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

[EaraGrace]

Snip.

No it’s not. The whole point is that you need an Answer to the Song. Sending terrified conscripts to Ultima Thule, led by someone who wants to the see the world end, would not work. And don’t underestimate the contributions of the Loporrits. It was their thousands of years of expertise in space travel, plus the Aether in the Mothercrystal that allowed our travel to Ultima Thule.

Snip.

Koryu would like a word. And my point with the Black Rose example was to show how failed calamities oftentimes miss detection by the world at large. We only learned of its light aspected nature from Emet, so saying we can’t tell by the aspect doesn’t really work when we don’t have a camera pointing at the architects.

Ensuring that people would survive it is fighting against it...

So then do we agree She fought against it? Due to the nature of position She relied on proxies to help her fight against the Ascians, and we do not have a clear understanding at her effectiveness. What we do know is that Her agents were successful on many occasions in halting major threats.

Snip.

Not sure what you’re arguing against here, but my point is that Minfilias decision post Heavensward were her own, with and without info from Venat.

Snip.

The Ascians would have no point in doing so. Creating agents of Darkness was pointless if it wasn’t in service to pushing the First further to Light, as the Firsts imbalance would be held in check solely by Mitron and Loghrif. If anything they would have just left it as is and simply focused on causing a calamity on the Source. With or without the Crystals, either way they would win (slowly admittedly), the only recourse left was to be place Her Hope in those on the First, and that worked at first. Remember, it wasn’t the defeat of Mitron and Loghrif alone that started the Flood, but Mitron being tempered,. It was a stroke of luck for the Ascians (and Minfilias sacrifice) that allowed them to find victory in the way they did.

And that’s not even including the fact that those heroes may have succeeded without her aid at all. We certainly did so in Heavensward after all.

Snip.

I once again have to point out that’s not the case. If you’re saying She should kill herself and doom all the shards to save the First, then I can understand that position. But that is was you are asking her to do.

Snip.

My point is that if she knew everything she would know they need the Crystals to make their way, we know this by the dialogue in 3.3. The dilemma before her is whether she ensures the First has a glimmer of hope or no hope, as without the WoD arrival and the boon they give Her Minfilia could not be sent to the First.

Snip.

Where did she lie.

[GDofLevin]

It's because the Ascians were tempered by Zodiark. Emet-Selch admits to as much in Shadowbringers. And if you've played all of FFXIV current story you know that once a primal tempers you your choice of free will is gone. Your devoted heart and soul to the primal who tempered you. And Zodiark didn't want to talk to Hydaelin he wanted more Aether and more followers to grow stronger and sustain himself. So those he tempered of course won't go to Hydaelin for a tea party to discuss the RIGHT way to save the world. Ultimately the Aumarotians chose to sacrifice people they deemed 'lesser' than themselves in order to sustain themselves and their 'paradise' forsaking the need to better the Star and instead better themselves. Hydaelin was disgusted by their nihilistic vain glory and sundered Etheirys for the sake of addressing the problems she was dealing with. And as that cutscene shows she regretted it had come to that but stood firm in her decision and walked along with all the suffering and suffering herself in the process. I don't understand why everyone is harping on Hydaelin and defending the Aumarotians though. The Aumarotians wanted to sacrifice others for themselves while Hydaelin sacrificed herself for others. It's eerily similar to todays world where doing the right thing is 'virtue signaling' and doing the wrong thing is 'freedom'. Shake my head.

[RyuDragnier]

A random thought here, but don't the two timelines need to be distinct due to the presence of Alexander? At some point in the future Alexander is going to unfreeze from his time bubble and travel back into the past to deposit Dayan and Mide there to found their tribe which eventually leads to the events of the modern day that precipitate Alexander's summoning to begin with.

But because there are two timelines there should now be two versions of Alexander. Ours and the one in the 8UC timeline. So if the timelines are supposed to be one that branched due to G'raha, how can two Alexanders travel back in time to the same place along one timeline to do the same thing, with two pairs of Dayans/Mides?

There's likely just one Alexander due to its pocket dimension shenanigans. Since it essentially sealed itself and the area immediately around it in time/space, it is probably immune to the timeline split, as it's frozen in time regardless of which timeline you look at it from. This likely also means there's still only one Dayan and Mide, as the pocket dimension status means they exist in both timelines yet don't. Alexander itself may actually be serving as the "anchor" allowing the two timelines to simultaneously exist, as that would likely be well within its power.

[Lyth]

...

Let's say that we live in a universe where free will exists. If that's the case, the entire timeline doesn't exist from start to finish its entirety, because otherwise we're just making decisions on rails. A decision doesn't exist until its made. As such, I should be able to take any subsection of the timeline from the start to a particular timepoint without running into any paradoxes. Let's start with an easy one.

1. Start
2. Elpis

In this subsegment of the timeline, we haven't made any decisions about travelling back in time. Yet events happen on Elpis. This in itself suggests that there was originally some set of events on Elpis that is similar to, but not exactly identical to the original. Let's try a slightly more complex one.

1. Start
2. Elpis
3. Sundering
4. ARR/Heavensward/Stormblood
5. Eighth Umbral Calamity

Let's stop here. Again, this timeline also requires a set of events to happen on Elpis that occur without involving time travel, because Azem is dead. Now let's keep going to the present.

1. Start
2. Elpis
3. Sundering
4. ARR/Heavensward/Stormblood
6. Eighth Umbral Calamity
5. G'raha alters timeline (original events overwritten)
6. Venat tells us about a conjunction between two timelines
7. Time travel to Elpis (original events overwritten)
8. Battle with Meteion

So we have a 'time loop', but it's not a strict circle. We can unroll it out and lay it out flat. We re-write two parts of the timeline, but the parts that we re-write have an original sequence of events that gets replaced by an altered one.

In order for your explanation to work, everything must be pre-ordained from the start. If that's the case, then we don't need to for all sub-timelines to be consistent as well, because the future has always existed the way that it has. G'raha's actions in Shadowbringer are critical. Until the moment that he makes his decision to travel back in time and alter events, the events in Elpis cannot play out the way that they currently have. In order for that flag to be raised even before the event happens, he has to be fated to make that choice. Although it's unclear if events in a separate timeline can re-write your own, and we have nothing except your claims that it works this way and that Biggs III is wrong. Which is fine, I don't mind seeing a bit of headcanon as long as there's some attempt made at internal consistency.

So yes, this is all very relevant. I'm just curious what your starting set of axioms are, because that determines whether the rest of your explanation is internally consistent or not.

And I'll leave you with the last point, which we still couldn't explain before: Why is past Azem seemingly able to predict the future? Again, I think that this isn't the case, and that the original sequence of events has been disrupted.

[Lurina]

It's because the Ascians were tempered by Zodiark. Emet-Selch admits to as much in Shadowbringers. And if you've played all of FFXIV current story you know that once a primal tempers you your choice of free will is gone. Your devoted heart and soul to the primal who tempered you. And Zodiark didn't want to talk to Hydaelin he wanted more Aether and more followers to grow stronger and sustain himself.

Zodiark wasn't a mindless primal hungry for Aether, he was Elidibus/Themis. A person. And I think you missed the part of his backstory in 5.3 where he specifically took a form outside of his primal body to talk to Venat and her followers.

Ultimately the Aumarotians chose to sacrifice people they deemed 'lesser' than themselves in order to sustain themselves and their 'paradise' forsaking the need to better the Star and instead better themselves.

As we find out on Mare Lamentorum, the souls of their love ones were literally trapped inside Zodiark - the ones who gave their lives to foster the creation of the new life on the planet in the first place. While I don't think anyone would act like they were doing something heroic, it's hardly a black and white situation.

[EaraGrace]

And I'll leave you with the last point, which we still couldn't explain before: Why is past Azem seemingly able to predict the future? Again, I think that this isn't the case, and that the original sequence of events has been disrupted.

I don’t think we are supposed to be able to answer that, as that’s clearly a question that will be expanded on in the Pandaemonium quest line.

[Jandor]

Zodiark wasn't a mindless primal hungry for Aether, he was Elidibus/Themis. A person. And I think you missed the part of his backstory in 5.3 where he specifically took a form outside of his primal body to talk to Venat and her followers.

It's possible to temper yourself if you make yourself into a primal.

With hindsight, making the guy in charge of reconciliation into the heart of Zodiark maybe wasn't the best idea, something like that is bound to make him a tad bias.

[Veloran]

No it’s not. The whole point is that you need an Answer to the Song. Sending terrified conscripts to Ultima Thule, led by someone who wants to the see the world end, would not work. And don’t underestimate the contributions of the Loporrits. It was their thousands of years of expertise in space travel, plus the Aether in the Mothercrystal that allowed our travel to Ultima Thule.

Yes, it is. And the answer we provide is nothing but a vague hope. If they had had a shot, they could have chosen to send willing soldiers, or even emotionless constructs, and they well away could have done it before Amon's time. And the Loporrits, is it really so impossible that forces of both Hydaelyn and the Ascians come together for something? They did for less during Heavensward.

Koryu would like a word. And my point with the Black Rose example was to show how failed calamities oftentimes miss detection by the world at large. We only learned of its light aspected nature from Emet, so saying we can’t tell by the aspect doesn’t really work when we don’t have a camera pointing at the architects.

Yes, Koryu was quite a fire-inclined Auspice. Yet that proves he couldn't have fueled a Calamity, because the Ascians were following the pattern of the elemental wheel for Calamities and the fire one had already happened long before. And in terms of the Eighth Calamity, the Scions missed the effects of the light because they were under a misapprehension about what Light even was, even then it was still noted everywhere, if not understood.

So then do we agree She fought against it?

Fighting to stop it and fighting for people to endure it are not the same thing. Warriors of Light saved lives during the Calamities, but we never know of them actually stopping one.

Not sure what you’re arguing against here, but my point is that Minfilias decision post Heavensward were her own, with and without info from Venat.

Who is to say whether or not it was her own, when her mind had been melded with Venat? Even uncoupled and assuming that Venat didn't tell her to spare him, Minfilia had still been privy to Venat's own thoughts and memories, one with them even. The actions of Venat and the actions of Minfilia are not unrelated and atomized.

The Ascians would have no point in doing so. Creating agents of Darkness was pointless if it wasn’t in service to pushing the First further to Light, as the Firsts imbalance would be held in check solely by Mitron and Loghrif. If anything they would have just left it as is and simply focused on causing a calamity on the Source. With or without the Crystals, either way they would win (slowly admittedly), the only recourse left was to be place Her Hope in those on the First, and that worked at first. Remember, it wasn’t the defeat of Mitron and Loghrif alone that started the Flood, but Mitron being tempered,. It was a stroke of luck for the Ascians (and Minfilias sacrifice) that allowed them to find victory in the way they did.

Their creation of servants of Darkness was in service of pushing the First towards Light, because they were puppets meant to be defeated by Warriors of Light, thus spreading the supremacy of Light. Venat's actions in empowering the WoDs was integral to their plans, as we see with Cylva's satisfaction every time each of them is granted a Crystal of Light. Without any of this, Hydaelyn serving their ends, the Ascians get nowhere and could do nothing but spread Darkness.

I once again have to point out that’s not the case. If you’re saying She should kill herself and doom all the shards to save the First, then I can understand that position. But that is was you are asking her to do.

But that IS the case. She had a massive reservoir of energy at her disposal with which she could have easily contacted anyone. When we ultimately end up uising it in Endwalker, so much is left behind unused that Zenos is able to slurp it up to fly across the universe and turn into Shinryu once more.

My point is that if she knew everything she would know they need the Crystals to make their way, we know this by the dialogue in 3.3. The dilemma before her is whether she ensures the First has a glimmer of hope or no hope, as without the WoD arrival and the boon they give Her Minfilia could not be sent to the First.

The First could never have fallen to Light to begin with if she hadn't handed out all the Crystals. What you're saying here is that she empowered them with Crystals to solve the problem created by empowering them with Crystals. Nevermind that as we see in Endwalker, Venat didn't need that power to ferry souls back and forth between shards to begin with, she was well capable of it on her own.

Where did she lie.

What, are you kidding?

[Rosenstrauch]

Let's say that we live in a universe where free will exists. If that's the case, the entire timeline doesn't exist from start to finish its entirety, because otherwise we're just making decisions on rails.

Well, let me stop you right there. First off, we're not talking about our universe. We're talking about a work of fiction. If you wanted to get strictly literal, the characters in a work of fiction have no free will at all because their choices are determined by the author(s) of such fiction. The only stories where this isn't true would be, off the top of my head, the results of roleplaying between a group of individuals.

Second, far more intelligent and well-read people than either of us have been debating this specific philosophical topic for millennia. I sincerely doubt either of us will have anything new to add to that conversation—Hell, I had to look up terms just to find what those systems of belief even are, because I am not a philosophy major. The worldview that disagrees with the one you're positing here is called compatibilism, by the way.

Thirdly, the impression I'm getting from your post is that the writers must adhere to your personal philosophical worldview, or else the story is written incorrectly. I, meanwhile, am doing my best not to judge the contents of the story by my worldview at all—an arguably self-defeating effort, I'll admit, since the only perspective I have on the story is my own. But that's my preference when it comes to discussing the events of a work of fiction. And the reality of a work of fiction is that each and every time travel rule is up to the author's discretion, not ours. Beyond outright asking them, the only way we have to determine what rules are in play is to observe the story for ourselves.

And that's what I've done. If we ever have an expansion where we fight the Time Devourer within the Tesseract/Darkness Beyond Time, where discarded timelines settle like detritus on the ocean floor, then I'll accept the existence of discarded timelines. Until then, they remain an unfalsifiable possibility, and insisting that they must exist or the story doesn't make sense is just silly.

[Veloran]

Well, let me stop you right there. First off, we're not talking about our universe. We're talking about a work of fiction.

I think that was the royal "we". As in, the "we" of those in-universe. I agree that the notion of predestination undermines many of the themes presented throughout the game, and that setup has about as many issues and implications for the story as we've seen as that of a multiverse/many-worlds interpretation of time.

If we ever have an expansion where we fight the Time Devourer within the Tesseract/Darkness Beyond Time, where discarded timelines settle like detritus on the ocean floor,

Honestly given the sheer abuse of time travel within the narrative that probably should be the next saga.