Endwalker Story sucked and it's time to admit it

[Lyth]

To what extent isn't exactly clear. We know that Loghrif was able to summon Voidsent, and it seems odd for Ascians to ever need to make pacts with them directly. I don't think that anyone predicted primal Bahamut to force Allag back single handedly. I think there's more of a story to be told in this.

[jameseoakes]

To what extent isn't exactly clear. We know that Loghrif was able to summon Voidsent, and it seems odd for Ascians to ever need to make pacts with them directly. I don't think that anyone predicted primal Bahamut to force Allag back single handedly. I think there's more of a story to be told in this.

No we are told what happened, Omega kills Bahamut, the ascians come to the dragons in the grief and convince them they can bring noble Bahamut back and they get a monster instead. The ascians also gave the allagans the means to capture Bahamut which they do allowing him to be used in Dalmund. The Ascians played both sides to perfection they didn't care who one, I don't get where you are getting the Ascians where fighting the Mycidians from

[Iscah]

I won't pretend I'm an expert in time travel, but I don't think that's how it works. How can the two timelines separate after ShB? When it supposed to branch when g'raha first kidnapped us to the First.

Remember that in og timeline, we die shortly after ghimlyt dark since varis release black rose. At that point and until the future, that timeline doesn't have time travel technology. Even after they did, they use it to send g'raha along with it to the First.

I'll even say that out of all timeline, our timeline is probably the only one who has its WoL going back in time. Because the time travel technology is the result of another timeline going into calamity.

I'm going full essay for this to keep everything organised. Sorry it's long.


How the timeline splits

I guess the exact question of "how" the timeline splits is a bit nebulous because time just is, and in a world without time travellers meddling in it then it forms a single timeline from past to future.

But we do have time travellers running around and in one instance managing to alter things, while other changes get absorbed into the single timeline.

I think the difference is how much the traveller knows about the past events they have been dropped into, and whether they alter any events they are familiar with. Our own time-travel excursions either sent us to places we didn't know the history of (Elpis; "three years ago" in Alexander) or to ensure things play out as we already know they do (the "save yourself" loop in A12).

By contrast, G'raha travelled back in time with the intent of changing an event he knew in detail. By travelling to the past and altering circumstances so the calamity could not occur, he has created a new future that is incompatible with the one he came from, creating a new branch of the timeline where the WoL does not die.


Where the timeline splits

You ask "how could the timelines separate after Shadowbringers?" but I would ask the opposite: "the timeline only split due to events in Shadowbringers, so why would it affect events before that point?"

The G'raha who becomes the Exarch is the same person we met at the Crystal Tower, not an alternate-universe copy. He started from the same world we are in – the Sundering has already happened and Hydaelyn already exists, and the not-yet-known truth behind how it happened has to be the same for both of us.

From that point he lived through the calamity and into the future where they built the time machine, and travelled back along that same timeline to return to where we are. He uses his knowledge of that future to change events and create the alternate path we are on now.

The simplest – and I think the only – way to picture it is a Y-shaped timeline that diverges at the point where the calamity is averted. One path leads to the first timeline that G'raha experienced and came back from, the other path is the one we are on. They happen side-by-side from the same starting point.


Why it doesn't matter that the WoL dies in the other timeline – time here is not linear

You describe the problem as that there is a period of time where there is only the "OG timeline" and time travel won't be invented until 200 years later.

The thing with time travel is that things don't need to happen in sequence. It doesn't matter when the time machine is invented but where the time traveller goes in it.

G'raha comes back from the future to the present, and changes things in the present. The good timeline doesn't happen "after" the bad timeline (except from G'raha's personal perspective) but happens at the same time on a parallel timeline.


Our WoL is the only one that goes back to Elpis

In a Y-shaped diverging timeline, there is only one timeline at the time of our visit to Elpis, so only one version of events involving one WoL, which is ours travelling from the time of Endwalker.

Our bad-timeline counterpart does not go to Elpis and does not need to. If they could, they would encounter us there.


The timeline as it plays out in chronological sequence

Though before looking at the big picture, also consider G'raha Exarch's personal timeline:
A: meets us at the Crystal Tower and seals himself inside
B: awakens in the bad future and travels back in time from there
C: arrives in the First and waits a hundred years to summon the WoL and with their help avert the calamity.
D: is now in the changed timeline permanently.

From his own perspective, that happens A-B-C-D. Chronologically, it's A, C and then B in one timeline, D in the other.

Now, for the wider timeline as an observer of the whole timeline would see it:

1. Events at Elpis involving our Endwalker-era WoL.

2. History as we know it, up to post-Heavenward (the identifiable timing of the Flood of Light in the First). Includes our first meeting with G'raha (A).

3. G'raha (C) arrives in the First (having first travelled back in time and then crossed the rift) and takes on the identity of Exarch. This is the earliest possible time when the timeline might diverge, depending on whether he knowingly overwrote a pre-existing history of the First or just went in with no prior knowledge of the situation there.

4. By the end of Shadowbringers, the state of the First has been altered, a rejoining is no longer possible, and events cannot lead to the future that G'raha (B) experiences. However, those events still happened or he could not exist here now. The timeline splits into two paths: one leading to the original sequence of events and the one we are on now.

5. In one path of time, the early stages of the Eighth Umbral Era are playing out and the WoL dies, but simultaneously we are alive and well in this timeline.

6. We travel back to Elpis, in the shared history of both timelines. The time loop is completed here and does not need to independently happen for the other timeline.

7. Two hundred years into the other timeline, the time machine is built and G'raha (B) sets off on a journey to change the past.

---

I hope this all makes sense. Some day I will get around to drawing it up as a proper diagram.

The Ascians played both sides to perfection they didn't care who one, I don't get where you are getting the Ascians where fighting the Mycidians from

Presumably thinking of Allag vs Meracydia, where Emet has told us that he had a hand in building the Allagan empire.

Still, for all we know so far, they could have been manipulating the Meracydians as well.

[WellGramarye]

Snip

Nothing in the lore shows this to be true with how time travel is handled. The lore shows two types of time travel. Branching alternate time lines, based on large decisions that change the future, and small self contained loops that do not change the future significantly.

Shadowbringers was the former and EW and Alex the latter. There is NO evidence that events in an alternate branch timeline affect the other branches without some kind of time travel device (Alexander, The Tycoon.)

Gra'ha changes his future by stopping the 8UE, so he can no longer return to that timeline even though it still exists. Elidibus' warning is that if we try to change the timeline by stopping the End of Days in the past, because we and everything we're fighting for exists because of the Sundering, will not exist when we return, thus creating another branch. This is the whole reason for the closed loop paradox and the convergence with Venat/Hydaelyn.

We are currently on a branch timeline, but the game, by factor of we're the main character, is shown from OUR POV.

Timeline 1

Ancient world -> Meteia -> Zodiark -> Sundering -> ARR -> Crystal Tower Raids -> HW -> SB -> B -> We Die -> 8UC -> Tycoon Created -> Time Travel -> A ->Midgarsormr Sidestory

Graha leaves at A ends up at B.

Timeline 2

Ancient world -> Meteia ->B -> Zodiark -> Sundering -> ARR -> Crystal Tower Raids -> HW -> SB -> Graha ends up on First -> SB -> EW -> A -> Current Patch

We leave at A end up at B, but return to A.


In Timeline 1, we do not EXIST to be able to go back in time. Without Graha, going back in time we can NEVER go back to Elpis. Our actions in Elpis are irrelevant to the timeline from the Ancient World up to EW, because things happening in Elpis would have happened anyway. The Metia, the summoning of Zodiark, and the Sundering, all happen whether we show up there or not. Elidibus all but straight up says this in his line about not meddling.

So what changes with us going back? The knowledge that Venat has, but refuses to act upon, and the knowledge we gain and DO act upon.

[Iscah]

Nothing in the lore shows this to be true with how time travel is handled. The lore shows two types of time travel. Branching alternate time lines, based on large decisions that change the future, and small self contained loops that do not change the future significantly.

Shadowbringers was the former and EW and Alex the latter.

Yes, those are the two types of time travel (or more accurately results of time travel) that are shown in the narrative, although I would disagree with using "large" and "small" labels. Elpis is the temporally largest instance of time travel we've seen, spanning 12,000 years, and yet is a causal loop rather than a timeline-splitter.

There is NO evidence that events in an alternate branch timeline affect the other branches without some kind of time travel device (Alexander, The Tycoon.)

I never claimed that different branches could interact, although I suspect you are using "branches" differently to me in any case.

To my understanding, we cannot directly cross timelines in the game with our current technology. There is no way for us to make contact with the 8UE timeline.

I'm not even sure exactly what you're referring to with this statement, because I don't believe I've made any reference to time travel that does not involve a time machine.


The closest thing to someone affecting another timeline is G'raha's timeline-breaking efforts, but that was achieved by travelling backwards along a single timeline and then being naturally carried by the flow of time into the beginning of a different branch. There was no jumping of timelines involved.

Gra'ha changes his future by stopping the 8UE, so he can no longer return to that timeline even though it still exists. Elidibus' warning is that if we try to change the timeline by stopping the End of Days in the past, because we and everything we're fighting for exists because of the Sundering, will not exist when we return, thus creating another branch. This is the whole reason for the closed loop paradox and the convergence with Venat/Hydaelyn.

In the scenario that we altered the past by preventing the Sundering, the thing that would create a branch would be our actions in the past, not our return to the present. A second timeline would branch off starting from the time of Elpis, and we would be permanently stuck in it (unless the nature of the time portal means that it remains tethered to the timeline from which we started).

We are currently on a branch timeline, but the game, by factor of we're the main character, is shown from OUR POV.

Timeline 1

Ancient world -> Meteia -> Zodiark -> Sundering -> ARR -> Crystal Tower Raids -> HW -> SB -> B -> We Die -> 8UC -> Tycoon Created -> Time Travel -> A ->Midgarsormr Sidestory

Graha leaves at A ends up at B.

Timeline 2

Ancient world -> Meteia ->B -> Zodiark -> Sundering -> ARR -> Crystal Tower Raids -> HW -> SB -> Graha ends up on First -> SB -> EW -> A -> Current Patch

We leave at A end up at B, but return to A.


In Timeline 1, we do not EXIST to be able to go back in time. Without Graha, going back in time we can NEVER go back to Elpis. Our actions in Elpis are irrelevant to the timeline from the Ancient World up to EW, because things happening in Elpis would have happened anyway. The Metia, the summoning of Zodiark, and the Sundering, all happen whether we show up there or not. Elidibus all but straight up says this in his line about not meddling.

So what changes with us going back? The knowledge that Venat has, but refuses to act upon, and the knowledge we gain and DO act upon.

I'm not following your explanation at all. If these are branches, where do they branch off? Why does it need two complete timelines starting from the ancient world just to diverge at Shadowbringers?

[WellGramarye]

I'm not following your explanation at all. If these are branches, where do they branch off? Why does it need two complete timelines starting from the ancient world just to diverge at Shadowbringers?

Regardless of where it branches off, in Graha's original timeline, before he jumped ship and changed his own future, there was a past that happened. This is what a timeline is. Point A to Point B to Point C etc. He diverged his timeline after Stormblood, which enabled the WoL to be able to go back in time. In this new timeline, which is seperate from the original because we now exist in it again, continue past Stormblood, through Shadowbringers, and into Endwalker where we go back 12,500 years, and learn new things about the End times.

This has an effect of thus:

1. We warn Venat of the future. In Graha's original timeline Venat could not have been warned about the future because we did not exist to go back in time to tell her.
2. We gain knowledge of the Endsinger, and spread that to both the Scions and Sharlyan. In Graha's original timeline this could not have been known because we would have never gone back in time because we were dead, and could not have told anyone about any of this.
3. We travel and have an affect on the events of Pandaemonium. This is to be seen how this may have differed, but more than likely the place got nuked or something originally.
4. During our trip to Elpis we cannot change the events that happen there significantly, as that would cause a MAJOR Paradox. By stopping the End of Days, we would prevent the sundering, which would make us as the player character and our world, not exist in that current world, and create yet another branch timeline. This is what Elidibus warns of.


It would be more appropriate to say that by changing the future, Graha created a Parallel Universe, that has a different history and leads a different path than the one his original world took.

If this still isn't clear, I'll make an illustration.

[Iscah]

Regardless of where it branches off, in Graha's original timeline, before he jumped ship and changed his own future, there was a past that happened. This is what a timeline is. Point A to Point B to Point C etc. He diverged his timeline after Stormblood, which enabled the WoL to be able to go back in time. In this new timeline, which is seperate from the original because we now exist in it again [...]

Diverged the timeline, yes. That means to separate into two streams at that point while remaining a single stream up to that point.

But to say we "exist in it again" is misleading. He went back in time to a point before we died and created a path where we never ceased to exist in the first place. There is no gap.

And you're still not giving any reason why changing events from Stormblood onwards should mean that the timeline separates into two completely separate timelines with different pasts all the way back to Elpis, even though G'raha started in the same timeline as us with the same past as us.

[redheadturk]

4. During our trip to Elpis we cannot change the events that happen there significantly, as that would cause a MAJOR Paradox. By stopping the End of Days, we would prevent the sundering, which would make us as the player character and our world, not exist in that current world, and create yet another branch timeline. This is what Elidibus warns of.


It would be more appropriate to say that by changing the future, Graha created a Parallel Universe, that has a different history and leads a different path than the one his original world took.

If this still isn't clear, I'll make an illustration.

So what? A branched timeline where the Ancients get to live and be happy is what we want

[thegreatonemal]

No we are told what happened, Omega kills Bahamut, the ascians come to the dragons in the grief and convince them they can bring noble Bahamut back and they get a monster instead. The ascians also gave the allagans the means to capture Bahamut which they do allowing him to be used in Dalmund. The Ascians played both sides to perfection they didn't care who one, I don't get where you are getting the Ascians where fighting the Mycidians from

Omega captures primal Bahamut and the triad, not kills the original. The original dies in a war of attrition with voidsent.

[jameseoakes]

Omega captures primal Bahamut and the triad, not kills the original. The original dies in a war of attrition with voidsent.

I'm pretty sure it was somewhere that Omega mistakes Bahamut for Midgarrzoma and kills him.