Tales From the Shadows Updated (SPOILERS ABOUND)

[kujoestars]

So long as nothing happens to bring us there, at least. The WoL is usually not the sort to look the other way. Though saying that, I find myself imagining the bizarre scenario of the WoL traveling to the Eighth Umbral Astral Era timeline and discovering that our own future reincarnation was recruited by Emet-Selch and Elidibus to shore up their ranks.

Funny enough, I was just imagining a “what-if” scenario where my WoL somehow gets dumped into this timeline. I’m not sure the likelihood we’ll see this alt timeline anytime soon, if at all, but it sure would be an interesting way to revisit the Ascians if they ever become relevant again. I personally would like to avoid a Warlords of Draenor type of situation-oh wait, that’s literally ShB, lol. Correction: I would personally like to avoid a Blizzard-type of timeline hopping, but as long as Yoshi-P is still on the team, I’m sure they can pull it off.

While it is true the WoL can never turn away from people in need, they also wouldn’t just ditch their own timeline to fix one where their time was long past while there’s STILL a laundry list of issues. We only ended up on The First, after all, because G’raha pulled us over, and the other Scions were along for the ride by accident.And then it became a “while we’re here, we may as well” type of situation since we’d save the First anyway even if it wouldn’t benefit the Source at all (it was even outright stated). But it’s not something we’d be going ojt of our way to do; just depends if Yoshi-P ever wants to actually revisit that world or introducing even more convoluted time-world hopping shenanigans. Buuuuuuut for now, I’d be happy to not have a horrible repeat of WoW’s terrible time travel plot abuse.

It’s fun to imagine how our WoLs would react to meeting their alternate timeline reincarnation regardless. -w-

Perhaps we can have a sidequest in the future to mess around a bit.

[KalinOrthos]

I think the implication is that, when the result of time travel without traveling between shards would have a direct effect on that shard, the timeline self-corrects to be "fated" as it were. However, when traveling between shards, or perhaps doing so where one's actions don't have a direct effect on that shard (which I can't imagine would be possible), the result is a divergent timeline. After all, it's the actions on the First that prevent the Eighth Calamity on the Source, as opposed to any direct actions taken on the Source. Whereas, in the Alexander raids, everything happens as per a time loop, all actions have direct consequences for the Source, and all actions appear to be fated, disregarding Quickthinx's book.

[Rannie]

My guess....

Azem's slash our reincarnation, someone who has yet to embark on the grand adventures that will mark her as the harbinger of the Eight Astral Era much as we brought forth the Eight. A tale for another place, of another time and maybe for another time

I dont know i would like to think that

its Alpha's soul reincarnated. It would to me make it sweeter that he was able to find his little traveling companion again but as a "human". But thats probably just me.

[Iscah]

That feeling when you're trying to work and your brain is more interested in trying to concoct a clear graphical representation of your thoughts on space/multiverse/timelines...

For now, I'll just say that I don't think the involvement of multiple shards has anything to do with causing the split timeline, and you could cause the same effect through time travel within a single shard. Each version of the timeline carries a copy of all the shards in it - like a higher-level version of the Sundering where each shard was a copy of the same original thing but is now free to evolve separately.

[Iscah]

lore-wise, it confirms that we're not even trying to make the time shenanigans sound consistent or realistic anymore.

Funnily enough, it's perfectly consistent with how I've been trying to explain it all along. A simple Y-shaped timeline where G'raha can take one path first then come back and force the creation of the second.

*adjusts darksteel-foil hat, waves at wall full of notes*

[Rannie]

That feeling when you're trying to work and your brain is more interested in trying to concoct a clear graphical representation of your thoughts on space/multiverse/timelines...

For now, I'll just say that I don't think the involvement of multiple shards has anything to do with causing the split timeline, and you could cause the same effect through time travel within a single shard. Each version of the timeline carries a copy of all the shards in it - like a higher-level version of the Sundering where each shard was a copy of the same original thing but is now free to evolve separately.

Just see it as a tree... a big tree with branches or limbs... and I thank Ben 10 Omniverse for this...

[Morningstar1337]

snip

Doe't XI have alt timelines and traveling through them in more recent xpacs?

[Grimr]

it would seem everyone needs a refresher on why they did time travel in the first place. Eight umbral calmaity hits black rose is used Garlemald magiteck is non functional and other city states are void of aether think the empty but on a larger no honestly think Novrant and the first cause its basically that but eorzea. Emet-set and elibus ( unless they were killed though out the timelines)still exist in that doomed era. I don't even know if middy can reverse that emptiness, not even cid could.

What the exarch said was true the tower needs to go back to eorzea to ensure the 8th calamity of that nature doesn't happen. Until it leaves the first, there will be a calamity of epic proportion that will necessitate the use of the tower again. Maybe when we defeat zenos the tower will vanish. But until it has nothing will have changed.

I will not discuss the 3 timelines of zelda here. My attempted knowledge comes from Chrono Trigger and loz MM ( song of time anyone)

It is simple cause and effect.

[Anonymoose]

tl;dr old man yells at cloud of darkness

For whatever it's worth, my issue with it isn't that 5.0's time travel doesn't make sense in a vacuum - the Y-branch is pretty simple. Granted, one hopes it is only a Y, in that case. An infinite fractalling multiverse renders our world (also its own shattered multiverse) not only one insignificant speck in a sea of infinite universal possibilities, but one could argue that it really means we abandoned "our world" to its death to live in a preferable nearby alternative and pretend it's ok because our personal story of it is nice and it works out for us. Moreover, since there would be infinite worlds within which the existence of the Tycoon can never be fully erased, and thus is always potentially accessible, nothing we ever defeat is ever truly dead, and nothing we do cannot be undone, since it could just as easily come back from one of the millions of branches where it still exists. So yes, let us hope it's a Y.

(Recall that I was open to the two-world version based on the FR name for the Twinning being a play on crystal macles; one crystal's inverted lattice growing through itself.)

My issue is that there's no explanation for the seeming contradiction (or at least awkward jibe) in the cosmology and epistemology of Final Fantasy XIV spacetime aetherophysics put forward by the Alexander arc. Except having a debate about that requires understanding different theoretical forms of time travel, which is where said debate always breaks down. Hell, the Terminator movies are all supposed to take place in the same franchise but all use different theories of time travel, lol. No sooner does Agents of SHIELD use the Alexander approach than does Infinity War use the Shadowbringers approach ... and then I think SHIELD goes back and ... undoes the rules from the ... look, the Quantum Realm is the Rift is what I'm saying, apparently.

Though one could argue that perhaps while the infinite branching multiverse is does not concretely exist, it exists as un-manifest potential within the Rift, where all time and space co-exist at once, and by breaking the rules of the Rift we break the rules of time and thus branch what is manifest - creating a two-world limit where we only DOUBLE the amount of things that can come back and bite us, again, lol.

I can't stress this enough - the people in the game (and now the side-story) also recognize that it's weird, lol. This is the same expansion that inverted everything we knew about elements to resolve a contradiction a tiny fraction of this fandom would have noticed. If it's a contradiction puzzle, I try to find and solve it. But if "don't think too hard about it" is the answer then I can set it aside.

Final Fantasy as a long, proud tradition of occasionally not feeling any pressure to explain what just happened.

(Still, I'm a little surprised G'raha didn't give his blood memories to his sleeping self, thus revealing that the timeline with the Eighth Umbral Era was averted from the start because time from a 4D perspective had already been changed and the memories were from a time that "never was" but we still had to live it out subjectively from a limited 3D perspective. Clearly he just does that "next year"...)

[Yuella]

Doe't XI have alt timelines and traveling through them in more recent xpacs?

Wings of the Goddess is the time travelling expansion. It dealt with the Crystal War (pre-vanilla) where we (the playable races) beat Shadowlord's army. The expansion actually implied that the Shadowlord would've won if we had not interfered in Wings of the Goddess.