(Wildly speculative) idea about the next overarching threat - *spoilers*

[SaitoHikari]

My spoilery speculative guess is that there's going to be at least a partial rejoining with the 13th.
We'll get a second orange moon in the sky and it may also trigger a FFIX heavy reference expansion.
As for the villain probably Tataru.

Actually, this is a fairly interesting idea. A rejoining happens but its physical effects are only seen on the moon from the Source. The 13th shard gets destroyed in the rejoining and all of the souls get funneled through to the Source, but the Source itself escapes physical destruction due to the rejoining occurring on the moon itself. And it eventually results in a side effect of blowing open portals to the moons on the other shards.

Something like this could also explain why Golbez had to wait until Zodiark was gone to make his move (if this is indeed why he is putting his plan into motion now). Zodiark, the Ascians, AND the Watcher would have prevented all previous attempts at rejoinings on the moon, uncertain of how such a thing would affect Zodiark and his prison, even if moon rejoinings may be easier in theory since it's probably the epicenter of the sundering to begin with.

[Heroman3003]

Actually, this is a fairly interesting idea. A rejoining happens but its physical effects are only seen on the moon from the Source. The 13th shard gets destroyed in the rejoining and all of the souls get funneled through to the Source, but the Source itself escapes physical destruction due to the rejoining occurring on the moon itself. And it eventually results in a side effect of blowing open portals to the moons on the other shards.

Something like this could also explain why Golbez had to wait until Zodiark was gone to make his move (if this is indeed why he is putting his plan into motion now). Zodiark, the Ascians, AND the Watcher would have prevented all previous attempts at rejoinings on the moon, uncertain of how such a thing would affect Zodiark and his prison, even if moon rejoinings may be easier in theory since it's probably the epicenter of the sundering to begin with.

Wasn't a big thing about 8th rejoining that if it happens, all remaining shards also will naturally rejoin because balance of 'sundered' vs 'rejoined' shards would tip too hard?

[Iscah]

Wasn't a big thing about 8th rejoining that if it happens, all remaining shards also will naturally rejoin because balance of 'sundered' vs 'rejoined' shards would tip too hard?

There was never anything remotely like that. It might have been someone's theory as we tried to make sense of the very-pre-Shadowbringers "eighth and final Calamity" statement, or however exactly they worded it.

[Cleretic]

There was never anything remotely like that. It might have been someone's theory as we tried to make sense of the very-pre-Shadowbringers "eighth and final Calamity" statement, or however exactly they worded it.

Yeah, this is generally an explanation for why it was framed (I think in Heavensward's patches but I'm not certain) that the eighth Calamity was basically the 'last chance' to stop the Ascians. I remember seeing justifications like this, if not exactly this. If I had to guess, it sounds like something someone who generally sides with the Ascians would say to lessen the amount of active atrocities they'd be pulling the triggers on; that no, they won't be performing more acts of mass death after this because then it'd just happen naturally.

My reading of this around Shadowbringers was just that after the eighth Calamity there would be enough Zodiark put together to be able to sacrifice things to him to get the rest to happen, rather than doing it the long way; reasonably there had to be a point where this was plausible, because they weren't completely screwed after the Thirteenth was ruined, so who's to say it's not after #8? But now I think the 'last chance' angle actually makes sense because it came from Hydaelyn, who had a vague map of how everything goes after the Sundering because of us. It wasn't that there was literally no way to stop them after the eighth Calamity, it was that if they pulled off that one then she's completely in uncharted waters, and possibly out of resources to keep trying.

[RyuDragnier]

Yeah, this is generally an explanation for why it was framed (I think in Heavensward's patches but I'm not certain) that the eighth Calamity was basically the 'last chance' to stop the Ascians. I remember seeing justifications like this, if not exactly this. If I had to guess, it sounds like something someone who generally sides with the Ascians would say to lessen the amount of active atrocities they'd be pulling the triggers on; that no, they won't be performing more acts of mass death after this because then it'd just happen naturally.

My reading of this around Shadowbringers was just that after the eighth Calamity there would be enough Zodiark put together to be able to sacrifice things to him to get the rest to happen, rather than doing it the long way; reasonably there had to be a point where this was plausible, because they weren't completely screwed after the Thirteenth was ruined, so who's to say it's not after #8? But now I think the 'last chance' angle actually makes sense because it came from Hydaelyn, who had a vague map of how everything goes after the Sundering because of us. It wasn't that there was literally no way to stop them after the eighth Calamity, it was that if they pulled off that one then she's completely in uncharted waters, and possibly out of resources to keep trying.

There's also the look at it from the original timeline before us going back into the past...Hydaelyn has no more souls that made her up to use to stay afloat, she's going to die after one more Rejoining, period. The 8th Calamity is the last one needed because Hydaelyn won't be there after it is done.

[Cleretic]

There's also the look at it from the original timeline before us going back into the past...Hydaelyn has no more souls that made her up to use to stay afloat, she's going to die after one more Rejoining, period. The 8th Calamity is the last one needed because Hydaelyn won't be there after it is done.

Yeah, that's kinda what I meant by 'out of resources'. Given how fast she died after our fight against her, with no 'final blow' like how Amon had Zodiark punch himself through, it seems likely that she just didn't have enough juice to help for much longer. It's entirely possible that in the 8UC timeline Hydaelyn starved to death.

Incidentally, I just remembered how disappointed I was that once we got back from the Aitiascope, we didn't see the Scions break the universe's worst good news/bad news combo to Sharlayan. "Okay, so! Hydaelyn's real, we met her, she's nice, we have a plan. ...sooooo, the bad news..."

[SaitoHikari]

Yeah, this is generally an explanation for why it was framed (I think in Heavensward's patches but I'm not certain) that the eighth Calamity was basically the 'last chance' to stop the Ascians. I remember seeing justifications like this, if not exactly this. If I had to guess, it sounds like something someone who generally sides with the Ascians would say to lessen the amount of active atrocities they'd be pulling the triggers on; that no, they won't be performing more acts of mass death after this because then it'd just happen naturally.

My reading of this around Shadowbringers was just that after the eighth Calamity there would be enough Zodiark put together to be able to sacrifice things to him to get the rest to happen, rather than doing it the long way; reasonably there had to be a point where this was plausible, because they weren't completely screwed after the Thirteenth was ruined, so who's to say it's not after #8? But now I think the 'last chance' angle actually makes sense because it came from Hydaelyn, who had a vague map of how everything goes after the Sundering because of us. It wasn't that there was literally no way to stop them after the eighth Calamity, it was that if they pulled off that one then she's completely in uncharted waters, and possibly out of resources to keep trying.

Adding to this, it's possible that while we were in Elpis, she may have used her Echo on us to obtain off-hand information about the effects of the 8th Calamity, because naturally the events of ShB (and us hearing the story of what happened in the other timeline) had to have happened in order for us to travel back to Elpis to begin with. So she likely knew that the 8th Calamity left the world in a state so bad that a group of survivors decided that their reality was doomed no matter what, and focused all of their efforts on sending the Crystal Tower back in time to another shard in an incredibly desperate attempt to save the WoL in a different timeline.

Now, exactly why the 8th Calamity was that bad is something we don't exactly know. Did Zodiark gain enough power for the rest of the rejoinings to start happening naturally? Or did the Ascians gravely miscalculate the effects of the 8th Calamity, leaving the Source in a state so bad that it couldn't heal from its effects, just like what happened with the Void? If the latter, maybe that would explain why the surviving Ascians (assuming they didn't also perish in the Calamity or ended up greatly hindered by it in some way) did not try to stop the group of survivors from using the Crystal Tower in such a way. Either way, it's probably one of those questions that will never get answered.

Although... It could be an interesting plot point if an antagonist from the future were to use the Crystal Tower to travel back in time to our present point, in an attempt to stifle or kill key figures that they perceive to have played a big part in their personal bad future.

[Iscah]

Yeah, this is generally an explanation for why it was framed (I think in Heavensward's patches but I'm not certain) that the eighth Calamity was basically the 'last chance' to stop the Ascians.

It wasn't even from within the game, just from early promotional stuff for Shadowbringers.

There was never any hint in the game, so far as I recall, that either the Ascians or the Scions saw any significance in the eighth Rejoining as a turning point in the process. Again, that's just what fans speculated might be the reason why the devs hinted that it would be the last.

As it turned out, that "eighth and final" calamity was the particularly catastrophic Black Rose event, which (at least at the time they said it) they may have intended to mean either the last calamity in that timeline before it was undone, or possibly even the last one before humanity was wiped out entirely by the lingering effects of it.

[Cleretic]

It wasn't even from within the game, just from early promotional stuff for Shadowbringers.

There was never any hint in the game, so far as I recall, that either the Ascians or the Scions saw any significance in the eighth Rejoining as a turning point in the process. Again, that's just what fans speculated might be the reason why the devs hinted that it would be the last.

As it turned out, that "eighth and final" calamity was the particularly catastrophic Black Rose event, which (at least at the time they said it) they may have intended to mean either the last calamity in that timeline before it was undone, or possibly even the last one before humanity was wiped out entirely by the lingering effects of it.

Wow, I'm genuinely disappointed in all of us for taking a vague advertising tagline THAT seriously.

[SannaR]

It wasn't even from within the game, just from early promotional stuff for Shadowbringers.

There was never any hint in the game, so far as I recall, that either the Ascians or the Scions saw any significance in the eighth Rejoining as a turning point in the process. Again, that's just what fans speculated might be the reason why the devs hinted that it would be the last.

As it turned out, that "eighth and final" calamity was the particularly catastrophic Black Rose event, which (at least at the time they said it) they may have intended to mean either the last calamity in that timeline before it was undone, or possibly even the last one before humanity was wiped out entirely by the lingering effects of it.

That's one thing we don't know about. We know that the land didn't seem to start recovering from the 8th calamity after it having been 200 years since the rejoining. Yet we don't know how long it took civilization to recover enough to start planning on the next one. We do know however that taking land out of the passive nature of Light does take some time if the Empty taught us anything. And that was just after 100 years. It would be interesting to see if anyone would have thought to try something akin to what we did with Eden if it would be possible to do. But then there seemed to still be fighting over land. Which is somewhat reasonable if a large swath of land wasn't suitable to be used as farm land. I don't think the Ascians really thought of what passivity would look like let alone how powerful it would be when combined with something that was already fairly strong in that vein that Black Rose was.