8.0 speculation

[Pimsan20]

I apologize for how harshly this is going to come off, but this would be the worst, weakest, most narratively destructive explanation for the key, and I want nothing more from this plot thread than for this to be wrong.

The Ancients have no use for the key as we understand it; the reflections did not exist at the same time as them. For any of them to have made the key, it would have to be for literally no purpose of their own; there is no 'why' to that explanation, no compelling personal motivation, no personal investment for them--and, therefore, us. Any other civilization we've ever heard of in this game making the key would be more compelling, because at least they'd have a reason to want to make it themselves. It is a 'nothing' storyline... that somehow gets even worse if Azem made it.

Because for Azem to make the key, to assert that their future sight was so elaborate and so perfect as to have them know they should make this tool that is literally worthless in their time and of absurdly specific and likely precise purpose and mechanism... would mean that Azem is, effectively, omniscient and omnipotent. At that point, either Azem knows and is capable of everything, or that the limits of their knowledge and abilities are so extreme as to be meaningless.

And if that's the case... where does this end? If Azem had enough knowledge of events twelve thousand years into the future as to see the need to make the key, and to then do it themselves, what else could, did, or didn't Azem do about anything and everything else? If they saw the need to make the key to prepare for events after Endwalker, why didn't they do anything for the events of Endwalker? Or did they, and it turns out the entire game up until this point has just been Azem futzing around and setting up twelve thousand year butterfly effects?

I apologize for giving you both barrels on this, because this is not a 'you' problem and I've seen plenty of people bring up this idea... but OH MY GOD is it such a bad idea and I'm a little tired of seeing people raise what is, very plausibly, the worst idea for where this game could go that I have ever heard. Like, if this was true? I give up, there is no more story, because the entire game is just Azem setting up dominoes for Azem to knock over.

I have to agree with you Cleretic. If azem would be omniscient and omnipotent, wound't we, the WoL also be omnisceint and see the future? That wouldn't make sense at all.

[Cilia]

Sorry, I have been having too much fun with the new Vault Hunter in Borderlands 4 and took my sweet time getting to this.

The things going on here are... strange, I guess. Jullus looks like he's going to be the dungeons Guest Star for the Trust system, and while the weird things we're fighting are nothing unusual (in that they're weird) him calmly approaching what's likely the last boss after defeating it is. We know for sure there is a Void incursion, based on other tidbits, and Voidsent are not always violent or aggressive, but it's still an odd thing.

Definitely travelling to the Void, at least in 7.5(5?). We see Zero, Golbez, and the Azem invocation on the Red Moon. Presumably this is where we're fighting Enuo, who based on this is indeed an MSQ fight and not some odd side content related to the Occult Crescent. Strange, but I don't think we're going to do a whole lot more with the Void beyond beating back this incursion apparently led by Enuo because...

Based on what we've gotten so far, the quandary put forth is that preserving the reflections will somehow wipe out both them and the Source, or we can elect to wipe out the reflections (via rejoining?) to preserve the Source. This certainly gives us context to Calyx's actions (trying to preserve something of the Ninth while speeding things along), as well as gives us the new antagonistic group in the form of the Winterers (who we know includes at least Halmarut, plausibly the other unaccounted for Ascians, and Calyx as an associate) who are likely to go along with the "sacrifice the reflections for the Source" path (which, being an ideal hero, is something we will reject). So, that's looking like our current path forward - jumping across reflections to stop them from imploding at the hands of the Winterers while seeking a different path forward. I just can't figure out how Halmarut's monologuing about the planet works in there. Probably something to do with the "will of the star," given she describes the planet as a benign entity rather than the Ancient-favoring stance her compeers (and indeed the Ancients in general, based on Elpis) took and used as part of Zodiark's concept.

Exciting time. Still not sold on the Key being an Ancient relic, or even related to Azem. While the events from Elpis until our return to the "present" are a time loop and thus set in stone, Azem having 12,000+ year precognition more than stretches disbelief, and unless there's another time loop at some point in the future it wouldn't make sense for them to make this thing for us and not leave clearer directions on how we're to forestall this "Great Withering."

At this point we're just missing a "Where?", and only because there's not a lot to the Void and we just visited it back in 6.X, so we'd know! Barring some hopelessly unforeseen miracle there's not enough there to carry a whole expansion...

WoL walking into a glyph made with the Key and Azem's crystal; cool, but we have no context!

And the next Ultimate is Kefka.

Some kind of proper information on 8.0 can't come fast enough. Probably not Blindfrost though.

[Mansion]

I kind of read it as the WoL channeling their Azem power to use the key, but not as Azem having built the key in a master plan, which sound a bit more plausible in my opinion.

As per the difference in French, there are very slight differences but I don't know if they are meaningful.

First sentence: In English, it says "helping all shards will bring complete annihilation", when in French it's more "helping each shard brings their complete annihilation" it does not imply anything would happen to the Source.
Second sentence : no mention of rejoinings in French. It says "The star doesn't mind its fate", essentially.
G'raha : I don't understand what he says in English, "another journey across ??" in French he says "maybe it's time for us to come home"
Last sentence is pretty much identical, albeit less "poetic" in French. The only difference is that Halmarut says "no one will be left" and in French "no one will be abled to be saved"

[Cilia]

I kind of read it as the WoL channeling their Azem power to use the key, but not as Azem having built the key in a master plan, which sound a bit more plausible in my opinion.

As per the difference in French, there are very slight differences but I don't know if they are meaningful.

First sentence: In English, it says "helping all shards will bring complete annihilation", when in French it's more "helping each shard brings their complete annihilation" it does not imply anything would happen to the Source.
Second sentence : no mention of rejoinings in French. It says "The star doesn't mind its fate", essentially.
G'raha : I don't understand what he says in English, "another journey across ??" in French he says "maybe it's time for us to come home"
Last sentence is pretty much identical, albeit less "poetic" in French. The only difference is that Halmarut says "no one will be left" and in French "no one will be abled to be saved"

There are no mentions of rejoinings in EN either, but it's not really clear how we're supposed to save the reflections from the "Solstice" Halmarut is alluding to otherwise except for rejoinings and Interdimensional Fusion. Obviously we're not going to pursue those, but it's likely the antagonist(s) are going to go after one or the other. What she's talking about is more important than anything else going on right now, I think, and we don't have the full picture still.

G'raha says "Mayhap it's time for another journey across the salt;" essentially the EN's more poetic version of "Maybe it's time for us to go home."

[VulpinusRex]

I wonder if the Key isn't really a key necessarily, but rather an archival crystal that logs all of Azem's travels and journeys during the pre-Sundering times.
A travel log, basically. And it's simply because it's very closely tied to Azem and their powers that simply gives this crystal the ability to traverse the Shards, instead of it being made with the precise function of unlocking different dimensions.

We know that there are Ruins of Amaurot on the bottom of the Tempest in the First, so it stands to reason that there are ruins of the Unsundered World still in other places too, perhaps scattered across different Shards and the Source. So maybe the key doesn't necessarily open a portal to any Shard, but rather Shards that contain fragments/ruins of locations Azem had already traveled to before. Almost acting like a beacon for Aetheryte travel, through Azem's travel logs contained in the Crystal.

We know that Azem was traveling around Etheirys while the rest of the Convocation was trying to find a solution to the End of Days to try and find a 'different solution'. Additionally, Themis (Elidibus) said this at the end of Pandeamonium as he entered the Aetherial Sea and he got all his memories back:

"How fascinating, the truths that dwell at the edge of sleep. The course of history is set by its victors. It is immutable. And yet... Should this star continue upon its path..."

So perhaps the Convocation did have a rough idea of what could possibly happen should the two Elder Primals cease to function, and Azem was instead traveling the world not so much to find a solution to the End of Days, but to the problems that might potentially arise further.

Maybe we'll use this key to retrace Azem's steps through their travels, be they in the Source or the Shards and investigate the Ancient Ruins to try and find parts of Azem's solution to this potential 'Withering', now that we have actual confirmation that it is indeed happening.

Not so much that Azem knew exactly what was gonna happen, but rather they theorized that if the Star loses its newly found 'Will', the laws of nature will begin rolling in earnest once more which could lead to chaos, so they were trying to find a way to prevent said disaster.

Maybe a bit tinfoil-y but well... We really don't got much to go from. I definitely feel like the 'portal magic' we saw on the trailer is a misdirection and is something we'll see either in the Alliance Raids or OC rather than the MSQ, since there was a very harsh camera cut between the orange beam coming from our Azem Candy and the 'portal' opening.

[Cassar]

I apologize for how harshly this is going to come off...

Not at all, I don't mind the pushback. We're all equally lost in what it could be at the end of the day.

To be clear, I actually agree that it would be more interesting from a narrative standpoint to associate the key with another culture that's not Azem. At the same time, I don't think it's as narratively destructive as you're suggesting in case it is Azem related. They would have a lot of explaining to do, sure, but I don't particularly see it as immediately bad. Keep in mind, Azem having created the key doesn't necessarily mean he used future sight. He could've simply caught wind of Venat's plans to sunder the star and wanted a way to ensure his future generations could still adventure across shards. Sealing his legacy, in a way.

As for the key...
If anything, the trailer basically confirms that the Azem Crystal affects the key in some way. We also have to remember that we saw Azem's symbol when Endless Sphene used the key against us.

I think this leaves us with two options.
1. The key is somehow sealed with Azem's magick.
I think in this case, it would be safe to assume that Azem had something to do with the creation of the key. Now, how did Preservation manage to use it for the fusion? They most likely found a way to emulate Azem's magick by using Electrope. I think it's very possible, and it wouldn't be the first time this happened, as the Exarch (and Elidibus) did something similar with the Crystal Tower on the First.

2. The key reacts to some property within Azem's crystal, but not necessarily a property native to that specific crystal
Maybe any memory crystal would work. Maybe any Ascian memory crystal would work, which would explain how Calyx was able to use it for the fusion, by getting aid from Halmarut. Maybe there's an inherent property to Azem's magick that just happens to coincide with whatever is sealing that key. There's endless possibilities here I think, but they're gonna have to explain that really well.

Either way, one thing that really bothers me is that Azem's crystal clearly seems to activate the key, so how come none of the Ascians, including Emet who's had Azem's crystal with him for centuries, ever used it? We know for a fact that Emet knew about the Golden City, which means he knew about the portal in Yak'Tel, which means he certainly knew about the Key. They're gonna have to explain that.

I would like to ask though, do you have any theories on the correlation between Azem's crystal and the key?

[Zero-ELEC]

The thing is, the key isn't the first thing to inexplicably have the Azem symbol. There's an Azem symbol in Alzaadal's Legacy, for one. I feel like I remember a similar symbol near Loquloqui, the statue of what is presumably the Speaker in Aloalo. To me that suggest less a direct connection to the ancient Azem, and more to the "seat" of Azem over the years, previous incarnations of "our" Warrior of Light, as it were—or perhaps someone else that "filled" the seat before them.

[Cleretic]

I would like to ask though, do you have any theories on the correlation between Azem's crystal and the key?

First of all, I am not one for predicting or speculating; I don't find it fun or interesting. If you ever see me predict something, it's usually because I'm either confident enough to see it as a given, or--what I'm gonna do here--putting forward what I see as a much more likely alternative to an extremely bad or unlikely idea that the fanbase has locked in on for some reason.

But if the crystal must be connected, which is in fact looking like the most likely possibility, my read is that it's made by people who were inspired by Azem's tales. We know that memories of Amaurot survived in scattered and incomplete form post-sundering, to the point where we found the cave paintings in the Qitana Ravel; to me it makes complete sense that some other civilization was inspired enough by Azem's tales to build a religion out of this, and this is a holy artifact of theirs. Said civilization is defintiely one we haven't met, and is probably dead, but that's what I think is coming; it gives us a new society to find the ruins of (which we know the devs love), and gives us a new angle on a character they're never going to actually depict. As a bonus, their actual distance from Azem--having heard their tales at some remove and probably bent, exaggerated and twisted by time--helps avoid the chance that they write something someone's headcanon disagrees with. If their tales are so out there that they claim that Azem made the Thirteenth by forming a planet out of the night sky on an evening walk, obviously you don't have to take any of their other tales as strictly true, either!


Or, the admittedly wild theory that I think still works to give context to what we've seen: Azem's crystal and the key DON'T connect, and the key would do this kind of thing with any spell. That the key actually just magnifies the effect of magic, regardless of what magic you give it, and we just happen to be giving it the Azem crystal. While I do still think this is unlikely, I think it's a good angle to break free of any preconceived notions; we do not have any level of established, concrete fact that the crystal and the key are connected; we just have circumstantial evidence linking them, and it's entirely possible that they don't have the relationship we think.

[Zackneifein]

I apologize for how harshly this is going to come off, but this would be the worst, weakest, most narratively destructive explanation for the key...

Don't worry. It's not something I said because I like it but because that's where I think they are going.

But.

Azem has either : future sight or knowledge of the future. Doesn't need to know everything, just that the Final Days will be resolved and the existence of the Withering (could also simply deduced it existence during their time). Azem is already described as nearly perfect, loved by everyone (before their defection) and extremely competent in about everything.

I'm convince that at first, Azem was just something they would never expand about after Endwalker, just to add some "explanation" to why the WoL is the WoL and a little "forever" mystery (at least during Shadowbringers 5.x). But they realized that Azem was extremely popular, with "What was doing Azem during the Final Days" asked multiple times to YoshiP directly for example, and I think decided to change the initial plan. The fact that there is so much reference to Azem, Azem's crystal or thing's reaction to Azem magic means that one way or another, Azem is related and will matter in what will follow in the story, it can't mean anything else if not it didn't made sense to make it so revelant during those scenes (Chekhov's gun).

Now that I think they chose to tell more about Azem, the fact that they did nothing during the Final Days, neither joining the Convocation nor Venat doesn't make any sense. Everything they told us about them prove that they would have acted somehow. The only reason I can see is that they already knew how the crisis would be stopped during their time, then resolved in the future, even if they don't know the full details. What remains is what were they doing, and "nothing" doesn't work for Azem. The only thing they could have done and would matter, now, only be related to the Withering or a way even indirectly to fight it.

there is no more story, because the entire game is just Azem setting up dominoes for Azem to knock over.

Well no. Only what is about to come in the story, since Azem didn't interfere at all with the Final Days until the Pandemonium events telling Elidibus to wait for the Wol... but what you are describing is litterally eveything FFXIV is since the beginning, except it's Venat that is "setting up dominoes" perfectly knowing who we were, already knowing about our adventures and how it would happen waiting for us to come back with our "It's been a long time Venat".

[Cleretic]

Well no. Only what is about to come in the story, since Azem didn't interfere at all with the Final Days until the Pandemonium events telling Elidibus to wait for the Wol... but what you are describing is litterally eveything FFXIV is since the beginning, except it's Venat that is "setting up dominoes" perfectly knowing who we were, already knowing about our adventures and how it would happen waiting for us to come back with our "It's been a long time Venat".

Except Venat's knowledge of the events of the world was actually extremely limited. Her understanding of the events of the entire twelve thousand years of future history is one sit-down meeting with us. That information can only be extremely limited, because our own knowledge is limited even if we're given all the time in the world to convey it. And that information is something she was working outside of anyway, as evidenced by us learning that the moon plan we thought was Plan A was actually Plan B all along, so she's already not just working off of that intel.

We also only learned she had that knowledge about a zone and a half before she died. So not only did Venat's limited foreknowledge not cast a shadow over the storyline for long, it also had a clear finishing point; 'everything is Venat Venat-ing across history' was already a tenuous statement, but as a plot reading, it clearly has an expiration date after which that can't be true--or at the very least, it takes an extremely different form. So while there was a point where you could have had this read on the whole game, even that read changes structure and cadence over time.


That's not true for Azem, because not only is their future sight nebulously defined but evidently consistent (the Ancients seem to see this as a pretty typical thing for them to do), but they have always been dead. If they can tell that the key is needed twelve thousand years after their life, and be good enough at those required skills to then make the key, then obviously their future sight and their capacity to do something with that information is EXTREMELY precise, EXTREMELY far-reaching and EXTREMELY consistent, and by nature cannot change in state, because Azem's always has been, and most likely always will be, exactly as involved in the story as they always have. If this turned out to be true, there is no possible limiter for this, and no possible 'finish line'; if Azem can see far enough and well enough to make the key specifically because we'll need it now, then there is nothing that already happened, or could happen in the future, that Azem can't have also seen.


EDIT: For what it's worth, my eyeballing on Azem's future sight is that it might just have a limit of, like, two days, but was consistent enough to rely on. They didn't know where we came from in Elpis, but they did know we'd turn up and be helpful to Themis' investigation.