10th Anniversary Amano key art [6.5+ Spoilers?]

[SilverArrow20XX]

He was working for Onrac, you are correct. None the less, it was Lufenian technology being used. Technology I kinda doubt the people of Onrac fully understood, which may explain why everything went so far off the rails.

The game explicitly refers to Cosmos as being weaker than Cid's wife. Bear in mind that Lufenians were immensely powerful because of their technology, so much so that one from a less advanced civilization wouldn't be out of place mistaking them for gods. Most of them also had a latent talent for magic that bordered on the insane. Suffice it to say, Cosmos's ability to placate Chaos at all was due almost entirely to her resemblance to that woman. Doubt she'd been near as effective without that edge. After all, Chaos loved his momma.

At any rate, to note, I was not implying Cid's wife could control Chaos through sheer power. Neither of them could. He obeyed them out of sheer love. What I am saying is that Cosmos did not possess sufficient power to subdued him through direct means, although the people of Onrac did try to imbue her with that kind of strength.

I took the "weaker" line to mean she lacked any personality or willfullness at her creation.

Lufenia has surprisingly very little mention in Dissidia, and I don't think it can be assumed it was their tech Onrac was using.
My thoughts were that the wars described in Dissidia are the same as those in the distant past described in SoP. Before Lufenia's tech pulled ahead and Cornelia was the global superpower. I assume Cornelia was the nation using Summons.

[Cleretic]

Lufenia has surprisingly very little mention in Dissidia, and I don't think it can be assumed it was their tech Onrac was using.
My thoughts were that the wars described in Dissidia are the same as those in the distant past described in SoP. Before Lufenia's tech pulled ahead and Cornelia was the global superpower. I assume Cornelia was the nation using Summons.

Yeah, the Lufaine were retconned into being a big thing in Angry Jack's Rage-A-Thon Ft. Frank Sinatra, they were literally nothing of note before then. Cid of the Lufaine was in Dissidia as a wink-nudge reference to FFI (specifically the remakes of FFI, the original version didn't mention Cid at all), not as a hint to some greater alien society responsible for everything bad in the series.

[Absimiliard]

Yeah, the Lufaine were retconned into being a big thing in Angry Jack's Rage-A-Thon Ft. Frank Sinatra, they were literally nothing of note before then. Cid of the Lufaine was in Dissidia as a wink-nudge reference to FFI (specifically the remakes of FFI, the original version didn't mention Cid at all), not as a hint to some greater alien society responsible for everything bad in the series.

I believe you are understating Cid's importance in Dissidia here. Whatever their reason for putting him there, he was quite pivotal to the plot. They also used it as an opportunity to expand on his and his people's backgrounds, although we can't say for certain the additions made there reflect things as they are/were in the original FF1 setting. Different worlds and all that. Even were those additions intended to be present in FF1 as well, it wouldn't have any bearing on the rest of the series.

As to the subject of retcons; Stranger of Paradise and Dissidia are both explicitly stated to occupy their own alternate realities, so neither actually have bearing on one another or on FF1. Both games indisputably took things from FF1 (far more so in the case of Stranger of Paradise, it being a reimagining and all), but that is where the connection ends. Even the arrival of characters clearly shown to hail from Dissidia in Stranger of Paradise turn out to be from an alternate version of that reality, and so they remain distinct even as verifiably Dissidian characters. Almost every Final Fantasy is wholly unrelated to the others despite how frequently we see shared characters, so it should come as no surprise those games are not exceptions.

As I mentioned in a prior post, there are a few exceptions: Greg is normally the same character each time he appears, and Omega and Shinryu are some of the time. On a tangentially related note, I'm pretty glad they didn't use the Omega and Shinryu for FFXIV. Doing so would've necessitated bringing them down to something more manageable, and that's kinda... nah.

Anywho, in the interest of not further derailing the thread:

What are the odds the woman in gold could be a visual representation of Etheirys itself? We know the planet has its own will distinct from Zodiark and Venat, both of whom were in many ways what one might call usurpers. With Zodiark destroyed and Venat deader than dead, mayhaps the world's own will finally gets an artistic representation?

[Cilia]

What are the odds the woman in gold could be a visual representation of Etheirys itself? We know the planet has its own will distinct from Zodiark and Venat, both of whom were in many ways what one might call usurpers. With Zodiark destroyed and Venat deader than dead, mayhaps the world's own will finally gets an artistic representation?

Prrrrrobably not? If Etheirys has a will, it's inscrutable and indifferent to the happenings on and around it. Etheirys didn't help the Ancients with the Final Days, despite their (ostensible) millennia of devotion to improving it, and would have been annihilated in the same. Kinda why Zodiark got summoned, y'know?

Having some greater power would be contrary to Endwalker's existentialist underpinnings, and it's a piece of artwork for the game's 10th Anniversary, in which Hydaelyn played a pivotal role; and as mentioned Amano's artstyle isn't 100% consistent, so that's totally no reason to think it's not Hydaelyn.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't see it as anything other than Hydaelyn given the context.

[Absimiliard]

Prrrrrobably not? If Etheirys has a will, it's inscrutable and indifferent to the happenings on and around it. Etheirys didn't help the Ancients with the Final Days, despite their (ostensible) millennia of devotion to improving it, and would have been annihilated in the same. Kinda why Zodiark got summoned, y'know?

Having some greater power would be contrary to Endwalker's existentialist underpinnings, and it's a piece of artwork for the game's 10th Anniversary, in which Hydaelyn played a pivotal role; and as mentioned Amano's artstyle isn't 100% consistent, so that's totally no reason to think it's not Hydaelyn.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't see it as anything other than Hydaelyn given the context.

Etheirys might not have been able to help even if it wanted to. We're told the Endsong's disruption was affecting the planet itself in a big way, so much so that Etheirys itself was dying right along with the creatures living on it.