Revelations from Patch 5.2

[Cilia]

On that point:

In the group discussion Venat does say -

"We must ask ourselves a simple question: are we prepared to pursue our chosen course, even should it mean suffering the eternal condemnation of our brethren? If so, I see no further reason to demur"

Wouldn't that suggest that they were very much aware of the consequences of summoning and considered the sundering as a highly likely, if not inevitable, consequence that they were willing to accept? For such a statement to then be followed up by the admittance that they were making the monumental decision even though very few agreed with it, doesn't show them in a favourable light right now.

Not necessarily...

The only thing the line implies is that the rebels knew Zodiark's supporters would hate them for summoning Hydaelyn, whose purpose was to shackle their savior (so as to prevent him from devouring the new lives of the world). The exact consequences of (trying to) do so could not have been foreseen; to say they considered the Sundering a likely if not inevitable outcome assumes several points of information.

Further one of the key points of Shadowbringers was heroes being branded villains for going against authority despite the depravity of said authorities (the conflict with Vauthry); to say their actions paint them in a negative light is ignores this.

[Alleo]

On that point:

"We must ask ourselves a simple question: are we prepared to pursue our chosen course, even should it mean suffering the eternal condemnation of our brethren? If so, I see no further reason to demur"

Wouldn't that suggest that they were very much aware of the consequences of summoning and considered the sundering as a highly likely, if not inevitable, consequence that they were willing to accept? For such a statement to then be followed up by the admittance that they were making the monumental decision even though very few agreed with it, doesn't show them in a favourable light right now.

Well we have to see more about this to truly know their plan. I could remember it wrong but in the german version it sound like they believed that Zodiark was too powerful and wanted to create something to keep him in check. This of course could still mean that they have wanted to split him but it could also be an unintended side effect.

Maybe they saw that the the ascians got tempered and feared what would happen. And maybe this was already after the ascians created the plans to sacrifice future life. In that way they are in a favourable light at least to those future people that will live.

But I am curious how it will end.

About Eden

Finally finished the raid and I am still not really liking Gaia. It seems a bit forced how great everything is between her and Ryne and I just shake my head at Ryne taking over Shiva..not only was it strange what she wore but I really did not like seeing Rynes face on Shiva..it just somehow did not fit. But I also did not understand the reason for her to do it..it did not sound right..and can somebody explain to me why ice would bring back plants?

I wonder how they will fill another four fights with what we have left..I guess on of them will be Gaia again, losing her fight to the voice?

Anyway I found the quest afterward bad..NPCs already saying goodbye even though there is no solution right now. They should have done this later when they are truly gone and just show us the goodbye with an echo scene.

Ruby weapon

The fight was nice but I dont really care much for Gaius or his "children" right now. We never got the chance to meet the one that died and the others are mostly unknown too. I do hope that the green one does not die, he seems to be the only one that is not fully behind it..and that also fears that they might not make it out alive.

Also that death threat at the end..does that mean that Gaius is not completely on his own free will here? (Which would make any kind of redemption arc even worse) At least this made the elezen much more interesting.

I also have a hard time feeling for Gaius. Its sad to lose people but many more would have died through his daughters hand. And seeing how we all lost a lot of Scions through his order..yeah not feeling it right now.

[Scintilla]

Not necessarily...

The only thing the line implies is that the rebels knew Zodiark's supporters would hate them for summoning Hydaelyn, whose purpose was to shackle their savior (so as to prevent him from devouring the new lives of the world). The exact consequences of (trying to) do so could not have been foreseen; to say they considered the Sundering a likely if not inevitable outcome assumes several points of information.

Further one of the key points of Shadowbringers was heroes being branded villains for going against authority despite the depravity of said authorities (the conflict with Vauthry); to say their actions paint them in a negative light is ignores this.

To reduce the story to being ‘heroes against depraved authorities’ is quite an oversimplification. Another recurring point throughout Shadowbringers has been that the good-evil divide is not always as clear cut as we’d like to imagine.

Venat and the rest of Hydaelyn’s supporters may have made their choices with the best of intentions, but, as far as we are aware, the same could arguably be said of the Convocation. To force such a decision, which would affect all survivors (their awareness of how much so may be debatable), in full knowledge that there was little support for it, strays too far from democracy to sit well for me right now.

[Lauront]

To reduce the story to being ‘heroes against depraved authorities’ is quite an oversimplification. Another recurring point throughout Shadowbringers has been that the good-evil divide is not always as clear cut as we’d like to imagine.

Venat and the rest of Hydaelyn’s supporters may have made their choices with the best of intentions, but, as far as we are aware, the same could arguably be said of the Convocation. To force such a decision, which would affect all survivors (their awareness of how much so may be debatable), in full knowledge that there was little support for it, strays too far from democracy to sit well for me right now.

That's my reading of the events, too.

They came across as well-intentioned extremists, and did not chastise the Convocation for being depraved, but for not entertaining their concerns - there may be a truth to this, in that the Convocation was uninterested in imposing further hardships on their people after what they had endured and had its own plans on how to restore the world to its rightful state, by bringing back their fallen. I am beginning to think that the reason behind why Venat's group did not endorse this course of action might not have (solely) stemmed out of sympathy for this "new life" to feature in the sacrifice, but out of a belief that because it lacked the same inherent potential for Creation magicks, it would not risk suffering the same fate as did the ancients, something the Convocation would regard as aberrant.

I am also partial to the theory I've seen that the 14th did not outright deny the Dissidents' request (even if they would frown upon a second Primal much as they would frown upon the first), but left the Convocation in the hopes of resolving the crisis before they implemented their plans, perhaps fearful of the risks of summoning Primals, especially on that scale. We know that the Final Days escalated rapidly, and it is possible that it took hold of Amaurot before they could return, resulting in Zodiark's summoning and the apparent end of the crisis. For whatever reason, Venat's group had different views, acknowledged the Convocation meant well but would not listen to them, and sought to thus force their solution on it by either "checking" Zodiark or ousting him entirely, and replacing him with what they deemed to be a superior solution. As yet, the Sundering does not necessarily seem to be intended, but Elidibus's moon epilogue in 5.0 does mention that the wiping of memories of the ancient world and of the truth of the sundered lifeforms' fragmented existences was intended by her summoners, so there is a reasonable possibility that so too was the Sundering, or that this enervation was at least intended for the ancients themselves.

A possibility worth entertaining is that this crisis originated in the Underworld, which based on Hades's short story, was a part of the "aetherial realm" the Ancients could not venture into and scarcely controlled but only glimpsed. The phoenix in that story, after all, involved an apparent anomaly in the behaviour of a soul, which by all rights should have returned to the Underworld. The nature of the Underworld makes it a big unknown and introduces the possibility of why the crisis was so poorly understood. We've seen a few references now to the Titans, the Chthonic (=relating to the Underworld) deities preceding the Olympians in Greek mythology, both in Eden, with names like Gaia (mother of the Titans), Erebos and Nyx (born from Chaos, supposedly Gaia's progenitor), and also in the symbolism in Therion's title, the Chthonic Riddle (the resolution of which marked the transition from the Titans to the Olympian deities.) Some interpretation of them is therefore a possibility. Regardless of the actual cause, perhaps then the 14th ventured into this realm to resolve the issue, and did not return, even if they succeeded in sealing away whatever caused the crisis (thus why it is currently an unknown.) With all this occurring during this whole mess resulting in Zodiark and Hydaelyn being summoned, it would then escalate to the point that it was too late, and the world sundered. This is consistent with Emet-Selch's apparent incredulity on the revelation of the character's Amaurotine identity. He knows you are the fragment of a sundered ancient soul, and a powerful one at that, but perhaps this specific one was deemed lost to the world. The 5.0 epilogue asks by what hand would this war between light and dark - ultimately, a war of two Primals - be resolved, and perhaps this is where the neutrality of the 14th becomes relevant.

[QT_Melon]

To reduce the story to being ‘heroes against depraved authorities’ is quite an oversimplification. Another recurring point throughout Shadowbringers has been that the good-evil divide is not always as clear cut as we’d like to imagine.

Venat and the rest of Hydaelyn’s supporters may have made their choices with the best of intentions, but, as far as we are aware, the same could arguably be said of the Convocation. To force such a decision, which would affect all survivors (their awareness of how much so may be debatable), in full knowledge that there was little support for it, strays too far from democracy to sit well for me right now.

I'm going to have to agree with this sentiment

Mainly due to the fact people immediately assumed that the WoL did the sacrifice to create Hydaelyn for the greater good. Of course this was proven wrong. So now we have to remold the story. -And for that matter someone needs to fix the FF Wiki too :P

I do not think the WoL was dead by the time Hydaelyn was summoned mainly because I'm not sure the reincarnation was quite in effect yet, but I do believe Hydaelyn helped with creating that effect.

I think the effect of tempering created a 1 sided view of the life cycle. I think it was more at stake than just the fact the new life was going to be sacrificed, I think it was just gonna keep going and that's why the group in 5.2 saw this as an issue, it was unbalanced. Chaos brought life to the planet but chaos also can kill it. Venat was absolutely speaking about balance. (Ironically something that Elidibus also spoke about - though seems some retconning about how too much of dark/light does nothing for his master -patch 4.56 if I remember correctly)

This also aligns with Hydaelyn's dialog later after the AntiTower light and dark lived side by side. It was the coveting of power, that she had to enact the failsafe as Hydaelyn. The problem of course is what happens when the eventual failsafe takes over? Hydaelyn has in fact been generally helpful no doubt but she was created to be a BALANCE and there is something to be said if the balance was broken

I personally think that the WoL did something during the time of summoning Zodiark like being Light aligned which works well with Hydaelyn which is why the alliance formed.

There is another reason why the WoL would gravitate towards Hydaelyn as well. I believe she is a primal with a soul. The reason I'm thinking this may have to do with the side tale with Emet being part of the Underworld and finding out with the bird that creation magic was attaching itself to souls (or the other way around). The mystery with Elidibus may actually be whether or not he actually sacrificed himself to actually be the heart or if someone else did - or if there was an actual sacrifice. Venat believes this happened as do the other members. But it seems strange how the Zodiark tempered but Hydaelyn did not or at least it appears she didn't. I think the fact that Venat served as the soul may possibly be the difference.

That said, like Y'shtola this is all speculation and it's interesting that the theme of this patch is that how people are interpreting certain events - as a cautionary tale. It's not only with the discussion at the 'Ravel but also with the Beast Tribe...and I think that was intentional with our speculation. There's 2 sides to every story and in the middle there's what really happened.

[Tlamila]

I finally reached that point with the Qitari too and

I'm also very disappointed at having to make such an important and permanent choice on no basis whatsoever. Indeed they are terrible historians. On one hand the slavery thing makes more sense, but then I think: if they were slaves, why would they still care and be faithful to the empire at all? Also, they are scribes were, in our history, generally one of the highest ranks in society. If I think for example about ancient Egyptians, they made massive use of slaves, but on the other hand scribes were the opposite of that. Slaves usually do menial work, not such an important job as putting in writing all the important things, including history, and even just teaching slaves how to write would have been empowering them too much.
Actually, after writing all this I think I made up my mind.
EDIT: actually after going for that choice I'm not convinced anymore I did the right one, because as you choose the son's option the stele completely changes compared to how it was in their description, so they're altering an historical proof to fit a theory. This makes no sense whatsoever. They're not historians, they're charlatans.

[Frizze]

I finally reached that point with the Qitari too and

I'm also very disappointed at having to make such an important and permanent choice on no basis whatsoever. Indeed they are terrible historians. On one hand the slavery thing makes more sense, but then I think: if they were slaves, why would they still care and be faithful to the empire at all? Also, they are scribes were, in our history, generally one of the highest ranks in society. If I think for example about ancient Egyptians, they made massive use of slaves, but on the other hand scribes were the opposite of that. Slaves usually do menial work, not such an important job as putting in writing all the important things, including history, and even just teaching slaves how to write would have been empowering them too much.
Actually, after writing all this I think I made up my mind.
EDIT: actually after going for that choice I'm not convinced anymore I did the right one, because as you choose the son's option the stele completely changes compared to how it was in their description, so they're altering an historical proof to fit a theory. This makes no sense whatsoever. They're not historians, they're charlatans.

So minor spoiler for this..

I did the next quest today, and the first bit of dialogue was basically "We found further evidence that supported your basic theory, and heres what really happened" or something basically like that. Im guessing each of the stellae is going to be similarly handwaved. And finding more evidence is further proof that we didnt need to decide anything. Just wait to finish the thing until you finish the investigation you stupid rats.

So driving home from work today, i had a brief glimpse into the future. This is MSQ related.

So the evidence we've seen in game and heard in interviews seems to support the view that the ShB story arc is ending in 5.3. This means the scions role on the first is likely ending, probably with all of them making it back home(though a death still isnt out of the question). I saw a decent amount of people complaining about our visit to Slitherbough and the brief interaction with Runar. Next patch, we're going to watch a scene that consists basically of a broom that stops magically sweeping on its own and falls to the ground, followed by Runar falling to his knees weeping. Followed by many of the people sitting playing the game crying with/for him.

[Tlamila]

So minor spoiler for this..

I did the next quest today, and the first bit of dialogue was basically "We found further evidence that supported your basic theory, and heres what really happened" or something basically like that. Im guessing each of the stellae is going to be similarly handwaved. And finding more evidence is further proof that we didnt need to decide anything. Just wait to finish the thing until you finish the investigation you stupid rats.

so basically they ruined a staele forever for no reason whatsoever instead of just waiting. Awesome. I guess that's what we get when devs try to give us choices but do it sloppily

/10charsmore

[Iscah]

I finished all the storylines today and haven't had a chance to read through all the posts here yet, but dumping my thoughts here now (because otherwise I'll probably repeat 5.1 and never get them posted at all). So apologies if I'm repeating things that people have just said.


MSQ:

Darnit Raha, don't go killing yourself over this! D:

I am seriously worried for him. And yes I realise there are all sorts of narrative reasons from the start indicating that he might not get out of this alive, but it's not going to make it any easier if it happens.

And it looks like the strain is doing something to his crystalline parts now... it's been pretty vague whether that's stable or whether it's slowly spreading, but I wonder if overexerting himself would specifically leave him open to that happening...?

I did like the conversations just before the ending about how he's working too hard, though. Like Beq Lugg saying that "assisting" the Exarch will include casting the occasional sleeping charm on him.

The switchabout with Elidibus is weird, because it's not really a switch, is it? If the rest of the Convocation knew their Elidibus had already sacrificed himself, how could an imposter possibly be fooling Emet-Selch? Was he that desperate to believe that someone else had survived along with him?

Unless of course he wasn't fooled at all. He seemed to loathe Elidibus in what little we saw of them together. Maybe he knows it's an imposter but there was no value in admitting it to us. Maybe he knows as he's dying that he really is the last of the unsundered Ancients.

The "everyone awakening to the Echo" things bugs me too - Elidibus says the starshower was an illusion, but was the voice as well? As others have asked, how are these guys all hearing from Hydaelyn when She hasn't been strong enough to speak to us for months?

Urianger's "walking on water" trick went about as well as expected (and anticipated) but... yikes, they're starting to show effects of their souls being disconnected. Not good at all.

Anemnesis was tricky, gameplay-wise - I had to do both the midbosses a few times each before I got the hang of it. The final boss was more forgiving... and now we know what a female Sahagin looks like!

I don't know if they were trying to set us up for moral ambiguity (or at least feeling guilty about it) with Alphinaud highlighting that we were attacking first, or if they're just trying to pre-empt accusations of it.

I'm also amused by the Sastasha music having been mixed into it - and the water grate mechanics in the final boss arena feel very much like a dig at how everyone just ignores the ones in Sastasha now.

I don't feel like the dungeon was presented really well though overall. You spend the first part on Bismarck with the camera uncomfortably close and you can't really appreciate the zone you're travelling through. You arrive at the location but you never get any well-framed views of it as you approach - it's murky and distorted by the water until you're on top of it. And even when you get inside into the big hall of concept crystals, there's no real chance to stop and appreciate it - and not a single scrap of paper to read. It feels like the opposite of the Grand Cosmos where I spent a good chunk of my first run admiring the feast and the ballroom - they just made you notice and want to take in details. Or the Twinning, where you have that first sweeping view of the central chamber. Anamnesis feels like it's just "there" and never caught my attention.

And Mr Totally-Not-Asahi at the end... well, in light of Elidibus being an imposter, why not two imposters? Maybe the alternate theory of Asahi being Elidibus was right after all...?

If you go to the Oculus post-story, it's empty except for Beq Lugg standing outside the Umbilicus door, and it's just that bit unsettling to not have G'raha in his usual spot.

Overall, I don't really feel that this was the "shocking revelations" patch it seemed like it was going to be. We confirmed Ardbert is Elidibus, we got a glimpse of some more pieces to the puzzle... they've raised questions but they haven't given the answers that will have the real power behind them. I'm not feeling like my understanding of anything has been shifted at this point.

The next patch is going to be the hard-hitting one.

Eden:

I really dislike Gaia from a character design standpoint. She looks like they tried to take the face exactly from the concept art and paste it onto the character model, and as a result she doesn't have what this game defines as normal human face proportions. It doesn't look right.

Also, it seem that NieR is not the only game we've got a crossover happening with. Hello Portal...

Werlyt:

An aside to the actual plot, but what I'm getting out of this is that there's a separate not-culturally-Raen Au Ra population in Werlyt which is.... this side of Garlemald? Somewhere near Ghimlyt?

Qitari tribe:

I'm a few days behind and just retrieved the first stela. Seeing as we can't wait for further evidence and have to make a choice, I went with the "nice version" of the emperor defending the Qitari... even if it's false, at least it's a happier story to remember, right?

Also I'm guessing the nondescript creatures haunting the caves are all actually great serpents.

(Also also, when do we get the line "why did it have to be snakes?"?)

Random non-spoiler:

Interesting detail on the new special tomestone for the raid weapons: it's made of "fused quartz". So tomestones are generally crystals...? Or maybe artificial crystals. I remember that being highlighted about the Azys Lla aetheryte.

I have a running theory that with various examples of crystals storing memories (job stones, auracite, etc.), the Crystal Tower itself has acted as a giant memory crystal and that's how G'raha received the memories of Allag once he was there.

[Lium]

Ruby Weapon

They are really pushing the Gaius redemption arc pretty hard. Now he has kids, and we just killed one of them. The rest are headed down the same path, which is essentially a gruesome death.

I like Gaius but again, this is the same guy that ordered a bunch of Scions slaughtered.

Also, we find out that Livia was also someone he took in and trained to be a warrior. Yet it was clear they had a romantic relationship. I’m guessing he took her in as an adult? Hopefully...