Thread: [spoilers]3.2 MSQ Discussion/Reaction thread

On Nidhogg;

As I suspected, Nidhogg can switch between Dreadwyrm and Dragoon stance... And absolutely no indication of where he went during 3.1... My money is still on him plotting something with the Garleans to ensure the hammer of the Empire is brought down upon Ishgard regardless of how the Dragonsong War goes... No, not him allying with them, I swear if one more person reads "Tell the Garleans that Ishgard have their own Primal" as "Nidhogg and Garlemald are BFFs"... We even know he can take on human form now, so you can all shut up about how Garlemald would shoot him on sight, despite that being a fairly terrible rhetoric anyway; They shoot us on sight, and we still have pleasant little conversations with them after, all without becoming their BFFs...

On Minfillia;

Yay, she sacrificed herself to deliver us a message and... cut out before she could finish it... Seek what? Bah! All the "Seek <something>" in various lyrics are going to bug me now...

On Hoary Boulder;

Anyone else get a Blue Mage vibe from his comments about the souls of his enemies? I certainly did...

On Y&P

Well, not really, but it came right after them... That mask? I'm guessing Illberd was the fella walking up to it, just because we've not seen him for a while...

Still think Y&P are in Paglth'an, though... We got the Popes throne room in 2.4 before 3.0, after all, so why are we getting clearly Thanalan areas for Y&P if they're in Gyr Abania? I can see Ala Mhigan refugees spilling over into Paglth'an, and I could see Garlemald having a station there they same way they have in Sea of Clouds, and it certainly is the closest place to Ul'dah that we can't go...

okay some responses & my own reactions
@Nalien/Hoary

I read it entirely as a tie-in to the Zodiac Braves / Zodiac Weapons being a big thing in the East. Blue Mage would be neat though

@Gods of Eld

Well, shite, this makes me skeptical of Lil'dibus theory, but I still think it's likely. I'm also glad how they chose to handle Extreme encounters of the Triad--things like Ramuh and Shiva EX always felt weird canonically to me.

Regula confirmed Kefka. Not surprised, but it's nice to know. If he ends up pushing Varis off the Flagship to his death and Garlemald is treated to another War of Succession, MAN

A little disappointed I couldn't find any changes on the Flagship

A lot of Sephirot's attacks seemed to be Dravanian named? His theme was rather unexpected and definitely seems to point "the truths of the world" again.

@MSQ

Ziggy Stardust? Really SE? Right in the heart.
A bit disappointed in the Word of the Mother since it more or less told us that the New Years' Poem (and the Gerun Oracles) was close to the mark. I could've lived with ambiguity for more veiled confirmations tbh.

Another patch another day we remain never knowing who killed Niellefresne. Especially since this was the "Minfilia patch" I was really holding out hope....

I kind of want Isildaure to join us in a battle someday.

I seriously thought Vidofnir was gonna end up dead there too. Honoroit as well tbh, I should really shake that first reaction.

The mask being Ilberd is a neat idea, my first thought went to the Disjointed One from XI's ROV and I really hope it isn't that.

I liked the melee combat, but didn't like the post-3.2 teasers.

Where's Alisaie? Where's the Ascians? Maaaaaaannnnnn

Originally Posted by Rocl

@Gods of Eld

Well, shite, this makes me skeptical of Lil'dibus theory, but I still think it's likely.

The very last sentence of your post? That was me. No Pashtarot, no Second Best Ascian. I cried.

As for the spoilered quote

He's still related to Elidibus, guaranteed, and almost undeniably Ascian, but there's a reason why I put -or-Elidibus'-servant in my horrible nickname list. I think it's also likely that he is to Eli as Chalice and co were to Lahabrea.

One last response before I hit the hay, now that I can look over the rest of these spoilers without, well, spoiling myself:

Originally Posted by Rocl

A lot of Sephirot's attacks seemed to be be Dravanian named?

Actually, they're Hebrew. Anyone who's played Tales of the Abyss will see the attack and add names as weirdly familiar, and that's because both are lovingly copypasting from the Kabbalah, which is also the originator of the Sephirot.



Fun fact: the "bennu" adds in T12 are also Hebrew: it's one of a few Hebrew names for the Greek "phoenix." The overahbuhndahnce of "h"s evehrywhere is mehrlehy an ahrtihfahct of rohamnihzihng Hebrew, a phonetic style that (best guess) was emulated for the Dravanian tongue for the sake of not sounding generically Latin like made-up-absurd-percentage of constructed fantasy languages generally do.

More Sephirot!

Originally Posted by Fenral

Sephirot's tree origins and theme is likely a reference to the diagram that depicts the Sephirot(h) in Kabbalah, which is called the "Tree of Life".

The masked boy that's not Elidibus:

I loved the line he used here at the end of the quest: "if our purposes align, what does it matter?" Kind holds out hope that there is something more in his involvement. He's honestly surprised that he's in the fold as much as he has, but sooner or later he's going to come clean(or he'll not, but the clues will be noticed). Hopefully maniacal laughter and "It's me Austin!" will not be involved when it does, I like him.

The Radicalization of the Scions:

Yda and Papalymo seem to be going down the same road as the others, albeit in a more isolated setting. Was this the true intention of removing Minfillia? She clearly isn't quite the crystal mouthpiece she wanted to be, but without her inspiring guidance, the other Scions seem to be becoming more hardliners for Hydelyn(as in, making the Scions not for Eorzea, but for Hydelyn.), when it was Hydelyn that took her away to begin with.

Also, Derplander and his crew seem to have a particular ire for Y'shtola...we never really did got an explanation of why Flow would rob her of sight, particularly if it was used in the past. or why Thancred is not also magically blinded.

Originally Posted by Chewy2nd

My first reaction to mask dude was actually "That's Nero" lol

My first reaction was a resounding "Smokin'!"

This kicked Sephirots theme out of my head, not sure if ok with this...

Originally Posted by Grayve

Can I ask what was the mask being picked up right after Yda and Pap had a scene? I didn't recognize it.

No idea... If I've not just missed it, I'm guessing it is something along the lines of Tupsimati... Some ancient artifact of some sort...

Well, he's Cutest Ascian because he's all awkward and adorable and uncomfortable about how we trust him despite the fact that we clearly, really, really should not. He just doesn't know how to deal with it. Even our character seems to think he's an Ascian when we first encounter him, hence the initial hostility and Urianger having to tell us to be calm.

Since you mentioned not following Unukalhai or his theories, I'll start with a basic rundown on who he is and why I believe he is what he is.

This post is huge. Much bigger than I expected. So, spoilered.

First off, I have that nice post a page or so back that has some Unukalhai dialogue that defends the fact that he's very much not a normal child. Why would a child be our enemy at any given time? Urianger's line is "he's not our enemy - for now." Also, he has no fear of tempering and goes right up to Sephirot with Krile, which she calls him out on - remember, Lahabrea implies Ascians have the Echo in the ARF, and we all remember Elidibus' demonstration in 2.2 about the hidden capabilities of the Echo. Either he's tempered by another primal, which would be quite strange if he was helping us at all in that case, or he is in possession of the Echo. We can state this factually, because the game tells us it in the dialogue. He is not afraid of being tempered.

If you're unfamiliar with his name itself, Unukalhai is the alpha serpentis, one of the two sides of the serpent that are held by the Serpent Bearer, Ophiuchus. As the Ascian names and numbers - eg, Lahabrea corresponds to the 12th - are very much ripped directly from Ivalice, that leaves Zodiark as the 13th, representing Ophiuchus. So there's our direct connection, it's being shoved pretty blatantly in our faces. This is where totally-not-Elidibus-or-his-servant comes into play; the name easily implies he could be Elidibus, or a simple Lesser Ascian follower of Elidibus, as he says he is.

The master-servant relationship in most lines from Unukalhai clears up nothing on if it's Elidibus or a Lesser Ascian. A Lesser Ascian is a servant to his/her Ascian Overlord master; an Overlord is a servant to Zodiark. It's not terribly different from those who serve Hydaelyn, like us, on the Overlords' parts, so don't take it too literally. From what we've seen. Lesser Ascians more directly a serve their Overlord than Zodiark, going about more mundane duties, such as empowering the beast tribes and gifting them the ability to summon primals as we've seen demonstrated in the 2.X Extreme primal series, while the Overlord does other things.

We do know, factually, that Elidibus mentions he wants to Triad dealt with from his quote at the end of 3.1:
Our fates were ordained long ago, Archon. The Garleans are no exception. Nor the Triad. You know what must be done.

After this line in 3.1, if you speak with Urianger in the Sands, he mentions that, even though he knows now that the world is destined to head towards a terrible fate without interference, it is still within their ability to fight it, as if Elidibus is directly showing him how he can do so.

Urianger is seen in 3.2 helping us with Unukalhai's quests, which is quite odd, considering he almost never comes to us directly on primal quests. I'm personally of the belief that now that he is seeing the truth in Elidibus' words.

To further evidence that it's Elidibus involved, remember, in 3.0, the only time we see Elidibus is during the epilogue. What does he say? He needs to clean up after Lahabrea and Igeyorhm. What was the mess that Lahabrea and Igeyorhm left? Thordan attempting to awaken the Triad, hence why he was in the ARF, that's where the Triad core is.

Please note here that I am not making any judgments on why Elidibus wants the Triad dealt with and removed from the picture, that's another theory and not really related to who Unukalhai is, but Elidibus does for some reason or the other. I have my theories that I've posted everywhere, this post is not about that.

Finally, I'm not sure if they changed this when they changed the Ravana and Bismarck quests in 3.1 because I finished them in 3.0, but in order to fight against them again, Unukalhai gifts you items that are relics so ancient even the tribes themselves didn't even know they still existed. Where is a Spoken, let alone a child, going to find such items, let alone know what they are and can be used for?

So. If I've not at least convinced you he's either an Ascian or directly related to them I don't think anything can and you're probably going to be ignoring the evidence that's piling up in search of an undefended alternative.

The issue from there then, is he Elidibus? Is he a Lesser Ascian? Or is he just an Echo user in the service of Elidibus?

I believe it's possible to rule out the last simply because he appears to us as a child. If he appeared to us as an adult, we could not. You'll notice when he speaks to Regula, it's demeaning, not in the sense that Unukalhai is arrogant, but in the sense that he does not view an adult in the way a child views an adult. Krile also notes he's incredibly serene, to the point that no child is. Serenity is almost never an adjective that anyone applies to children of Unukalhai's [host's] age.

There's further evidence of this when you speak with Unukalhai again after the 3.2 Sephirot quest set. He notes that Y'shtola can see changes in aether and hence why it may lead to distrust about who he is. But as far as we know, we've no evidence that Y'shtola can sense an Echo user from a normal individual simply based upon their 'aura.' What she can probably sense is an Ascian in a host due to the way the internal aether flow is (likely) changed.

From there, it's either Elidibus using a child's body, or a separate lesser Ascian using the corpse of a child, because from the SMN questline, lessers can only inhabit corpses.

Personality-wise, building from the serenity comment, you'll notice Unukalhai layers praise on you quite frequently, buttering you up, so to speak. This is very similar to what Elidibus does in 2.1. Elidibus is an Emissary, it's his duty to smooth over negotiations with diplomacy; it makes sense that Unukalhai, as either Elidibus himself or his servant, would share these same traits.

My crackpot is that the Lesser Ascian servant takes on traits of the master, given how all of Lahabrea's servants have a very distinct personality similar to Lahabrea's, where Unukalhai has a personality more similar to Elidibus. I've no real evidence beyond that, though, hence being crackpot, which is something I indulge in quite frequently.

So. Why do I believe he's a Lesser Ascian and not Elidibus? Simply because I'm inclined to trust Unukalhai is who he says he is. He says he serves a friend. Zodiark is not your friend. However, in your shared goal of ridding Eorzea of the Triad, Elidibus is. For now - as Urianger puts it.

Now, on to Krile's assessment:

The first thing you'll notice when you see the dialogue is that Krile assumes she is right. Unukalhai doesn't really confirm or deny anything. She can't even see his features, so maybe there was something intended in the dialogue that implies it, but all he basically says in return is "Is that so.?"

Her assumption lines:

Just what are you hiding beneath that mask of yours? Hmmm... A longing for hope. An appetite for power. A lingering sense of regret.
And do I detect a desire to test your strength against a certain hero...?

His response?
...Is that what your gifts tell you?

Can we draw assumptions from that? I'm not sure. I wouldn't risk it, because it's easy enough to twist.

As I said, it may be that he doesn't want to challenge the Warrior of Light, he simply expects he must.

A longing for hope? Regret? These are extremely vague and could describe literally any character in the game. Including ours. And the search for power is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, after all, we do it in every class quest from 30-60. In my opinion, Krile isn't very good at judging personalities, she could very much be describing our character or, say, Thancred, with those same adjectives.

The interesting thing about this scene is that we have Unukalhai's point of view with Regula, rather than ours. So when he makes a comment regarding the Garleans, it's like 'yeah, he's totally right, they're going to interfere!' -but then you forget that no one else, including your character, saw Regula there, which made everyone distrustful of Unukalhai when they didn't need to be. We saw what he saw, we know he's speaking the truth regarding the Garleans. But to the Scions? That's an almost unnatural form of precognition. I just thought this was an neat form of storytelling.

But I digress.

Who do I think Unukalhai is?
Well, as I said, I'm of the belief that Echo users can ascend to Lesser Ascians under the right circumstances with a proper catalyst, of which we know nothing about, due to the cutscene with the Sahagin Elder and particular dialogue in the level 60 SMN quest.

So I believe that at one point he was a mortal Echo user and he did fail at his purpose, which ended in his death. But in doing so, became an Ascian. Does he want to be an Ascian? We don't know; they may be unwilling thralls that serve their Overlord. Lesser Ascians are so interesting and I'd absolutely love more information on them sooner rather than later.

All I can say with a certainty at this point is that Cutest Ascian is shaping up to be our sympathetic Ascian that may give us some moral grey areas with them regarding our character. And that's exactly what I've wanted from the beginning when Elidibus was introduced.

Ascian showing something like fear and drawing his mage staff just because a garlean legatus shows up? Did any Ascian ever draw a weapon in affect to defend himself?

That's exactly what Lesser Ascians do. Chalice is the only exception. The Lesser Ascians in the level 60 SMN quests all user player weapons and animations.