The Heart of Sabik

[Cassar]

Can we talk about that, btw? What the heck was that transition?

Is it some alternate reality kind of stuff? Or like a being from a different dimension? I need some theories...

[Cleretic]

Can we talk about that, btw? What the heck was that transition?

Is it some alternate reality kind of stuff? Or like a being from a different dimension? I need some theories...

Like all Savage extra forms, it's not an especially useful thing to theorize about.

It's not real. Pandaemonium Savage is a researcher's embellishments and extrapolations when writing about the events as relayed by us. Who knows what the hell HE thinks he's on about, but the things he's spitting ain't facts.

It's not as not-real as the final phase of Eden's Promise Savage, which was actively the opposite of what happened, but it's still not real.

[Cilia]

Can we talk about that, btw? What the heck was that transition?

Is it some alternate reality kind of stuff? Or like a being from a different dimension? I need some theories...

P12S Phase 2

Athena's just using the Heart of Sabik to expand her domain and materialize floating islands.

Using the Heart turns her forearms and legs (the black cagey parts) into tentacles and makes a big mass of more tentacles behind her that her leg-tentacles are attached to. She opens her eyes, which are now shining like the Heart of Sabik.

I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but still I'm disappointed tbh. Using auracite mutates her, big surprise. Hoped they'd go all in on the II references, but when they brought up Ultima the High Seraph and I saw the Savage exclusive phase theme would be another mix of Ultima's Perfection, totes disappointed they pivoted back to Ivalice.

Oh well. We'll always have Eden!

And yeah, it's not canon, so don't think too hard about it.

[Tehmon]

Regarding P12S, I recall one of the studium quests with the Golden Dheata.
Here's a thread about it: An ominous premonition? (Slight spoiler for the Studium quests)

In the P12S transition, you can see a

serpent-like creature/construct behind Athena. Is that the serpent the quest is talking about?

[GrizzlyTank]

Regarding P12S, I recall one of the studium quests with the Golden Dheata.
Here's a thread about it: An ominous premonition? (Slight spoiler for the Studium quests)

In the P12S transition, you can see a

serpent-like creature/construct behind Athena. Is that the serpent the quest is talking about?

Well Athena does say

Seven hells

during her normal fight.

Maybe the seven hells have something to do with seven wedges..... There is a concerning amount of seven here!

[RyuDragnier]

I don't think that's what you think it is.

The designs on the "snake" match some of the designs on the tentacles.

[Alleluia]

Well Athena does say

Seven hells

during her normal fight.

Maybe the seven hells have something to do with seven wedges..... There is a concerning amount of seven here!

Wait...She says.

"7 hells"? As in the amount of hells and heavens the 12 supposedly have. That can't be a coincidence. Also, interesting an ancient from before the sundering would make that reference.

[SannaR]

Wait...She says.

"7 hells"? As in the amount of hells and heavens the 12 supposedly have. That can't be a coincidence. Also, interesting an ancient from before the sundering would make that reference.

Yeah she says that n more

She says Lahabrea's seven hells line. Ultima's denizens of the abyss. From ink as black as night. Line and T.G Cid's crush helm line.

[Cilia]

Yeah she says that n more

She says Lahabrea's seven hells line. Ultima's denizens of the abyss. From ink as black as night. Line and T.G Cid's crush helm line.

There's a bunch of references in the fight itself; though of course it's non-canon.

When using her shrinking technique (that applies to both the party and the field, semi-canonically mimicking the "NASA strat" from Omega Protocol) she uses Ultima's "Denizens of the Abyss, from ink of blackest night! I summon you!"

Pallas Athena's tank buster move is the Crush Helm technique from the Return to Ivalice raids, using the invocation "Misfortune hangs heavy on the prideful. Poor cover for when the heavens fall."

She also borrows techniques from various other raid bosses, such as Midgardsormr's Exaflare (from O10) and Twintania's infamous Twisters.

Design-wise Pallas Athena appears to be Lovecraftian inspired, with the mass of tentacles and godlike power to reshape reality. Incidentally this means the overall theme of the final bosses from Pandaemonium isn't other video games per sé, but horror in general - with Hesperos representing Gothic Horror, Hephaistos representing Body Horror, and Athena representing Eldritch Horror.

Athena's character, on the other hand, still takes a lot of cues from II's Emperor Mateus, though with a scientific bent as opposed to his naked lust for power and domination.

[Anonymoose]

I'm still mulling over a lot of it and correlating ye olde data, but at first glance I think it's mostly workable.

I don't even really consider it that fan-service-y aside from the "we should probably address this eventually" factor. The fact it's the last thing we do echoing the first thing we do...hells, whatever, I'll take it. Unless I recall something I'd forgotten and it undermines everything, I think this might actually be one of their better, "we made it up a few months ago but let's pretend it was intended all along" attempts.

Some of the ingredients are things we'd already considered when discussing how this could go. We knew from reading the Japanese in 2.0 that Sabik was a "jet-black auracite". Lahabrea said that it contained a "sliver of his god's power", associating Ultima magicks with Zodiark, and thus eventually Zodiark to the ancients. When we got Ivalice Ultima, she was described as an essentially primalized form of the force of pure destruction that unfurled creation itself and was an "extradimensional traveler" from a "higher plane of existence beyond our ken" which originally had no sense of self. Erich theorizes that Athena put the Ultima magick within the auracite, but both the stone (as of Pandae) and the energy/entity (Ivalice, Statue) say that Ultima was from beyond the stars / extradimensional, so there's some wiggle room for interpretation there - especially for how the magick re-emerged and gave way to the Ivalician entity.

Depending on where they plan to take the world-setting, we know Darkness is a primordial force of energizing things, but primordial energies and the balance between them are what allows creation (the physical universe) to exist in the first place. I think there's room for expanding this into some Darkness / rift shenanigans in the future. (Note the menu that appears when you talk to Claudien, as if this won't be the only time you can follow up on the topic...) ((LET'S GOOO SILVERTEAR LAKE AND/OR WHATEVER IS IN THE SAME PLACE AT THE OPPOSITE POLE.))

As for Athena saying "Seven Hells", she does so in the present, post-Praetorium, so there's a chance Lahabrea was just mocking the post-Sundering worldview and Athena's essence was privy to that given its location and repeated the line (or perhaps Claudien knew it from the reports and she picked it up through him.) similar to how Zenos echoes Ilberd's last words. (She is trying to be the new true god, after all.)