The Reasoning behind The Sundering? (*6.0 Endwalker Spoilers*)

[Kordarion]

1.How am i even mocking you with an emoji when my comment isn’t even responding to you, and 2.I think it can be a problem on both sides for sure, but i’ve never seen one side get called certain words like nazi’s or genocide sympathizers etc whereas the other side is called that typically on a normal basis if they showed any liking to garleans or the ancients what have you. Irregardless though that isn’t really what this thread is about and i’d rather not derail it more than it already has been. Was just giving my 2 cents.

I agree that this is derailing the thread so ill make one last post and then we can get back on topic. The person who I mentioned that mocked me was someone else, and I don't think you were mocking anyone specifically it just came off in a mocking way but I'm probably just looking to deeply at it. Secondly I didn't know about any of the nazi/genocide sympathiser name calling stuff, I only joined the forums a week or so ago and only really pay attention to the lore threads so I must have missed that. That's just not cool and I can certainly understand why people who have been called that are angry.

[Lyth]

On a slight tangent, what happens in the 8th Umbral Calamity timeline? If Azem dies prior to going back to Elpis, then the present 'time loop' doesn't exist. We were never there. Yet the events on Elpis and in Pandaemonium would have to be resolved somehow without our intervention. If G'raha's actions created a divergent timeline, is it possible then for two timelines to become convergent? What does it really mean for a 'conjunction' to begin to form?

[Kordarion]

On a slight tangent, what happens in the 8th Umbral Calamity timeline? If Azem dies prior to going back to Elpis, then the present 'time loop' doesn't exist. We were never there. Yet the events on Elpis and in Pandaemonium would have to be resolved somehow without our intervention. If G'raha's actions created a divergent timeline, is it possible then for two timelines to become convergent? What does it really mean for a 'conjunction' to begin to form?

The way I look at a convergent timeline is that the differences between the two would have to be fairly minor and therefore not change the major events of the two timelines, eg: in the original timeline Meteion receives the report ands runs off where she is overwhelmed in solitude and goes of to end the universe and in the altered universe she is tracked down by us and forced by Hermes to recite the report until she is overwhelmed by despair and goes off to end the universe. In both timelines Meteion sets in motion the final days but in slightly different ways. In both the final days would still happen, Zodiark would still be summoned, the sundering would still happen and the 7 calamities would still happen just slightly differently but not enough to irrevocably differentiate the two. That's why it couldn't happen with the 8UC timeline as the fate of the first is just to large of a difference to easily merge back together.

Also in terms of Elpis and Pandaemonium happening in the 8UC, we are the ones who fix that still. The easiest way, in my opinion, is to look at the divergence as the letter Y. The main stem of the Y is the single unified timeline before the point of divergence, us saving the first, with said event causing the Y to split into two different branches, one being our timeline and the other being the 8UC. Now seeing as our time travel to Elpis and Pandaemonium takes us down the Y past where it split into two that means that our time travel effects both branches as they have yet to split when we are in Elpis and Pandaemonium.

Keep in mind neither explanation is proven, they are just theories I have come up with based on our limited level of knowledge/understand around FF14's timeline.

Edit: I assume that in the case of a convergent timeline the original pre-merged universe would have had Elpis play out as if we weren't there, Emet and Hythlodaeus convince Hermes to become Fandaniel and Meteion runs away after her report, the isolation and the report turning her into the Endsinger. (Note: this could explain the noise from the planet if Metion never left in the original timeline until after the final days, but that is another can of worms to explore) and Pandaemonium would be fixed by Azem as it appears they appear to be involved with Themis journeying there.

[Nilroreo]

On a slight tangent, what happens in the 8th Umbral Calamity timeline? If Azem dies prior to going back to Elpis, then the present 'time loop' doesn't exist. We were never there. Yet the events on Elpis and in Pandaemonium would have to be resolved somehow without our intervention. If G'raha's actions created a divergent timeline, is it possible then for two timelines to become convergent? What does it really mean for a 'conjunction' to begin to form?

I personally believe the writing team just didn't consider how G'raha's timeline would fit into all this. When he went back in time, nothing about the past he arrived at differed from his own other than him being artificially placed in it. His mere presence within our past caused our timeline to spiral in a different direction from his, and yet the events leading to that point were still primarily influenced by our visit to Elpis which IMO would've been impossible in his own time. The amount of coincidences necessary for events to go down almost exactly as they have in our timeline despite our sudden death preventing us from eventually going back in time ourselves in his is too much for me to handle and my suspension of disbelief has already been long shattered. I personally believe if our current history as we know it is dependent on us having gone back to Elpis, then the world he comes from should've been completely different from our own even before the 8th umbral calamity, but that doesn't seem to be the case as there's literal recorded history of our adventures up until the events of Stormblood in his time.

[Kordarion]

I personally believe the writing team just didn't consider how G'raha's timeline would fit into all this. When he went back in time, nothing about the past he arrived at differed from his own other than him being artificially placed in it. His mere presence within our past caused our timeline to spiral in a different direction from his, and yet the events leading to that point were still primarily influenced by our visit to Elpis which IMO would've been impossible in his own time. The amount of coincidences necessary for events to go down almost exactly as they have in our timeline despite our sudden death preventing us from eventually going back in time ourselves in his is too much for me to handle and my suspension of disbelief has already been long shattered. I personally believe if our current history as we know it is dependent on us having gone back to Elpis, then the world he comes from should've been completely different from our own even before the 8th umbral calamity, but that doesn't seem to be the case as there's literal recorded history of our adventures up until the events of Stormblood in his time.

The easiest way to rectify the 8UC is to look at the letter Y. The main stem of the Y is the single unified timeline before the point of divergence, us saving the first, with said event causing the Y to split into two different branches, one being our timeline and the other being the 8UC. Now seeing as our time travel to Elpis and Pandaemonium takes us down the Y past where it split into two that means that our time travel effects both branches as they have yet to split when we are in Elpis and Pandaemonium.

Edit: people seem to be confusing the concept of a marvel style multiverse with how alternate timelines created via travel back in time in your own timeline would realistically work, they are not two sperate entities unrelated to each other they are like the branches of a tree, growing out from a single source.

[RyuDragnier]

We're gonna take the easiest way out to explain this...Alexander planned it.

[Veloran]

You're making the mistake of assuming that everything that happened was Exactly According To Plan.

I can't really view the events surrounding Minfilia and the First as being anything other than proceeding exactly as she willed it to. And frankly, the fact that she never revealed the threat of Meteion and the purposes behind the sundering to the Ascians casts a shadow over the entire rest of the conflict.

However, you've made me realize something. In that Heavensward scene with Hydaelyn, she mentions that 'the darkness' will be unstoppable if the next Calamity is allowed to happen. First of all, kudos to the people who cast doubt on that 'darkness' being the Ascians and Zodiark, because now it makes sense that she could've been talking about the End of Days.

She was clearly not talking about Meteion in that situation. The context was entirely about Zodiark.

The easiest way to rectify the 8UC is to look at the letter Y.

It's more something like an N, because the second timeline is entirely predicated on the first.

[RyuDragnier]

She was clearly not talking about Meteion in that situation. The context was entirely about Zodiark.

Doesn't Hydaelyn switch between using "darkness" and Zodiark though? With Zodiark being used whenever she actually refers to him?

[Veloran]

Doesn't Hydaelyn switch between using "darkness" and Zodiark though? With Zodiark being used whenever she actually refers to him?

Before there was life, in the depths of the aetherial sea, Light and Dark did once dwell as one.

But the Darkness coveted power, and the balance was broken. Thus was I forced to banish Him unto the distant heavens, to forever remain apart. A moon bound.

Zodiark longeth to be made whole. For His restoration, for His resurrection, His servants labor without cease.

Seven times have they succeeded. Seven times hath the Darkness grown stronger. Seven times have I failed.

I don't really see how any of that can be referring to Meteion. Note the capitalized Him being used to refer to both "the Darkness" and "Zodiark".

[Rosenstrauch]

The context has been altered. Pray they don't alter it any further.

… but seriously, Venat's 5.2 scenes establish that Zodiark is a stopgap that won't keep the Final Days from returning forever, but because of their habit of using the word "Darkness" as a catch-all for negative things (despite that very expansion establishing what Darkness as an elemental force actually is), it wasn't particularly clear that the "darkness" Hydaelyn was meant to keep in check wasn't Zodiark Himself. That sort of vagueness is probably what led to a lot of folks to declare that Zodiark was pure evil even as Shadowbringers' story took great pains to make that not the case.

I wonder if the distinction between "Darkness" and Actual Darkness is more clear in Japanese.