible Limsa avoided the worst of it, as well. The story specifically mentions Ala Mhigo, the Shroud, and Thanalan...The areas closest to where the weapon was deployed. It's possibly Coerthas got a hit of it as well, but I suspect the part that would make everything uninhabitable didn't go too much further. The effects of the area no longer working as intended would have reached far, but not necessarily the initial effects.

Didnt they say that some regions in Garlemald were hit too and I am quite sure I read that their energy source also stopped functioning. Seeing how they are living in a harsh climate I would say that this would hit them too. Why would they go so far and change the past (and probably erease all those that lived in that timeline) if it was only a bit of a local problem? They said that socities fell and we know at least from ingame pictures that stories of us even were told in the east and from this tale we know that the Namazu got involved. Why all that work if people could simply then leave these bad places and start new lifes with their allies?

Honestly it sounded like this was a world war going on for a long time and that it was killing the whole world.

About Lahabrea: Seeing how she does not mention Elidibus I guess she just simply used the wrong names.

Not a strong confirmation, but I also recall the Eighth Calamity being described as the "Eighth And Final Calamity", during one of the Fanfest slides in the keynote. Sadly, I don't have any screenshots of that slide, so I could also be misremembering.

And even if I am recalling it correctly, this is about as reliable as Fanfest slides are, including the one that says Shadowbringers is when we "finally take down the Garlean Empire". So caveats apply.

Maybe it was called that way because we would do enough that no new calamity would ever happen. So in that way it would be the final one. (Also if the world really was dying then even the Ascians could not have done another one either) I just dont see that point and think "oh Zodiark will be free after that", instead I think more along the line of "oh we either stop it and another calamity wont ever happen", or "another one happened but afterwards we stop it from happening again."