Patch 5.4 Trailer, Predictions, and Hints

[Jandor]

Thats exactly how I meant it. Since most people are 7/14 rejoined they are growing in their power to resummon Zodiark. If we defeat Zodiark and Hydaelyn doesn't resunder the star, the people will remain 7/14 (or even 8/14 if Fandaniel gets another rejoining) which we know is the needed power levels to resummon Zodiark.

How do we know any of that?

I've seen it said that if Zodiark got over half the shards restored he'd be powerful enough to break free, but that was an assumption based on an in-game source re: the amount of calamities that turned out to be mistaken.

And since primals can be resummoned even after they are defeated, and since its a ridiculously tall order to destroy all the Ascians, earse their culture (which we promised to remember), and finally resunder 7 or 8/14 rejoinings so the power level needed isn't there, he has the potential to come back. Also I clarified my statement after you quoted me but was the part of my quote you cut off.

I mean, the 2nd part of your statement really only works if someone agrees with the 1st part. I don't, hence why I didn't quote it.

A fine "Zodiark is perfectly gone" scenario is that he is killed, that's it. There is no one around who has the time, power, resources or inclination to resummon him in his full glory. There aren't exactly a great deal of 14/14 ancient sorcerers running around with access to councils full of similarly powerful ancient experts, libraries full of ancient knowledge, and cities full of 14/14 ancients to sacrifice as fuel.

Someone might hear about Zodiark and try to summon him for whatever reason, which to be fair could indeed end up being a big problem, but not really any more so than any other primal might end up being depending on how much aether is poured into them.

Lastly, summoning primals is creation magic (the elders and normies). If you still believe that these are two different things you were not paying attention when you went to Amarout.

You are explicitly told in Amaurot that you have zero capacity to do creation magic. It's also established that anyone, even the WoL, could perform a summoning if they really wanted to.

It follows therefore, that summoning is not the same as creation magic. Might be very loosely related, but it doesn't have the same requirements and it doesn't get the same results.

8/14ths. 7 Shards destroyed, our main self on the Source. That's 8/14. With Ardbert, we're now 9/14, with only 5 shards left.

lol, I knew I should have double-checked

[LineageRazor]

You are explicitly told in Amaurot that you have zero capacity to do creation magic. It's also established that anyone, even the WoL, could perform a summoning if they really wanted to.

It follows therefore, that summoning is not the same as creation magic. Might be very loosely related, but it doesn't have the same requirements and it doesn't get the same results.

I'm pretty sure summoning magic IS meant to be related to Creation magic. While we're told in Amaraut that we don't have the capacity for Creation magic, the one telling us that bases the judgment on the fact that our internal aether reserves are alarmingly weak. But the thing about Summoning, is that the summoners use an EXTERNAL reserve of Aether - crystals, and lots of them. It likely wouldn't even occur to an Ancient to Create in this way. I mean, why bother, when you have internal Aether to spare?

Examples like the final dungeon boss of Akadaemia Anyder and the mention of Ifrita from the side stories seem deliberately placed to indicate "this is how Summoning got started". Not to mention, the whole deal with Zodiark and Hydaelyn. Emet-Selch flat-out states that they are Primals. There's some indication that those, along with Quetzalcoatl were EXPERIMENTAL Creation magic, since their summoning involved complete depletion of an entity's Aether (one person's Aether for Quetz, millions or billions for Zodiark, and an unknown number for Hydaelyn), something which was likely unheard of before times became as desperate as they were.

Unless told otherwise, though, I think it's safe to assume that Summoning is basically Creation magic with an external Aether source, since the summoners lack the internal reserves to do true Creation magic.

[Jandor]

Unless told otherwise, though, I think it's safe to assume that Summoning is basically Creation magic with an external Aether source, since the summoners lack the internal reserves to do true Creation magic.

I'm fine with summoning being a relation, a different route to a similar end-goal makes sense. My main point was that being more restored doesn't really seem to actually amount to much though, even 8/14 of the way there you still register a zero on the ancient magic scale.

The people of the source don't live 8x longer than their shard counterparts, their spells don't do 8x as much damage, they don't have 8x the reserves of internal aether to call upon, it basically just doesn't seem to make any practical difference. You get a denser soul, and a dense soul can be handy for some niche things like absorbing a whole bunch of light aether (although even then that wouldn't have really panned out if we didn't have the whole blessing of light thing going on) but that seems to be, so far at least, pretty much the extent of it.

Really feels like being restored is an all or nothing sort of deal, so the idea that because we're partially restored we're more capable of resummoning Zodiark just doesn't track for me. Being 8/14th restored doesn't make the people of the source 8/14th millennia old ancient sorcerer, they're still regular old mortals with regular old mortal limits.

[Kesey]

I'm fine with summoning being a relation, a different route to a similar end-goal makes sense. My main point was that being more restored doesn't really seem to actually amount to much though, even 8/14 of the way there you still register a zero on the ancient magic scale.

The people of the source don't live 8x longer than their shard counterparts, their spells don't do 8x as much damage, they don't have 8x the reserves of internal aether to call upon, it basically just doesn't seem to make any practical difference. You get a denser soul, and a dense soul can be handy for some niche things like absorbing a whole bunch of light aether (although even then that wouldn't have really panned out if we didn't have the whole blessing of light thing going on) but that seems to be, so far at least, pretty much the extent of it.

Really feels like being restored is an all or nothing sort of deal, so the idea that because we're partially restored we're more capable of resummoning Zodiark just doesn't track for me. Being 8/14th restored doesn't make the people of the source 8/14th millennia old ancient sorcerer, they're still regular old mortals with regular old mortal limits.

But its not an all or nothing deal. It was explicitly stated that 1 more rejoining will put enough aether into the source to awaken Zodiark. Its not about people being more rejoined and what that means for them and/or their power/magic. What I believe has you confused is phraseology of "summoning Zodiark". He already has been summoned, Hydaelyn locked him in the moon, so really more like a charge the aether battery on the source to let Zodiark wake up, then a traditional summon.

[Jandor]

But its not an all or nothing deal. It was explicitly stated that 1 more rejoining will put enough aether into the source to awaken Zodiark. Its not about people being more rejoined and what that means for them and/or their power/magic. What I believe has you confused is phraseology of "summoning Zodiark". He already has been summoned, Hydaelyn locked him in the moon, so really more like a charge the aether battery on the source to let Zodiark wake up, then a traditional summon.

ngl I think if that's what you initially meant you phrased it pretty oddly IMHO. Never mind though.

I don't recall where it was explicitly stated one more rejoining would be enough, if you could point me towards that scene I'd appreciate it. After all, there was an alternate timeline where one more rejoining actually happened, it doesn't seem like it was enough there.

[Kesey]

snip.

It's brought up a few times in ARR by the Ascians to show how close they are to realizing their goals, but to be clear an 8th rejoining just lets Zodiark out of the moon. And the alternate timeline clearly represents itself as being in the middle of an apocalypse even if Zodiark isn't seen. Also the passage of time seen in alternate future is explained too, because the summoning of Zodiark is just a delay to the end days and not an actual solution to the end days. The Ancients that follow Venat and summon Hydaelyn explain this.

So most likely the chain of events are as follows: 8th calamity/rejoining is achieved, Zodiark comes out of the moon, Zodiark causes a world of chaos because he can rewrite the rules of existence, because Zodiark is a primal and rewriting consumes aether he drains the star of aether (this is the apocalypse and takes place over a long period of time), the lack of aether leads to the final days (albeit not immediately).

This is why Hydaelyn was summoned in the past, most likely to solve the Zodiark aether follow problem, as apposed to actually confronting Zodiark. Now to further back up this, the WOL in 5.4 remembers the cave painting in Rak'tika where it shows Hydaelyn and Zodiark standing together. This implies that Hydaelyn and Zodiark co-existed and then something happened leading to their confrontation. Furthermore, since Azem didn't participate in summoning Hydaelyn or Zodiark, this is most likely the part of the story Azem did participate in. Hence why we have the Azem stone and think about it while Scions are having another conversation.

So in theory the final days of the past play out like this: Creation magic drains aether from the planet causing the final days, Ancients summon Zodiark to rewrite rules of existence to stop the final days, Zodiark is a primal and even though he saves the world is still draining aether causing the final days to just happen in the future, Ancients tempered to Zodiark refuse to listen to Ancients not tempered about the reality of Zodiark, those Ancients follow Venat because debate and discussion are the corner stone of their culture and now that doesn't happen because of tempering, they summon Hydaelyn specifically to deal with the aether flow problem, then the missing event transpires (here is where Azem is most likely involved with a potential 3rd solution), that event leads to Hydaelyn and Zodiark confrontation, Hydaelyn triumphs and creates the shards so Zodiark can't access his power.

I'm sorry this was a longer answer than you were anticipating, but in my mind all of these bits of lore are inter-related and are coming to fruition.

[Jandor]

It's brought up a few times in ARR by the Ascians to show how close they are to realizing their goals, but to be clear an 8th rejoining just lets Zodiark out of the moon. And the alternate timeline clearly represents itself as being in the middle of an apocalypse even if Zodiark isn't seen. Also the passage of time seen in alternate future is explained too, because the summoning of Zodiark is just a delay to the end days and not an actual solution to the end days. The Ancients that follow Venat and summon Hydaelyn explain this.

So most likely the chain of events are as follows: 8th calamity/rejoining is achieved, Zodiark comes out of the moon, Zodiark causes a world of chaos because he can rewrite the rules of existence, because Zodiark is a primal and rewriting consumes aether he drains the star of aether (this is the apocalypse and takes place over a long period of time), the lack of aether leads to the final days (albeit not immediately).

<snip>

The 8th rejoining world was apocalyptic because there had just been a rejoining. They do tend to be rather calamitous events.

I don't think we can really be sure that Zodiark passively consumes aether like current primals do either. Hydaelyn was created using much the same method and has been knocking about for several thousand years seemingly without causing any aether related issues.

[Iscah]

But its not an all or nothing deal. It was explicitly stated that 1 more rejoining will put enough aether into the source to awaken Zodiark.

Explicitly stated where?

Also, early-game quotes about the Ascians' plans are shaky at best - for all the writers try to look like they planned things all along, I would say there has clearly been a shift in the Ascians' intended goals (if indeed the writers had a plan beyond "say ominous things about being close to it and we'll work out the details later") and they've done their best to smooth over the join, but the cracks still show.

Also, the fact that G'raha says nothing about Zodiark's reawakening having happened in the post-eighth-Calamity timeline makes it even less likely to be true. He's been working with a group that knows about Hydaelyn and Zodiark and has done research into the cause of the Calamity to the point of identifying the rejoined shard. I don't think Zodiark's awakening would escape their notice, and I don't think the writers would want to not mention it happening because it would be a great way to raise the stakes even higher. Even more so with the "hopeful epilogue" to the other timeline's story in Tales From the Shadows.

[Iscah]

Repeating a question that you seem to have missed the first time because it went up while you were in the middle of writing a post.

But its not an all or nothing deal. It was explicitly stated that 1 more rejoining will put enough aether into the source to awaken Zodiark.

Where was this explicitly stated?

[Kesey]

Repeating a question that you seem to have missed the first time because it went up while you were in the middle of writing a post.



Where was this explicitly stated?

This is implicitly stated by the Ascians in ARR. If they can accomplish 1 more rejoining with 1 more calamity, they will be able to free Zodiark. This why the plot constantly has us stopping their 8th calamity plans. First with the ultima weapon. Then with their meddling with the dragonsong war. Then giving Nidhog's eyes to summon Shinryu to complicate the liberation of Ala Mhigo. Then the black rose set up with the first's flood of light. Then Elidibus and his warriors of light. Now onto Fandaniel and his towers.