Thread: The Patch 5.2 Discussion Thread! (Spoilers)

Zenos in that Dissidia gear tho *bites fist*

Originally Posted by RicaRuin

Can you tell me more about the Starshower from 1.0? I'm only around since ARR, and I don't recall it ever being mentioned for non-legacy players that their characters saw it. Was it like a global event so that everyone just happened to see it? (On a side note, do we know whether Krile saw it?)

Originally Posted by MrThinker

I think Moose would be able to give a more coherent and factual answer regarding this,

In 1.0, the introductory story involved you wandering around your city-state in 1572 having Echo-induced flashbacks of a significant event in 1562 which set the stage for the coming of a Calamity (which at the time was definitely not Dalamud and was probably something we'd spend the majority of the story trying to prevent - perhaps even successfully). When you first received the Echo, you had a vision of this starshower directly over you wherever you were at the time. However, somehow, one of the Echoes on your 1562 journey is an Echo within an Echo, going deeper into a memory and inadvertently dragging one of the Scions (then a member of the Circle of Knowing) with you into the vision. In 1.0, when the Echo re-created a memory, you could interact with it and things would interact with you back as if you were there - creating a historically inaccurate moment that, but one that allowed for unnoticed truths to be revealed - such as the Circle of Knowing member recognizing that you had the Echo (which would have been a plot twist, because the game never told you you were having visions, leading to a great deal of confusion in the playerbase at the time). Then, suddenly, in the 1562 vision, the sky splits over Mor Dhona and the starshower appears. Everyone in Eorzea seems to see it. But then, after that event, people started getting the Echo, and seeing a vision of that same Starshower when they got it. It seemed very significant at the time, but if it was, it was part of the story that got cut off, because for years even the dev. team has thought of the Starshower as "just that thing you see when you're chosen for the Echo." Until now.

Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

According to the lorebook, Bozja is indeed in Othard. Surprised me too since this whole time I thought it was in Ilsabard.

Oh interesting. Maybe that Archades-looking city in the trailer really is Bozja then? I saw people claiming it was but couldn't find a source.

As for how that meshes with the Hrothgar being from Ilsabard, I suppose the ones living in Bozja just moved there.

Bozja should be destroyed, yes, but there's what very much looks a lunar transmitter shown in the trailer, so I do believe we'll be in Bozja, perhaps even seeing it from an Echo vision. Additionally, in some of the scenes where we're fighting with Cid and traversing the Imperial city time is wonky—enemies are stopped, imperial juggernauts are flying sideways, etc. I expect Gabranth to have unleashed Tartarus and somehow mucked things up.

EDIT: I feel compelled to state that I think it'll be both Rabanastre and Bozja fwiw. There's what appears to be very obviously Rabanastran architecture and the city as we know it, but it seems weird that we'd be shown Dalamud, lunar transmitter, and Hrothgar without any connection to Bozja.

Very curious about what we've combined Garuda with in the new raid series. Ramuh is obviously Ixion + Ramuh. Ifrit looks like Ifrit + Diabolos and maybe a little Ferdiad. Garuda, I'm stumped on, just looks like revamped regular Garuda. Extra set of 4 wings, slimmer build. Her eyes are Cloud of Darkness-y. She doesn't match any of the Mhachi raid bosses as closely as Ifrit's redesign does though.

Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Those clouds rolling in is the same visual animation used when the Starshower appeared over Eorzea in 1562 after the Battle of Silvertear Skies. The clouds roll in, then burst open into the Starshower. Which implies that it's perhaps being seen OUT-OF-ECHO for the first time in 15 years. And on the First to boot...

In 1.0 it was almost certainly tied into the derailed Presence of Silvertear Lake storyline, but the Final Days is a great opportunity to tie it all together in a clean way that will easily pass for totally-planned-all-along. Ever since the story changed trajectory, the Starshower has awkwardly just been "that thing that appeared in the sky when the Echo sounded and then now people see it in a vision when they're chosen for the Echo". Leaving it at that was fine, but admittedly awkward and anticlimactic. Attaching it to the Final Days tidies things up a bit. Can you see the stitches? Yes. Is it better? Also yes.

This lore / writing team is too good, lol. I half expect them to go back and use the Presence of Silvertear Lake when all of this is over just to bring it all full circle with no loose ends and do a victory dance on the apex of this story for all the trouble it's given them.

Pretty cool that they're going back and tying in plenty of the newer scenes to the older lore and doing it so seamlessly.

And yes, the presence is something I'm also hoping/expecting them to make use of. Even Koji, when asked, didn't have much of an idea of how they plan to use it, or at least he wouldn't be drawn out to answer, so it'd be a shame not to put that to use in a future plot thread!

Originally Posted by Noitems

That raises a really interesting question. Could the Scions (and those we see in that cutscene) potentially unlock some form of the echo from that sight? I'd assume since the Scions are still stuck and while the Exarch has made some progress on what to do about getting them back to the Source, I feel this could be the same. Also if Zenos is pictured in Amaurot we know that even an artificial echo could allow you to travel to different shards as well.

He's effectively like an Ascian Overlord, but with the Scions un-tethered from their true bodies, it should be possible for them to accomplish something similar to get re-attached to their actual bodies - the thing is they simply pop up in the cutscene in the First bodies, based on the outfits, so it looks like a summoning act. I'm also wondering whether Zenos is possessing a host or there in his actual body (assuming he's actually there), because normally such Rift travel can't bring the body with with the exception of the summoning the Exarch performed on the WoL/D and subsequent summons.

Originally Posted by MrThinker

Or a Viis with the Echo, since everyone we know who awoke to the Echo sees the Starshower, and that mural is depicting it.

Makes a lot of sense, and could explain the the white influx behind her behind her.