Revelations from Patch 7.2: Seekers of Eternity

[Cilia]

I hope the answer is 'very', because Calyx is immediately among the most interesting villains that FFXIV has ever had to me. The game's always had villains who are big on feelings, and small on any sort of reasoned, calculative thought or planning; hell, even the unfeeling robot trying to find The Strongest Warrior was ultimately motivated by emotions and had no actual plan. it's genuinely compelling and uniquely chilling to be going up against a villain who has Done The Math.

[snip]

Which sounds really great, but Calyx hasn't really thought things through at all. He just asserts without evidence or reason that humanity has reached either an evolutionary apex or dead end (it's not clear which), and thus the Endless and other yet-unseen experiments are needed to continue pushing humanity forward. That's not how evolution works at all; besides which, the implication Calyx's negative opinion of biological existence comes from his own frailty in life means that his reasons are less logic and more anger about his own condition. (Different writers are a thing, but a recurring theme in the Hy/Zo saga was that no matter how people tried to "reason" it out, their motivations were ultimately humanistic, self-interested pursuits.)

While I can't say for sure whether Calyx will definitively be dealt with in 7.3, what let Elidibus stick around so long was the mystery and mystique behind the Ascians. For better or worse unveiling the cosmic truths of Shadowbringers and Endwalker basically did in the mystery, and "How does he know all this?" isn't as compelling a question as "What do they know? What do they mean?"

In my opinion anyway.

[Cleretic]

Which sounds really great, but Calyx hasn't really thought things through at all. He just asserts without evidence or reason that humanity has reached either an evolutionary apex or dead end (it's not clear which), and thus the Endless and other yet-unseen experiments are needed to continue pushing humanity forward. That's not how evolution works at all; besides which, the implication Calyx's negative opinion of biological existence comes from his own frailty in life means that his reasons are less logic and more anger about his own condition. (Different writers are a thing, but a recurring theme in the Hy/Zo saga was that no matter how people tried to "reason" it out, their motivations were ultimately humanistic, self-interested pursuits.)

While I can't say for sure whether Calyx will definitively be dealt with in 7.3, what let Elidibus stick around so long was the mystery and mystique behind the Ascians. For better or worse unveiling the cosmic truths of Shadowbringers and Endwalker basically did in the mystery, and "How does he know all this?" isn't as compelling a question as "What do they know? What do they mean?"

In my opinion anyway.

Honestly, I think you're looking at Calyx a little simplistically here, on several fronts.

What we know is that this guy's gone transhumanist in response to the overall fragility of life; 'organic bodies suck, let's replace them'. Yes, by definition that is not evolution (although in FFXIV's world I can't say it's without precedent), but that's a pretty common sci-fi angle, that's not a new hole to poke. This is the Borg, this is the Cybermen, this is SHODAN. However, the fact that he's focused on and thinking on the factual and logical level, doesn't mean that the questions about him only exist on that same level.

We know that he has done the grimmest possible math, and that his answer was 'five thousand Endless'. A big appeal there for me is that means his M.O. is entirely different; he can be a lot more calculated, his schemes can be more outwardly complex even if they're often gonna end up in similar explosions because of the nature of the game. But what we don't know is how he came to that conclusion, what variables went into it, or perhaps most importantly, how he came to that question in the first place. After all, there's a few significant steps between 'try to cure an epidemic disease' and 'bodies as a whole are obsolete', you don't just go from one to the other. Hell, they're not even the same academic field.

And then there's the question of... well, his other question. Something important to remember is that while we're locked onto his 'five thousand Endless' plan because it's both directly relevant and the thing we concretely know, we also know from the stinger that in his mind that's solved, and he's on to a nebulous Something Else. We don't know what he's up to, but we know he's got more irons in the fire than we're aware of.

...also, a bit of an aside: my math says he might be a Koana villain, which could be interesting. If Endless Sphene was Wuk Lamat's ideal of 'I'll fight so that my people will know peace' taken to its absolute extreme, Calyx is Koana's belief of 'my people must advance and innovate' taken to its absolute extreme. I don't think they're necessarily gonna get put in opposition, because Calyx seems to be set up to oppose Real Sphene more than anything, but even if not it does a decent show of demonstrating what Calys can bring that's different to villains before him.

[unlimitedBLACK]

And then there's the question of... well, his other question. Something important to remember is that while we're locked onto his 'five thousand Endless' plan because it's both directly relevant and the thing we concretely know, we also know from the stinger that in his mind that's solved, and he's on to a nebulous Something Else. We don't know what he's up to, but we know he's got more irons in the fire than we're aware of.

That's probably the main thing that lends credence to Calyx lasting beyond the Alexandria story; I feel like you're right that since he's already solved the problem of flesh, he's looking for another problem to solve. "Five Thousand Endless" is the solution he's proposing to fix the problem of flesh for everyone (LITERALLY everyone), but he clearly doesn't actually CARE about anyone else. If he has his own escape that allows him to stay flesh-free, I think he's not going to really care if the WoL PatroL stops the fusion plot.

I can't shake the sense that Calyx's similarity in appearance to Selh'teus is a very intentional hint at what his importance going forward will be.

[mallleable]

Starting to think Calyx was given bad math from somewhere or someone to reach the '5000 Endless' conclusion. Like 'oh yeah, 5000 is totally enough, nothing bad will happen if you dust 5000 people, and turn them into Endless. Pinky promise!'

[Cilia]

Starting to think Calyx was given bad math from somewhere or someone to reach the '5000 Endless' conclusion. Like 'oh yeah, 5000 is totally enough, nothing bad will happen if you dust 5000 people, and turn them into Endless. Pinky promise!'

Kind of what I'm getting at. The arbitrary 5,000 seems more geared towards fostering envy and resentment in the people than any "hard math" about what an ideal number of Endless would be. Add in the terror attack to further the citizenry's fears of death and "Simulant" Sphene disappearing from the scene (thus creating a lack of clear leadership) and it's fairly certain that Calyx's goal is not simply to create 5,000 Endless out of random Alexandrian citizens, then start doing more Interdimensional Fusions to sustain them. He's playing at something bigger, or half the stuff he's said and done doesn't make a lot of sense.

Or maybe I'm just overthinking things, as I am wont to do.

[Iscah]

Kind of what I'm getting at. The arbitrary 5,000 seems more geared towards fostering envy and resentment in the people than any "hard math" about what an ideal number of Endless would be.

That's my feeling too, plus – at the most pragmatic villain level – if you're reducing the entire human population down to 5000 people forever you probably should be making sure you've got important knowledge/skills covered rather than just taking whoever got in line and/or spooked into registering first.

The whole plan sounded off when Fake Sphene announced it and the impression hasn't improved now.

[Cleretic]

Starting to think Calyx was given bad math from somewhere or someone to reach the '5000 Endless' conclusion. Like 'oh yeah, 5000 is totally enough, nothing bad will happen if you dust 5000 people, and turn them into Endless. Pinky promise!'

I guess I'm in the minority here when I think that the far more compelling and chilling option is that the math is right. The math is macabre, morally abhorrent, and emotionally dead, but the working out is solid; that yes, he can keep five thousand Endless indefinitely sustained, if everyone who isn't in that group is therefore treated as expendable. The problem is that he was pushed to do that math at all, not that he got the end number wrong; I kinda don't feel like Calyx, or anyone else, would be behaving differently if that end number was five thousand, five million, or five.

I could see the Maximum Overdrive shift being one of three things here:

• Simple callousness of 'everyone outside the five thousand doesn't matter so they're just a waste of resources',
• Scaring people into signing up, because they made five thousand neo-regulators but it seems not all of those got properly set up,
• Or maybe this is just what the plan looks like, either in creating the five thousand endless or in leading to Calyx's 'second question'.

It's actually a little difficult to figure out the possibilities here, though. I think the key piece of evidence to consider is the disintegrated body Malachite found, but I've got no idea what that means; maybe that is a successful Endless-ing, or maybe that's someone being melted down into base fuel?

[Iscah]

I think the key piece of evidence to consider is the disintegrated body Malachite found, but I've got no idea what that means; maybe that is a successful Endless-ing, or maybe that's someone being melted down into base fuel?

Yes, that stands out to me – I'd wonder if it's a consequence of extracting "life force" (the power they use to animate the Endless) from the victim, but we had no talk of that happening to the victims of the raid on Tuliyollal.

Another possibility could be that they're not actual people getting killing in these demonstratory attacks, but fakes for some reason, created in a way that makes them crumble back into dust once killed. But what would be the value of that?

Is it dust or ash, or something more exotic like aether-drained matter in the Burn/Empty? Spontaneous disintegration, sped-up decay or deliberate transformation?

It's a puzzle piece but we don't have any of the connecting ones.

[Cleretic]

Is it dust or ash, or something more exotic like aether-drained matter in the Burn/Empty? Spontaneous disintegration, sped-up decay or deliberate transformation?

It might be a graphical engine thing or a reused assets thing more than a deliberate choice, but it looked kinda gunky to me. It reads less as a dry pile of ash or dust, and more as, like, a wet sludge.

It doesn't give us more information if it is, but I do have more questions if it's a sludge more than it is an ash pile. That would be a very deliberate pick.

[Iscah]

It might be a graphical engine thing or a reused assets thing more than a deliberate choice, but it looked kinda gunky to me. It reads less as a dry pile of ash or dust, and more as, like, a wet sludge.

Didn't it just blow away in the wind? That would indicate a dry, fine dust of some sort.