Revelations from Dawntrail (7.0)

[Alleluia]

I actually think the symbol knocks a lot of theories people are throwing around, while also raising a lot of questions.

So, the key lets people travel across to another shard--possibly just one other shard, possibly multiple, it likely doesn't matter. That makes sense why it pulls up Azem's symbol; they're the traveler, they're exactly the right figure to evoke for a form of impossible transit.

...but the form of transit it provides actually rules out it being made by Azem, because the shards didn't exist until after they did. The key would have been utterly useless back when they were someone who could've made it. On a slightly different tack, it also reasonably wouldn't be the Ascians, who didn't need the extra help to do that. So I'm just left with a big shrug; I don't know who could've possibly made it, or to what end.

...however, the way Sphene talks about it, I can't entirely rule out that it's somehow a trigger weapon being described and evoked by someone who doesn't have a concept of primals. That seems really unlikely, but if it's true, that means EUREKA'S BACK ON THE MENU, BABY!

And as for Preservation: if the Ascians are involved in anything around Alexandria that matters, I think it's there. It smells like them, especially from the angle of, again, the perspective of people who don't know their angles. It reads to me like an Allag-style 'set up a big piece for a big fall', perhaps also mixing in Elidibus' 'controlled opposition' angle. However, I'd also add that if it is an Ascian plan, I don't think it's a successful one; I think they screwed it up even before they started dying to Critical Underestimation Incidents.

10characters

the fact the shards didn’t exist yet doesn’t rule out Azem making it. Venat knew what was going to happen and how. She may have confided in Azem what she was planning to do and Azem just needed to be familiar with the mechanism behind the sundering to eventually work out this rift bridge.

Or there’s the more out there idea that Azem knows the future on their own somehow and used that knowledge to give them an idea of what they needed to make. Again, Azem knew we were coming for Pandemonium and nothing has explained how, yet.

Regarding the ascians in the unlost world, I’d have expected their fingerprints to be all over Lindblum and it’s super weapon rather than on Preservation. I mean they could be in both. But the weapon very obviously creates the overwhelming presence of lightning on the shard, which is what you’d need from it for a rejoining. Preservation seems to bring the world back from the brink in a way. Of course, eulmore offered a certain kind of solace from the flood, too, but it ultimately served their plans, so this could be the same. It’s certainly a house made of dubious moral cards, like eulmore.