I need an Umbral Calamity refresher as Dawntrail has me confused

[Sairys]

I would consider such a thing to be a major mistake, but since it got past the QA of every single language involved in this product, it must have been intentional. Thus, I think it's safe to say that with the release of DT, old lore no longer matters and isn't going to be taken into consideration moving forward.

I'm not sure how you get to the conclusion that old lore no longer matters. Just because people think there's a mistake doesn't mean there was one and as you've said "it got past the QA of every single language involved in this product, it must have been intentional".
The alternate interpretation is that it was intentional and the old lore matters, so if a theory ignores either then the theory could be wrong.

[Cleretic]

Frankly I don't know what people are getting tied up in. It hought this was pretty clear.

The key was used to evacuate the South Sea Isles in the Calamity of Ice, the era before Mhach, Amdapor and Nym.
They wound up in a pretty chill reflection that has a conspicuous resemblance to a very good game released in 2000, and used their arcanima to become useful and valued members of that society.
That reflection nearly-but-doesn't-entirely fall to gradual over-aspecting towards lightning causing ever greater amounts of sun-eclipsing thunderstorms.
This causes both the discovery and rise of electrope, which the lalafel that trace back to the South Sea Isles combine with arcanima to bring to new heights.
Things get bad enough that two of these lalafel, who still have the key, plan to use it, and team up with Preservation to do so.
Preservation turns out to suck and basically want to cause a Rejoining in all but name, so those two lalafel use the key to go back to the Source to hide both the key and their baby; by apparently sheer chance, they make this trip right as Galuf is studying the construction beneath the Skydeep Cenote, noticing that it resembles the work of the South Sea Islanders more than anything.
Things go really bad over in Lightning Land.
Twenty years afterwards on the Source, and somewhere in the low hundreds of years afterwards in Lightning Land, the events of Dawntrail happen.

What part of this are people having trouble with? Is it that Lightning Land isn't associated with a calamity, because there hasn't been a lightning one after the Calamity of Ice? Because Lightning Land didn't get rejoined; Living Memory is there, it's still standing, it just got right near the brink in a similar way to the Thirteenth and First. Perhaps it was prepped for a future Calamity by the Ascians, who are no longer around to own up to it. ...or, maybe the Ascians just weren't as good at their jobs as they claimed, and that happened by mistake. Wouldn't be the first time they accidentally nearly broke a reflection.

Maybe it's worth underlining what Y'shtola said, that nobody outside of the Ascians could possibly know what reflection we went to? I feel like some people might be leading themselves down a wrong path by deciding they do know which one it was, and then getting tangled up in the presumptions afterward.

[17cupsofcoffee]

Frankly I don't know what people are getting tied up in. It hought this was pretty clear.

The key was used to evacuate the South Sea Isles in the Calamity of Ice, the era before Mhach, Amdapor and Nym.
They wound up in a pretty chill reflection that has a conspicuous resemblance to a very good game released in 2000, and used their arcanima to become useful and valued members of that society.
That reflection nearly-but-doesn't-entirely fall to gradual over-aspecting towards lightning causing ever greater amounts of sun-eclipsing thunderstorms.
This causes both the discovery and rise of electrope, which the lalafel that trace back to the South Sea Isles combine with arcanima to bring to new heights.
Things get bad enough that two of these lalafel, who still have the key, plan to use it, and team up with Preservation to do so.
Preservation turns out to suck and basically want to cause a Rejoining in all but name, so those two lalafel use the key to go back to the Source to hide both the key and their baby; by apparently sheer chance, they make this trip right as Galuf is studying the construction beneath the Skydeep Cenote, noticing that it resembles the work of the South Sea Islanders more than anything.
Things go really bad over in Lightning Land.
Twenty years afterwards on the Source, and somewhere in the low hundreds of years afterwards in Lightning Land, the events of Dawntrail happen.

What part of this are people having trouble with? Is it that Lightning Land isn't associated with a calamity, because there hasn't been a lightning one after the Calamity of Ice? Because Lightning Land didn't get rejoined; Living Memory is there, it's still standing, it just got right near the brink in a similar way to the Thirteenth and First. Perhaps it was prepped for a future Calamity by the Ascians, who are no longer around to own up to it. ...or, maybe the Ascians just weren't as good at their jobs as they claimed, and that happened by mistake. Wouldn't be the first time they accidentally nearly broke a reflection.

Maybe it's worth underlining what Y'shtola said, that nobody outside of the Ascians could possibly know what reflection we went to? I feel like some people might be leading themselves down a wrong path by deciding they do know which one it was, and then getting tangled up in the presumptions afterward.

I think you've nailed it. I get the feeling that as soon as...

...lightning was mentioned, people became 100% convinced that it was the same shard that triggered the Second Umbral Calamity (I definitely had the same thought at first, tbf!), and now they're tying themselves in knots trying to make the timeline fit with that assumption. "Multiple shards got messed up by lightning, and this is one of them that still exists" seems like a much less convoluted explanation to me.

[Ilenya]

I don't think that's the safer assumption because of Shadowbringers and the elemental chart.

The first six calamities follow the generative elemental cycle which works clockwise around the wheel. Then we have the "aspected" calamities of Darkness and Light. The elemental chart also contains the Conquests (Earth, Water, Lightning) and Submissions (Fire, Ice, Wind) as well as the Solar(Fire and Earth), Lunar(Water and Wind), and Celestial(Lightning and Ice) pairings, assuming the Astro cards are correct and the chart has Lunar and Solar pairings reversed. If each of those is a potential calamity that's a perfect thirteen unique calamities represented on the elemental chart.

I have accidentally lost this post more times than I care to admit.

I just have to disagree with the idea that the Ascians weren't working on multiple shards at once, even if only one could be rejoined at a time, entirely because of Shadowbringers and learning how the Flood of Light started. We know they were preparing the First for the Rejoining, and the plan until Ardbert ruined it was to have him kill Shadowkeeper to leave the First on the edge, ready to be pushed into Rejoining without actually hitting that point.

While I could be wrong, I just don't think there weren't other plans on other shards in motion, especially since the Ascians were generally working in pairs after the Flood of Darkness. Pushing Sphene's shard towards...I guess Celestial? would be part of it, though I'm not sure if the Lindblum superweapon messed up the balance a bit, it did *not* appear to make a Flood, at least to my understanding. As far as we knew, the world was very Lightning Aspected and nothing more.

I'm wondering how the Solar/Lunar/Celestial Calamities would even work, now that I've been made aware they were a thing.

[Sairys]

Frankly I don't know what people are getting tied up in. It hought this was pretty clear.

The key was used to evacuate the South Sea Isles in the Calamity of Ice, the era before Mhach, Amdapor and Nym.
They wound up in a pretty chill reflection that has a conspicuous resemblance to a very good game released in 2000, and used their arcanima to become useful and valued members of that society.
That reflection nearly-but-doesn't-entirely fall to gradual over-aspecting towards lightning causing ever greater amounts of sun-eclipsing thunderstorms.
This causes both the discovery and rise of electrope, which the lalafel that trace back to the South Sea Isles combine with arcanima to bring to new heights.
Things get bad enough that two of these lalafel, who still have the key, plan to use it, and team up with Preservation to do so.
Preservation turns out to suck and basically want to cause a Rejoining in all but name, so those two lalafel use the key to go back to the Source to hide both the key and their baby; by apparently sheer chance, they make this trip right as Galuf is studying the construction beneath the Skydeep Cenote, noticing that it resembles the work of the South Sea Islanders more than anything.
Things go really bad over in Lightning Land.
Twenty years afterwards on the Source, and somewhere in the low hundreds of years afterwards in Lightning Land, the events of Dawntrail happen.

What part of this are people having trouble with? Is it that Lightning Land isn't associated with a calamity, because there hasn't been a lightning one after the Calamity of Ice? Because Lightning Land didn't get rejoined; Living Memory is there, it's still standing, it just got right near the brink in a similar way to the Thirteenth and First. Perhaps it was prepped for a future Calamity by the Ascians, who are no longer around to own up to it. ...or, maybe the Ascians just weren't as good at their jobs as they claimed, and that happened by mistake. Wouldn't be the first time they accidentally nearly broke a reflection.

Maybe it's worth underlining what Y'shtola said, that nobody outside of the Ascians could possibly know what reflection we went to? I feel like some people might be leading themselves down a wrong path by deciding they do know which one it was, and then getting tangled up in the presumptions afterward.

One minor edit

Unless the time dilation fluctuates. Decades in the Alexandria bubble were roughly equivalent to days on the Source. Again, fluctuation is possible, but it's possible that thousands, if not tens of thousands, of years have actually passed in Lightning Land

[Sairys]

I have accidentally lost this post more times than I care to admit.

I just have to disagree with the idea that the Ascians weren't working on multiple shards at once, even if only one could be rejoined at a time, entirely because of Shadowbringers and learning how the Flood of Light started...

Hm, but...

Shadowbringers is why I disagree actually, because the time dilation was a plot point. It was brought up to explain why the various Scions had had a lot more time on the First relative to how long they'd been unconscious on the Source. At one point an hour in the Source meant a year in the First, that could vary and there could have been more moving parts to the calamity, but if the Calamity just needed Ardbert to complete his quest, Loghrif and Mitron may have completed their work within a decade or two. With time dilation, it's possible that may not have even taken a full day on the source. Given there are five years between the seventh calamity and the start of ARR, it's possible that's anywhere from days, to years, to decades, to centuries on the First.

We don't know for certain that the conquests, submissions, solar, lunar, and celestial groupings from the element chart could be valid for a calamity, but the math does kinda math cause that'd be thirteen unique calamities. I feel like the 7.x MSQ is going to start asking these questions about what shard Alexandria came from, was the lightning the work of the ascians, etc. Then we'll start to get answers and I just wouldn't be surprised if one of those was a repeat calamity doesn't make sense for x reason.

Maybe it's a bit meta, but I think also part of it for me is considering that the writers probably want to start setting up the villains of the next saga and the Ascians feel like they're mostly wrapped up with the end of the Hydaelyn-Zodiark saga? But this could be an interesting way to play with and subvert expectations, we know the Ascians operate by influencing people on the shards and source to do things that will trigger the right Calamity like what happened on the Thirteenth, which makes it plausible for others to cause them. A reveal over the coming patches that says it wasn't them leads to intrigue and questioning.

I guess another thing, that question of a Solar/Lunar/Celestial Calamity could work made me wonder if maybe the ones we've seen so far are easier in some way cause they're one element or aspect. The element cycle followed by Darkness then Light kinda looks like balancing the calamities, kinda like balancing the elements in the Eden raid series. Which is also another... reflections lore thing that links back to Shadowbringers

[Ilenya]

Hm, but...

Shadowbringers is why I disagree actually, because the time dilation was a plot point. It was brought up to explain why the various Scions had had a lot more time on the First relative to how long they'd been unconscious on the Source. At one point an hour in the Source meant a year in the First, that could vary and there could have been more moving parts to the calamity, but if the Calamity just needed Ardbert to complete his quest, Loghrif and Mitron may have completed their work within a decade or two. With time dilation, it's possible that may not have even taken a full day on the source. Given there are five years between the seventh calamity and the start of ARR, it's possible that's anywhere from days, to years, to decades, to centuries on the First.

I'm strongly going off memory, but

Ardbert completing his quest was *not* supposed to trigger the Rejoining. It was supposed to set things up for it. I'm trying to track down the info, but I'm honestly unsure when exactly it came up. If I can find it one way or another, I'll be sure to post it.

I don't expect there to actually be more Ascians showing up at this point, not really. I'd love to learn more about the mechanics of a proper Rejoining from the Shard side, but I imagine we're really not going to get that without an Ascian showing up, even if it's just for a loredump.

[Sairys]

I'm strongly going off memory, but

Ardbert completing his quest was *not* supposed to trigger the Rejoining. It was supposed to set things up for it. I'm trying to track down the info, but I'm honestly unsure when exactly it came up. If I can find it one way or another, I'll be sure to post it.

I don't expect there to actually be more Ascians showing up at this point, not really. I'd love to learn more about the mechanics of a proper Rejoining from the Shard side, but I imagine we're really not going to get that without an Ascian showing up, even if it's just for a loredump.

I'm not sure it changes it?

It just being the setup still goes against the idea of prepping before the preceding rejoining for me.

From what I've found, the "plan" was for Ardbert's party to defeat Cylva which would bring the First to the edge but not too far, when then they ended up defeating the Ascians it triggered the flood which shows how quickly a calamity could be triggered with the right circumstances and a case where the people of a shard triggered one "against the plan". That happened around the time of Heavensward. Elidibus was starting up production of Black Rose around the same time that the Scions were being summoned to the first which is when we were also told the time dilation was close to a year per hour on the source. It would have given Loghrif and Mitron, decades if not centuries to push the first over the edge even if they started when the production of Black Rose resumed, plus Elidibus could maintain control over when the Black Rose was used if there was a need to buy time. It also shows why prepping early could present such a risk to the Ascians, relative to source time what happened would have gotten out of control pretty quickly and given the Ascians very little time to prep a calamity on the source, Minfilia is the one that stopped the flood it seems like without that it would have been another failed rejoining.

I'm kinda hoping we might get more info about the rejoining mechanics if the Scions investigate Alexandria's situation. Kinda the same as how the Thirteenth provides understanding about what doesn't work.

I do suspect we might also learn that the time dilation varies. The First's rate would imply the flood of light happened potentially centuries ago for the First. With Alexandria, time was a bit slower given it's only decades to a few days rather than like... over seventy years for the First, but Krile is twenty-two and that could easily mean her parents died tens of thousands of years ago if the dilation is constant.

[Cleretic]

One minor edit

Unless the time dilation fluctuates. Decades in the Alexandria bubble were roughly equivalent to days on the Source. Again, fluctuation is possible, but it's possible that thousands, if not tens of thousands, of years have actually passed in Lightning Land

Your 'unless' is correct.

We do know that the time differences between reflections fluctuates; I simplified down to the base reference points. We know that a low-hundreds amount of years passed for Lightning Land between Galuf at the gate and the events of Dawntrail, because we get a few timeframes mentioned by characters like Otis. Yes, thirty years elapsed over a couple of days after The Orb appeared, but it doesn't always flow at the same rate; it seems that it was a lot faster than average right before we did Vanguard. Remember that Shadowbringers mentioned that while time has previously flowed faster on the First than the Source, they're currently more or less in sync. We know that Lightning Land's time also fluctuates, because we're sure as hell not experiencing time there at an inconsistent rate to the Source now.

[Alenore]

Your 'unless' is correct.

We do know that the time differences between reflections fluctuates; I simplified down to the base reference points. We know that a low-hundreds amount of years passed for Lightning Land between Galuf at the gate and the events of Dawntrail, because we get a few timeframes mentioned by characters like Otis. Yes, thirty years elapsed over a couple of days after The Orb appeared, but it doesn't always flow at the same rate; it seems that it was a lot faster than average right before we did Vanguard. Remember that Shadowbringers mentioned that while time has previously flowed faster on the First than the Source, they're currently more or less in sync. We know that Lightning Land's time also fluctuates, because we're sure as hell not experiencing time there at an inconsistent rate to the Source now.

This, and let me add

It is specifically said the time under the bubble was forced in sync with the Source when people crossed from Vanguard. And it apparently extended to the other Reflection since time seems to flow the same way when we crossed over.

As for how much time it was, I think Otis says he has been in his body for something like 380 years. Given he was the first successful case of memory and soul preservation, Endless (and Sphene) can't be older than that. Given that Krile's parents defected Preservation when they realized they wanted access to other Reflections to plunder their aether for the Endless, these events took place in that timeframe.