New Year's Poem 2018

[Anonymoose]

TRADITIONS!
Disclaimer: Translations are amateur. Please correct me if anything seems amiss.

ENGLISH

As destiny in the whim of gods,
So history is the whim of men.
How the fallen rise and risen fall.
All shall be the subjects of my pen.
—From an anacronistic journal, author unknown

JAPANESE

運命を紡ぐは　天の御業なれど
(Threads of) Destiny Spinning　　The (Divine) Work of the Heavens

歴史を紡ぐは　人の業なり
(Threads of History) Spinning　　The Work of Humans

望まれて還りし者　望まれど還らざる者
Those who should return　　Those who should not return

我　その交わりを記す者なり
Me　　The chronicler of that intersection

GERMAN

Unsere Geschicke lenkt der Himmel
Our destiny is directed by the heavens

Die Heldentaten vollbringen wir
The heroic accomplishments are ours

Krieger, die gingen, und Krieger, die blieben
Warriors who have gone, Warriors who remain

Ihre Geschichten, die leset hier
Your histories, read (gleaned) here.

Aus "Alte Legenden new erzahlt"
From "Old Legends Newly Recounted"

FRENCH

Si la Fortune est décidée par les Cieux.
If Destiny is decided by the Heavens

L'historie est quant à elle écrite par les Hommes.
History is written by Man.

De ceux enfin revenus ou restés disparus,
Of those who at last return or remain missing,

Je me fais le chroniquer des destines croisés
I am the chronicler of crossed fates.

Nouvelles chroniques des temps anciens
New chronicles of ancient times

CONSOLIDATED GUESS AT DISAMBIGUATION

Fate is for the Divine to decide (All as meant to be).
History is for man to enscribe (Rife with inaccuracy).
Nations rise and fall, their people live and die, but the narrative is up to me.

Knee-jerk first impressions, it seems like one of those multi-meaning ones.
The next New Year's poem is coming in, say, 4.5. Until then, we've got:

• The majority of Ivalice. (Clearly "a new version of old history")
• Doma's four lords, which seem to be but are not guaranteed to be deiforms (falsely remembered history incarnate)
• Ala Mhigo and the Garlean Empire (dramatic riff)
• The Ascians which, while on hold, exhibit this theme pretty much all the time.
• Specifically, Eldibus and his "I body-snatched Zenos, but maybe it's a red herring." movements.

In conclusion, #GaiusLives. <immediately goes down in a hail of popotofire>

[Kuroka]

Sounds... interresting... i hope its not just from Gosetsu and company...

[Enkidoh]

Well, I'm terrible with guessing what these cryptic messages from Ferne's pen mean,.... but anyway

The first two lines are suspiciously similar to Vayne's whole ramble in FFXII about "putting the reigns of history back into the hands of man"... and.. well... we do now have the Return to Ivalice raid....

*puts on darksteel foil hat*

"Fallen rise"? Hmmm, Well, the 'fallen' is obviously Ala Mhigo and Doma (and perhaps Rabanastre now as well), but "risen fall"? A hint the Empire is about to reach it's Indian Summer perhaps? (Sorry Theodoric... but it looks like Garlemald's days are numbered... or not... ).

And that final line? And the 'from an anachronistic journal'? Is that deliberate leaning on the fourth wall I see there? After all, the Rising events have increasingly done just that (putting the player's character actually in the development team's offices and sending them into the server architecture to 'debug the game'), and even one of the minions taps the fourth wall (the Wind Up Cursor fittingly)... so.... is this a hint the player's character, is not who they seem to be?

*Breathes in and takes off darksteel foil hat*

Regardless, this is probably the most cryptic and interesting New Year's Poem yet.

Either way, I can't wait to see what 2018 has in store for us.

[Belhi]

I really don't have anything. It is vague enough to really leave me clueless.

This kind of sounds to me like we will be discovering some historical truth. Maybe its just Ivalice but my impression was these little hints generally referenced the MSQ. Maybe it has to do with the nature of the past, maybe the echo, the Warriors of Light and maybe the nature of the conflict between Hydealyn and Zodiark?

Yeah I don't know.

[Theodric]

My theory:

The Emperor will likely be killed after refusing to place his complete and utter trust in Elidibus, I feel. We've seen how quickly Elidibus discards his 'allies' on numerous occasions by this point and since the Emperor is a tactician and someone who commands the loyalty of countless people I doubt that Elidibus intends to leave him be - especially after what the Archbishop of Ishgard did to the Ascians 'manipulating' him. After the Emperor is dealt with, Elidibus will then either take on Varis' appearance or Zenos' appearance. Most likely the latter.

Knowing that Zenos is dead and buried the Warrior of Light would almost certainly want to get to the root of the issue. I suspect the mysterious figure we see showing frustration in 4.1's end scene will be a high ranking Pureblood Garlean who comes to learn of the chaos brewing in Garlemald and travels to the Garlean Consulate in Kugane to meet with the Warrior of Light. Given that 'Return to Ivalice' pretty much shows that the Warrior of Light is willing to work with Garleans I do not think it is too much of a stretch, especially since - presumably - the Warrior of Light has no intention of letting Garlemald as a whole get destroyed by Elidibus' manipulation.

Elidibus, on his part, cannot afford an alliance to form between the Warrior of Light and Garlemald.

Still, I believe it was stated in an interview that it won't be Ascians behind Garlemald - but everything we've seen so far implies that is the case to some extent simply due to Elidibus' presence in Garlemald.

As for other issues, perhaps the poem is tied to multiple story points. Perhaps some of the characters who came back from the 'dead' should not have come back from the 'dead' and it will come to turn out to be a bad thing? Yotsuyu is the prime suspect there.

[Ghastly]

For me this is all about viera, just from the meaning of the word anacronistic

"an error in chronology in which a person, object, event, etc., is assigned a date or period other than the correct one"
They wouldn't make one about viera next year since we'll know about them this year (fanfest) so they're preparing us for when they're revealed around 4.4 or so like Yugiri and Au ra reveal.
That's my guess but it connects interesting dots

[Keever]

"Anachronistic" here means something from a different time period - here "an anachronistic journal" basically means a journal from long ago. This is how it would most often be used in real life. If I went to a flash ultramodern restaurant and they served me in antique china cups, that would be anachronistic. It's not just a term used about fiction.

[Ghastly]

Yet the poem talks about history and destiny.
It all connects considering all we've seen about Ivalice has been a history, a past, and we even go back to the ruins of Lesalia.

To say the dots don't connect is not being objective.
The discussion we can have is if it's stated as 100% fact that it means viera or not. No one's saying it's 100%, someone (me) is saying that it does connect from a hypothetical way.

[Belhi]

It could just be about Return to Ivalice. That would make sense. It could also mean that an assumed truth about the history of Hydealyn is wrong because those who got to record the histories did so in such a way that meant it was recorded false. Reminds me about our discovery of the truth behind the Dragonsong war.

I still feel that things will firmly be moving towards Garlemald from here to the expansion. The big question for me is what machinations lead us there. The 4.X patches are clearly dealing with the fallout of the liberation but beyond that I am not yet seeing a meta plot that leads to what comes next forming.

[Anonymoose]

The Histories are written by Man.
It's singular not plural.

Fixed, thank you!

The big question for me is what machinations lead us there. The 4.X patches are clearly dealing with the fallout of the liberation but beyond that I am not yet seeing a meta plot that leads to what comes next forming.

Long-winded and rambling musing ahoy.

It's possible Varis's leadership might just not be sustainable.

Solus was a dictator, but he was an easy man to follow. His mission statement was simple: "Our world will soon perish if we do not cast aside all but truth and strength and destroy everything that should not be." Yes, that meant casting a genocidally-wide net over "threats to the world". Yes, that meant utterly crushing resistance to this simple and self-evidently beneficial "order" so they could get moving again. But it was easy for any one cog in the machine to think, "I'm a good guy. These savages are bad guys. The ends justify the means."

It takes more than fire and blood to break that mindset, especially when deiforms keep popping up and validating the severity of the threat. And in the midst of all this he was elected to the role of dictator by an established republic; he gave them their pride back, he was a patron of the arts and meritocratic freedoms, and he seems to have been generally thought of well enough.

(Not that any of that changes that his approach plays directly into the Ascians' hands by putting a considerable amount of fear, desperation, and pressure on everything they touch while fostering a culture rife with contemptible -isms and unceasing warfare just begging for the "fortuitous" rise of a "balanced" opponent.)

Since Varis took power, however, pretty much all of that black and white has fallen into the gray. He censors and oppresses even pureblood Garleans in their own capital. He enabled his madman of a son to slaughter loyal subjects and pureblood soldiers upon whims and rule through fear and abuse (and it didn't even get results). He signed off on a plan that's lost two city-states (so far). He signed off on grotesquely unethical experiments, including upon his own people. He authorized the containment and control of the primals that should have been exterminated the moment such a thing was possible. He consorts with the very forces of shadow that have threatened our world since the beginning of time as we know it because one of them has more honeyed words than objective credibility. Over and over again he embraces the things which should not be.

Varis is little more than an unfeeling and blunt club, and in my opinion he's a mockery of the Empire's only-slightly-less-misguided mission. And now the Eorzeans have taken Ala Mhigo and control the land bridge into Aldenard. The Far Easterners have taken Doma and control up to the southern mountain pass (including that if Dalmasca breaks free of Imperial yoke). They're set to be simultaneously invaded on two fronts.

I mean, personally, I wouldn't. I'd secure both and bottleneck them, and see if the leaders of Radz-at-Han could be convinced that Varis isn't the neighbor Solus was and to facilitate our efforts to contain him before things get worse. Having Ilsabard invaded from the Near East with Ala Mhigo and Doma (and perhaps Dalmasca) waiting in the northland flanks would be a disaster for the capital. No matter the course, it's an advantageous position, and if Ilsabard is truly full of sensible, stable, happy city-states that love traditional Garlean order, perhaps they might turn on Varis. Who knows, maybe "Larsa" will entreat us in Kugane and get the ball rolling before even that.

Elidibus probably wants this war to get worse before it gets better, otherwise he wouldn't have set things up to land the Eorzeans and Garleans on equal footing (remember, he's responsible for Shinryu AND Resonance). I assume he expects Varis to make a Xande-caliber mistake with his new technologies and trigger a calamity. If we can overthrow Varis and unite Ilsabard under a proper Garlean banner with a polished mission statement and ally with them in future conflicts, the Ascians lose most of their pieces.

Assuming Varis doesn't just come to his senses somehow. He seems irredeemable to me but the Warring Triad arc sent some mixed signals. And assuming Elidibus doesn't already have most of the board just where he wants it. An obvious "strike at the core problem, bring peace, spread the light" scenario (irresistible bait for the Warrior of Light) would be a nice distraction to keep everyone busy while you set Zodiark's rebirth into motion. Who says you need to destroy all 13 worlds to get Him started? 7 is a majority.

And there's still that whole bodysnatching angle in the background.

...Really I just want to see a Garlean give that old speech again.

Believe thyself. Believe thy strength.
Know thyself. Know thy weakness.
Thou art alone. One amongst many.
The land is alone. One star in the void.
See through the lies. See beyond the words of deceivers.
Follow the truth. Follow the whispers of verity.
Protect that which must be. Destroy that which must not.
For Calamity draws nigh. The End is upon thee!

Triple points if it's Gaius speaking.