Solution 9 - Unfounded Speculation!

[Yuella]

Is it possible Solution Nine will have some link to the Ancients / Ascians? Yes, but I don't want it to on account of their story arc having concluded and going back to them (or their proxies) for MSQ content would kind of defeat the purpose of having done so.

We still have not been informed on what Azem was doing during the Final Days other than he/she opposed BOTH Zodiark and Hydaelyn summoning. Solution 9 could be Azem's solution to save a group of Ancients from the sundering and allow the Ancients civilization to survive unsundered while not associated with the Ascians.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

We still have not been informed on what Azem was doing during the Final Days other than he/she opposed BOTH Zodiark and Hydaelyn summoning. Solution 9 could be Azem's solution to save a group of Ancients from the sundering and allow the Ancients civilization to survive unsundered while not associated with the Ascians.

That's my theory. They took themselves out of space/time, surviving in virtual reality or something until the coast was clear.

[Iscah]

I just personally think it's setting yourself up for disappointment. Expecting FFXIV to give up Allag and Ascians is like expecting Warcraft to give up Titans and the Burning Legion and Old Gods.

But people have a right to hope for what they want.

Well, I think the people setting themselves up for disappointment are the ones who insist the city must be the work of surviving Ancients who found a way to escape from the shard that fell to the Calamity of Lightning, or whatever the most far-flung theories currently are. Mundanity is possible.

I don't trust any trailer significance implications since they hyped up "Master Matoya" in the Shadowbringers trailer.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Well, I think the people setting themselves up for disappointment are the ones who insist the city must be the work of surviving Ancients who found a way to escape from the shard that fell to the Calamity of Lightning, or whatever the most far-flung theories currently are. Mundanity is possible.

I don't trust any trailer significance implications since they hyped up "Master Matoya" in the Shadowbringers trailer.

I don't think those people will be disappointed if it's something else. They are just used to it being Ancients, the text being used is Ancients, so they assume it's Ancients. I don't think managing to surprise people with something beside the default answer for every mystery in the game will upset them. I may end up eating my words and people rage over whatever Solution 9 is, myself included, but that'll be six months from now and I'm banking on no one remembering this conversation by then.

[SannaR]

I don't think those people will be disappointed if it's something else. They are just used to it being Ancients, the text being used is Ancients, so they assume it's Ancients. I don't think managing to surprise people with something beside the default answer for every mystery in the game will upset them. I may end up eating my words and people rage over whatever Solution 9 is, myself included, but that'll be six months from now and I'm banking on no one remembering this conversation by then.

Oh people will definitely be upset and I think you'll be surprised by how many will remember these conversations. Just look at the whole I thought the Scions were disbanding and we'd never see any of them again crowd. Or those who still thought Island Sanctuary was going to give them a free house and that it would be closer to Animal Crossing. Despite the devs repeatedly telling us it wouldn't and to lower our expectations.

[Iscah]

I'd argue that everything but mundanity is possible. Regardless of whether it's Ancients or lightning shard folk or just some Turali people who built a crazy cyberpunk city. It's not mundane by any stretch of the imagination.

There are degrees of mundanity. "Built by people in this world utilising an unusual natural resource" is more mundane than "spacetime manipulation".

[Lyth]

You can eventually link everything back to Amaurot by virtue of it being a world government over 12000 years ago, but not everything has to be a direct consequence of it.

I think one of the weaknesses of the writing around the Garlemald and Allag storylines was the revelation that they were both directly micromanaged by the Ascians. They're just subsidiaries. Why would you waste your time with them when you've already taken out their overlord?

That doesn't necessarily need to be the case going forward. For example, it's theoretically possible that the rise and fall of the Ronkan empire was directly manipulated by the Ascians. But they have much more potential if they were just out doing their own thing, because you can actually build them into a unique lore entity. Tural has much the same potential. You need to build in parallel rather than in series. Otherwise you end up with a bunch of serial puppetmasters all tied back to a villain whom we wiped the floor with ages ago in 5.0.

[Ayche]

You can also detach technology from factions. Ceruleum is more interesting if it is merely a basis for technological progress rather than "the thing that makes the evil faction tick". And this feels like an apparent plot point that is going to happen in Dawntrail, there are people who are not the old evil empire faction trying to do stuff with that.
Same applies to all the other form of technology seen here and there in the game's setting. If you wanna get really abstract and reductionist, everything just boils down to aether anyway. Everything ends up being just "a way to burn aether to boil water."

[Cilia]

Oh people will definitely be upset and I think you'll be surprised by how many will remember these conversations. Just look at the whole I thought the Scions were disbanding and we'd never see any of them again crowd. Or those who still thought Island Sanctuary was going to give them a free house and that it would be closer to Animal Crossing. Despite the devs repeatedly telling us it wouldn't and to lower our expectations.

More pointedly a significant number of people were utterly convinced Shadowbringers was going to reveal Hydaelyn to be evil, and have the PC switch sides in the cosmic conflict to become Zodiark's champion instead (if not necessarily join the Ascians)... all because the Crystal Exarch (G'raha) said we'd "become the Warrior of Darkness" in the teaser trailer. Needless to say, none of those things happened and the people who wanted them to were disappointed (though not with Shadowbringers as a whole; and they are some of Endwalker's most vocal critics, but I digress).

Without context an educated guess is next to impossible to make. Personally, I will be very disappointed if it winds up being more Ancient / Ascian crap on account of Endwalker concluding their story and continuing to bring them (or their proxies the Allagans and Garleans) into the forefront would defeat the purpose of having done so.

Just my two cents.

[Mayhemmer]

More pointedly a significant number of people were utterly convinced Shadowbringers was going to reveal Hydaelyn to be evil, and have the PC switch sides in the cosmic conflict to become Zodiark's champion instead (if not necessarily join the Ascians)... all because the Crystal Exarch (G'raha) said we'd "become the Warrior of Darkness" in the teaser trailer. Needless to say, none of those things happened and the people who wanted them to were disappointed (though not with Shadowbringers as a whole; and they are some of Endwalker's most vocal critics, but I digress).

Without context an educated guess is next to impossible to make. Personally, I will be very disappointed if it winds up being more Ancient / Ascian crap on account of Endwalker concluding their story and continuing to bring them (or their proxies the Allagans and Garleans) into the forefront would defeat the purpose of having done so.

To be fair, I do recall, in the fanfests leading up to Shadowbringers, there were some lines spoken giving vague implications that we might become some sort of dubious person (though I couldn't actually manage to find any video footage of the ShB keynotes, as those were paid events, so I don't have exact quotes). And the bit at the end of the 4.5 patch trailer also offering some cryptic symbolism that, even if we did get context for afterwards, was still cryptic on purpose. The point is, the devs know what they're doing when they do this. Yoshida says vague, out-of-context things, and then encourages people to ponder, on purpose, and the CG trailers always do the same. Honestly, I really wish they would stop trying to lead people on this way, but I guess it's just what he does.

We're always going to get context later, so I guess ultimately it doesn't matter. I do agree though, I really hope this isn't just yet more pre-sundering Ancient stuff, or even Allagan stuff. I'm making the personal assumption that it isn't Allagan, due to it simply not looking typical Allagan. I know people are bringing up the alphabet topic, and since I don't really follow, can somebody kindly point me to citation where I can read up on that, please?