Tales from the Shadows

[Alleluia]

So the logic of time travel is always one to explode peoples' minds but .... two contradictory things make me wonder if we're completely wrong about what's going on. Alexander says we can't go back in the past to change the future; everything that happened with Alexander was orchestrated to produce the 'right' future but it was always going to do that because apparently 'them's the laws'. Then suddenly Gra'ha et al throw that out of the window and DO change the future. But .... hold on .... they can't have changed the future because if they did, Gra'ha would cease to exist. So there's a time loop that exists on the way to the Bad Future that DOESN'T ACTUALLY CHANGE ANYTHING. Because it ALWAYS HAPPENED. That allows Alexander's Law to stand and also allows Gra'ha not to disappear; since nothing is different, of course he wouldn't disappear, and he was able -as he and we thought - to change time because nothing has changed in fact.
I would love them to go this way just because it would make a great story imo. Of course I'm just speculating but I can't currently come up with anything else that lets both Alexander's Law and Gra'ha continuing be true
And this is really badly expressed, but I'm rambling lol. I'll try and put it better once I'm not typing on my phone

I think you basically just expressed the alternate timelines idea. 8th Umbral timeline is unchanged and continues on, while our timeline has been effected by Exarch!G'raha. And you are right, this allows for "Alexander's Law" to still be true. Exarch!G'raha was always meant to hop from the 8th Umbral timeline to ours.

[Alleluia]

You are right, if timelines continue to exist then them changing it would not matter to us. But I have honestly a big problem with the theory that the bad one still exists. First this means that a unlimited amount of timelines can exists because everyone can choose something different thus altering the timeline. Which makes my brain at least hurt and gives me the feeling like we are not worth much. Just one of the many timelines in game.

I mean, I do think its a given that alternate timelines means infinite alternate timelines. For one thing, you can say that everyone's individual instance of the WoL is an example of an alternate timeline, hence why G'raha can pull 7 more of us in to help his WoL in that final battle with Hades. We all experience it cus Exarch!G'raha did it for each of us in our dimension where our character is the WoL.

But multiple timelines doesn't make us worth less than before. Our existence and success very much matter to those in our timeline.

[Anonymoose]

I do think its a given that alternate timelines means infinite alternate timelines.

You're probably right, but I find something deeply unsettling about the idea. We'd already played by one-timeline, four-dimensional rules with Alexander, so it feels weird already. But infinite multiverse timelines in fiction make me very nervous. (Especially in FFXIV, where we already had 14 diverging timelines.)

For starters, suddenly the setting is so much smaller, philosophically, which is usually a net loss. Our world is also significant for no reason other than that it is "ours". In a game that so highlights the personal sacrifices of the Warrior of Light for "everyone else", doesn't that feel a little weird? To "other" the "other everyone elses" like that? And then there's that it guarantees that everything we've ever faced still exists somewhere, and in a multiverse with ways to cross boundaries. Nothing is ever truly safe. Nothing is every truly over. It makes me anxious for the narrative, lol.

I'm hoping that it's a one-time, hail-mary, "shouldn't-even-have-been-possible" fluke of cosmic proportions due to the path the Warrior of Light cut through history. For an excuse to limit it to just these two timelines, I look to The Twinning. The dungeon name refers to a macle, when a second crystal grows up through a first using an inverse lattice. It's probably just be a clever reference to, "Because the other branch of history was deleted, there's two Syrcus Towers, now!" ... but what if it referred to the origin "crystal" being the doomed history with an "inverse" timeline growing through it as a result of our actions?

/LalafellinPanicEmotes

[Iscah]

My running theory on time travel is that we do not get lots of alternate timelines spawning off decisions or anything. As shown in Alexander, there is one timeline which is usually stable - but even in that story, there are hints that time could have been changed once people started messing with time travel, but was "kept on the right path" by Alexander.

I think that a split in the timeline is only possible when a time traveler does something that 'breaks' the timeline's natural stable state and makes it impossible for events to lead to the future they came from - otherwise their actions just get incorporated into the single stable timeline.

So at most, one timeline break "per trip back in time" and that's only if they manage to break something. And time travel itself is very rare.

[Ilenya]

Actually, thinking about it, mechanics in the a12 fight show that not doing something that should be done forcibly changes the timeline. Whether this fits with actual lore is another question.

[Rannie]

Holy shit guys (sorry for the language) but I FOUND ALPHA AND OMG on their adventure!!!!!

[Iscah]

Haha yeah, they turn up in quite a few different places! Some are easy to spot, some are out of the way like Behemoth's domain in Coerthas. I've also seen them in Ok' Zundu and I think people said they can be in the upstairs kitchen at Revenant's Toll.

[Rannie]

Nice that's the first time I've EVER seen something like that. I've never even seen Ghost edda (if it actually happens) in Grid.

[MrThinker]

Nice that's the first time I've EVER seen something like that. I've never even seen Ghost edda (if it actually happens) in Grid.

I remember reading that Ghost Edda had a very slim chance of appearing in the 3 original city states during the patch tam tara hard was released. But I was under the impression they got rid of the easter egg the next patch, or at the latest, when floor 50 of PoTD wrappeded up Edda's story.

[LineageRazor]

But infinite multiverse timelines in fiction make me very nervous.

Where's FFXI's Atomos when we need him??? He kept things so tidy.