Tales From the Shadows Updated (SPOILERS ABOUND)

[Iscah]

I don't think Emet and Elidibus are still alive on the 8th calamity world.

I suppose it depends on how exactly the timeline split worked. I'm still kind of picturing the doomed timeline as a pseudo-shard, with it essentially being a copy of the source as it was when the tower tardis'd out, in which case there would be no Emet or Elidibus copies there unless they happened to be floating about on the Source at that moment.
They've probably got a few minor Ascians knocking about to deal with, but for the most part I reckon they're both on their own, and also left alone.

Or the whole thing might be a more traditional time-travel split timeline though, where everything (including shards and ascians and voids, etc.) gets duplicated at the point of the change. In which case, well, we all know how much the writers love undoing deaths...

It's definitely a full timeline with all the shards together. It's not some stub timeline split off from reality - it would have been the one and only reality if G'raha hadn't travelled back in time to create the second path for us. The whole reason the bad timeline went bad is that the First got rejoined to it.

The Ascians are still out there somewhere, yes. But so, most likely, is the reincarnated Warrior of Light. And even without the WoL they have the knowledge of the Ascians' existence and what they're trying to do.

[Morningstar1337]

It's definitely a full timeline with all the shards together. It's not some stub timeline split off from reality - it would have been the one and only reality if G'raha hadn't travelled back in time to create the second path for us. The whole reason the bad timeline went bad is that the First got rejoined to it.

The Ascians are still out there somewhere, yes. But so, most likely, is the reincarnated Warrior of Light. And even without the WoL they have the knowledge of the Ascians' existence and what they're trying to do.

Which makes it all the more likely that they'd try to lay low while shard prepping until they fade into myth. After all the survivors have the equivalent of wanted posters for them now, and as such it might bein their best intrests to wait until people forget about them and Eorzea/Garlemald and let them join the list of long lost and forgotten civs

[Jandor]

It's definitely a full timeline with all the shards together. It's not some stub timeline split off from reality - it would have been the one and only reality if G'raha hadn't travelled back in time to create the second path for us. The whole reason the bad timeline went bad is that the First got rejoined to it.

You seem very confident. The lack of definitive answer to how exactly the doomed world fits into the overall cosmology, if it does at all, was the most annoying aspect of the story to me.

Is there some information I'm missing? Nothing I read really gave me any reason to believe everything that exists in the wider scheme of things carried over. Especially not Emet, Elidibus and reincarnations of Azem.

[Iscah]

You seem very confident. The lack of definitive answer to how exactly the doomed world fits into the overall cosmology, if it does at all, was the most annoying aspect of the story to me.

Is there some information I'm missing? Nothing I read really gave me any reason to believe everything that exists in the wider scheme of things carried over. Especially not Emet, Elidibus and reincarnations of Azem.

It just... had to. It's logical. It's a timeline equal to ours and it can't not have all of reality intact.

Perhaps the idea that time runs at different speeds in our Source and First confuses people and makes them think of the shards as "different timelines" but that's not the same thing at all - they're still part of a single linked reality and affect each other. By contrast, the bad future timeline is completely separated and affected by a set of shards that are not ours.

There is a Source and a First in our timeline. There is a Source and a First in the other timeline - or at least there was until it rejoined to the Source. The Future Ironworks team could deduce which shard had been affected, which implies the others are there to be observed.

Again, the other timeline is equally "reality" - it would be the only version of events to exist if there was no split. There is simply no way for the shards to not exist alongside it, unless they just spontaneously vanish.

The Source is not a reality to itself - the Source and shards together make up reality.

[Vyrerus]

You seem very confident. The lack of definitive answer to how exactly the doomed world fits into the overall cosmology, if it does at all, was the most annoying aspect of the story to me.

Is there some information I'm missing? Nothing I read really gave me any reason to believe everything that exists in the wider scheme of things carried over. Especially not Emet, Elidibus and reincarnations of Azem.

Everything in the doomed timeline is exactly the same as our timeline up until the point where Thancred gets soul snatched in ours. In the doomed timeline, Emet-selch and Elidibus are doing just fine. Unless either of them were dumb enough to get engulfed by Black Rose. They likely went back to sleep to wait until the world recovers.

[Jandor]

It just... had to. It's logical. It's a timeline equal to ours and it can't not have all of reality intact.

Perhaps the idea that time runs at different speeds in our Source and First confuses people and makes them think of the shards as "different timelines" but that's not the same thing at all - they're still part of a single linked reality and affect each other. By contrast, the bad future timeline is completely separated and affected by a set of shards that are not ours.

There is a Source and a First in our timeline. There is a Source and a First in the other timeline - or at least there was until it rejoined to the Source. The Future Ironworks team could deduce which shard had been affected, which implies the others are there to be observed.

Again, the other timeline is equally "reality" - it would be the only version of events to exist if there was no split. There is simply no way for the shards to not exist alongside it, unless they just spontaneously vanish.

The Source is not a reality to itself - the Source and shards together make up reality.

I know the world and the shards are all one linked reality with linked aether and one life-stream and such, I'm saying that I reckon the 8th calamity world functions similarly to a shard and is still linked to our overall main reality.

There is past precedent for worlds being split off & there is precedent for them being at a different point in their own respective timeline, as far as I know there isn't a precedent for time travel resulting in a brand new separate timeline. When Alex was flexing about his ability to spank Bahamut and prevent the 7th calamity I don't recall it being implied that him doing so would result in our Bahamut ravaged world just carrying on as if he hadn't bothered.

I think the split is less a traditional time travel story type split, instead it's a more traditional (to this universe at least) 'split a bit off the main world' split.
The Alex/Omega-Frankentower split the doomed world from the source as it jumped out, the tower rewound time for everything else while the 8th calamity world continued forward, the tower blew its engines out from the strain of doing all this, landed on the first, the events of ShB occurred and the course of events was changed. Or something like that at least.

I reckon if we were to ever get an updated source and shards lesson by someone in the know it'd go something like: "Here is the Source and the remaining shards, and this weird thing just off to the side over here is some kind of pseudo-shard manifested by a poorly understood & barely functional hacked together dimension hopping time machine in order to make sure Graha's shenanigans didn't result in a paradox."

Something like this:

That's my theory anyway. It all seems fairly logical to me. Maybe it's wrong, but I like it so I'll stick with it for now

[Cilia]

The Bad Future is a separate reality to our own. It still has all the shards our own does minus the First, since that was rejoined in the Eighth Umbral Calamity in its own timeline.

When I say separate reality, I don't mean dimension as defines the difference between our Source and the shard worlds left. I mean it exists in a separate spacetime to our own, which none save G'raha can observe since it's a part of his history.

G'raha is a walking Schrodinger's catboy between the stopping of the Eighth Umbral Calamity altogether and his transmigration into his slumbering Source body. Causally, he and the Crystal Tower should have vanished from the First after the Eighth Umbral Calamity was stopped. By all rights, it doesn't make logical sense. It's a temporal paradox which, by the logic put forth in the Alexander raids, shouldn't be allowed. If there was an observer like Alexander or the Tycoon sure, but neither of those are available...

Damnable time travel.

[Jandor]

By all rights, it doesn't make logical sense. It's a temporal paradox which, by the logic put forth in the Alexander raids, shouldn't be allowed.

It makes sense if you assume the 8th calamity world was split from the source as the tower set off.

Doomed world is split off as a perfect copy of the source at that moment, Graha and his tower do the tardis thing and rewind time across the source and the first, which works out fine because this particular tower didn't come from either of those worlds so he's not inadvertently undoing himself, we crack on with the plot of ShB & the 8th calamity world carries on existing. Paradox averted.

[Iscah]

When I say separate reality, I don't mean dimension as defines the difference between our Source and the shard worlds left. I mean it exists in a separate spacetime to our own, which none save G'raha can observe since it's a part of his history.

G'raha cannot "observe" the other timeline, present tense.

He was there, past tense. He experienced a small portion of that timeline during a past period of his life, and its earlier history was described to him.

He cannot magically see it now, any more than he can observe any other place he has been in the past.

[Grimr]

Snip

Let's start shall we
1.
A few posts earlier people were asking why didn't cid just work on getting aether going again. There was no request for it but i thought it would be helpful to bring it up.

2.
It is called the empty for a reason no need to be technical about it. The aether is stale non moving and nothing grows in the empty and absorbing too much aether turns whomever into a stale non aether moving zombie so to speak.

3.
Early on the exarch forbade anyone spending the night in the tower because it could vanish. Now elibus and emet were defeated and the exarch was turned into a crystal but the scion did not go back to eorzea nor did the tower and why is that?? The only logically conclusion one can derive is the future has not changed and i am certain all will be made aware of it in probably 5.4 or 5.5 not entirely sure. I suppose there could be multiple timelines but I'd rather not think about the 8th umbral era timeline cause it is depressing even with middy awakening . There is no going back to 7th astral era state in that timeline.

4.

I suppose chrono trigger is more applicable here than majoras mask but ( and regardless i have played more than enough time travel games to list here) more or less it is cause and effect action and reaction example.. Killing the queen's floating city in chrono trigger what else in the present eliminates it from the future when lavos emerges. Now technically we on the source would not notice it but on the first the tower would disappear and so would the modifications and on that action alone would the future be changed to a point the tower was no longer needed to avoid the 8th umbral calamity.

5
I give the the zenos factor. It is said that zenos destroyed all of black rose because he does not want anything to get in the way of his hunt( also probably why he killed varis). The thing is it safe to assume that he would have also destroyed black rose in the future timeline as well which kinda leaves me to believe black rose may not be responsible for the 8th umbral calamity either so either the exarch lied or se created a plothole.