Revisiting Amaurot/Dreamer Expansion Idea

[Erendis]

The entire point of Shadowbrings was "stop living in the past" in a very big way. The Ascians are trying to bring the past back while the Scions and the WoL living in the present and are trying to pass things on to the people who will come after them. Having large chunks of the story be about the past kinda flies in the face of what Shadowbringers was all about from a thematic standpoint.

On the other hand

Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.

[Vyrerus]

We will get to learn more, it's quite clear that we still don't have all of the picture of the Ancients' days. I wouldn't want them to dedicate an entire expansion to just that though. And with how finnicky recalling memories is shown to be in FFXIV, we'd never really be able to trust our memory recollections 100% either. I would prefer Echo visions, the Sundered Ascians telling us what they know, and perhaps Sharlayan or Meracydia having an otherwise lost record of events.

[Vyrerus]

I'm with you on this. Shadowbringers was very much about us being champions of the present in contrast with Hades and the Ascians clinging to the memories of the dead. To then dedicate a whole story to that long-lost past would be strange at least, and detrimental to people's view of the plot at worst - developing personal attachments to the people of that time will inevitably some players to wish they could reject the WoL's plot-ordained position to side with the Ascians instead and bring them back.

I also just don't have the love for Hades that so many people seem to. He worked well as a "noble adversary" but the prospect of actually being old friends was introduced too late and it just doesn't feel quite right to me.

I mean, I'm not an Emet-selch super fan either, but the idea that he was old friends with the WoL was introduced before the conclusion of 5.0 by Hytholadaeus, and that's about as tactfully as they could have done it without hamfisting it in elsewhere. It even tied into the recurring theme of, mortals are ignorant to the truth and the past. So I can't even speculate why it doesn't feel quite right to you.

[Rokke]

The entire point of Shadowbrings was "stop living in the past" in a very big way. The Ascians are trying to bring the past back while the Scions and the WoL living in the present and are trying to pass things on to the people who will come after them. Having large chunks of the story be about the past kinda flies in the face of what Shadowbringers was all about from a thematic standpoint.

“stop living in the past” is an odd summary of Shadowbringers considering it starts and ends with Graha meddling in the past :P


I think echo quests would be a much easier way to implement snippets of Azem than any time travel suggestions that have been brought up here on the forums or on reddit. We're the inspiration of a god and were an important player back in the day, I want to learn more of that! That said, I will admit I never played XI so I do not know how they handled their time travel xpac, but Im not sure a whole expansion dedicated to the past would work out considering "season 1" of xiv is wrapping up with the conclusion of the zodiark/hydaelyn stuff.

[Cilia]

A general theme of the game as a whole has been to move forward instead of dwelling in the past. It is persistent, carrying through all main storylines in some capacity, and best embodied in how Emet-Selch lived in a literal recreation of Amaurot.

What G'raha and Emet-Selch do are fundamentally different: Emet-Selch (and the rest of the Ascians for that matter) want to recreate the past, while G'raha strives to create a new future. Emet-Selch is friends with who the PC was, while G'raha is friends with who the PC is. Once one looks past the surface they're very different characters.

One must learn from history or be doomed to repeat it, but those who dwell in the past risk losing sight of the future.

Philosophical blathering finished, personally I don't think they'd go in that direction because again a persistent theme of the game's stories has been about letting go of the past. They could write in a reason why, but at present such a story would be even more disconnected from Eorzea than Shadowbringers was. Seeing more of the Ancients' world would be interesting, but it's antithetical to one of the core themes the story's beat into our heads since day one.

[Alleluia]

And you can also say that a theme of the game has been the past coming back to haunt us, too. The sound looms in the background beyond the rejoining threat. And the only way to protect the world from it if Zodiark is dealt some kind of fatal blow will be to learn about it. Now they *can* just have us find some mcguffin ruins that aren't collapsed that tell us something, or they could have Venat come out and help maybe (though I'm not sure she could since she didn't know the cause back int he day but w/e), or something else. But we've been set up with the echo to see into the past, we've been all but told Azem was focused on investigating that sound's source back in the day. At the very least, the memories of Azem are going to play a large part, b/c how else will we know what Azem knew?

I'm just saying that we have the in-game justification to go the full monty and really explore the ancient world and Azem's life in a way that doesn't break anything in current Eorzea: through living it in our memory. Narratively, its the same concept as when the echo lets us take the place of Estinien for a battle or something, except we'd be ourselves (though we'd be Azem to everyone else). And, instead of fighting a single battle, we'd get to explore the world of the ancients just like we did Norvrandt or Othard or any other place and experience what Azem did.


And "looking to the past" for a solution is not "dwelling on the past", especially not in some kind of thematic parallel to the ascians murdering millions to bring the past back. I really wish you guys would stop saying that. Its not the same thing. Its just doing what we already do when we check out cave paintings of Hydaelyn or investigate Anemnesis Anyder. Just, in my opinion, potentially a lot more fun. We'd have an expac destination that would let us thoroughly explore the ancient world as if we were there, cus we kind of would be. And we'd get to explore Azem's place in that world, too.

They could write in a reason why, but at present such a story would be even more disconnected from Eorzea than Shadowbringers was.

I specifically said, and added to the OP, that I was picturing this idea as post-6.0.

[Rokke]

A general theme of the game as a whole has been to move forward instead of dwelling in the past. It is persistent, carrying through all main storylines in some capacity, and best embodied in how Emet-Selch lived in a literal recreation of Amaurot.

What G'raha and Emet-Selch do are fundamentally different: Emet-Selch (and the rest of the Ascians for that matter) want to recreate the past, while G'raha strives to create a new future. Emet-Selch is friends with who the PC was, while G'raha is friends with who the PC is. Once one looks past the surface they're very different characters.

One must learn from history or be doomed to repeat it, but those who dwell in the past risk losing sight of the future..

We were friends with Emet in the same past tense as we were friends with Graha because we were dead when this story started. Now we get a new future thanks to folks in our future deciding to change their/our past. Would returning to the past not give the ancients a new future in the same we vein we were offered one? Time travel makes everything muddy lol

@ topic
I need to rewatch cutscenes, but did Hythlodeus mention our crystal having memories in it? They wouldn't be ours since we didn't make the crystal ourselves, but if there are some in there we could tap into with the echo...thats a thing.

[Rannie]

@ topic
I need to rewatch cutscenes, but did Hythlodeus mention our crystal having memories in it? They wouldn't be ours since we didn't make the crystal ourselves, but if there are some in there we could tap into with the echo...thats a thing.

Emet-Selch created the crystal and when he spoke about us he said something to the effect of , " Herein lies the memories of the 14th seat. The traveler, you are my dearest friend. The name of the 14th seat was Azem." Weither azem actually gave some memories like a pensive thing to Emet before or it was created from Emets own memories of Azem we dont know.

And yes he mentioned it having memories as well as the summoning spell connected to it.

[Veloran]

"Look to those who walked before, to lead those who walk after". Letting go or moving on from the past only works as a running theme of the game if you ignore that the most prominent power of the Echo is to delve into the past. And as far as G'raha, his entire thing was that he went back to reclaim the past with the supposition that he could very well be destroying the present he was coming from. And this was done out of the ideal "the present can't be saved/isn't worth saving/the past is worth saving more". His motives and the Ascians' motives were exactly the same, they wanted to recapture the past and use it to create their own version of the future. We destroy Tycoon and all that, but I fail to see why riding the crystal tower all the way back before the Final Days to stop things at the very beginning is any more morally dubious than what G'raha already intended.

[Rokke]

Emet-Selch created the crystal and when he spoke about us he said something to the effect of , " Herein lies the memories of the 14th seat. The traveler, you are my dearest friend. The name of the 14th seat was Azem." Weither azem actually gave some memories like a pensive thing to Emet before or it was created from Emets own memories of Azem we dont know.

And yes he mentioned it having memories as well as the summoning spell connected to it.

Thank you for saving me a trip to the inn, wasn't sure if I was mixing up what he said about our crystal and what he said about the others' constellation crystals ^^