8.0 speculation

[Sudoku]

I don't think dropping the other reflections on Ilsabard is likely since Square Enix seems very reluctant to substantially change old maps. And if we dropped the First onto Ilsabard, that would necessitate some very big changes to the Norvrandt maps.

[17cupsofcoffee]

Between the seeds they've sown about using the First's excess light to fix the Thirteenth (which they made a point of mentioning again in 7.5), and the fact that every single reflection we've seen (now including the Fourth) is elementally out-of-whack, I'm pretty convinced that, at some point, we're going to end up creating some kind of giant, IRL version of the elemental chart Urianger showed us in Shadowbringers.

Though whether that would actually help with our "oh god everything's rejoining by itself" problem, I have no idea.

[StriderShinryu]

Though whether that would actually help with our "oh god everything's rejoining by itself" problem, I have no idea.

My guess is that the planet is basically just trying to seek some level of balance on it's own as opposed to necessarily "needing" to rejoin into one. If we do manage to essentially create that balance ourselves (likely by stabilizing and then balancing the reflections that lean in opposite directions, which is why they keep bringing up the 1st and the 13th) then it seems plausible to me that the planet will no longer need to rejoin itself.

[Cleretic]

My guess is that the planet is basically just trying to seek some level of balance on it's own as opposed to necessarily "needing" to rejoin into one. If we do manage to essentially create that balance ourselves (likely by stabilizing and then balancing the reflections that lean in opposite directions, which is why they keep bringing up the 1st and the 13th) then it seems plausible to me that the planet will no longer need to rejoin itself.

See, my read (and the way I read 17cupsofcoffee's post) is that it's not a need to rejoin or a need for balance, because those two things imply agency that the planet just doesn't have. I think it's essentially weird transdimensional gravity; it's not a need, it's an inevitability.

Which I don't think is necessarily related to elemental imbalance, but I think we'll solve as, like, a tertiary thing behind 'stop the Winterers' and 'stop the Ascians, Again'. I do not believe the Solstice is in any way a pressing thing that we'll actively be moving to solve, primarily because it doesn't end in boss fights; we're gonna spend our time stopping the Winterers one by one, and probably throwing a few Ascians in the woodchipper, and eventually we just sort of incidentally solve the Solstice. My guess is either that one of the Winterers has come up with something we can adapt, or that our crystal-and-key trips somehow themselves set up an apparatus; like a combination Bifrost bridge and load-bearing pillar.

[Cilia]

That is indeed the issue as laid out by Halmarut; the Solstice is nature reasserting itself, and the planet does not have a will unto itself that wants this to happen. "Will of the star" was never a natural thing, and without a an entity fulfilling that role capable of keeping the reflections and Source split apart the Solstice is a natural consequence.

Besides which we do not have enough reflections left to create a proper elemental array; Light and Dark are polarities, not elements, and excluding the Thirteenth (Dark), Source (Balance), and First (Light), there are only four reflections left (Ninth = Lightning, Fourth = Ice, Eighth and Eleventh = ???).

[Zero-ELEC]

That is indeed the issue as laid out by Halmarut; the Solstice is nature reasserting itself, and the planet does not have a will unto itself that wants this to happen. "Will of the star" was never a natural thing, and without a an entity fulfilling that role capable of keeping the reflections and Source split apart the Solstice is a natural consequence.

Besides which we do not have enough reflections left to create a proper elemental array; Light and Dark are polarities, not elements, and excluding the Thirteenth (Dark), Source (Balance), and First (Light), there are only four reflections left (Ninth = Lightning, Fourth = Ice, Eighth and Eleventh = ???).

Well, we do see the Eight and Eleventh. In the "worlds beyond" Queen Eternal shows, it is one full of ice (Fourth), one with earth lose from the ground with gravitational anomalies, and one with raging gales. Those are presumably the Eight and Eleventh.

[Lozza]

See, my read (and the way I read 17cupsofcoffee's post) is that it's not a need to rejoin or a need for balance, because those two things imply agency that the planet just doesn't have. I think it's essentially weird transdimensional gravity; it's not a need, it's an inevitability.

Which I don't think is necessarily related to elemental imbalance

I think you are taking too narrow a read of aetheric imbalance. Aether in the game is a stand-in for energy systems, both actual energy and potential. This has always been something that has tickled me since ARR because they have been so consistent in this. Yes aether has elemental aspects but those are just specialised systems, the same as we have electrical energy, and heat energy, and kinetic energy, and yes gravitational energy. Ceruleum - liquid aether, food - aether that you eat, bodies in FFXIV have aether (energy), are powered by aether (food).

Gravity is a form of energy. Therefore gravity can be reduced to aether in the world of FFXIV. We know that the reflections have elemental imbalance, but they also have aetheric imbalance because right now the Source has what 8(?) times the aether of each of the individual reflections, which in a balanced system is more aether than all the reflections put together. So the Source has 8 times the gravity of the other reflections.

This alone wouldn't be enough if Hydaelyn and Zodiark still existed the barriers being held by Hydaelyn and the aether being animated by Zodiark then the aetheric (gravitational) change wouldn't matter as much because the light barriers would prevent rejoining and the dark would animate the aether such that the reflections were either a) lifted to a higher orbit, or b) had an increase in momentum to sustain the same orbit, thus balancing the aether (gravity) in the system.

The solution then is to balance the aether, of which balancing the elements is one part.