Endwalker Story sucked and it's time to admit it

[Kozh]

Actually, I don't know why we're seriously discussing Alexander as if he's a reliable source for deciding if the current timeline is the best or not. As I said before, Alexander is created back in HW, and shortly gone afterwards. My initial post is only to call out lyth stupid post.

[DPZ2]

Didn't read that as I found the prose unreadable and I would trust anyone from Venats death cult anyway we know Venat lied to them so I don't consider them reliable at all.

So, you are deliberately choosing to ignore a particular point of lore as written by Square Enix.

In fairness, I will have to believe you also deliberately choose to ignore any outside points written by Square Enix in favor of your own point of view.

Shall we then remove anything written by Square Enix to support your beliefs, because it was obviously written by the Ancients' Death Cult and is thus unreliable as well?

Pfui.

[Necrotica]

Actually, I don't know why we're seriously discussing Alexander as if he's a reliable source for deciding if the current timeline is the best or not. As I said before, Alexander is created back in HW, and shortly gone afterwards. My initial post is only to call out lyth stupid post.

And since Alexander was a primal he was not actually a time god. He is whatever the people that summoned him idea of what a time god should be.

I am suddenly realizing how screwed up the primals are now. Half formed shadows of will and aether. Dang that is a fucked up existence. What are their thoughts like? Do they realize they are fake on some level? Or are they like an AI program that only reacts and has no concept of true self?

[RyuDragnier]

And since Alexander was a primal he was not actually a time god. He is whatever the people that summoned him idea of what a time god should be.

I am suddenly realizing how screwed up the primals are now. Half formed shadows of will and aether. Dang that is a fucked up existence. What are their thoughts like? Do they realize they are fake on some level? Or are they like an AI program that only reacts and has no concept of true self?

Considering how intelligent Ramuh and Alexander are, I suspect that some of them indeed are aware of what they really are. Ramuh does in fact wonder when it was that people treated light as good and dark as evil, at a time when we didn't know they were just different "charges" of the elements, and even states that he knows full well that just by existing, anybody near him will be tempered. The old man is smart enough to know that he's a fake. And on Alexander, considering how all seeing it is, it too is likely aware that it is a construct, and likely just goes for its prime directive while "twisting" what it was made for in a direction its summoners did not expect so it won't cause any problems.

[jameseoakes]

So, you are deliberately choosing to ignore a particular point of lore as written by Square Enix.

In fairness, I will have to believe you also deliberately choose to ignore any outside points written by Square Enix in favor of your own point of view.

Shall we then remove anything written by Square Enix to support your beliefs, because it was obviously written by the Ancients' Death Cult and is thus unreliable as well?

Pfui.

Partly yes, if they wanted me to believe that Zodiark actually matter they needed to write him to be meaningful not whatever the thing on the moon we got was. The writing seems to make Zodiark an irrelevance to Venat a tool she needed but she never cared about him only unmaking the ancients as they we're 'wrong' so I don't trust anything from there followers as at best Venat tricked them so I don't consider them a reliable source as the conflict with what else we told is going on. If they are writing an event as import as the sundering it needs to be well written and not relegated to throw away remarks in poorly prosed side stories.
Also given they mean the souls for plant and animal life I don't see why it's that big of deal

[Lyth]

It's also worth noting that Ramuh and Alexander have both been linked to the theme of 'Judgement' throughout the franchise's long history, as evidenced by their signature attacks.

I think that our viewpoint on primals has recently been skewed by the Amaurotine perspective on their arcane creations as tools, in contrast to the classical viewpoint of summons as deities. The Meracydians treated their summons as such, and yet they still managed to hold their own against a combined force of Ascians, Allagans, and Voidsent. Is summoning, one of the franchise's most iconic schools of magic, truly just 'derivative creation magic'? Or did the Amaurotines only see part of the picture? Is there more than one way of looking at this?

[jameseoakes]

It's also worth noting that Ramuh and Alexander have both been linked to the theme of 'Judgement' throughout the franchise's long history, as evidenced by their signature attacks.

I think that our viewpoint on primals has recently been skewed by the Amaurotine perspective on their arcane creations as tools, in contrast to the classical viewpoint of summons as deities. The Meracydians treated their summons as such, and yet they still managed to hold their own against a combined force of Ascians, Allagans, and Voidsent. Is summoning, one of the franchise's most iconic schools of magic, truly just 'derivative creation magic'? Or did the Amaurotines only see part of the picture? Is there more than one way of looking at this?

The Meracydians never fought the Ascians, the Ascians played both sides as we see with them getting the dragons to summon Bahumut.

[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.