Endwalker's story had me, but lost me. Ethical issues especially (spoilers)

[Rosenstrauch]

Why do people still keep insisting that if you change the past, you erase the future? We know for a fact that this isn't the case. It's not called a split timeline because one is erased, it's called that because they both continue to exist at the same time.

EDIT: So folks know what I'm referring to: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../sidestory_08/

tl;dr: Eighth Era timeline, the one G'raha allegedly erased, was not erased at all. The timeline split, and now there's two of them. One where the people of the Eighth Era continue to live on, and one their future never came to pass. They exist simultaneously, neither merging nor negating the other's existence. I can not stress this enough. Nobody was erased from existence because G'raha changed the past, and nobody would be erased from existence if we set the people of the Unsundered World upon a different path. Best case scenario, we make like Future Trunks and dip back into our own timeline. Worst case scenario, we're stranded there—in which case things get very bad for the people who were counting on our return.

[Anonymoose]

Why do people still keep insisting that if you change the past, you erase the future? We know for a fact that this isn't the case. It's not called a split timeline because one is erased, it's called that because they both continue to exist at the same time.

Using causality loops and split timelines in the same game without explaining either of them directly was discontent waiting to happen. Now we've got one massive causality loop attached to one side of a Y-shaped timeline spawned from Rift shenanigans, and within the stem of that Y is another resolved causality loop for Alexander. Until Oda and Ishikawa walk everyone through all that in a PowerPoint, people are going to keep telling each other their unconfirmed opinions about how it works are wrong.

I hate time shenanigans for exactly this reason. I was impressed how well Alexander handled the illusion of time from a 3D perspective when its contents are edited from a 4D perspective and now... whatever this is... haunts me.

What's everyone gonna do if it's just applied phlebotinum? The Rift last time, dynamis this time, don't think too hard about it?

/shudders

[Rinoa]

Oh, btw, Anonymoose, I forgot to say this earlier, but I do agree, the characters can be self-consistent, and they most likely will reveal them to have been going about this very self-consistently. My issue really just hinges upon the issues I see in their motives, and how at that moment I think a good friend wouldn't have allowed them to all get locked into the view that they had to fight to decide for everybody else. It feels like I visited Elpis, and my character thought "Gee, you guys sure have a nightmare coming, sure glad it's not my world" as if she didn't care. (jokingly exadurated of course)

[Anonymoose]

It feels like I visited Elpis, and my character thought "Gee, you guys sure have a nightmare coming, sure glad it's not my world" as if she didn't care.

I don't know what I believe was on Moose's mind there, lol. In my mind I was ready for shenanigans because if we just needed to see the past, we didn't need to go. This could have been an Echo. Something was up. But Moose? Was was he thinking? I guess, first off, "What the eff, man, Elidibus said I'd be incognito."

But one of the illusions of time from a 3D perspective is that there is a "now" or that anything "didn't happen yet" or "already happened". It's all happening at the same time from a 4D perspective, which means we all need to subjectively experience our role in it for it to stay real otherwise that all vanishes and a new "way it always was" comes into being. Shadowbringers undermined that by using the Rift. G'raha even says outloud, "I still exist. Weird." lol. And yet for some reason Endwalker appears to buy back into Alexander whereby Hydaelyn sets things in motion by sending her champion to Elpis to do the things that already happened to ensure Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus prop up her edits in Ultima Thule.

Emet-Selch even calls himself, in one language, "the keystone holding this all together and ensuring it works," and that he can't figure out if Hydaelyn is punishing him or offering him an olive branch by giving him the role of delivering the final message from their people.

[Rinoa]

"What the eff, man, Elidibus said I'd be incognito."

That made me chuckle lol. I just realized, you poor lalafell. I had it easy being tall lol.

[Rosenstrauch]

Using causality loops and split timelines in the same game without explaining either of them directly was discontent waiting to happen. Now we've got one massive causality loop attached to one side of a Y-shaped timeline spawned from Rift shenanigans, and within the stem of that Y is another resolved causality loop for Alexander. Until Oda and Ishikawa walk everyone through all that in a PowerPoint, people are going to keep telling each other their unconfirmed opinions about how it works are wrong.

I hate time shenanigans for exactly this reason. I was impressed how well Alexander handled the illusion of time from a 3D perspective when its contents are edited from a 4D perspective and now... whatever this is... haunts me.

What's everyone gonna do if it's just applied phlebotinum? The Rift last time, dynamis this time, don't think too hard about it?/shudders

"Don't think too hard about it" is probably the best we're going to get. Of all the myriad ways time travel stories can go pear-shaped, I feel like FFXIV ended up dipping its toes into at least some of them with the whole... "causality loop dependent on a split timeline to even exist" thing. Maybe that'll be the next big threat: We've gone and screwed up time so badly that we've got Lavos/the Time Devourer on our hands now.

[Brightamethyst]

It's not called a split timeline because one is erased, it's called that because they both continue to exist at the same time.

Right, but they don't exist together. The ratio of people "saved" vs "killed" is unchanged. Splitting the timeline would save a lot of people but effectively kill an equivalent number who will now never exist.

[Ryaz]

Why do people still keep insisting that if you change the past, you erase the future? We know for a fact that this isn't the case. It's not called a split timeline because one is erased, it's called that because they both continue to exist at the same time.

EDIT: So folks know what I'm referring to: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../sidestory_08/

tl;dr: Eighth Era timeline, the one G'raha allegedly erased, was not erased at all. The timeline split, and now there's two of them. One where the people of the Eighth Era continue to live on, and one their future never came to pass. They exist simultaneously, neither merging nor negating the other's existence. I can not stress this enough. Nobody was erased from existence because G'raha changed the past, and nobody would be erased from existence if we set the people of the Unsundered World upon a different path. Best case scenario, we make like Future Trunks and dip back into our own timeline. Worst case scenario, we're stranded there—in which case things get very bad for the people who were counting on our return.

Well, if the WoL did change the future, wouldn't they return to the new future like G'raha did? Meaning, they wouldn't bring the answers back with them as to the cause of the Final Days (might not return at all actually) and would doom that branched path to annhilation by the Song of Oblivion. So that source and shards would be destroyed while possibly saving Elpis.

I also have to wonder how many people decrying Venat as a monster thought embracing Zenos in his final battle, and not having the agency to walk away (despite him saying he'd accept it if you did) was a good thing.

[Rosenstrauch]

Well, if the WoL did change the future, wouldn't they return to the new future like G'raha did?

Er, G'raha didn't return to any future. He stayed right where he was.

And whether or not we'd return to our future is a tossup. Actually, I can't remember how we did that in the first place. All the technology needed to send us back in time... we didn't exactly stick it in our pocket and take it with us. How did we leave Elpis?

[Ryaz]

Er, G'raha didn't return to any future. He stayed right where he was.

And whether or not we'd return to our future is a tossup. Actually, I can't remember how we did that in the first place. All the technology needed to send us back in time... we didn't exactly stick it in our pocket and take it with us. How did we leave Elpis?

His soul and memories came back with us to our timeline, he didn't end up back in the other branched path, so it does show that they can end up in a different timeline. Though I suppose that could be explained away due to him being in the crystal.