Post-Shadowbringers Speculation

[EdwinLi]

I believe that future content will include a Garlean civil war, and that we'll join forces with members of the Populares forces to liberate colonies and drive the Garleans into their own national borders. Meanwhile we'll also have to deal with Zenos trying to pick the Scions off in his attempt to continue his hunt. I believe that the hardline Garleans will team with Elidibus' new Warriors of Light and attempt to restart the Black Rose project.

I also believe that before all is said and done, Zenos will be helping us defeat Elidibus' plot, but only if we agree to an ultimate fight to the death after it's done. I think that throughout the story, we'll have encounters with Zenos, that we'll find ways to either delay or escape, and his frustration will lead to this final bargain.

I don't expect Zenos to appear until the FInale of 6.0 after we defeat Zodiark with Hydaelyn's help.

At that moment when both are at their weakest, Zenos may consume both of them this setting up the True Finale in 6.3 and one heck of a super long cutscene for the storyline's finale that may result in both Zodiark and Hydaelyn's death to make certain Zenos does not have a chance to return ever again.

The consequences for this result is still out of my knowledge but if the battle with Zenos result in a Epic battle that causes a Great Calamity that force all Shards to fuse into the Source just to prevent the World from imploding and/or exploding, I expect 6.4 and beyond may involve a New World that has no memories of Zodiark, Ascians, Hydaelyn, and Warrior of Light thus WoL continues living in a New World that still maintains all lands we know current but a bunch of new Continents been due to the New World adding all lands from all Shards that fused with the Source creating much larger World but now WoL is in that position where no one remembers the old world nor him or her just like how Emit was when the Sundering happened. However, the books that record the WoL's adventures survived but are considered Fictional Stories the "authors" came up with.

Then 6.55 may end it with WoL preparing to go on a new Adventure by joining a Expedition into the New Continents setup by the Adventurer Guild and Eorzean Alliance after going through 6.4 and 6.5 MSQ to accept his or her position in the New World thus setting up Season 2 storyline to be a "New Adventure" for 7.0+ contents (aka lvl 91+ contents).

[KageTokage]

snip

Honestly, I'm expecting/hoping Zenos is going to be the "fake" finale to 6.0 at best (Like Innocence was) where narrative wise, everyone thinks the conflict is going to be over but then some other problem rears its ugly head.

Hopefully something set in motion by Elidibus so he can give the whole Ascian story arc its proper closure.

Zodiark's destruction really does seem like the only way the Ascian threat can be truly nullified, though, since even if Elidibus falls, there are still countless sundered Ascians who'd be laboring towards his revival regardless. I think the biggest question is how we're going to get rid of him when he's still incomplete and the notion of a complete rejoining actually happening seems a little absurd, especially when it would basically nullify everything we labored towards in ShB (Unless they come up with a way for it to happen that won't result in the destruction of the worlds/lives in the shards).

[EdwinLi]

Honestly, I'm expecting/hoping Zenos is going to be the "fake" finale to 6.0 at best (Like Innocence was) where narrative wise, everyone thinks the conflict is going to be over but then some other problem rears its ugly head.

Hopefully something set in motion by Elidibus so he can give the whole Ascian story arc its proper closure.

Zodiark's destruction really does seem like the only way the Ascian threat can be truly nullified, though, since even if Elidibus falls, there are still countless unsundered Ascians who'd be laboring towards his revival regardless. I think the biggest question is how we're going to get rid of him when he's still incomplete and the notion of a complete rejoining actually happening seems a little absurd, especially when it would basically nullify everything we labored towards in ShB (Unless they come up with a way for it to happen that won't result in the destruction of the worlds/lives in the shards).

I suspect there is a way to rejoin all Shards without causing a Calamity but the Ascians cannot see it because of Zodiark's Temper prevents them from seeing it as Emit did admit all Ascians are Temper by Zodiark when he was summoned even himself.

We already know Temper people tend to only focus on actions that will only benefit their "God" and for Ascians, the Calamity benefit their God by both rejoining the shards and weakening Hydaelyn.

A method to rejoin the Shard to the source without a Calamity most likely will not harm Hydaelyn and keep her strong enough to Guarantee Zodiark's defeat this time without casuing another Sundering.

[ObsidianFire]

The problem is that we've never seen a Rejoining happen that doesn't involve an entire world's worth of beings being killed. The problem with Rejoinings are not the Calamities. The lives lost in a Calamity are small potatoes compared to the lives lost when a Shard's aether is collapsed into the aether of the source. We've also seen that Hydaelyn views the lives on the Shards as being as precious to her as lives on the Source are. The entire reason Solus is viewed as being wrong is ShB is that the WoL and the Scions view all life as being worth saving, no matter how "partial" that life is. A Rejoining fundamentally results in life being destroyed.

As a side note, the Shards are not like... other Continents that can just be grafted onto the Source. They are exact replicas of the Source that occupy the same "space" as the Source does, just at a different "dimentional frequency". When a Rejoining happens, the Shard still occupies the same space as the Source does, but as aether on the same "dimensional frequency" of the Source. The very reason why the Source is called the Source is that it is the original dimension everything else is based on and therefor is never destroyed when a Rejoining happens. The other Shards always are.

We also don't know if Hydaelyn really is the one keeping the Shards sepprate from the Source. It could very well be the case that killing Hydaelyn would not change how the Shards and Source function.

[QT_Melon]

We also don't know if Hydaelyn really is the one keeping the Shards sepprate from the Source. It could very well be the case that killing Hydaelyn would not change how the Shards and Source function.

I'd agree with the latter but I question the former since I recall her distinctly saying she did it?

[QT_Melon]

Since the Datalogs were mentioned, posting both sets the ones from the Twinning and the Akadaemia


Twinning
https://imgur.com/a/ZXisytc

Akadaemia

https://imgur.com/a/8iB09UM

[ObsidianFire]

Oh, Hydaelyn did Sunder the Source into the Shards, no question about that. What isn't known is if she is still keeping them separate or if the Source/Shards being separated are "how the world works now" and don't depend on her being there to stay separated. Another thing that may or may not depend on her is the cycle of rebirth that all aether goes though. There's a lot of different processes that Hydaelyn may be vital in keeping going since they don't seem to have existed before she did and we have no evidence either way about what could happen to those processes if she dies or stops existing.

In the same vein, Zoidark rewrote the Laws of Reality somehow to keep what happened in the Last Days from ever happening again (probably changed how Creation Magic worked). He also rejuvenated the planet from all the destruction that happened to it in the Last Days. When Hydaelyn Sundered Zoidark, she specifically did not kill him, but sealed him away. My question is... does killing Zoidark undo what he did to reality and the Planet or does it not? 'Cause if Zoidark's "fix" to reality stops working if he's gone... yikes... out of control magic would be... bad...

One of the really big things that makes killing Zoidark and Hydaelyn different then killing other primals is how much what they do might still be effecting reality as we know it. And we have very little information about how much or how little it would effect reality if they were to stop being around. One the one hand, their changes might be permanent and killing them would change nothing. On the other hand, the very laws we know define how much of reality works might become undone and plunge the world into chaos and reduce several world's into nothing but aether while the aether cycle grinds to a halt. But, we don't have anywhere near enough evidence to know what would actually happen. Just enough to know that both Zoidark and Hydaelyn were created specifically to change how reality worked and change it they did. Messing around with the beings who changed reality in ways we are still not totally aware of sounds like a really, really bad idea.

[Ardox]

Oh, Hydaelyn did Sunder the Source into the Shards, no question about that. What isn't known is if she is still keeping them separate or if the Source/Shards being separated are "how the world works now" and don't depend on her being there to stay separated. Another thing that may or may not depend on her is the cycle of rebirth that all aether goes though. There's a lot of different processes that Hydaelyn may be vital in keeping going since they don't seem to have existed before she did and we have no evidence either way about what could happen to those processes if she dies or stops existing.

In the same vein, Zoidark rewrote the Laws of Reality somehow to keep what happened in the Last Days from ever happening again (probably changed how Creation Magic worked). He also rejuvenated the planet from all the destruction that happened to it in the Last Days. When Hydaelyn Sundered Zoidark, she specifically did not kill him, but sealed him away. My question is... does killing Zoidark undo what he did to reality and the Planet or does it not? 'Cause if Zoidark's "fix" to reality stops working if he's gone... yikes... out of control magic would be... bad...

One of the really big things that makes killing Zoidark and Hydaelyn different then killing other primals is how much what they do might still be effecting reality as we know it. And we have very little information about how much or how little it would effect reality if they were to stop being around. One the one hand, their changes might be permanent and killing them would change nothing. On the other hand, the very laws we know define how much of reality works might become undone and plunge the world into chaos and reduce several world's into nothing but aether while the aether cycle grinds to a halt. But, we don't have anywhere near enough evidence to know what would actually happen. Just enough to know that both Zoidark and Hydaelyn were created specifically to change how reality worked and change it they did. Messing around with the beings who changed reality in ways we are still not totally aware of sounds like a really, really bad idea.

Thanks for this post

[Jaywalker]

QT, thank you so much for sharing the logs! Hero of the day, I have been pretty much constantly forgetting to check the notes from Akademia when I do runs there.

Another speculation bit. Re-watched some of the final cutscenes recently and am currently waffling on interpretations.

From the point of the party beating the Amaurot dungeon, trying to decide if Emet-Selch was fully, partially, or not-at-all going for suicide-by-cop with the WoL.

Right now leaning toward maybe-partially because he did seem very sincere about how devastating it would be not to succeed in bringing the sacrificed Amaurotines back. And I do think that after everything he and the other Ascians had done across millenia for their cause, it makes sense that losing grip of that cause would be unfathomably devastating. But at the same time, I also think there were points where it kind of seemed like he was specifically trying to goad the WoL into killing him and proving that mortals were, in fact, worthy successors. The gremlin line in particular came across that way to me, as did the fact that he only stops slouching as he's about to die.

Idk how much was conscious and atm think he might have just wanted two things in direct conflict with one another (to lay the burden down and put an end to the cycle of destruction, to go back to the world and people he lost and find all of his efforts mattered), but curious what other people think.

[QT_Melon]

Zenos logic -Why not one primal when you can get both?