Time is Running Out for the Ascian's Plan?

[Iscah]

I still don't know where it is at that the Ascians are like, "We need to hurry hurry hurry, y'all!" Can someone point to the point in the story where it happens?

I also don't think we've been told this - unless someone has direct quotes, I'm inclined to chalk it up to the same ongoing misunderstanding that some people think the Eighth Calamity is enough to release Zodiark when that was merely fan speculation on the meaning of a pre-Shadowbringers promotional interview that said we needed to prevent the "eighth and last" Umbral Calamity. (More likely interpretation now: it would be considered the last in the other timeline we prevented - either because the timeline allegedly ceased to be, or because it stuffed the world up that badly that there won't be anything left to bring about a ninth.)

There was urgency to their plan to rejoin the First, at least at the point when Elidibus started manipulating Ardbert's group, because that came so very close to a flood state and they couldn't let that happen. But beyond that... well, unless it was all bravado, Emet-Selch specifically tells us that even our interference in the First is only a minor setback to their plans. They have the patience to wait for millennia for their plans to reach fruition, even if they'd much rather we stop making a mess of them now.

I'm still also inclined to take anything they say with a grain of salt, because like, Lahabrea was all, "We will need the primals in order to get the calamity going." But like, nah, not really. They resort to a chemical weapon to kick off the 8th, which did happen in one of the timelines. No primal involved at all. Ascian words are as air.

The two methods aren't as different as you're simplifying them to be.

The Ascians' ultimate aim is destabilising the world's aether to the point that it triggers a calamity. Primals - and stoking people's fears to encourage them to summon primals - are means rather than an end goal.

Meanwhile, Black Rose is very much an aetherial weapon, not just a chemical one. It's not a poison - it kills by halting a person's life energies so they stop breathing. It shifts energies towards umbral/Light, making it a match for the First's Light-soaked state. That what made it seem ideal for Emet-Selch's plan - although in the end it sounds like it may have worked too well.

[Vyrerus]

The two methods aren't as different as you're simplifying them to be.

The Ascians' ultimate aim is destabilising the world's aether to the point that it triggers a calamity. Primals - and stoking people's fears to encourage them to summon primals - are means rather than an end goal.

Meanwhile, Black Rose is very much an aetherial weapon, not just a chemical one. It's not a poison - it kills by halting a person's life energies so they stop breathing. It shifts energies towards umbral/Light, making it a match for the First's Light-soaked state. That what made it seem ideal for Emet-Selch's plan - although in the end it sounds like it may have worked too well.

They're actually radically different. Primals rely on people to shape them, summon them, and to feed them. Faith, crystals, will to attack or defend etc. Not all primals are antithetical to the planet. Ramuh for instance is mostly content to gorge on crystals and keep to the Sylphland as a guardian.

Individual Primals of the tier that we deal with in the 2.0 MSQ aren't enough to cause a Calamity, and they all have elements that do not shift the planet's aether toward a singular aspect, since we basically rotate through the whole wheel.

Then, the primal big enough to cause Calamity, like Bahamut, strikes at the planet itself, though it may be intent on assaulting mankind.

Blackrose is a chemical weapon that directly kills the people, not the land. They bring about the 8th Calamity by killing people only. Since no one can live through exposure to this chemical, it's more deadly than any primal, and it changes the lay of the planets aether, how I wonder? What with mass death by aetherial stasis? It's Light aspect, right? I kind of don't understand how it caused damage to the planet by only killing people.

[Iscah]

Blackrose is a chemical weapon that directly kills the people, not the land. They bring about the 8th Calamity by killing people only. Since no one can live through exposure to this chemical, it's more deadly than any primal, and it changes the lay of the planets aether, how I wonder? What with mass death by aetherial stasis? It's Light aspect, right? I kind of don't understand how it caused damage to the planet by only killing people.

The benefit of Black Rose to the Ascians is that it is Light-aspected, thus is exactly what they need to create a Light-aspected disaster on the Source that will open the aetherial floodgates and allow the First's aether to flow into the Source. They're not trying to kill the land, and the death of a few armies is nothing to fret about.

Except, as I said earlier, it seems like the resulting calamity may have created destruction far beyond what they needed or intended, and continued to spread far beyond the initial wave of destruction.

[Draginhikari]

Well, it was intended to just kill people initially though that wasn't how it ended up playing out and it did end up harming the land based on what we saw in the Tales from the Shadows chapter Worlds Forsaken) https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../#sidestory_03)

"Black Rose wrought immeasurable destruction to organic life-forms, resulting in widespread environmental upheaval. The ambient aether ceased to flow along its normal channels and stagnated, rendering the land barren and uninhabitable. Inevitably, the wild imbalance of natural energies affected neighboring regions and, in some cases, led to sudden and unpredictable alterations in flora and fauna. Overnight, the crops on which man relied for sustenance became toxic, further increasing the death toll. In the aftermath of these unprecedented disasters, the communities formed by sentient beings fell into disarray, and all forms of societal organization, from small settlements to entire nations, were abandoned as individuals struggled desperately to avoid annihilation.

It did not take long for the cascading environmental repercussions to be felt in Garlean territory. Due to the aftereffects of Black Rose, the ceruleum that once supported daily life in the Empire and powered its magitek armies failed to combust. The machines duly fell silent, bereft of the energy required to set them in motion."

During the latter half of Stormblood we kept seeing NPCs referring to a 'thinning of the aether' in many places, which in Shadowbringers we found out was a result of the increase of Umbral polarity aether leaking in from the First. As we know from the events from the Events of the Eden that Umbral aether tends to suspend things in place. All it really took was an extra push from this extra aether to cause damage to everything around it which was enough of a push to cause the calamity causing the flood of aether to cause Black Rose to spread like a plague.

It is pretty much the reason that even after 200 years civilization has not recovered as the land has still not worked out to restore the proper polarity between Astral and Umbral during that time.

[RyuDragnier]

It is pretty much the reason that even after 200 years civilization has not recovered as the land has still not worked out to restore the proper polarity between Astral and Umbral during that time.

Originally they may have planned another Calamity that would have "restored the balance" while causing a lot more destruction. Thinking on it though...that may have been their original plan with Bahamut. The 7th Calamity is released, the Ascians convince people to release a Calamity of Light (powered by the First's destruction) that would cause just as much destruction while balancing things out.

[Draginhikari]

Originally they may have planned another Calamity that would have "restored the balance" while causing a lot more destruction. Thinking on it though...that may have been their original plan with Bahamut. The 7th Calamity is released, the Ascians convince people to release a Calamity of Light (powered by the First's destruction) that would cause just as much destruction while balancing things out.

That is kind of the interesting thing about the 7th Calamity in particular. Most of the calamities seem to have the type of impact the 8th Calamity did and was a full reset of civilization. However, in the case of the 7th, the interference meant Bahamut's Rampage was exclusive almost entirely to Eorzea and was only a temporary setback. It makes you wonder if Louisoix interference against Bahamut allowed the coming of the 8th Calamity sooner or as your stating if that was always the intention.

Due to the timescale of the Shards, it makes it hard to tell when the flood of light started from our perspective. For the First that was a 100 years ago but for the Source... it really is not clear nor do we know how long it takes for the Asicans to start these processes on the shards.

[Iscah]

Due to the timescale of the Shards, it makes it hard to tell when the flood of light started from our perspective. For the First that was a 100 years ago but for the Source... it really is not clear nor do we know how long it takes for the Asicans to start these processes on the shards.

Actually we have a pretty exact time point for that: it was happening when the Warriors were brought to the Source, and Minfilia travelled there to stop the Flood.