G'raha focused storyline!

[Fawkes]

[Aneshda]

What promise. The deal she made with him was simple - means to reach us in return for him helping us. That's the deal she made. She never promised anything on WoL's behalf, and Zenos did keep the promise to her. If you mean to imply she promised him the fight against us, that's just false. Even at the end, Zenos just says you can still walk away, it's just that rather than have option to do so, we choose the reason for why we don't.

Well if you Watch that one Scene in German and translate it, you will see, it was a promise that she made.

[Iscah]

Well if you Watch that one Scene in German and translate it, you will see, it was a promise that she made.

If it's in German but not in English or Japanese, I would assume translator error over hidden truth.

[Theodric]

If it's in German but not in English or Japanese, I would assume translator error over hidden truth.

There's been quite a few glaring examples of the English localisation leaving out or tweaking key details, some of which can be found in this particular thread:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...s-unacceptable

A number of posters - quite a few of which are fluent in at least two languages themselves - have attested to much. Some of whom you may recognise as being contributors to lore discussions to add further weight to their words.

[Alleluia]

The 8th umbral timeline isn't gone, though...


I love G'raha and we still owe G'raha a tour of Ishgard, so that's enough of a story hook for me for a patch or something. And Krile is very sweet. Dunno how someone who isn't trolling can actually hate her. lol

[Pratini]

No thanks.

[Renalt]

Now with 100% more borger.

[OdinelStarrei]

The 8th umbral timeline isn't gone, though...

Actually, sorry to detour, but the Eighth Umbral Calamity Timeline existing is actually one of my serious questions about the overarching world building of XIV. Initially, the Eight Umbral Calamity Timeline is the only reason why we have G'raha in this timeline as the Crystal Exarch, and also ties in both Omega and Alexander has key components of the timeline, as without them, the CT can't warp/time travel. Makes sense so far.

But...how does the Black Rose > Eighth Umbral Calamity Timeline fit into Endwalker's plot? I legitimately do not know this, and if anyone would explain it to me I would really appreciate it. I actually really like G'raha Tia as the Crystal Exarch chracter, and I love the Twinning dungeon, so the Eighth Umbral Calamity Timeline has always been in the back of my head as something that is problematic with things like Elpis. Just by the nature of the WoL dying in the Black Rose timeline, doesn't this entirely break the causality loop of that entire branch? Since we can't go back in time to talk to Venat and tell her all the horrific things that are going to happen? If Venat doesn't know, then even assuming she transformed into Hydaelyn, there would be no reason to throw Emet Selch, Lahabrea, and Elidibus into that portal that prevents them from being sundered like all the rest, which directly eliminates all of XIV's major Ascian antagonists from the outset, which snowballs into altering or outright removing entire factions or empires from the plot of that timeline.

Even if we get to the point in that Tales from the Shadow story somehow, we're still a really, really bad spot, because no one knows about Endsinger due to Hermes' meddling (Which is also a problem in and of itself, since we couldn't be in Elpis, so things like Ktisis Hyperboreia, the Elpis flower cutscene, and Meteion's report just don't happen in the same way, not even sure if there would be a Kairos memory wipe for anyone except Hermes), we would still be in a situation where getting to the moon to do anything about Zodiark or I guess more prescient, Fandaniel's meddling can't happen. (Which actually might not exist at all since Allag could not exist in the same way without Ascian influence, and likewise for Garlemald.) There's no Tower of Babil teleportation device to the moon, since there wouldn't be a Fandaniel/Amon to build it, and no one even knows if there is something up there. In fact, since the Crystal Tower would also debatably not exist either with Ascian machinations and the 13th may actually avoid it's Flood of Darkness due to again, a lack of Ascian manipulation with Auracite, would there even be a Golbez threat?

Does anyone follow me on this? Is there even an Eighth Umbral Calamity Timeline under circumstances like this? Even being generous, it seems like everyone in that timeline on every shard and the Source are doomed to die simply from a lack of knowledge of the threats faced.

EDIT: If Black Rose causes the First to Rejoin, how does a potential alive WoL even get to Elpis at all? We can't go there, there wouldn't be a almost-dead Elidibus to sacrifice to get us there, etc. etc.

EDIT2: Does this also mean that Athena actually just straight up becomes a god in the Umbral Calamity Timeline and kills literally everyone, even if Endsinger doesn't show up? Or does everyone just die or remain trapped in Pandemonium?

?????????????????????

EDIT3: Make this or something like the OP into the G'raha plot, some of these events are foundational to the story/timeline staying consistent, I have no idea what is happening over there, and the fact that G'raha pretty much knew all of his comrades over the course of the unknown decades to build the CT teleportation apparatus are saccing themselves for this one shot, only for that whole timeline to be subject to unknowable threats outside of Black Rose, is a fairly engaging hook for his character. How does he cope with the survivor's guilt from a doomed timeline? It would actually make more sense if after G'raha jumped timelines, that he told his story, and once things were changed, literally the entire universe auto-corrected the Eighth Umbral Calamity Timeline out of existence, outside of things like the Twinning and G'raha himself, which were forced onto the First. Killing Ironworks Alexander (as it was malfunctioning, probably because of the inherent impossibility of maintaining the causality loop, idfk) probably should have just mind-wiped everyone, and retconned the Eighth Umbral Calamity Timeline out of the universal timeline.

[VentVanitas]

snip

I love time travel.

[TheMightyMollusk]

My theory is that time travel in this game runs on multiverse theory. Changing the past doesn't destroy the existing timeline, it makes a new parallel one. This would explain why we keep being told we can't change the past. Technically, we can, but it won't matter for us, since we'll end up back in our own timeline where the changes didn't happen anyway. Unless it's a closed loop (the time travel was already part of the past, like Alexander or Elpis, we just didn't know about it), in which case we're not actually changing anything anyway, we're just doing what already happened.