During the media tour for Dawntrail Yoshida mentioned these lore bits

[kaynide]

...

This is fair;

Dawntrail seems very much to be a "Enough of the Ascians/Zodiark/etc... Let's just move on shall we?" expansion.

It would be poetic I guess, if an Ascian were present, to be the type that also just wants to move on and do something new or different, if they even are in the story.

..something like the master control AI of S9/Arcadion being "Oh, yeah, I used to be Altima... but now I'm so much more!"

[Lyth]

I suppose that you would be obliged to call such an entity Altima Online.

[Anonymoose]

They killed three of them off-screen in the back half of Stormblood's patches, and haven't mentioned a single one of those again; that's not the behavior of a writing team that loves writing that particular group. That increases the chance of a curveball to somewhere around 100%.

Agreed. Like, I could have understood if - after doing Nabriales and Igeyorhm - they just realized that giving Lahabrea a new partner every plot arc would be tedious and get stale fast. But I started to get suspicious that they were making a concerted effort to deplete the overlord roster when they suddenly revealed Mitron was actually working with Loghrif, who is also dead, and then took out Emmerololth (...kinda...) in a side story. (I keep joking that at the end of Dawntrail we're going to get back to Eorzea and Gaius is just going to have a larger stack of masks. The end.)

But like I was saying, if: (A) they aren't terribly enthusiastic about the sundered overlords and (B) the math ain't mathin' on their roster and (C) someone decides to address (B) despite (A), there's a good chance they're going to throw said curveball, especially if they see that a portion of the fanbase would be excited to see it. Other portions of the fanbase might believe it's better to leave them in the past, and/or retroactively fill in the gaps with information that takes place in the past and doesn't risk destabilizing their lore, but it only takes one writer getting, "So you've assigned me to write a story and I have an idea about a loose end..." approved by Yoshi-P.

I mean ... <gestures at the Heart of Sabik>.

As long as an effort is made to ensure it fits snugly into the big picture, I can eventually find my way to loving just about anything they wanna throw at me.

I suppose that you would be obliged to call such an entity Altima Online.

<sighs deeply>
<furrows brow>
<shakes head>





<clicks "Like!">

[Vallavia]

I think the thing to always keep in mind regarding future Ascian plots is that, frankly, I don't even think the writers are that enamored with them. The Ancients, sure, they seemed to absolutely love writing the pretty giants who apparently had no problems until suddenly having every single problem all at once, but I've never sensed that enthusiasm about writing the Ascians. They killed three of them off-screen in the back half of Stormblood's patches, and haven't mentioned a single one of those again; that's not the behavior of a writing team that loves writing that particular group.

I think part of it, too, is that the Ascians are comprised only of the people who benefited the most from the way that society was structured (and their personalities are biased recollections of them by the most zealous of the bunch), so there's only a finite amount of character motivations that they can derive from that without just leaving the whole Ascian business to one side entirely which invites the question as to why X character with Y arc needs to be an Ascian to get the point across.

[Cleretic]

I think part of it, too, is that the Ascians are comprised only of the people who benefited the most from the way that society was structured (and their personalities are biased recollections of them by the most zealous of the bunch), so there's only a finite amount of character motivations that they can derive from that without just leaving the whole Ascian business to one side entirely which invites the question as to why X character with Y arc needs to be an Ascian to get the point across.

It's a problem across the entire Ancient society; Amaurot and Elpis are the seat of government and a leading research institute, our only windows into Ancient society are to its highest echelons. Every Ascian or Ancient story is constrained by this, unless they approach it by an entirely different direction that, like you said, doesn't need them to be an Ascian. Like, my reflexive thought was 'what if Halmarut was homeless before being uplifted and has been desperately fighting for a world where they were told they were on top', but yeah, would that story even require an Ascian? Hell, I actually think dragging them in would cheapen that when you could instead make the place they strove to join be a lot more realistic and set it in, like, Ul'dah, which is something the writers seem far more willing to point the camera at. (And now I'm realizing I think I just reconstructed Rowena's story from first principles...)

Allag's got the same problem in only giving us a look at the upper crust, but even that at least acknowledges that there are others, we occasionally hear about the resistance.

[Mixawaves]

Agreed. Like, I could have understood if - after doing Nabriales and Igeyorhm - they just realized that giving Lahabrea a new partner every plot arc would be tedious and get stale fast. But I started to get suspicious that they were making a concerted effort to deplete the overlord roster when they suddenly revealed Mitron was actually working with Loghrif, who is also dead, and then took out Emmerololth (...kinda...) in a side story. (I keep joking that at the end of Dawntrail we're going to get back to Eorzea and Gaius is just going to have a larger stack of masks. The end.)

The Gaius bit is actually a good line of thinking; I admit to being ignorant on if the ones he dispatched really could have been brought back timeline-wise, but regardless, Halmarut and Pashtarot should be alive somewhere at this point in time. If they really want to tie up the loose ends, maybe they'll be introduced just to be struck down by whatever new antagonist is likely to be built up. It would be a good way to immediately show the threat level.

[Vallavia]

Allag's got the same problem in only giving us a look at the upper crust, but even that at least acknowledges that there are others, we occasionally hear about the resistance.

To pull on a parallel and possibly related thread that may or may not have already been discussed to death...

Have you not heard? Though yet confined to the lands across the sea, a terrible phenomenon afflicts our star. They are calling it the "Final Days."

And later in a sidequest:

As to the matter of what subject we shall debate today, I propose the recent calamity which has befallen our friends across the pond. What say you? The singular point of contention is, of course, whether or not Amaurot should intervene on their behalf. I believe we should. The scale of the disaster which threatens that distant metropolis is of a scale heretofore unseen, and so equally considerable resources must be committed to counteracting its effects.

I disagree. The scale concerns me less than the nature of the proposition itself. Who are we to unilaterally intervene in the affairs of those half a world away? Are we to be the saviors of one and all? Such arrogance may well lead to our own downfall.

This makes me believe that Amaurot did not establish governance over the whole star and all its peoples, and furthermore if ancient Etheirys was geographically analogous to the Source today (accounting for natural erosion cycles and calamities etc.) in like manner to the Reflections, these 'lands across the sea' could very well be where Tural is today. Given the almost foregone conclusion that Dawntrail will have a large revelation about Azem, it makes me wonder if this is where she was during the Final Days.
Of course, we're all going to find out in the next week anyway, but I've got nothing better to do waiting for the servers to come back up.

[KatBoreas]

If they really want to tie up the loose ends, maybe they'll be introduced just to be struck down by whatever new antagonist is likely to be built up. It would be a good way to immediately show the threat level.

You mean like "Star Trek: Voyager" introduced Species 8472 by showing them one-shot a Borg cube? Now that would definitiely be some way to introduce the new threat!

[Zero-ELEC]

Given the almost foregone conclusion that Dawntrail will have a large revelation about Azem, it makes me wonder if this is where she was during the Final Days.

I don't think that's a foregone conclusion at all. I think I'd call it a long shot, even.

[kaynide]

Agreed Azem story details will be a long shot, but it is called “Dawn trail” and a lot of terminology at least related to the sun.

If we take Yoship’s concept, that a set of expansions are likened to the sun’s cycle (Arr=Dawn, HW=Day, SB=Dusk, SHB=Evening, EW=Night, DT=Dawn of a new story), a “new sun is rising” so to speak.

We also have colors related, with HW=blue, SB=red, ShB=black, EW=platinum, DT=gold… (in the Japanese titles)…. YoshiP seems to like weird connections…and if we go with alchemical symbols, platinum is literally sun-and-moon (which matches a sort of Azem and the Moon motif), whereas gold is the symbol as the sun itself (and the same symbol on Azem’s crystal in game).

So, long shot sure, but so was the Spider-Man tshirt for samurai.