Crazy Personal Headcanons

[YianKutku]

When Elidibus got trapped in the Crystal Tower on the First, he was affected by the residual after-effects of the Crystal Tower having crossed space and time.

This helped him gain some understanding of how to manipulate the workings of the Crystal Tower to send us into Elpis, using his own aether as fuel for the time and space manipulation required. Therefore, Elidibus's aether was scattered across the timestream and across dimensions just as the Crystal Tower was, and this is why we get the Warrior Of Light armour set while running Labyrinth Of The Ancients.

[Lyth]

There's a lot that the writers could do with them, depending on how Y'shtola's shard travel plotline develops. The reason why the First provided content for only one expansion was because it was largely destroyed by the Ascians, with Norvrandt being effectively just a parallel universe version of Eorzea (i.e. Limsa/Eulmore, Amh Araeng/Thanalan, Rak'tika/Twelveswood, Il Mheg/Coerthas, Lakeland/Mor Dhona). If you have a largely intact shard with multiple connection points to the source, you functionally have a Link to the Past style Light/Dark World approach to travel and bypass barriers/obstacles that you may encounter in your journey (you've doubled the size of the world map, but you don't have to reveal the entire landmass and explore it all at once). A smaller shard could easily be used as the basis for side content, be it a Relic storyline or Deep Dungeon. They don't have to show their hand until they're ready to play it.

[KageTokage]

Given that there seems to be a connection between the Lifestream of the Source and the shards due to Hydaelyn being able to return some departed souls from the First, I wonder if it's the primary force that exerts the "pull" on the shards whenever a rejoining happens. Perhaps the "stakes" mentioned in the Golden Dhyata's prophecy could be referring to stifling if not severing that connection so that the shards can exist independently with no risk of being rejoined..

I also suppose the game could reasonably give each shard an expansion assuming it runs long enough. If we're looking at the remaining regions of the Source, there's at least three more expansions to be had there alone between Ilsabard, Meracydia, and the New World. Nagxia, Rabanastre, and Hingashi also account for enough landmass together to be future expansion material as well.

[Denishia]

Oh, I do like that as the eventual capstone expansion a la Rhapsodies of Vana'diel with a callback to the first major arc (after we've had whatever the next ten years plans are, which I hope are focused on the present day) to be a return to the Shards and hoping through the other remaining worlds with the goal of saving them. The idea of Rejoining the Shards is counter to every single action that the WoL has taken and framed to be, reversing the goals and triumphs of Shadowbringers and Endwalker, whereas "save the rest of the shards so that they permanently may have the freedom to continue on forward and grow without fear of becoming devoured by their parent world" to fit in with the themes of XIV. On the small scale, I find the championing of the idea of the WoL going around "collecting" the heroes of the other Shards to claim their fragments of Azem for a power upgrade both ...bizarre and unappealing, to put it gently. If we do ever go to another Shard and meet another WoL that has an Azem spard, my greatest disappointment would be if they kill that character off like Ardbert. Undoing the Sundering is something I cannot understand the game ever arguing for - but Stabilizing it makes sense. And that said Stabilizing would work as something touched on in 6.1 with the Studium Quests and a lecture or two involving Y'shtola, then put on the back burner with a handwave of 'we the Scions have done what we can/the natural process will work itself out/this is something that a hypothetical sequel generation deals with' and then bringing back the phenomenon and exploring the fate of the Shards and working to save them several expansions later. It fits with how they leave story hooks open but allow for another plot to be the immediate focus.

[Enkidoh]

I've been chewing over a bit of a theory lately to explain the connection between Azem, Azeyma and Azim, and my headcanon is that after the Sundering, the newly Sundered Azem held onto the scraps of memory that remained and continued to be the 'protector of man', acting as something of a knight errant around the world looking out for their fellow Sundered (and the new life born after), a warden of the people so to speak. Eventually though, their now finite lifespan caught up to them and forced them to pass on their mask, and their weapon, onto the next generation, training an 'apprentice' of sorts, with the apprentice becoming the new Azem on the previous one's deathbed.

Over time and several generations, each successive Azem continued to protect the people, but the story of their origin started to muddle and wane as such stories do with each retelling. The turning point was when a male au ra (or an early ancestor of the au ra), became the new Azem, and decided to further travel to what is now known as Othard, and ended up inadvertently founding xaela culture, only to perish there in unknown circumstances, thus also losing Azem's mask and weapon.

Hence, the 'order' Azem founded disappeared, and the tattered remnants of their memory gradually shifted into what became Azeyma the Warden, goddess of the sun (due to a tattered recollection of Azem's sun symbol of their seat on the Convocation), and that successive generations could no longer even remember what gender Azem had been originally, thus deifying Azem as a goddess of the sun, regardless of whether Azem was a woman originally or not. And in the East the ancestors of the xaela recalled Azem as 'Azim the Dawn Father', the one who created their culture, remembering them as a male au ra without knowing where the name originated from, and naming the lands they dwelled in accordingly. And this has continued into the present day.

A coda to this is due to both Ascian meddling and also Hydaelyn starting to guide things as the First Calamity approached, Azem's role as protector was replaced by the first Warrior of Light (who, of course, was Azem's first reincarnation). That point I'm still working futher details out though (like, how Azem's soul fragments on the Shards carried on), but I'll work them out eventually!

And of course, this whole theory is so full of holes and almost definetely isn't what SE has probably thought of (and the upcoming Myths of the Realm raid is all but certainly going to completely destroy this headcanon), but I like this idea anyway (especially in the abscence of anything else to explain the connection, until the aforementioned raid is added). Thus, feel free to sink it with criticism!

[Naria]

Azem was actually better at teleportation magic than combat magic. The WoL's ability to teleport themselves endlessly is the remnant of Azem's specialty/talent for teleportation magic.

[Erendis]

I don't remember anything about Azem and teleportation magic. Where was this?

[Jandor]

I don't remember anything about Azem and teleportation magic. Where was this?

I guess it could be inferred, what with all the traveling they did. I don't think it's expressly spelled out anywhere, but this is the crazy personal headcanons thread.

[Erendis]

Right, just realised what thread this was...

[Naria]

I guess it could be inferred, what with all the traveling they did. I don't think it's expressly spelled out anywhere, but this is the crazy personal headcanons thread.

That and the fact that Azem's personal magic contained in their crystal is a powerful teleportation spell is what I'm basing this off of. :-)

EDIT:

My craziest personal HC post-EW is that the Eight Umbral Calamity Timeline isn't actually an alternate timeline but a 14th reflection that Hydaelyn created circa Stormblood. Yes I realize this is full of holes, but at least it keeps time travel in FFXIV as a closed loop. :-)