*Spoilers* The Past and After the Endwalker MSQ End

[AlysanneVrannai]

Do you not understand that your first point undermines your second? From what you're saying WoL potentially created an entirely new doomed timeline for nothing more than the sake of curiosity. And this is somehow a more valid motivation than to save billions of lives?

Oh, I am by no means defending the WoLs usage of time travel during the Pandæmonium situation. At least for me I would never time travel unless it was the only way to solve an issue in "my" timeline.

[Iscah]

Oh, I am by no means defending the WoLs usage of time travel during the Pandæmonium situation. At least for me I would never time travel unless it was the only way to solve an issue in "my" timeline.

I am regarding Pandæmonium as a chance to learn more about events in our own timeline. The crystal has surfaced in ours, after all.

Though also, theoretically, whatever we do or don't do there, it is almost certainly going to integrate into our timeline in the end exactly because we have no idea what happens there. If we save everyone, that's nice (in the short term) and we've probably set up Elidibus's memory of seeing us in Elpis. If it all goes to disaster, it's still a disaster long past that we have now learned about.

I don't think we can break our timeline here because we cannot contradict any events we already know to have happened – unlike the Final Days at large where we are very aware of the outcome.

[Lurina]

I am regarding Pandæmonium as a chance to learn more about events in our own timeline. The crystal has surfaced in ours, after all.

Though also, theoretically, whatever we do or don't do there, it is almost certainly going to integrate into our timeline in the end exactly because we have no idea what happens there. If we save everyone, that's nice (in the short term) and we've probably set up Elidibus's memory of seeing us in Elpis. If it all goes to disaster, it's still a disaster long past that we have now learned about.

I don't think we can break our timeline here because we cannot contradict any events we already know to have happened – unlike the Final Days at large where we are very aware of the outcome.

When you meet Elidibus in the Crystal Tower, his line is weird - he doesn't just say that he saw you in Elpis, he says, "I saw you... No, I did not. But I did." Like he's remembering two different versions of history at the same time.

So it's not impossible that Pandaemonium is already building to some kind of split timeline scenario in the way that the WoL's first visit - from which Venat and Emet seem to remember you uncomplicatedly - was not.

[Iscah]

When you meet Elidibus in the Crystal Tower, his line is weird - he doesn't just say that he saw you in Elpis, he says, "I saw you... No, I did not. But I did." Like he's remembering two different versions of history at the same time.

I still need to rewatch that scene, but is it maybe just the point where he gets the idea to send you back in time in the first place? He remembered he saw you there, thinks it has to be impossible, then thinks that it would make sense if he sent you back there to fulfil that loop?

[Lurina]

I still need to rewatch that scene, but is it maybe just the point where he gets the idea to send you back in time in the first place? He remembered he saw you there, thinks it has to be impossible, then thinks that it would make sense if he sent you back there to fulfil that loop?

I would've thought he'd have said "no, I couldn't have" or something if that were the case. "I did not" feels like a counter-assertion instead of just disbelief. Especially since the way he delivers the line sort of makes it sound like he's talking about two separate versions of himself: "I did not. But I did. I did."

But who knows.

[AlysanneVrannai]

When you meet Elidibus in the Crystal Tower, his line is weird - he doesn't just say that he saw you in Elpis, he says, "I saw you... No, I did not. But I did." Like he's remembering two different versions of history at the same time.

So it's not impossible that Pandaemonium is already building to some kind of split timeline scenario in the way that the WoL's first visit - from which Venat and Emet seem to remember you uncomplicatedly - was not.

Could this not be a reference to how Elidibus is not really "Elidibus" due to his memories being intensely damaged? So he has memories of Elidibus seeing the WoL in Elpis, but it is not really "his" memories.

[Lurina]

Could this not be a reference to how Elidibus is not really "Elidibus" due to his memories being intensely damaged? So he has memories of Elidibus seeing the WoL in Elpis, but it is not really "his" memories.

That seems like a stretch, since he doesn't seem to have any problem considering his other memories as belonging to him.

But again, who knows. All I'm saying is that it's a possibility.

[LystAP]

I am regarding Pandæmonium as a chance to learn more about events in our own timeline. The crystal has surfaced in ours, after all.

Though also, theoretically, whatever we do or don't do there, it is almost certainly going to integrate into our timeline in the end exactly because we have no idea what happens there. If we save everyone, that's nice (in the short term) and we've probably set up Elidibus's memory of seeing us in Elpis. If it all goes to disaster, it's still a disaster long past that we have now learned about.

I don't think we can break our timeline here because we cannot contradict any events we already know to have happened – unlike the Final Days at large where we are very aware of the outcome.

As Elidibus stated, we can't change anything for our timeline - for better or ill. The Final Days are averted on our end, nothing about that should change no matter what we do in the past. Venat also restates this, but notes that we can still change theirs.

When you meet Elidibus in the Crystal Tower, his line is weird - he doesn't just say that he saw you in Elpis, he says, "I saw you... No, I did not. But I did." Like he's remembering two different versions of history at the same time.

So it's not impossible that Pandaemonium is already building to some kind of split timeline scenario in the way that the WoL's first visit - from which Venat and Emet seem to remember you uncomplicatedly - was not.

We might not be at the point of time convergence yet - the Final Days are still going to happen if we leave things as they are when we last left Venat. There's still the upcoming patches for Endwalker for that to happen- opportunities to wrap up as much of the past so we can focus on the future. At the moment, the negative implications of time travel are...well, there doesn't seem to be any as of yet (other than our characters getting older while time traveling and not aging as they should - which doesn't really matter to us players). This leaves things open to a Warlord of Draenor or Final Fantasy XI: Wings of the Goddess time travel expansion somewhere down the line - or perhaps this will be the time travel expansion and everything else will look towards the future.

[Cleretic]

When you meet Elidibus in the Crystal Tower, his line is weird - he doesn't just say that he saw you in Elpis, he says, "I saw you... No, I did not. But I did." Like he's remembering two different versions of history at the same time.

So it's not impossible that Pandaemonium is already building to some kind of split timeline scenario in the way that the WoL's first visit - from which Venat and Emet seem to remember you uncomplicatedly - was not.

I suspect what that was is that Elidibus, as stated in that cutscene, has memories from the soul crystals we gave him. Those memories include Emet's, Hermes', and also potentially his own (if he's Themis like he seems) and possibly even Lahabrea's (depending on who Lahabrea was at the time and the future events of Pandaemonium). But thanks to Kairos, the memories of us there are a little inconsistent and essentially turn up as a brief 'wait what the hell' moment.

Perhaps none of them even remember us, but Emet and/or Hermes saw us from a distance and that stuck into the memories enough for Elidibus to notice.