Meanwhile, on the subject of speculation (and doubleposting), there are a couple I'd like to add to the pile:

- 2.5's main thrust will be explaining why we care about the Dragonsong War at all. The war's been going on for literally an age; we've never had that much of a reason to care before, and even if Ishgard is heavily assaulted, that alone doesn't seem like enough of a reason to get everyone to care to intervene (since it seems like it'll be more than just the "Warrior of Light" going in; it's going to be the Eorzean Alliance as a whole throwing in, judging by the trailers). So a big part of 2.5 is going to be addressing Why We Give A Shit.

And I strongly suspect a large part of that reason is going to be Teledji. We're going to learn of the origins of the War from Midgardsormr, which will cast some doubt into what we've been doing on Hydaelyn's behalf and also the nature of our conflict with the Ascians, and we'll likely learn that, above all, the dragons seek to never again be enslaved like they were by the Allagans.

Cue Teledji Sil Adeledji (I'll get to that one in a minute) starting up Omega in his stupid quest for power in Ul'dah and vengeance against the House of Ul... and Omega promptly ignoring any commands he gives it and going off to fulfill its original, Allagan-given mission: the suppression of Bahamut and his followers... which Omega identifies the Dravanians as. The Dravanians take the reactivation of Omega and its attack on them as "proof" that the humanoids are once again united in a desire to enslave them all... and declare that the Dragonsong War is now a conflict to eradicate all Spoken from Eorzea, not just Ishgard.

Thus a reason to give a shit: we're going to die like pigs otherwise. It also neatly ties together several seemingly disparate storylines: the Ul'dah stuff (which I know people have been wondering the point of for a while) and the Ishgard lead-in-to-Heavensward plot.


Stuff will be revealed about Teledji Adeledji. To wit:

His full name is Teledji Sil Adeledji... or would be, if the Ul'dahns hadn't wiped Sil'dih off the map.

"What the fuck", you're asking, "where did this come from?"

You really, really need to have been paying attention to pick up on this one.

So thanks to Professor Erik in ARR, and some sources in 1.0, we know that Sil'dih was Ul'dah's sister city following the fall/abandonment of Belah'dia. We definitely know that they eventually were engaged in a ruinous, murderous war with one another that resulted in Sil'dih's destruction. And, this is the one that a lot of people miss, Sil'dih was mostly a Plainsfolk city. Not Dunesfolk. (Despite still being in a desert, but.)

That last bit is where the conjecture comes in. Teledji's weird quest for power by itself seems kind of odd, especially going for Omega... unless there's another component to why he wants a destructive weapon so badly. It isn't just for dominating Ul'dah, it's specifically the perfect weapon for obliterating the Ul'dah royalty and upper class, the same sort of people who, a few centuries back, destroyed Sil'dih without batting an eyelash. And his desire for vengeance and apparent feelings that he "deserves" power and wealth makes the greatest amount of sense if he's a dispossessed royal - one of the last surviving members of the old House of Sil.

It's a bit out there, to be sure, but it answers all the outstanding questions about his motivations.


- Au Ra will be revealed as being part of the Dravanian Horde at some point in the 2.5 cycle, in either Part 1 or 2.

My full reasoning on this can be found here; suffice to say, there's a number of reasons to believe the Horde has a significant Au Ra component to it. It still may not be the direction they take it in, but I think they will.

-Relatedly, we're going to learn a lot about draconic history after the Keeper of the Lake dungeon.

I am kind of hype for that cutscene because I suspect it is going to be a looooong, looooong Echo. We're going to get caught up on the entirety of draconic history, just like Iceheart was.

Personally, I suspect it will quickly sum up the various revelations from Coil, for the benefit of those who haven't cleared it yet, followed by showing what happened to them in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Allag and showing how the surviving Meracydians, dragon and Ra both, founded Dravania with the intent of never being enslaved again (and possibly showing how some of them instead decided to take a more dangerous journey eastward, to try and find lands where they could instead live peacefully with the hominids and teach them to not be monsters), and then showing what Thordan of Coerthas did to spark the initial Dragonsong War and why the Dravanians are so dedicated to the destruction of Ishgard.



Whew! That's quite a lot already. :V We'll see how much of it I got right by this March.