[Spoilers] The Device in DT msq

[Iscah]

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>

I wasn't around for that. What are the horn/tablet combos called?

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.

I don't understand what the problem is that you're envisaging to solve this way. How would the ability to consume "cleaned" souls help the Thirteenth?

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?

The corruption from the beast souls is presumably something along the lines of the identity-damaging issues of consuming souls in the Thirtenth, perhaps with some kind of additional damage from merging souls and then ripping them back out again – something like the wear and tear on velcro over time, or perhaps more like if you merge two different-coloured balls of playdough and then try to perfectly separate them again.

The weapons' Oversoul system seems to be along the lines of the regulators' "record memory and apply it to a new soul" approach, except the target soul is still in a living body with its own memories right up until they get copy-pasted over.

[Anonymoose]

I wasn't around for that. What are the horn/tablet combos called?

Keys　 ：)


(Pg. 78 of the EE has a quick one-pager on them. Gives the impression they might have been important plot devices in a discarded plotline.)


It's probably a coincidence.

I actually think something important to keep in mind is that the key actually isn't very easy to use at all.

I might not have been clear enough about the dissociation of in-world/out-of-world levels, here.

Just because it's similarly difficult for in-world characters to accomplish doesn't always mean it's similarly difficult for the plot to accommodate it.

Imagine if, for the sake of illustrating the point, the reason it happened to work that one time was because the Speaker of Aloalo was incidentally a reincarnation of the Azem shard - like us. That, yes, makes it very difficult for people in the game to accomplish it because no one can do it but the Azem shard. However, we are the Azem shard. Ergo, it would go from very difficult to effortless for the writing to accommodate cross-shard travel, coinciding with the moment that the restriction went from "necessary" (to serve the old plot) to "a hindrance" (to writing cool, new plot).

(If so, this might be why they wrote Y'shtola making it goal for the whole post-Endwalker / pre-Dawntrail story - to give it slightly deeper roots.)

Just because you can say, "well for the people in-world it makes total sense" doesn't meant the writing is automatically incapable of feeling overly convenient and contrived, you know?

This is why I used the porxie as an example. Tempering was at first a dark, terrifying plot device. There was no coming back from it. If you were tempered, you were - at best - a sleeper agent waiting to be activated. There was no cure but death. It was unsolveable when it being unsolvable was convenient for the plot (primal drama), and as soon as the plot didn't need it anymore (moving on from primals as a huge, in-focus threat) a solution was fast-tracked through the MSQ so tempering could be used for the Garlean radio with downsized consequences. Is it weird in-world? Not really. We got new information, expanded upon it, tested it, and produced a solution with organic limitations. (And making it a porxie is completely in-character for Alisaie.) In-world, it all works just fine. Didn't stop it from feeling a little rushed/convenient/tonally awkward, for me, personally, though.

What I mean by, "It makes me nervous," is, in short, "I've seen many a writer fumble similar bags," lol.

(Also keep in mind that I'm not really someone who sees recognizing a product's strengths and weaknesses as deeming the product "bad".)

[kaynide]

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

I’m not saying it in an in-universe story way, about our characters knowing or not. I’m saying as a person watching a story that had something that was a major plot point to be difficult to do, suddenly and conveniently become an easy thing to do. Similar vein to Anonymoose’s Porxies conveniently being able to cure tempering.

Same deal with Elidabus’s sudden mastery over being able to send us exactly where and when we needed to go (Elpis), despite the ancients fully believing time travel was impossible, humanity needing several generations to get it kinda-sorta-right (although off by some years?), and us destroying the Alexander control unit in the basement.

No problem though, because -reasons-.

The starship is another problem I have. Sharlayan has the ability to link aetherytes (Thav to Sharlayan), so travel is possible without actually having gone before. So why not get the rabbits to twin the moon to a top secret aetheryte? Why build a ship at all when people (in general) can just teleport? Even Thancred without his magic could teleport. Need Sharlayan people specificity to go to the moon? Ok, sure, don’t need that big of a ship to do it.


All this is telling me is that whatever has been established is not set in stone, so much as it is “meh, if the writers wanna do it, I guess it’s fine”, which is YoahiP’s stance.

As in I will not be surprised if Emet comes back next expansion, and we’ll just say “well we didn’t know X then, so it’s perfectly fine now!” (YoshiP even teased dark timeline overlord Emet as being “out there somewhere”).

[Vyrerus]

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

I want to believe.

--------------

The key already bothers me quite a bit. Supposedly it works off of earnest and strong desire. Like it activated for Zoraal Ja because apparently he was keeping it 100 with his zaney plan to drown the world in war so that everyone would desire the air of peace.

Then, apparently Sphene, was able to activate it again in spite of being a robot with overlaid memory framework.

Still wondering though how the physical key showed up in Soul Bound Cyberspace (for that matter, why is the Azem stone also there with us in soul bound cyberspace?).

It reeks of hand waving, like most of the problems with Dawntrail.

But of course, I would remind you that the key alone didn't tear open a hole for either Zoraal Ja or Sphene. Nor did it do that for Krile's parents.

Zoraal Ja and Krile's parents both merely succeeded in opening the gate in Skydeep Cenote. Sphene merely succeeded in opening a hole through which to siphon aether mid-fight, temporarily.

The only "lore" so far that states the key can do that completely on its own is the Millala story, but apparently they were aetherical whiz kids of a flavor, so who knows what other methods they were employing when they did that.

To me this says that basically we are literally going to use it as a key. Like every time we come upon a dimensional interstice, the key will be able to open it for us.

And to me that's small potatoes, since they just had the Alexandrians capable of Interdimensional Fusion. A Rejoining technique that doesn't seem to require any death, done by machines the Millala created, using a device that we now know has connections to the Ancient Ascians...

"Have you seen the cities of gold of The New World? Or the South Seas Isle and their people?" <- Bitch knew about this, but wasn't getting very hands on with that key and tech?

Yeah, the plot's needs and limitations most assuredly are not being integrated into a bigger picture.

[Iscah]

Keys　 ：)


(Pg. 78 of the EE has a quick one-pager on them. Gives the impression they might have been important plot devices in a discarded plotline.)


It's probably a coincidence.

OH WAIT I was here for that. Put it out of mind entirely once it was looking like abandoned plot thread from before they rewrote the Ascians into Amaurotines, plus I know there had been stuff in 1.0 so I assumed you were talking about that.

*rummages around the script box*

From An Uninvited Ascian:

NABRIALES
Now is the time to claim the staff!
With it in my grasp, I shall rise above them all and take my place at Lord Zodiark's right hand!

The staff Tupsimati─or rather, the stone tablet it bears─is host to a great power.
Together with the horn, it can be used to draw vast quantities of aether from its bearer's surroundings.

What use!? You mean to say that all this time, you kept the key, never knowing what it was you possessed?

It would certainly be interesting if they've come back to clean this up.

Same deal with Elidabus’s sudden mastery over being able to send us exactly where and when we needed to go (Elpis), despite the ancients fully believing time travel was impossible, humanity needing several generations to get it kinda-sorta-right (although off by some years?), and us destroying the Alexander control unit in the basement.

[...]

The starship is another problem I have. Sharlayan has the ability to link aetherytes (Thav to Sharlayan), so travel is possible without actually having gone before. So why not get the rabbits to twin the moon to a top secret aetheryte? Why build a ship at all when people (in general) can just teleport? Even Thancred without his magic could teleport. Need Sharlayan people specificity to go to the moon? Ok, sure, don’t need that big of a ship to do it.

Elidibus did sort of get fused with the tower and he picked up the Exarch's memories along the way, so he's got a grasp of at least the fundamentals of the device and I could accept that from that starting point he could have the right additional knowledge how to make it work better and open up a precise portal to the right place and approximate time. It does annoy me that they seem to have forgotten about destroying the time machine core, though.

As for the starship, if the will of the star Herself tells you it's absolutely necessary to build a starship then that's what you build. Behind the scenes it's likely that Hydaelyn playing near-literal 4D chess to make the people think the starship is needed for the evacuation, but actually intends all along that it will take you to where Meteion has gone.

[Cleretic]

Just because it's similarly difficult for in-world characters to accomplish doesn't always mean it's similarly difficult for the plot to accommodate it.

Imagine if, for the sake of illustrating the point, the reason it happened to work that one time was because the Speaker of Aloalo was incidentally a reincarnation of the Azem shard - like us. That, yes, makes it very difficult for people in the game to accomplish it because no one can do it but the Azem shard. However, we are the Azem shard. Ergo, it would go from very difficult to effortless for the writing to accommodate cross-shard travel, coinciding with the moment that the restriction went from "necessary" (to serve the old plot) to "a hindrance" (to writing cool, new plot).

(If so, this might be why they wrote Y'shtola making it goal for the whole post-Endwalker / pre-Dawntrail story - to give it slightly deeper roots.)

Yeah, honestly, I just don't think we're seeing the same things. Or at least, not seeing the same things as the same things. (If that makes sense; it's late here.)

Yes, the key's probably going to be core to traveling to other shards at some point. And personally, that's the least interesting hook the story could ever possibly explore to me... if that's the only thing about it. The thing that mainly saved Dawntrail there is that it used that nominally similar beat to tell a story that absolutely wasn't that; it's a story about death, legacy, and the notion of moving on after grief, that happens to use another shard to do it, while also using that other shard in a way they've never used one before (no matter how much G'raha insists the Everkeep is basically the Crystal Tower).

That part's mostly unrelated, but it does lead to me feeling like they're probably not going to make this easy. It'll be easier, mostly in the sense that before this point it was literally impossible, but I get the feeling that the writers aren't inclined to use the key as an easy... well, key, to do easy 'let's go to an alternate dimension' stories. They've laid the proper groundwork between the key, Y'shtola and Alexandria, but after Alexandria itself, but I don't think the dev team wants to pave an easy road.

The porxies felt to me like a way to finally clean a longstanding problem off the game board. But I suspect the key might actually be intended to make new problems, even as it opens doors.

[kaynide]

Elidibus did sort of get fused with the tower and he picked up the Exarch's memories along the way, so he's got a grasp of at least the fundamentals of the device and I could accept that from that starting point he could have the right additional knowledge how to make it work better and open up a precise portal to the right place and approximate time. It does annoy me that they seem to have forgotten about destroying the time machine core, though.

As for the starship, if the will of the star Herself tells you it's absolutely necessary to build a starship then that's what you build. Behind the scenes it's likely that Hydaelyn playing near-literal 4D chess to make the people think the starship is needed for the evacuation, but actually intends all along that it will take you to where Meteion has gone.

I mean, sure, or, it's just easy for the writers to make events happen the way they want them to by hand waving like this. Pretty much as soon as Garlemald was done in 6.0, the game jumped the shark. I still like theorycraft and having fun guessing at what's coming, but it's hard to take the in-game universe seriously. Even if they make up reasons for it to work in game, it still feels lazy.

Endwalker Pitch Meeting

Ok, writers, First order of business, NO, you can NOT call it "moonwalker".
- ...

Ok. So, let's talk ENDGAME! We need to get the player to Ultima Thule to take out the angsty teenager. How will they know to get there?
-Let's have Venat put a magic tracking device on the final boss.

I mean... ok but how will Venat know to do that?
-We can use the time traveling tower to have PCs meet Venat in the past and tell her. Ooh ooh! We can throw in Emet. They love some Emet.

But won't that be a problem if Emet knows the whole thing?
-Right.. Oh! Have you seen Men In Black?

Fine, fine. But how are they going to make the tower work. We JUST put out that dungeon breaking the core.
-Let's just let the dead ascian still kinda be alive, and
-give him all the memories he needs and
-be able to sacrifice his remaining aether-power to do the work and
-be able to make the time jump work through sheer determination, because the actual time machine bit is gone AND
-have him be willing to help even though other Ascians could still be in play to make the rejoining happen elsewhere!

Alright. How are they gonna get to Ultima Thule then?
-We'll just have Venat tell them to build a starship. But she'll say it's for going to the moon.

Perfect! But can we bring Emet back a second time? Wanna get our money's worth!
-You betcha! We'll have him come back with the power of feelings!

The what?
-We'll call it Dynamis. Oh! We can use Dynamis to point to the past zone, using uh.. Flowers!

Fine, whatever.
-*doodles fanart of Zenos and Ardbert*
-Can we have the WoL ride Zenos?

[Luizgazen]

I still think the key was made by Azem from the little we know about him\her, we know Azem's Crystal was imbued with his\her favourite magic, a hero summoning spell capable of summmoning allies from beyond the rift, so it's not a huge leap to say Azem was an expert at teleportation magics nor that his\her spells can be used to cross shards, and since even Venat was stated to be a researcher as well we can also say it's likely Azem was one and then the key may simple be a fruit of his research which survived through the ages.

[fulminating]

I still think the key was made by Azem from the little we know about him\her, we know Azem's Crystal was imbued with his\her favourite magic, a hero summoning spell capable of summmoning allies from beyond the rift, so it's not a huge leap to say Azem was an expert at teleportation magics nor that his\her spells can be used to cross shards, and since even Venat was stated to be a researcher as well we can also say it's likely Azem was one and then the key may simple be a fruit of his research which survived through the ages.

They did have alphanaud specifically mention again the wol’s freakishly high supply of anima, maybe it comes with the azem soul thingy.

[Iscah]

As a further thought on Nabriales' expanation, if they are indeed returning to that lore thread:

The staff Tupsimati─or rather, the stone tablet it bears─is host to a great power.
Together with the horn, it can be used to draw vast quantities of aether from its bearer's surroundings.

The business with Alexander only seemed to involve Travanchet giving Mide a horn, and that was able to "draw vast quantities of aether from the bearer's surroundings" apparently on its own, so where (and what) is the tablet, and what is the tablet's purpose?

Was the Enigma Codex functionally a tablet?

Are the tablets related to the explanation of how electrope works, with arcane engravings to direct aether to do a particular thing?