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

[Shookbeast]

I see. I remember the the scene in question, where Emet is snapping left and right. I didn’t think he meant each planet was literally a perfect copy - but I suppose it could be interpreted as such.

It’s an interesting notion. If true, then that means each reflection had a diminished Azem running around on it on post-sundering, day one?

Is the going theory then that there was a Convocation on each planet as well? Do they remember what happened?

Emet in the cutscene says the sundered were all dummies - but Emet is a bit harsh.

Do we know if the sundered knew what happened to them? Emet infers they were unaware… but we do have cave paintings and ruins of Amaurot.

Does that mean there are Amaurot ruins on each reflected planet?

[Lurina]

Emet spells out the state of the Sundered in the cave scene. About their memories of the Unsundered World or their previous lives, he says: "No one could remember it. Only fleeting recollections of an all too familiar world."

So the cave paintings were made from vague, fragmented memories, and the Sundered were effectively different people, if you go off the stories usual logic of memories=who you are.

[Shookbeast]

Emet spells out the state of the Sundered in the cave scene. About their memories of the Unsundered World or their previous lives, he says: "No one could remember it. Only fleeting recollections of an all too familiar world."

So the cave paintings were made from vague, fragmented memories, and the Sundered were effectively different people, if you go off the stories usual logic of memories=who you are.

So to bring it back to Azem and secret plans. If this version of the sundering is true - then we had 14 Azems with fuzzy memories of what happened running around immediately after the sundering?

We had 14 versions of anyone who was alive at the moment of the sundering? And they all start at the same point - (let’s say the moment right after the sundering) but begin to diverge from there in behavior and action? Thus creating sort of 14 different timelines on each reflection?

Are we dealing with something closer to a multi-verse story then?

If this is the case, then I bet we have at least one Azem running around on one of the shards, still alive and kicking. (Sure they’d be old, but maybe they were frozen or found a way to prolong life…).

[Rannie]

So to bring it back to Azem and secret plans. If this version of the sundering is true - then we had 14 Azems with fuzzy memories of what happened running around immediately after the sundering?

We had 14 versions of anyone who was alive at the moment of the sundering? And they all start at the same point - (let’s say the moment right after the sundering) but begin to diverge from there in behavior and action? Thus creating sort of 14 different timelines on each reflection?

Are we dealing with something closer to a multi-verse story then?

If this is the case, then I bet we have at least one Azem running around on one of the shards, still alive and kicking. (Sure they’d be old, but maybe they were frozen or found a way to prolong life…).

That azem would be over 12,000 years old or more depending on how bad the time dilation is between the source and whatever shard that one would be on. However in all technicality there have been 2 azems so far your character and Ardbert but with reincarnation causing the removal of memories they did not know it until they were told (kinda told in Ardbert's case since he was a ghost following us around and was only told our soul and his was the same sundered soul and then he merged with us)

[Elissar]

inside the planet.

I'm happy because i'm not crazy...
i wrote about it on r/ffxiv and someone told me 'well..the watcher (on the moon) already explained what happened' but i always considered it as a vague explanation.
Also we don't see how Hydaelyn was summoned, only Zodiark. I don't have any doubt they will find a way to tie with Pandaemonium.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../#sidestory_01
Some of these stories mention Phoinix as one of Lahabrea creation.
We are facing his creations while a strange sound emerge from inside the 'prison'. I'm curious to see what they will do with that.

[Iscah]

Emet spells out the state of the Sundered in the cave scene. About their memories of the Unsundered World or their previous lives, he says: "No one could remember it. Only fleeting recollections of an all too familiar world."

So the cave paintings were made from vague, fragmented memories, and the Sundered were effectively different people, if you go off the stories usual logic of memories=who you are.

I disagree that the description indicates that people completely lost who they were, especially after the focus on aether-blasted memory loss here. They might not be able to clearly remember what happened or what the world was like before, while other parts of their memories were still clear.

Of course, we don't know what physically happened or how we got from the ancient race to the modern ones.

It's why it's so frustrating that after building up the mystery of what exactly happened, the writers seem to have decided they aren't really sure either and just presented something vague and allegorical without any practical explanation of the mechanisms.

[Elissar]

They might not be able to clearly remember what happened or what the world was like before, while other parts of their memories were still clear....sure either and just presented something vague and allegorical without any practical explanation of the mechanisms.

Maybe Kairos was an attempt to give some clue. However, we just know that Hermes was dealing with magicks related to memory.

[Shookbeast]

That azem would be over 12,000 years old or more depending on how bad the time dilation is between the source and whatever shard that one would be on. However in all technicality there have been 2 azems so far your character and Ardbert but with reincarnation causing the removal of memories they did not know it until they were told (kinda told in Ardbert's case since he was a ghost following us around and was only told our soul and his was the same sundered soul and then he merged with us)

I guess what I’m getting at is there were 14 identical Azems running around at one point - each on their own planet.

You bring up a good point about time dilation as seen in SB. That means we could potentially visit a planet where the sundering only happened ten minutes ago - and our Azem (well, a diminished copy) would be right there to chat with. They’d have a fuzzy memory - but since books and other media all got copied too - that means we could potentially get important pre-sundering information.

This is all pretty fascinating to me - and only fuels my speculation that there’s narrative room for Azem (or now, in this case, multiple Azems) to have been working on some sort of other plan.

We might even find out our Azem is the next “big bad” on one of the reflections. Maybe they’re also “re-collecting” their split souls from other reflections - and want to absorb us…

[Iscah]

We had 14 versions of anyone who was alive at the moment of the sundering? And they all start at the same point - (let’s say the moment right after the sundering) but begin to diverge from there in behavior and action? Thus creating sort of 14 different timelines on each reflection?

Are we dealing with something closer to a multi-verse story then?

The shards are kind of sort of the practical effect of a multiverse if left to themselves, but at the same time they're physically linked to each other within a larger single timeline – and since we also have timeline shenanigans going on, it can get confusing if you think of the shards as timelines as well.

Specifically, the timeline split caused by the events of Shadowbringers has affected the larger timeline that contains the Source, the First and all the other shards together, creating a sequence of events where both worlds are saved together instead of being rejoined and destroyed/damaged.

[Shookbeast]

The shards are kind of sort of the practical effect of a multiverse if left to themselves, but at the same time they're physically linked to each other within a larger single timeline – and since we also have timeline shenanigans going on, it can get confusing if you think of the shards as timelines as well.

Specifically, the timeline split caused by the events of Shadowbringers has affected the larger timeline that contains the Source, the First and all the other shards together, creating a sequence of events where both worlds are saved together instead of being rejoined and destroyed/damaged.

Yeah. This makes sense to me.

I wonder then what goal (if any) all 14 sundered Azem clones (I’m gonna call them clones for now) might’ve been working toward…

I initially understood the sundering to be a complete reboot - but now it’s more like a series of backups or save-copies that all went on to have their own lives.

This also points to the 12 likely being the source’s “clones” of the remaining 14.

Since we had Emet and his buddies bouncing from planet to planet (reflection to reflection) - I wonder if there was a point in time where the 12 (or remaining Convocation) were communicating with their clones on the other reflections? Was Azem chatting with other Azems trying to figure out what happened?

Did Emet have dinner with 14 Azems and then cry into his napkin?