Thread: Revelations from Patch 4.5

Traditions traditions traditions.

For anybody who's new to this process, we've organically fallen into this habit of always making a Patch Day freak-out thread where we give our knee-jerk feedback and trade a few points so we don't just go spoiler-bombing the rest of our open threads in the first 24 hours.

By discussing each story arc in its own collapsible spoiler box, we ensure that people can take part in the thread without fear even before they've finished everything.

EXAMPLE

Like so.

MAIN SCENARIO

"My goal is the salvation of this star!" speech from young Alphinaud years ago?
"Elidibus is Time-Travelling Alphinaud" theories ahoy. Alphinaud the Emissary was THE Emissary all along! (Trolololo~)

There's the first wave of that hypothesized realignment of [Eorzea] vs. [Garlemald] to [Eorzea + Garlemald] vs. [Ascians + Garlemald].
Can reclaim that from the "set aside due to being blindsided by the 5.0 teaser" bin.

Alpinaud is in soulless sleep. Krile is not.

AHAHAHA reason for Gaius's survival left at: MAN LITERALLY TOO ANGRY TO DIE

Aaand there's the Addition Retcon ("NEW REVELATIONS") door required for believing "Solus was one of the Overlords." By restructuring Emet-selch into the "of the Source" mix, there's now both legs to stand on for the "It wasn't really Solus" camp. (Now we must needs make excuses for Nabriales only mentioning the two when he originally told us about Originals and Reincarnates / Transmigrationists, but I've already got one possibility: interpret what Nabriales was saying as specifically an excuse for why specifically those two could enter specifically the Rising Stones in spite of the Blessing of Light.)

Also confirmation of another layer from the Soul Shenanigans post vis a vis "transmigration into a living host which kills and warps that host". Notice, however, that we once had 14 worlds and 14 overlords. Assuming the "Solus was just Emet" camp is correct, was Emet promoted after his assigned rejoining, or something? Or do 3 Ascians go unnamed?

Really solid dialogue at the parley, and an excellent feel for the dungeon (though did I see Kan-E-Senna wield a white magic barrier in battle? In violation of the Pact of Gelmorra!?) The story feels like it ends a bit too soon and without a final punch ... but, doesn't every x.50? Just short of a whole other patch cycle now until the real fireworks. Maybe it just feels that way because losing the last of our allies to the soulless sleep felt so inevitable, anyway.

They've definitely been setting up the Chekhov chemical weapon to go off, but who's gonna take the hit? As long as they don't pull an Infinity War and go all out on a dramatic slaughterhouse they're obviously just going to undo with time shenanigans, I think I'll be okay.