Why did the Ascians never try to do these?

[KizuyaKatogami]

I'm not sure this adds much, but...
A vibe I've been getting is that while tempering may overpower your mind and priorities in certain ways, it doesn't change who someone is, their character as it were.

Tempered sylphs are still biased to mischief.
Sahagin are still violently protective of their hatching grounds.
The Kojin remain kleptomaniacs.

And so it follows that an Ascian of the convocation remains inclined to plan, govern and administer the world in its best interests. Emet was no exception, and it's important in understanding why he like each Ascian behaves in their own way with their own style - including Elidibus the Emissary (diplomat) and Lahabrea the Speaker (convenor/celebrant/master of ceremonies who would not shut up).

Well this ties into their recent interview. They compare it to steaks lol. Some primals prefer their tempered to be well done, aka fully tempered, whereas other primals may choose to have their tempered be medium rare, aka still tempered, but as similar to the ascians, still have their own mind, their own goals and can carry them out just fine etc. It seems Zodiark was the kind to have his tempered be medium rare and not fully brain washed.

[RyuDragnier]

He’d be sorely disappointed then, as Graha despite being at the center of all that time and world travel is probably the person whose closest to it while not knowing how exactly it works. I doubt the Ironworks inheritors taught him the ins and outs of it, especially not enough to replicate it.

If anything, given Emets role in the Allagan Empire, he probably already knows as much as much the Exarch just from observation (though that’s not a dig against Graha this stuff is more than likely absurdly complicated).

Not to mention they can't exactly take over people who have the Echo, and it's likely that Emet is fully aware of what the Crystal Tower is made of. So he knows full well what could happen if he even tried to take over G'raha. His best bet was merely to keep G'raha alive and slowly get the info out of him over time.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Not to mention they can't exactly take over people who have the Echo, and it's likely that Emet is fully aware of what the Crystal Tower is made of. So he knows full well what could happen if he even tried to take over G'raha. His best bet was merely to keep G'raha alive and slowly get the info out of him over time.

Who says they can’t take over people who have the echo? The only time we’ve seen them try is Minfilia where they say it’s the blessing preventing them from doing so. And then Elidibus with Graha, but he’s also weaker than Emet so…not to mention he could just kill him to take his memories that way.

[Jandor]

Ascians can take over dead bodies, even if the echo provides protection, the echo is a soul thing so once the soul has departed presumably Emet could slip in and get the goods that way.

Probably worth keeping Graha alive for a bit anyway though, try and get some info out of him first. Emet likes his bodies a certain way, no point barging his way in until he knows whether Graha actually knows anything or not.

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As for time travel, well as others have said, at least one Ascian did poke at the whole Alex idea for a bit, but as far as they knew at the time it didn't really work out.
Maybe the plan was just to have the primal turn up, causes a load of problems by trying to mess with time, and then blow up or something. Time travel is obviously an appealing idea, the Ascians knew that at least some mortals would leap at the chance, they probably just never expected it to actually work.

The Exarch went back in time and undid a calamity, whatever the specifics of how, and whatever the state of the machine that did it, even as a proof of concept it's incredibly intriguing. If I was Emet I'd yoink the Exarch too.

[lezard21]

I have a "Why did the Ascians never try to do this" question of my own.

Namely, wait.

Pesky Warrior of Light is ruining all your plans?

Well, simply wait 100 years. You are eternal. He isn't.

Even if some Echo/Lifestream mumbo jumbo allows him to reincarnate, there will be a window of time where he would be a baby and you could carry out your convoluted plans unimpended.

[Tsiron]

I have a "Why did the Ascians never try to do this" question of my own.

Namely, wait.

Pesky Warrior of Light is ruining all your plans?

Well, simply wait 100 years. You are eternal. He isn't.

Even if some Echo/Lifestream mumbo jumbo allows him to reincarnate, there will be a window of time where he would be a baby and you could carry out your convoluted plans unimpended.

I think it's in the other thread discussing Ascians but the answer folks here arrived at is that they can't really take it easy anymore, now that the knowledge of how to permanently kill them exists. And also an unhealthy amount of hubris, probably.

[Jandor]

I have a "Why did the Ascians never try to do this" question of my own.

Namely, wait.

Pesky Warrior of Light is ruining all your plans?

Well, simply wait 100 years. You are eternal. He isn't.

Even if some Echo/Lifestream mumbo jumbo allows him to reincarnate, there will be a window of time where he would be a baby and you could carry out your convoluted plans unimpended.

Maybe the fact they've rushed them this time was an exception? Louisoux did manage to undo a lot of the damage from the 7th, whereas before that the Source might've needed hundreds, possibly thousands, of years to recover before it was ready to handle another calamity? The 8th calamity had no one around to mitigate the worst of it, and it seems like they packed up and headed back to the rift to chill out for a while after that one, presumably that time they had to wait for the Source to get a bit better before they could start work on the 9th.

That's the best I've got, still feels rather like an excuse in order to make the plot move forward though.

[Veloran]

I have a "Why did the Ascians never try to do this" question of my own.

Namely, wait.

Pesky Warrior of Light is ruining all your plans?

Well, simply wait 100 years. You are eternal. He isn't.

Even if some Echo/Lifestream mumbo jumbo allows him to reincarnate, there will be a window of time where he would be a baby and you could carry out your convoluted plans unimpended.

Seems to me they're being rushed. After the 7th Calamity the world was over halfway rejoined, it could be the inherent instability and breaking down of the laws of the world that Lahabrea talked about began to accelerate at that point, so the Ascians were forced to step up their schedule. It would certainly explain some of their actions from 2.0-4.0, such as Lahabrea going wild with Primal summonings, trying to use Ultima, Nabriales jumping at the opportunity to force a rejoining with Tupsimati, Lahabrea and Igeyorhm hastily trying to pull off the Thordan plot, etc. Also it would explain why like half the Ascians have all been operating on the Source rather than being off manipulating things on various shards.

It would follow logically as well. Through successive rejoinings Hydaelyn has been increasingly enervated and the dimensional barriers separating the Source and shards increasingly cracked. At this point the standards for a rejoining event may be exceedingly low, while the instability of the world is increasingly high. Maybe this ties into why the Final Days is happening again in Endwalker.

[lezard21]

I think it's in the other thread discussing Ascians but the answer folks here arrived at is that they can't really take it easy anymore, now that the knowledge of how to permanently kill them exists. And also an unhealthy amount of hubris, probably.

But this would actually give them even more reason to wait. Dissapear for a few thousands of years from history allowing humans to become indolent and forget about Ascians and letting the knowledge about how to kill them to fall into obscurity. Meanwhile they could prepare other shards where this knowledge is not known for future Calamities, or even take more of a backseat position like Emet Selch did during the Allagan empire era.

Seems to me they're being rushed. After the 7th Calamity the world was over halfway rejoined, it could be the inherent instability and breaking down of the laws of the world that Lahabrea talked about began to accelerate at that point, so the Ascians were forced to step up their schedule. It would certainly explain some of their actions from 2.0-4.0, such as Lahabrea going wild with Primal summonings, trying to use Ultima, Nabriales jumping at the opportunity to force a rejoining with Tupsimati, Lahabrea and Igeyorhm hastily trying to pull off the Thordan plot, etc. Also it would explain why like half the Ascians have all been operating on the Source rather than being off manipulating things on various shards.

It would follow logically as well. Through successive rejoinings Hydaelyn has been increasingly enervated and the dimensional barriers separating the Source and shards increasingly cracked. At this point the standards for a rejoining event may be exceedingly low, while the instability of the world is increasingly high. Maybe this ties into why the Final Days is happening again in Endwalker.

I like this take. It would explain why the Ascians have become more aggressive going to the length of revealing their own presence early in their plots and why a lot of stuff is happening so fast whereas before centuries passed between Calamities.

[Dawn_FF14]

For whatever it's worth, apparently Yoshida commented on this in Famitsu this week and (while he maintains everyone is entitled to their own interpretation), Emet-Selch's true feelings were a desire to be proven wrong - to see that the Warrior of Light would overcome the "abomination" plan and prove they really can make the impossible possible, really can bring anyone together. Emet-Selch wanted to believe he really was Azem, or at least Azem-like, and would give him reason to re-evaluate the sundered. Instead, Emet-Selch saw that the Warrior of Light was nothing but another sundered being - unable to contain the aether of the Lightwardens, which any Ancient would have been able to do with ease, and he was "disappointed from the very bottom of his heart".

Again, I think we're not saying much, if anything, mutually-exclusive here (or at least I'm still not really getting it). We're shining a spotlight on different things to explain different things; I see that. I touched only on the vague "he wanted Azem to return to the fold" / "he wanted to see if goals were truly incompatible" / "he was back-up scheming" while exploring the logic of the schemes within schemes, and you had something much more focused on and specific about the former and what that means to you, but both jibe with what Yoshida's saying here, no? Emet-Selch, despite the schemes within schemes to advance the calamity all other things being equal, was disappointed that the Warrior of Light didn't validate his Azem headcanon, and moreover seemed to take on the most Azem-like silhouette at the same moment he stood resolved to kill him.

I’ve been wondering about what Emet wanted from WoL since the beginning of SHB. After watching the cutscenes from Eden raids, I think I have an idea now. He was planning for WoL to take over Mitron’s task — prevent the First from turning into full Light, thus becoming useless like the Thirteenth. The WoL absorbing all the Light was what Emet wanted too. If WoL can control the Light, it probably proves to him that Azem is back. It was a win-win for Emet. He was just not foreseeing that we could actually kill him, which leads me to further speculate.
- Is Ardbert a mere fragment or is he rejoined with other fragments already?
- What is that light axe Ardbert sealed Mitron and we killed Emet with?