6.0 Predictions: Will it be Garlemald, Sharlayan, or Meracydia?

[Vyrerus]

So, I'd been doing a bit of shower thinking about a possible underground zone, and it hit me that one thing they could include in such a place would be the Feymarch. For those unfamiliar, the Feymarch is a location from Final Fantasy 4.

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Feymarch

The concept could be adapted in a number of ways. For instance, they could stick to the concept faithfully, and have it be a place were Eidolons/Primals can manifest without summoners. To justify that, perhaps it's exceptionally close to the planet's lifestream, even more so than the Antitower. Or, taking other inspiration from FF4, specifically the presence of Sylphs in a similar locale in the Underworld, it could be a place where we find the Source equivalent to Norvrandt's Fae Folk. Or they could take the etymology of Feymarch into consideration and, going back to the aforementioned "close to the lifestream" idea, make it a "land of the dead" sort of place. That would kind of double as a FFX reference with the Farplane as well, now that I think about it. Or it could be an Ancient facility dedicated to the study of arcane entities. There were cities other than Amaurot from that era, after all, and such a place could loop back to the mysterious "Sound" that led to the Final Days.

Hehe, I was thinking about this today when I got back to these forums. Just think about Soken redoing this theme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m-8Zs9FyO8

[RyuDragnier]

But since they are tempering people to be loyal to Garlemald, the control system is probably located there and will need to be dealt with. Sharlayan may be a hub to research things, but doing research isn't going to stop the towers without taking action.

Else we'll have a repeat of Amaurot. More fuel to the fire of the theory that Sharlayan is linked to Amaurot somehow.

[Kesey]

The thing I'm most curious about is how the towers seemed to just appear out of thin air.

If Fandaniel is utilizing some kind of magitek/magic to just teleport them into foreign territory then destroying them would only be a temporary measure at best.

I assume that this is the result of Fandaniel using creation magic. This way he can teleport around the world and seemingly place these under everyone's noses.

[Kesey]

But since they are tempering people to be loyal to Garlemald, the control system is probably located there and will need to be dealt with. Sharlayan may be a hub to research things, but doing research isn't going to stop the towers without taking action.

Idk, the towers are obviously magic in origin, not magictek. So there probably isn't a control system. Furthermore, it's definitely Ascian in design, not Garlemald. I know it tempers people to "Garelmald" but tempering again is a magic thing, not magictek.

[KageTokage]

I assume that this is the result of Fandaniel using creation magic. This way he can teleport around the world and seemingly place these under everyone's noses.

I have doubts about that considering that he's not unsundered like Emet-Selch or Elidibus.

We historically haven't seen the sundered Ascians do anything terribly remarkable without the aid of some external power source.

[Hank_Hotspur]

Idk, the towers are obviously magic in origin, not magictek. So there probably isn't a control system. Furthermore, it's definitely Ascian in design, not Garlemald. I know it tempers people to "Garelmald" but tempering again is a magic thing, not magictek.

"Magitek" is pretty loose nowadays in the lore of the game. The recent WEAPON series being made of weird organic metal with musculature that stretches and folds like flesh but still has a cockpit (and looking more "natural" than the actual WEAPONS born from The Planet in FF7) shows how broad its application is (in addition to the Roader enemies). Of course its probably Ascian in design, but since they had a hand in both the creation of the Allagan and Garlean empires then really all magitek stems from them. As for tempering being just "magic" and not "magitek", we thought the Echo only occurred purely naturally but the Garleans have shown to be able to replicate it through artificial means with the Resonance.

So far, nothing has been solved in story just by figuring it out. We discovered the cure for tempering in the last patch, but discovering it didn't suddenly untemper everyone on the planet as well as figuring out how to kill Ascians didn't suddenly kill them all. I think for Sharlayan to make for not just a hub but as a full expansion-focused location like you say it couldn't be handled the same time as a Garlean-focused threat. That gives me flashbacks to fighting the Burning Legion in WoW and defeating a corrupted Titan never before mentioned in the lore results in Sargeras, one of the oldest and important villains in the lore, suddenly being imprisoned forever and wrapped up with a thud.

I would suspect that if "the sound" that caused the final days of Amaurot will be the focus of the next story arc, I think that would tie nicely in to a fully focused Sharlayan expansion. Sharlayan is probably the biggest depository of ancient history on The Source, but Sharlayans are very isolationist to the put of just abandoning outposts rather than rally with allies against an encroaching threat. I think setting an expansion about prying open Sharlayan to the world to help ensure another end of days event doesn't occur would be a neat first step to the story arc, but if they try sandwiching that with thwarting Garleans and Fandaniel's towers I fear we will have another expansion split like Stormblood had with Doma and Ala Migho were neither side of the story had enough focus.

[Kesey]

snip.

I'm fairly sure the towers are the means to stop the Eorzean Alliance from mustering an army to invade the Garlean Empire. I've been fully on board with a Sharlayan expansion through out this thread. I also see the narrative trap of a duel Sharlayan and Empire arc.

But again, I think its naive to think "the sound" which was the "hubris" of the Ancients is going to be the focus of the expansion. These Ancients that brought the sound on themselves are the same people who don't care to genocide planets full of people to bring back their old world. They have been the main villains for the entire game. They brought that disaster on themselves. I would not be surprised if the answer to "the sound" was Azem fixed it while Ancients summoned Zodiark and Hydaelyn and sundered it all up anyway.

[Hank_Hotspur]

I'm fairly sure the towers are the means to stop the Eorzean Alliance from mustering an army to invade the Garlean Empire. I've been fully on board with a Sharlayan expansion through out this thread. I also see the narrative trap of a duel Sharlayan and Empire arc.

But again, I think its naive to think "the sound" which was the "hubris" of the Ancients is going to be the focus of the expansion. These Ancients that brought the sound on themselves are the same people who don't care to genocide planets full of people to bring back their old world. They have been the main villains for the entire game. They brought that disaster on themselves. I would not be surprised if the answer to "the sound" was Azem fixed it while Ancients summoned Zodiark and Hydaelyn and sundered it all up anyway.

For "the sound", I don't consider it the premise behind 6.0, but something they could expand on if they decide to have another overarching story arc starting with 7.0 or beyond. We don't really know if they plan on doing one-off loosely connected expansion stories or something as expansive as the Ascian/Garlean storyline starting in 7.0, but I do think that part of the genius of the FFXIV writing team is giving themselves enough wiggle room to work with. We know they have the story planned out in broad strokes, but the recent interview with Gamer Escape had Yoshida enlighten us that how stories play out and the finer points are subject to change more in less time than we suspect (such as the reveal of Azem and the Convocation as well as the full reveal of Elidibus' plot not being finalized until the end of 5.1).

[Apothecarist]

My very wild guess.

By end of 5.0, the ascian would have used the tower for wide scale zodiark tempering on the 3 main continents. The tempered are used to create an endless army of ascian which is used to take over all the city states.

In 6.0, the scions and friends are forced to escape the main continents and journey to Thavnair (south asia themed) for the first time. The scions help the Thavnairian deal with their domestic issues in exchange for allowing them to stay in Thavnairia. Meanwhile, the Scions look for a way to reverse the large scale tempering by the Ascian. To do this, they need to find an aether source large enough to replicate the reverse tempering used on Ga Bu on a continent scale. They meet the great wyrm Vrtra who points the scions to Meracydia, where large aether sources were used in the summoning of eikon (primals) against the Allagans, such as the warring triads.

In Meracydia (australia themed), the scions meet the remnant of the Meracydian that survived the Allagan war. We learn that the Meracydian are the remains of the splinter faction (ascian counterpart) that summoned Hydaelyn. They are the ones sustaining Hydaelyn's influence through the recent umbral calamities which has made Zodiark stronger and Hydaelyn weaker. Their continuing war with the remaining dragons in Meracydia has left them unable to perform this duty, which was why Minfilia had to sacrifice her body to become the word of the mother. The Meracydians continue to look for a permanent source of power strong enough to empower Hydaelyn (would this allow Minfilla to return in physical form?). However the dragons control the majority of all known sources in Meracydia, and the Meracydian have been unable to break this hold. In comes the WoL to save the day.

By end of 6.0, the scions find the solution to reverse the wide-scale tempering and have travel back to the main continent where they fight various tempered ex-allies (e.g. Melwybb, Raubahn, Aymeric) ascian army (ala neo vs agent smith clones),Fandaniel, Lunar Bahamut and Zenos. New locations in existing playable regions are introduced as new contents. The ascian threat is ended but the fighting inevitably strengthens Zodiark further and a new group of antogonist is revealed (voidsents?).

[Veloran]

I'm fairly sure the towers are the means to stop the Eorzean Alliance from mustering an army to invade the Garlean Empire. I've been fully on board with a Sharlayan expansion through out this thread. I also see the narrative trap of a duel Sharlayan and Empire arc.

But again, I think its naive to think "the sound" which was the "hubris" of the Ancients is going to be the focus of the expansion. These Ancients that brought the sound on themselves are the same people who don't care to genocide planets full of people to bring back their old world. They have been the main villains for the entire game. They brought that disaster on themselves. I would not be surprised if the answer to "the sound" was Azem fixed it while Ancients summoned Zodiark and Hydaelyn and sundered it all up anyway.

You continue to claim this with very little evidence. Especially that last part, which is directly contradicted.

Anyway, as to the thread, it's Garlemald confirmed. Assets and art for a Garlean aetheryte were recently datamined.