New Player Lore Questions

[Enkidoh]

Orophin basically summed it up, but to clarify, SE revealed a while ago it wasn't actually all the adventurers who were on the battlefield at Carteneau who were teleported five years into the future by Louisoix's spell - it was specifically just a small handful of adventurers who had succeeded in destroying the Lunar Transmitter which had summoned Dalamud (these players ended up starting ARR with a special cutscene of them teleporting directly into their starting city, and various npcs saying they 'look familiar').

It's unclear what happened to the rest of the adventurers from that time and what they had spent the intervening five years doing, regardless whether they were at Carteneau or not, or why they reappeared like new adventurers on a carriage/ferry, but I have my theories.

It's also unclear exactly how the GC leaders escaped the devastation, although Merlwyb does mention during the level 15 envoy quest that at Carteneau 'the last thing she remembered is being enveloped in a white light', with her next memory being when she came to an indeterminate amount of time later on the 'still smouldering battlefield', to realize Bahamut was gone. So, perhaps Louisoix's spell also teleported the GC leaders to safety, albiet briefly. Or else they were just knocked unconscious by whatever force stopped Bahamut in his tracks. In any event, that will hopefully all be revealed in due time.