Bahamut and Eikons and Ascian[s], Oh my [hint: this has spoilers and speculation]

[Platinumstorm]

My internet is crappy and rather than disconnecting/having my pc crash on my 4th levequest between yesterday and today, all for guild marks, mind you, I thought I would come here and talk about dead ends in the FFXIV mission quests.

I'm not a crazy lore buff, so some of what I say is purely speculative and could be wrong.

First up I would like to talk about the release of the eikons from the "explosion" that ensued after the death of Bahamut and the Garlean airship. Unfortunately, it's really difficult to tell if the explosion was a result of Bahamut, the airship, or something within or beneath the Mor'dhanan lake. Either way, the eikons/primals were somehow released.

This brings up the first problem with FFXIV and its story. Bahamut is dead, and I'm not really sure anyone likes this; it seems weird and is something I would consider would reverse itself in the future, which pretty much brings up the basis of this post.

The second thing to discuss are the items that are found in the Ul'dahn and Lominsan storylines. In the Lominsan storyline, an artifact of some kind has the ability to control aspects of "Leviathan".

Likewise in the Ul'dahn storyline, the characters are investigating a threat, and when one of the characters decides it's worse than the Garleans, the story instantly focuses on a "mysterious horn", which to me is very similar to the artifact in the Lominsan storyline.

Unfortunately, Gridania doesn't fit well into this storyline because well.. they fought a prismatic elemental.. grats guys.

After the storylines drop the main characters and remain unresolved we jarringly join the main storyline involving the beast tribes.

During this storyline, we're introduced to the best, or second best, monster model in the game, the Ascian.

For those of you who don't know or don't remember, Ascian = death.

Our Ascian friend first made his appearance in the mission "Toll of the Warden", which you can read about here.

http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Toll_of_the_Warden

The appearance of the Ascian comes at a time where the Amajaljjaja [normally I just throw the letters "a", "m", "j", with one "l" together to describe them, but their official name is Amalj'aa clan] and the Ixali [that's my plural form for them] are pretty intent on summoning their respective primals there and now [Ifrit and Garuda].

It's mentioned that everyone is going to die when either are summoned, although I guess that didn't matter a few quests later when Ifrit is summoned, but the Amalj'aa don't seem to care, and neither do the Ixali.

Anyhow Mr. Ascian shows up, in a seemingly random display and suddenly everyone is scared of dying.

That's pretty much the extent of Ascian lore - they have a name, look like death, and they scare the beastclans more than the eikons.

Later, Ifrit talks about not worshiping false gods, which seems to indicate that eikons seem to consider themselves gods, but this is never expanded upon, and therefore I'm considering it completely random text for my purposes.

Trying to be optimistic on the storyline [cynicism will come at the bottom - I promise it's there for you!] I decided to attempt to tie it all in together in a horribly speculative discussion.

Speculation:
The death of Bahamut caused the release of the eikons. The eikons were either the composition of Bahamut, or they were being used as energy to power the amazing airship power of the Garleans, but for my purposes I'm going with Bahamut.

Each of the antagonists within the Lominsan storylines seem to have evil purposes that don't exactly get revealed, but it's known to not be Garlean in nature. These intentions may be tied to the eikons, since at least one of the artifacts has some control of Leviathan.

Bringing the Ascian randomly into play may have a purpose too:
It would be interesting if the Ascian is searching for the souls of the primals to resurrect Bahamut. This solves some problems because no longer is the Ascian random in nature, it solves the problem of Bahamut being dead, and it would explain why the beastclans have no fear of the primals, but fear the Ascian.
This is not a good theory because the Ascian actually has a name, and it's referred to as "an Ascian", suggesting more than one.

So that's my speculation.

Taking it a step further, resurrecting Bahamut might actually have a purpose to the three nations, which would be a reason to try and attack Ifrit seemingly randomly.

Garlemald seems overbearing in power, and I can't even imagine how the three nation states can even hope to combat the Garlean airpower. I mean what are they going to do, shoot arrows at them? Only Bahamut seems to give them hesitation.

As for the antagonists in the early quests, perhaps both of them wanted to wield some sort of revenge against Garlemald.

Cynicism on the speculation, and cynicistic [this isn't a word yet] speculation:

FFXIV was rushed out of the gate years too early. The Lominsan storyline, at its point, was clearly polished more than the Ul'dahn or Gridanian storyline, and it has some of the most epic parts in the game. Ul'dah and Gridania have nothing at all in comparison to its quality.

It seems to me that the idea would have been to have one eikon per main storyline with Leviathan, Ifrit, and Titan [each of which have models that were shown prior to launch].

At some point I think someone went lulz, there is no time to finish the story - let's come up with a new combined storyline. Frankly, there are some immensely dull moments in the combined storyline, and it's shocking that some of those quests even made it into the game as they advance the story by one line and are immensely anticlimactic. What seems to be happening with the deaspected crystals is an extension of the crystal problems between the beasttribes, but it's difficult to predict at this point, or if that's even tied into the upcoming devastation.

I think that the writers of the story had something finished, I just don't think it's what ended up being shown to players.

I hate how scattered the lore is in this game. I have no grand finale to this, that's just what I thought might be scrapped up from what's in the game. Feel free to tear holes into anything I said.

[SilvertearRen]

Mm. I think Bahamut may still exist in the Aether, opening him up as a possible Summon.

I think the Eikons will also become summons.

I honestly think the Ascian was a random derp by the writers of the main story arc.

Your assessment of the three city-state storylines having their own Eikons is correct. We have Titan and Leviathan in-game in the game files, and we've seen screenshots of Titan confirmed, but there has been no confirmation of him actually being encounterable in-game.

To be frank, I am looking forward to seeing what Yoshi-P spin for us with the assets he has been given - this is essentially his stage to tell a story on now. From his style, I can tell he is VERY involved.

[Zhinse]

There are more Primals than 3. Titan is part of the Limsan-Lominsan region as the primals that the Kobolds worship.

We do not know for certain that the dragon is even Bahamut.

We Know that the Archons brought the Beastmen their primals, and the primals require an enormous amount of aetheric energy to summon, ala crystals. The primals, especially Ifrit, have their own motives separate from each other and are basically physical Gods.

[Platinumstorm]

There are more Primals than 3. Titan is part of the Limsan-Lominsan region as the primals that the Kobolds worship.

We do not know for certain that the dragon is even Bahamut.

We Know that the Archons brought the Beastmen their primals, and the primals require an enormous amount of aetheric energy to summon, ala crystals. The primals, especially Ifrit, have their own motives separate from each other and are basically physical Gods.

Right, I never said otherwise, but it made sense to me for each main storyline to focus on one to introduce players to the concepts behind them.

Also, I'm quite confident that is Bahamut. He basically covers every necessary checkpoint of Bahamut - same as Leviathan.

[Zhinse]

Right, I never said otherwise, but it made sense to me for each main storyline to focus on one to introduce players to the concepts behind them.

Also, I'm quite confident that is Bahamut. He basically covers every necessary checkpoint of Bahamut - same as Leviathan.

My reasoning for why I don't jump to conclusions on the dragons identity is what makes this so called "Bahamut" more important than the other primals?

For example, if it is true that the primals were expelled from the dragon's body why Bahamut? What makes him more important? Is he to be regarded as the king of all eikons/primals?

There are just so many unanswered questions. Also, I've never seen Bahamut represented as that type of dragon. I understand that he is the king of all dragonkin, but I would imagine him to have more of that classical Bahamut look that the rest of the primals seem to have. (Except Ifrit, although there are much more similarities to his design than with Bahamuts).

For all we know that dragon could be Tiamat, could be any other one. Hell, it could be a new dragon entirely.

[Platinumstorm]

Is there a part where it's said the Sylphs worship Ramuh? I don't remember it, and my instinct would tell me they're into Carbuncle, or something else.

[polyhedral]

All of the primals are in Ishgard, and no, you can't get in, ever.

Deal with it.

[GabbaGabba]

i dont think the original storyline was scrapped but more like on pause. theres no real reason to start over something thats been fleshed out and the basis of the whole game. it takes a long to flesh out a storyline and what we are getting now is prob a side-storyline of sorts, either that or its just a small piece of the main storyline.

the new team never said anything about throwing out the original missions but were more focused on the gameplay aspect. i dont doubt that once thats done, we will see a lot more of the storyline especially with expansions.

[Platinumstorm]

i dont think the original storyline was scrapped but more like on pause. theres no real reason to start over something thats been fleshed out and the basis of the whole game. it takes a long to flesh out a storyline and what we are getting now is prob a side-storyline of sorts, either that or its just a small piece of the main storyline.

the new team never said anything about throwing out the original missions but were more focused on the gameplay aspect. i dont doubt that once thats done, we will see a lot more of the storyline especially with expansions.

Mmmm have you done the Sylph mission where you collect the eggs? How about the one JUST BEFORE the grand finale where you rescue the individual from the wolves and.. well that's it.

When I played through the Sylvan egg mission I was so disgusted by the lack of care and polish with that quest [glorified ankle biters] that I quit the game. There's definitely a motivation to go back and repolish the storyline.

There's no denying that the Limsa early quests got a very special amount of cinematic attention that neither Ul'dah nor Gridania did.

I'm a little confused because it somewhat sounds like you think the Company quests are a "reset" on the storyline.

My reference to "scrapped" was in the original release of the game and how the stories weren't fleshed out for the two areas, and then that all three were seemingly dropped entirely to say something as simple and similar to, "The beastman control the flow of crystals to the nation states. They're hoarding crystals and they're using them to summon eikons. As a result the crystal market is struggling in the three nations."

Right now they're definitely focused on the gameplay aspects, I agree with you there, but I also wouldn't expect expansions anytime soon since they have lost so much trust with their customers from the release of the game. They will need to present lots of content and great story through patch releases to win back the hearts and generate positive feelings for the game.

[Venat]

Who ever said that was Bahamut in the first CG cutscene?
Also maybe Avatars,Summons nd what not cant die..? Maybe there like Sin..