Thread: Revelations from Patch 5.2

On Eden:

I think the relationship with Gaia and Ryne is a bit forced in terms of how fast it's developing, but then again these aren't "typical" people in any sense of the word. Is it really fair to to Ryne to speak of how young she is when she's the heritor of at least a hundred+ years of memories and feelings? For all we know, Gaia may have a similar situation she's coming from. The ease with which they establish their relationship might be due to something deeper. Maybe they've done this before, on some level or another, thousands of years ago. If, as many people suspect, Ryne is the soul of Venat, then logic would dictate Gaia is the soul of the original Elidibus. I suspect there's a deeper connection than simply a spot of tea over coffee biscuits.

As far as Ryne's idea to be the vessel for Shiva, I took it as she was hoping to contain the power in a more stable, safer form, mistakenly believing that her affinity for Light would give her an advantage over Ice. Ultimately, her goal was to both build her own aether-controlling muscles and to try and ease our burden as we bring the element of ice back into the world. Of course that didn't happen, but we ended up with an awesome fight and some character growth in exchange so I'm fine with it.

On ice making plants grow:

Now, as to why the ice element would make plants grow, I can only think that - in general terms - ice is gentler form of the stasis/order that light brings, acting as a kind of aetherial "glue" that binds the myriad elements together. Probably exists in trace amounts everywhere, even if "ice" itself isn't present for anyone to see.

MSQ:

My take on Elidibus and his actions is that by awakening so many people to the Echo, he further divides Hydaelyn's powers, weakening her just that much more. Then there's the obvious setup of people with good intentions being misled by a bad actor to work against the good guys for all the wrong reasons.

I'm also curious about how G'raha is going to get through all of this, or if he'll end up giving all his life to ensure the Scions make it back to the Source.

Qitari:

Maybe it's just me but I see the restoration of the stelae from a purely gameplay perspective. SE wanted us to be able to choose what the history of the First (specifically the Ronkan Empire) was going to be remembered as. I chose the optimistic route for the first option, as based on what I know of the Ronkan Empire, it's rulers tended towards a wise, careful approach, and it seemed more likely that they would look upon the Qitari with curiosity instead of attempting to subjugate them. The presence of four distinct races as the foundation of the empire (Ronsa, Drahn, Qitari and Viis) hints that subjugation was unlikely, and that the Ronso who led the empire likely saw the merit in bringing each race into the fold to create a greater whole.

For the second stelae, I looked at how the Viis acted when we first met them and simply applied it to the Qitari. Here we have the Viis migrating as a people to Rak'Tika, coming across a new race they had nver seen before, out of their element and unsure of the dangers presented by this massive forest they now find themselves in. Reacting with initial hostility fits with the character of the Viis, but as aggressive as they can be, they are not without reason. So what started as a bit of a diplomatic faux pas with the Qitari was resolved rather quickly, and the Viis - clearly a proud, skilled people - were again brought into the fold, likely with the Viis swearing their allegiance to the empire in part as recompense for how they felt they mistreated the Qitari upon first meeting them.

Of course, that's just my interpretation. Part of the fun is we get to build that world for ourselves. But that's all I think it is; a gameplay element that let's us build some world history. Plus we're the Ally of Ronka, which apparently means we're basically infallible.

If we do get a lorebook 3 I wonder if the Ronka section will clarify its history or do a "some people say x happened, some say y" so player choices aren't invalidated.

Ok so after completing the new MSQ content I am wondering if maybe there could be a third big important god/primal.

So we have been lead to believe that two ascians became the 'hearts' of Hydaelyn and Zodiark. There is another 'heart' in the game. The heart of Sabik.

We also associate Zodiark with the moon and Hydaelyn with the planet. But what are we to associate with the sun?

Heresy I know. Probably way off the mark. But fun to think about.

Originally Posted by Alleo

About your points

Hm I always thought that the other sundered main acians are just the souls of the past ones? Like if one soul shard is destroyed they just go to the other shards and wait until that soul is reborn...I do wonder though if they are still tempered then or if they need to be tempered again.

It could be that the lesser Ascians are echo users who sided with them.

Ascian promotion:

It's in one of the optional dialogues with Emet-Selch: theoretically, the Unsundered Ascians could raise any soul to the position of the main Ascians, regardless of what that soul was back in Amaurotine times. However, they prefer to use the Sundered souls of the members of the Convocation at the time of Zodiark's summoning, because those souls come pre-Tempered, and so there's no need to convince them of the righteousness of Zodiark and all that.

This does imply that there are various Sundered souls out there among the Shards who are already Tempered to Zodiark, but not currently Ascian-ized. It also implies that the Unsundered Ascians don't just have thirteen backups per Sundered Ascian (minus the original), but that they could use every soul in the pool.

Originally Posted by Naria

Qitari Dailies

I normally really like the beastman dailies, but I enjoy them in part because I get to learn more about the game's races and their lore. Having the history of the Qitari being "interpreted" by the player character's actions in game, rather than being discussed or interrupted with other players outside of the game fills a little . . . cheap? Lacking in authenticity I suppose would be a better phrase. It has certainly has blunted by enthusiasm for the quest line as whole. I don't have the excitement have discovering anything new, but rather feel that I'm just inventing things wholesale, without any of the fun of genuinely creating something.

Qitari history:

Yeah, one of the issues I noticed by the second stela was that not only are the player characters asked to make a snap judgment on what "actually happened" in Qitari history based on non-primary sources, this judgment is presented as a binary choice: optimistic or cynical, blue or red.

And the choices presented to us are openly biased by the presenters. Both father and son (albeit the father more so) are clear that their interpretations of the discovered stela are based on what they want to convey now, rather than what they think was the case. The son is going "we need to show the Ronkans as awesome so people like them more", and the father is going "we need to show our history as full of pain and suffering, because life is pain and suffering, and it builds character". We're not determining what the history of the Qitari was; we're merely choosing the flavour of propaganda we want to support.

@YianKutku: Ah thanks for that information. Guess I already forgot that. But it does make sense

About Qitari

I dislike the choices too. On paper it might sound nice that we are the ones helping with their history but unlike other beast tribes this makes it feel not rewarding for continuing the story line..I looked forward to every new pixie quest because I wanted to see how it turns out, who the other pixie was and how the new place will look. It was a nice way to also show the daily lifes of the people on the first.

I was looking forward to see the missing history of the Qitari, especially since they said that they are masters in writing it down..only to have it all be for nothing because no stone seems to be intact and we are not allowed to see the damaged stone at all. Instead of getting a nice glimpse of the past of that empire its left to us to write it..all after having a patch where they said to us how important it was to view the past as neutral as possible to get the whole truth..why not take it out and say that they simply dont know? I dont look forward to new quests...in the end the next few stones will be open to interpretation too and since its only like two sides to choose its really not interesting at all. I am honestly a bit sad how different in quality those two tribes feel. One has a deep story about the pixies, mixed with stories of the people and an awesome new place and the other is just "well decide for us please"..

Originally Posted by Alleo

About Qitari

I was leery about the whole thing, at first, but...

I felt a bit better about it when the following quest mentioned that after I'd made my decision, further excavations provided evidence to support the claim I'd chosen. So, it's not that I'm creating a false history for the Qitari, but rather that I have super intuition, able to piece together amazingly accurate predictions from small amounts of evidence. The history is real, but SE has given the player a choice as to WHICH history is real. Essentially, the player is being given a chance to help write the backstory for the Qitari.

I can understand this sitting wrong with some people. To lore-minded folks, this might look like the writers don't really care - that the "real, true" history of the Qitari is so unimportant that they're willing to let the players decide what they want. I don't see it that way, but I could see where others might.

Qitari rank 6 quest

confirms that there were Namazu on the First. No option where qitari ate them to extinction...

I'm personally much more interested in the Qitari than I ever was Pixies, that's just imo though.