Tales From the Shadows Updated (SPOILERS ABOUND)

[MrThinker]

They did whack some Omega-tech in the time travelling tower, right? It wasn't purely Alex based? Or am I misremembering?

The time-travel was Alex, the dimensional rift-hopping was Omega, the aether was the Tower.

[YianKutku]

They did whack some Omega-tech in the time travelling tower, right? It wasn't purely Alex based? Or am I misremembering?

Yes, Omega's tech was used to help with the dimension-hopping.

Having said that, I don't actually know how blended Omega tech is with Allagan tech in the first place, given we know the Allagan Empire used their research on Omega to advance their technology by centuries.

[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.

[Jandor]

I feel the dimension-robot is being overlooked a bit, I mean the damn thing had its own personal pocket-dimension where it could create pretty much whatever it wanted, that feels like it should be important.

I think the Omega-tech was used (inadvertently) to shunt the 8th umbral world to its own dimension, this allowed the Alex-tech to work properly as it rules out the possibility of the tower editing its own past and creating a paradox. The Tower is, like Alex, an outsider looking in on the one true timeline.

Feels much more straightforward than trying to reconcile Alex only messing with one timeline previously with the Alex-tech in the Tower creating two entirely seperate timelines.

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Either that or... the tower didn't work as intended at all. It disappeared into Omega's dimensional rift where it created all this as one of its simulations, G'raha only thinks he traveled through time but is instead just fooling himself with a ridiculously over the top deep-dive VR game. "Don't worry WoL, here I can save you! I can save you again and again and again! Forever!

It's probably not this

[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.

[Vyrerus]

I'm sure they don't have something written out for him, but to me, since Alexander is Light aspected I somewhat wager he was created by Venat's team to be a time cop of sorts. Making sure the Ascians don't use time travel to alter history and indirectly kill all the new life or something.

It's pure speculation though. They haven't thrown us any bones about it. As for the Enigma Codex, Alexander does act apart from it, but it can be used to control him, and so I wonder if it wasn't first conceived by either the Ascians or an idea implanted by the Ascians in Mide's Ancestor-self.

Boy-o these time travel shenanigans never wrap themselves up with a nice, shiny bow huh?