The State of the Ascians (Assume Spoilers as of TODAY)

[Anonymoose]

Last Update after 6.2

The primary reason for continuing this thread is that I suspect the dev. team might have a different idea of how many Ascians are dead and how much confidence can be had in that. Moreover, the revelations in 5.3 make our 2.0 cutscene math very wonky. This is as much a nudge to them as it is a resource for us - Somethin's off.

World Assignment Have Been Nixed

Early on, it seemed as though what the dev. team had in mind was that there was one overlord for each world. Consider the pedestals in the Chrysalis, recognition of Lahabrea as the Overlord of the source, Mitron as Overlord of the First, and Igeyorhm as Overlord of the Thirteenth. Nabriales seemed to support this by saying Lahabrea and Elidibus were the Originals, and the rest were "reincarnates" or "transmigrationists" from the other worlds (now known as the sundered).

Gaius later re-framed this, explaining that the Source had a second, more secretive overlord: Emet-Selch. I suspect that maybe the team just needed an overlord and was uncomfortable bringing back Lahabrea after already having brought back so many other "dead" things. We can't keep having death be so cheap.

Emet-Slech continued this trend in 5.0, himself, throwing Loghrif under the bus and saying he died with Mitron, and explaining that, yes, for a time, each was responsible for a shard, but Igeyorhm's mistake showed them that they should sometimes work in pairs. I suspect the team just didn't want to rehash the "Good thing they had an excuse to come to the Source, now we can kill them!" story they'd already done several times by rotating in a new sidekick for Lahabrea.

The fun part, at least, is that making a trio of Overlords and naming one Hades makes a wonderful parallel to the three leading Greek gods, and FFXIV has been rooted in Greece since the very beginning of 1.0. By naming Emet-Selch Hades, we suggest Lahabrea is a Poseidon analogue and Elidibus a Zeus analogue. Not that cryptic, but still fun!

Re-Resurrection Possible

Emet-Selch dropped a suggestion that, while the Originals have but one existence to lose, the eleven sundered Ascians would each have to be restored to their office from one of their fourteen shards. This means that there were 154 candidates at the start. He also suggests that you might be able to restore anyone to an office using the Originals' method, though they had yet to try. It seemed like maybe this was just laying groundwork for explaining away the Emmerololth oddity from Eureka, or perhaps setting up someone else recalling the memories of Amaurot. As of 5.3, we know how the Originals did this: auracite-like stones created by the Originals filled with their memories of their comrades - enough to awaken themselves to their office at least in part. As of 6.0, it appears that Elidibus took the stones with him into oblivion. Unless something goes wrong, we've slain the Originals and secured their stones. When we kill who is left standing, this is over. But who is left standing...?

Big Changes to the Numbers

This is going to be the weirdest part of the Shadowbringers clean-up.

2.0 • We see 14 black-robed overlords
2.1 • Elidibus declares his return after "millennia" due to Lahabrea's temporary defeat
2.2 • Val confirmed destroyed
2.3 • We see 14 black-robed overlords plus Elidibus at an all-staff meeting (most wearing the wrong cloaks even w/ names confirmed)
2.4 • Nabriales assigned to Lahabrea
2.5 • Nabriales claims the Echo allows incarnate summoning, claims Lahabrea and Elidibus are the Originals, and is destroyed.
NOTE: In 2.5, Lahabrea and Elidibus immediately meet to act as though it is a surprise an Ascian can be killed. This made sense at the time, but...
3.0 • Igeyorhm assigned to Lahabrea. Igeyorhm and Lahabrea destroyed.
3.1 • Mitron implied dead at Ardbert's hand, but no confirmation whether doing what we did to Lahabrea would kill a sundered Ascian until 5.0
4.x • Eureka retcons Emmerololth dead at the same time Val was destroyed.
NOTE: Emmerololth speaks in 2.3, moments after her "death". Was Galuf wrong? Was another shard risen? Why were Lahabrea/Elidibu surprised about Nabriales?
4.4 • Gaius declares Emet-Selch an Original, we see that he has two overlord masks of unknown origin on his belt. Whether they are dead-dead is still unknown.
5.0 • Emet-Selch confirms Mitron's death, that Loghrif died with him, and that there are 14 total overlords for the 14 seats of the Convocation. Emet-Selch destroyed.
NOTE: We have an extra black-robed overlord in the 2.x era now...
5.3 • Elidibus destroyed. 14th seat named Azem. Confirmation no one was ever raised to Azem's office in the first place.
NOTE: Make that TWO extra black-robed overlord in the 2.x era now...

The Grand Uncertainty

If we explain away that Emmerololth was killed by Galuf in Val by claiming that the Originals immediately restored her to her office, can we trust that they only did this for Emmerololth? What about literally every other allegedly-dead Ascian between then and the slaying of the Originals? How can we trust anything?

Square Enix might very well believe that they've managed to clear the board of Lahabrea, Elidibus, and Emet-Selch ... plus Mitron, Loghrif, Emmerololth, Igeyorhm, and Nabriales. Fandaniel, Pashtarot, Deudalaphon, Halmarut, and Altima are unaccounted for, but they might very well believe at least two of those are dead, already, because of Gaius's belt. So we've got two unnamed Ascians that shouldn't exist from 2.x, we've got two unconfirmed dead, and the only thing fans are sure about as far as the sundered are concerned is that Fandango is alive. AHHH!

Alright, Let's do a Roll Call

The Originals

Elidibus(†) Themis
Emissary of the Convocation of Fourteen; scattered by the Warrior of Light and the Crystal Exarch (5.3), temporary re-consolidation and total annihilation by the Crystal Tower (6.0).

Lahabrea(†) Hephaistos
Speaker of the Convocation of Fourteen; known active on the Source; annihilated by Thordan (3.0), though the Warrior of Light usually gets the credit.

Emet-selch(†) Hades
Confirmed active on the Source for millennia; had a hand in Allag and Garlemald especially; Annihilated by the Warrior of Light and allies (5.0); return to the aetherial sea confirmed (6.0)

The Sundered

Nabriales (†)
Once Overlord of the Twelfth; annihilated by the Warrior of Light at the Waking Sands (2.5), unknown if risen again.

Igeyorhm(†)
Once Overlord of the Thirteenth (Fission Mailed); annihilated by the Warrior of Light in the Aetherochemical Research Facility (3.0), unknown if risen again.

Mitron(†) Artemis
Once Overlord of the First, visual confirmation of death (5.4), post-destruction of the Unsundered. (Claims another Mitron may have been risen, unknown if true.)

Loghrif(†) Gaia
Assisted Mitron on the First; confirmed killed by Ardbert. Past risen soul reincarnated as mortal Gaia. Mitron appeared confident another was not risen.

Emmerololth (‽)
Confirmed annihilated by Galuf Baldesion when he cast Val into the Lifestream (2.2 / 4.5); implied risen again due to presence in Chrysalis in 2.3, but possibly just an error.

Pashtarot
One spoken line, unaccounted for since.

Altima (‽)
One spoken line, unaccounted for since. Gaius is credited with defeat of her current vessel and is in possession of her mask. It is unknown if this killed her current risen incarnation, and if so, it is unknown if she was risen again.

Halmarut
Mentioned in the recreation of Amaurot, unaccounted for otherwise

Deudalaphon (‽)
Unaccounted for entirely. Gaius is credited with defeat of his current vessel and is in possession of his mask. It is unknown if this killed his current risen incarnation, and if so, it is unknown if he was risen again.

Fandaniel(†) Hermes
Last risen form was confirmed an incomplete reincarnation; the shard of Hermes' soul rejected identifying as Hermes in favor of Amon, allowing him to act freely once Elidibus's oversight was lost. No known other risen forms confirmed. Defeated after the loss of the memory crystals and confirmed returned to the aetherial sea.

Azem
Pre-Zodiark Defector; never risen after the Great Sundering in the first place; confirmed shards: Ardbert, Warrior of Light

Number Fifteen: Not Azem
Who in the Seventh Hell was this extra in 2.0 / 2.3 cutscenes if Azem was never risen?

Number Sixteen: ?!?!?!?!
Who in the Seventh Hell was this extra in 2.0 / 2.3 cutscenes if Elidibus was one of the fourteen seats?

[Fenral]

Is it possible that the Overlords are capable of replenishing their ranks? If they're ascended mortals and not actual pieces of Zodiark in finite number, it would make sense if there was a bit of a waiting list for each shard, since we already know (from SMN quests mainly) there are more Ascians than there are seats at the roundish table.


The Eureka event script isn't available in GarlandDB or (may it rest in peace) XIVDB, so I suppose I really will have to get back in there at some point. Sigh...

[Vanitas]

Altima....Ultima....A CONNECTION?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

[CyrilLucifer]

I absolutely agree, the timeline for Emmerololth is shaky at best.

Let's look at 2.X:

2.1 Elidibus confirms to the Scions that Ascians are immortal. Minfilia might have sent that information to contacts in Sharlayan and the Isle of Val.

2.2 The Isle of Val disappears and is sealed due to what we know of Eureka. This means that Emmerololth would have been killed around this time.

2.3 We start talking theories about Ascian metaphysics and how we might stop them. They're all theories at the time and we're unsure how to act on them.

2.3 Emmerololth appears, clearly neither dead nor sealed, having knowledge of the current events on Eorzea.

2.4 We again start theorizing, this time about unmaking Ascians. 2 full patches after Galuf is sealed in Eureka - he would not have access to this knowledge.

2.5 Nabriales is unmade, confirming the 2.4 theories.

2.55 Elidibus and Lahabrea -are shocked- that Ascians can be unmade, as this hasn't happened before. . .
3 full patches after Emmerololth was supposedly unmade in Eureka.

My guess is that Galuf was mistaken and that Emmerololth was not unmade, just banished. Unreliable narrator, perhaps.
I don't want to think they would make that big of oopsie regarding such an important topic.


On an unrelated note, Emmerololth being called "him" is a tad confusing because the Scion of Light titles are canon in the XIV universe. The Japanese lore book has them in the profiles and the English lore book mentions Mitron's title. And Emmerololth was the Holy Queen. It might not have been Emmerololth in the first place? A lesser, perhaps?

[Anonymoose]

2.3 Emmerololth appears, clearly neither dead nor sealed, having knowledge of the current events on Eorzea.

Here I was already trying to work out how the Emet-selch thing works. Well, maybe he didn't show up to the meetings because Lahabrea had Source representation covered. Maybe he was too busy pretending to be a bedridden emperor (2.0 - 2.2) or taking a post-victory nap (2.2 ~ 4.0). Maybe the writers just really wanted a Source overlord and bringing Lahabrea back from the dead was worse than a re-frame of the Ascian power structure in every conceivable way.

That kinda seems like small popotoes comparatively. And it's not as easy as swapping in a different name. How would 2.2 (to 2.4, even) Galuf even know the principles behind the act? The speculation about the nature of Ascian immortality was primarily explored in 2.3 and 2.4 as a prelude to Nabriales and the death of Moenbryda, who had yet to even arrive. And that was prompted mostly by the Sahagin elder in 2.2. Moving the timeline to draw out the battle between the Baldesions and Emmeroloth is likewise difficult due to the specificity surrounding the use of the spell.

On an unrelated note, Emmerololth being called "him" is a tad confusing because the Scion of Light titles are canon in the XIV universe. The Japanese lore book has them in the profiles and the English lore book mentions Mitron's title. And Emmerololth was the Holy Queen. It might not have been Emmerololth in the first place? A lesser, perhaps?

The very first thing I'd want to see is the actual kanji. It it always, specifically queen? If that's not true, the rest falls apart. I'm also trying to remember if there were any gender mismatches. Igeyorhm and Altima were the only females Scions I remember and Shemhazai and Ultma match. Famfrit's male, right?

EDIT: Looks like Emmeroloth's title is 聖王妃, and 妃 is universally female, as far as I know. Which does seem a tad at odds with:



Or perhaps that's part of the error. All of the Ascians in that scene are copy-pasted black-masks because the true red-masked models hadn't been made yet.

Look at how the overlords don't even have their shoulderpads.

Maybe Emmeroloth was assumed to be male, got the wrong model, and it snowballed?

I'd say let's just not think too hard about it, but speaking for the wider community, good luck with that in the long run.

Anyroad, I'm not sure that the transmigration set can even raise underlings on the Source. Of course, Lahabrea does still have a few of his in the wind. I wonder if Emet-selch has any; we never met any, as far as I know.

[CyrilLucifer]

That kinda seems like small popotoes comparatively. And it's not as easy as swapping in a different name. How would 2.2 (to 2.4, even) Galuf even know the principles behind the act? The speculation about the nature of Ascian immortality was primarily explored in 2.3 and 2.4 as a prelude to Nabriales and the death of Moenbryda, who had yet to even arrive. And that was prompted mostly by the Sahagin elder in 2.2. Moving the timeline to draw out the battle between the Baldesions and Emmeroloth is likewise difficult due to the specificity surrounding the use of the spell.

Yes! Exactly that; this is exactly the biggest issue, IMO. You can't just swap the name out to another Overlord and fix things. We spend 2.X doing groundbreaking research on Ascian metaphysics and only in 2.5 do we actually act on a very shaky theory that we aren't sure has any chance of success. We don't even come up with this theory until 2.4, which is well after Galuf would have lost all contact with the outside world.

The very first thing I'd want to see is the actual kanji. It it always, specifically queen? If that's not true, the rest falls apart. I'm also trying to remember if there were any gender mismatches. Igeyorhm and Altima were the only females Scions I remember and Shemhazai and Ultma match. Famfrit's male, right?

Emmerololth's kanji is "聖王妃エメロロアルス"~ read "せいおうひ". "聖" for Saint, "王妃" is "consort", "Princess", "Queen" (thanks to a Japanese friend of mine for helping me get this information)

Famfrit was "The Darkening Cloud," aka the Scion of Darkness representing Cloud of Darkness. CoD is genderless but I believe has always been physically depicted as female.

Edit: nm, you found it!

[Harmonea]

Maybe Emmeroloth was assumed to be male, got the wrong model, and it snowballed?

Even Igeyorhm used a male model in that 2.3 CS despite having previously appeared in the 2.0 epilogue with a midlander female face. She also later appeared with a male model repeatedly in 3.0, presumably because they hadn't created Ascian female battle animations (under the hood, both Lahabrea and Igeyorhm in ARF use a bit of code from Nabriales' battle).

I'm sure I don't need to tell you any of this, Moose, but it's good to have it here for those stumbling through the discussion We can't really look to the 2.3 CS for clues on gender, but despite that, they've always taken care with the text.... Until now :s

Unrelated:

Maybe he was too busy pretending to be a bedridden emperor (2.0 - 2.2) or taking a post-victory nap (2.2 ~ 4.0).

Solus "died" one year after the Calamity, no? So, well before 2.0?

[ObsidianFire]

Solus "died" one year after the Calamity, no? So, well before 2.0?

As far as we know he was alive (if close to dying) in 2.0. It would explain the orders and support Gaius got in building the Eorzean Castra. He didn't go rouge until right before 2.0 As in, when tensions in the Garlean Empire were at their maximum and no one was paying that much attention to a Legion so far from the Garlean Empire. The Garlean Civil War didn't fully break out until Solus died after all. It would be rather weird for Gaius to get the support from Garleamld to build the Castra if Garlemald was at war with itself. I also have a hard time seeing a country like Garlemald in a four year long civil war; their style of fighting is all about winning quickly.

This would also line up with when the Doman Rebelion failed. Until Solus died, the rebellion wasn't active. They only made a push for Doman independence once Solus had died and the Civil War had broken out. Once the Civil War ended, Zenos would have gone to crush the Doman Rebelion and Yugiri would have escape with a lot of the Doman's to Eorzea. The Doman's don't arrive in Eorzea until 2.2.

It's also about this time that the Eorzean Alliance learns of who won the Civil War. In general through, the Eorzeans have a very incomplete grasp on Garlean politics at this time.

[Anonymoose]

Famfrit was "The Darkening Cloud," aka the Scion of Darkness representing Cloud of Darkness. CoD is genderless but I believe has always been physically depicted as female.

This is an interesting point. Famfrit may appear masculine and be called "he" in FFXII, but his "traditional" counterpart in COD has often been femnine. I'm not sure how much it matters, but it's still neat.

I'm with you both on not taking the 2.3 scene too literally without giving an opportunity for Oda-san et al. to flesh out, shore up, and double-check so that everything's where they would want it, assuming it isn't already an we're just missing something.

Solus "died" one year after the Calamity, no? So, well before 2.0?

Now that you mention it, I do recall that there was a loose citation somewhere that messed up his timeline - I just can't remember where this broken one WAS. Let me look around. Most signs point to a relatively recent death; we first hear about it in 2.2 from the Domans who are fleeing their failed rebellion and throughout Stormblood they refer to the emperor dying 25 years after the fall of Doma (this year, despite saying the rebellion was a year ago sometimes in 4.0). There's also that the Emperor was 88 when he died, and 88 years from this in-game year is 1489, his birthday in the lorebook timeline.

There's also the precarious situation with the Populares / Optimates. Signs point to the emperor being incapacitated shortly after the Calamity, but bedridden and unable to name a successor from then until now, setting up the tension that exploded into the war of succession upon his actual death in ARR.

This also sets the stage for Gaius's going rogue; he knew the death of the Emperor was coming soon and, once he died, no matter who won the political scuffles that would sure follow, Gaius would get nothing from it. It was a no-win scenario for him to obey Varis.

EDIT: Rocl found it.

His reign would continue for more than 50 years until his death in the first year of the Seventh Umbral Era.

We theorize that someone said Umbral instead of Astral, in light of all the other dates pointing to him officially dying this year.

[CyrilLucifer]

Emmerololth being male is apparently just an English localization error.
She has female pronouns in French.

Une fois vaincu, notre ennemi n'a pas été en mesure de fuir dans l'interstice dimensionnel. Tout immortelle que fut son âme, elle n'a su résister aux impéteux courants d'énergie déchaînés.

That fixes that (and further confirms the 2.3 scene is a huge mess), but the timeline issue is still baffling.