(Spoiler) About amaurots downfall

[Rannie]

Wait the Ascians aren't incompetent?!?!! *looks at Lahabrea* .... are you sure they aren't edwin?

[Nalien]

That would still go back to the whole "it is always the Ascian's fault" plot they keep repeating since 1.0 in the end. In this case it was the Ancient Ascians.

It would be a wrap-up to the Ascian story, one final bit of dramatic irony. Then we move on to something else.

I'm actually hoping the Terminus doesn't become a plot point going forwards after we've finish with the Hydaelyn/Zodiark story. Honestly I'd prefer we never get a full explanation for what caused it, I think it's more interesting to leave it a mystery for us to speculate over... I'm somewhat dreading the prospect of us moving on from the Ascians storyline to battling the Terminus in some form... I've had my fill of cosmic threats for a while, give me another nice grounded human story like Heavensward, that still had a bit of Ascians pulling the strings, but it was far more minimal compared to what we've had for two expansions now... Don't have us defeat Thanos in 5.x and then throw Dr Doom right in our face with 6.0, lets take a break from the big bads for a while and focus on the "little" stories that have been playing second fiddle for too long now. There's plenty of Primal problems and socio-political unrest in Hydaelyn to focus on without us needing to start fighting something like the Terminus Boss...

[EdwinLi]

Wait the Ascians aren't incompetent?!?!! *looks at Lahabrea* .... are you sure they aren't edwin?

Well they had to be compentent before 2.0 if they had gotten away with all Calamities before 2.0 events.

If it wasn't for WoL appearing in 2.0 they "would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for that meddling" Warrior of Light.

It would be a wrap-up to the Ascian story, one final bit of dramatic irony. Then we move on to something else.

I'm actually hoping the Terminus doesn't become a plot point going forwards after we've finish with the Hydaelyn/Zodiark story. Honestly I'd prefer we never get a full explanation for what caused it, I think it's more interesting to leave it a mystery for us to speculate over... I'm somewhat dreading the prospect of us moving on from the Ascians storyline to battling the Terminus in some form... I've had my fill of cosmic threats for a while, give me another nice grounded human story like Heavensward, that still had a bit of Ascians pulling the strings, but it was far more minimal compared to what we've had for two expansions now... Don't have us defeat Thanos in 5.x and then throw Dr Doom right in our face with 6.0, lets take a break from the big bads for a while and focus on the "little" stories that have been playing second fiddle for too long now. There's plenty of Primal problems and socio-political unrest in Hydaelyn to focus on without us needing to start fighting something like the Terminus Boss...

While certain people would enjoy leaving a huge plot point to be a big mystery, it would not be ideal to leave it a mystery for the entire storyline and then just leave it a mystery once season 1 ends thus completely forgetting about it once we begin the new Storyline in Season 2.

The introduction of a Original Calamity has a source but I don't expect the twist to be anything major that would turn the Ascians good suddenly since we know Zodiark has control over them. If anything one possible outcome, I am guessing if Zenos does not live to see it or dies near the end of it to have no major effect on the Finale of Season 1, for Finale Final boss is that once Zodiark and Ascians are defeated that source will appear to act as the True Final boss for Season 1 so WoL can prevent that thing from causing a 2nd Original Calamity since without Zodiark (and maybe Hydaelyn) holding back the source of the Original Calamity with their Will over the Planet, it surfaces once again during that final moment in 6.0 finale thus leading to the plot of 6.1 to 6.3 MSQ with the Source being the True Finale Final boss as it is the last part of WoL's journey that goes full circle being that WoL's Journey began with trying to prevent the Original Calamity as the Original Soul and ends in the Season 1 finale finally achieving that goal as WoL.

[Crushnight]

Well they had to be compentent before 2.0 if they had gotten away with all Calamities before 2.0 events.

If it wasn't for WoL appearing in 2.0 they "would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for that meddling" Warrior of Light.

I'd actually say their biggest blunder was the 7th Umbral Calamity and events leading up to it, because this did not cause a civilization reset like the calamities beforehand nor did it become a full calamity thanks to Louisoix, thus was their presence known about for the 1st time by people who they did not try to tempt and thus learned people could start to combat their influence making their task of more calamities harder.

I believe the 7th Calamity was both a success and a failure to the ascians and is the beginning of their troubles which plagued them now, gotta hand it to Lahabrea even in success he managed to screw up XD though i feel this is more due to hubris about how they view our existence than anything else.

[EdwinLi]

I'd actually say their biggest blunder was the 7th Umbral Calamity and events leading up to it, because this did not cause a civilization reset like the calamities beforehand nor did it become a full calamity thanks to Louisoix, thus was their presence known about for the 1st time by people who they did not try to tempt and thus learned people could start to combat their influence making their task of more calamities harder.

I believe the 7th Calamity was both a success and a failure to the ascians and is the beginning of their troubles which plagued them now, gotta hand it to Lahabrea even in success he managed to screw up XD though i feel this is more due to hubris about how they view our existence than anything else.

It was still a Calamity that caused one shard to return to the Source.

The goal is after all to get the shards back into the source and they succeeded with the 7th Umbral Calamity. If anything it also gave them a chance to attempt another only 5 years later where past ones usually took the around 100 or 1000 years to start up another.

They never really cared about the results as long a Shard returned to the Source and they all originally thought they had all the time in the world but now it seems they are short on time now as 5.0 ending shown that Elidibus also is expecting something to happen with the Shard and Source soon that may prevent rejoining from happen ever again if they don't get 1 more shard back into the Source.

though i suspect this event to be related towards why he can get Warriors of Light to fight against our WoL and Scions.

Not like the Shards will all fade away from existance if they don't rejoin after existing for a certain amount of time due to being lesser worlds thus preventing Zodiark from never escaping his Prison forever... or will they? *dramatic music*

[LineageRazor]

The goal is after all to get the shards back into the source and they succeeded with the 7th Umbral Calamity. If anything it also gave them a chance to attempt another only 5 years later where past ones usually took the around 100 or 1000 years to start up another.

Well, the nice thing about the 1000 year delay is that it gave the scattered remnants of civilization plenty of time to forget about the hooded hooligans that caused the disaster in the first place.

That, I think, is the biggest disadvantage the Ascians are facing at the moment: normally when the dust settles, the mortal saps they've been playing for fools have been knocked back to the stone age. Even if they figured out they'd been had, there wasn't much they could DO about it (and chances are they wouldn't even figure that out, given that the Ascians only appear to a few, select people who are very likely dead by the time it's all over).

This time around, though, Ascians are starting to become a household name. Nearly every nation's leader seems to know who they are, and that they are not to be trusted (even if the less wise among them choose to work with them anyway). People are successfully developing weapons that can harm them. Yeah, the infrastructure is in place to get a new Calamity rolling earlier, but that's not much of an advantage to a race of immortal beings. Yeah, I'd say that the low-key impact of the Seventh Calamity was way more bad than good for the Ascians. Louisoix, you done good - maybe even better than you realized!

[RoseSymphony]

Well, the nice thing about the 1000 year delay is that it gave the scattered remnants of civilization plenty of time to forget about the hooded hooligans that caused the disaster in the first place.

That, I think, is the biggest disadvantage the Ascians are facing at the moment: normally when the dust settles, the mortal saps they've been playing for fools have been knocked back to the stone age. Even if they figured out they'd been had, there wasn't much they could DO about it (and chances are they wouldn't even figure that out, given that the Ascians only appear to a few, select people who are very likely dead by the time it's all over).

This time around, though, Ascians are starting to become a household name. Nearly every nation's leader seems to know who they are, and that they are not to be trusted (even if the less wise among them choose to work with them anyway). People are successfully developing weapons that can harm them. Yeah, the infrastructure is in place to get a new Calamity rolling earlier, but that's not much of an advantage to a race of immortal beings. Yeah, I'd say that the low-key impact of the Seventh Calamity was way more bad than good for the Ascians. Louisoix, you done good - maybe even better than you realized!

Varis didn't choose to work with the Ascians more than deal with the hand he was dealt and defy when he found a chance, except he kind of lost his marbles at some point and we can't really tell what his end game is anymore.

[MrThinker]

snip

With hindsight and the knowledge of ShB in our hands, rather than it JUST being the fact that Lousioix prevented a civilization reset (though it was a good part of the ascians current problem), its more the fact they were rushing to get the next calamity underway, and rushing tends to result in bumbling errors and chances for others to strike. Why were they rushing instead of calm measured game of chess they were playing before? Because the 1st was succumbing to a flood of light and they needed to asap rejoin it or it'd be useless to them. Ofc, we don't have an exact timeframe for when the Flood began, so it might not be an applicable explanation for say, Lahabrea's plan for Ultima Weapon, but it would certainly be the case for Thordan.

[foussi]

Rezzing this thread (I rarely do this)

Concerning the apocalypse

After seeing the last msq cutscene of 5.2, I wonder if the catastrophe and summoning of zodiark was planned all along seeing how the dude in white smiled. Like it could be a possibility.