Thread: Revelations from Patch 5.1

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

I'm thinking...

Zenos seemed to recognize the person in white, and was somewhat shocked to see them. Meaning it's possibly somebody he knew, but it's doubtful it's one of our copies because he would have drawn his weapon immediately. My money is on either the good doctor we fought in Ala Mhigo or Asahi, since either would make for an interesting twist as somebody he knew and would likely be willing to work with.

The "hue" remark I took to be Zenos recognizing the type of soul (say... an Ascian soul...), but not the individual. Whoever it is seems to have some idea of Zodiark and would like to help Zenos hunt Zodiark. That rules out a lot IMO, though arguably if Elidibus is pulling the strings he'd likely give such a puppet the right words to buy favour with Zenos. For someone to know "full well [Zodiark]" I can only really say Ascian, though. Arguably only one of the big three, but that only leaves Elidibus, who we can rule out I think... Emet we saw turn to dust... So that leaves...

Lahabrea. My theory always was that Lahabrea didn't want to revive Zodiark, he wanted to become Zodiark. The whole Shiva/Thordan Primal experiment was to that end, perhaps even the whole Terminus event leading up to the summoning of Zodiark. Zenos has already displayed the ability to take over a summoned Primal (Shinryu), now he sets his sights on Zodiark... Time for Lahabrea to come out from whatever rock he is hiding under, assuming we buy my "He survived being sucked into Thordans personal sword-battery" line of fanciful theorycrafting. His aether wasn't consumed, it was stored, and that gave him the opportunity to eventually break free and hide away to work on his own goals. Now he helps Zenos track his prey, then snatches it up from right under his nose...

Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

As for the other...

I'm betting money that it's Elidibus. As unlikely as it would be for him to find Ardbert's body, he needs to keep us stuck on the First for a while. This would require him manipulating things to keep our attention focused there, and finding out he was there would definitely be a big one to keep us from going back to the Source too soon. Not to mention this would be their best chance to flesh him out and explain why he's so obsessed with equilibrium, considering everything he has done up to this point has been for that singular motive...even fighting us back in 4.5 when a Calamity of Light was about to occur (something the other Ascians wanted) when killing us would have thrown the balance into the favor of Darkness and probably prevented it.

Would he be doing this directly, though? He wants to keep us busy on the First presumably so he has more of a free reign to manipulate events on the Source. If he is personally keeping us busy, that's a problem. I guess if we take the guy on the Source to be his puppet, that frees him up on the First... Still, that seems unbelievably risky... We're all meant to be under the impression that he is the last of the unsundered, the only Ascian left who can help raise up his brethren... If we toss some Auracite (which conveniently came up this patch) his way then it's game over for their entire ambition. He should be far more cautious... That's the whole reason he "Nope!"'d out of an encounter with Zenos, after all... We don't have G'raha trying to summon us to give him an edge next time we encounter him and I don't think Ardbert is a stronger body than Zenos...

Either way though, I do find it a bit disappointing to be reusing Ardbert in this manner... He had a nice send off, to bring his corpse back or to just have another Shards "us" also look the same as Ardbert... Eh, I guess I prefer the former in that case... There's more drama if it is Ardberts corpse... I would hope it isn't Elidibus though, that just seems too reckless, plenty of other Ascians he could send to do the grunt work... Sets a fairly haunting prospect, too... Hope he doesn't send any other fallen heroes our way...

MSQ

Also disappointed about the lack of Thancred and Ryne in MSQ, but honestly since I expect Thancred to stay with Ryne in the First, it makes some degree of sense to me.

All the soul lore dump was vaguely interesting; weird choice of spooky glamour though Beq Lugg. Reversing Tempering because Sin Eaters are basically over-aspected/Tempered is weird, but okay—and glad there was some attempt at an explanation of the "voidsent" in the tank role quest (some kind of soul shenanigans). Halric mumbers "Nect... Al..." now... I wonder what that could be? Angelo being the name of the Leivelleur's dog (if you go back and talk to Alisaie in Amh Araeng later) is cute.

Eulmore arc was necessary and didn't feel too drawn out, but I'm not sold on Chai-Nuzz being a good mayor. At least he himself acknowledged that as well. (Also is he really an "entrepreneur" if he inherited his company? I digress...)

The ending though, oof. What is this new foe Gaius seeks out? Why did Arch-Ultima appear to have four Hearts of Sabik? I suspect that's the "auracite" they mentioned in the pop-up text but that's also been my pet theory for basically ever that the Heart was a 'black auracite.' So I feel a strong amount of bias toward it.

All of the Legions fighting for the Throne feels weird... unless we're supposed they're backing royal claimants again. Good to finally see the First and Third Legions, I guess? Also, my go-to-guess for our white-robed figure is another of the Warrior of Light/Darkness/PC's soul shards. Weird that we're just now getting reveals that Zenos can see the colour of folks' souls. Given that he's wearing white, I also suspect it's Elidibus' doing since he tends to send his servants in that colour, also given that the body is a diabolic coat (or later facet) I'm also betting on it being our Thirteenth reflection, who was also put in stasis with Unukalhai.

And our weary warrior? Definitely betting on Elidibus structuring an Ardbert suit. Beq Lugg's words do seem to indicate we absorbed Ardbert so that puts any doubt about that to rest. Anyways, Elidibus wearing the Ardbert suit makes another "Warrior of Light" to stir up trouble, and would likely give the WoLDPC some pause. (Let us not forget, while the actual player has the knowledge, our PC didn't know Zenos' soul lived on until this patch...I think, anyways)

Definitely thinking the next expansion is going to be Ilsabard and Garlean provinces now, but I also thought that would be 5.0 so... It just feels like a good set up and we're spending a lot of time in the First so it gets around the "we waited so long!" because the players might've, but the characters did not.

Pixie dailies

I didn't cheat and look ahead this time. I suspect our white pixie is the reincarnation of the Titania we killed though and we'll get backstory on them, I guess. Disappointed Ezel is a porxie and not nu mou, but I actually was rather fond of him even if he seems far removed from his namesake, lol.

NIER

Very excited to how they utilize the Collections feature going forward!!! I don't have a lot of other thoughts on it, other than the machine lifeform head that was locking the door is noticeable after the cutscene when blowing up the lock. (It's by the entrance/exit to Kholusia) However, after the raid, the head is gone. EMIL!

Character requirement, blah blah blah.

I am reluctant to say "Ardbert" in the end is Elidibus simply because he has already used the body-hijack trick once and it backfired spectacularly with Zenos. Of course, there is the possibility, but using twice the same plotline feels... weird. That would be two stingers for Elidibus in a row... then again, he got them too in Stormblood, so whatever.

There is something that bothered me as well: the conspicuous absence of talk about Emet-Selch. Aye, I know we got the EX trial and whatnot, but in previous patches we got at least mentions of our foes. You know, for having asked us to remember the Ancients, it would seem it has been quickly forgotten. That is what makes me think they are reserving it for bigger things in later patches.

Hmm... quite a lot going on! Apologies if some of this has been said, as I've not read the thread at large.

On the new entries -

My guess is that the Ardbert lookalike is Elidibus, and this is on the basis of his dialogue and what Unukalhai says about him. The character's comments, that it is his destiny to see "Our dreams" realised reminds me a lot of the dialogue by Hades during the trial. Then, there is the fact that Elidibus, at the end of 5.0, commented that it is the fate of Warriors of Darkness to be destined as those before them, to meet death at the hands of Warriors of Light... and finally, we have Unukalhai's dialogue about him.

Chapter 3: Sophia:Upon our first meeting, my master spoke thus: I am not the Light's servant, but for the present I must serve. One cannot arbitrate equilibrium if one is not fluid of stance.

Unukalhai: 'Tis well that another world should not share the fate of mine own, but you must be careful─the Ascians will not take well to your intervention.
Unukalhai: Of those who yet remain among their number, Elidibus in particular concerns me greatly. It has ever been his aim to seek equilibrium, even when the means to do so is seemingly at odds with his brethren. I can but wonder to what lengths he might go to account for your actions.

This, to me, might all be implying that Elidibus is taking on the guise of a WoL - he won't need the body, as he can shape a host however he so wishes - to achieve his agenda on the First. This is a lot more promising than some idiotic scheme to summon the self-same Shard WoLs that have proven incompetent at defeating you in the past. Even though Hades fell, Elidibus is one of the few lifeforms who has a genuine chance to fell you. Shard WoLs will be too weak. So my guess is he will avoid direct confrontation for the time being and try ensure the First is put back on the brink of destruction, assured that the chaos on the Source will suffice to ready it for a Calamity.

The other entry is a mystery but my money is on some manner of Ascian or a Warrior of Darkness, like Cyella. Whoever it was must have witnessed the dialogue between Varis, Elidibus and Zenos, because it is at this point that Zenos formulated this new agenda. I've heard quite a few suggestions made, including Unukalhai, but I don't think he makes much sense, because he's still in the Rising Stones, still in a child-like body (this was a full grown Midlander man; it's only "small" next to a giant like Zenos), and has dialogue being updated. It'd require far too much for it to be him, so Occam's Razor would suggest otherwise. My primary guess is an Ascian seeking to make use of Zenos's new found agenda, or a Warrior of Darkness with an appetite for some chaos. I had thought it might be a soul connected in some way to a neutral ancient during the whole Hydaelyn/Zodiark summoning fiasco, but again it requires a lot more legwork to explain than the prior two possibilities.

I don't think this person is a Hydaelyn devotee, either. Leading Zenos to Zodiark will put her at significant risk. Even if this resulted in Zodiark's ultimate destruction, it could just as easily result in hers.

Some have speculated Lahabrea, since his destruction was assumed and never assured, but surely Elidibus would sense this? Unless the Eyes somehow stripped his darkness aspecting/otherwise changed the hue of his soul and resulted in Elidibus being unable to identify it... still, I am sceptical that this is who it is. I'd like to see Lahabrea's ascendant form and always wanted more of him, but I'd also rather they don't keep recycling characters, so kind of on the fence about it.

I get the impression that Zenos doesn't really seem to have much knowledge about how to implement this plan, so I guess it's no surprise he decided not to even use the Empire towards that singular end. This new figure will provide him with that know-how, however this might end for Zenos. I could see Zenos succeeding in hijacking Zodiark if he was summoned with a small amount of aether initially and then gorged himself on more and more to empower him. It may yet be a foolhardy plan that ends with his demise and frees Zodiark. Or others may be right, and it may be some trick he's discovered which does not require him to overpower the Primal, per se... that has scarier implications, as Hydaelyn would be susceptible to much the same and not just from Zenos, but anyone who discovered this ability.

As to the Pureblood being used in that Arch Ultima device, who knows? To me, it appears Varis may have objected to such projects in the past, but with the Rejoining as a new agenda and goal for the Empire, as perceived by him as necessary to re-unite the world and drive back the Ascian threat (assuming he was being genuine in the tent scene speech), maybe he thought why waste all the research Castrum Abania yielded? Especially if this was some Populares prisoner of war. Perhaps Elidibus was emphatic on making use of this research to further the Garlean war machine and left little choice in it. After all, he was convinced to use the Black Rose to limit Garlean casualties. I can only hope we get more insight into Varis's state of mind later on. I liked him as a character and consider his death to have been too early, but with confirmation that Zenos will not even use the Empire in his pursuit of Zodiark, a civil war looms. This, I think, given Krile's comments about the risk a civil war poses to the provinces (and Garlemald itself, I'll add, as most Garleans are oblivious to what's really going on behind the scenes and are hostage to grand schemes), gives me some hope that we'll eventually venture into Ilsabard, to diffuse the situation. So I'm glad, in a way, that Zenos has fled his throne. I'm intrigued as to whether this "Lord Nerva" will play a big part in the future or if it's just a name being tossed in. As much as I enjoy the Ascians and Zenos, I think it'd be nice to see some more grounded politics in the Empire come back to the forefront for a future expansion, and perhaps this will be Gaius's destiny in the story - to restore order to his homeland. We also have this mysterious device missing from the capital - I wonder what it is. Are they finally going to put Construct 7 to use? Would Gaius know about it, e.g. via reports he's receiving from friendly eyes on the ground? Is it something else? Black Rose related, even though its production facilities are gone? Eager to see.

I enjoyed the Estinien/Gaius RP scenes, but as usual, I wish they'd elaborate a bit more on what triggered the overt aspecting to Darkness in Zenos, as well as his newfound ability to teleport like an Ascian. I guess this will be revealed later.

On the issue of the soul -

I have to admit, I'm finding it harder to see why an Ascian would even require a host. Given that Pixies can just coalesce aether around their soul, and given that the Scions seem to have done pretty much this on the First, why not just do that? Emet-Selch's comments about being able to shape a host as he pleases suggest they already do something like this.Traversing the Rift does not require it, either. Perhaps it's just more efficient to hijack a body and poses less risk to their "incorporeal aether"? That may be it. This is something else I'd like more info on.

It's intriguing that tempering may just be an over-aspecting to a certain element of aether... but it does raise questions. They're using this to explain the handicapped state Halric and the others were in, with respect to Sin Eater corruption. Alisaie suspects this could be applied to Ga Bu. The problem I have with this is that the state of Sin Eaters and their victims was taken to be due to Light's polarity to passivity. Of course, she may be wrong about it, and it could be unique to the Light, but if this is the general effect of tempering, are Voidsent not tempered in a sense, too? Yet why are they so different to all the other tempered? They may be twisted but they still have their own personalities and goals, as well as agency, very much unlike Sin Eaters. You could explain this by recourse to Darkness being a very active energy/state, and again, Alisaie may be wrong about this. We've no data on a world immersed in e.g. Earth to confirm, but I do hope they tread carefully here and come up with a suitable explanation.

At the same time, it gives me some hope that they will have this "tempering" function differently on higher beings like the Ascians, and I suppose the ancients at large, e.g. in the case of Hydaelyn's summoners. I like the Ascian rationale where it currently sits; if it's just reduced to slavish devotion because Zodiark tempered them, I'll be disappointed, as it'd strip away their agency and reduce it to "supposedly bad god told me to."

On Nier and the Hades fight -

Pretty intrigued to see how they're going to tie this into FFXIV lore. I enjoyed the fights and scenery, even though I am not familiar with Nier: Automata. I like the collection system they added in as this allows us to explore the raids in greater depth and hope they do it for more raids.


Enjoyed the Hades fight but I wish they'd have gone a bit further and added more of the signature mechanics from the fallen Overlords, and more to do in the final phase, including making more use of the borrowed Amaurot dungeon platform. It's a lot closer to how I thought the canon version of this fight ought to have played out - guess I'll just pretend it was the canon one, as I do for many extreme fights!

Just some general thoughts -

I'm still a bit dissatisfied as to how different (or not) the First is to the Source - geographically, it is of course somewhat different, in part due to the effect the Calamities have had on the Source.

However, when we consider that 1) these worlds have their own evolutionary history; 2) time flows differently between the worlds and 3) their aetheric density is much lower than the seven-times rejoined Source's (aether richness is something Koji made a point of when discussing Miqo'te migratory activity), why is it so similar in terms of the races, the language, the architecture, the culture and even one of the zones? I'd expect starkly more differentiation, particularly in terms of the major races inhabiting it. Yet there's virtually none and they're split along similar lines to those on the Source... convenient narrative device, but it's a huge missed opportunity.

I'm also not convinced that the time travel aspect is really even necessary; yes, it adds a sense of urgency to the plot, which I suspect is its main purpose, but it also comes with a lot of potential issues (e.g. the carving out of a new block in time-space for the future G'raha came from), and is not the only narrative device which can serve such a goal. If it ends up being the case that the future was always going to be okay... I like that even less. These aren't huge issues and don't spoil my enjoyment of the plot, but I do wish they were handled differently. Having carbon copies of the Crystal Tower across all worlds from ancient times, and Minfilia already on the First, may have sufficed in and of themselves as starting points for going there and getting stuck. We also have a soul expert there as things stand. It'd be a different story, of course, and I think the storytelling aspect is top notch, but I'd have liked a cleaner approach to this all from a lore perspective.

Not specific to this patch...

Based on Hades's short story, I'm beginning to wonder if what befell Amaurot was not perhaps due to the Ancients encountering something which they deemed was not meant to be: souls attaching to their creations. Their expectation appears to have been that souls would go to the Underworld, and remain there, and only ever attach to beings born according to the laws of nature, which is an allusion to the cycle of life. What if, then, some of these souls began feeling anguish and resentment at being "trapped" in this Underworld and sought release through this method?

Certainly, Hades could probably ensure they were returned for good to it, but what if, outside of Amaurot, the means used to effect such a return were less perfect? You have anguished souls, perhaps with sufficient knowledge/agency to turn themselves into a weapon emitting a frequency of sound set at the right level to "hack" into the Ancients' creation powers by triggering a fear that led to them losing their usually tight grip over them.

This would explain the origins of the monstrosity. Part of why Zodiark may have been summoned could then have been to act as a soul cage, regulating the process, and ensure this did not recur. We still don't really have a clear understanding of why the 14th member of the Convocation left, before he was even summoned; Hydaelyn's summoning appears to have been triggered as a result of disagreement over the final stage of sacrifice. So there's some gaps here that lend themselves to speculation.

Darkness appears to have been chosen as His element to revive the world. I had originally speculated that a change in the Convocation may have resulted from aspecting to Darkness but this seems wrong - Darkness is not evil, per se, but the result of a confluence of elements in an active state, as I understand it. Their quasi-divine identities were held even before Zodiark came to be. Hades was a mighty sorcerer and had an affinity to the Underworld even before the change to the Convocation - men and gods were as one in this age.

Lastly, I've remarked before that I think the Twelve are a distillation, carried through the collective memory, of the Convocation. I don't think numerical equivalence is even required. Haziness of memory alone could account for a difference here, but another possibility is that not all offices were occupied with a member of such memorable eminence. Thus, twelve survive in memory. We already see some parallels between Hades and Nald'thal. Assuming they keep with the Gods of Olympus theme for the Convocation, it is worth noting there were arguably 14 such gods, with Hestia leaving and Dionysus entering their ranks later on.

As to Sharlayan and its similarities to Amaurot, I wonder if the ruins of Amaurot were once where Sharlayan now is. The Source is different to the First in some ways due to the Calamities. Norvrandt's map implies Tempest is off the coast of Kholusia. What if it was once like this on the Source as well, but these ruins since moved to where Sharlayan is, triggering some memory in its founders of the utopia that once was?