On Themis [6.4 SPOILER]

[MikkoAkure]

Uh, not really. Why would it be a trolley problem when the 8UC still exist? G'raha can't return because he's tied to CT and doesn't see the reason to go back to his timeline (after living in the First for 100 years). Plus he kinda died before any attempt was made, so...

Let's just say, if the writer wants to have both an AU and WoL returning to their timeline, it can easily be done.


Why? It's supposed to be a heroic thing to do, isn't it? After all that's what the 8UC Ironworks did. Sacrifice themselves so that other generation can be spared the pain of experiencing it.

G'raha and the generations of Ironworks engineers in the 8UC sacrificed their own timeline for the sake of another, flipped the switch the trolley towards themselves, and now face an uncertain future. 8UC still exists but now they have a further weakened Hydaelyn and a further strengthened Zodiark along with 2 of 3 Unsundered Ascians still kicking. Things look a bit better in the short term that Midgardsormr woke up and decided to lead humanity into the next era, but that world isn't safe from the Rejoining and it could and probably would still happen in that timeline.

If we're dealing with some combination of Bill & Ted and Back to the Future-style time travel, then there's no way according to our (limited) knowledge of how timelines work here that would allow you to make sweeping changes to the timeline and return to the unaltered timeline you came from. By all evidence, G'raha's journey was a one-way trip.


Everything the WoL has done in the game up to and including EW was to save their own world from the Ascians. It would be out of character for them to forget all of that for a world they barely know about that has an uncertain future and was Sundered partly for the express purpose of being able to save them from the cosmic dilemma both worlds were facing. We already know that Venat's plan worked because we lived it and to try to save the Ancients could jeopardize our own world's existence, especially since there's still stuff happening in the MSQ that threatens the world if the WoL doesn't show up to save it because they decided to play with the Ancients.

The reasons the writers gave like memory wipes, aether too strong to interact with Dynamis, and that Hermes would stonewall any attempt at solving anything if he found out the truth are all admittedly weak. But at the same time story exists in MMO form, the story about the Ascians' origins hasn't even been a concept for half the game's lifespan, and everything revolves around our world being more important to the characters and the story than that of the Ancients so we're not likely to get any happy ending for them.

Even if there's "an AU where WoL helped save the Ancients from Meteion without the aid of a God of Darkness", the player will still have to return to our original world where the Ancient world was Sundered and the Ascians lost in order to continue our adventures and play in the living MMO world. There's always going to be one where things went bad for them, so to have the narration say "well, in one of three existing worlds, the Ancients are happy in their own different, un-interactable timeline" changes nothing except gives some people warm and fuzzies. But I guess that's what fan fiction can be for, just means it's not canon unless we're also dealing with a story where every action makes its own, separate timeline in a sea of infinite timelines.