The 8th umbral calamity

[Jandor]

Which is fine and good; both Chrono Trigger and the Terminator were inconsistent with their rules, and just stuck with what worked for the story they were trying to tell.

That's fair enough for a story, but XIV is also a world. Only a fraction of my time in that world is spent experiencing the story.

Personal preference I suppose, but I prefer my MMO worlds to feel like they could theoretically be actual places, and that requires reasonably consistent rules about how things work. Not that I think the time travel is written inconsistently, but, y'know, hypothetically.

[Iscah]

The 8th UC world split from the Source, similarly to the other reflection except a century in the future instead of millennia in the past, and it only exists within the mess of thoroughly sliced and diced space-time where Etheirys is.

It's all part of one big time loop, the 8th UC world included. That's my theory at least.

I think we may have had this debate before, but that doesn't make sense at all to me. It's shown that both the 8UE timeline and ours have (or had) their individual copies of both Source and First, and presumably all the other shards as well. It's not just another shard that has splintered away and exists in isolation, equal to the Source and First we know.

[Jandor]

I think we may have had this debate before, but that doesn't make sense at all to me. It's shown that both the 8UE timeline and ours have (or had) their individual copies of both Source and First, and presumably all the other shards as well. It's not just another shard that has splintered away and exists in isolation, equal to the Source and First we know.

All I can remember seeing of the 8UC is a few empty locations in a flashback or short story, can't remember which. Nothing of the wider universe/multiverse.

Makes sense to me that the Source would splinter when the Ironworks time machine set off. They were trying to create a paradox by undoing events that led to them going back in time, timeline doesn't like that, world fractures and the 8UC branches off, the time machine travels back in time on the Source to before the calamity and we get to have our second attempt.

And yes, we've had this conversation before, a few times I think.

[KageTokage]

I'm praying they just let go of the timey wimey shenanigans for good once the Pandaemonium raids are done and dusted, but I feel like it's always going to be something on the backburner in case they run out of ideas for future content/expansions.

I could totally see them deciding to either get the 8UC timeline involved in something or sending us off on more business in the unsundered world if we encounter another problem down the line that we're unable to find answers to in the present.

[Iscah]

All I can remember seeing of the 8UC is a few empty locations in a flashback or short story, can't remember which. Nothing of the wider universe/multiverse.

We don't see it, but we are told that their scientists have done their research and know that it is the First which was rejoined to their world, which is the Source, which is the only shard that other shards are rejoined to rather than being obliterated into pure aether.

If they have the technology to work that out, then they should also have the technology to notice that they aren't actually on the Source but a weird splintered version while the real Source is fine. That does not appear to be the case.

We have never at any point had the story suggest the possibility of shards being sundered by events other than the original Sundering, and the story has presented it as purely about diverging timelines. I don't see a good reason to reject the reason they gave us and invent one that relies on a different mechanism.

[Carin-Eri]

I'm praying they just let go of the timey wimey shenanigans for good once the Pandaemonium raids are done and dusted, but I feel like it's always going to be something on the backburner in case they run out of ideas for future content/expansions.

I could totally see them deciding to either get the 8UC timeline involved in something or sending us off on more business in the unsundered world if we encounter another problem down the line that we're unable to find answers to in the present.

It does seem like they're bringing it into the present....

Considering this scene in the Pandemonium 8th Cutscene:

Where the facility appears in Sharlayan

[Jandor]

We don't see it, but we are told that their scientists have done their research and know that it is the First which was rejoined to their world, which is the Source, which is the only shard that other shards are rejoined to rather than being obliterated into pure aether.

If they have the technology to work that out, then they should also have the technology to notice that they aren't actually on the Source but a weird splintered version while the real Source is fine. That does not appear to be the case.

They would be on the Source at that time. They're only not the Source after the split.

We have never at any point had the story suggest the possibility of shards being sundered by events other than the original Sundering, and the story has presented it as purely about diverging timelines. I don't see a good reason to reject the reason they gave us and invent one that relies on a different mechanism.

I wouldn't either, if they had given us a reason. They haven't though.
We know the 8UC survived, and that is pretty much all we know for certain.

----

You were right by the way, we have had this conversation before, a couple times actually. Seeing as we have no new information to work with since the last time we had this conversation, maybe we should just skip the back and forth and agree to disagree instead of doing it all again?

[Cleretic]

That's fair enough for a story, but XIV is also a world. Only a fraction of my time in that world is spent experiencing the story.

Personal preference I suppose, but I prefer my MMO worlds to feel like they could theoretically be actual places, and that requires reasonably consistent rules about how things work. Not that I think the time travel is written inconsistently, but, y'know, hypothetically.

I think you've created a completely artificial way to declare FFXIV to be magically different from other examples.

Chrono Trigger is an RPG with a well-defined, constant world that you're largely intended to explore and experience, both within and without the context of direct storytelling. The Terminator series has gone on for decades across, most likely, more mediums than I'm aware of it ever touching, all creating a singular world filled with numerous different stories. Are they not worlds beyond their individual stories? What about Star Trek and Doctor Who, two other long-running series with beloved worlds and... less than consistent rules about their fictional sciences, both related to time travel and not?

And FFXIV... well, its in-universe rules don't exist in a pure vacuum. Everything about its worldbuilding exists to serve a story somewhere; it's full of them, after all, some big, many small. They don't just write things in complete isolation; even the descriptions of Ishgard's Communal Salt Lick is written to color in the world of Ishgard, to add backing to the stories set in it. And sure, you probably do spend a lot of time doing things that you don't consider 'experiencing the story', but... well, let's take the weekly Abyssos raids I assume you're doing. Do you truly do them without caring one whit about Agdistis and Hephaistos? And if you truly don't, or we instead talk about a part of the game as 'story-divorced' as possible like the Island Sanctuary... well, does your enjoyment of that really get impacted at all by in-universe science off on the other side of the game universe?

I don't think you care more about FFXIV's rules than other examples because it's somehow different, I think you care more because you just like the game more. Which is absolutely fair, (I know I don't exactly bring up the Terminator because I like the series), but let's not pretend it's anything else.

[RyuDragnier]

I still think the only reason the 8UC timeline still exists is because of Alexander. The primal of time itself is essentially anchored in every possible timeline of the world, and so it wouldn't be hard for it to guarantee that one timeline remains, it's completely within the scope of its power. Which is ridiculous, but it's a literal Deus Ex Machina with unlimited power over time (and technically space since it cordoned off itself and the immediate space around it into a bubble of time).

[KageTokage]

It does seem like they're bringing it into the present....

Considering this scene in the Pandemonium 8th Cutscene:

Where the facility appears in Sharlayan

I don't think we're necessarily going to have to return to Elpis again to get answers about what the heck is going on there, not to mention doing so would necessitate us having to tell Themis and company the truth of things, which while something I feel they deserve to know, would by necessity have to create some manner of contrivance to ensure that it changes nothing about the future.