Echo Vision Frequency

[Vyrerus]

You're trying to blend game play elements with the lore and they don't always mix in this case they probably don't. The device throws off her echo and when the effects wear off it reactivates. The cast bar is just a gameplay thing telling you to hit her again with the thing.

In this case they likely do, because it's Stormblood, and they were pretty big on mixing what's actually going on into the gameplay of the instanced battles.

[Kesey]

You're trying to blend game play elements with the lore and they don't always mix in this case they probably don't. The device throws off her echo and when the effects wear off it reactivates. The cast bar is just a gameplay thing telling you to hit her again with the thing.

Yes and no. The game does tell you, around the time you meet your starter city scion and they solve the mystery you have the echo, that you can see telegraphs because of the echo.

[Copyright_Theft]

I would add to Iscah's perspective Fordola's body language whenever she has a vision. She winces just the same as the WoL does, every time. There's no bracing and then acting, which you would expect of someone taking a deliberate action.

[Vyrerus]

I would add to Iscah's perspective Fordola's body language whenever she has a vision. She winces just the same as the WoL does, every time. There's no bracing and then acting, which you would expect of someone taking a deliberate action.

When Lyse runs in on her in Castrum Abania, and when she's about to give the order to fire on Specula Imperatoris, she places her hand beside her head, as if she's going to have a vision, but her eyes only wince, and she speaks while wincing. This is her bracing herself to stop a vision. Note, it's always the same side of her head that has the Resonant eye.

[Iscah]

This is her bracing herself to stop a vision.

No, that is not a fact.

There is no proof that she is stopping the visions as opposed to simply receiving them.

If you are correct and she is in control, it could be interpreted as her stopping it.

If you are incorrect and she is not in control, it could be interpreted as her wincing from the pain of receiving it and not being able to stop it.

You cannot say it proves one thing or the other without other context.

[Iscah]

Yes and no. The game does tell you, around the time you meet your starter city scion and they solve the mystery you have the echo, that you can see telegraphs because of the echo.

I don't recall that ever being said - as far as I'm aware, the "telegraphs = Echo" thing has been a long-term fan theory but never stated within the story.

If battle-instance dialogue can be taken as canon, then it seems to be disproven by "When It Rains" (at the start of NG+ Shadowbringers Part 2 if you want to replay it). At one point Alphinaud calls out that he can sense a surge of aether coming, and then gets a stack marker on him, which would suggest that sensing incoming attacks isn't purely the realm of Echo-users. Detecting magical attacks might need some degree of aetherial sensitivity, and physical attacks might be just a matter of watching your opponent and guessing their attacks (but of course you can't see every single hit coming).

[Vyrerus]

No, that is not a fact.

There is no proof that she is stopping the visions as opposed to simply receiving them.

If you are correct and she is in control, it could be interpreted as her stopping it.

If you are incorrect and she is not in control, it could be interpreted as her wincing from the pain of receiving it and not being able to stop it.

You cannot say it proves one thing or the other without other context.

If we're going try and analyze things as banal as body language in a game with preset motions for character models, then it might as well be.

In reality it's an easter egg of sorts, that we view in hindsight as it relates to her ability to have visions. In line with the story as it was presented, we know she'd been through a procedure, but didn't know the effects. It's worth noting that it's the other hand that we(and she) clench our face with when a full blown vision occurs.

And look, I get it, you're not a fan of supposition that isn't your own, but pointing out the obvious to someone who's overanalyzed pretty much everything in this game doesn't make your points resound any better.

[Iscah]

For Echo visions we have where we aren't directly focused on a person. [...] We don't have to be directly focused on anyone or anything to get an Echo vision of said person or thing. We just usually do.

So that's a long list of instances showing that our involuntary visions can be triggered by any kind of "aetherial memory residue" rather than that we have to be directly interacting with the subject, but a key thing there is that it's involuntary. We aren't seeking out a vision of one person and instead receiving something different, we're just getting a vision that we didn't call for either way.

I fail to see how that proves anything about whether Fordola deliberately chose to look in our memories or was really thinking about us while she appeared to be focused on Arenvald. If anything it suggests the opposite - again, that despite her focus on Arenvald she is still suceptible to an unexpected vision of someone else.



As for the fight where we use the siphon, I played it not long ago but I do have another alt approaching that point, and will have to pay attention.

I think it's unclear exactly what "Resonation" means in the context, though I think the noise analogy still applies - deafen her, and she can't listen to detect what you're doing. Overwhelm her with aether, and she can't detect those slight aetherial tells until she recovers and takes a moment to re-establish herself.

If you look at the cutscene for the following quest, Urianger explains that because Fordola seemed to be "uncommonly sensitive to aetherial fluctuations" he designed the siphon to "generate a massive disruption in the surrounding aether" which gives her the symptoms of aether sickness - which coincidentally or not is what our early fainting-during-Echo-visions gets mistaken for. Arenvald also compares the effect his visions have on him to aether sickness.

As for the "using the Echo" animation.. that bothers me at a larger scale because it seems to pop up in a few places and it doesn't work how our Echo works or we'd be unstoppable - there's story and gameplay segregation going on somewhere. The Warriors of Darkness can use it to revive themselves, and in the 4.4 solo fight with Sadu she seems to use it as well. (It's never outright stated but I think she's supposed to have the Echo - she's repeatedly called "udgan" which is earlier established as referring to people like Temulun who can "hear the gods" and is compared to the Echo.)

Part of the Echo vision we have, regardless of nationality, at each nation's send off ceremony, where we're focused on the leader, and we get their dialogue at Carteneau, only for the vision to switch over to the perspective of the Ascians, who the alliance leaders were not communicating with at all, likely marking when we fell unconscious due to the severity of that vision's pull. Which I suppose is actually the first time in the game that we have visions while unconscious.

Most of our early visions are marked by being unconscious or at least asleep (as in the carriage ride at the beginning). I don't know if it always happens but we certainly seem to at least tune out of reality for some period of time, and - while I haven't gone through all the instances or anything - I redid the healer role quests last night and right up at Lv78 we evidently fell unconscious for long enough that Giott is worried we aren't waking up.

In reality it's an easter egg of sorts, that we view in hindsight as it relates to her ability to have visions. In line with the story as it was presented, we know she'd been through a procedure, but didn't know the effects. It's worth noting that it's the other hand that we(and she) clench our face with when a full blown vision occurs.

It's something that's clearer in hindsight either way. If she is having uncontrollable flashes of people's memories and emotions then you don't know that at the time either, but in hindsight you realise that there she is receiving Lyse's emotions. Her anger at Fordola's killing of her own comrades and probably her grief over Conrad's death - those things would compound Fordola's own regret and guilt over her actions.

She could be shutting it off but there's no sign to say that's the case. It may simply be making her head hurt. I didn't even consider there could be another reading of that scene - it was simply a clear reading to me (in hindsight of Arenvald's observation establishing that she's having visions) of what we are supposed to understand from it.

And look, I get it, you're not a fan of supposition that isn't your own, but pointing out the obvious to someone who's overanalyzed pretty much everything in this game doesn't make your points resound any better.

So you're the sole expert who's overanalysed everything in the game... and where does that leave the rest of us lore-forum regulars?

I'm open to other theories, but you're not presenting anything that proves your point. Your "evidence" is not decisive - you seem to start from the core idea you want to prove, and cast the scenes in a light that supports your idea, even if they could also support a different interpretation.

Meanwhile you're dismissing the sort of conversations that we would normally take to be establishing a fact. Arenvald specifically brings up this idea that Fordola is having constant, painful visions - an idea that fits all previous evidence and serves no purpose to be introduced as a red herring - but you want to dismiss it because it doesn't fit your superior theory of what's really going on.

I am absolutely in favour of speculating and analysing what's happening, and if I really have gotten something completely wrong then I want to correct that misunderstanding and have the true facts established, but I'm not seeing that here. To me your approach feels more like ignoring the facts that don't suit your theory.

[Veloran]

she places her hand beside her head, as if she's going to have a vision, but her eyes only wince, and she speaks while wincing.

There's no reason to believe that could only have been because of an Echo vision, Fordola was also getting unwanted feelings and thoughts from other people that intruded on her mind.

At one point Alphinaud calls out that he can sense a surge of aether coming, and then gets a stack marker on him, which would suggest that sensing incoming attacks isn't purely the realm of Echo-users.

In that case the Sin Eater is quite literally glowing with aether and clearly about to unleash a huge attack. In fact, Alphinaud tells you to gather around him not because he thinks he's the target and to disperse the force of the magic, but so he can cast a vulnerability down buff on the entire group.

If you were to look through every battle in the game I'm quite sure you could find many instances where NPCs call out attacks before they happen, but that isn't evidence against telegraphs being a result of the Echo when there are obviously countless instances of telegraphs that cannot possibly be reasonably explained through pure intuition or simply feeling a buildup of aether, especially since so many markers are extremely precise in telling WoL where and when the danger will be, beyond what you could know with the naked eye in advance.

As for Fordola's vision, I really don't see why she would suddenly intentionally instigate a vision about WoL while being in the middle of talking to someone else. Really, I think the only person who is suggested to be able to intentionally receive visions is Zenos, and that's only implied by how he knows WoL will soon be leaving the Source after narrowly missing him at the place where he fought Elidibus and received the communication with G'raha.

[Gemina]

I'd have to rewatch the scene to be sure, but I never got the impression that Fordola deliberately looked into our past. It's just part of her constantly-triggering visions.

This. Fordola welcomes her prison cell because it stops the visions from happening. How she is able to harness the power and keep it from driving her insane, and/or incapacitating herself in battle like the WoL is another story.