Thread: The 2.5 (Part 1 & 2) speculation thread

Originally Posted by Chewy2nd

I hope someone is killed off, just to show that main characters can die, we can't come out of The Fall unscathed.

As open as I am to important people biting the dust, it's hard to make it happen, mechanically speaking. For instance, let's say Nanamo full on bites the dust in 2.5 ... and then you level Culinarian afterwards. Who do you cook dinner for in your LV50 quest?... It's a double-edged sword integrating "main cast" into your "side quests." But you know who hasn't shown up in anything but the main scenario, so far? Teledji Adeledji...

Actually, neither has Raubahn, I don't think... Or various Scions... Hm.

But...

Lord Lolorito has a part to play in this and I would sooner side him with Nanamo than with Teledji.

If Lolorito understands that it is in his best interest to keep Nanamo as a figure-head while he exercises his power from the Shadows, he move against Teledji. This is even truer if Teledji makes a public move.

A falling out with Minfilia over Ishgard specifically, maybe not so much.

However, if what I personally have suspected for a while is true IS true, then with this series of patches, likely Part 1 on Tuesday even, we are going to get a much fuller picture of what Mothercrystal Hydaelyn "is" and why the Ascians seem so bent on specifically removing her/it. Remember, they don't want to "destroy" the world; they want to restore it to its "original state", one that evidently lacks the Mothercrystal entirely. And there's been some hints that Hydaelyn hasn't been telling us everything and has been keeping it deliberately simple.

It's very possible whatever we learn could lead to a bit of a split in opinion in how to proceed. Though personally I don't think it'll happen just from a meta perspective; the game's spent too much time building the Scions as characters to just toss them aside.

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.

So I had a thought about the mystery trial in another thread, more appropriate to ask here though;

Was the Primal that revealed itself at the end of 2.0 ever actually revealed? I do recall mention that it "generated a distinctive wave pattern in the aether", which had only ever been observed five years ago as Bahamut showed up, and it certainly did seem like foreshadowing for the Binding Coil of Bahamut, but right after the roar a guard comes running and says;

Dread tidings! Chaos and carnage...
It is an abomination-! A... Primal! A primal has awakened.

It does sound an awful lot like this guy saw the Primal... So... He got the world first clearing Binding Coil? He didn't recognize Bahamut as Bahamut? Seems odd to me and suggests a different Primal... One which is an abomination... Heck, the fact that he refers to it as an abomination at the very least suggests he saw it... If he simply heard the roar and had a PTSD flash back to Carteneau and started ranting that Bahamut was back, I could understand it, but instead he simply makes mention of a Primal, suggesting a Primal we've yet to encounter. Heck, what chaos and carnage? Bahamut didn't cause any problems outside Coil... I really get the feeling this was a new Primal that was swiftly forgotten about...

Now, right after that cutscene follows Lahabrea introducing us to a whole cast of Ascians;

Pashtarot>> Bahamut stirs.

OK, so the roar was Bahamut and it was a simply allusion to the Binding Coil? Still doesn't explain the guard... Perhaps it's a localization issue and this makes more sense in other languages...

Igeyorhm>> As will the others ere long.

The "others"? Other Elder Primals? What if instead it was the roar of another Elder Primal? That could explain similar reading to Carteneau, the Scions have only ever observed one Elder Primal in Bahamut, so the assumption is that the same wave pattern means it's the same Primal, but if all Elder Primals have the same wave pattern, it could be any Elder Primal. She could just have been referring to the other Primals of course, 2.1 through to 2.4 introduced "new" Primals.

Still, what Elder Primals do we have then? Bahamut and Odin, and Belias is mentioned. Interestingly the location of the roar appeared to be coming from Singing Shards (which could also indicate Bahamut, since a piece of Dalamud is right there), where the Summoner questline introduces us to Belias-Egi. Coincidence? Belias himself also gives us an idea of who the other Elder Primals could be. Can you think of one of the Espers/Scions of Darkness from Final Fantasy XII whom you'd describe as an "abomination"? Three words - Cúchulainn the Impure. Want more? Which new Ascians were we introduced to in 2.1? Elidibus in white, and another Ascian who seemed a bit annoyed as Elidibus - Nabriales. Why is that name familiar? Oh right, Nabriales the Majestic, Scion of Light in opposition to Cúchulainn the Impure. Hmm... I wonder if the two could be in anyway related in this game...

How does this relate to 2.5? Well, assuming the roar wasn't Bahamut and the guard really saw a new Primal, the mystery of who that Primal is should be resolved with the conclusion of 2.0, no? If it's Cúchulainn (or any XII Esper for that matter), then we have a connection to an Ascian, and we know the trial in some way relates to the Ascians. A fight with an Ascian seems like a dull note to end on (if you consider part 1 the end and part 2 the start of 3.0), but our first real Elder Primal? That is how you end a chapter. Perhaps the guard was just a troll though, and the ending to 2.0 was just setting up for the Binding Coil of Bahamut and our mystery trial wont be an epic encounter and just another face roll fight listening to an idiot go "Mwhahaha! Begon! Hydaelyn cannot save you! Mwhahahaha!"...

Hmmm, looking at early Coil dialog, it does seem like the roar is Bahamuts. That really begs the question what the guard was talking about then... Poor localization? Always the possibility that he saw the chaos and carnage of a new Primal, but Bahamut yawning distracted everyone. I'd be interested in knowing what the other languages have him saying.