Revelations from SHADOWBRINGERS

[Ilenya]

It's a mercy...

This is interesting, because we only have the Ascian's word that it would work period. And considering the plan seems to be "Sacrifice everything to bring back other people from the time before" that we have no idea if it would even work, just agreeing blindly to go along is taking a risk for basically no reward, and taking it upon ourselves to choose the fate of the Star. Assuming it all works, there's no guarantee the Calamity that struck the Amaurotians wouldn't just...Come back. For all we know, splitting the world was required to put a final end to it. All we have is partial information from an admittedly biased source.

If this all still makes it okay for you, more power to you, but to me, that's a lot of unknowns. Way too many for my liking.

[Rufalus]

If this all still makes it okay for you, more power to you, but to me, that's a lot of unknowns. Way too many for my liking.

No I meant what you said. If there's a chance it won't succeed then it's just a false hope and I wouldn't agree with the ascians. It's pointless to rejoin if the new world is still flawed and somehow ends up in turmoil culminating in an apocalypse. Only if there was reason to believe that life could be improved for everyone going forwards then I'd find it a noble cause to sacrifice myself even.

[Alleo]

It's a mercy, whether the present generation of mortals understand it or not, I would destroy them all in a heartbeat to save them and all future generations who would be born into a world of pain, conflict and death. The lives they cling to pale in significance to life in the perfect world they stand in the way of achieving. If I thought I could revert life to a garden of Eden type of utopia then I would find it extremely negligent to let anyone else be born into a fractured world of suffering.

If the mortal condition was but a choice, how many would opt to have a short lifespan, susceptibility to diseases and cancers, and the feebleness of age. People learn to cope with terrible fates because they think it is inevitable and beyond their control. If you don't sacrifice the people of the present, you condemn every future generation who will ever live to death by way of mortality so the death toll of your inaction is infinitely higher. The cycle of imperfect life can be ended, they think. I only agree with everything that I just said if it can be guaranteed that the utopia is lasting. If there's the slightest flaw in the plan which would undo the world as had happened before then yes the ascian objective is a shaky proposition.

But its not in your right to destroy billions of people. You might see it as mercy but I am sure that there are a lot of people in this world that even with hardship can enjoy their lifes, be happy for what they have. Also the Ascians are not perfect. How great would it be to destroy all life including children, in a horrible way (its not like you snap them out of existance...these people have to go through horrible calamities first..) only to find out that Zodiark cant bring those other people back? And it would only be those people. Not all the future generation that you just coldly killed off. Heck their own utopia was not meant to last..why do you believe they can do it now?

Our character and the scions do believe that a great future is possible. That by creating the path towards it, the future generations may walk in a world with less problems. Yes still with illness and death but more peaceful.

In the end you are blended by Emets vision of a perfect world with perfect people but just doing a handful of sidequests in Amaurot and reading the speech bubbles shows, that Emet has created a perfect paradies only in his head and that these people might not have been much different from us.

Also, about the Echo

Is it possible that the true source of the Echo is from the original Ascians? That it came to manifest with each calamity until the souls was close enough to manifest some of their original power. The Shade we met was able to read our soul and Arbert's and Echo is the power to transcend the limitations to read the souls of others.

About the echo:

Well seemingly in the old world everyone was an Ancient one so only "new" Ancient ones should have been born thus only them got their souls split. So in a way you could say that every single living being is a splitted ancient one? Shouldnt everyone on the source then have the echo, since the world was rejoined 7 times already? I think there might be more to the echo than that. Maybe its only for those that either summoned Zodiark or Hydaelyn in the past?

[Seraphor]

About the echo:

Well seemingly in the old world everyone was an Ancient one so only "new" Ancient ones should have been born thus only them got their souls split. So in a way you could say that every single living being is a splitted ancient one? Shouldnt everyone on the source then have the echo, since the world was rejoined 7 times already? I think there might be more to the echo than that. Maybe its only for those that either summoned Zodiark or Hydaelyn in the past?

From what I understand:

The Amaurotian souls are immortal, and so the sundered Amaurotian souls too are immortal, but at only 14th their power.
The souls of all of those who were born into a reflection, are fully mortal.
Therefore only sundered Amaurotians have the Echo.

[myahele]

After years we finally got to learn The Truth.

So even if the worlds have been rejoined and people are made complete, Zodiark will still need sacrifices to fuel its power and maintain order. I wonder if the people who summoned Hydaelyn altered the methods used to summon Zodiark so that she doesn't temper people?

Also, I remember Lahabrea talking about a growing imbalance affecting the world and that if it were to continue the laws of existence will be warped. He says the root was Hydaelyn, but I'm wondering if it has something to do with what was happening in the earth's core that eventually gave rise to panic and accidental creation of beasts? It was Zodiark that ended the Calamity and fixed the world, but now he's been sealed by Hydaelyn and the world's fragmented; makes me think that whatever caused the Calamity will rise again.

[Remedi]

They didn't, Emet confirms that whoever summons something enters in simbyosys with it and trying to resist the psychic power of something as big as Zodiark will fail

[Cilia]

Sorry for taking so long to get to it - I had luckily gotten Early Access starting on the Friday my vacation was supposed to, but then we had to work Saturday, and I had D&D Sunday, and after doing through Holminster Switch as DRK I picked up GNB on a whim and fell in love with it... so I didn't get actually moving until Monday, and it took a day or so to get up to speed. (Renzokuken combo tho!)

Anyway.

They did say there would be answers and, having broken free of 1.0's pall at last, this would be closer to a traditional Final Fantasy game in tone than previous expansions and I gotta say, I was not disappointed. All of the hints and suggestions finally came together to a very satisfying conclusion, and things got real heavy toward the end. It was a great way to lead the Ascians to a semi-conclusion, and while their plight was understandable, at the end of the day their actions were / are still unconscionable - made only worse by the fact they don't see anyone who isn't a whole / perfect being from the time of Amaurot as actually alive.

Either way, interesting to learn that Varis wasn't just talking out his ass when he was ranting about the "original, perfect master race"... but if not for G'raha's intervention, Black Rose would have been used on his order. Not that it matters now, given Zenos got his body back and did him in!

Other than that... holy hell there is a lot to unpack, but given we now have answers surrounding Hydaelyn and Zodiark and the Ascians, the driving question has been answered. Now though, the catastrophe that decimated Amaurot needs to be explored... cuz it could come back...

I'll just respond to stuff from others, because there's just so much.

[Ilenya]

Either way, interesting to learn that Varis wasn't just talking out his ass when he was ranting about the "original, perfect master race"... but if not for G'raha's intervention, Black Rose would have been used on his order. Not that it matters now, given Zenos got his body back and did him in!

The more I think about things, the more I wonder if there's this weird cause/effect thing going on between shards and the Source. It feels like, if we hadn't gone to the first like we did, Zenos would have never stopped Varis from using the Black Rose at the designated time. Maybe Gaius and Estinien wouldn't have managed to take out most/all of the facilities making it, but as we pushed back the timeline for the First's fall (Emet-Selch specifically complains we are doing this), more and more events on the first seem to be popping up showing that the ability to use it is growing harder and harder, until the end, where anyone in charge actively willing to use the Black Rose is gone.

Now, this could just be how things look because of the storytelling, and without being able to see how things were going in other shards for other Calamities (Would the 1.0 WoL stopped Nael sooner if the Flood was stopped on that shard?) it's impossible to make any direct claims. Still an interesting thought to me.

[Dualblade]

While there might be more direct cause/effect things going on between the Shards and Source beyond the Calamity stuff the changes here are all due to time travel. I've already made my own thoughts on some of those possible changes earlier on in the thread.

[Daralii]

Question regarding a line from a certain shade:

Do the pronouns in this line from Hythlodaeus depend on your character's gender or not? I can't tell given the context.