Revelations from Keynote II

[Iscah]

I still haven't got my head round the Alexander lore, but isn't the idea that the characters were trapped in a time loop and that due to Alexander being benevolent, he would not interfere?

The plot is a time loop, but it's a single time loop, not infinite - and not directly affecting the characters.

Alexander itself is essentially a time-travelling supercomputer, able to calculate all possible futures and manipulate time so the "best" future plays out. But it's also a primal, and its mere existence is draining aether from the land, so it concludes that the actual best future is one where it doesn't exist. In the end it can't be destroyed, so to remove itself from the world, it traps itself in a self-contained time bubble - allegedly sealed forever, though there are implications that some things can still get in and out.

There's an running theme throughout the script on the idea of being able to rewind time and undo past events, but with the conclusion that it shouldn't be done.

[Lauront]

Just to clarify, do you mean Alexander's plot?

The thing that eludes me about it is the "why" behind the whole plot - as in, why did it all need to happen in the first place? Like the creation of the stable time loop.

All that just makes me wonder how things would differ if the being in question lacked Alexander's limitation of being a primal. Still, I think there's other ways of parsing some of the time-related references which can exclude time travel altogether.

Going back to Minfilia, I have to wonder if what's going on with her is not perhaps rebirth, as opposed to being aged down. So that the body she's reborn in would plausibly look like a younger Minfilia as we know her, but is not really the same, and therefore gives the illusion that the trailer is hinting at time travel. This would align with her retention of the aspect of the Word of the Mother, and may also link into the cover art for ShB, with the DRK holding the luminescent child.

I'm also wondering if the trailer may be hinting at a time skip, given some of the narration.

[Cilia]

Just to clarify, do you mean Alexander's plot?

The thing that eludes me about it is the "why" behind the whole plot - as in, why did it all need to happen in the first place? Like the creation of the stable time loop.

It needs to happen for its own sake, as well as events that would change as a consequence of the time loop not happening. The Hotgo tribe, of which Mide is one of the few survivors, wouldn't exist if not for the time loop that Alexander's events take place within.

We can't observe what started the time loop or why, because we're part of it and it exists in perpetuity.

[Lauront]

It needs to happen for its own sake, as well as events that would change as a consequence of the time loop not happening. The Hotgo tribe, of which Mide is one of the few survivors, wouldn't exist if not for the time loop that Alexander's events take place within.

We can't observe what started the time loop or why, because we're part of it and it exists in perpetuity.

I see. That way it makes it sound like it's a bit of code gone wrong, and Alexander is the debugging tool. Particularly when you say the tribe wouldn't exist otherwise; my question would be, why would it need to? However, if there's some unobserv-ed/-able causal agent it begins to make sense.

I think it's worth keeping in mind that the trailer is deliberately misleading. As in, basically anything it appears to be communicating "clearly" will almost certainly change meaning drastically as we come to understand the surrounding context.


Unless Yoshida's comments on misdirection are the true misdirection... Hmmmm...

Indeed, I fully appreciate that. It's also incomplete in its present form.

I was writing about this the other day (link), but I think if there's time travel in play and this is "Future G'raha" that we're dealing with - whether we go to his time or he comes back to ours - then it's not necessary to have completed the Crystal Tower raids. He is from a point in time where those events have already taken place, whether you have personally experienced them yet or not.

If players haven't completed the questline yet, I think it could be easily sorted out with some variable dialogue at the start - he'll recognise and greet you, because he's been through that story with you, even if you-at-the-current-time have never met him. So your character would react in one of three ways: (for those who haven't started yet) no idea why this unfamiliar person knows you; (for those partway through) confusion because you do know him but not like this; and (for those who completed it) full recognition and wanting to know how he got out of the tower.

That would lead into a customised explanation of what's going on, possibly with some "you mustn't speak a word of this to my past self next time you see him!" warnings for those who haven't finished.

I think given the nature of time travel in the game, it does make sense that that might be how he becomes relevant to the plot... whatever his role might be.

[Cilia]

I see. That way it makes it sound like it's a bit of code gone wrong, and Alexander is the debugging tool. Particularly when you say the tribe wouldn't exist otherwise; my question would be, why would it need to? However, if there's some unobserv-ed/-able causal agent it begins to make sense.

The trick to understanding everything surrounding Alexander is to remember that it's a closed circle. It's all already happened countless times before you even begin to play your role within it, and countless more "yous" continue to play it out within the loop. The Hotgo tribe, for instance, has to exist because Mide and Dayan were sent into the past by Alexander after the final battle... because that not happening would create a temporal paradox, much like the DPS failing to save your past selves in A12 instantly kills you.

Remember Backrix' journal. He begins chronicling the events of Alexander, which continues up until A10. During the trip to the past his journal is knocked from his hands and picked up by Past Quickthinx, who uses it as a script to play out the events leading up to that precise moment. If Alexander isn't summoned, Backrix won't write his journal, and it won't be knocked out of his hands and picked up by Past Quickthinx - but those events all have to happen, because they already have.

There's not confirmed to be a "Zeroth Loop" outside of our ability to observe... but just like a hypothetical perpetual motion machine needs some energy input to start out, it's the only way this makes logical sense.

[LineageRazor]

The trick to understanding everything surrounding Alexander is to remember that it's a closed circle. It's all already happened countless times before you even begin to play your role within it, and countless more "yous" continue to play it out within the loop.

I don't think that the "countless yous" scenario really works in this case. That more applies to stuff like Groundhog's Day, where you're repeating the same segment of time over and over again until you get it "right". That's an entirely different sort of time travel than that implied by a stable time loop.

A closed time loop of this sort is more like a roller coaster. You're riding along like normal, then you come to this loop which takes you to another point in time. That loop was always there, and you only rode it the one time. Even if the time travel causes there to be more than one you at the same point in time, they aren't countless, they are limited by the number of times that you actually travel to that point in time. (The most Alexander ever supplied was two simultaneous WoLs - the point in A12 where you travel to the past to save your past self from Alexander's blast.)

It's also important to realize that this time loop was always a thing. There IS NO "original" timeline that was altered to create the time loop. This IS the original timeline. It just happens to be that the original timeline has a tangle in it.

[Fenral]

I think it's worth keeping in mind that the trailer is deliberately misleading. As in, basically anything it appears to be communicating "clearly" will almost certainly change meaning drastically as we come to understand the surrounding context.


Unless Yoshida's comments on misdirection are the true misdirection... Hmmmm...

[YianKutku]

Alpha never really does anything outside his prime directive until after the defeat of Omega-M/F. He certainly went above and beyond the scope for which he was intended, but until then he just got us to fight Omega's test subjects and then Omega itself, which is the entire reason he was created. Going on a journey was the first independent thing he willed himself to do outside of his intended purpose.

Might be why we can't Echo-talk with mammets - they have some degree of intelligence, but no real will of their own. Except maybe Vivi.

Alpha did try to bash against the trap Omega put us in, which was the reason Midgardsormr acknowledged Alpha's will and bravery. I would put that in the same degree of free will as Maggie coming to save us when the Praetorium was blowing up.

[RicaRuin]

On the topic of the cloaked figure in the Artwork - I don't really think it's G'raha Tia. They try their best not to intertwine Raid Story with the MSQ, and then again, wouldn't they have told players to complete the Crytal Tower Raids by now...?