Endwalker Main Scenario Commentary & Feedback

[EdwinLi]

This is where things get really wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey but very simple if you have the right picture in mind.

Our "other self" from the Eighth Calamity timeline does not need to travel back in time at all, and in fact would confuse things for our side of the time divergence if they did. The time loop only happens on our side.

Although the starting point for our time travel trip is after the two timelines diverge, our destination is before the split. What we do there affects "the past of both timelines simultaneously" because they aren't separate things yet.

Therefore it is our presence in Elpis, and ours alone, that is experienced and remembered by the people there.

(Or to look at it another way, if our other self somehow did make it to Elpis prior to their untimely demise, they would be arriving in the same Elpis that we visited ourselves. There is no alternate version of those events.)

In my opinion it is one of those "aboslute point" moments in both timelines but when it happens varies based on events that happened before that absolute point. Absolute points in time is the theory that is said to always happen no matter what a person does but when, how, why, and where it happens varies based on actions since a person will only be able to delay or accelorate the absolute point.

Both will have a version of WoL that appears on Elpis with the same appearance but which version of WoL appears is different.

In G'raha timeline, it is most likely a future version of WoL that is more complete because by then the Ascians have rejoined more shards at that point. It will be this version of WoL who confronts Emet, defeats him, and spark the events of the Final Days in this timeline.

In WoL's timeline, it is our WoL because G'raha actions in changing events of the timeline accelorated events to be sooner.

[EdwinLi]

Azem role in Raid story....

I wonder if Azem has always been aware about his future self as WoL or not. He predicted WoL's appearance to stop whatever is happening in the Raid storyline.

I am guessing Azem has always been aware of the future or that Venat told him/her everything about what is about to happen.

Or in that timeline, WoL never went back in time, never visited Elpis and Venat never put a tracker on Meteion.

That is only one possible theory of many.

Time travel is a very finicky thing that we cannot determine which theory it is until the full events of the timeline is shown how it diverges.

[Iscah]

In my opinion it is one of those "aboslute point" moments in both timelines but when it happens varies based on events that happened before that absolute point. Absolute points in time is the theory that is said to always happen no matter what a person does but when, how, why, and where it happens varies based on actions since a person will only be able to delay or accelorate the absolute point.

Both will have a version of WoL that appears on Elpis with the same appearance but which version of WoL appears is different.

In G'raha timeline, it is most likely a future version of WoL that is more complete because by then the Ascians have rejoined more shards at that point. It will be this version of WoL who confronts Emet, defeats him, and spark the events of the Final Days in this timeline.

In WoL's timeline, it is our WoL because G'raha actions in changing events of the timeline accelorated events to be sooner.

There are no multiple timelines involved in Elpis. Those events are located in time prior to the split between the "bad future" timeline and ours.

When we travel there, it's not "our Elpis" with a second copy left untouched for another WoL to visit. Everything that happens there forms the past of both timelines together, and our actions become part of the other timeline's history as well as ours.

I tried to map it out as a better explanation. This is still rough but I hope it makes sense.

The key thing to get your mind around is, from the perspective of our current timeline, our visit to Elpis occurred in our past – and from the perspective of someone in the bad timeline, our visit (ours specifically, not an alternate self's) is part of their timeline as well. There doesn't need to be a second alternate event.

[Theozilla]

This is where things get really wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey but very simple if you have the right picture in mind.

Our "other self" from the Eighth Calamity timeline does not need to travel back in time at all, and in fact would confuse things for our side of the time divergence if they did. The time loop only happens on our side.

Although the starting point for our time travel trip is after the two timelines diverge, our destination is before the split. What we do there affects "the past of both timelines simultaneously" because they aren't separate things yet.

Therefore it is our presence in Elpis, and ours alone, that is experienced and remembered by the people there.

(Or to look at it another way, if our other self somehow did make it to Elpis prior to their untimely demise, they would be arriving in the same Elpis that we visited ourselves. There is no alternate version of those events.)

I think that’s an over-complicated way of viewing multiverse-theory time travel. It’s far simpler to assume that the 8th Umbral Calamity timeline is now a separate parallel timeline to the main one, instead of a diverging one. That way allows for the 8th Umbral Calamity timeline to differ from the main universe timeline both past and present, since causal loops require both to work.

[Iscah]

I think that’s an over-complicated way of viewing multiverse-theory time travel. It’s far simpler to assume that the 8th Umbral Calamity timeline is now a separate parallel timeline to the main one, instead of a diverging one. That way allows for the 8th Umbral Calamity timeline to differ from the main universe timeline both past and present, since causal loops require both to work,

I don't see that as being either simpler or clearer. It's just an entirely different take on the mechanics, and it makes less sense to me than the diverging paths. It requires a different chain of events to have the same outcome in Elpis, because the WoL dies before they can perform the equivalent actions that are key to the state of the world they currently live in, instead of just having both timelines share a past and then split apart into copies.

I don't see that as simpler at all. It's far more complicated.

[Theozilla]

I don't see that as being either simpler or clearer. It's just an entirely different take on the mechanics, and it makes less sense to me than the diverging paths. It requires a different chain of events to have the same outcome in Elpis, because the WoL dies before they can perform the equivalent actions that are key to the state of the world they currently live in, instead of just having both timelines share a past and then split apart into copies.

I don't see that as simpler at all. It's far more complicated.

I view it as simpler because a separate parallel timeline allows the Eighth Umbral Calamity timeline to have its own past that isn’t dependent on the actions of a casual loop that half-originates in an alternate timeline. Especially when said Elpis causal loop can only exist because of the time travel changes Exarch!G’raha caused to create the new main universe timeline.

[Alleo]

I view it as simpler because a separate parallel timeline allows the Eighth Umbral Calamity timeline to have its own past that isn’t dependent on the actions of a casual loop that half-originates in an alternate timeline. Especially when said Elpis causal loop can only exist because of the time travel changes Exarch!G’raha caused to create the new main universe timeline.

Thats my problem with it too. (I really dont like time traveling, it just dont really make sense to me...and now we have different versions of possible time travel on top) Elpis how we saw it can only happen because we travel into the past. Us traveling into the past is only possible because Elidibus used his soul to empower the crystal tower..also we only do it because Venat gave us a hint with the Elpis flower. We cant do any of those because in the bad timeline we are death and Elidibus still alive.

So for it to make sense (in my opinion) Venat must have done the exact same thing even without us there.

Take the bad future out and everything makes sense. But with that in the picture it just doesnt get in my head how its possible. But thats probably on me.

[EdwinLi]

There are no multiple timelines involved in Elpis. Those events are located in time prior to the split between the "bad future" timeline and ours.

When we travel there, it's not "our Elpis" with a second copy left untouched for another WoL to visit. Everything that happens there forms the past of both timelines together, and our actions become part of the other timeline's history as well as ours.

I tried to map it out as a better explanation. This is still rough but I hope it makes sense.

The key thing to get your mind around is, from the perspective of our current timeline, our visit to Elpis occurred in our past – and from the perspective of someone in the bad timeline, our visit (ours specifically, not an alternate self's) is part of their timeline as well. There doesn't need to be a second alternate event.

As I said it is only one of many theories since we do not know which time travel theory SE is using.

In my opinion the Absolute and Flexable timeline theory makes the most sense since certain moments in time are designed to happen no matter what but how that absolute moment happens is flexible so when it happens, why, how, and where are always altering until that absolute moment happens.

A lot of The FF14 story follows a lot on this theory as well such as 3.0 expansion being different dialogue wise if players did or did not do 2.0 dragoon job quest. The events of 3.0 is marked as a absolute point in the timeline but certain aspects become altered due to the flexible part of the timeline leading up to those events.

It is the same for Endwalker story as a lot of events are absolute events but certain aspect of those events are altered in varies levels based on if WoL did or did not do certain things before events of Endwalker. The harbor cutscne is the most important one as it is greatly different from someone who did not do any raid and trial side story contents compared to if their WoL completed all Raid and trial content before Endwalker.

[Claire_Pendragon]

My main 2 complaints.
(1) Hermes wasnt fleshed out well enough, and im 99% sure the rush to his character was mostly likely due to #2
(2) The story was trying to be unpredictable, to such a degree, Im confident they actually made some sweeping last minute changes to the story. And because of the last minute changes to try and make it less predictable, it actually hurt the story a bit. Ret cons and all. (some evidence to support this range from the level layout of the final zone, to the game claiming your location in the final EX trial is incorrect, as someone in this thread also pointed out. and the myriad amounts of plot holes, and forced ret cons.)

But, even if its a disjointed mess compared to the rest of the game, its still had amazing moments, that once I turned my brain off, were amazingly fun. (Honestly wouldnt have taken much to fix minor plot holes. There was enough base information to slightly tune these holes into working)

Ill forever remember pretty much all of Garlemald, and the scene/final solo duty.

And the scene with the sundering was the absolute most emotional scene for me.

[Remedi]

I think you ppl aren't realizing the elephant in the room, which allowed that twinning of time to exist in the first place which is the fractured dimension in which Etheirys exists. My 2 cents is that they'll make so that only trough there you can actually change time because time itself is wonky between source and shards yet interlinked in some way (Remember for Cylva as soon as the 13th fell she was sent to the 1st and I doubt she's the worst underling of the century that took 10k+ years to do Loghrif's and Mitron's bidding)