I need an Umbral Calamity refresher as Dawntrail has me confused

[Alenore]

Or at least, they knew what they were doing according to the guy that had a vested interest in making it look like they knew what they were doing.

I think 7 successful rejoining (8 in a different timeline) after one failure when they were screwed by a seemingly natural rule they never encountered before gives them a bit of credibility.

[Alenore]

Another possibility is that they jaunted to the 12th Shard's PAST and did in fact cause the Lightning Calamity, but Solution 9 jaunted -again- to some other shard entirely to avoid the lightning calamity. There is nothing saying they didn’t harvest some other shard before jaunting -yet again- to the Source in DT.

-or- they jaunted to the aethereal sea in a sorta pocket-dimension like Omega and were "stranded" there post Lightning Calamity.

Too many unknowns to peg it down. Shard-travel seems to have some weird time distortion that we're just not sure about.

Millala tried to open a portal or travel to another dimension and failed. We're explicitly told that. And Preservation couldn't make the key work before Millala sent it away on the Source.

About "being in a pocket dimension", read my previous post explaining how Alexandria is situated exactly where Everkeep is in the Source, or how there's a moon and clearly other aether in Living Memory, making it be a pocket dimension unlikely.
Weather is classified in Strayborough as "Dimensional Distruption" but Living Memory has a normal weather system, a day night cycle, etc.

Finally, there's no time distortion with shard travel that we know of. Time flows differently, yes. But we've never seen it
But a rejoining implies an event had to happen in both the Source and a Reflection at some point. Ergo, if you leave the source after X happened as a consequence of Y in a shard, no matter how quickly or slowly time pass, you'll always end up after Y happened.
Unless you include time travel to the equation, but they never mentioned the artifact having that kind of power.

Of course we can't be sure of anything since they can pull new lore out of their hat, but there's nothing even implying they went to the past of the reflection, or that they even time traveled at all.

[kaynide]

Could be, but I’m not really inclined to believe the first time they made a portal actually work was also the time Krille’s parents decided to get rid of the key and their baby.

Rather, because the gate aperture structure is established, I’m inclined to believe they had dimension hopping more or less down. But when Preservation revealed plans to harvest other shards and/or jaunt the entire city, Krille’s parent’s removed the key and their baby.

I’m also leaning towards it having taken those 30 years to figure out whatever final pieces were needed to move the city.

But we don’t know.

I’m also not entirely confident that they skybox in living memory is actually the real sky. It could be, sure, but it could also be an Elpis/Andyr situation where it’s a pocket dimension with simulated sky. Or the inner part of their dome (since the Alexandria shard is supposed to be ruined by lightning)


The only thing we really know is that Living Memory is the top floor of Everkeep, and is prooooobably in Alexandria’s home shard, so it could 100% just be it’s own shard without time travel shenanigans.

Again, we just don’t know. Which is a good position for the devs to work with as they can just decide later if it needs deciding.

[Basteala]

Keep in mind the shard only no longer exists if it's rejoined to the Source. A Flood is different, and the shard will still remain, albeit warped beyond recognition (The Void, most of the First.) In the case of Alexandria, what others have said is most likely true--this isn't the Twelfth , but rather another shard that was also imbalanced towards lightning, primed for rejoining...but then due to the loss of the Ascians and certainly the Unsundered, chaos fell and a Flood of Lightning took place.

We even have flood-like symptoms such as more and more people being born paralyzed, as the ambient aether is so heavily shifted to one element that its affecting the body's ability to maintain balance (compare to the first, when some victims of Sin Eaters might have been able to return to balance, were it not for the excessive ambient Light on the First).

As for why not everyone in Alexandria changed to some Lightning equivalent of Sin Eaters/Voidsent, I can only assume Everkeep is a highly potent example of Electrope, so great that the Flood was converted into other elements enough that those inside were not changed--the structure essentially being a massive insulator. This would certainly be a remarkable, even shocking feat, but this turn of events would explain what in the hell happened.

I also strongly agree that Everkeep's skyline is artificial. The place was designed to be a haven and comfort for its people, and if the denizens of Sharlayan could make an artificial sky in Labyrinthos, I'm pretty sure an infinitely more advanced civilization could perform the same feat.

[Alenore]

Could be, but I’m not really inclined to believe the first time they made a portal actually work was also the time Krille’s parents decided to get rid of the key and their baby. It could be, but “it didn’t work until it did, and then they sent their baby through unproven tech which could have just vaporized them if it wasn’t working” seems a stretch.

But we don’t know.

I’m also not entirely confident that they skybox in living memory is actually the real sky. It could be, sure, but it could also be an Elpis/Andyr situation where it’s a pocket dimension with simulated sky.

Again, we just don’t know. Which is a good position for the devs to work with as they can just decide later if it needs deciding.

Elpis isn't a pocket dimension, it's the past. This is the actual sky, albeit without a moon since it didn't exist at the time. Before someone mentions it, I'm not sure if the moon appears for 4 hours during umbral wind still, or if that bug was fixed.

It would be mighty weird that the sky only appears once all the made up climate in Living Memory disappears when we shut down the Meso Terminal: the weather before that is called "Reminiscence" and actually doesn't have a moon. The phase of the moon is also the exact same as in the Source.
Y'shtola says it's a gate to another Reflection. Nowhere are we told Alexandria changed reality except that very one time. They didn't know how it worked, only had to resort to it this once to get energy, had a key locked away from them, don't have a single instance of foreigners appearing in their city like they do with Turali.

So you can have a hard time believing it, but that's exactly what we're told. It's not a matter of "we don't know" but "we know and you ignore it".



Not for you specifically but something I've noticed in this topic and others, but a small rant...

This is the Lore forum, and while discussing theories and possibilities or where the writers may lead the story is obviously what's expected here, this should be in accordance with the current story and lore elements we have at our disposition.
I understand missing some finer points of story hidden behind sidequests or some basic dialogue, or forgetting stuff about previous patches, but we're talking about the main story arc of quests 97+ onward of the current expansion.

Of course, SE can subvert expectations and introduce new elements in future patches, but if we're told "This is another reflection", "Rejoined reflection no longer exists", "The artifact never worked again for us", "This is the first time we fuse with another dimension", "We managed to create a prototype gate" and "We hijacked it to hide the artifact before they could enact their plan", from reliable narrators, then it should be considered to be facts and discussion should be based on that.

Speculating should then be made based on current facts and not making assumptions going against the current story and elements we have been presented with.

[ShadowyZero]

from what i understood is that their calamitous event didn't trigger a rejoining it altered the landscape of the nation of Alexandria but they say nothing about the other nations that were involved in the war and it was by this point the milala were already on the shard as they are the ones who designed the endless queen and the soul system to sustain her continued existence and that of the people who died an had their memories data-based.

[kaynide]

Elpis isn't a pocket dimension, it's the past. This is the actual sky, albeit without a moon since it didn't exist at the time.

I was specifically referencing the dungeon which I incorrectly said Andyr; that's the Amaurot one; I meant Ktsis, which DOES have artificial sky.

Everything else fair points, but we also have SE doing really really weird things to established lore so call me skeptical.

Things like flip-flopping astral/umbral, or aether not really being just aether….there’s also Dynamis! Or the very sudden, and abrupt, change of name for the planet. Or that primals no longer temper because the tribes were taught “dirty summoning” but now it’s ok!

[Alenore]

Things like flip-flopping astral/umbral, or aether not really being just aether….there’s also Dynamis! Or the very sudden, and abrupt, change of name for the planet. Or that primals no longer temper because the tribes were taught “dirty summoning” but now it’s ok!

The definition of Astral and Umbral didn't change, but which energy we associate it with does. It was a very small point since we rarely encountered Light before, mostly during Admapor Hard and I don't think they ever explain anything about Light as an energy.

Dynamis existence is fine in itself. What isn't is how people want to include Dynamis into the story retroactively. And I mean players.
No, all Limit breaks are not Dynamis : we've seen plenty of NPC unleash LBs after channeling LB. We even sometimes grant our aether to some NPC so they can use it. Doing boss mechanics correctly grants LB gauge because we're releasing its aether and then using it (Ifrit nails, for instance).
Some instances are, and sometimes we have that definitely Dynamis-looking FX like against the reworked Ultima fight where we unlock a 3rd LB bar, or when we die and actually don't (trials).
But just because somebody says "emotion" or "thought" doesn't mean what happens and is at play is Dynamis, since Aether is known to react to those things as well.

The planet didn't change name, we just rediscovered what it was called before we got to call it Hydaelyn. Imagine reading an ancient greek book, you see the term "Gaia", and decide to call it that from now on.
From a gameplay perspective, I suppose it was decided to change its name to avoid the confusionof "are we talking about the planet, or the primal?"

And finally, summoning has almost always been taught by Ascians, who already know creation magick. Given their plans was to create chaos and strife between beast tribes and the fives races at the time, it wasa great way to ensure that:
- tribes would be tempered and keep on fighting for their gods ;
- If their primal is killed, they feel compelled to summon it again ;
- the other races would see the threat a primal would pose and fight them ;
- thus creating conflict for years.

Nothing in all that goes against established lore, they just build upon it.

[EdwinLi]

No, all Limit breaks are not Dynamis : we've seen plenty of NPC unleash LBs after channeling LB. We even sometimes grant our aether to some NPC so they can use it. Doing boss mechanics correctly grants LB gauge because we're releasing its aether and then using it (Ifrit nails, for instance).

The interesting aspect about this side of the lore is that as we get more skills each expansion or new ones to replace old ones, the NPCs always seem to obtain a specific one as their LB while WoL obtain that ability as a Normal Skill.

It is a rather interesting event that been going on for a while. At this point, it is most likely just SE showing how more skilled WoL is since he/she can perform skills that are so strong they are just Limit breaks for NPCs but for WoL they are normal skills.

[royox]

my theory:

The shard where Alexandria comes from is actually the 12th, the one that got already rejoined and caused the 2nd umbral calamity of lightning. I think the reason it still exists is because the remaining people of the 12th wished for something to save them and somehow summoned Alexander who put the remaining part of the world in a bubble separated from the space-time continuity and prevented it to be destroyed during the rejoining. There has to be a relationship between ALEXANDRIA and Alexander for sure. There is a LOT of time shenanigans going on in the last parts of the MSQ and Alexander is our to go thing for time stuff. This would explain how the lalas scaped from the Source and arrived to the 12th when the 12th had to be destroyed. The Key used to trave around dimensions maybe also helps the user to travel in time, remember it's Azem's connected and Azem knew about our WoL and time travel