Is Hydaelyn an alternate universe of Ivalice? (Patch 3.4 spoilers)

[The_Last_Dragoon]

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Technically FFV is a fictitious tale in Final Fantasy XIV canon, so that is almost definitely not a reflection. I don't think all of the Final Fantasy worlds are connected to FFXIV, but a world like FFIII for example which is connected to the Void, which is a confirmed reflection, would mean that it is also a work of fiction like FFV or since it is literally the story of the Crystal Tower, it was simply retold with us as the hero. Honestly, I don't think all of the reflections are actually all of the other Final Fantasy worlds because a lot of them wouldn't quite fit lore-wise. Really only FF 1-6, 11, and 12 even have a foot to stand on in the theory due to either the existence of a job system or a similarity in art, creatures and technology, and even then I don't think all of them would be accepted into the canon if any at all. Though I do hope there's at least some radical differences between the reflections because I think it would be more boring if they were all nearly identical.

[Okamimaru]

Think of it this way... the different ff games are like oranges in a box... yeah they're round, orange, have a peel, and are full of vitamin c.... 14 is the orange that's been divided into Orange slices... orange 3 and 5 are totally different oranges... they have some of the same things as orange 14 but are wholly separate items

[LineageRazor]

Technically FFV is a fictitious tale in Final Fantasy XIV canon, so that is almost definitely not a reflection.

The fact that FFV is a fictional tale is FAR from proof that FFV is not a reflection. In fact, if anything, it makes it MORE likely that FFV is a reflection. Travel between reflections is possible, as we know; with the exception of Minfilia's journey, all currently known travel has been facilitated by Ascians (or made by Ascians themselves), but it DOES happen. Suppose one such traveler either visited or originated from the FFV reflection, and brought the tale of Exdeath back to the Source? It's just a story here, but was the actual truth on this other world.

No, the fact that FFV (and all the other numbered Final Fantasies, if we take the Triple Triad cards to be evidence of such stories) is a fictional tale on the world of the Source does not mean that it can't be real elsewhere. In fact we KNOW it is real elsewhere - in the world of FFV. The point of debate in this thread is, just where IS the world of FFV? Is it one of the reflections? Or is it another universe entirely?

That was the point of my post - the reason it WOULDN'T be one of the reflections is because that leaves SE far more storytelling freedom. If the reflections are all wholly owned by the universe of FFXIV, then the writers are free to do whatever they want with them. If the reflections are the other Final Fantasy games' worlds, then the writers would have to tread very carefully, for fear of pissing off long-term fans of the series (a group of folks pretty heavily represented among the playerbase of this game).

[Lusavari]

All of the FF Universes are their own stand-alone worlds connected through The Void. Warring Gods like Cosmos and Chaos (Dissidia) frequently draw upon the various worlds. It's less likely that anything is an imitation or reflection so much as it is stories of other worlds are spread about through universe travelers like Omega and Gilgamesh.

On that note, Gilgamesh is THE Gilgamesh from 5 (and 8, and 9... and 13-2.... And every other appearance.) He doesn't talk about it, but he likely knew Bartz and Exdeath. We don't know how long he's been in Eorzea. We also don't know if he's jump around in different times, or if he's the first person, but someone could have come from Planet R (FFV's world) and ended up in a time before Gilgamesh and spread the story of FFV to which it became legend. For all we know, while the characters MAY think this is legend and think Omega is pulling from it, Omega could be pulling from its own history.

[Enkidoh]

The fact that FFV is a fictional tale is FAR from proof that FFV is not a reflection. In fact, if anything, it makes it MORE likely that FFV is a reflection. Travel between reflections is possible, as we know; with the exception of Minfilia's journey, all currently known travel has been facilitated by Ascians (or made by Ascians themselves), but it DOES happen. Suppose one such traveler either visited or originated from the FFV reflection, and brought the tale of Exdeath back to the Source? It's just a story here, but was the actual truth on this other world.

That would only be true if the game already did not all but state that the 'reflections' of Hydaelyn are actually just plain parallel versions of Hydaelyn itself, not other FF worlds (this was shown with the Warriors of Darkness who were stated as originating on the First reflection.. and they have FFXIV Jobs and AF/relic, are the FFXIV races (Midlander hyur, Sea Wolf roegadyn, Wildwood elezen, Plainsfolk lalafell and Seeker of the Sun miqo'te), and, here is the kicker, all possess the Echo, an ability that does not exist on any other FF world.

If the 'reflections' were all past FF worlds, being from the First reflection then by all rights the Warriors of Darkness should have all been ordinary humans in FFI armour (and there should have only been four not five), not FFXIV races in FFXIV gear. That pretty much shows each Reflection is merely an alternate Hydaelyn where things turned out very differently to the 'player's' Hydaelyn, they're parallel worlds not completely different planets (this also shows how the WoD were able to use Hydaelyn-abilities like teleportation or using linkpearls, that is something both the Reflection and Source Hydaelyn share.).

And that all but confirms what SE stated all along (and debunks completely the very point of this thread) - Hydaelyn and it's various 'reflections' are not any other FF world in a different time or dimension, each FF world is it's own unique world.

[LineageRazor]

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To continue to play devil's advocate (do bear in mind that I AGREE that the other worlds are not other final fantasy games' worlds - however, there is room enough in the lore for the devs to make the mind-boggling stupid decision to do so, if they chose, as the original poster hopes they would), even with the Warriors of Darkness there was evidence that there are some pretty significant differences between the Reflections and the Source. You mentioned that the jobs are FFXIV jobs - except they aren't. Similar, yes, but we have the Knight of Darkness, Devout of Darkness, and Magus of Darkness, all jobs that do not exist in FFXIV - and why should they? White and Black magic was developed in, what, the Fifth Astral Era? The Reflections all diverged before the First.

The question really amounts to just how much divergence can occur within the mere thousands of years since the First Astral Era? Could there have been enough to witness the emergence of a world like those that exist in other Final Fantasies? I'd say, yes, there could. Some would be a greater stretch than others (it would be REALLY rough to explain away the cosmological differences between XIV and, say, XIII, or even XI), so let's focus on the OP's pet world, XII.

Your bringing up race is a good point - but far from ironclad. Thanks to the Au Ra, we already know there can be races in-game that have not yet made an appearance, so it is entirely possible that Viera exist on Hydaelyn and simply haven't been designed as a player race (God knows there are enough folks on the forums that wish this were true). Nu Mou, Seeq, Bangaa, could simply be undiscovered races of Beastmen, and the world of Ivalice never developed the human/beastman drama that exists on the Source, allowing them all to coexist peacefully on Ivalice. Why are there no Miqo'te, Au Ra, Elezen, Lalafel, or Rogadyn in Ivalice? Perhaps they live on other continents, or maybe they even died off for some unknown reason.

Similarities in equipment can be written off as a gimmick for ease of production - and SHOULD, even if we don't buy into the Ivalice theory. There's simply no freaking way that two worlds that diverged ten thousand years ago should wind up with EXACTLY the same equipment. The Warriors of Darkness may have looked like they were wearing our stuff, but I think we can safely assume that is just a convenience, much like Yugiri's Miqo'te model in her early appearances.

And, after writing the above two paragraphs, I remembered something even more important: we have no idea what races the Warriors of Darkness actually were. They came here as souls, not as bodies, and inhabited bodies on this world, which would account for the similarities of race and equipment. If we want to assume that they somehow formed bodies on this world that matched those on their old, though, then the above two paragraphs still apply.

As for Echo - who's to say that Echo users don't exist in Ivalice? The ability was never relevant to the game, and so was never brought up.

Basically, if the writers want to shoot themselves in the foot by making one of the Reflections out to be the canonical world of Ivalice, they have plenty of room in the lore to do so. They won't, though, because, as you said, they said they won't, and it would be a terrible, terrible idea even if they were willing to entertain the notion.

[Alleo]

Well others have already posted about this but no its already confirmed by Yoshida that FF14 is its own universe. Technically they could rewrite this later if they feel like it..which I hope they never do. Also the shards simply cant be other FF worlds because we know what happens in the first and last shard. I mean the last one (13th) was turned into the void but we know from FF13 that this ends differently (also there was no mention of Echo and the Ascians in FF13).

In the end we know that we have the source world and 13 shards but we already have FF15. Thus more games than shards available.

[The_Last_Dragoon]

Well others have already posted about this but no its already confirmed by Yoshida that FF14 is its own universe. Technically they could rewrite this later if they feel like it..which I hope they never do. Also the shards simply cant be other FF worlds because we know what happens in the first and last shard. I mean the last one (13th) was turned into the void but we know from FF13 that this ends differently (also there was no mention of Echo and the Ascians in FF13).

In the end we know that we have the source world and 13 shards but we already have FF15. Thus more games than shards available.

Basically, if the writers want to shoot themselves in the foot by making one of the Reflections out to be the canonical world of Ivalice, they have plenty of room in the lore to do so. They won't, though, because, as you said, they said they won't, and it would be a terrible, terrible idea even if they were willing to entertain the notion.

It should be pointed out that if the theory that the reflections are possibly similar to old Final Fantasy titles is true to some extent that those reflections would not be canon to their respective titles, hence they wouldn't be tied down to anything lorewise. It should also be worth mentioning that it wouldn't mean all of the shards are similar to other final fantasy worlds, neither would it mean that each reflection would be tied to it's respective number (aka FF13 being the 13th/farthest reflection). In fact, I would go out of my way to say that games like FF13, FF7, and FF15 are too different in the way how their world functions that it's very unlikely that they exist in any shape or form beyond non-canon means in the lore of FFXIV.

This brings me to FFXIV's connections to FFXII, and how I interpret Yoshida's words. I do honestly believe that all of the reflections have some part of Ivalice in them in the same way that the Crystal Tower and Xande probably exist in all of them. FFXIV is it's own universe in that it isn't tied to any of the other games in terms of story or lore, but they've made it more than apparent that enemies, races, and places that resemble those from other titles can exist.

Also, there's a race very similar to the Ascians in FFXII called the Occuria who are not only called "The Undying" but also try to manipulate the lesser races in order to control the fate of the entire realm.

@LineageRazor: When thinking about the races, I was thinking of comparing Au'ra to the Gria (barring art styles, the only real difference is wings). That's what I mean when I say that the Viera, Nu Mou, Seeq, and Bangaa could exist in FFXIV. They won't copy and paste a race like the viera which are female only and are essentially asexual Padjal, but a race of half-bunny creatures that look similar to viera could be more feasible and fit into the lore of the game. Heck, there's even a precedence to changes in the looks of moogles depending on where they live, and as of right now we only know of the ones that live on Eorzea. There is a lot of this world that we don't know about yet, and more drastic variations of moogles (such as ones that are more land based) could exist on other continents.

[Okamimaru]

People arnt grasping the multiverse concept... every ff world may may have begun as the same cold dark primordial rock in their own parallel universe but evolved separately... which accounts for the similarity in some species and differences in others.... the history and powers in each world also would evolve differently... the difference between the multiverse and the reflections is that the multiverse is actually entirely separate self contained realities.... the reflections are all part of the same reality.... like a broken mirror in a store full of mirrors...