Thread: The Road to 5.0

My last words on the topic of Garlean ethics for this thread - people keep bringing up Project Meteor, when we know this was basically a few of the Empire's upper echelons and Bahamut (the real mastermind) acting through a tempered Nael, and when we know this was also opposed within the Empire, which included Varis, Gaius and several other nobles. As for Midgardsormr, he ultimately chose to engage the Garleans, who did not expect him. He overestimated his ability and lost. He did not choose to warn the Garleans of what would happen. So Midgardsormr is, in my view, largely responsible for what happened. The Ascians bear the rest of the responsibility for teaching the beast tribes how to summon, but hey, that's their job.

Let's face it - before the WoL came along, the city-states were just bashing their heads against the beast tribes and would have just as readily annihilated them, if they could. It makes it much easier to pretend to be morally righteous when you have the WoL doing your bidding, and spread propaganda about that, much as the city-states do.

None of the city-states is morally unimpeachable, particularly not Ul'dah (zombification of Sil'dih, generally vile attitude of the Syndicate), Ishgard (Dragonsong war - this would have entailed conscription to fight in this futile war) or Ala Mhigo (it tried to do to Gridania what Garlemald did to its neighbours during the Autumn War, but it lacked the means to see it through). They all would have done exactly the same to the beast tribes if they had the chance to (and were doing so, prior to the WoL and Scions), and let's not forget, these same beast tribes generally all of have an apostate faction in their ranks, for reasons that are obvious. The territories around Garlemald got what was coming to them. As for the Pureblood racial hierarchy, most of these cities operate hereditary hierarchies of one form or another - so what? Yes, the Empire could be better, yes it has some rather bad elements to it (particularly in Doma and Ala Mhigo, because they were the most rebellious provinces, so it was seen as necessary to bring them to heel), but no it does not mean its government is irredeemably evil, anymore than that of Ul'dah is. Now, will SE press Varis into making decisions that make it impossible to work with him or end in his demise? Possibly. In that case, I suspect we will be working with Gaius and the Populares instead.

We can always conveniently focus discussion on the "recent years", in the knowledge that if you go even as far back as a 100 (really, no need to do so for Ishgard, as the present will suffice), it'll shatter the delusion that the city-states are much better. Even Doma, if Yotsuyu's tale is any indication, was not a nice place to live at all.

As for the desirability of a balance of darkness/light, it is obvious why it is a very real thing and desirable. The Void formed from an imbalance of Darkness gaining a foothold. This rendered the world ineligible for a rejoining and ultimately devastated it, starving it of aether. The world Arbert hails from suffers from an imbalance of Light, which is searing it, as he stated; he could not be clearer. Could this all be a lie? I doubt it, and Elidibus lays out his cards as to why the Ascians do not see a benefit in it. They very much do want their master to be restored to his full power but as a means of getting there, inundating worlds in darkness apparently does not work to their favour. Otherwise, why would Igeyorhm be punished for her actions and subordinated to Lahabrea?

The difference between a "not-so-good" and "great" WoL is how much aid Hydaelyn lends them and, secondarily, how they put it to use. Hydaelyn lent an awful lot of aid to our WoL, before they became "great", particularly in the Praetorium. That battle would've gone badly against us otherwise.

Originally Posted by Alleo

Well yes if you use current deeds as arguments (which should be a huge part of it because its always the current government that shapes the future) you should also only use the current deeds for other nations too, otherwise it will get quite unfair. And in my argument you will only find current deeds. And none of the city states of Eorzea have such deeds in the recent years. They are not morally white either but far from the point that the other state has..(And its not like Garlemald was some nice nation in the past either so its not getting better if we take some years back ) But anyways..its getting a bit off topic and both sides have said their thing. Hopefully someone can point out the balance problem for Light and Darkness for me..

Really now? Because the Dragonsong War seems to be pretty close in terms of how bad it is.

Originally Posted by Lauront

As for the desirability of a balance of darkness/light, it is obvious why it is a very real thing and desirable. The Void formed from an imbalance of Darkness gaining a foothold. This rendered the world ineligible for a rejoining and ultimately devastated it, starving it of aether. The world Arbert hails from suffers from an imbalance of Light, which is searing it, as he stated; he could not be clearer. Could this all be a lie? I doubt it, and Elidibus lays out his cards as to why the Ascians do not see a benefit in it. They very much do want their master to be restored to his full power but as a means of getting there, inundating worlds in darkness apparently does not work to their favour. Otherwise, why would Igeyorhm be punished for her actions and subordinated to Lahabrea?

The difference between a "not-so-good" and "great" WoL is how much aid Hydaelyn lends them and, secondarily, how they put it to use. Hydaelyn lent an awful lot of aid to our WoL, before they became "great", particularly in the Praetorium. That battle would've gone badly against us otherwise.

Hydaelyn only helped us against Ultima with a shield the rest was done with our power. And even with her weakened state afterwards (she could not even talk to us anymore, which shows that the balance is not tipped towards the light) we still were quite powerful on our own. Other than this one part, where did she truly really helped us?

My problem is still the understanding how you can create too much light. Did the WoD and the people in that shard just really defeat every single bad thing in the world and at the same time somehow no bad human existed either? How can you see that there is too much light? Is there a forewarning? Also why should we care about this if Hydaelyn can just swoop in and take the light back to her? I mean if Zodiark was free he could have probably got the Darkness back too. (But I do believe that he would not have done that because he seemingly does not care much for life)

It really would have been nice to get more informations from the WoD...maybe even a few echo visions of their battles and how their world looked right now. Maybe that would have helped me with a better understanding.

Originally Posted by Alleo

Hydaelyn only helped us against Ultima with a shield the rest was done with our power. And even with her weakened state afterwards (she could not even talk to us anymore, which shows that the balance is not tipped towards the light) we still were quite powerful on our own. Other than this one part, where did she truly really helped us?

Why trivialise the shield? Seems to me that without it, the WoL could well have ended up a smear beneath its feet. It's like a tank pretending the healer doesn't exist, even though they'd be dead without them.

My problem is still the understanding how you can create too much light. Did the WoD and the people in that shard just really defeat every single bad thing in the world and at the same time somehow no bad human existed either? How can you see that there is too much light? Is there a forewarning? Also why should we care about this if Hydaelyn can just swoop in and take the light back to her? I mean if Zodiark was free he could have probably got the Darkness back too. (But I do believe that he would not have done that because he seemingly does not care much for life)

It really would have been nice to get more informations from the WoD...maybe even a few echo visions of their battles and how their world looked right now. Maybe that would have helped me with a better understanding.

Conversely: how can you create too much darkness? The light/darkness duality in the setting is very metaphysical and cuts to the core ontology of the setting, i.e. two divine entities aspected one to darkness, the other to light. I don't think it goes as far as simply someone with bad intentions or machinations but actively taking a part in the light/darkness struggle as it manifests through Hydaelyn/Zodiark. It is something that possibly requires vessels like the Ascians (or similar), or the WoL (or similar) to enact the will of the god in question. Hydaelyn may not be always able to step in and do what you suggest. She was not able to in Arbert's homeworld; if she were, it'd raise the question of why she has not. So I think anonymoose's theory on "hitting the brakes" may hold merit.

I don't question Zodiark's intentions, they're quite clearly manifest. But yes, more information would be nice, as would be the role the Twelve play, if they're anything more than Primals.

Originally Posted by Theodric

I have a feeling it's not a case of her lying but simply avoiding mentioning key pieces of information, much like Elidibus. We've seen multiple examples of her refusing to communicate efficiently and effectively with those she has empowered. Ysayle is an excellent example. Many innocent Ishgardians were slain because she was granted the power of the Echo and become delusional as a result of misinterpreting her visions. Though she did learn the error of her ways at a later point.

When combined with the fact that we're constantly being told that the Echo is a force we do not fully understand by the Ascians I think it's fair to suggest that it is very much a double edged sword.

I'd like for that to be the case. It'd add some mystery to the lore, rather than it being a foregone conclusion that the light is Good (TM) and we're just doing its bidding.

Originally Posted by Lauront

Why trivialise the shield? Seems to me that without it, the WoL could well have ended up a smear beneath its feet. It's like a tank pretending the healer doesn't exist, even though they'd be dead without them.



Conversely: how can you create too much darkness? The light/darkness duality in the setting is very metaphysical and cuts to the core ontology of the setting, i.e. two divine entities aspected one to darkness, the other to light. I don't think it goes as far as simply someone with bad intentions or machinations but actively taking a part in the light/darkness struggle as it manifests through Hydaelyn/Zodiark. It is something that possibly requires vessels like the Ascians (or similar), or the WoL (or similar) to enact the will of the god in question. Hydaelyn may not be always able to step in and do what you suggest. She was not able to in Arbert's homeworld; if she were, it'd raise the question of why she has not. So I think anonymoose's theory on "hitting the brakes" may hold merit.

I am not putting the shield down but kinda ask for more instances where she helped us directly. Because Kryle also got saved directly by her so we are not her only special one. I was just interested because you wrote that she got us much more aid but I am not sure if one instance counts as that and we also dont have any good information about the other WoLs of the other shards. All we know is that there is only one WoL on the original world, a group of WoL on the first shard and on the lost one we know of at least one WoL which is the kid. (Seemingly he got born to late or something?) We also go the information that some of the void monsters might have been old WoLs that used too much of that white crystal and got corrupted.

I agree that the Darkness part is also still strange but I could at least see how too much disaster could have changed the shard to something like the void. But I really have a hard time seeing how too many good deeds will destroy it too. Did they get too much Aether back thus it did not know where to go and created too much light with that?

I also believe that she was not in the first shard because she was too weak. We are on the original world yet she still was not able to communicate with us. She also seems to rarely be able to act on her own. So maybe thanks to all the calamities she saw that they are overdoing it but could not do anything at all. Because as soon as she got the couple of crystals of light she was able to take the light in...which begs the question on how a light flood is even dangerous if she can just "eat" it.

Maybe I truly just see this too literal but seeing how its our actions that seems to change it, I kinda want to understand it. Because somewhere down the line we probably have to decide what to do and I really want to understand the decision. x)'

(Also I am still a bit annoyed that neither the WoL nor the Scions tried to find out more about the floods and the balance after they have met the WoD..it will probably only be interesting again if the plots wants it to be..)

Originally Posted by Iscah

It occurs to me that "transcending" is a word specifically used in combination with describing the Echo.

From the lorebook, p.15: some ways the Echo manifests are "the power to transcend words" (understand other languages), "transcend time" (flashbacks) and "transcend worlds".

The exact description of that last one is: "Though rare, there have also been cases reported of individuals who, through the manifestation of Hydaelyn's very light, can walk the aetherial plane and communicate directly with the planet Herself."

That's about the only part that throws a wrench at my train of thought, while I try to understand what it means :x