Gaius and the two Ascian. Dawntrail/8.0 Spoiler

[Cleretic]

Would be cool if we got an Garlean Expansion. We still don't know what happen to the other legion, so if they will use them with ascians. It could help clear out some stuff that we're missing.

I actually think an Ilsabard expansion (I don't think it would rightly be a Garlean expansion, those guys fell apart and are no longer the major power they were) is the exact situation where we should find out he definitely did kill those Ascians. I'm picturing a big part of the expansion being finding out what those Ascians were actually doing, what their plan was, and what people are doing with the remains; seeing opportunists pick over the corpse of an Ascian apocalypse plan and trying to use it to their advantage. I'd findthat far more interesting than the two should-be-deads turning up and going 'now, where were we?'


All this said, I have been reminded of an idea that I've realized would be the genuine most interesting way to take the 7.3 reveal: what if it's Travanchet? It being the only black-masked Ascian worth a name would actually be a properly new and interesting idea, while still being a 'congratulations for remembering things'-level pull--and one that would have a weird connection to the Ninth, given he was involved in the Alexander story. And instead of descending into the same speculation about the same Ascians as always, with the same background and previous plan, we'd instead be forced to think about what the largely faceless black-maskers like Travanchet would've wanted or been promised out of that whole deal, and what they might want for themselves now that the doomsday cult has collapsed.

EDIT: Plus, if the thing people want is more new Ascian content, bringing in the black-maskers is an endless new supply! We're here arguing on if there are two, four or five red-maskers left, but we have no idea how many black-maskers there were!

[Pimsan20]

I actually think an Ilsabard expansion (I don't think it would rightly be a Garlean expansion, those guys fell apart and are no longer the major power they were) is the exact situation where we should find out he definitely did kill those Ascians. I'm picturing a big part of the expansion being finding out what those Ascians were actually doing, what their plan was, and what people are doing with the remains; seeing opportunists pick over the corpse of an Ascian apocalypse plan and trying to use it to their advantage. I'd findthat far more interesting than the two should-be-deads turning up and going 'now, where were we?'


All this said, I have been reminded of an idea that I've realized would be the genuine most interesting way to take the 7.3 reveal: what if it's Travanchet? It being the only black-masked Ascian worth a name would actually be a properly new and interesting idea, while still being a 'congratulations for remembering things'-level pull--and one that would have a weird connection to the Ninth, given he was involved in the Alexander story. And instead of descending into the same speculation about the same Ascians as always, with the same background and previous plan, we'd instead be forced to think about what the largely faceless black-maskers like Travanchet would've wanted or been promised out of that whole deal, and what they might want for themselves now that the doomsday cult has collapsed.

EDIT: Plus, if the thing people want is more new Ascian content, bringing in the black-maskers is an endless new supply! We're here arguing on if there are two, four or five red-maskers left, but we have no idea how many black-maskers there were!

There is some logic in your theory. Travanchet does seem a little sus, now that I think about it. He might be one of the Ascians you mentioned.

[Aneshda]

Gaius and the two Ascians... Two Ascians with red masks, Deudalaphon and Altima, male and female...
Gaius is fleeing the fire after our fight against Ultima and encounters two people: Valdeaulin Ganathain and Severa Souther. Coincidence?
I wouldn't be surprised if these two were Ascians and, like Gaia, simply wanted to live their new lives. So the three of them invent a nice story, Gaius gets their masks, and the world believes that two fewer Ascians exist.

[Cleretic]

Gaius and the two Ascians... Two Ascians with red masks, Deudalaphon and Altima, male and female...
Gaius is fleeing the fire after our fight against Ultima and encounters two people: Valdeaulin Ganathain and Severa Souther. Coincidence?
I wouldn't be surprised if these two were Ascians and, like Gaia, simply wanted to live their new lives. So the three of them invent a nice story, Gaius gets their masks, and the world believes that two fewer Ascians exist.

This is the worst idea around this that I've heard.

First of all, we don't actually know the gender of Deudalaphon or Altima to my knowledge, since they've been barely present whatsoever, so it absolutely can't be brought in as evidence for anything, especially not without some sort of citation if you somehow have this information and we might not. Granted, going by Mitron the Ascians don't necessarily consider physical gender to be a strict criteria to hold to, so it might not matter. (Incidentally, the only 'still unused' Ascian we do have a gender for is Pashtarot, but he was in that tiny post-Praetorium Ascian stinger so that gives plenty of time to go get a new design.)

But also, Valdeaulin and Severa are actually characters of some pretty big understated importance, because they give us windows into cultures that we otherwise don't: Valdeaulin is a Duskwight Elezen who wasn't from a diaspora (and from a place we didn't think had them, too), and Severa is a half-Garlean from the occupied nations. Those are actually extremely important, have really good reasons to exist, and tell as a lot even just in their one cutscene of backstory each! They're good characters telling good story!

I dislike dragging in the Ascians because they essentially prevent potential new villains from getting the chance to be compelling in their own right, because those villains must either be Ascians or be controlled by Ascians. But making Valdeaulin and Severa into Ascians would do even worse than that: it would erase story we already have.

[MeteorMachinist]

A comment I saw today made me check on that 2.3 cutscene again and how the number didn't make sense at all. There's 15 occupied seats. There should have only been 13 of them with Azem having left to be Meteor. Could that comment have been right that it's distinctly possible one of Azem's other shards is working as an Ascian? But that still doesn't answer the plot hole of there being a 15th. This is really bugging/sticking with me now.

And I also find it very interesting the idea that the two Ascians that Gaius killed are probably not gone for good, because even if he erased the current versions of them, they were sundered so they should have had shards to fill their shoes. So they're probably still in play.

[Cleretic]

A comment I saw today made me check on that 2.3 cutscene again and how the number didn't make sense at all. There's 15 occupied seats. There should have only been 13 of them with Azem having left to be Meteor. Could that comment have been right that it's distinctly possible one of Azem's other shards is working as an Ascian? But that still doesn't answer the plot hole of there being a 15th. This is really bugging/sticking with me now.

...oh my god, how have we never noticed that!? You're right--we never get a clear shot of the whole 'room', but if you count out all of the seats, there's very clearly seven on each side.

I very much doubt we can call this evidence of anything other than 'this scene was before they cemented the Ascian plan we know', because they've been enforcing the idea of there being thirteen Ascians for ages, but I do think it's absolutely hilarious how we've spent years dissecting that scene for clues and never even noticed there's an incorrect number of seats.

[Anonymoose]

...oh my god, how have we never noticed that!?

Anytime you've seen me joke about how "it's ok to subtraction-retcon the 2.3 cutscene, just take chainsaw to it", this was the source of the joke.

It's not just 2.3, either. The 2.00 "HAIL ZODIARK" scene to this day shows fourteen shoulder-padded, black-robed overlords before Elidibus even shows up.

The 2.3 scene appears to be attempting to depict all fourteen of the 2.00 Ascians + the now-arrived Elidibus (except many of them are just copy-pasted black-masks - standing in for un-made red mask models - and someone forgot to reactivate their shoulderpads, so we snark that the extras must just be interns). Notice also that it includes a spoken line by Emmerololth, whose death was retconned by Eureka to predate that meeting. If they confirm Emm was re-risen .. why not any of the others who were extinguished in the applicable window? So ... maybe better to just change her nametag and delete the extra bodies, lol. (For that matter, would Emet-Selch have even attended the meeting, given the timing, do you think? Not impossible, surely, but...)



My theory is that there was originally one overlord for each world, with Lahabrea being the black-robed representative of the Source, and Elidibus also being of the Source, but some super special mystery somehow closer to Zodiark and keeping the others in line, and that the reincarnates were weaker as a result of being cast to a reflection and having to transmigrate back. That would also fit with there being no hint of a third Original or Emet-Selch at all until Gaius came to deliver that lore update, and with Emet-Selch's offhanded "there used to be one-per-world but stuff happens" comment. (Nabriales only mentions Lahabrea and Elidibus as exceptional, for example.)

I throw this in the "unintended oddity" bin with Lahabrea and Elidibus having what looks suspiciously like a "wow no one's ever killed an Ascian before" talk (that, yes, we have room to claim was just a "wow they killed an Ascian, which has happened many times before" talk) after Nabriales got ganked, hence Emet-Selch's offhanded "I've overseen many changes of the guard actually..." comment.

Most of these things have some wiggle room for reinterpretation and/or addition-retcons, but that 2.3 cutscene is rough.

[Cleretic]

I throw this in the "unintended oddity" bin with Lahabrea and Elidibus having what looks suspiciously like a "wow no one's ever killed an Ascian before" talk (that, yes, we have room to claim was just a "wow they killed an Ascian, which has happened many times before" talk) after Nabriales got ganked, hence Emet-Selch's offhanded "I've overseen many changes of the guard actually..." comment.

I think this one could be an easily squared circle if they wanted to just by confirming the emphasis wasn't 'wow, they killed an Ascian', it was 'wow, they killed an Ascian'. The Students of Baldesion had to nuke their entire island base into the Lifestream to kill Emmerololth, and here the Scions are managing to kill Nabriales using a broken stick with only one casualty! And if you take the Convocation titles to be relevant to anything (which I don't think anybody should), Nabriales was supposed to be the guy that's good at this!

But yeah, this really does just cement that basically every ARR Ascian scene is a goddamn trainwreck that shouldn't be studied too closely. Like, if the developers weren't even consistent about the number of chairs they should have, we shouldn't be expecting any other small details to be important either.


And incidentally, the shoulderpads are an inconsistency even after the Ascians 'got good'; the Winterer Ascian has a shoulderpad setup that isn't previously represented by anything, with no spikes but with the armored upper arm. Mitron couldn't even remain consistent about their shoulderpad status between consecutive cutscenes in the same patch! That element we've gotta throw out completely, it's too inconsistent to mean anything.

[Anonymoose]

That element we've gotta throw out completely, it's too inconsistent to mean anything.

So then, when Alphinaud highlighted Lahabrea's "garb" as marking him as (using cross-language terms here) "of the highest-ranking among the Ascians" ... with his garb differing from black-masked mooks only by virtue of the shoulder ornaments and red mask ... in retrospect we should interpret this not as him delivering a helpful tip that players could count on ... but just yappin' like he's right about everything. Typical 2.x Alphie... At least he was still right about the mask...


I remember we also noticed this trend manifesting with the MTG cards - Dark Confidant variants feature the black-masked Ascian with the generic Zodiark glyph, one with pads, one without.


EDIT

the Winterer Ascian has a shoulderpad setup that isn't previously represented by anything

I had just assumed based on the cloth shoulder that it was the usual black-mask get-up with the new material reflections, but that does appear to be the lower half of the "overlord shoulder" divorced from its upper half. Weird.

[RedLolly]

I keep seeing a theory that posits that Altima's shard on the source is actually Alisaie (warrior maiden and healer that's behind the miracle of curing tempering giving FFT "Saint Altima" vibes). I keep going back and forth on whether or not it's worth exploring, especially since we've already got an ally that's an Ascian (Gaia) and we're literally sundered Azem. But it *barely* makes sense unless we assume that the Altima Gaius fought was from another shard.

But considering the amount of players asking for a storyline that properly puts us against an ally after DT blueballed us in that regard, maybe?