Revelations from Patch 5.2

[MikkoAkure]

Agreed.

Personally, I can't accept Gaius as my friend because he straight up massacred my old Scion friends. He sent Livia into the Waking Sands and she executed almost everyone there. And then Gaius kept sending soldiers after us all throughout 2.0, even trying to get Biggs and Wedge. Then he was going to use the Ultima Weapon to start blowing up cities until Eorzea surrendered.

Post ARR, it feels like the game is trying to retcon him as "misguided but not evil", with him shutting down Black Rose and being presented as "the good governor" of Ala Mhigo before "the evil Zenos took over". The game is presenting him as a cool character, but there is just no getting around the "he murdered hundreds of people and was planning on murdering hundreds more" part. I hope the game doesn't try to force him to become our buddy. I've praised this game before for avoiding the usual anime/JRPG problem of there being a lack of accountability (as most villains in the game tend to meet a timely demise; Zenos and Elidibus are really the only guys left), but the way they're handling Gaius is making me nervous.

I feel like it’s like a reflection of the real world Werner von Braun who worked for the enemy and built weapons that killed thousands of people, but was kept around after the war because of his knowledge. Gaius may have done a lot of bad things, but at this point having a former legatus on our side with intimate knowledge of the enemy and it’s weapon manufacturing is invaluable. The time may come in the story where there’s a reckoning, but right now I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up dying at the end of the story.

[Naria]

I agree that Gaius dying (for real this time) at some point is completely possible, but I don't think they would bring him back just to kill him off in a side story arc. If they are going to do redemption = death it will probably happen in the MSQ, and be connected to solution to the Garlemald problem as a whole.

[JeanneOrnitier]

The thing with Gaius is I don't think any of the characters are acting like he's forgiven? I sure haven't gotten the impression anyone is okay with him, like look at how Cid was talking after the trial. Working with Gaius against the Weapons because he has valuable knowledge about them and their pilots isn't the same as being his friend.

[LineageRazor]

I'm still scratching my head over how they failed to see the link between the Red Kyojin and Asahi back in Stormblood - though the obvious answer is that the plot demands that they be kept in the dark for the sake of a potential 'gotcha' moment.

They DID see the link. The dialog after the Red Kojin encounter mentions how suspicious it is that the ambush conveniently happened when it did. They then go on to say that regardless, they need to treat Asahi like the ambassador he is, as the success of the hostage release depends on the negotiations. As long as Asahi continues to play ball, they're willing to go along with it - but are keeping their eyes open for deception. His eventual betrayal came as an actual surprise to no one, in game or out. The form the betrayal took was the only thing unexpected. (And, in fairness, a Garlean summoning a Primal is rightfully pretty low on the list of expectations, I'd say.)

Err. The big question I have, other than who is the VIIth's new Legatus spearheading the project, is how the kupo did they get combat data on deus Darnus? She only appeared in her winged, facemarked form in the Binding Coils... and the only people who saw her down there were Alisae and the WoL, so what the kupo is going on?!

My suspicion is that...

Giant, naked Darnus was never the intention. Whatever happened there, something went terribly wrong. While I don't doubt the Garleans would be willing to sacrifice their pilots, I'm guessing that whatever techniques they used to "record battle data" wound up ensnaring a piece of Nael's soul in the process. Instead of just giving the pilot Nael's battle skills, their souls wound up fused together, with very unpleasant results. One can only hope that in death, the souls were able to separate again.

The worst part is, the Garleans may not even be aware of what happened. Depending on what means they had to monitor the fight, it could be the only info they have is that the WoL beat their creation. They may not know how, or what happened over the course of the battle. In which case, they may bull on ahead with Sapphire and Diamond without taking any steps to prevent the tragedy from repeating...

So anyone else notice about Gaia...

She's also just as moody and introverted!

If I can say, first time I saw Estinien in Heavensward with so much hate for the Dragons without knowing them, I couldn't stand with him. Really. But we helped to open his eyes as well.

Ah, but Estinien doesn't hate dragons. He hates Nidhogg. Dragons in general, he mistrusts, but is willing to leave them be as long as they don't attack him. It's one of the things I admired about his character throughout Heavensward - he was driven by hatred and revenge, but he kept that desire trained on the true culprit, with laser focus. We encountered many, many dragons while traveling with Estinien and Ysayle, and it was rare for him to even speak rudely to them.

My thoughts on this patch's story content:

MSQ:

They mostly just teased us this time around - and even had the audacity to say as much through the characters in-game, with the comment that the recordings of the ancients had raised more questions than they answered.

Still, there was some very interesting stuff. Venat's discussion of Hydaelyn and of becoming her heart is a blow against my theory that Hydaelyn is not a primal in the same way that Zodiark is - but not a fatal one. It's still possible that Hydaelyn served to grant agency to the will of the star, while Zodiark was created to supplant it.

The bit about Elidibus being the heart of Zodiark was very, very interesting, and goes a long way toward explaining why he has a special place in the Ascian hierarchy. If they're Tempered to Zodiark, obviously they can't directly oppose Zodiark's heart!

Interesting that we can apparently call upon Bismarck at will, and that he seems to be almost puppyishly eager to help. Doubtless, that's a resource we'll continually forget about at times where it could really come in handy. XD

Still don't really have any idea what's going on with that white-robed guy talking with Zenos. Folks have postulated Asahi. Sure, why not?

And Elidibert's plan to create a ton of Warriors of Light? I think it's evident that he'll be somehow turning them against us - or, perhaps, we'll become aware that their actions are stirring up the Flood of Light again, and it will be US that turns against THEM. That'd be a pretty dark angle to take, though, and while we may wear the mantle of Warrior of Darkness, the WoL really isn't very dark. Like, at all.

All in all much more satisfied with this batch than the 5.1 MSQ!

Ruby Weapon:

Bit annoyed with how easily Gaius's "family" turned their backs on him. Gaius, whatever his crimes, whatever his faults is EXTREMELY stubborn, loyal, and devoted to his cause. His "children", if they know him at all, really ought to know that for someone like him to turn his back on Garlemald, it's time to ask some serious questions. Not just stalk off all butthurt that daddy abandoned them. In fairness to them, I suppose, he WAS standing as a comrade-in-arms to the one who just killed their sister - but that death was in the combat of warfare, in a sortie initiated by their sister no less. It wasn't like the WoL cornered her in a back alley or something.

It really felt like drama for drama's sake, and not very organic at all.

The fight with Ruby Weapon and the Evangelionesque emergence of Nael was pretty darned cool, to be sure. I wonder how much the family of pilots know about what happened to their sister, beyond the fact that the WoL killed her...

Eden:

Ugh, this storyline feels so poorly written. There just wasn't enough time to properly build up the Romantic Two-Girl Friendship angle they seem to be gunning for between Ryne and Gaia. It doesn't help that, to me at least, Gaia looks MUCH older than Ryne. I'd have pegged her as eighteen or older, while Ryne looks to be between twelve and fourteen.

Then there was Ryne's hilariously bad idea to be a host for Shiva. I mean, the fight we got out of all that was wonderful, but the contrived explanation we got (she wants to practice wielding aether to earn Eden's respect? Or something?) felt really inadequate for the kind of risks she'd be taking. I'd have been a lot more comfortable with it, if Ryne had somehow been transformed into Shiva unexpectedly. Like maybe some accident throws her onto the battlefield just as we're summoning Shiva, and she got caught up in it. Or something. I really enjoyed the interplay of Ryne as Shiva and Ryne as Oracle throughout the fight, and the observation that Ice is the element closest to Light was an interesting one. (I suppose Lightning would be closest to Darkness, given their respective places in the Elemental Wheel? Ironic, if so, considering that Lightning is notable for being extremely bright. Definitely has the chaos angle down, though!)

I was also kind of astonished that we finished the restoration project in this patch. All six elements have been unsealed, and the slow restoration of the world is underway. Mission accomplished! I guess the last tier of the raid is going to focus exclusively on Gaia in her role as Oracle of Darkness?

Neir:

I was happy to see some intermission quests, given how many questions the 5.1 Neir story opened up, and how few they answered - but none were answered here, either, really. Just, yep, the Dwarf siblings are still working on the problem, and whoops, they need to take a break to help out with the carnival. Basically just filler. Oh, well!

[myahele]

I think that Nero should also have been included in this questline, after all he did fix up Ultima weapon.

[Crushnight]

So now having done it all.

Msq:

Interesting that we have Elidibus the heart and Elidibus the ascian now, not a fan the scions holding idiot ball with regards to his plan of creating WoLs, very much thinking create a new flood of light due to how recent it was stopped the world would still be close to that brink.

Gotta love Vanet was added so the God in ffxii who wanted history in the hands of man is the name given to the heart of Hydelyn who people have wanted destroyed and now I actually side with them because yes she does go and grab whomever she can who awakens to the echo. Also little bit frightening she can either cause the starshower through illusion or make it actually happen.

She may not be evil but her purpose seems to have been to keep darkness in check and she has a wide reach and always seeking.

Also we killed a pregnant sahagin queen, not sitting comfortable with that, yes she was going to turn them into warriors for war but yea still killed a pregnant sahagin.

Love the Viis history lesson and how Hydelyn has tried to be active everywhere throughout history.


Eden:
Proceeded as expected until last fight where I was caught off guard with the add phase and the mini hydelyns but ice being that close to light ain't too surprising, Ryne being put into Shiva who has been sexualized to hell and back puts me at unease, the devs didn't but ik the playerbase has.

The last quest being locked behind new felt forced as everything barring we were from another world was already talked about within eden's story (5.0&5.2) so felt like a what's the point scenerio.


Beast tribe:
So far interesting, I wanted to side with father but friend did it 1st and so I went son just so we can see differences asap etc.

Ronka really got around XD makes sense since greatwood but wonder how the great serpent will tie into things later scree.


Ruby weapon:

Damn garleans really upping their tech with this going to be interesting how they got t9 data when they shouldn't have had.

Gauis's family is going to be cut short 2 more heads at least me thinks. Girl au ra will live 100% convinced on that.

Sapphire hype please don't just blow his head off in a cs >_<

[Alleo]

About MSQ ending

I do have to say that I really loved the little bit in our sleeping room. Not only being able to choose who to talk to (and see the other options later) but to have them react and especially for them to come to the WoL knowing the story and how dear Ardbert is to us.

The anger all of them feel at Ardberts body being taken and how they know that it affects us. Really the WoL is very pissed of by Elidibus and I laughed at the option that she wished to have punshed him.

Its nice to see that our WoL made friends with people other than the scions and that they do come, wanting to hear the story directly from us and notice how hard it hit us. (And doing their own individual action and words to cheer us up) Nice way to tie such NPCs into the story. More of that SE!

About the beast tribe

I already love this little guys but I am shocked how young they die. Only 20 years to live, yet they seem to still enjoy their lifes.

I loved the options in the MSQ, yet I dislike it here. Why do we already have to choose? Why are we not allowed to see the barely readable stone before we decide? Why cant we just say: Well just tell your future generations the truth that you simply dont know how it all started and then tell how it went on. Or wait until you have more stones thus a better chance to see if it was a peaceful life or not..they try to teach us the lesson of getting the past as neutral as possible and yet instead of letting us react that way they still force us into creating a narative that might simply be wrong..

So now having done it all.

Msq:

Gotta love Vanet was added so the God in ffxii who wanted history in the hands of man is the name given to the heart of Hydelyn who people have wanted destroyed and now I actually side with them because yes she does go and grab whomever she can who awakens to the echo. Also little bit frightening she can either cause the starshower through illusion or make it actually happen.

She may not be evil but her purpose seems to have been to keep darkness in check and she has a wide reach and always seeking.

I mean all she does is awake the echo in some of them. Which seeing how she needs WoLs to fight the Ascians is imo necessary. Also until we get a 100% confirmation that she tempers people I still doubt that. We have heard about many more echo users, some of them not even fighting for her or doing good stuff which would make no sense if Hydealyn wants them as their soldiers. People seemingly still have a choice and just because your echo awakes also does not make you a WoL. You still need to prove yourself so all she does is use the star shower to hopefully awake some new people that maybe become WoLs somewhere and are willing to fight. I mean we had like three people on the source with her blessing, one of them us, but lots more echo users.

As we know WoLs only appear around the time of a new calamity so I doubt that she is always searching or activating peoples echo. Otherwise a lot more would be talking about random star showers happening all the time.

Could she be bad? Of course that can always happen. Could she still have tempered us? Of course she could. But right now I doubt any of that.

[Cilia]

Gaia

She seems to draw elements from many VIII characters, but primarily Squall.

Like Squall, she's moody and introverted, but her true feelings come out when the people she cares about are in danger. Squall infamously spends the first two discs of VIII disdainful of Rinoa, but after she falls into a coma at the end of the second disc he finds himself missing her company and goes to insane lengths to revive her. Gaia expresses similar sentiments when she's drowning in darkness during / after fighting the Idol of Darkness - as annoying as she found Ryne and everyone else, she misses their company now that they're not around. She also has a penchant for inner monologues, just like Squall.

Like Rinoa, she's rather spoiled, but has a nastier personality. As the daughter of a Galbadian general Rinoa was afforded luxuries in life until she formed the Timber Owls; as a former free citizen of Eulmore Gaia is also accustomed to the finer things in life but is far more insufferable about it (such as making Thancred carry her luggage and complaining about the accommodations at Mord Souq).

Gaia attributes her dark powers to a "faerie," just like Laguna's explanation for Squall & co. aiding him through Ellone's magic at various points in VIII's story.

One of her lines when first setting foot into the Empty, "Time. It won't wait." echoes one of Ultimecia's dying lines, "Time... it will not wait..."

Gaia... gets better, but we'll see what happens in the final leg of Eden.

Eden

Glad to see I wasn't the only one just a little uncomfortable with the underage Ryne wearing what she was... though to be fair I object less to the Shiva garb, as it's pretty sensible compared to some iterations of the summon, and find her Hydaelyn / Hraesvelgr garbs a little too revealing. The former is, thankfully, pretty sensible sans the plunging neckline that goes down past the navel... but the latter leaves her practically nude save for the Hraesvelgr wrap.

I mean, I know it's not actually Ryne, and it's just a primal using her likeness due to being channeled through her... but still...

Anyway, I agree that Thancred and Urianger leaving the project is more than a little sudden and abrupt, but it's just telegraphing that the Scions (and the MSQ with it) will be moving back to the Source before the final Eden chapter hits in 5.4. Gonna miss everyone there, especially Ryne... but time won't wait and we got a lot to do!

Ruby Weapon

Well, Gundam and Evangelion share a lot of similarities - deliberately so on the part of Evangelion's creators, as it was meant to deconstruct the "super robot" genre. Regardless, the new Weapons' biomechanical nature, souls / memories being infused into the machines, and freaky shit happening when their sync rates get too high is evocative primarily of Evangelion to me... I don't recall any Gundam series where things like those are plot points, but whatever.

Yes, I picked up on the "synthetic auracite" bit. The pilot also seems to struggle against the Darnus personality before it takes control; whether that was part of the plan or not is unknown, but it still doesn't really answer how they were able to get combat data on Nael's deus Darnus form from the Binding Coils. (I will refrain from speculation.)

MSQ

I'm not ready to condemn Hydaelyn for doing what she does just yet. To the best of our knowledge Hydaelyn still only awakens the Echo in times of need, and doesn't force anyone to do anything either. Elidibus is just preying on the vainglorious.

Venat's influence on Hydaelyn's psyche remains unclear.

I'm still not sure who Zenos' new conspirator is. He sounds familiar - it could be Asahi, or someone possessing him. Perhaps that's the missing fourteenth Convocation member and the hints it was actually the Warrior of Light's Ancient self is just a bait and switch? Dunno.

[RyuDragnier]

Qitari Beast Tribe

So apparently the Ronkan empire was ruled by the Ronso. Unexpected, completely unexpected, as I was thinking it was one of the other races, I didn't expect them to make it the ancient kingdom of the Ronso.

[Fenral]

Ruby Weapon

Well, Gundam and Evangelion share a lot of similarities - deliberately so on the part of Evangelion's creators, as it was meant to deconstruct the "super robot" genre. Regardless, the new Weapons' biomechanical nature, souls / memories being infused into the machines, and freaky shit happening when their sync rates get too high is evocative primarily of Evangelion to me... I don't recall any Gundam series where things like those are plot points, but whatever.

Ruby Weapon

Iron-Blooded Orphans had mechs that tapped directly into the pilot's spinal cord, but I don't remember it being taken much farther than that. There might be others, but I'm honestly not much of a Gundam person ("I already get that 'war is bad', so why am I watching this, again?"). I feel like "pilot becomes one with the mech" is a fight I've seen a lot of, but the oldest/most relevant example I can actually place is from Bubblegum Crisis. It must be older than that, though.


I actually got Parasite Eve vibes from the hatching sequence. I half expected people to start bursting into flame.