Tales from the Shadows

[Valenth]

I have to admit, though, that this story focuses on my least favorite part of the ShB plotline: the whole "send someone to the past to prevent a dark future" thing... It also tends to ignore the fact that the BAD GUYS could use this kind of cheap trick, as well.

This is not entirely the case in ShB though. There is some nuance to things to take away the foul taste of "convenient time travel solution to everything and all".

First thing first, we destroyed the time traveling machine in The Twinning, so that other wouldn't get their hands on it and it's technology (and we can't use it anymore). Second, it's not actually sending someone back into one's own past. The Exarch and the Crystal Tower were sent back into the past of an alternative timeline. The own timeline of the Cid we see in this part of Tales of the Shadow is doomed, won't change. Lastely, there is only a hand full of people who know how things happened, and Emet was the only Ascian who was even close to figuring out how the time travel worked (which he wasn't as the Exarch wasn't talking).

I would say the devteam wrote themselves out pretty well of this one.

[Alleo]

It also leaves a bad taste in my mouth that Cid would just give up. "Nup, things are just too awful. Time travel is the only option!" This isn't the first Calamity the world has gone through, and even if it's the worst of them, it seems too early to assume that it's impossible to recover.



Well... Not necessarily. We don't know the time scale that Zodiark works at. Stopping the Calamity? Healing the world? We're never given any estimate of how long those things took to do, and the Ancients are immortal beings.

Well badfuture!Cid was the one who lived in that timeline, we never did, so I have a hard time saying if he was giving up fast or not. We do know that the soil turned bad, that the whole states collapsed and that the people that did not want to turn into true savages tried to bring people over to them. So its not like they did not try but maybe they knew enough to see that this wont end well. Its also just a small glimps into their life and we dont know if other groups did not try to bring the socities back up and left the rest to Cid and Co. It might not be the first calamity but seemingly it was one that affected the whole world, destroyed the societies, made the soil bad and even destroyed Garlemalds energy sources. And even 200 years after the calamity happened, people were still fighting against each others and the lifes seemingly did not get better otherwise these generations might not have done this plan.

About Zodiark: We do know that the end goal after Zodiark is free, is to sacrifice the remaining people of the source to get back the Ancient ones. Since there is no talk about this at all and there is also no talk about Ancient ones we can probably assume that he is not free. It would also be strange if they would create a prison for him which can only hold him up to 8 rejoinings.

There is no hint ingame either that he needed big amount of times to redo the world after the ancient calamity. I mean they needed to sacrifice more of their own people because the whole planet was kinda death. That does not sound like something that can wait a few years.

In the end is there any hint ingame that Zodiark would be able to break free after only 8 calamites? If not then its much better to assume that its not the case and that he would not be free.

[LineageRazor]

I'll admit, I may have been a bit to hard on Cid in my initial disdainful view on his giving up on the world. I wasn't there, myself, and my only window into the world was the Tale itself. He may have well tried every possible option, before going whole-hog on the change-the past goal. Still rankles, though, in a game where we accomplish six impossible victories before breakfast, every day. :P

There is no hint ingame either that he needed big amount of times to redo the world after the ancient calamity. I mean they needed to sacrifice more of their own people because the whole planet was kinda death. That does not sound like something that can wait a few years.

You are correct that there's nothing in game that says whether the restoration was fast or slow. But we're talking about rejuvenating an entire planet. That doesn't sound like something that can be done in a hurry, even by a godlike Primal. As for whether it could wait a few years - why not? The Calamity was over, thanks to Zodiark's First Task, and the surviving Ancients could use their Creation abilities again (under Zodiark's careful supervision). They are immortal, they can create whatever food and shelter they want - they could easily last for as long as it takes to rebuild the world, now that there were no longer horrible monsters and rains of fire actively trying to kill them. Heck, they could have been waiting on the moon, if the world even had one, back then!

About Zodiark: We do know that the end goal after Zodiark is free, is to sacrifice the remaining people of the source to get back the Ancient ones. Since there is no talk about this at all and there is also no talk about Ancient ones we can probably assume that he is not free. It would also be strange if they would create a prison for him which can only hold him up to 8 rejoinings.

...

In the end is there any hint ingame that Zodiark would be able to break free after only 8 calamites? If not then its much better to assume that its not the case and that he would not be free.

After eight rejoinings, Zodiark would be at more than half of his former power. We know that Zodiark was stronger than Hydaelyn, which is why she needed to Sunder him to beat him. What we don't know is how much stronger. Eight could well be the tipping point, the point at which Zodiark is strong enough to break the bonds that hold him. There's only so much she can do, and it sounds like Hy made a pretty darned secure prison if it was able to stay tight even after seven Rejoinings. There's plenty of redundancy there, already! You could just as well ask, why didn't she Sunder him ten thousand times, instead of just fourteen?

As for an official source as to eight being the last Rejoining needed to free Zodiark... I don't recall how I know this, or even whether it was in-game or the devs talking, but I'm pretty sure it was mentioned. Maybe someone else can confirm/deny that assumption?

I would say the devteam wrote themselves out pretty well of this one.

Furthermore, also keep in mind that Emet-Selch kidnaps G'raha Tia during the lategame BECAUSE he wants to get his hands on the ability to time travel.

It doesn't matter. The fact that the Ascians don't know how to do it? Irrelevant. The fact that the heroes used one-shot MacGuffins? Irrelevant. The very fact that it's possible to go back and change the past means that it will always be out there as an option - an option which, up until now, the story hasn't had on the table. Even Alexander, with all of his time shenanigans, did not change the past in any way - everything that he did, had already happened.

Emet wanted G'raha because he was a SHORTCUT to time travel, not because he was the only option. Ascians are immortal - they have LITERALLY all the time in the world (and then some). If he wanted to, Emet could spend a few hundred thousand years and <ironman>BUILD ONE IN A CAVE, WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!</ironman>

It's a tougher sell for the heroes, but I see it in much the same way as Y'shtola's second rescue from the Lifestream: it might SEEM like a miracle, one-shot solution, but if it can be done once, it can be done again. And if the writers are bad enough, it will.

[Ilenya]

Emet wanted G'raha because he was a SHORTCUT to time travel, not because he was the only option. Ascians are immortal - they have LITERALLY all the time in the world (and then some). If he wanted to, Emet could spend a few hundred thousand years and <ironman>BUILD ONE IN A CAVE, WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!</ironman>

It's a tougher sell for the heroes, but I see it in much the same way as Y'shtola's second rescue from the Lifestream: it might SEEM like a miracle, one-shot solution, but if it can be done once, it can be done again. And if the writers are bad enough, it will.

Who's to say they haven't been? Who's to say that they aren't capable of time travel in some form or another? I mean, it's entirely possible that they have tried, and that in doing so somehow made things worse, so Emet-Selch wanted to figure out if this sort of thing was repeatable, because, while an Ascian having it is one thing, a lesser being having access and not having the skills to use it 'properly' is a whole different can of worms to the Ascians.

Not saying that is the case, but there could be other alternatives.

[Brightamethyst]

We know that Zodiark was stronger than Hydaelyn, which is why she needed to Sunder him to beat him.

We do not know that. AFAIK there is no indication that the Sundering was intentional. It's possible that it was on purpose, but it's more likely that the Sundering was an unintended and unexpected side effect.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

It also tends to ignore the fact that the BAD GUYS could use this kind of cheap trick, as well - and being immortal, they have plenty of time to figure out how to do it WITHOUT the handful of MacGuffins the heroes had to cobble together to get the job done.

Keep in mind that the MacGuffins the heroes involved with this plan involved a time-traveling Primal that locked itself away in a pocket dimension, ancient technology and previously unknown clones from a hyper-advanced society, and a superpowered alien death robot from another world that was likely the strongest thing on Eorzea (until 6.0 comes around).

Furthermore, also keep in mind that Emet-Selch kidnaps G'raha Tia during the lategame BECAUSE he wants to get his hands on the ability to time travel.

[FaerieAura]

Well, first of all, I had just put on my mascara, so thanks for ruining my makeup, Square. “Sorry, but no one will ever compare to her...” God.

And for another, all of the peoples of the world coming together because of everything the Warrior of Light has done to try to make the world a better place - even Radlia's daughter showing up because we saved her mom from her own greed. It was such an amazing story, an amazing tribute to everything we did in this world making a difference, and everyone coming together to make sure we had a chance to save not only the Source, but the First as well. All of those little acts of kindness paying off in such a real way.

This one made me tear up. So I guess I'll go clean up my face now.

[Enkidoh]

Indeed, if there was anything in FFXIV that showed the enormous impact the Warrior of Light has had on not just Eorzea but Hydaelyn itself, then that was it. The WoL's death might not have caused the Eighth Calamity in the original timeline (their death instead was a result of it), but it only compounded the problem and added to the misery suffered by those who survived - it wasn't just life that was extinguished by Black Rose but hope itself, and by trying to change the past to save our life, everything else could be saved.

As Heroes might have put it: "Save the Adventurer, save the worlds..."

Another touching thing about the latest story is Cid and Nero's relationship seemed to have greatly softened as the years and decades rolled by and they both commited themselves to their project, Nero seemed to stop dismissing Cid as his rival and actually accept him as a friend, and Cid... well, he still seemed to regard Nero as insufferable, but he was at least now accepting him as himself, flaws and all, as they both dedicated themselves to their research into making the Crystal TARDIS and committed all that knowledge to the future, knowing full well that they would never see it bear fruit. It was touching, and poignant at the same time. *sniffle*

Yes I've been shipping Cid and Nero for a long time now and that story merely gave more fuel to that particular fire.

[Rosenoire]

Yes I've been shipping Cid and Nero for a long time now and that story merely gave more fuel to that particular fire.

Cid/Nero OTP. They are so married, and they were together until the end.

[Rannie]

So more people have read it, I will say the POV was not something I had expected, when I first started reading it I kinda knew but at that one part where he talks about his traveling companion, (mind you I read this while at work) I gave a gasp and quickly covered my mouth, grabbed a cigarette and told my one of my coworkers that I had to go have a cigarette. Took my cell outside and read more. Oh it was soo sad, I almost cried (sorry the last time i cried was after my mother passed last year) but it did get me in the feels. Though i wonder if his companion was "perturbed" due to our Character's death. But I loved the story a lot.