Ktisis Hyperboreia question [Spoilers]

[Iscah]

I disagree with that. I personally think an altered timeline would've kept the story interesting. Just my two cents.

An altered timeline would be interesting in its own way, but it is inarguably not the story the writer wanted to tell here, or they would have made it happen that way.

And my two personal cents are that utterly rewriting the timeline at this late stage would be poor storytelling. It would be dropping every single plot thread that has built up, without resolution, and re-learning an entirely new world. As a story, it would be unsatisfying, and from a practical gameplay standard I don't even know how much of the world as we know it could exist any more.

[Lium]

I feel like at this point some people are coming at the story itself antagonistically. Like, it's not even a 'these things stand out as not making sense' or 'I'm not sure I agree with the angle here' sometimes, but rather just outright trying to declare that the story is wrong about itself and tearing it down. 'This story is bad because I think Emet-Selch should've been able to explode everyone's heads' isn't really a useful argument.

You've gotta engage with the story as a story. That means recognizing, in this case, that the events of Ktisis happen as they are; that everyone there except for Hermes is weakened (presumably because he has some form of ID badge or something), and so while they can best him, they have to be a little smarter than that. There's no winning anything by just saying 'I think Emet-Selch should have been able to snap his fingers and solve everything'; you have to accept the road the story is going down, and the fences they put up to get everything there. Disagree with the end destination, sure, but don't go 'I think we should have driven through that paddock of cows'.

Thank you.

[Recon1o6]

I still find it weird that they couldn't simply teleport to the hole outside or perhaps fireball kairos
its also weird to me how meteion just escaped from a demi plane like that when we had to use a hole to get outside to another demi plane, when there's still one more to leave before getting to the outside world

[Cleretic]

I still find it weird that they couldn't simply teleport to the hole outside or perhaps fireball kairos
its also weird to me how meteion just escaped from a demi plane like that when we had to use a hole to get outside to another demi plane, when there's still one more to leave before getting to the outside world

First of all: I assume Kairos is some kind of raid boss or prop that's waiting in the wings for a real fight, since it's too cool a design to be a one-off for a cutscene that could easily have been filled by a disembodied voice. And in my experience, a single Fire IV is rarely enough to take down something like that!

But also, you have to remember that they're still facing down Hermes. Who, yes, was just beaten up in a 4v1, but is still stronger than anyone else there, and would probably strike back if they did something that obvious. That's why Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch do the trickery they do; to distract Hermes for long enough that he only notices what they're doing when it's too late to stop them.

[Alleo]

I get that their power was greatly decreased in there (and how very convienient for the plot) but could Emet really not hold Hermes back alone while Hythlo would join Venat and us? He after all has a mount that can fly...

But still the dungeon really showed more of Hermes character and any kind of sympathy I had vanished...he was so sad about having to take another life (a lifeform that was so aggressive that it would have slaughtered who knows how many innocent creatures - but those dont count..) yet in the dungeon he sents waves after waves of creatures on us...and this is after he knows that if the Final Days happen, all of his colleagues and creatures will probably perish.

[kloojy]

It's sad that so many people are trying to "CinemaSins" the story so hard and overly identify "plot devices" or analyze the "writer's intentions" and just end up missing the forest for the trees.



People are so preoccupied with the mind-wiping thing being a "convenient tool" (reminder that 99% of the magic, technology, and even the Echo are "convenient tools" for the plot btw) for the writers to dastardly create a closed time loop, that you are missing out the thematic beauty of the mind-wipes.

We were just given another dimension to the tragedy of Emet-Selch, a man who could not even fathom undertaking a 12,000-year mission to bring back his people at the start. Emet is entirely sustained by the memory of Amaurot and his lost friends. His despair literally led him to recreate a shade of Amaurot and its inhabitants ---> something that he would've abhorred the thought of in Elpis. Memory is what keeps him going but also causes him the greatest grief.


The Kairos device in Elpis brings another dimension to his tragedy in way of the ultimate dramatic irony. Here is a character that cherishes his memories and what they represent so much yet the start of his eventual greatest despair would be an event he can't even remember because it was taken away from him. He doesn't know the terrible journey he'll embark on because he doesn't remember the one thing that could've helped him in preventing his future. This helps paint another side of Venat/Hydaelyn in how their greatest act of sacrifice was also their greatest act of cruelty; in condemning the Ancients to their fate.


There is also the matter of the ancient Greek definition of "kairos" that adds more layers to this situation. Would need to think more about it tho.

[kaynide]

I had written it in another thread, but to summarize on Elpis:

I felt it was fine ultimately, but yeah… timeloop shenanigans are not my favorite thing.

I think I would have appreciated it more if it were modern day Elpis being maintained by automata, and the actual story content being played out via echo flashbacks. Scenes where we need to be a character we could have just been Azem.

All that said, maybe the writers did indeed choose the best route because the Kairos Machine is going to be important in future content related to the 7th calamity. (Why nobody remembers what happened after Bahamut). Even then, it feels more like the writers decided to make that a big deal to allow for the Kairos Machine in the first place.

[Iscah]

...because the Kairos Machine is going to be important in future content related to the 7th calamity. (Why nobody remembers what happened after Bahamut).

I don't think there's any reason to assume that's the case.

We were told that the memory loss around Bahamut is likely to be around the sheer amount of aether people were blasted with at the time. I feel like that's meant to be the full explanation for a long-standing oddity, not a setup for a bigger revelation still.

Kairos might be important for some other plot point – perhaps even Pandaemonium – but I didn't get the impression that it would be anything to do with Bahamut.

[kaynide]

I don't think there's any reason to assume that's the case.

We were told that the memory loss around Bahamut is likely to be around the sheer amount of aether people were blasted with at the time. I feel like that's meant to be the full explanation for a long-standing oddity, not a setup for a bigger revelation still.

Kairos might be important for some other plot point – perhaps even Pandaemonium – but I didn't get the impression that it would be anything to do with Bahamut.

Certainly possible, but it feels very much like Chekov’s gun at this point- the story needed a memory wipe device to exist for a later plot point, so the writers had to make a chunk of the scenario to utilize it in a satisfying way…

Otherwise why do it at all- the overall narrative would have functioned more or less as is if it had Hermès question the ancients logic on right to life as Hermès but ultimately support the Convocation.

Later as Amon with his memories and seeing the state of affairs in the Allagan empire, he could have changed to “She was right, we don’t deserve to live”.

The story could have gone a lot of ways really, it only needed 1) No knowledge of the future by any future Ascian, 2) Hermès to ultimately help the Convocation and become an Ascian and 3) Hermès to be responsible for the End Days, but neither he nor the other future Ascians realize this until later if at all.

Memory wipe is a convenient way to do it, I’d argue too convenient unless it was necessary setup for something else.

[Atamis]

If Elidibus could just open a portal back in time why didn't ascians and crew do that first even if they didn't remember what caused it in the first place? They could constantly keep going back looking for ways to prevent the final days or at the very least assaasinate venet before the sundering. They obviously knew it was her doing