Let's play a game: Save the Ancients!

[Vyrerus]

I think you're stitching together something that isn't there.

I think you're willfully ignoring what is there, because it doesn't suit your mindset.

The visions had during the Rising Event are the same as any other visions the WoL has. Out of body experience, and then a snap back to immediate reality. They are as real as you want them to be, only that they have no direct bearing on the game's story.

And these were just the immediate examples that came to mind. There are more. The callbacks to the WoLs from 1.0 during ARR. The sidequests with The Wandering Draumaturge. The fact that the WoL has no way to know where to go for quests without us taking them there (this one also meshes rather poorly with the WoL having a poor memory with regards to who's who and all that, but knows exactly where to go, pretty much all of the time). Which leads to the tongue in cheek, often played off of, "Man, you sure do always seem to know exactly when to show up." or "Man, how did you know exactly where to look?" Basically, we give the WoL knowledge they don't otherwise have, all of the time.

I was referencing the very first Final Fantasy and prior entries, yes. The series very often has the concept of fighting with destiny to save the world/a people, and often features time travel, alternate worlds/dimensions, and prophecy.

The Alexander Raids were actually about Alexander manipulating the timeline to stop itself, because it wasn't truly omniscient, and couldn't actually perceive infinite timelines, as that would require infinite aether. It was all a setup for Alexander to contain itself within a static timeloop to prevent draining the world of aether. It has its issues, too. All time travel narratives do.

That's a weird perspective you've got on Elpis. It should be a big stand out, since not only do we go there once, but multiple times, even gaining a useable presence there that does influence the timeline because you see events we're responsible for. Chiefly, Pandemonium. Secondly, sidequests revolving around modern day monsters like the behemoth. Then the rituals, like Nymeia Lilies.

Also it wasn't knowledge of unrecorded history. It was knowledge of purposefully destroyed history.

[Iscah]

That's a weird perspective you've got on Elpis. It should be a big stand out, since not only do we go there once, but multiple times, even gaining a useable presence there that does influence the timeline because you see events we're responsible for. Chiefly, Pandemonium. Secondly, sidequests revolving around modern day monsters like the behemoth. Than the rituals, like Nymeia Lilies.

Also it wasn't knowledge of unrecorded history. It was knowledge of purposefully destroyed history.

Never recorded or recorded and wiped out is irrelevant. The people of the present day have no record of what happened back then, and they need to find out.

And yes, we're there in Elpis blithely creating stable causal loops where we describe a present-day thing and thus accidentally become the base inspiration for the present day thing, but we're not actually altering anything in the present day by doing so. Things are just getting absorbed into "how it always happened in the unknown parts of history" and the result isn't any different to what you were previously aware of.

As for Pandæmonium, I disagree with the characters' in-story theorising about "what if whatever is happening there will make the Final Days even worse". It seems straightforward to me that we can be confident that whatever happens in the past is what has already happened and will lead to the present day, even if the details would be different. We might be making the overall situation better by interfering, but ignoring it would not cause the situation to spontaneously worsen – although whatever later emerges into the present day might be exponentially worse.

[Vyrerus]

Never recorded or recorded and wiped out is irrelevant.

It's entirely relevant, since all we'd need to avoid time travel is to, IDK, have Hydaelyn tell us the truth about stuff. But you know...

Since the setting does allow for timelines to change, then the idea of, "This is how it always was." falls completely apart. That is supposition no stronger than any other. Remember the Shadowbringers trailer? Let what was written be unwritten and all that jazz?

We're not writing how it's always been. We're rewritinghow it will be. The 8UC timeline is actually the prime timeline in FFXIV's universe, where there is no WoL involvement in Elpis at all, because in the 8UC timeline there was never a Crystal Exarch preventing the 8th Umbral Calamity. And the WoL there dies and can't go back in time, or even to The First, to cause recursive paradoxes.

Without WoL's intervention with Pandaemonium, Lahabrea will be unswayed by Themis's appeal and unmake the facility with all of its keywards and inhabitants. Athena will never arrive in the present day to remake it, because Claudien or w/e his name was will never find a memory stone from Aitiascope causing him to go to Azys Lla and get body jacked. It has only as much impact as we involve ourselves in it. Until the writers make it super important directly in some way.

[Iscah]

And these were just the immediate examples that came to mind. There are more. The callbacks to the WoLs from 1.0 during ARR. The sidequests with The Wandering Draumaturge. The fact that the WoL has no way to know where to go for quests without us taking them there (this one also meshes rather poorly with the WoL having a poor memory with regards to who's who and all that, but knows exactly where to go, pretty much all of the time). Which leads to the tongue in cheek, often played off of, "Man, you sure do always seem to know exactly when to show up." or "Man, how did you know exactly where to look?" Basically, we give the WoL knowledge they don't otherwise have, all of the time.

The player directing the character to go places is not remotely a sign that that character doesn't know where to go; it's the most basic mechanic of any story-based videogame ever. If you don't have control of the character acting out the things that the character needs to do, you're not playing a game, you're watching a movie.

You're also making a lot of assumptions about the WoL's memory and such. There are dialogue prompts that allow you to have the character not remember who others are (as a subtle way for the player themself to be reminded) but they always or very often come paired with the other dialogue choice being a warm welcome to someone the character recognises and calls by name.

And even if the poor memory for faces and names is the canon version, that doesn't necessarily stop them from having a good memory for places, or if it really needs an explanation then you can put it on the Echo giving them a constant vague sense of premonition about where to go and what to pick up.

[Vyrerus]

where to go.

I'd chock it up to that if the game itself didn't call attention to it. Since the game has done that, the game wants you to think about that answer.

It's true you get a warm response and a cold response, but sometimes you get several responses, and it's never two warm. It's always two unsure or cold responses.

It's canon that the WoL cannot control the Echo, so their Echo doesn't do that for them. It could but it doesn't. It doesn't, because they'd go near unconscious every quest. It also doesn't because there are quests where we have to follow seeking things like when Krile gets Matoya's Crystal Eye to find Thancred.

[Iscah]

It's entirely relevant, since all we'd need to avoid time travel is to, IDK, have Hydaelyn tell us the truth about stuff. But you know...

Since the setting does allow for timelines to change, then the idea of, "This is how it always was." falls completely apart. That is supposition no stronger than any other. Remember the Shadowbringers trailer? Let what was written be unwritten and all that jazz?

We're not writing how it's always been. We're rewritinghow it will be. The 8UC timeline is actually the prime timeline in FFXIV's universe, where there is no WoL involvement in Elpis at all, because in the 8UC timeline there was never a Crystal Exarch preventing the 8th Umbral Calamity. And the WoL there dies and can't go back in time, or even to The First, to cause recursive paradoxes.

The nature of the timeline (at least as I work it out) has only a single version of events up to the extraordinary events of Shadowbringers causing it to split in two from that point onwards.

Because it is a single timeline at the time of Elpis, when we travel back from our branch of the later timeline, we end up in the shared past of both branches, and the events we experience happen and carry on into both futures. There is no timeline where the WoL from timeline branch B did not visit Elpis.

Meanwhile, Hydaelyn can't tell us anything that we didn't know when we came to Elpis, or it will alter the situation and break the time loop. As soon as we tell her we've been there, she immediately gives us all the additional information she can provide to us.

And no, the idea of stable time loops does not have to fall apart just because it is possible to change things. As I see it, a time-traveller's actions do not automatically change the timeline, or events such as Alexander's time loops would not be possible. Most tellingly, the "save your past self" moment would not be possible if a traveller's actions always split the timeline, and would not be necessary if there was some "preceding version" of events where somebody else saved us.

Making sense of the two types of time travel in a single set of rules requires (IMO) a universe that "prefers" a single timeline and stable time loops when time travel occurs, but armed with the right fore-knowledge of events at the destination, it is possible to disrupt things so the original outcome is not possible – for example, ensuring that the First was not primed for Rejoining on the known date of the Eighth Calamity. The outcome is irreconcilable with the time traveller's original future, and a new timeline has to be created for this new and incompatible version of events.

[Cleretic]

Not sure how I understood redheadturk but anyway I think he means to somehow chuck it into the Aetherial Sea while time magics are on it? Though I do think he suggested at one point to make one around the time we're finishing up with Pandeamonium. You know make a memory crystal and "accidentally" drop it as you say goodbye to Elidibus and Lahabrea while the WoL is still in the past. Have the WoL fringe ignorance if either of them notice we dropped something. We know the briefing about Pandeamonium happens some time before the Final Days so they would be able to be slightly warned ahead of time. Not that I like Lahabrea, but if he is able to kill his wife and keep it a secret from the rest of the Convocation I'm sure he'd be able to use some tact if he saw/heard what was on the crystal. Elidibus also probably would know how to be smart about what's on the memory crystal.

That's still dumb, still gonna strand them, it's just leaving Wuk Lamat in the lurch rather than an entire planet. Also possibly Zero, Vrtra, Azdaja, the entire Thirteenth and probably the Twelve, depending on how you sequence your 6.x. And I'm not even gonna touch 'just use time magic to do the thing from the present', because I'm not even sure that's physically possible for anyone in the game world.

FFXIV's time travel mechanics just don't allow for this approach to work while still going back to the present day to participate in the actual game. And that's even putting aside that I don't actually expect it to work; I don't think you can butterfly effect your way to a good end for the Ancients if you're starting after the Meteia have launched, even if I do think Lahabrea might be the best Convocation member to tell. Venat is neither evil, or stupid; in fact, she's better-equipped than any of us to solve that problem, and still couldn't.

I feel like, if you're introducing the actual stakes of FFXIV time travel to this hypothetical (as opposed to a vague detached god-view of it, which I took the original point of the thread to be), you'd better have a perfect way to stop it. And it has become abundantly clear that nobody does.

[ZavosEsperian]

That's still dumb, still gonna strand them, it's just leaving Wuk Lamat in the lurch rather than an entire planet. Also possibly Zero, Vrtra, Azdaja, the entire Thirteenth and probably the Twelve, depending on how you sequence your 6.x. And I'm not even gonna touch 'just use time magic to do the thing from the present', because I'm not even sure that's physically possible for anyone in the game world.

FFXIV's time travel mechanics just don't allow for this approach to work while still going back to the present day to participate in the actual game. And that's even putting aside that I don't actually expect it to work; I don't think you can butterfly effect your way to a good end for the Ancients if you're starting after the Meteia have launched, even if I do think Lahabrea might be the best Convocation member to tell. Venat is neither evil, or stupid; in fact, she's better-equipped than any of us to solve that problem, and still couldn't.

I am surprised you are this negative towards any ideas like this and to justify it you bring up the butterfly effect of all things. The butterfly effect implies determinism which is entirely incongruent with the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole at the narrative level, where defying fate (opposite of what determinism stands for as determinism states things are bound to happen regardless of what happens, which isn't very Final Fantasy) tends to be an ever-present theme in most, if not all, Final Fantasy titles. It begs this question: Why are you playing a game/game series where determinism is one of the least supported concepts in its themes, and is usually torn to shreds by the end of the game?

Understand I do not mean this in any negative capacity. It is just an observation that I want an answer to. Whether you indulge me is up to you, we haven't exactly been the most cordial with each other recently.

[Vyrerus]

The nature of the timeline

The events of Shadowbringers resulted in an entirely new timeline, not a mere branch. There is no conjunction formed for the 8UC with Elpis, and so Elpis is not tied to that timeline in the same way as it is in ours.

The reason it's not a mere branch is because the time at which the conjunction occurs is hundreds of years before the timeline split happens. The timeline split happens because the 8UC timeline sent the Crystal Tower backwards through both time and space, causing an entirely new timeline to form. It doesn't share the same past, again, because the conjunction cannot exist for the 8UC, as the 8UC is entirely unlinked from our timeline. The conjunction only happens for our timeline, since it happens after the point in the 8UC where the WoL would be dead.

This means that living WoL from Timeline B using Timeline A's time machine goes back in time only in Timeline B.

To wit, we can't go back to an earlier point in the 8UC. If we could, the 8UC timeline would not exist at all, it would have been rewritten. Do you see why it's not a branch?

It's like in Dragonball Z when Trunks goes back in time. He, using Bulma's time machine, created another entire timeline, and the time machines only go there. They don't go into any other past.

Hydaelyn could have always told us what she knew. That is not dependent on time travel. It is dependent on her willingness to tell the truth. Something she's not very keen on.

The time travel events within Alexander are different because they happened contained inside of Alexander itself, which is already a pocket dimension inside of a primal. The entire situation with that relies on us fighting Alexander Prime for the conjunction there to cause a loop. Prior to us entering the time gate that takes us into Alexander Prime's dimension, the Illuminati tried to use freeze time to kill us, freeze time ended sooner than expected, and we dodged out of the way. The conjunction has it that it was Alexander trying to kill us because he sends robots back in time to prolong how long freeze time lasts, so you have misunderstood the scenario. The preceding event is that freeze time was started by the Illuminati, and it does not last long enough to kill us without the robots being sent back in time from Alexander Prime. Basically, Alexander tried to defeat us by changing the past, and we prevent him from changing the past. It's actually not a loop.

There is no actual set of rules. It's writer fiat. And it has really made a mess of the setting.

[Iscah]

The events of Shadowbringers resulted in an entirely new timeline, not a mere branch. There is no conjunction formed for the 8UC with Elpis, and so Elpis is not tied to that timeline in the same way as it is in ours.

The reason it's not a mere branch is because the time at which the conjunction occurs is hundreds of years before the timeline split happens. The timeline split happens because the 8UC timeline sent the Crystal Tower backwards through both time and space, causing an entirely new timeline to form.

There is absolutely nothing to establish that as fact. There is no proof that the Crystal Tower's arrival split the timeline, because we have no prior knowledge of its state to say whether there was ever a version of events where the tower did not appear there.

Neither is there any proof that the split is an entirely separate timeline and not just a split.

And without any direct proof for or against, I would take "the interpretation that allows the game's story to make sense" as the one that is likely to be in place rather than the one that renders parts of it impossible or inconsistent.