[Spoilers] The Device in DT msq

[royox]

I keep saying this, and I haven't seen a single decent argument to refute it: The Ascians do not need this key, because it does a thing they could already do. They could already cross over into other shards, and by all appearances it was a lot easier for them! The one advantage it had is probably transporting people en masse, and the Ascians don't need that, because they only ever needed one-person transport.

Why would they even care that the mortals pulled this off?



And yeah, I think that we're ultimately running ourselves into walls by thinking we have all the answers to this already. This is very clearly a breadcrumb for future stories, there's no way that we can just intuit every single major figure in its history at this point.

The Key having literally Azem's symbol, it not affecting us (Azem's fragment) and Azem knowing about our existance...maybe it was ALL intended? Maybe Azem created it for...us? Maybe Azem created it knowing than in the future the sundered people would need it?

[Carin-Eri]

The Key having literally Azem's symbol, it not affecting us (Azem's fragment) and Azem knowing about our existance...maybe it was ALL intended? Maybe Azem created it for...us? Maybe Azem created it knowing than in the future the sundered people would need it?

Although it has already been mentioned elsewhere in the thread there is some question as to whether it would've reacted in the same manner had any other Ascian crystal (or perhaps even an Ascian 'in person') had been present.

[kaynide]

Honestly I find it sorta funny that they deliberately avoided giving us a straight, non-abstracted view of Alexandria Castle; it's gone in Heritage Found, it's not directly shown in the dungeon, we only see a Disneyland-style cutesy version in Living Memory. Because of course they can't show a FFIX-accurate Alexandria Castle, people would just go 'but that's Alexander'.

Also, while we don't know the specifics of the Enigma Codex, I think the implication is that it itself is part of the time paradox; like how the legend of the Hotgo that the Wandering Minstrel pulls from was Mide and Dayan's history made legend, the Enigma Codex is an account of the events of Alexander, being mistaken as blueprints for the machines within Alexander.

Calling it now: Final-final boss of Dawntrail is Alexander. The primal. Or it'll be heavily involved in the finale. And it'll probably be Dark-Timeline's Alexander. And that the people living in Alexander (so Dark future) are the ancestors of current Alexandrians.

...except maybe they'll use the acronym ARK instead of Alexander... with the hint being the cruise-chaser mount that somehow is the Dawntrail Special Edition mount.

ALEXANDER 2, literally Electric Boogaloo.

[Ysera_Brynat]

Sorry guys, it's my magic cup that I forgot about.

It's mainly used to get to the FF11 raids

[Anonymoose]

The Key is one of those things that makes me nervous.

At first glance, it has the risk of being one of those things where ... like ... something was impossible mainly because they story needed it to be in order to function, and now that part of the story is over, so to expand possibilities they immediately reveal that it's totally possible and actually quite easy "now that we know what we know" (see: tempering-curing porxie). Obviously - in real life - the sudden realization of a possibility that fundamentally eases the difficulty of a task is a thing that happens pretty regularly. But - in fiction - when such an event more or less perfectly coincides with the plot's needs and limitations and doesn't feel integrated into the big picture very well, it just feels like a cheap shuffling of plot devices to ease constraints on the writer, narrative quality be damned.

So far I'm hoping that it's just the way the Traveler ... traveled. Without getting too strange, it could be the case that - since the shards were all once the world Azem knew - it can go between them as easily as within them. Taking bigger risks, it could be the start of a new plot about what Azem was up to post-defection, whether they had any inside knowledge from Venat, and how whatever they did before they were sundered functioned within the Hydaelyn vs. Zodiark dynamic.

Though I do think it's funny how many people are bringing Alexander and the horn into the mix. Remember what the horn/tablet combos were called...? <xfilestheme.ogg>

[Cleretic]

At first glance, it has the risk of being one of those things where ... like ... something was impossible mainly because they story needed it to be in order to function, and now that part of the story is over, so to expand possibilities they immediately reveal that it's totally possible and actually quite easy "now that we know what we know" (see: tempering-curing porxie). Obviously - in real life - the sudden realization of a possibility that fundamentally eases the difficulty of a task is a thing that happens pretty regularly. But - in fiction - when such an event more or less perfectly coincides with the plot's needs and limitations and doesn't feel integrated into the big picture very well, it just feels like a cheap shuffling of plot devices to ease constraints on the writer, narrative quality be damned.

I actually think something important to keep in mind is that the key actually isn't very easy to use at all. The lalafel of the South Sea Isles successfully used it, but Robor and Alayla mentioned that they failed to use it themselves for a long time before Preservation stepped in. And honestly, it's kinda hard to say how much of what happened 'on-screen' in Dawntrail was the key's doing.

That suggests to me that the key's actually much harder to use than we might be giving it credit for. Hell, perhaps 'key' is more literal than we're assuming, and it actually does barely anything unless it's put in the right machine.

[Kesey]

The Key is one of those things that makes me nervous.

At first glance, it has the risk of being one of those things where ... like ... something was impossible mainly because they story needed it to be in order to function, and now that part of the story is over, so to expand possibilities they immediately reveal that it's totally possible and actually quite easy "now that we know what we know" (see: tempering-curing porxie). Obviously - in real life - the sudden realization of a possibility that fundamentally eases the difficulty of a task is a thing that happens pretty regularly. But - in fiction - when such an event more or less perfectly coincides with the plot's needs and limitations and doesn't feel integrated into the big picture very well, it just feels like a cheap shuffling of plot devices to ease constraints on the writer, narrative quality be damned.

I felt this when the comment was made about the regulators allowed souls to merged and only remember the memories of the person who was being resurrected, and someone points out that it is similar to what happens in the 13th except the original "person isn't erased". And in my minds eye I see the quest to Solution 9 to get a regulator, to give it to a scion to reprogram it, and then give it to Zero to save some new character. Like a relative new problem to the main plot has already got a solution waiting in the wings for when we're ready to redeem the 13th.

[Supersnow845]

I actually think something important to keep in mind is that the key actually isn't very easy to use at all. The lalafel of the South Sea Isles successfully used it, but Robor and Alayla mentioned that they failed to use it themselves for a long time before Preservation stepped in. And honestly, it's kinda hard to say how much of what happened 'on-screen' in Dawntrail was the key's doing.

That suggests to me that the key's actually much harder to use than we might be giving it credit for. Hell, perhaps 'key' is more literal than we're assuming, and it actually does barely anything unless it's put in the right machine.

The key from what we’ve seen seems to focus in or activate off an overwhelming desire for imminent escape on possible threat of destruction

The lala’s managed to activate it and flee to Alexandria when their kin were literally dying around them, while they tried to activate it again during the storm surge Alexandria itself was shielded by their barrier until the rival nation launched the levin nuke. But Alexandria survived, that might explain why it never activated for the lala’s again. Then kriles parents managed to activate it to send krile to the source as they knew preservation was after them and would likely kill then and krile for knowledge of the key. Then sphene activated it to take yasolani to the shard of Alexandria over a desperate plea to save the endless which is again what activated it when we go to living memory

I feel like it’s probably an artifact that can only be fully controlled by Azem or potentially another convocation member but can respond to incredible bursts of desire for self preservation (which may even invoke dynamis)

There is also the potential that preservation includes Alexandria’s shard of Azem who may have some degree of control over it like we will likely have going forward

[kaynide]

Re: regulators

What bothers me about them is that we went through a lot of trouble to figure out how to transfer souls using the special crystals at the end of Shadowbringers to bring our Scions home.

Now we have a gadget that can hold multiple souls, and seems to do all the transfer business on its own.

Assuming we can somehow store souls in tact with memories in a regulator, wouldn’t that make a lot of that earlier stuff moot?

And isn’t there some really bad happenings when you force/overwrite souls? We kinda see it with beast souls in Arcadion…but in the Sorrow of Werylt series, isn’t that kinda sorta what was going on with their over-drive mode? Or was that more mind-jacking? Is there a difference?

[Supersnow845]

Re: regulators

What bothers me about them is that we went through a lot of trouble to figure out how to transfer souls using the special crystals at the end of Shadowbringers to bring our Scions home.

Now we have a gadget that can hold multiple souls, and seems to do all the transfer business on its own.

Assuming we can somehow store souls in tact with memories in a regulator, wouldn’t that make a lot of that earlier stuff moot?

And isn’t there some really bad happenings when you force/overwrite souls? We kinda see it with beast souls in Arcadion…but in the Sorrow of Werylt series, isn’t that kinda sorta what was going on with their over-drive mode? Or was that more mind-jacking? Is there a difference?

What the Alexandrians could do with regulators doesn’t affect the ShB story at all because we didn’t know the Alexandrians existed at that point, nor did we have any way to access Alexandria at the time as we didn’t know where the city of gold portal was. It’s likely if we knew about the Alexandrians we could have done something with regulators but it’s a moot point

As for oversoul that’s different to beast soul, the mind of the pilot is overridden with the memories and fighting style of the weapons intended garlean base (nael for ruby, gaius for emerald and Zenos for diamond)