Predictions for 5.3?

[JeanneOrnitier]

My assumption was always that the cause of the Ancients' calamity was them straining the planet too much. Yes they had much more aether than sundered souls do, but they used creation magic for absolutely everything. Eventually that was going to cause something to break.

[Morningstar1337]

If it is the worse case scenario then I doubt Ardbert just telling them "it will not work" will be enough.

The Ascian's actions and haste to get things done soon as possible probably means that time is very near and if they don't act now then it will be over for everyone who are not living on the Source. This will mean the only solution is cause a rejoining, find a way to prevent all lesser shards from disappearing so they can continue within this 3.3 MSQ, some how fuse the worlds of the First and Source together to create a new world, or all shards end up disappearing from existence thus killing everyone in the First and other lesser shards.

I was referring more to the "manipulated WoL" angle not the "death of a universe" angle.

My assumption was always that the cause of the Ancients' calamity was them straining the planet too much. Yes they had much more aether than sundered souls do, but they used creation magic for absolutely everything. Eventually that was going to cause something to break.

That is true, If modern Hydaelyn was even a fraction of Amaraut that the Ascians claimed it is, than it likely the metaphysics of aether and the lifestream were in play. Which kinda makes their faite a parallel of geostigma in a sense, the planet avenging itself on her inhabitants. Incidentally it also makes the morality a bit more clear-cut as it would mean that unsundering the Ascians would do way more harm to the world than expected.

[Lauront]

I still think Elidibus haste to remove us maybe involving the effect of Sundering. The story seem to been showing the Ascians in a hasty state currently as if there is another effect for the sundering only they know about that may make rejoining impossible once a certain amount of time passes.

A good effect will be if the lesser shards are preserved as separate worlds permanently but a bad effect maybe that the lesser shards all disappear from existence.

Though if the effect is that the lesser shards will disappear from existence (thus killing everyone on all lesser shards) it would provide a strong motivation for the new Warriors of Light on the first to push towards rejoining their world as the only way to save everyone on the First in a certain point of view.

It's possible that they're rushing before some critical juncture is reached, I suppose. It'd jive with Lahabrea's lines in the Praetorium, that they're labouring against some kind of clock before what he describes there happens.

I think something a lot of people are missing is -

Whatever caused the Final Days was, to the best of our knowledge, terrestrial. The starshower heralding the Final Days was just a symptom of the Sound, not the source of the issue itself (a la Jenova or (to my knowledge) Lavos). The real issue came from within the planet itself - or, perhaps, the aetherial sea.

Aside from the commentary of the various Amaurotine shades explaining the Final Days, the final boss of the Amaurot dungeon (Therion) bears the title "Chthonic Riddle." The word "chthonic" literally translates to "subterranean" from ancient Greek, but in contemporary usage refers to deities and spirits of the Underworld. Considering the Ancients referred to the aetherial sea / lifestream as the "underworld"... you can put two and two together.

My train of thought may turn out to be wrong (it has been before), but whatever actually happened, I doubt it's something so simple as a hibernating malign alien that crashed on the planet millennia ago suddenly acting up.

Regardless, we're unlikely to get answers for that specific event for a long while; 5.3 is the culmination of Elidibus' hastily cobbled together plot to be rid of us, so he's liable to be front and center. I'd not expect to see the issue addressed until 5.4, at the earliest.

It also depends on where the Lifestream/Underworld "connected" to the world. I am going to bet it is through the Aetherial Sea at some juncture, meaning the name isn't just an arbitrary choice by the Ancients given that it's accessible underground. My thinking for a while now has been that they were throwing a hint at something going awry with the Underworld with Emet-Selch's short story. That, though, does not rule out the possibility of a parasite or some other entity entering through the Underworld itself and via the Aetherial Sea, into the planet, provoking chaos once it did. It'd also provide it a potential exit route so as to avoid the Sundering and for it to return later. The precipitating sound, as you say, had a subterranean origin, so it may all be connected.

My assumption was always that the cause of the Ancients' calamity was them straining the planet too much. Yes they had much more aether than sundered souls do, but they used creation magic for absolutely everything. Eventually that was going to cause something to break.

Possible, but I hope not. I'd find that to be the dullest approach they could take to the story. I was already on the fence about it in 7, but that also had the whole Jenova thing, which compensated it for me. Also relies on many assumptions on whether the planet has some finite load they had surpassed, which I find dubious without further evidence. They were certainly able to build a very large civilisation of it that, by the sounds of it, had lasted many, many thousands of years.

It will greatly depend on how it happens.

The combining of two worlds differs based on the plot's choice of effect.

They could easily do it the way you suggested and just handwave any problems through the lore they use to address it. In the end, the goal of the Rejoining is to restore the aether and the souls on the world to the Source. Selectively cutting off part of the world, pasting it onto some empty area of the Source and then draining the aether in the rest of it seem perfectly feasible to me... whether or not that means the stuff in Eden is ultimately to no avail. For now I am just taking that as the totally platonic Gaia and Ryne friendship show, with a side dish of here's how to do these Primal summonings properly. None of which really requires it all to work longer term.

Either way, it looks like Elidibus is angling for the 13th and 1st to be rejoined simultaneously, perhaps with the expectation that the darkness and light will cancel each other's effect on the aether out, rendering it suitable for use.