Sundering and specific character questions. [Spoilers]

[Theozilla]

That's something I'm not sure of, but it could be possible if their aether is attuned to that shard specifically.

What are your thoughts then on meteors and shooting stars? Do you think the Shards are never impacted by them? Or do you think they essentially duplicate themselves and hit both the Source and all the Shards?

[RyuDragnier]

What are your thoughts then on meteors and shooting stars? Do you think the Shards are never impacted by them? Or do you think they essentially duplicate themselves and hit both the Source and all the Shards?

I personally think the shards are not hit by meteors at all, with any impacts being on the Source, and I believe they can see shooting stars that are on the outskirts of the bubble.

[Rosenstrauch]

I think one piece of evidence pointing to the shards separated on a transdimensional level rather than by physical space would be the skyboxes. It wouldn't have been too much effort to create an original skybox for the First, but it actually shares the same skybox as the Source. This is most readily apparent if you're viewing the night sky during clear weather, of course.

[Theozilla]

On a slightly different subtopic, when Varis said back in 4.5 that his goal was continue the the rejoinings all the way in order to create “one race” to defeat the Ascians, did he mean that metaphorically or literally in the biological/physiological sense?

Like I know Emet-Selch did say in 5.0 that if we (the WoL) were to hypothetically survive all the remaining rejoinings we would become “equal” to the unsundered Ascians in the new “Completed World”.

And I do understand in this hypothetical scenario that would mean any survivor’s on the recompleted Source would then have full effectively unsundered souls (and presumably be nigh immortal), but was that also implying that all the different sapient races/species (native to the planet of Hydaelyn) would somehow magically transform into the same species/race (presumably whatever the Ancients were), or is that not the correct interpretation? And if the latter is so, AND Varis was being literal in the “one race” stuff being biologically/physiologically the same, was he just misinformed/misinterpreting what he learned from the Ascians?

[HollowedDoll]

On a slightly different subtopic, when Varis said back in 4.5 that his goal was continue the the rejoinings all the way in order to create “one race” to defeat the Ascians, did he mean that metaphorically or literally in the biological/physiological sense?

Like I know Emet-Selch did say in 5.0 that if we (the WoL) were to hypothetically survive all the remaining rejoinings we would become “equal” to the unsundered Ascians in the new “Completed World”.

And I do understand in this hypothetical scenario that would mean any survivor’s on the recompleted Source would then have full effectively unsundered souls (and presumably be nigh immortal), but was that also implying that all the different sapient races/species (native to the planet of Hydaelyn) would somehow magically transform into the same species/race (presumably whatever the Ancients were), or is that not the correct interpretation? And if the latter is so, AND Varis was being literal in the “one race” stuff being biologically/physiologically the same, was he just misinformed/misinterpreting what he learned from the Ascians?

Wasn't it pretty much said that the ancients had very unique appearance but covered themselves in masks and robes as a sense of community.

[Rosenstrauch]

Varis probably has no idea what he's talking about. Viera and Roegadyn probably won't stop being Viera and Roegadyn just because seven more Rejoinings happened. At most they'd become twenty feet tall, with nigh limitless aether reserves and borderline immortality. Same as everyone else, really. Perhaps those nigh limitless aether reserves would grant them the ability to reshape their physical body any way they saw fit. And perhaps that would explain the development cost saving decision to make all of the Amaurotine NPCs identical.

[KageTokage]

I feel like they're being deliberately vague about the origin of the races so they can properly go over the matter in 6.0.

The way unsundered referred to their now-sundered brethren as "malformed creatures" in the immediate aftermath of the Sundering does kind of suggest their bodies were warped from the incident, though I also doubt the races would just suddenly disappear were the rejoinings to be completed like Varis was suggesting.

[Theozilla]

So you guys do think Varis was indeed being literal in his “one race” spiel in 4.5? Not just metaphorical, in like everyone being part of his neo-Nation/Empire would be “one race” because they would be “united” under one socio-political entity?

[Vyrerus]

It's one of those things that's fascist coded, but with the information we got in SHB we learn that he was indeed being literal. It just sounds like dictatorial madness at the time, because it was supposed to, sort of like a, "Is the villain actually a villain sleight of hand maneuver?"

I saw it for what it was at the time, because it's a magical world and they don't insert that stuff just for the sake of it, usually.

[Theozilla]

It's one of those things that's fascist coded, but with the information we got in SHB we learn that he was indeed being literal. It just sounds like dictatorial madness at the time, because it was supposed to, sort of like a, "Is the villain actually a villain sleight of hand maneuver?"

I saw it for what it was at the time, because it's a magical world and they don't insert that stuff just for the sake of it, usually.

Oh I completely understood/saw the fascist coding/subtext for his spiel too. I just was also wondering if from the Watsonian level of text, he meant it literally or metaphorically/politically?

And it seems you do think Varis was being literal though?
Do you believe Varis’ presumption was correct though? That if all the rejoinings had been allowed to occur, would all the (native) sapient races in The Source be magically turned into the same physiological race/species?