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

[Lauront]

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.

It's clearer at the very least in the French version (which tends to track JP fairly closely):

Venat : Pour opposer la Lumière aux Ténèbres de Zordiarche, nous donnerons naissance à... Hydaelyn.
= “To oppose the Light to the Shadows of Zodiark, we will give birth to… Hydaelyn.”

If people get the impression that it's Zodiark, it's not for no reason. Although I get what you mean - this distinction continues to be blurred in EW even after all this is clarified (but also crucially 5.55 part 2) and darkness continues to just be thrown around as a catch-all for all things bad.

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".

That is another scene where a cross-reference is useful (although not really necessary IMO):

Messagère d'Hydaelyn : Il y a bien longtemps de cela, avant même l'apparition de la première pousse de vie... L'avatar de la Lumière, Hydaelyn, et celui des Ténèbres, Zordiarche, se fondaient en un être unique.
= “A long time ago, even before the first shoot of life appeared... The avatar of light, Hydaelyn, and the avatar of Darkness, Zordiark, were merged into one being.”

Messagère d'Hydaelyn : Au fil du temps, les avides Ténèbres accrurent leur pouvoir et l'équilibre avec la Lumière fut rompu. Plongée dans le désespoir, Hydaelyn n'eut d'autre choix que de bannir Zordiarche dans un ciel lointain, hors de la mer des étoiles.
= “Over time, the greedy darkness increased its power and the balance with the light was broken. Plunged into despair, Hydaelyn had no choice but to banish Zordiark in a distant sky, out of the sea of stars (Lifestream).”

Messagère d'Hydaelyn : Leur éclatement en deux entités distinctes entraîna la naissance de la lune, mais il fissura également la lisière de notre dimension.
= “Their division into two separate entities led to the birth of the moon, but it also cracked the border of our dimension.”

Messagère d'Hydaelyn : Le monde de tes semblables, le monde primitif, n'est qu'un parmi les quatorze qui sont apparus lors de ce cataclysme fondamental. Tous sont des reflets de l'unité originelle et contiennent des fragments de la Lumière et des Ténèbres.
= “The world of your kind, the primitive world (Source), is only one of the fourteen that have appeared in this fundamental cataclysm. All are reflections of original unity and contain fragments of light and darkness.”

Messagère d'Hydaelyn : Cloîtré sur la lune et bouillonnant de colère, Zordiarche résolut d'accomplir sa vengeance envers Hydaelyn. Il décida d'employer ses fidèles serviteurs, les Asciens, à coaliser les puissances des Ténèbres afin de permettre sa renaissance.
= “Cloistered on the moon and bubbling with anger, Zordiark resolved to carry out his revenge on Hydaelyn. He decided to employ his faithful servants, the Ascians, to unite the powers of Darkness to enable his rebirth.”

Messagère d'Hydaelyn : Pour ce faire, il a principalement besoin d'une chose : détruire la barrière qui sépare le monde primitif des autres.
= “To do this, he mainly needs one thing: to destroy the barrier that separates the primitive world (Source) from the others.”

Messagère d'Hydaelyn : Voilà l'Ardor que les Asciens appellent de leurs vœux. Quant aux êtres humains, les nombreuses souffrances qu'ils ont dû endurer les ont poussés à donner un autre nom à ce phénomène : le Fléau…
= “This is the Ardor that the Ascians wish for. As for human beings, the many sufferings they had to endure had caused them to give another name to this phenomenon : the Flood (Calamity)…”

Messagère d'Hydaelyn : Sept fléaux ont déjà frappé le monde primitif, et uni sept des quatorze dimensions. La puissance des Ténèbres ne fait que croître, tandis que la lueur d'Hydaelyn devient de plus en plus pâle…
= “Seven Floods (Calamities) have already struck the primitive world (Source), and united seven of the fourteen dimensions. The power of Darkness is growing, while the Light of Hydaelyn is becoming increasingly pale.…”

For a mercy, it is clearer than "light and dark" and leaves little room for interpretation.

[RyuDragnier]

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".

Thanks for that, it has been a while since I saw that cutscene and needed a refresher on that.

[Kordarion]

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

It is an it isn't. Because G'raha moved backwards in time from the source to the first it can been seen as an N because he is travelling between two different shards. But it can't be an N if we are talking about time travel, because neither vertical line in an N is connected, which therfore means they couldn't come from the same original timeline that was changed by the time travel. Instead what you would end up with is G'raha traveling between alternate timelines (eg: a multiverse) rather than traveling back in time. If you want to get technical, which I should have to begin with, about it, G'raha's actions are more like the letter P but where the semi-circle reconnects halfway down the P there would we a diagonal line going back towards the top of the P representing our new timeline. The stem of the P representing the original 8UC timeline, the semi-circle representing G'raha's time travel and the added diagonal line representing our current timeline.

If you wanted to be even more technical you would need to more semi-circles with arrows on them, both connecting the end of the diagonal line to the base of the P. the first of these semi-circles would have the arrow facing towards the bottom of the P and represent our journey to Elpis with the second semi-circle and arrow pointing towards the top of the diagonal line representing our return from Elpis. You could then double those two line in the same place to represent our journey to and from Pandaemonium.

[Veloran]

It is an it isn't. Because G'raha moved backwards in time from the source to the first it can been seen as an N because he is travelling between two different shards. But it can't be an N if we are talking about time travel, because neither vertical line in an N is connected, which therfore means they couldn't come from the same original timeline that was changed by the time travel. Instead what you would end up with is G'raha traveling between alternate timelines (eg: a multiverse) rather than traveling back in time.

I don't really have much reason to believe it isn't that type of time travel, given how none of this is established. Based on events in Endwalker I'm not even sure Elpis/Pandemonium is actually a timeloop rather than actual Back to the Future style retroactive time travel that changes the future on the fly, given the talk about "conjoining timelines" and Venat/Elidibus doing a do I/don't I dance of whether or not they remember WoL from the past.

[Kordarion]

I don't really have much reason to believe it isn't that type of time travel, given how none of this is established. Based on events in Endwalker I'm not even sure Elpis/Pandemonium is actually a timeloop rather than actual Back to the Future style retroactive time travel that changes the future on the fly, given the talk about "conjoining timelines" and Venat/Elidibus doing a do I/don't I dance of whether or not they remember WoL from the past.

Except we do have reason to believe that it is that type of time travel, both other instance of time travel in the game, Alexander and Elpis/Pandaemonium both clearly have us traveling into the past of OUR timeline, impacting the past of said timeline, to me it makes no sense that one of the three instances of time travel in the setting would operate on a fundamentally different nature of time travel, crossing between universes instead of crossing through time, when it doesn't have to and nothing suggests it is from a different universe in a theoretical multiverse that as far as I am aware has never been hinted at.

[Veloran]

Except we do have reason to believe that it is that type of time travel, both other instance of time travel in the game, Alexander and Elpis/Pandaemonium both clearly have us traveling into the past of OUR timeline,

You mean except for the times Venat talks about divergent timelines conjoining again, right?

it makes no sense that one of the three instances of time travel in the setting would operate on a fundamentally different nature of time travel,

Why? It produces a completely different outcome. In fact all three major instances produce notably different effects from one another. It may be none of them are the same types of time travel.

[Kordarion]

You mean except for the times Venat talks about divergent timelines conjoining again, right?

Just because you travel into your own past doesn't mean the future has to be the same, if we say that you can change the past and you remain in the new timeline then you didn't return to where you started sure, but that doesn't mean you travelled to a different wholly sperate universe. The convergence could be, and if it happened is, the merging of two branches of the timeline together, two branches that have the same starting point that connects them to their unbranched past. For example I can cross my fingers together into one unit and they still have the same origin point, my hand.

Why? It produces a completely different outcome. In fact all three major instances produce notably different effects from one another. It may be none of them are the same types of time travel.

Because in each example there are different non-time travel related elements at play, in G'raha's case he is actively trying to change the past, something that would most certainly cause a different effect than the others. So of course there will be a difference when human agency and choice enters into the equation, that doesn't however mean that the method is different especially seeing as Elidibus appears to use G'raha's knowledge of time travel, that he learnt from the blood crystal in 5.3, to send us to Elpis the exact same way G'raha used to journey to his past to change the future. So if the method is the same then it has to be something else that cause the differences doesn't it? Also I'm not sure if its true but I heard someone say that the 8UC based its time travel tech off of Alexander which would mean all three methods are interlinked if true.

I think all of this would be so much less convoluted if they hadn't have written the 8UC short story and then we could say that whatever you do in the past changes the future instead of arguing over branch timelines and theoretical multiverses.

[Veloran]

Just because you travel into your own past doesn't mean the future has to be the same, if we say that you can change the past

Alexander would suggest that any changed past is never actually changed and was in fact always that way. Something that doesn't appear to be the case elsewhere where either things are explicitly different and divergent, or at least incredibly muddled.

in G'raha's case he is actively trying to change the past,

Venat was also trying to change the future. So what's the difference? Clearly G'raha's travel at least was fundamentally different somehow - Otherwise when WoL went back to the past you were actually leaving behind a doomed timeline and entering a new one. The entire thing is so borked that I can't even discount such a possibility, because when discussing this we have practically zero ground to stand on for any perspective.

[Kordarion]

Yeah the whole thing is a bloody mess isn't it, personally I put the blame on Shadowbringers as it was the expansion that introduced the concept of being able to change the past, something that never ends well. Thinking on it, to me that is the difference, not something in universe but the meta reasoning of the devs poor decision to mess with changing the past causing any semblance of rules around time travel to unravel into a bloody nightmare.

[Cleretic]

But what failures? She must have already known we hailed from the 7th astral era. If she was already aware that we were as you say 'the one that got closest,' what reason would she have to prematurely declare any of the events leading up to the present as failures? Sure she could've had been filled with remorse over the lives lost as a result of her actions, but to suggest that they were anything but necessary casualties in her pursuit of her real goal is hard for me to believe. The prospect of history going down a different path than what we described to her would've no doubt been scary for her, but as far as were made aware, there were no deviations and everything went exactly as expected.

The failure to stop the other Rejoinings, and presumably other disasters. She knows that if she fails to stop those Rejoinings, the Seventh Astral Era gets closest, but if she manged to stop, say, the Sixth Umbral Calamity, maybe Amdapor was on track to a breakthrough.

The Seventh Astral has a big thing of 'standing on the shoulders of giants', a lot of the leading minds and civilizations are building on departed people; mostly Allag, but others contribute too. But if those giants just didn't die, they'd be perfectly well-suited. Immediately I can look at Allag and say they definitely had everything needed to pull off Plan 'Punch Meteion In The Snout', and I wouldn't scoff at someone saying that Mhach had a chance either.

What I'm saying is that Hydaelyn definitely tried to stop those Calamities, failed, and was reassured by 'well, at least the Seventh Astral Era has good odds'. That's not saying that others wouldn't have had a chance if she'd protected them--and also not saying that later Eras would've been totally lost--but is saying that we are her reassurance. If we die, she doesn't even have a prayer.