Revelations from Patch 5.3

**Hikari_Kishimoto** · 08-14-2020 08:09 PM

Originally Posted by Jandor

Seeing as most (all?) of us are reincarnations of sundered ancients, does that mean Emet will have been shredded up and chucked into the lifestream when he died?
Would he even get sundered at this point?

I'm afraid not. As I understand it, when you pierce an ascians soul with light, it fades out of existence.
It doesn't return to the lifestream, because the soul itself has been destroyed.

**Vyrerus** · 08-14-2020 08:42 PM

Originally Posted by Hikari_Kishimoto

I fear not. As I understand it, when you pierce an ascians soul with light, it fades out of existence.
It doesn't return to the lifestream, because the soul itself has been destroyed.

To expound on this, if you pierce any soul with a pure aether blade, then the soul will be destroyed rather than return to the lifestream. This is part of what made Haurchefant's death so poignant. That javelin of light, "Spear of The Fury" was meant to kill and destroy an immortal Echo user(the WoL). Instead it kills Haurchefant, body and soul.

We haven't just been killing Ascians, we've been erasing them completely. At least, that's how it goes in the writing of the NA version.

**Enkidoh** · 08-14-2020 09:46 PM

Originally Posted by Vyrerus

To expound on this, if you pierce any soul with a pure aether blade, then the soul will be destroyed rather than return to the lifestream. This is part of what made Haurchefant's death so poignant. That javelin of light, "Spear of The Fury" was meant to kill and destroy an immortal Echo user(the WoL). Instead it kills Haurchefant, body and soul.

Except it didn't - Haurchefant came back after all in the climax of the Final Steps of Faith in spirit alongside Ysayle who helped the WoL, Aymeric and Alphinaud pull the Eyes of Nidhogg from Estinien's armour, after they succeed in removing the Eyes and freeing Estinien from Nidhogg's control and banished Nidhogg's spirit forever, they're last seen doing an 'Aerith and Zack' from Advent Children when they smile, and then walk into the light and disappear. So their spirits are most definetely not destroyed aetherically like what befell the Ascians (presumedly they returned to the Lifestream after that).

**Jandor** · 08-14-2020 11:37 PM

Originally Posted by Hikari_Kishimoto

I fear not. As I understand it, when you pierce an ascians soul with light, it fades out of existence.
It doesn't return to the lifestream, because the soul itself has been destroyed.

I always just interpreted the beams of light and such as simply one of the few ways to attack something as intangible as a soul, functionally equivalent to stabbing a mortal with a sword.

Stab a mortal to death and their soul gets auto-kicked from the material plane, booting a being that is essentially just a disembodied soul riding around in a meat suit though, well that requires an equally intangible sword.

Maybe I'm wrong but I always thought the end result would be essentially the same, both souls ultimately ending up recycled.

**Fenral** · 08-14-2020 08:41 PM

YoRHa: Dark 10chars

Some stuff holds up in 2P's characterization (if it can be called that). I was forced to replay the Copied Factory the other day, and she does actually sound concerned that the machine lifeforms are being controlled. But she wasn't that interesting. Basically Mide with even vaguer motivations. Surprised she didn't have a scar under that mask...

But why bomb the dwarfs? And why show up in black at all? Sure, it's dramatic, and not totally unprecedented for 24-man characters to undergo personality replacement surgery between patches, but come on. It's momentary shock value at best, but now that we have that precedent, further speculation feels almost meaningless. Why bother laying out a rug that's just going to get pulled? Wait, what if the P-units are actually purple?

I mentioned before that part of the fun of twists is being able to guess them, at least in part. I suppose I haven't lost all my emotional investment, but I'm getting there. Knowing Yoko Taro's reputation for "oh it's just so sad" endings isn't really helping. I also have no prior attachment to 2B or her panties, so her arrival is just another reminder that "this wasn't made for me."

But honestly, I've carried a bit of prejudice against the NieR series ever since I found out Replicant was a thing and someone had made the call that we westerners would only want Gestalt. (I'll take a pretty-boy lead over a hypermasculine escapist avatar any day.) Anyway...

**Cilia** · 08-15-2020 05:53 AM

Originally Posted by Fenral

YoRHa: Dark 10chars

Some stuff holds up in 2P's characterization (if it can be called that). I was forced to replay the Copied Factory the other day, and she does actually sound concerned that the machine lifeforms are being controlled. But she wasn't that interesting. Basically Mide with even vaguer motivations. Surprised she didn't have a scar under that mask...

But why bomb the dwarfs? And why show up in black at all? Sure, it's dramatic, and not totally unprecedented for 24-man characters to undergo personality replacement surgery between patches, but come on. It's momentary shock value at best, but now that we have that precedent, further speculation feels almost meaningless. Why bother laying out a rug that's just going to get pulled? Wait, what if the P-units are actually purple?

I mentioned before that part of the fun of twists is being able to guess them, at least in part. I suppose I haven't lost all my emotional investment, but I'm getting there. Knowing Yoko Taro's reputation for "oh it's just so sad" endings isn't really helping. I also have no prior attachment to 2B or her panties, so her arrival is just another reminder that "this wasn't made for me."

But honestly, I've carried a bit of prejudice against the NieR series ever since I found out Replicant was a thing and someone had made the call that we westerners would only want Gestalt. (I'll take a pretty-boy lead over a hypermasculine escapist avatar any day.) Anyway...

Ultimately, my problem with it is...

With Shadowbringers presenting a lot of old things in new and interesting ways, I was expecting the Automata raid to do the same. To this end I expected 2P to be a fresh take on a familiar face; 2B in a way, but adapted to fit the world of XIV. What she ended up actually being is an evil knockoff of 2B that exists for the sole purpose of "giving birth" as Adam did in Automata. (And the "real" 2B is also here. For some reason. Somehow.)

Super disappointing.

Meanwhile we still have no context for what the Automata stuff is doing in Norvrandt. With the driving mystery keeping me invested in the series answered and so disappointingly, I have no real reason to care anymore.

While I don't like Ivalice and the Return to Ivalice series did rely on egregious infodumps to make sense, at least it did. We had reasons to care about the Lexentales themselves, if not their quest to find Ivalice and clear their family name. We have no real reason to care about Anogg and Konogg, who have treated us as little more than their gofer from square one, and none of the Automata characters have interacted with us all that much (other than 9S trying very hard to kill us at the end of Copied Factory).

I'll wait and see what happens in the final chapter but what we have doesn't hold my attention (grotesque imagery stopped being shocking after all that Dead Space I played). So, whatever.

**Crushnight** · 08-14-2020 09:45 PM

So about 5.4 and 5.5

So either we are going to have imaginary not talked about conflict that'll come out of nowhere either on the 1st or Source or We are dealing with Zenos, Flandaniel and/or the Garleans in the next 2 patches because nothing has been set up yet besides them in MSQ, perhaps that is why Yoshi P mentions to get a refresher on HW so things aren't so outta nowhere but he can't expect everyone to do that or be like us in the lore forums.

It is concerning if that is the case but will withhold judgement until 5.4 at least.

Nier raid theory

Like typical Yoko Taro he has got my mind racing on how things are connected.

This time I think we are continuing on from ending E, there are a few things that make ending D less probable now, 21O's data is the original not a machine Lifeform this would make the Bunker, THE Bunker from Nier Automata, which can only happen going for ending C,D and E, this then begs the question for ending D why was pieces of the destroyed bunker taken into space and dropped down and placed on top of an alien spaceship?

I don't think they did, I think that piece of the Bunker landed on top of the spaceship when it fell to Earth, which would make Norvandt part of Earth but hundreds of thousands of years later after Automata (their are boars, fish and deers in Automata and we know time is different fluctuates different on Shards and Source).

The other thing that makes me question ending D is 2B and 9S, 2B show distinct concern for others but still want to fight machine lifeforms(2B never learned anything leading up to ending C,D and E and ending D has 9S with the machine lifeforms so it feels off atm), 9S is also distinctly not bat crazy about 2B but has a room full of her bodies in the factory.

Yoko Taro's work is definitely up to the individual to process whether they like it or not, Automata has ending B as a gate wall to a lot of people, but it does create a disconnect, someone complaining how nothing makes sense by ending B will get people who have done ending C,D and E to chime in, but if said same person complained about gameplay they could have a lot more support by anyone no matter where in story they are, basically I'm saying it is best to wait for full picture, but I don't hold it against people who clock out early because it stopped being interesting before it ramps up.

FFXIV itself isn't immune to withholding information until much later, Alexander Gordias has this problem, takes to end of Midas to go oh Alexander has time powers. Mikoto's echo is something not once built upon in Ivalice 24 man nor does it change any context there now that we know she has it(Yoko Taro tends to have things for a reason and nothing is outta place with new information).

Lastly some things I think we might get next Nier raid tier
-Evil Twins (Yoko Taro staple)
-Emil (basically Yoko Taro's icon)
-Maker's Ruin mashup

**Alleo** · 08-14-2020 11:51 PM

Originally Posted by Vyrerus

To expound on this, if you pierce any soul with a pure aether blade, then the soul will be destroyed rather than return to the lifestream. This is part of what made Haurchefant's death so poignant. That javelin of light, "Spear of The Fury" was meant to kill and destroy an immortal Echo user(the WoL). Instead it kills Haurchefant, body and soul.

We haven't just been killing Ascians, we've been erasing them completely. At least, that's how it goes in the writing of the NA version.

You need a huge amount of aether to pull of killing the soul. We used the whole Light we gathered by slaying the sineaters to kill Hades. The spear attack was basically from an add. It did not destroy his soul, it "just" killed him. This is shown by Ysayle and Haurchefant helping us later.

**ObsidianFire** · 08-15-2020 01:38 AM

Ascians are immortal because they've already "died". Their original bodies are dead, however, their souls haven't finished dying by going to the Lifestream to be reincarnated later. To keep their souls from going the Lifestream, Asicans either possess dead bodies or hang out in the Rift, which they can only get to if they have Crystals of Darkness.

The entire point of Auracite is to put an Ascian soul somewhere it can't escape to another body or the Rift. All while someone is charging up aether to blast the Auractie with. I can't find any mention (even in the English version) that Ascian souls are really destroyed with this method either. What seems to be happening is that the aether blast is simulating the Lifestream. That is, it's surrounding an Asican soul (that should already be in the Lifestream) with so much aether the soul just... joins up with the aether. And then when the Auractie is destroyed and the aether blast dissipates back into the world, the Ascian soul goes with it. Instead of an Ascian soul joining up with the Lifestream, the Lifestream joins up with the Asican soul.

This would explain why the Thordan primal could absorb Lahabrea's soul and then Lahabrea is dead for good. Lahabrea is nothing more than a soul made out of aether... that doesn't have a firm tie to a body anymore. So Thordan can just absorb the aether of Lahabrea's soul like he absorbs all the other aether around him. And we know from other primals that what a primal is defeated, their aether is returned to the Lifestream. What we do with Auracite and the Blade of Light is... probably about the same thing Thordan did. We just are skipping the "kill off the primal" step and letting everything dissipate.

We actually do the "Blade of Light" thing even earlier to force Lahabrea's soul out of Thancred's body at the end of 2.0. But since Lahabrea isn't in an Auractie and has a Crystal of Darkness, he can escape to the Rift just fine there. He doesn't stick around long enough to be surrounded by so much aether he's overwhelmed by it. Bummer.

What does seem to be a reoccurring theme is that the aether of people's souls is somehow tied to the aether of their bodies. So long as their bodies exist, their soul doesn't seem to naturally want to go to the Lifestream. It's only once a body is truly dead that the soul wants to be in the Lifestream. So, I don't think what we do to kill the Ascians would really work on anyone else who is properly alive.

About Elidibus and Emet-Selch

Elidibus is the only one I'm not certain is in the Lifestream, because we see his aether (and the aether of all the Memorial Stones) be absorbed by the Crystal Tower and the Crystal Tower itself never gets destroyed to release the aether in it. The Tower can safely hold so much aether indefinitely that I can't see Elidibus breaking out either. The other thing that makes Elidibus different is that he's part of Zoidark, Zoidark's heart to be exact. I don't know if we really can return Eldiibus to the Lifestream until Zodiark himself is killed. So the Crystal Tower might just be a stop-gap solution until we're ready to defeat Zoidark for good.

Emet-Selch is weird, but not because of how we defeat him. We still flood him with all the Light Aether we picked up from the Lightwardens and also a lot of the Scions' donated aether. We just don't try containing him in an Auracite first like we do the other Ascians. Emet-Selch is weird because his own aether affinity is the aether of the Lifestream. (Check out his short-story from last year's Rising for more details.) He was quite literally the best Ancient at manipulating it. In fact, it's why he had the office of Emet-Selch to begin with. So when we killed Emet-Selch for real, we essentially sent him to the place his aether was already very, very skilled at manipulating. Which... could be interesting going forward. Or rather, has been interesting already most likely given who shows up when we use our Azem power to bring in someone who can pull us out of the Rift.

The Lifestream is where Hydaelyn also is. And we haven't been able to have contact with her since 3.4 when Minfillia left to save the 1st Shard. So it's high time we had a chat with Hydaelyn about all this... but how to get to her? I find it... very convenient... that someone who was really good at manipulating the Lifestream in life is now actually in the Lifestream. And we've already somehow called upon them once...

**Hikari_Kishimoto** · 08-15-2020 05:37 AM

Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

I find it... very convenient... that someone who was really good at manipulating the Lifestream in life is now actually in the Lifestream. And we've already somehow called upon them once...[/hb]

That is a pretty interesting theory. It would be great to see him again.

Something else that came to my mind:

Elidibus, Hades and Varis have been talking about preserving the balance between light and darkness (so that neither a flood of light or darkness was to happen and to destroy the shard/source). As we know, this is what happened to the 13th. (And the reason why it was not possible to rejoin it with the source)

So, why was Hades trying to cause a flood of light on the 1st shard? Wouldn't that have turned it into a smiliar zone like the 13th? (Therefore, unable to be rejoined?)

And...

since all the Unsundered are gone and the light is already pretty strong on the source, doesn't that mean, if we slay the last remaining ascians, the source is going to be overflood by light too?

Thread: Revelations from Patch 5.3

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