Revelations from Tales from the Twilight

[Rosenstrauch]

Something to bring up regarding Echo stuff and how it intersects with the latest one.

Not everyone gets Echo flashbacks--that appears to be the WoL's 'echo gimmick', like how Krile's (and probably Fordola's, she doesn't describe it well) is sensing aether, Zenos' (and the Sahagin Priest's) is possession, and Mikoto's is future sight. So... no, Fordola can't plausibly have seen Lyse's memories of Yda, because she can't see memories at all.

The oddity of a certain someone's Echo...

This is actually, somewhat confusingly, incorrect. It's true that Fordola's Resonance is the result of copying Krile's Echo. But in patch 4.1, it's revealed that Fordola has been constantly bombarded with visions of the past since she was taken prisoner. Where things get truly bizarre, however, is that it's actually discussed that the reason Fordola is getting these visions is because she's copied Krile's Echo. An excerpt from the quest Echoes of an Echo:

ALPHINAUD
Taken in combination with the testimonies of Krile and Thancred, I do begin to see exactly what the imperials were attempting here.
The enhancement procedure entailed infusing a single candidate with aether siphoned from a multitude of “supply subjects.”
As for the “master subject”─in this case, Krile─the patterns of her aetheric activity would provide the model upon which they would artificially engineer the candidate's aura.

LYSE
...In other words, they were trying to recreate Krile's Echo?

ALPHINAUD
I believe so─which would explain our prisoner's present state. Krile is possessed of an unrivaled ability to hear the whispers of the soul, and it seems probable that the procedure engendered the same acute sensitivity in Fordola.

LYSE
The soldiers who guard Fordola...many of them lost friends and family to the Skulls.
And there's a sentry at her door, night and day. If she can't help sensing their thoughts and seeing their past─

ARENVALD
But you don't just see their past─you live it. All the emotions; all the pain. Imagine what it'd do to you. You'd never be the same again.

ALPHINAUD
Indeed. As you may recall, Ysayle was completely transformed by a single glimpse of Hraesvelgr's past.
Fordola has been forced to experience the agony of those whose lives she destroyed. The guilt must be unbearable.

The thing is, as you've pointed out... it's the WoL's Echo that does this, not Krile's. And not only is this never addressed, but Fordola having visions is never brought up again after 4.1.

EDIT: Another confusing thing, though mostly a tangent.

The same quest I cited has Alphinaud wondering if there's a difference between those "born with the Echo" and the Resonant... giving the impression that the Echo being a natural occurrence is common knowledge, or at least common enough that Alphinaud would know it. But in patch 5.2, it's treated as a revelation that the Echo is not a divine blessing from Hydaelyn, and instead a natural occurrence that Hydaelyn exploits to her own ends.

So, I dunno. Maybe the inconsistencies with Fordola's Echo are just the product of Stormblood writing being Stormblood writing.

[Anonymoose]

I'm not sure of precisely where this applies to the current Echo debate so I'm just going to throw it out there: they're saying this happened to Krile, too. (At least to some degree.) Her main biography even highlights that her adolescence was a dark time because she got the Echo at the age of twelve and couldn't control the memories and thoughts of others she was constantly "hounded" by. In the French version of Alphinaud's line, the phrase "...just like Krile." is the ending of the sentence in a sad, ominous kind of way.

To be honest, I read that into Krile's characterization, too. She comes off a bit like someone who is extremely guarded / deflective because they know / see / live things they shouldn't and aren't comfortable with it and is trying to avoid it.

Imagine if you spent high school knowing what everyone was really thinking. Nooo, thank you.

[Rannie]

Just a quick thing to point out. It has been shown multiple times that people or most people with the echo will get the flashbacks. It happened with Minfillia and the WoL during the quest before the Leviathan fight, and also it was shown during the Warriors of Darkness Quest with Krile herself having a vision with the WoL about their past killing the Ascian on the first.

[KageTokage]

The same quest I cited has Alphinaud wondering if there's a difference between those "born with the Echo" and the Resonant... giving the impression that the Echo being a natural occurrence is common knowledge, or at least common enough that Alphinaud would know it. But in patch 5.2, it's treated as a revelation that the Echo is not a divine blessing from Hydaelyn, and instead a natural occurrence that Hydaelyn exploits to her own ends.

So, I dunno. Maybe the inconsistencies with Fordola's Echo are just the product of Stormblood writing being Stormblood writing.

It's been suggested the manifestation of the Echo is related to the "density" of one's soul, and the Resonant process seems to artificially reinforce a soul by siphoning aether from other subjects while at the same time rewriting their aetherial make-up to match that of the so-called "master subject".

That said, I can't help but wonder if Zenos' freakishly powerful Resonant echo is a product of an individual who already had a soul with the potential (Albeit originally suppressed by the Garlean physiology) being reinforced even further to put him on the level of an unsundered Ascian.

[Vyrerus]

If you count the bodies in the Resonance Chamber, there's something close to 300 on each side with many more extending behind and back further into the building, beyond and behind pillars and such.

Given how many slave pods there were/feeder pods with only the one for the Echo Waveform copying, seems to me like if the person being adminstered the Resonance could take it, then you could give them an exceptionally "thick" version of the Echo Signature.

I know it's also meant to display just how many times they tried the procedure to perfect it, but I can't help but wonder if Zenos didn't sit there in the pod demanding that Aulus mal Asina crank it up another notch and bring in more souls to feed his Resonance.

That's supposition, mind you, but we know for sure that the process is taxing on the recipient, since Fordola was told there was a chance she'd die. If Zenos towers so far above people, a lot of people seem to think he went through the procedure twice, but maybe he just had his procedure cranked up to beyond the max and consumed like 100 souls.

The eyes they gain when they activate it remind me of a piece of art about FFXI's Blue Mage. Which involved receiving an alchemical procedure which binded an Ahriman eye lense to the BLU as well as other things that responded to the body's, "Cobalt Levels." Completely off topic, other than it was also a procedure that could kill you.



This picture by Pupukachoo was from like 2007 or something.

[Kuroka]

EDIT: Another confusing thing, though mostly a tangent.

The same quest I cited has Alphinaud wondering if there's a difference between those "born with the Echo" and the Resonant... giving the impression that the Echo being a natural occurrence is common knowledge, or at least common enough that Alphinaud would know it. But in patch 5.2, it's treated as a revelation that the Echo is not a divine blessing from Hydaelyn, and instead a natural occurrence that Hydaelyn exploits to her own ends.

So, I dunno. Maybe the inconsistencies with Fordola's Echo are just the product of Stormblood writing being Stormblood writing.

Maybe it was the writing, but i always felt while traits of Krile might have went into her, id guess its more "recreate the aether waves the echo gives off and wake the power someone would have gotten naturally...

...as we know its all just things we could do as an ancient, just that some were better in some things then others, Like emet's friends eyes.

[RyuDragnier]

...as we know its all just things we could do as an ancient, just that some were better in some things then others, Like emet's friends eyes.

Ah yes, you mean

Hythlodaeus.

[Rosenstrauch]

Well, Moose's replies to whatever I've been talking about are, as usual, greatly appreciated. It's nice to know when I'm wrong about something like this, as being wrong usually means the story was better plotted than I thought it was.

I now fully accept that Fordola's Resonance being a copy of Krile's Echo, though this does circle back to the whole "Will Fordola and Lyse actually talk about this in Endwalker?" thing. And to play Devil's advocate, I can't help but wonder if Fordola being saved by Yda was supposed to be something that came up in Stormblood, but was cut from the plot ala Igeyorhm's backstory and the Heaven's Ward's storylines being left on the cutting room floor.

Or to put that thought more clearly: This may actually have been intended to be part of Fordola's story from her first appearance, but they couldn't find a place to fit it in, so they just left it on the burner until Fordola became relevant again.

As for Zenos...

As far as I'm aware, they never actually revealed who his donor for the Resonant Chamber was. It being Krile was practically a given, but between his whole "the color of your soul is different" thing with Fandaniel in 5.1 and the weird "Emet-Selch did something to him" thing in 5.2, I can't help but wonder if they're trying to imply that Emet-Selch or Hythlodaeus was his donor.

But then that doesn't really fit with Zenos saying he's been having dreams of Amaurot since he was a boy. And since Zenos is the one who backed the development of the Resonance process, it's, well. Maybe unrelated. Or maybe his donor really is Krile, and he's just such a complete psychopath that he simply doesn't care about the flashbacks into other peoples' lives.

Has Krile ever commented on the color of a person's soul? I can't remember if she did or not, though it'd make sense if she could see such a thing given that we used her power to track Y'shtola.

Alternatively the whole thing is a wash and all Resonance does is forcibly unlock the Echo rather than copy it, but then it'd be ridiculously contrived that the two other characters who underwent it just so happened to have the exact same Echo powers as their respective donors (Fordola w/ Krile, Misija w/ Mikoto).

[Steelbreaker25]

As for Zenos...

On the note of Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus:

My guess is that Zenos already had some dormant form of the Echo, and the Resonance essentially put a double layer on him, which allowed him to use some of the more advanced Echo abilities the Ascians, such as determining soul colors, body-hopping, I think he did the void portal teleport at one point, and so on.

That said, I don't think either Emet-Selch or Hythlodaeus are involved. As far as we know currently, nobody involved in the Resonance project knew Solus was an Ascian, and at this point I don't think Emet-Selch cared about any of his human progeny. Likewise, Hythlodaeus doesn't seem likely, seeing as the one we interact with is a simulacrum and the original has an unknown fate (we don't know if they died during the Final Days, were sacrificed to Zodiark, or something else).

[Valorius]

On the note of Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus:

My guess is that Zenos already had some dormant form of the Echo, and the Resonance essentially put a double layer on him, which allowed him to use some of the more advanced Echo abilities the Ascians, such as determining soul colors, body-hopping, I think he did the void portal teleport at one point, and so on.

That said, I don't think either Emet-Selch or Hythlodaeus are involved. As far as we know currently, nobody involved in the Resonance project knew Solus was an Ascian, and at this point I don't think Emet-Selch cared about any of his human progeny. Likewise, Hythlodaeus doesn't seem likely, seeing as the one we interact with is a simulacrum and the original has an unknown fate (we don't know if they died during the Final Days, were sacrificed to Zodiark, or something else).

I think resonance does both, unlock the potential Echo a perso has, and give more power to someone without enough strength. So if this is done to someone who already has active Echo, one can think it will create the kind of powerful thing Zenos is. You are probably right.

Possession is usual for ascians, but soul sight seems not so common. Zenos' line about "the color of Fandaniel's soul" hints to this peculiar power.
We know Emet Selch can see souls and track them in the soulstream.
For Zenos, as he is a blood heir to Solus aka Emet, it is possible he inherited Emet's soul pattern.
Zenos dreaming of Amaurot could mean he already had active Echo when he was a child, so he could see visions of Solus' memory.
We also know Hythlodaeus had etheric vision, he was best at this. So Emet giving Zenos Hythlodaeus' soul pattern is also a possibility.

The resonance process made his power stronger. It gave him the ability to possess another body, ascian-like. Elidibus aknowledges this as "impressive".

Whatever way it was done, I think Kagetokage and you are right, Zenos is now the closest thing to the power of an unsundered soul. He wants to devour Zodiark's power. He wants to fight. He doesn't care for anything else. Maybe he was designed from birth for this, to become an avatar and defeat Hydaelyn.