Revelations from Patch 6.1

[Iscah]

I dunno how I feel about

Omega just being a normal Omicron just given an upgraded body. It makes him feel less special, I guess? Ive never particularly cared for his character or storyline but even so I'm a bit iffy on this.

Yeah, it doesn't ring true to me either.

Omega's whole "thing" is that it is a created being with phenomenal powers but no concept of anything beyond its directive to learn and evolve. The Omicrons are this confusing junction of "we used to be living beings and we're aware of this, even though we discarded it" and it's not clear whether they're ultimately programmed AIs or genuine descendants of human-equivalent beings. Omega's origin as being created by such people is fine, but saying that it is one of those people sounds wrong.

I'm also not sure what we're supposed to make of the so-casual-I-missed-it-while-playing implication that M-017 from Ultima is (was, could have been) the same entity we now know as Omega. The Omicrons on Ultima seem to be a snapshot of Meteion's interaction with the real ones, recreated and left to think and act by themselves for some unknown amount of time, so presumably at some point after this "snapshot" the real M-017 was transferred-or-copied into Omega and the replicated one has independently developed its existential crisis. (I would have to go over the cutscenes again to figure out exactly how Sir might tie into the timing of it.)

So, are we supposed to learn from this that Omega is so particularly special in some way that it reached this thoughtful state from scratch in two separate "timelines" that put it in very different circumstances?

It all feels a little too connected up.

From this development I would guess we might be aiming for Omega learning that its other self already "developed a heart" itself and can do it again. I preferred my previous understanding that two Omicrons (well, one Omicron and one Omicron-built war machine) had both independently regained individuality and maybe more of them could too, especially now that they're out of Meteion's despair loop.

[EdwinLi]

The Garleans hadn't reached the New World that we know of. Or we probably wouldn't have the 1-50 story of Blue Mage be about how there's supposedly a cerulean gold mine waiting to be tapped into. Even though it would disrupt and most likely ruin the simple way of life of those who live there.

Depends on the context of what they will reveal in Season 2 due to how the lore about the New World is still a location being largely unexplored. Scouting parties and small amount of forces have already been sent by both sides but only manage to cover a small area of the New World just enough to establish a base of operations from both Eorzea and Garleans. Not enough to even cover past, what it sounds like, 10% of the New World due to restricted supplies and contact with Eorzea or Garlean Empire.

Not to mention we still have a number of Legions that have their status unknown currently as well due to them remaining in the locations they were deployed once Garlemald fell. How they have adapted to their new situation now the Garlean Empire has fallen is still unknown until sometime in Season 2 when we may finally enter those regions they have been located in.

With that said, this does open up opportunity to have 7.0 focus on the beginning of Eorzea Alliance exploring the New World since base of operations have already been established during earlier expedition attempts and with the Garlean Empire versus Eorzea Alliance war being over, the Eorzea Alliance should have more resources to be diverted to a New World Expedition team which should open up a lot of interests from the adventurer guild, businesses, Rowena, and etc.

how this can play into introducing the Season 2 Antagonist is unknown for now since we are only on the clean up phase of the storyline for 6.X era with patch 6.1 to 6.3. Patch 6.4 is the normal time when they actually reveal hints of the plot for the upcoming expansion like always.


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That aside, since Yoshi-P and the developers literally made WoL do a Jecht shot in Hildibrand Season 5 Episode 1, I hope this may give them some ideas to make a Tidus job later.

[Kranel_San]

Perhaps. Just to note that in the FFXIV galaxy where Etheirys is at least, we had a full sci-fi civilization that possibly possessed multiple worlds and spread a common language among them. It's interesting how we went from a fantasy somewhat bows and arrows to being in the same setting as interstellar empires.

First time? The transition we have is similar to that of WoW where in the base game they had literally dungeons and dragons and in the first expansion had you going inside a spaceship filled with intergalactic demons.
I'm not much into sci-fi but I have to say, a smooth mix of fantasy and sci-fi might be a thing for me...
This makes me feel bad about Sigma dreamscape because it could have been an expansion plot if not more than that instead of the side-content we got.

[MikkoAkure]

This makes me feel bad about Sigma dreamscape because it could have been an expansion plot if not more than that instead of the side-content we got.

Well we’re still building that end-of-the-world bar in Ultima Thule that looks like it will get added to every other patch or something. It wouldn’t make sense for us to bother with that empty town and send aliens there unless they were going to add to it over time.

Hopefully that’s something they actually come back to.

[Alleo]

And on a side note to that side note, it is a strange sort of mental effort to remember to refer to Omega as "it" and not default to "he". "It" just isn't a pronoun we use with a sentient being and it sounds wrong, plus – I keep struggling even as I write this – we use it (the word) as a placeholder for so many intangible things as we write about them. But Omega has no gender and the quests are using "it" for ...it. I just defaulted to "him" again there even as I drafted the sentence in my head.

In the german version Omega is seemingly a female. At least they used "sie" a lot. I am not sure why they did that.

[Cleretic]

In the german version Omega is seemingly a female. At least they used "sie" a lot. I am not sure why they did that.

It makes sense. German is an extremely gendered language, to the point where you just kinda can't structure most sentences about a subject without applying some kind of gender. French is the same, and hit the same thing with Mitron in the all-roles capstone quest, gendering them with female pronouns---which was actually a decision from on high and not considered a mistake, which we now know to be because Mitron was in some way female-identifying.

Incidentally, a fun way to see this is in the Tales from the Shadows story around Azem fighting a volcano; in English there's no gender applied to Azem, and in Japanese all gender is implied so there's no sweat. But if you swap the website language to French or German, they have the 'WoL's gender' option for that story because they actually can't write the same scene without gendered pronouns.

All of this is actually done with collaboration with the original Japanese writers, as a way to avoid the situation they hit with Nael back in 1.0, who in Japanese was completely ungendered, and the localization teams didn't learn her gender until well after they'd all started defaulting to male pronouns for ease of writing (this specific problem is actually why FFXIV's localization team works so closely with the writers now). So in this case, for whatever reason, Omega apparently identifies as female, at least in that story. Good for her! Although I have no idea if that's also true in the new quests, I know neither French nor German, so it might be a bit presumptuous to call Omega that in the present day, but if you struggle with 'it' then she/her pronouns are probably the better option!

I actually had heard 'Omega identifies as female in that story' before, but nobody had explained why they drew that conclusion until now, so thanks for that!

[Iscah]

In the german version Omega is seemingly a female. At least they used "sie" a lot. I am not sure why they did that.

I've only got long-ago high school German lessons and a pocket translation dictionary, but "sie" is flexible. From school I know it can be used for "she", "they" or (capitalised as Sie) a polite form of "you"; the dictionary tells me it can also be used for "it", but I'm not sure of the technicalities. Still, it doesn't definitely translate to "she" in Omega's case.

[EaraGrace]

Yeah, it doesn't ring true to me either.

Omega's whole "thing" is that it is a created being with phenomenal powers but no concept of anything beyond its directive to learn and evolve. The Omicrons are this confusing junction of "we used to be living beings and we're aware of this, even though we discarded it" and it's not clear whether they're ultimately programmed AIs or genuine descendants of human-equivalent beings. Omega's origin as being created by such people is fine, but saying that it is one of those people sounds wrong.

I'm also not sure what we're supposed to make of the so-casual-I-missed-it-while-playing implication that M-017 from Ultima is (was, could have been) the same entity we now know as Omega. The Omicrons on Ultima seem to be a snapshot of Meteion's interaction with the real ones, recreated and left to think and act by themselves for some unknown amount of time, so presumably at some point after this "snapshot" the real M-017 was transferred-or-copied into Omega and the replicated one has independently developed its existential crisis. (I would have to go over the cutscenes again to figure out exactly how Sir might tie into the timing of it.)

So, are we supposed to learn from this that Omega is so particularly special in some way that it reached this thoughtful state from scratch in two separate "timelines" that put it in very different circumstances?

It all feels a little too connected up.

From this development I would guess we might be aiming for Omega learning that its other self already "developed a heart" itself and can do it again. I preferred my previous understanding that two Omicrons (well, one Omicron and one Omicron-built war machine) had both independently regained individuality and maybe more of them could too, especially now that they're out of Meteion's despair loop.

I’m not sure if the assumption that

the souls in Ultima are simply recreations is true. Meteion mentions gathering their “shadowed hearts” and later on describes the dragons we find suffusing the Dynamis in Ulitma as “shadow and shade.” Thus the bodies and landmasses would be recreations, but not the Dynamis infused souls that inhabit them.

I also think the implication regarding M-017 is not that the mind controlling it in Ultima is another Omega, but rather Sir using a body that was vacant for its own purpose. This would’ve happened before he reached out to Meteion and would then be recreated by her.

Or that’s I least my interpretation.

[Alleo]

I've only got long-ago high school German lessons and a pocket translation dictionary, but "sie" is flexible. From school I know it can be used for "she", "they" or (capitalised as Sie) a polite form of "you"; the dictionary tells me it can also be used for "it", but I'm not sure of the technicalities. Still, it doesn't definitely translate to "she" in Omega's case.

As someone native in german it really sounded like them calling Omega a female. The formal version of "Sie" makes no sense in that case and for it we have the word "es". I sadly dont remember how they talked about Omega before that quest. Maybe its a little hint that they saw her as more "human" after giving her a voice?

Anyway I thought that was a bit of a interesting information.

It makes sense. German is an extremely gendered language, to the point where you just kinda can't structure most sentences about a subject without applying some kind of gender. French is the same, and hit the same thing with Mitron in the all-roles capstone quest, gendering them with female pronouns---which was actually a decision from on high and not considered a mistake, which we now know to be because Mitron was in some way female-identifying.

Oh yeah we are like that. Its not easy to learn the language thanks to this. But still we do have the "es" which basically means "it". So if they saw it as a thing they could have easily used that. So I just headcanon it that they cant see Omega as just a toy anymore thus they needed to adress her in a way. (Maybe the things hanging down there reminded them of breasts)

[Lium]

Everyone in Ultima Thule was a recreation. No one there was "real".

I dunno how I feel about

Omega just being a normal Omicron just given an upgraded body. It makes him feel less special, I guess? Ive never particularly cared for his character or storyline but even so I'm a bit iffy on this.

Correct me if I'm wrong but...

Wasn't M-017 actually Sir? It was the Omicron that we had to observe for exhibiting strange behavior, right? And it turned out it was actually Sir who had taken that body (or frame) to casually observe the other Omicrons as it pondered their purpose? I might be misremembering.