Quote Originally Posted by Cleretic View Post
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.