*Spoilers* about the scions....

[Hakuro89]

Between this and the aether suddenly disappearing in random parts of the world, I'm convinced it was a warning from the WoD. He himself said their mistake was completely purging their world of darkness, thereby destroying the balance and their entire world along with it, and it feels like we're headed in the same direction. Why exactly souls are getting pulled from their bodies remains to be seen though, I assume they're being pulled to wherever Minfilia & the WoD went for some reason.

[RyuDragnier]

I'm 100% certain that was the Warrior of Darkness (Arbert) reaching out to us; that was totally his voice that I hear. Who else could it possibly be?

It's Alphinaud's voice, even sounds like it in the JP audio. Since time travel has been already been shown to be possible (Alexander raids), it's very possible this is Alphinaud from the future, and he is trying to get us to allow him into the past to prevent the events leading up to the Calamity. And if Urianger, Y'shtola, and Thancred helped usher in those events, it only makes sense to knock them out of the running for a bit.

[Ameela]

If I had to guess, it's the tech floating chair guy uses in Ala Mhigo to rip out our souls, then the Ascians messing with it to throw us into the first reflection and see first-hand the damage that foiling their plans would do.

I'm like 99% sure Garleans are involved, especially considering every Scion was affected... every Scion but the one who's been presumed dead by the empire and we see is fine at the end of the MSQ.

[Iscah]

It's Alphinaud's voice, even sounds like it in the JP audio. Since time travel has been already been shown to be possible (Alexander raids), it's very possible this is Alphinaud from the future, and he is trying to get us to allow him into the past to prevent the events leading up to the Calamity. And if Urianger, Y'shtola, and Thancred helped usher in those events, it only makes sense to knock them out of the running for a bit.

It's a good point that the Alexander plotline has set a precedent for time travel, but the exact nature of that story was a stable time loop where there is only ever one unaltered course of events, but the characters experience it out-of-sequence or 'twice' if their past and future selves are in the same place at the 'same' time (to an outside observer).

(Another good example that a lot of people will be familiar with is the climax of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - winding back time and taking a second pass through those few hours didn't allow them to change anything that happened 'the first time around', but was an integral part of what happened there in the first place. From an outside perspective there were always two versions of them present in that part of time and space.)

If this voice is Alphinaud calling from a "bad" future to manipulate the past and ensure a "good" future, that's the opposite of a stable time loop. We listen to the warning, we fix things, we stop that future from ever happening. Bad-future-Alphinaud no longer exists. So where did that message come from, then?

It's possible different rules could apply at different times - Alexander was able to create a stable loop, but it's not strictly required by the universe - but it's a lot less confusing when time rules are consistent.

IF it's Alphinaud and IF the Alexander raids suggest time needs to be stable, it could still work if, say, future-Alphinaud remembers that time when the Alliance was planning to undermine Garlemald, and in hindsight it would have been a terrible idea, but fortunately it was averted when the Scions all had strange visions and collapsed (but they were okay in the end)... and now he's worked out a way to be that person who reached into the past and stopped it from happening. The events still have to happen as they were described to him, but his doing this becomes part of the events in the first place.


For enjoyable storytelling, I much prefer stable loops to messy 'changed timelines'. They're usually more clever, and make more sense in the end.

Plus, if we can spawn multiple timelines and send messages across them, have we really achieved anything by winning? We're just in the version of the timeline where it didn't all go horribly wrong, but the others must be out there. Either that or preventing the bad timeline (which exists sufficiently for someone from it to speak to us) is equivalent to not-preventing a Rejoining: the obliteration of everyone who existed in that version of the world.

[Bonbori]

The Japanese VO, to me, sounds like a cross between Urianger and Alphinaud? Like I think the underlying timbre is more like Alphinaud's voice actor's, but the hoarsness reminds me of the way Urianger sounds. Perhaps it's an alt reality version of Alphy who's... either seen some stuff or hung around Urianger for too long? I'd go with the latter, too much Urianger messeth with thine brayn, forsooth. Verily.

Gumption.

Ahem... For comparison, here's the 4.4 trailer (~2:48), Urianger's sample from AAR (0:50) surprisingly hard to find anything more recent, and Alphinaud from 4.3 trailer (1:07).
As for the WoD theory, I can see that... but I'm not 100% convinced. The actor's underlying voice doesn't quite sound like Arbert to me, but it's been a while since I heard him in the game so maybe I need to hear more samples to see it. Alphy's and Urianger's voices are much much fresher in my memory. Anyways, for the sake of completeness, here's him and post-HW Alphinaud side-by-side (8:51 and 9:54 respectively).

There's also a high chance that we're totally overthinking it and it's actually a new character.

[Enkidoh]

If I had to guess, it's the tech floating chair guy uses in Ala Mhigo to rip out our souls, then the Ascians messing with it to throw us into the first reflection and see first-hand the damage that foiling their plans would do.

I'm like 99% sure Garleans are involved, especially considering every Scion was affected... every Scion but the one who's been presumed dead by the empire and we see is fine at the end of the MSQ.

I think this is what is really going on - Alus tried stealling the player's soul during his boss fight in Ala Mhigo, although after a brief out-of-body experience where Alus deploys prototype deathclaws to collect their spirit (it literally affects the player's character with the status effect 'Out of Body', their body is actually lying on the ground with the nameplate 'Unconcious Adventurer' and their spirit standing beside them transluscent) it fails, with the player's spirit returning to their body, presumedly due to the Echo's influence (Alus exclaims "The soul rebels?!" when this happens). So if the Garleans already had this technology/ability, it's likely they've used it now against the Archons, who unlike us, lack the Echo to protect them. It's a disturbing development either way.

[Bhearil]

It's a good point that the Alexander plotline has set a precedent for time travel, but the exact nature of that story was a stable time loop where there is only ever one unaltered course of events, but the characters experience it out-of-sequence or 'twice' if their past and future selves are in the same place at the 'same' time (to an outside observer).

(Another good example that a lot of people will be familiar with is the climax of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - winding back time and taking a second pass through those few hours didn't allow them to change anything that happened 'the first time around', but was an integral part of what happened there in the first place. From an outside perspective there were always two versions of them present in that part of time and space.)

If this voice is Alphinaud calling from a "bad" future to manipulate the past and ensure a "good" future, that's the opposite of a stable time loop. We listen to the warning, we fix things, we stop that future from ever happening. Bad-future-Alphinaud no longer exists. So where did that message come from, then?

It's possible different rules could apply at different times - Alexander was able to create a stable loop, but it's not strictly required by the universe - but it's a lot less confusing when time rules are consistent.

IF it's Alphinaud and IF the Alexander raids suggest time needs to be stable, it could still work if, say, future-Alphinaud remembers that time when the Alliance was planning to undermine Garlemald, and in hindsight it would have been a terrible idea, but fortunately it was averted when the Scions all had strange visions and collapsed (but they were okay in the end)... and now he's worked out a way to be that person who reached into the past and stopped it from happening. The events still have to happen as they were described to him, but his doing this becomes part of the events in the first place.


For enjoyable storytelling, I much prefer stable loops to messy 'changed timelines'. They're usually more clever, and make more sense in the end.

Plus, if we can spawn multiple timelines and send messages across them, have we really achieved anything by winning? We're just in the version of the timeline where it didn't all go horribly wrong, but the others must be out there. Either that or preventing the bad timeline (which exists sufficiently for someone from it to speak to us) is equivalent to not-preventing a Rejoining: the obliteration of everyone who existed in that version of the world.

Yeah, but do remember that there are different interpretations to temporal lines.

For example you have the stable loop where it doesnt matter what you do history wont change because all was done already since there is only a single timeline (Gargoyles time loops are of that type)

Then, when changing the past creates a paralel timeline, where yours still exist but on a different axis (Trunks timeline in Dragon Ball is non dependant on fixed timeline)

And we have the one when changing the past overwrites the future with some "bugs" as exceptions (Days of the future past X-Men movie for example, where only those who were at the causants of the changes are fused with their alternante timeline version, on that case, Wolverine)

If it is the second one, you are still screwed on your bad reality, giving a chance of salvation only to the specific timeline you have contacted with. If its the first, the changes you did in the past are already in motion but those changes might be noted after so you dont realize it yet.

But the third option can provide a way to solve the issues that are going to happen without leaving someone screwed

Btw if remember well Arbert japanese VA is Junichi Suwabe, famous for works like Archer in Fate or Yasha on Asura Wrath amongst many others. His voice is 100% not the one on the trailer, but it do seems really similar to Alphinaud albeit with an older tone. Urianger voice has a somewhat refined tone that its lacking on the trailer voice as well

[Timmyz]

My money is on Time travel and the souls are being called to the future by a future alphinaud. I thought it was Alphinauds voice when I watched the cutscene. Squeenix LOVE to do time travel based gimmicks in their stories and obviously it wont go to the past so........

[Reynhart]

My money is on Time travel and the souls are being called to the future by a future alphinaud. I thought it was Alphinauds voice when I watched the cutscene. Squeenix LOVE to do time travel based gimmicks in their stories and obviously it wont go to the past so........

This time too, in french, they sound nothing alike. And, opposite to Arbert, we can actually hear Alphinaud's voice in SB to compare.

As for Time travel, I really hope it's not the case, because time travel is a very risky narrative that usually makes no sense if you think too much about it...However, alternate dimension would be totally different, since we know there are reflections of our world. What I wonder though is why now ? What event will be so important that it actually triggers a Flood Of Light. We've been killing Primals, Voidsents and Ascians for several years...

[Maero]

Lyse sure has not got much screen time despite her being the center of the videos before the expansion, she seemed more useful when she was a Pugilist wearing the mask, lol
As for the ending i really wanted to see more, so this one was simply a tease.

I cannot for the life of me remember the persons name but what about that boy that wears a mask that we interact with which is in Minfilias office? Could he not be a part of something?
And why does that voice say to open the Gate or whatever, is it something evil that wants in or wants to take over our body perhaps in lieu of a possible Calamity

Alternate realities i do not think would be so far fetched for the story