Revelations from the Shadowbringers E3 Trailer

[Lozza]

as far as the Big Reveal goes.....

*everything* we have been doing in game since the start has constantly challenged our idea of 'what constitutes a primal'. just going to the next level now is all.

We could be primals ourselves People crying out for heroes, and abundance of aether. Each WoL a mini-primal!

[Rufalus]

So... since ancient times people have revered the day and the night... and this made manifest the primals Hydaelyn and Zodiark as the embodiments of light and dark? And an era of permanent day such as what The First is experiencing gave rise to belief that the Hydaelyn god had cast out Zodiark? And ascians are basically people who were tempered by primal Zodiark?

[Crushnight]

This has my mind racing and adds so many more questions if Hydalen and Zodiark are indeed primals(/doubt due to coming from Solus):s
-What purpose were they summoned for?
-Who in the pre sundered world wanted a being like Zodiark and Hydalen?
-Why do the ascians only want Hydalen removed from existance?
-Are ascians tempered? as Hydalen doesn't seem to install that selfsame devotion into people i am doubtful we are
-Was Zodiark's crime tempering which could be seen as destroying life?
-How could Hydalen maintain herself since WoLs/Zodiac braves only seem to appear close to a calamity so knowledge of her is incredibly limited especially with civilization resets after a calamity?
-Who gave the land the name Hydalen?
-What are the twelve? they haven't manifested despite goodness knows how many people worship them
-Could Hydalen be preventing the twelve from being summoned because they would siphon too much devotion from herself?

These are just a few i have now :s

Though i do not think Hydalen will be something we fight unless it is by her will to be killed, if she is a primal she has resisted mass tempering for millenia, allowed life to go on how they would want at risk to herself, actively fighting against Zodiark to preserve as many shards as possible which weaken her, entered pacts with aliens again at risk to herself, if the original idea for Hydalen was to preserve life no matter what i could buy the primal thing better but i doubt that so much at this stage and even then who in their sane mind create a being like Zodiark with enough power to be close to Hydalen.

[Crushnight]

Went and got as many screenies of the murals and it looks like the ones with Zodiark and Hydalen do depict what we have been told so far about them:










These are clearly separate and more recent(100 years ago) sin eaters were definitely with the flood and not before Minfilia stopped it:





Really hard to tell who is attacking Y'shtola i wanna say Gauis or the WoL/WoD due to the tatters seen at bottom of coat:



Definitely Emet-Selch with that Zelara symbol:

[frostmagemari]

As I said in a different thread, it's an Ascian saying that and taking one of them at their word is asinine at best.

It's the word of an Ascian, yes.. but the Ascians have never actually lied to us, or anyone else. It's always been with a bias to their side, but they've not told a single actual lie that i know of. Even Lahabrea's tirade about the imbalance turned out to be true.

[Alleo]

I know a lot of people are saying this changes everything, but honestly does it?

After thinking it through a bit more, it would imo only change something if we find out that Hydaelyn is taking massive amount of aether from us thus we need to finish her to stop that. Otherwise I also dont see how it changes it much. We are able to do our own things, the WoDs were able to take the Ascians side for a bit and we dont act so single minded like other tempered people.

Heck we dont even know if she is summoned right now or its just her mind in the lifestream. In the end this should not let us switch side because Zodiarc would be one too and at least unlike him and his Ascians, Hydaelyn gave us free reign and seemingly does care about her children.

I mean if she wanted complete reign and she can temper like a normal primal does, why not temper everyone? This way you would also stop the ascians plans.

[TheCookieGod]

I've said this elsewhere, but I don't know that I buy the trailer reveal, especially with tension brewing between Elidibus and Solus already. I think Solus has been making a huge powerplay and is going to backstab Elidibus, use us to take out the "primals", and do what he's been feeding to Varis: make the Garlean master race Varis ranted about in 4.5 with Solus as an immortal god-emperor at the top of it all with no pesky Hydaelyn or Zodiark to stop him. The WoL assumes Elidibus' role as emmissary for Zodiark and works with Minifilia in the same role for Hydaelyn to defend them and keep the balance from here on.

Plus, other primals don't have that whole 'need for balance' thing going on either.

I'm not saying them being primals is out of the question, just that Solus is literally the only Ascian we've met that I don't trust to speak the truth. If it were Elidibus saying it, sure, 100% I'm on board. But not Solus.

[Rannie]

It's the word of an Ascian, yes.. but the Ascians have never actually lied to us, or anyone else. It's always been with a bias to their side, but they've not told a single actual lie that i know of. Even Lahabrea's tirade about the imbalance turned out to be true.

Ahh but there is the rub of it all. This Ascian may not have ever told a lie to us, since we have never met him before but he has lied to an ENTIRE country/race. He also ruled over it and fostered fear and hatred among those people. I mean this is Emperor Solus of Garlemald. Hell he's even lied about who he really was for 60 years more or less?

Second, of all with all the Ascians we've ever met maybe the one who had given us an inkling of truth was trying to lead us around like an ass driven carriage with him sitting in the seat dangling a carrot in front of our noses. The others were just straight up trying to kill us.

[JeanneOrnitier]

It's possible that the trailer is deliberately misleading and the scene where Solus says "the most ancient primals" is not the same scene as Zodiark and Hydaelyn conversation, that he's talking about something else there but the trailer is cut to make it look like he means ZOdiark and Hydaelyn. Though I actually kind of hope not. I really prefer this to them being almighty gods.

Presuming that cave painting of Zodiark and Hydaelyn is from before the Sundering, it should exist on the Source too. I wonder where it is? Maybe it's under Silvertear Lake?

[EdwinLi]

With the scene of our mystery Crystal Tower person holding a copy of Heavensward (along with the other inner-shard travel hint in the trailer) I think it pretty much confirms the time travel "gimmick" that seems likely to set the stage for the story:

We can pretty-safely assume that the Crystal Tower in the First is the same as the one on the Source, but gone back in time from the future. G'raha Tia awoke to see that disaster had befallen the world and studied history (including the book Heavensward and other chronicles of the WoL) to narrow down history's turning point and a way to prevent the calamity. He then warped the Crystal Tower back through time and space over to the First before this critical junction in history, but since he probably couldn't tune the time travel precisely, he erred on the side of caution and overshot. Then, he just waited for the right moment to bring the WoL and Scions over.

Thanks to the temporal paradox (and the tower's existing powers), the two Crystal Towers can essentially serve as an interdimensional bridge between shards, which is what will allow us to freely teleport there and back. I assume he had to warp the Scions first so that people in our era would have the necessary hints so they could "tune" the Crystal Tower to be in alignment with the one over there and make the dimensional bridging work. Perhaps once this bridge is secured, they'll be able to warp the Scion bodies over to rejoin their souls already on the other side (since they appear to be in their own bodies while they're there).

So the history that needs to be unwritten (per all the trailers) isn't our past, but G'raha's past -- it's still our future. With this intervention, we'll be avoiding the calamity we otherwise would have walked into, and instead be able to learn the truth about Hydaelyn, Zodiark, the Ascians, and the new way forward -- whatever that will be.




Yes, there's a Live Letter on Friday afternoon (3pm PDT), but I'm not expecting to get too much more lore-related hints at that one. They mentioned it'd cover some of the crafting/gathering content/changes, so probably more things like that.

Guess in the end both theory of the First being the setting and Time travel being related to the story maybe true now considering that was a discussion here in lore section before they revealed where 5.0 will go last year.

Now I am curious if we may see visions of that future and what went wrong rather than just hearing words about it.