The Echo - Mechanics and Boundaries

[Anonymoose]

We've been told that an axe-swing in an Echo wont cause a hurricane in the present, but what of the flow of information backwards through time? Why doesn't it happen?

I imagine it's just the metaphysics of it. The conclusions I'm drawing from Gridania's storyline, at this point in time, at least, lead me to take Ferne's words much more literally the other options. If correct, this means that while you are visiting the actual point in time, the choices that were made, the outcomes they led to, and the future it creates are not up for grabs. The two things Ferne is stating are related, but are not the same thing.

From the quests we've seen, "to experience and interact," seems to mean that you can insert yourself into the story but not in a way that changes the plot. Basically, you can access the scene's empirical information and alter how it is understood by those in it, but not how it will play out. However, "an axe-swing in an Echo wont cause a hurricane in the present" is simply a built-in protection against chaos theory (specifically the part of it known as the butterfly effect, which I assume also protects FFXIV from Ashton Kutcher) so that these small changes will not accumulate.

Perhaps you can change how characters understand or relate to one another, or how they understand the situation as it unfolds, but will absolutely not cause a snowball effect, like, for instance, you make friends with one person so they ditch lunch with their other friend who gets sad and goes off into the shroud alone and takes it out on some opo-opos whose tribe flees for safety and ends up outside a Garlean base where they leave their half-eaten trash everywhere and some of it gets stuck in the gears of a Juggernaut on its rounds and then when it eventually returns to Garlemald for maintenance, the trash is pulled out of the gears and His Radiance shows up to raise troop morale on-base and slips on one of those opo-opo's tossed banana peels and impales himself on his gun-croissant. That probably won't happen.

Actually, re-watching it, there's nothing at all to suggest that it is an Echo power. This could just be another high-level conjurer spell (eg, mirror image).

Nah, I'm actually reaching the same conclusion. The more little problems I solve (though, there's still no dev. confirmation on any of my conclusions, so take Lominsa's with a grain of salt), the less I think Y'shtola has many, if any, special powers. I think she's just more serious about her job than the others. Though, can you imagine if they really were just echo-jump investigating huge chunks of history? It'd be like Thancred's on some sort of "hook up with a girl from each era" tour de histoirie.

How could it be an Ascian reference, if Ascians are known to be without shadow?

Well, that's what their name means, but as Catapult said, right now it seems like they are the shadows. Cross-language, they're referred to as "those who have eaten their own shadow" (shadoweaters). What this means, I don't know - but from the way Travanchet evanesced into the air like that, I'm betting it's some sort of "you are what you eat" kind of word association.

It makes me think that the Echo isn't a choice that the player makes; it's time-travel, but Hydaelyn herself is ensuring you only get to see/act in the ways she desires in the past.

This is possible, but then why would it boot you out the times it does? The Sharlayans already know the information they gained from the "echo within an echo," they're just seeing it first hand. The only assumption I can make is that perhaps it is the fact that we are alerting the Sharlayans to our individual existence years before we actually matter and showing them about the Echo's rise before its really risen, thus affecting how they will approach the present... but that is not a very Occam's Razor type of assumption compared to the idea that echoception (or, if you prefer, "Yo doblyn, I herd you like echoes") is just super bad for you. You probably just can't handle the strain.