*Spoilers* The Past and After the Endwalker MSQ End

[KariTheFox]

Just like G'raha did when he and the people of the Eighth Era sent himself back in time to prevent the Eighth Umbral Calamity, then.

EDIT: I'm just going to cut this short here, and link the short story whose existence I am so very fond of reminding everyone of: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../sidestory_08/

Yes, it's canon. And if you're going to try and apply cynical logic to the idea of traveling back in time to prevent a calamity from wiping out countless lives, then you have to be fair and apply it to Shadowbringers as well, since that concept is the very backbone of Shadowbringers' plot.

The difference is that the people of G'raha's timeline worked together to send him back, in the hopes that he could prevent the future of the Eighth Umbral Calamity from ever happening. It was an act of intentional sacrifice and selflessness on thier parts.

With Elpis, nobody on the source collaborated with you to go to the past. You were asked to go to the First and ask Elidibus if the knew anything that could help with the ongoing crisis they were currently facing. You have direct obligations and ties to the people in your own time, you were not sent back to save the ancients, you dediced to go back to find information that could save the present day Ethyris.

[Rosenstrauch]

Yes, I know. G'rahas world was literally BEYOND saving (until Midgardsormr intervened, which G'raha had no clue would happen), and horrible to live in, so they rather give up on that reality completely to create chance for a better one.

And then, upon actually achieving their goal, they realized nothing had changed for them. And when posed the question "What will you do now?", they resolved to take the future of their world back into their own hands before Midgardsormr had offered to aid them in any way.

We KNOW that changing events in Elips will NOT destroy our reality, and we KNOW that this will instead create an entirely new reality instead of "saving" the Elpis we want to save. Thats my entire point, you are essentially doing nothing. You are creating a world just to "save" it.

This is nothing more than a game of semantics, if you ask me. Whether they're the people of our reality or the people of some parallel universe, they're still people whose lives we've touched. And, to quote a line the writers are fond of: "To ignore the plight of those one might conceivably save is not wisdom; it is indolence."

You seem to think that "where do you stop?" is a good argument against doing it. But here's my rebuttal: We went back in time to clean up Pandaemonium for no reason other than a mysterious stone asking for help. There was no proof that we'd done so, and therefore needed to do so. For all we know, our actions in Elpis in regards to Pandaemonium have only succeeded in creating a timeline in which we cleaned up Pandaemonium, leaving our own past of "somebody else did it" untouched. And quite frankly, I don't think our character cares if we made a new timeline in the process, because we'll be doing it two more times at the very least.

The can of worms is open.

[AlysanneVrannai]

And then, upon actually achieving their goal, they realized nothing had changed for them. And when posed the question "What will you do now?", they resolved to take the future of their world back into their own hands before Midgardsormr had offered to aid them in any way.



This is nothing more than a game of semantics, if you ask me. Whether they're the people of our reality or the people of some parallel universe, they're still people whose lives we've touched. And, to quote a line the writers are fond of: "To ignore the plight of those one might conceivably save is not wisdom; it is indolence."

You seem to think that "where do you stop?" is a good argument against doing it. But here's my rebuttal: We went back in time to clean up Pandaemonium for no reason other than a mysterious stone asking for help. There was no proof that we'd done so, and therefore needed to do so. For all we know, our actions in Elpis in regards to Pandaemonium have only succeeded in creating a timeline in which we cleaned up Pandaemonium, leaving our own past of "somebody else did it" untouched. And quite frankly, I don't think our character cares if we made a new timeline in the process, because we'll be doing it two more times at the very least.

The can of worms is open.

We are doing the Pandæmonium raid for not just "save people" reasons but also for research into the origins of the crystal itself. There is not some altruistic intention there.

My point about the creation of universes is not semantics. There isnt anyone to save. They dont exist. The act of trying to save them creates the people you need to save. Its completely different from ignoring the plight of someone actually suffering that you could save. There are better things to do than to just infinitely expand the amount of people suffering. The Warrior of Light can save people right now in our universe instead of creating a new one. Trying to bend the definition of Louisiouxs saying wont change the facts.

[Veloran]

We’ll then we need only two things.

The answer to both necessities exists within the Crystal Tower on the First.

Unless the Ancients try to make them, which may be a hard sell given you’re basically creating a group of empathy beings to send off to hell. They’ll not have the bonds you have with the Scions, nor memories of past trials to give them strength.

As it happens Pandemonium provided a way to BS up some FFXI Trusts in the span of five minutes.

We are doing the Pandæmonium raid for not just "save people" reasons but also for research into the origins of the crystal itself. There is not some altruistic intention there.

My point about the creation of universes is not semantics. There isnt anyone to save. They dont exist. The act of trying to save them creates the people you need to save. Its completely different from ignoring the plight of someone actually suffering that you could save. There are better things to do than to just infinitely expand the amount of people suffering. The Warrior of Light can save people right now in our universe instead of creating a new one. Trying to bend the definition of Louisiouxs saying wont change the facts.

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?

[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]

Just like G'raha did when he and the people of the Eighth Era sent himself back in time to prevent the Eighth Umbral Calamity, then.

In short: it's true that is one big can of worms. It maybe shouldn't have happened, but it did.

But that doesn't mean we should be opening more cans because we opened one.

My point about the creation of universes is not semantics. There isnt anyone to save. They dont exist. The act of trying to save them creates the people you need to save.

This is my line of thinking too. The end of the Ancients and the sundering of the world is part of our past. We cannot undo that suffering.

It also just opens a much bigger messier can of worms in terms of understanding the game's timeline. We're suddenly in a multiverse instead of a simple timeline with one split that happened in exceptional circumstances.

[Lurina]

My point about the creation of universes is not semantics. There isnt anyone to save. They dont exist. The act of trying to save them creates the people you need to save. Its completely different from ignoring the plight of someone actually suffering that you could save. There are better things to do than to just infinitely expand the amount of people suffering. The Warrior of Light can save people right now in our universe instead of creating a new one. Trying to bend the definition of Louisiouxs saying wont change the facts.

The whole point of G'raha's "if history must be unwritten, let it be unwritten" thing was that, even if it won't change the fate that the people in your world experienced, creating a future where a specific culture of group of people survived and got to have a brighter future is worthwhile for its own sake.

Doing this would hardly be in defiance of the themes or logic of the game so far.

[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.

[Veloran]

But that doesn't mean we should be opening more cans because we opened one.

WoL has eaten more worms for lesser reasons. Sometimes literally.

[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.