The Ascians going forward

[Cleretic]

Where is that from? All I recall is that they joked at one point about not really having a plan before Shadowbringers.

Sometime soon after Endwalker, there was a Japanese radio program (or maybe podcast, I'm not sure) that had Yuichi Nakamura (Thancred's Japanese VA) and Yoshi-P on. Yuichi mentioned that on being hired, he was given a sheet of info on the Ascians with a bunch of stuff that never came up on it, and Yoshi-P's response was basically 'yeah all that got thrown out'. While we have no idea what that stuff actually was or how complete it ended up being, it does at least confirm that there were ideas that got changed. And that completely matches with the fact that the pre-Heavensward Ascian content is written largely consistently amongst itself, it's clearly in some way intentioned and not just formless nonsense, but doesn't completely track with Ascian content afterwards.

We know that for the most part their planning is very ad hoc, and any instances of callbacks to previous plot hooks are less actually planned and more 'oh hey here's something we wrote in that works for what we need', but it seems like the Ascians were a little different, there was a plan and it changed. We have no idea how fully-formed that original idea was at any point, or even who wrote it (for all we know it might've been lingering 1.0 stuff that was already out the window but was all they had to get the VA into character), but they were definitely working towards something and then changed track rather than the more typical 'this story needs a magic artifact, let's use that one from 1.0'.

This part just stuck in my mind because I liked the image of Yuichi Nakamura getting to the actual Ascian content his characters were interacting with, and spending two expansions going 'why aren't they mentioning X, this feels like it should come up now' but just never having the chance to bring it up until right then.

[MikkoAkure]

Sometime soon after Endwalker, there was a Japanese radio program (or maybe podcast, I'm not sure) that had Yuichi Nakamura (Thancred's Japanese VA) and Yoshi-P on. Yuichi mentioned that on being hired, he was given a sheet of info on the Ascians with a bunch of stuff that never came up on it, and Yoshi-P's response was basically 'yeah all that got thrown out'. While we have no idea what that stuff actually was or how complete it ended up being, it does at least confirm that there were ideas that got changed. And that completely matches with the fact that the pre-Heavensward Ascian content is written largely consistently amongst itself, it's clearly in some way intentioned and not just formless nonsense, but doesn't completely track with Ascian content afterwards.

We know that for the most part their planning is very ad hoc, and any instances of callbacks to previous plot hooks are less actually planned and more 'oh hey here's something we wrote in that works for what we need', but it seems like the Ascians were a little different, there was a plan and it changed. We have no idea how fully-formed that original idea was at any point, or even who wrote it (for all we know it might've been lingering 1.0 stuff that was already out the window but was all they had to get the VA into character), but they were definitely working towards something and then changed track rather than the more typical 'this story needs a magic artifact, let's use that one from 1.0'.

This part just stuck in my mind because I liked the image of Yuichi Nakamura getting to the actual Ascian content his characters were interacting with, and spending two expansions going 'why aren't they mentioning X, this feels like it should come up now' but just never having the chance to bring it up until right then.

There's a different interview with Yoshi-P, Ishikawa, and Oda about the Ascians that describes how things were with them:

I joined the project during 1.0, and there was already some fundamentals of the world-building, such as the Ascians and Hydaelyn. In truth, we didn’t know what to do with this lore. I’m glad there were were able to make them something players can understand.

Even back during ARR, HW and SB, it was said 'we don’t have detailed lore yet for what the Ascians’ goals are, so let’s just have them be doing bad stuff in the background.'

Its easy to think we planned it out in advance, but in truth thats wrong, the original Ascian lore we had only went as far as 'looks like they’re doing bad stuff'. [...] Back in 1.0 it was said about the Ascians, 'they are paranormal entities that are planning something, they have no shadows'. But back then other characters’ shadows also didn’t display… so the Ascians’ special feature was done away with, and so after that they were rebuilt into 'a group of bad guys'.

While that doesn't mean that they weren't giving VAs a random list of things the Ascians could be up to, this interview is more well known and is probably where Iscah is coming from.

As for when the Ascian goal was crystalized, it was probably in the middle of writing the post-HW content since that's around when the Ascians stopped being all "one true god" this and "plunge the world into eternal darkness" that. It was also then that we learned about the shards and the whole mechanism around Calamities with more of a reason than just to piece back Zodiark so he can rule the world and everyone laughs maniacally.

[rainichan]

During the big "10 Years" LL they did after Endwalker, they mentioned the final Named Ascians that they have true names and that they have their backgrounds, should they decide to use them in the story in some way.

Here's the post with the translation, and here's the Q and A:

Q: Are there sundered Ascians (other than Fandaniel) or black-masked Ascians of lower ranks still around? I’d also like to know which Ascians those two red masks that Gaius carries around belonged to.

A: Perhaps a few of the sundered Ascians are still around, though it’s unclear whether they would be on the Source or one of the Reflections.

The masks Gaius carries around once belonged to Altima and Deudalaphon. However, Gaius simply had their masks, and whether or not he truly vanquished them has yet to be clarified. A point you may want to consider in your theories is what it takes to vanquish an Ascian.

And

Q: Will we have a chance to learn the identities of the full Convocation of Fourteen?

A: Their true names are already decided, but whether they’ll be revealed or not depends on how the plot develops in the future.

Despite there being some "okay no more Ascians" I do think tying up those loose ends for good would be a good idea so they're not just... there. I would think that the WoL and the Scions would know "we only dealt with these, so there are at least a few more out there." and... you know... want to deal with them. They aren't like their Unsundered counterparts, sure, but the threat of them there trying to stir up trouble wouldn't be there if they were dealt with.

[Cleretic]

Despite there being some "okay no more Ascians" I do think tying up those loose ends for good would be a good idea so they're not just... there. I would think that the WoL and the Scions would know "we only dealt with these, so there are at least a few more out there." and... you know... want to deal with them. They aren't like their Unsundered counterparts, sure, but the threat of them there trying to stir up trouble wouldn't be there if they were dealt with.

See, I think getting rid of the unaccounted-for ones just for the sake of clearing the board is a bad idea for two reasons.

1. That sounds very boring to play through. We've already dealt with a lot of Ascians, just clearing out the list sounds more like chores than anything, especially when even the writers don't have anything fun for them to do.

2. It keeps them in the wings in case someone actually does come up with an interesting context to have an Ascian be in in the future. Maybe in big main-story content, maybe in side stuff. (I'm still rooting for 'Ascian decides to be Wizard Jeff Bezos' as an antagonist for a crafting storyline.)

Sure, it would be a technically reasonable decision for the Scions to go 'yeah we should take them out before they're a big problem', but interesting stories are rarely rooted in every single person having made the 100% correct decision.

[rainichan]

See, I think getting rid of the unaccounted-for ones just for the sake of clearing the board is a bad idea for two reasons.

1. That sounds very boring to play through. We've already dealt with a lot of Ascians, just clearing out the list sounds more like chores than anything, especially when even the writers don't have anything fun for them to do.

2. It keeps them in the wings in case someone actually does come up with an interesting context to have an Ascian be in in the future. Maybe in big main-story content, maybe in side stuff. (I'm still rooting for 'Ascian decides to be Wizard Jeff Bezos' as an antagonist for a crafting storyline.)

Sure, it would be a technically reasonable decision for the Scions to go 'yeah we should take them out before they're a big problem', but interesting stories are rarely rooted in every single person having made the 100% correct decision.

Different strokes for different folks They could stay in side stories too, either way just forgetting about them would be very... out of character for the good guys. If they're on other shards then sure, we won't need to deal with them immediately assuming we don't shard hop, but eventually they'll likely be dealt with.