Is it time for a second Dragonsong War?

[SeiyaSoiya]

Midgardsormr escaped his home planet after the invasion of the Omicrons and landed on Etheyris seeking refuge.
Apparently there he made a pact with Hydaelyn to become a sort of guardian for Etheyris, details are muddy but basically she needed help fighting the ascians.
The result is that the dragons lived relatively peacefully for many years until they had to fight the Allagan Empire, created by the ascians, and lost countless lives to them in the form of not only slaughter, capture, torture, sending some of the dragons into the void, but also turning some of them into primals and imprisoning them into an artificial moon.
Then they had to fight 1000 more years against the heaven's ward, also created by the ascians, until the warrior of light put an end to it, slaying nidhogg.
All of this in service to Hydaelyn, who so graciously allowed them refuge in Etheyris.

Now my question is, if someone were to reveal to Hraesvelgr, currently, that Hydaelyn had a tracker on the bird for over 13,000 years, wouldn't that spark a 2nd Dragonsong War, this time of all dragons against all non dragons?
-Hydaelyn knew the ascians were not the real enemy, yet had the dragons pit against them and sacrifice countless of their children to them
-Hydaelyn knew the dragons were capable of interstellar travel, as much as they were probably not immune to the song of the end, she could at least fashion some protection, let's call it the blessing of light, or echo, that protected them against turning into monstrosities
-Whatever the Omicrons did to the dragons, it would be at least comparable to what the Allagan Empire and the Heavens' Ward did to them, and while the Omicrons were at least evil and did it for a reason, the ascians who machinated all these atrocities against the dragons weren't even the real enemy

[Carin-Eri]

Well, whilst not exactly what you had in mind, I'd say there is definitely some story potential in Omega visiting Base Omicron or 'The Last Dregs' (to meet N-7000) and perhaps Midgardsormr visiting Reah Tahra.

[EaraGrace]

Midgardsormr escaped his home planet after the invasion of the Omicrons and landed on Etheyris seeking refuge.
Apparently there he made a pact with Hydaelyn to become a sort of guardian for Etheyris, details are muddy but basically she needed help fighting the ascians.

The pact as I understand it was for Midgard to stand guard in Mor Dhona in exchange for his children to do as they wish.

The result is that the dragons lived relatively peacefully for many years until they had to fight the Allagan Empire, created by the ascians, and lost countless lives to them in the form of not only slaughter, capture, torture, sending some of the dragons into the void, but also turning some of them into primals and imprisoning them into an artificial moon.

The Allagans marched on Bahamut and Tiamats brood in Meracydia, and as far as we know Hydaelyn didn’t speak any of them. Things progressed as they did naturally.

Then they had to fight 1000 more years against the heaven's ward, also created by the ascians, until the warrior of light put an end to it, slaying nidhogg.
All of this in service to Hydaelyn, who so graciously allowed them refuge in Etheyris.

Once again there’s nothing to indicate that Hydaelyn compelled them to do so or that the dragons are in service to Her.

Now my question is, if someone were to reveal to Hraesvelgr, currently, that Hydaelyn had a tracker on the bird for over 13,000 years, wouldn't that spark a 2nd Dragonsong War, this time of all dragons against all non dragons?
-Hydaelyn knew the ascians were not the real enemy, yet had the dragons pit against them and sacrifice countless of their children to them
-Hydaelyn knew the dragons were capable of interstellar travel, as much as they were probably not immune to the song of the end, she could at least fashion some protection, let's call it the blessing of light, or echo, that protected them against turning into monstrosities
-Whatever the Omicrons did to the dragons, it would be at least comparable to what the Allagan Empire and the Heavens' Ward did to them, and while the Omicrons were at least evil and did it for a reason, the ascians who machinated all these atrocities against the dragons weren't even the real enemy

1. The Dragons knew as much as the rest of mankind, so it would be odd to hold them to account for that. More to the point, we don’t have evidence beyond the initial deal that Hydaelyn made the dragons do anything. And hell, the fact that Hydaelyn gave Ysayle a crystal of light should be factored in too. She was the one arguing for the dragons and Ishgardians to establish peace, a role she might not have been able to take on without Hydaelyns power.

2. The Dragons’ natural aetheric density gave them protection. And we shouldn’t presume the blessing would help against Dynamis.

3. The Ascians threatened to free Zodiark and complete the Rejoining, spelling doom for Hydaelyns plan and killing all those on the reflections. That’s enough to justify action. And yet even still the Allagan/Ishgard conflicts were not compelled by Her as far as we know.

Well, whilst not exactly what you had in mind, I'd say there is definitely some story potential in Omega visiting Base Omicron or 'The Last Dregs' (to meet N-7000) and perhaps Midgardsormr visiting Reah Tahra.

Definitely agree.

[Cleretic]

1. The Dragons knew as much as the rest of mankind, so it would be odd to hold them to account for that. More to the point, we don’t have evidence beyond the initial deal that Hydaelyn made the dragons do anything. And hell, the fact that Hydaelyn gave Ysayle a crystal of light should be factored in too. She was the one arguing for the dragons and Ishgardians to establish peace, a role she might not have been able to take on without Hydaelyns power.

2. The Dragons’ natural aetheric density gave them protection. And we shouldn’t presume the blessing would help against Dynamis.

3. The Ascians threatened to free Zodiark and complete the Rejoining, spelling doom for Hydaelyns plan and killing all those on the reflections. That’s enough to justify action. And yet even still the Allagan/Ishgard conflicts were not compelled by Her as far as we know.

Yeah, not only do we not really know the terms of Hydaelyn and Midgardsormr's deal, I don't think the dragons would consider it a betrayal that she called the Ascians the bad guys. Those guys are causing apocalypses, crunching planets, and were the direct confirmed cause of both Bahamut's death and Tiamat's imprisonment; if we find out that they also had a hand in the start of the Dragonsong war (which we don't know but wouldn't be in any way out of the question for that lot), then they're also responsible for the deaths of Ratatoskr, Lady Shiva, and eventually Nidhogg. Hell, you could argue they're responsible for Nidhogg's death anyway because they were manipulating Thordan by the time we got there. And they're also responsible for the hijacking of Nidhogg's Eyes for Shinryu, and I have no idea how Hraesvelgr feels about that but it's probably not 'happy'. I see no reason at all to believe Hraesvelgr would hear 'actually Hydaelyn's plan was a bit more complicated and the Ascians weren't the ultimate endgame foe' and go 'I'm mad enough about this to start a war'.

Especially because Hraesvelgr is, and I say this as kindly as I can about him... a highly passive, depressed sadsack. Even if he did think this was an egregious enough misstep to be angry about it, I think all he'd actually do with that is go have a depression-nap for a few decades.

And while you're right that we don't really have any direct evidence the Blessing does anything about dynamis corruption, we do have the example of Fordola. Presuming that the Resonance is also an artificial Blessing as well as an artificial Echo (which is basically the only way to make both Stormblood and Endwalker's takes on the subject track), we can look at her struggles not to turn as evidence that, yeah, the Blessing doesn't do dip to protect against that. It also feels like if that was a theory with in-universe evidence, it's something Omega would've considered in their EW story, so the fact they didn't gives more credence to the fact the Blessing wouldn't have helped.


Count me in as another person who thinks there'd be some interesting roots in Midgardsormr (or any of the still-around First Brood) visiting the dragons in Ultima Thule, though. I don't think Omega visiting the Omicrons would do much that Omega's quest didn't already do, but having one of the dragons go there would be an interesting time to explore characters that have been around, but haven't really had a lot of character moments.

[KageTokage]

I can't help but wonder what's going on over in Meracydia given its originally close ties to dragonkind and the centuries that passed since Tiamat was captured by the Allagans.

The only thing we do know is that a tower was raised there to summon Lunar Bahamut and temporarily add some dragons to the ranks of Telophoroi, with unknown effects on the local populace.

[Lyth]

One point worth remembering is that when Alexander was summoned, it calculated out the outcomes of every possible timeline, including one in which it intervened to prevent the Seventh Umbral Calamity from ever happening. On review of all these, its final judgement was to preserve the existing timeline and remove itself from it by creating a time loop. By that same logic, you'd think that people would hold it responsible for all the bad things that ever happened in the universe, but people generally don't perceive things that way.

Most people don't enjoy being caught up in wars, and someone really keen on fighting rarely needs a good reason for doing so anyways. Mid seems like he's got much better things to be doing with his time, like taking cat naps in aetherically dense areas, and I can't fault him for that. Someday, when we retire from adventuring, I would love to go on a tour with him to visit all the top aether hotspots around the world.

[Cleretic]

One point worth remembering is that when Alexander was summoned, it calculated out the outcomes of every possible timeline, including one in which it intervened to prevent the Seventh Umbral Calamity from ever happening. On review of all these, its final judgement was to preserve the existing timeline and remove itself from it by creating a time loop. By that same logic, you'd think that people would hold it responsible for all the bad things that ever happened in the universe, but people generally don't perceive things that way.

That's an interesting point; I've never really thought about why Alex never gets brought up here like that. I personally don't blame it because it was always thinking in terms of its own drain on aether; no matter what happened, it was always the problem, so Alexander can never act to prevent anything except itself. Even then, you would've thought that it could've used the time it was incontrovertibly, unavoidably alive to give us some useful info like 'carry white auracite more often', 'pose some guards around Asahi's corpse', or 'don't trust a word a woman named Misija ever says'.

Perhaps the reason Alexander didn't even do any of that was because there wasn't any guidance that would've led to a better outcome. We were already on the right path, as slim as our chances were, and no piece of advice or information was ever going to increase those chances.

Or maybe Alexander gets off scot-free around here because it's a cool robot that exists largely isolated from all other storylines, and not a woman who stands in moral opposition to the local favorite cute boy.

[Cilia]

I mean if you really wanna pile on blame then the Sundering is also G'raha's fault for not traveling back that far to learn more about and prevent it, and the PC is themselves responsible for untold suffering because all life that currently exists and will exist in the future is a consequence of them ending Meteion's song (and suffering is part and parcel with life).

Venat / Hydaelyn gets a lot of flak because she's a matronly figure who believes in tough love despite her joie de vivre. Emet-Selch is a deadly tsundere / woobie combo.

[SentioftheHoukai]

Well, whilst not exactly what you had in mind, I'd say there is definitely some story potential in Omega visiting Base Omicron or 'The Last Dregs' (to meet N-7000) and perhaps Midgardsormr visiting Reah Tahra.

Yeeeeeeaaaah, ngl I really was thinking Endwalker would have... I dunno, just more regarding the lore they told us to pay attention to and go back and play (namely, Ishikawa told us to replay the Coils and Omega). I defs thought there was something off when instead of using the literal Ragnarok that was already present in the Coils and gift-wrapped for us by the long-dead Allagans instead of Sharlayan's Normandy SR-II clone. Also, per the dragons it seems like a missed opportunity to me that Middy didn't wake up or even stir at all in the presence of members of his people he didn't know personally. I thought he'd at least be curious, you know? Well, who knows. They recently added Omega's little quests that according to how they were advertised shouldn't be done and dusted just yet, so maybe Middy's time is almost up? Maybe he'll be the foci of the next quest set?

At the end of the day, I don't think any of the lore they told us to replay mattered at all in Endwalker. Unless I'm mistaken, none of the Coils lore especially couldn't be found elsewhere in game yet none of that content surfaced or was referenced in Endwalker at all.

[EaraGrace]

Just one thread without this argument…