Thread: Revelations from Patch 4.5

Originally Posted by Dualblade

On the MSQ

I'm throwing my hat in on Varis not actually being Varis but Solus shape-shifting to him. I'll also say that if Solus is doing things behind Elidibus's back it will eventually be revealed that Elidibus was aware of atleast most of his actions the whole time and has been accounting for them. Unless Lahabrea somehow comes back Elidibus will be our final Ascian boss and so far has shown himself to be the most intelligent.

As for the WoL possibly causing a flood of light in the source? I'm still not feeling it. So far there simply haven't been any actual consequences involving Light, only actions/reactions from dark sources. I'm hoping Part 2 shows actual reason for us to become a WoD because it just seems weird right now, even more so since we already know defeating the Garlean Empire and the Ascians will STILL be a main goal as a WoD.

Still more on the MSQ:

I'm on Team "Varis got bodyjacked by Solus during the break". Before the recess, he sounded and acted like the Varis we encountered in the Sea of Clouds: arrogant and condescending, but also very composed. When he returned, he started chomping on the scenery, throwing his arms wide and smirking and chuckling. His whole affect changed, and he seemed much more like...well, like Solus, the giant ham. Between that and the bit about how "We may not see each other again in this lifetime," I think Solus--or rather, Emet-Selch--wasn't happy with the stalemate, so he decided to take the reins. His goal was to ensure that there's no armistice, and that the conflict continues to escalate.

My question from the beginning was "Why does Varis want to negotiate?" There's really nothing for him to gain: the Empire clearly has the superior military force. Doma and Ala Mhigo aren't going to agree to anything less than the independence they just fought for, and certainly none of the other Alliance nations are interested in giving up territory. Varis has to know that the parley was a delaying tactic by the Alliance. So why propose it? I think the answer is that Solus wanted to know how much information the Alliance had, and then to push them towards continuing the war.

Originally Posted by Haxaan

MSQ - Am I the only one who is wondering?

Am I the only one who is wondering what is going on with Unukalhai this entire time? He is still standing in the Solar, a doors reach away from anyone to talk to, yet nothing. People's souls are being stolen from bodies, Asians are on the rise and the balance between light and dark is teetering on the edge, yet no one thinks it a good idea to discuss what's going on with him? It just seems odd to me. He may have some insight as to what is going on, or at least be able to help look for an answer. I wonder if this is an oversight and if he will be brought in in the next part of the story, or if he has been completely forgotten about after HW. So far he has spent the entire expansion in the Solar twiddling his thumbs.

gotta love /10char

my guess he hasn't been brought in is because he is purely in the Warring triad arc and they would have to reintroduce him in case people haven't done that storyline clearly the devs don't want to yet

Originally Posted by Haxaan

MSQ - Am I the only one who is wondering?

Am I the only one who is wondering what is going on with Unukalhai this entire time? He is still standing in the Solar, a doors reach away from anyone to talk to, yet nothing. People's souls are being stolen from bodies, Asians are on the rise and the balance between light and dark is teetering on the edge, yet no one thinks it a good idea to discuss what's going on with him? It just seems odd to me. He may have some insight as to what is going on, or at least be able to help look for an answer. I wonder if this is an oversight and if he will be brought in in the next part of the story, or if he has been completely forgotten about after HW. So far he has spent the entire expansion in the Solar twiddling his thumbs.

That's been bugging the hell out of me since SB launch.

The writers' refusal to use certain side story pieces in MSQ is incredibly frustrating. Unukalhai is an official member of the Scions, and one of the few with the Echo. that seems like it should be pretty damn important but since WT is technically sidequest he's not in the MSQ at all. I know they don't want to leave out people who didn't do the WT quests, but come on.

Back on topic... While there are still unanswered questions from this round of MSQ, my big one is:

What exactly have we been doing that's creating an excess of light? Especially considering the world is still in a pretty bad place. Almost everything we do is reactionary in an attempt to restore balance. Primal summoned? We kill it. Ascian causing trouble? We sort it out, etc. What are we doing wrong? Are we saving too many lives, stopping too many wars, giving people too much hope? What exactly is the problem?

Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

That's been bugging the hell out of me since SB launch.

The writers' refusal to use certain side story pieces in MSQ is incredibly frustrating. Unukalhai is an official member of the Scions, and one of the few with the Echo. that seems like it should be pretty damn important but since WT is technically sidequest he's not in the MSQ at all. I know they don't want to leave out people who didn't do the WT quests, but come on.

And this is why everything should be Mainstory, like it was on ARR... chopping off story only hurts the game, it sucks not being able to use such things just cause some ppl are too lazy to do ONE fight and a handfull of quests or an optional dungeon >_>

Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Back on topic... While there are still unanswered questions from this round of MSQ, my big one is:

What exactly have we been doing that's creating an excess of light? Especially considering the world is still in a pretty bad place. Almost everything we do is reactionary in an attempt to restore balance. Primal summoned? We kill it. Ascian causing trouble? We sort it out, etc. What are we doing wrong? Are we saving too many lives, stopping too many wars, giving people too much hope? What exactly is the problem?

From my interpretation:

I'm not entirely sure that we're implicitly doing anything wrong. I mean, wasn't this the case with the Warrior's of Darkness? That they were just doing what they needed to in order to keep their world safe, but in the end, it happened that the balance between light and dark was upset causing their world to still become engulfed by the light.

That said, we did just recently essentially single handedly front 2 pretty massive rebellions which succeeded in limiting the Garlean Empire, which is a fairly substantial source of dark thanks to the Ascians. I'm sure that might have something to do with an impending unbalance of light...

Meanwhile, some of my own questions surrounding some of the MSQ events:

Where did Varis learn about cloning? Like, it's just "Oh yeah, there's just a rando cloning facility full of clones of Solus. No biggie" and I'm just sat here thinking, what? Last I heard about cloning was in the SMN quests, where the Allagans used Saris' research to create a defence system that utilized clones of Saris. But then we smashed it good. Not only that, but this was entirely on Azys Lla, which we did our best at keeping the Imperials out of, aside from the group we encounter during the Warring Triad side quests, which were not particularly focused on scrounging for information about cloning and was more concerned with you know, the potential calamity caused by one of the Warring Triad waking up...

In any event, I assume we're going to get some more focus on this at some point, given that the parley informed the entire alliance that Solus is in fact an Ascian. Meaning that someone's probably going to note the significance of an entire facility filled with clones of the Ascian that founded the Garlean Emprie...

Less of a 4.5 related musing and more of just something I've been thinking about lately:

How exactly are the 13 shards linked? Like, the Warriors of Darkness came to our world (The Source) in order to usher in a calamity of darkness, in order to counteract the calamity of light happening on their world (The First). This then proposes that these 2 worlds are linked in some way, or that 2 worlds can be linked together by some action.

Since, one would think, that if one of the things is that several of the worlds have been engulfed by darkness or light, surely if they were linked in some way, or COULD be linked, then some of the worlds would counterbalance each other? Like a world engulfed by darkness being linked to a world engulfed by light, that would essentially fix them right? By the same premise that the WoD's were trying to cause a flood of darkness in our world to combat their world being flooded by light?

I mean, unless everything happened to be extremely coincidental? So that all the worlds flooded by darkness were linked and all the worlds flooded by light were linked. With our world happening to be linked to the first...

Also, if a flood of light/darkness on a world can influence another world (See: The WoD's motives for causing a flood of darkness on our world), would that not mean that this influence can happen even when there isn't currently a flood happening on both worlds? As in, if our world is linked to the first, which is being flooded by light, would that not as a result increase the light in our world, independent of any actions of people in our world? (Thus meaning that the Ascians are actually incidentally saving our world by working to increase the darkness, counterbalancing the increased light we're receiving from the first and thus then cause our actions as the Warrior of Light to put our world in danger of a flood of light)

Some more MSQ related musings, this time more relevant to 4.4-4.5:

If this is all the case, then I would surmise that a very important thing to do, is to travel to the first and usher in a calamity of darkness there in order to negate the flood of light and thus put it back into equilibrium and remove its affect on our world's equilibrium. With further actions to be taken including then going to the other worlds that have been consumed and ushering in calamities of Darkness/Light as necessary to try and restore an equilibrium within them too.

Which, could quite possibly be what the voice we're hearing and is taking the souls of the Scions is trying to do. Since, we know that Hydaelyn sent Minfillia to guide the WoD's back to the first, it's possible that someone from the first has been able to use Minfillia's trail (Which would lead back to our world, along with the WoD's) in order to reach out to the Scions and bring them to the first so that they can aid in reversing the flood, before our world is destroyed. Perhaps because once the flood has begun, the only way to be able to travel is by doing an Ascian and giving up your mortal body, which may be either impactful for actually being able to influence the world or it might be out of concern that whomever is requesting our aid doesn't want us to die (Not to mention, if the floods do impact other worlds, then a double light flood would be far more difficult to fix...)

Originally Posted by Kalise

How exactly are the 13 shards linked? Like, the Warriors of Darkness came to our world (The Source) in order to usher in a calamity of darkness, in order to counteract the calamity of light happening on their world (The First). This then proposes that these 2 worlds are linked in some way, or that 2 worlds can be linked together by some action.

Since, one would think, that if one of the things is that several of the worlds have been engulfed by darkness or light, surely if they were linked in some way, or COULD be linked, then some of the worlds would counterbalance each other? Like a world engulfed by darkness being linked to a world engulfed by light, that would essentially fix them right? By the same premise that the WoD's were trying to cause a flood of darkness in our world to combat their world being flooded by light?

I mean, unless everything happened to be extremely coincidental? So that all the worlds flooded by darkness were linked and all the worlds flooded by light were linked. With our world happening to be linked to the first...

It's possible that the shards are all linked to the Source but not to each other.

Originally Posted by Kalise

Also, if a flood of light/darkness on a world can influence another world (See: The WoD's motives for causing a flood of darkness on our world), would that not mean that this influence can happen even when there isn't currently a flood happening on both worlds?

We don't actually know if that's true. We only have the word of the ascians on that, which casts doubt on everything.

This post now has ten words instead of ten characters.

The Balance

I feel this the fault of the storytelling not yet explaining the nature of "Light" and "Dark" and how they work, or how it is distinguished from astral and umbral polarities. Since the start of 2.0, neither Hydaelyn nor the Ascians have clearly explained what is going on. And now we have alien existences like Midgardsormr, Omega, and Ultima to make things more confusing.

Originally Posted by Zohar_Lahar

The Balance

I feel this the fault of the storytelling not yet explaining the nature of "Light" and "Dark" and how they work, or how it is distinguished from astral and umbral polarities. Since the start of 2.0, neither Hydaelyn nor the Ascians have clearly explained what is going on. And now we have alien existences like Midgardsormr, Omega, and Ultima to make things more confusing.

Yeah. It's very unclear how that all works.

Presumably when it comes to Hydaelyn vs Zodiark and the power of Light and Dark it isn't a simple case of light or dark aspected aether. Problem is, we have no idea what it actually is. Ascians have been talking about it for years but nothing has ever really been explained.