8.0 speculation

[Zero-ELEC]

Also, there is something that i was wondering about. Does the withering also exist in the 8th umbral calamity era?

Probably not if it is the result of the "silence left by the will of the star", since neither "will of the star" is gone in that timeline.

[Prometeo]

My point isn't "the Developers planned all this from the start".

Yoshida mentioned one early ShB prod idea of an active Rejoining during the story, wherein the climax of the expansion would be the parallel world literally merging into the Source and altering the City-States— which is exactly how we see Interdimensional Fusion affect Alexandria and Yyasulani. That doesn't mean he knew there would be a big Interdimensional Fusion plot 7 years later. Likewise, Yoshida would not know in 2013 what the Ancients' story would be. But there was a base idea: "These guys came before the Eorzeans and they have some precursor knowledge/experience of 'humanity' they want to re/impose on Eorzea". Naturally, that base idea evolves in the outlinings of the Sundering in 2015 and the Convocation in 2017; those contexts inform how they write the world moving forward.

To this end, the Key being Ancient/Azem-bound is thematically and narratively sound; the larger scope theme of this second saga, is about Legacies. It's entirely reasonable that the Key is the story exploring Azem's Golden Legacy with us at its forefront. I don't disagree that Azem and WoL aren't "characters", because the Player is expected to puppeteer them, but CS3 explicitly characterizes them via the people around them. Hades and Alphi, Ryne and Themis, Venat and Lamaty'i.

Now, sure, the Key can't Fuse the (non-existent) Reflections, but it doesn't just Fuse Reflections. It manipulates the Rift and the Rift is just a part of the cosmology. If Azem's Spell can move Aether across the Rift — and verily, the vast span of the universe— despite being made prior to the Sundering, why is this any different? Ignoring Azem, the Key is all but confirmed to be some form of Auracite, and Auracite functions identically to Dynamis. Those two alone are whole cans of "hand-waving magicks that defy laws of reality in-and-out-of-universe" worms.

Again, look, I'm absolutely not discounting another civ having made it. In fact, to your point, we can speculate Ivalice was active during either the Second or Fourth Eras. Being in direct geographical proximity to the South Sea Isles, it both would line up perfectly with the first known chronological and regional debut of the Key (esp wrt the aforementioned Auracite-like attributes of the Key). If we go back to Ilsabard in 8.0 for Landis, Nhalmasque, and Corvos, Ivalice would probably make some appearance again, especially if it's tied to the Key.

But if the theory is that Azem foresaw a disturbance in the Lifestream and created something that forms Interdimensional bridges for Aether, how would the lack of Reflections back then change that? If the Key could facilitate the motion of Aether from one part of the World Unsundered to another part, through the Rift, accessed by use of the Echo, should that not fulfill all the necessary requirements to do what we know/see it does in the Fifth and Seventh Eras just as neatly as the Ivalice premise?

[Zero-ELEC]

Ignoring Azem, the Key is all but confirmed to be some form of Auracite, and Auracite functions identically to Dynamis.

Woah woah, where's this coming from? The key has not shown basically any properties of auracite so far? Auracite has one recurring property in all instances: the ability to absorb aether in some manner and often releasing it in some transformed manner. The black auracite, the Heart of Sabik, absorbed the aether of the primals and released as Ultima; white auracite absorbed the aether of Ascians and would release it after some small time; Ultima's auracite absorbed aether through wishes and returned it, amplifying it, turning its wielders into Lucavi; memoria absorbs the aether of eidolons and later voidsent, releasing only memories; the memory vessels absorb the "ghosts" of the Scions, and return them to their bodies; the Save the Queen stores massive quantities aether and, more importantly, the memories of the last Queen Gunnhildr, enough to manifest a primal; etc..

This is also dissimilar to akasha/dynamis, which is simply emotional energy normally snuffed by aether. Desire can and has been pushed through aether, and auracite explicitly absorbs immaterial, non-elemental, aether, which includes the aether of the soul, encompassing desires and wishes and will and other such mental and emotional bits and bobs. This is especially true since dynamis gets overpowered by aether, which auracite takes and amplifies.

The key has not shown any instance of absorbing aether or returning it. The key has shown no function of dynamis besides responding to desires (once, allegedly, thousands of years in the past, through unknown means), which aether does as well.

EDIT: Not that I'm saying that it can't and won't be auracite, just that there's no indication so far.

[mallleable]

Totally paranoid thought, but what if The Key looks the way it does because it wants us to see it that way. It wants to lure us in with the Azem symbol and Ancient-looking design.

[Cilia]

EDIT: Not that I'm saying that it can't and won't be auracite, just that there's no indication so far.

If the Key were "just" a chunk of auracite, it wouldn't have taken them the entire patch plotline to figure that out. Auracite has been handled by many characters, albeit primarily in side content; it's not an unknown thing, and functions in a known way (absorbs aether to include memories, and in the case of Ultima who is the main source of auracite, usually amplifies the desires of wielders to the point of mania). If it's auracite Ultima is likely plopping into the MSQ Big Bad seat and that's not something I see happening for complicated reasons.

The most likely answer is that it was indeed created by the Ancients in some form, even if whys and wherefores currently aren't apparent. It is almost always Ascians (Ancients) or Allagans, who are basically just their proxies via Emet-Selch. Either that or a currently unknown civilization; given as we don't know who created it or why, it might not even be native to the Source but instead originate from a civilization on the reflections. The first known use it has was to save the Milalla (neé Lalafell) from the Calamity of Ice, and it's whereabouts beforehand are unknown.

... regardless of origin, I'm more interested in what Halmarut's got to say and why saving the reflections will doom everyone and everything. A lot more important than the origins of the Key, given we know what it does (if not how to purposefully activate it or who made it and why).

[Cleretic]

Yeah, 'the key is auracite' is the exact same as 'the key is made by the Ancients' in that, while it's a perfectly likely answer when looking at the evidence, it is not confirmed, should not be taken as a given, and raises some seriously important questions to answer if it is. It's a less 'destructive' version than the Ancient theory, because there's not really any clear counter-evidence that the auracite theory would need to answer, or necessarily any lost potential or more interesting alternatives, but we've got a swathe of follow-up questions there. Cilia's right on the money with the big one: if it is auracite, why has that not already been called out?

My thought is that, while it is very plausibly auracite, that the fact that it is auracite is not helpful. Auracite's just a very magical and very dangerous rock; it's basically Fantasy Uranium. So while someone like Y'shtola would plausibly be able to identify it, it's the least useful answer on the list. It's like identifying that the bullet in the murder victim was shot from a gun; we just need way more info than that to have anything resembling a useful conclusion.

Totally paranoid thought, but what if The Key looks the way it does because it wants us to see it that way. It wants to lure us in with the Azem symbol and Ancient-looking design.

I like this idea, but it needs to answer some questions. Specifically, the key has looked like this since at least Preservation had it; it looked like that in the flashback with Galuf, it looks like that in all of Preservation's diagrams. If it's 'luring us' with that imagery, why did it look like that back then, when we weren't even close to being a factor?

I don't think the key is shapeshift-y, there's no good evidence of it actively changing shape, but I do think it's plausible that it might be imitating Amaurotian aesthetics rather than being Amaurotian. And if that's true, the question is why: is this just an innocent or possibly even unintentional repetition of aesthetics, perhaps by people from shortly after the Sundering when those aesthetics were still observable? Or is it intentional bait or signaling for someone who knows what that is? And if it's the latter... who for? Because back when the key was first clearly observed in this form, the only people who could identify Ancient aesthetics weren't any of the Scions... it was thirteen planet-smashing assholes, and a lady in the Aetherial Sea trying her best. (Also some Ondo in the Tempest, but they didn't know what they were looking at.)

[Lozza]

Somewhat 7.5 speculation but very much leads into what 8.0 might be about.

I couldn't help thinking after watching the trailer for 7.5 that whatever the withering is, is a natural process. Not like Meteion, an external threat which largely existed and was empowered by the natural process of life and the despair it inspired in mortals.
I paid maybe too much attention to the explanations in Shadowbringers about the shards and the rejoining processes. The points that stood out to me was that aether flows between the reflections, and it also flows back to the source. There is a lot of talk about water flowing down hill, rather like gravity. The story has already has us route a flow of aether to the first from the thirteenth. Thing is when there were 13 reflections, they were presumably balanced. I wonder if the first rejoining was harder, not just because the Ascians didn't know how, but because it's harder to initially break a balanced system. Once the system is unbalanced however, unbalancing it even more becomes easier.

What if the Source is now so much greater due to all the rejoinings that the remaining shards are going to rejoin without any influence. Thinking of aether as gravity, the Source's gravity is now so great it's pulling the reflections into itself, and the walls that might stop it are no longer reinforced by Hydaelyn and/or Zodiark. The Source would physically survive the rejoinings, but life on the Source and the reflections would not. Being rich in aether the Source would eventually produce new life, but it would take a long time for people to emerge from the soup of evolution. This could be the withering, and the Winterers plan a safe haven to wait out the period of no life (winter) until such a time as Ethierys can support life again.

This is where I see the key coming in for 8.0. Using the key to safely rejoin the worlds such that the withering and the winter of Ethierys does not happen.

Random speculation - very little evidence - just my thoughts after listening to the narration of the 7.5 trailer.

[Cilia]

Random speculation - very little evidence - just my thoughts after listening to the narration of the 7.5 trailer.

This is generally the agreed upon circumstances of what's happening, until we get further clarification, although I will admit you expanded it a bit beyond what's commonly accepted.

The way Etheirys currently exists, due to Hydaelyn (f.k.a. "the will of the star"), is unnatural. Naturalistic fallacy notwithstanding, the order of things was a consequence of Hydaelyn and without her it has been acknowledged that the Source and reflections will naturally rejoin - albeit over eons rather than an instant, cataclysmic event. As the Ascian most in tune with nature, Halmarut may know otherwise (and this may be revealed in 7.5) but to our knowledge this is the way of things as they stand. What you're describing is essentially all the remaining rejoinings, all at once, instantly, which I also suspect is the truth behind Halmarut's ominous portents.

Additionally, one thing that was mentioned is that the aetherial state of the reflections affects other reflections as well as the Source; the Thirteenth becoming the Void (heavily Dark aspected) predisposed the First to Light. As such I suspect the elemental devastation we're seeing on the reflections is a consequence of that; the elements swing like a pendulum across dimensions. While this doesn't line up as neatly as I like (Lightning <-> Ice, and the Ice rejoining was the Sixth, which doesn't line up with the Ninth) it's the best theory I've got right now. (That said the Storm Surge was also accompanied by a massive flood, and the Tenth was rejoined in the Calamity of Water, so perhaps that's where the proof lies.)

Having said that there is no such thing as a "safe rejoining;" at present it's either Ascian style rejoining (which annihilates the reflection and devastates the source with the influx of elemental aether) or Interdimensional Fusion (which scars the landscape of Etheirys and produces a region of long-lasting, perhaps permanent, elemental imbalance). It's more likely the Key is "just" going to be used to cross over to other reflections, since the reflections we've already been to (First, Thirteenth, and Ninth) have already had long and mostly complete story arcs. (That leaves us with the Fourth, the Eighth, and the Eleventh as likely destinations.)

Fan Fest starts tomorrow and 7.5 drops Tuesday, so we should have something soon.

[Lozza]

Having said that there is no such thing as a "safe rejoining;" at present it's either Ascian style rejoining (which annihilates the reflection and devastates the source with the influx of elemental aether) or Interdimensional Fusion (which scars the landscape of Etheirys and produces a region of long-lasting, perhaps permanent, elemental imbalance). It's more likely the Key is "just" going to be used to cross over to other reflections, since the reflections we've already been to (First, Thirteenth, and Ninth) have already had long and mostly complete story arcs. (That leaves us with the Fourth, the Eighth, and the Eleventh as likely destinations.)

My other thought on this is that 8.0 is just doing what we did with the thirteenth and the first. The plot is using the key to network the reflections correctly to ensure aether can flow between them and thus balance the system. In my mind whether we have a safe rejoining or balancing the outcome and plot is largely the same.

[Cleretic]

It's clear that the withering is being framed as a natural process, sort of an inevitability of circumstances. But I don't think that's the whole truth; I think Calyx (and eventually us) is being lied to, and the truth is either completely other or is being greatly manipulated. After all, the person I'd most expect to have enough knowledge of a natural process to either fake one or lie about one convincingly is the Ascian whose old job was inventing plants.

If that's true, Calyx is probably smart enough to recognize he's not being sold the whole picture, which might be the context for that one-on-one with us in Mor Dhona. He probably doesn't respect us enough to let us in on any full idea he's got either, but I could see him singling us out to go 'hey, just between you and me: this girl's numbers aren't adding up, keep an eye out'.