Tales From the Shadows Updated (SPOILERS ABOUND)

[Iscah]

Alexander takes us back to a point where he had been summoned using the Enigma Codex. Rather than materializing beside a newly summoned version of himself, he assumes the same exact spacetime as his earlier self, meaning that either time travel as Alex does it has selfsame entities replace themselves when they travel or that summoning him merely calls him to a point in time, rather than creating him out of a vast quantity of aether.

I don't think that's what happened at all. I don't think Mide ever successfully summoned Alexander three years ago.

She thinks she did it, of course - but then she also thinks her friends died because they got hit by shrapnel from the exploding codex.

They are midway through the summoning when Alexander drops out of a time portal in front of them. From the information she has at that time, Mide naturally assumes that it appeared because they summoned it, but it was only ever there because of the time travel. It appeared, stuff happened, it warped away again and Mide is left looking at an empty river.

As for the codex, we're told that the two founders of the tribe did emerge from Alexander carrying it. In fact it's specifically said that the fragment you give to Alex's coeurl just a few moments before discovering it's existence in an ancient legend is an absurd paradox. Basically, we're given every reason to believe it's the same object in a time loop, and and zero reasons to think it's some recreation at a later date.

The exact quote is that they are carrying a "small stone", and the context additionally points to this being the fragment and not the full codex. Roundrox has just given her treasured glowstone to Alexander's cat in the hope that it will reach Mide somehow - and here is the proof that she received it.

("Absurd paradox" is overstating the forcefulness of what was said, too. Wedge doesn't think it sounds possible, but that doesn't make it a paradox.)

So as I'm reading it, she carried the glowstone into the past, but created the full codex separately. So there's only physical matter looping infinitely if she re-integrates the glowstone into the newly made codex... and if she doesn't, that glowstone is still out there somewhere to be found.

May not even be her own relative. She started the clan, certainly, but within any group of people, family lines sometimes die out. [...] There may be no direct lineage between Mide of the past and Mide of the present.

Mide specifically says the author of the codex was her ancestor in 'The Folly of Youth'.

If I were to ever build a time machine, the first thing I'd do is go back in time and teach myself how to build a time machine. The fact that I have not already done so indicates to me that, sadly, I likely will never build a time machine.

(Or if I did, what the heck am I waiting for, future me??? Geez.)

Maybe waiting for you to learn advanced physics so you don't just stare at them blankly when they try to explain how it works?

I think you could have a lot of fun with a story where someone planned around stable time loops to achieve stuff. "I think I need some help with this... oh, hi Future Self, thanks for coming."

Would be a challenge to keep everything straight and you'd have to have some kind of limit on how often they can pull stunts like that, but it would be interesting.

[Vyrerus]

I don't think that's what happened at all. I don't think Mide ever successfully summoned Alexander three years ago.

She thinks she did it, of course - but then she also thinks her friends died because they got hit by shrapnel from the exploding codex.

What I'm saying is that nobody that we know has ever actually summoned Alexander. I think that the, "ritual" for summoning him calls him out of time rather than from the aetherial realm. I basically think the game hasn't shown us his primordial summons (or creation, rather). Which really makes me wonder who thought him up in FFXIV, because if he's a concept like other primals created by the Ancients, then you'd think they'd have made use of time travel themselves by now.

[Iscah]

What I'm saying is that nobody that we know has ever actually summoned Alexander. I think that the, "ritual" for summoning him calls him out of time rather than from the aetherial realm.

He didn't spontaneously move to three years ago, though - it was Roundrox who chose to travel to that point to "make bad things good again" - she went there with the specific intent to stop the original event from happening and, as these stories tend to go, instead created the situation in the first place.

We do know where and when Alexander was summoned: recently, by the Illuminati.

[Vyrerus]

He didn't spontaneously move to three years ago, though - it was Roundrox who chose to travel to that point to "make bad things good again" - she went there with the specific intent to stop the original event from happening and, as these stories tend to go, instead created the situation in the first place.

We do know where and when Alexander was summoned: recently, by the Illuminati.

But he already knew that Roundrox would do that, which is why he sent the clockwork-coeurl with Biggs and Wedge to push the journal out. None of it was spontaneous. Basically Alexander already has an all-encompassing view of the entire, "time-circle."

We can't be sure that the, "summoning" by the Illuminati was actually a real summoning any more than Mide's "summoning" three years prior. And even if it was, which it wasn't, that still wouldn't be his original conception.

[LineageRazor]

There doesn't seem to be any lower-limit to how small a clan can be. There are some with thousands of members, and others that consist of like two yurts. Moreover, the striking blue hair of Mide and Dayan is a distinctive feature of the Hotgo clan, every member we see has it, and it's a trait that comes from the two of them.

Remember that, for player convenience, populations that we see are assumed to be much smaller than the actual populations, distances are much smaller than the actual distances, and so on and so forth. The fact that we see only two yurts is no indication as to how big the tribe actually is. At best, we can use it as a measure of how large the clan is in proportion to other clans. There are less than a dozen Dotharl NPCs, but I don't think we're supposed to imagine that they're actually that small in population. It's possible that there are actual two-yurt clans, but we can't assume so just because of what we see in-game.

Mide specifically says the author of the codex was her ancestor in 'The Folly of Youth'.

Still not a guarantee! Even assuming she's not mistaken (and she's been mistaken about several things in this plotline), "ancestor" does not necessarily mean an unbroken bloodline is involved. Many societies, upon adopting someone into the family, treat them in every way as a blood relative. That's just picking nits, though - I do agree that there's very likely some blood relation. Even so, after just a few generations, genetic diversity means that a whole lot of Mide's DNA would have had to come from other sources, with only a few bits and pieces passed down from the founder Mide (even if we assume a frankly uncomfortable amount of inbreeding).

Maybe waiting for you to learn advanced physics so you don't just stare at them blankly when they try to explain how it works?

*Whines* You mean I gotta STUDY??? Dammit, future me, where's the cliff notes version???

I think you could have a lot of fun with a story where someone planned around stable time loops to achieve stuff. "I think I need some help with this... oh, hi Future Self, thanks for coming."

Would be a challenge to keep everything straight and you'd have to have some kind of limit on how often they can pull stunts like that, but it would be interesting.

I actually HAVE written such stories. (Nothing published; all message board drabbles and one school project.) In one such story, a character used time travel to loop back in time over and over to make an army of herself to challenge a tough enemy in a fight. She still lost, in the end - fatigue and injuries carried forward with each loop back and were eventually too much for her - but she distracted the enemy long enough for one of her allies to finish the job.

Interest in scenarios like this are one of the reasons why I tend to get so involved in these discussions when stuff like Alexander comes up.

We can't be sure that the, "summoning" by the Illuminati was actually a real summoning any more than Mide's "summoning" three years prior. And even if it was, which it wasn't, that still wouldn't be his original conception.

We can't be SURE, no, but unless specifically told otherwise, we can assume Alexander had a "birth" of some kind, just as other actors in the story do. Alexander's journey to the past may be the first time he was viewed chronologically, but it wasn't when he was created. The offscreen summoning Iscah mentioned is very likely this birth; the Goblins summoned a Primal, just as other beast tribes do (and likely with Ascians teaching them how). Roundrox likely had a large part in shaping where and how the summoning took place, taking cues from the Codex to do so, but in all other ways it was likely a typical summoning. It's probable that, ruthless as they are, the Illuminati probably jumped straight to mass sacrifices to pump up the power of the resulting primal (just as was done for the original "Extreme" trials).

[Vyrerus]

We can't be SURE, no, but unless specifically told otherwise, we can assume Alexander had a "birth" of some kind, just as other actors in the story do. Alexander's journey to the past may be the first time he was viewed chronologically, but it wasn't when he was created. The offscreen summoning Iscah mentioned is very likely this birth; the Goblins summoned a Primal, just as other beast tribes do (and likely with Ascians teaching them how). Roundrox likely had a large part in shaping where and how the summoning took place, taking cues from the Codex to do so, but in all other ways it was likely a typical summoning. It's probable that, ruthless as they are, the Illuminati probably jumped straight to mass sacrifices to pump up the power of the resulting primal (just as was done for the original "Extreme" trials).

And what were the first conceptions of the primals that the beastmen summon? Where did those originate? You know the answer.

[RyuDragnier]

And what were the first conceptions of the primals that the beastmen summon? Where did those originate? You know the answer.

Perhaps the Codex was originally a relic of Amaurot given to the goblins by the Ascians so they could summon Alexander to bring about the 8th Calamity. Unfortunately for the Ascians, like all other primals, Alex had a will of its own. Its will was to guarantee the salvation of the world...which was impossible as long as it existed, so it created a stable time loop and stuck itself in it, forever preventing itself from influencing the timeline outside of its small summoned window. Though we know Garland Ironworks can replicate it with enough time, there just isn't a need to (hopefully forever) anymore.

[Iscah]

Still not a guarantee! Even assuming she's not mistaken (and she's been mistaken about several things in this plotline), "ancestor" does not necessarily mean an unbroken bloodline is involved. Many societies, upon adopting someone into the family, treat them in every way as a blood relative. That's just picking nits, though - I do agree that there's very likely some blood relation. Even so, after just a few generations, genetic diversity means that a whole lot of Mide's DNA would have had to come from other sources, with only a few bits and pieces passed down from the founder Mide (even if we assume a frankly uncomfortable amount of inbreeding).

It was mentioned early on (I won't go looking for the quote tonight) that it's only a hundred years since Mide's ancestor created the codex, so not long enough to lose track of relations. I'm not sure that sounds right from an overall timeline perspective, but it's what we've got to work with.

Stray thought: what if present-day Mide and Dayan are clones of the "ancestors"? There's weird leftover Allagan tech on the Steppe and the ancestors know that a younger version of themselves need to be born to repeat the time loop. If that works and doesn't technically involve the same matter going around the loop again...?

We can't be SURE, no, but unless specifically told otherwise, we can assume Alexander had a "birth" of some kind, just as other actors in the story do. Alexander's journey to the past may be the first time he was viewed chronologically, but it wasn't when he was created. The offscreen summoning Iscah mentioned is very likely this birth; the Goblins summoned a Primal, just as other beast tribes do (and likely with Ascians teaching them how). Roundrox likely had a large part in shaping where and how the summoning took place, taking cues from the Codex to do so, but in all other ways it was likely a typical summoning. It's probable that, ruthless as they are, the Illuminati probably jumped straight to mass sacrifices to pump up the power of the resulting primal (just as was done for the original "Extreme" trials).

Yeah, this is mostly how I understand it to play out - other than that you seem to be getting your goblins mixed. Roundrox is from the Idyllshire clan and wouldn't have had anything to do with the Illuminati summoning Alexander.

The question of "where it started" is too hard to pin down because it's bootstraps all over the place, but there is no need for Alexander to have existed prior to the earliest parts of the time loop.

As I understand it, chronologically:

1. Alexander appears in the past and drops off Mide and Dayan to found the Hotgo tribe.
2. They live and die and their descendents carry on their work.
3. Three years ago, present-day Mide and Dayan try to summon Alexander out of the aether and instead get time-travelling Alexander from the future.
4. Shortly after the events of Heavensward, the Illuminati summon Alexander - this is the start of its existence in "real time".
5. Alexander runs its simulations, concludes the best course of history is for it to be sealed away, and calculates the events that need to happen to bring this about. Bootstrapping ensues as the earlier parts of that plan "already exist" and have played out chronologically even though from Alexander's perspective, it has not carried out the plan yet.
6. Real time events of the Alexander quest line play out.
7. Alexander is sealed away with Mide and Dayan on board.
8. Current point in time
9. ???
10. Alexander travels to the past to drop off Mide and Dayan (then returns to whatever state it is in as of step 9).

[LineageRazor]

If that works and doesn't technically involve the same matter going around the loop again...?

Well, when talking about living beings, it wouldn't be the same matter even if it was literally the same person spinning around the time loop for infinity (as was the case in my Discworld example). I think it takes something like seven years to replace the majority of cells in the human body. Normally, heart and brain cells are NOT replaced when they die, but if we're talking about a bizarre, never-born-never-die time looper, you can throw such things out the window and speculate whatever you want, since they aren't strictly speaking, even human beings. Since no matter is eternal, the only way such a being could persist for eternity is if EVERY scrap of matter in their body is replaced periodically.

The same goes for DNA. The original strands of DNA would have been broken down and lost once Mide was dead and buried. COPIES of that DNA could live on through her descendants. This does not break the "no eternal matter" rule.

Yeah, this is mostly how I understand it to play out - other than that you seem to be getting your goblins mixed.

Yeah, I meant Quickthinx, definitely got my gobbies mixed up! The leader of the Illuminati is who I meant.