Thinking about Elidibus

[Anonymoose]

That's interesting, is this ever revealed in the materials or is it just an inference?

The "eternal string of course-corrections" part is inference based on that their new plan always starts from where the old plan failed and accounts for the new status-quo somehow. The thing he was having the Warriors of Darkness do was explained in multiple pieces across a long time, but, thank the Twelve, Ardbert just summarized it when he was falling for Urianger's "Hey, why don't you just kill the Warrior of Light instead?" misdirection.

Warrior of Darkness
You know, you're right. Mayhap it is time for a change of tack. Killing primals, tormenting beastmen, hastening the birth of a new god... It's all a bit much, isn't it? And, frankly, we don't have the leisure to do it. Killing the Warrior of Light, on the other hand─that would soon plunge Eorzea into chaos.

The part about Venat's faction opposing Zodiark because of practicality concerns is also new to me, I just took Hythlodaeus' word for it that the conflict was ideological in nature, with Zodiark's faction being those who wished to restore Amaurot to glory through sacrifice, and Hydaelyn's being those who wished to entrust the world to the new life.

The fact that a shade of Hythlodaeus created by a tempered Ascian still vouches for that this is why Hydaelyn was summoned makes me believe it. I'm curious if what happened was that Zodiark was not supposed to stay summoned forever, but once the Convocation was tempered and saw him as the One True God they felt that he was the answer to every problem, even his own intended impermanence. If they couldn't get rid of Zodiark, they could at least summon something to balance out His Darkness. Not that it made anything better in the end. But hey it did enable us to exist so there's that.

It's kind of shocking that the Ascians were still careless about the balance of light and dark even after the monumental failure on the 13th that they'd need one of their own to intervene. Some superior race these guys are.

It's kind of shocking that the Ascians were still careless about a bunch of things, lol. But it looks like the Ascians in black did tend to go overboard, especially the reincarnated ones. They seem to be a little glitchy.

[Mieck]

That's interesting, is this ever revealed in the materials or is it just an inference?

The part about Venat's faction opposing Zodiark because of practicality concerns is also new to me, I just took Hythlodaeus' word for it that the conflict was ideological in nature, with Zodiark's faction being those who wished to restore Amaurot to glory through sacrifice, and Hydaelyn's being those who wished to entrust the world to the new life.

Also


It's kind of shocking that the Ascians were still careless about the balance of light and dark even after the monumental failure on the 13th that they'd need one of their own to intervene. Some superior race these guys are.

It was in the cutscene after Anamnesis Anyder.

By the summoning of Zodiark have we been granted a reprieve. Yet immutable as the laws He has woven may seem, they will not serve to forestall our doom.

Nay. Should we continue down this path, our fate will be the same. I said as much to the Convocation, of course, but the stubborn fools turned a deaf ear to my warnings.

[PangTong]

The thing he was having the Warriors of Darkness do was explained in multiple pieces across a long time, but, thank the Twelve, Ardbert just summarized it when he was falling for Urianger's "Hey, why don't you just kill the Warrior of Light instead?" misdirection.

Wow, that went over my head. I think when I read this line I assumed that the "new god" they were referring to was Zodiark, or perhaps the next primal to be summoned by the beast tribes, but with that context neither of those makes a whole lot of sense. I'd be curious to know if there were other clues I missed.

Thanks for all the responses. While I've got the ear of some experts there's one other slightly less serious thing I've always found a bit weird about the Ascians in the story:

At some point the Ascians decide that the biggest obstacle in the way of their goal is the Warrior of Light, and so they set about trying to find ways to kill us or otherwise use us. But it's like... the Ascians are immortal. The Warrior of Light is not. They've already spent thousands and thousands of years just on the seven calamities they've managed so far. Just... wait for us to die lol? Even if we assume the Warrior of Light/the soul of Azem will just continuously reincarnate, there must surely be periods of some years where they're not capable of much (presumably our character was a baby at some point). And wouldn't said reincarnation happen anyway even if the Ascians killed us? Seems a lot less risky to just wait a bit than trying to get stuff done while we're around, and getting permakilled in the process.

I guess you can just put it down to the Ascians underestimating us, or maybe they just think it'd be a shame to put all the plans they've been working so hard on on pause and potentially have their projects (like Garlemald) go up in smoke, but even so, they literally have all the time in the world. I suspect the real reason for this is "because the story needs to happen," so if they ever actually give a strong reason for why the Ascians are in such a damn hurry to cause the 8th so soon after the 7th, I'll be really impressed.

[Anonymoose]

I assumed that the "new god" they were referring to was Zodiark

For what it's worth, I thought the same thing, lol - maybe the time had come to divert energy towards that snowball. But maybe it was just a new primal to match the calamity plan. If an answer beyond that was there to be found it went over my head, too.

Just... wait for us to die lol?

Ahaha, I agree that Oda might say of this one, "Please do not think too hard about this." A video game needs a story, and we wouldn't get much of one if the Ascians said, "Hey, how about we just let him think he's won for now, and we'll time it so Hydaelyn's next champion is easy to just have hit by a chocobo carriage." I think we might be able to patch a "good enough" bandaid over it if we assume once the Warrior of Light slipped the leash Lahabrea thought he had them on, the Ascians had to kill them or outdo them but just leaving them alone they'd keep fighting until they caused a Flood.

[Catapult]

Another thing to recall is Elidibus' status as a primal avatar of Zodiark. The exact mechanics of this are a bit murky, but the point is that he is effectively himself a Primal of Salvation, be it as a part of Zodiark or as something bound to Zodiark.
It therefore follows that the wish and intent with which Zodiark was summoned is itself a part of Elidibus' inherent nature, right up to his death. That nature being the charting of restoration for this Star which brings it salvation and restores order.
It therefore follows that Elidibus is inherently meticulous, his plans are comprehensive, and he doesn't tolerate chaos beyond where it is useful to his/Zodiark's objectives. In the big picture, restoring balance matters once the likes of Lahabrea have inflicted some necessary imbalance in service to the cause.

As I see it, in order to beat Elidibus, we had to exhaust him of his options. By the time we fight Elidibus, he is genuinely out of other options to deal with us. The other originals are gone, most of the unoriginal ascians are off the board or missing, and those who aren't seem to not be particularly reliable (Fandaniel).
He had no other options but to beat us then and there if he had any way of salvaging The Plan.

And he lost.

[PangTong]

Ahaha, I agree that Oda might say of this one, "Please do not think too hard about this." A video game needs a story, and we wouldn't get much of one if the Ascians said, "Hey, how about we just let him think he's won for now, and we'll time it so Hydaelyn's next champion is easy to just have hit by a chocobo carriage." I think we might be able to patch a "good enough" bandaid over it if we assume once the Warrior of Light slipped the leash Lahabrea thought he had them on, the Ascians had to kill them or outdo them but just leaving them alone they'd keep fighting until they caused a Flood.

As just a pure conjecture theory I think you could maybe come up with something plausible like, even with the machinations of the Ascians, the conditions for a calamity aren't completely in their control and there's all sorts of timing issues with regards to aetherial and temporal alignments that they have limited/no power over. So they have no way of knowing when the next opportunity for a calamity will arise which is why they typically take thousands of years. So having an opportunity present itself just 5 years after the previous calamity was an insane stroke of luck and too good to pass up, so they just had to try and take their chances and work around the WoL.

That's just me spitballing a reasonable explanation though, it's based on absolutely nothing. I dunno if it even completely jives with the lore since they seem to be trying to cause multiple different kinds of calamities one after another each time they're thwarted. I'd be really surprised if in Endwalker they manage to give a solid explanation that actually ties into the narrative, like we learn that they're working on a time limit that they've only recently discovered or something which is why they're now desperately accelerating.

Another thing to recall is Elidibus' status as a primal avatar of Zodiark. The exact mechanics of this are a bit murky, but the point is that he is effectively himself a Primal of Salvation, be it as a part of Zodiark or as something bound to Zodiark.
It therefore follows that the wish and intent with which Zodiark was summoned is itself a part of Elidibus' inherent nature, right up to his death. That nature being the charting of restoration for this Star which brings it salvation and restores order.
It therefore follows that Elidibus is inherently meticulous, his plans are comprehensive, and he doesn't tolerate chaos beyond where it is useful to his/Zodiark's objectives. In the big picture, restoring balance matters once the likes of Lahabrea have inflicted some necessary imbalance in service to the cause.

I quite like this explanation actually. The idea of a Darkness primal who seeks balance with Light does feel kind of "off" in some respects, but there's precedent for primals that are selfless (or at least not entirely selfish) to some degree. If we think of Zodiark as a primal of salvation and restoration then Elidibus' preoccupation with balance does make a bit more sense, if we're assuming that he doesn't just say that to trick people.

Although, if we assume that Elidibus' interest in balance is an extension of Zodiark's will, it does kind of raise the question of why Zodiark and Hydaelyn ended up fighting. If it were true, he should have had no problem with a Light-based counterpart to himself. Which would imply that Hydaelyn was the aggressor. I guess we'll find out.

[Catapult]

Just... wait for us to die lol?

See, I think this is not a plothole anymore by the time we get into Shadowbringers. The Ascians have a problem where unlike in previous eras, they are being hunted by people who have worked out how to actually kill them.
Stepping back for a while would necessitate playing defensively, which gives your opponents the opportunity to attack, and they are presenting as innovative in doing so.

Ergo, Elidibus was running out of options.

[PangTong]

See, I think this is not a plothole anymore by the time we get into Shadowbringers. The Ascians have a problem where unlike in previous eras, they are being hunted by people who have worked out how to actually kill them.
Stepping back for a while would necessitate playing defensively, which gives your opponents the opportunity to attack, and they are presenting as innovative in doing so.

That's not so hard to deal with. The Ascians have a dimension that only they can access, a bunch of other worlds to hide in, and can easily change their appearance. Even the Scions can't tell who is an Ascian just by looking. If their only goal was to avoid being killed, that seems like something they could do easily. If anything it seems like the only reason we're able to kill them at all is because they keep trying to attack us. Every Ascian we've ever killed would probably still be alive if they just ran away instead of trying to fight us.

[Catapult]

Which would imply that Hydaelyn was the aggressor.

If that's the charge against Her, it's not wrong. She was summoned to be his shackles.
The charge against Him is that His solution is no better than the problem. And that's not wrong either.
Are we looking forward to Endwalker?

[Vyrerus]

As far as Elidibus and balance of The Source goes... I kind of inferred that it had much to do with needing the Source to be ready to be tipped either way. Communication between Convocation Shard pairs and The Source seemed to be somewhat bad, and considering just how close the First came to also being a ruined Flood state, you'd think there'd be some oversight (or that the Ascian pairs would at least not face their respective WoL challengers at the same time). Just a fun thought: -Come to think of it, in HW we face Lahabrea and Igeyohrm at the same time, and that's just before the WoDs come here... With the time difference shenanigans, it's entirely possible that Ardbert and co. fought Mitron and Loghrif at the same time that our WoL fought Lahayohrm.-

Like sure, they met up in 2.3 to be all confusing and exposit some vagaries, but as shown by Emet when he first offers peace to the Scions, it's entirely possible for Ascians to speak through a double. I can't help but wonder if some of those Ascians were at the meeting via a magical sort of teleconference, considering that time and stuff is all weird between the Source and the Shards.

Anyway, my point is, is that the Convocation pairs on each shard probably have to start pushing a shard towards an alignment, and then they kind of report the result, eventually, as well as the progress. Then it's up to Team Source to prime the Source for the Calamity and bring the hammer down.

I'd really love to see even just one of the prior calamities from setup to fruition on both Source and Shard. How long it took. What the communication between Team Source and Team Shard were. It sounds so easy when Emet explains it, but it's actually a monolithic undertaking that's not easily reversed on either end.

Also I suppose that they can't ignore the WoL, not just because they've become such a big direct threat to them, but because they've also become a big problem for their periphery empire and other organizations that they shadow run. They can't exactly stay hidden if the WoL trounces their entire empire, can they?

Imagine that the Ascians decide to all retreat to the rift or to the shards, and let the WoL run roughshod over all the chaos in the world. When they come back once the WoL's life has ended, what's become of the world? What foothold in a powerful nation do they have? What keys for calamities must they now forge anew? What might seem like a quick 100 year nap might actually have several hundred to upwards of thousands of years of consequence for the Ascians. The WoL and the Scions might even develop a nation that keeps and disseminates the knowledge on how to kill them. "We know they're not gone, because they're waiting for us to die. When they come back, be ready." or something like that.


Couple that with the fact that they are still a threat to us and to people we care about. Emet's plan to let us proceed and then strike at the opportune moment was nearly perfect. If he'd wanted to kill us, he could have, at least before our fusion with Ardbert and before Catboi Sage Deluxe did his thing. Even after all of that, it was still a near thing.

So them thinking that we're a big problem, but they can and should deal with us, plus their pride as Ancients and the Convocation... I think the story is justified in the Ascians squaring off with us.

Of course, everyone of them has also seemed to think that Hydaelyn's expiration is eminent. They've been feeding us that line for eons now. What happens to our blessing when she does, if she does?