Our Azem - A secret plan? (Slight EW Spoilers)

[Starblessed]

If the rejoining is considered genocide, despite the souls just being funneled back together, then the sundering is genocide. If your justification for her self admitted cruel, awful, unforgivable act is that the "souls are okay" then it's better to put your hypocrisy to rest.

On to the actual purpose of the thread; I'm of the opinion that we will become a "G'raha" like character to the people of the unsundered past. We have three confirmed time travel consequences existing in tandem. Time loops always closing one way or another, timeline convergence and the creation of entirely new timelines whilst old timelines continue on, making G'raha's assumption that he "Changed the future" wrong, because that original timeline still exists.

Perhaps Azem stayed out of Pandaemonium and left it to .... us? themself? knowing somehow that it will create a new timeline where all our loved ones can live on, safe. If Pandaemonium truly is an amplifier for Meteion's song, since we see that Terminus beasts roar and scream and terrify people with noise first to turn them before killing what isn't afraid. Both in Shadowbringers and Endwalker Hades has made the distinction that what triggered their creation magicks to spiral out of control was a noise from inside the planet. The aether of Etheirys is too dense for her song to affect the people, meaning their souls are off limits to her and the effects of becoming a Terminus beast. (Absolute vanishing of Aether). Remember, the second final days wasn't noticed or pinpointed as being caused by a sound, it just happened.

If a new timeline is created, I assume a handwave explanation of "Your link to the source and your timeline is crazy strong because Dynamis" can be used.

[andrealfus]

venat sundered the ancients because they were turning into a suicide cult that would've just kept sacrificing more and more of themselves in the vain hope that zodiark would undo the final days completely, and because a decreased aetherial density was something we needed in order to actually defeat meteion instead of just stalling our inevitable doom

also how is it genocide if you're literally making more people lmoa

[Iscah]

On to the actual purpose of the thread; I'm of the opinion that we will become a "G'raha" like character to the people of the unsundered past. We have three confirmed time travel consequences existing in tandem. Time loops always closing one way or another, timeline convergence and the creation of entirely new timelines whilst old timelines continue on, making G'raha's assumption that he "Changed the future" wrong, because that original timeline still exists.

"Timeline convergence" isn't a separate thing, it's just marking that the time loop we started by travelling back in time to Elpis is now "closed" and everything initiated by it is resolved.

And, at least in the way that G'raha travelled back in time, I don't believe there's any way back to your original timeline if you cause it to change and split. It's possible that Elidibus's spell is something different, but he is still using the Crystal Tower to facilitate it so it's a bit of a mystery.

[RyuDragnier]

If the rejoining is considered genocide, despite the souls just being funneled back together, then the sundering is genocide. If your justification for her self admitted cruel, awful, unforgivable act is that the "souls are okay" then it's better to put your hypocrisy to rest.

I would argue against that. Look at how different the lives between Ardbert and the WoL are essentially, if you killed Ardbert (before he willingly fused) to force him into the WoL's soul, you have in fact committed murder due to a lack of consent and the fact that despite the souls being the same, they are not the same person, having different lives, friends, family, etc. While the Sundering was done with a lack of consent, it didn't kill anybody (as they all have the same personalities), it merely divided their souls and essentially made copies of them on copies of the world, funneling them into self contained reincarnation cycles.

However...that does bring one thing into play, something that leads into the main focus of this thread. The Sundered life right after the Sundering would still have memories of the Final Days and Zodiark, even divided. Yet somehow not a single one of them seemed to remember Zodiark (inferring this), nor was his name known for the longest to anybody but the Ascians. Considering how everybody forgot the WoL during the 5 year time skip after the fall of Dalamud, that means somehow people's memories were wiped, in both cases. The question then becomes, who did it? While we could say Hydaelyn, we saw nothing that could hint at her having power over people's memories. Kairos as we know had the power to wipe memories, and makes me wonder...was Azem's plan to get Kairos and use it somehow? And if so, does its recent usage mean it's in possession of somebody associated with Hydaelyn, like The Twelve?

[Starblessed]

snip

There's a clear difference between the time loop caused by Alexander and Mide, with Travanchet giving her the horn and making her wish to always be with her partner. It's a slight(?) difference, but the events of Alexander's time loop are pre-ordained and always turn out the same way. Venat makes a distinction that what's happening with us is different. This can also be extrapolated due to the vastly different time line G'raha comes from where the Final Days do not occur, because Zodiark isn't killed and his actual protection isn't abolished. Time loops are events that always happen, and as we see without a shadow of a doubt, the second final days is not a guaranteed event.

And yeah, but G'raha isn't us, he's not special in the way that we are. Now that Dynamis is an established power source, stronger than Aether, it's opened up a lot of possibilities for the writing team to get crazy and have a reason for stronger threats to pop up since everything so far has been Aether based. And with Zenos apparently out of the picture now, there's no one who can stand up to us. There's also the fact that, as with Encyclopedia Eorzea, not everything written or talked about is truth and fact. Knowledge is subjective on a great many topics, G'raha succeeded with the Ironworks of the original timeline in going one way, but never tried / had the means to try to get back.

Because what we do know is that he thinks he changed the future, but he didn't. What we think is fact, is not, because of what we read about in the Tales proving as such. Sadly there's not a lot we can work with currently, but I'm looking forward to the future of what they have in store.

[Shookbeast]

However...that does bring one thing into play, something that leads into the main focus of this thread. The Sundered life right after the Sundering would still have memories of the Final Days and Zodiark, even divided. Yet somehow not a single one of them seemed to remember Zodiark (inferring this), nor was his name known for the longest to anybody but the Ascians. Considering how everybody forgot the WoL during the 5 year time skip after the fall of Dalamud, that means somehow people's memories were wiped, in both cases. The question then becomes, who did it? While we could say Hydaelyn, we saw nothing that could hint at her having power over people's memories. Kairos as we know had the power to wipe memories, and makes me wonder...was Azem's plan to get Kairos and use it somehow? And if so, does its recent usage mean it's in possession of somebody associated with Hydaelyn, like The Twelve?

This is a pretty interesting notion. Azem might have been looking for something like this. We’re gonna need some hand waves for memeory at some point.

I very suspicious of the Athena storyline. Something tells me we’re gonna enter Heart Of Sabik territory with that. It would be funny if an old chestnut like that was retconned to be part of Azem’s/Azem’s friends plan.

I’m definitely digging the idea that we might just be Azem. We’re more than halfway there already. We still got plenty of ways to time travel in the story.

[Alleo]

After the raid scenes I believe that Venat told Azem about us and maybe even gave them all the information. Maybe they did not come to Venats side because they knew that the sundered life would need someone to help them through it all so bascially my head canon right now is, that Azem simply stayed true to their nature and continued to help as many as they could after the sundering, maybe even becoming the first WoL.

[Pentacus]

They definetely do all think you're just Azem's familiar and not even a 'real' lifeform (most are rather genial towards you in a caring if slightly condescending way - even Hythlodaeus and Emet had this view of you until Venat realized the truth).

This even goes as far in a few instances that you're considered actually little more than a semi-intelligent object that a couple of the researchers there even muse the possibility of asking Azem if they can 'borrow' you for an undisclosed amount of time to study you, underlining the massive racial superiority complex the Ancients had, which is really what caused the whole mess with the Final Days in the first place when you think about it.

A minor nitpick here:
Due to the game tending to use British English meaning and idioms, "borrow" doesn't necessarily have negative connotations or imply they see you as an object, it's fairly common here to ask to borrow a person and it just means "can I use your skills/knowledge/perspective/time/unique qualities for a while?"

For example, if someone needed me to do a task that I am needed for, it wouldn't be uncommon for them to ask my boss "Hey can I borrow Pentacus for a job?", or for a doctor to say "We'll need to borrow you in a few weeks to run some blood tests", or someone asking me some advice to say "Can I borrow you for a moment?"

Essentially, they're just letting you know that they may ask Azem if they can take you away from your day to day duties as a Familiar at some point in the future so they can run some tests on you, and rather than an insult, is intended as a courtesy because they respect your time and are letting you know in advance that they may need you rather than just unexpectedly telling you.

[Garnetiferous]

A minor nitpick here:
Due to the game tending to use British English meaning and idioms, "borrow" doesn't necessarily have negative connotations or imply they see you as an object, it's fairly common here to ask to borrow a person and it just means "can I use your skills/knowledge/perspective/time/unique qualities for a while?"

For example, if someone needed me to do a task that I am needed for, it wouldn't be uncommon for them to ask my boss "Hey can I borrow Pentacus for a job?", or for a doctor to say "We'll need to borrow you in a few weeks to run some blood tests", or someone asking me some advice to say "Can I borrow you for a moment?"

Essentially, they're just letting you know that they may ask Azem if they can take you away from your day to day duties as a Familiar at some point in the future so they can run some tests on you, and rather than an insult, is intended as a courtesy because they respect your time and are letting you know in advance that they may need you rather than just unexpectedly telling you.

"Borrow" in this context doesn't have negative connotations in American English either. Just yesterday someone at my job asked to "borrow" me so I could help them with something.

Also in several cases in Elpis, the reason they think you're Azem's familiar is because you're telling them you're Azem's familiar(you actually have to option to say this directly to Themis at the start of Pandaemonium) because Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch suggested that to you to avoid unnecessary suspicion. And the races that exist in the modern world didn't exist during the time of Elpis so in a lot of cases the ancients are less being racist and more just completely confused as to what they're looking at.

[Shookbeast]

After the raid scenes I believe that Venat told Azem about us and maybe even gave them all the information. Maybe they did not come to Venats side because they knew that the sundered life would need someone to help them through it all so bascially my head canon right now is, that Azem simply stayed true to their nature and continued to help as many as they could after the sundering, maybe even becoming the first WoL.

But wasn’t Azem sundered by Venat, and thus no longer that Azem? That’s how our characters exist, and they have no memory of their life as Azem.