Thread: 6.0 Story Speculations

Originally Posted by Erendis

Memory stones do not contain memories of ascians they represent. They were made after sundering by unsundered from memories of unsundered.

"Fandaniel wants to bring about the Final Days because he was a secret death cultist all along" would make even less sense if that's the case.

Originally Posted by Cilia

On the other hand, Emet-Selch does say that while they prefer to ascend reincarnated fragments of the Convocation's souls because, having been tempered in the past, they make the truest servants of Zodiark, it is possible to ascend completely unrelated people... which I strongly suspect has something to do with Danny Boy's madness, but we'll see.

I'm not sure the madness is the thing we need to be focused on. Yoshi-p did say at the announcement showcase that Fandaniel has a secret which is essential to the plot of 6.0. Until we know that secret we really can't question if he is mad or not.

So what is Fandaniel's "secret"?

Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

I'm disinclined to believe Fandaniel was some secret death cultist all along, for one particular reason. Specifically, the rest of the Convocation had access to his memory stone for 12,000 years. Given the abilities Mitron had on display during Eden's Promise, I can't imagine it would be difficult for the likes of Emet-Selch to sort through Fandaniel's memories in a similar fashion. He wouldn't even have to suspect Fandaniel of being a traitor to do so—simply peering through them to make sure they're actually his memories would be a decent enough reason. It'd be nearly impossible for Fandaniel to actually hide his affiliations if that were the case, and that in turn would leave me wondering why they bothered to ascend him to begin with.

I mean, there's hubris and then there's "we knowingly raised up a man who had been plotting the downfall of our entire world because we thought a stern lecture or two would keep him from doing it again".

Well as Erendis pointed out above, the crystals were made from the memories of the unsundered, and if the unsundured didn't know what Fanny Danny was up to in his spare time, they wouldn't reflect the death cult parties. For all we know, Danny put on a facade when around the other convocation members.

I guess it depends if you believe what Hythlodaeus said:

I feel I should elaborate. The point in contention is not the source of the memories, but rather the idea that Fandaniel's desire to end the world predated the original Final Days and that he was part of a Lambs of Dalamud-esque cult that infiltrated the Convocation or something. It doesn't matter if the memories in the stone are Fandaniel's or the Unsundered's. What matters is that the Unsundered are aware of the contents of the stone. If they are, and if said memories clearly identify Fandaniel as being a traitor, they would have no reason to keep those memories or raise him up with them. And if such memories don't exist in the stone, then why would the current Fandaniel inherit the desire to end the world from his past self?

I get that folks want there to be some big twist, but I think the writers can do a lot better than this.

Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

I feel I should elaborate. The point in contention is not the source of the memories, but rather the idea that Fandaniel's desire to end the world predated the original Final Days and that he was part of a Lambs of Dalamud-esque cult that infiltrated the Convocation or something. It doesn't matter if the memories in the stone are Fandaniel's or the Unsundered's. What matters is that the Unsundered are aware of the contents of the stone. If they are, and if said memories clearly identify Fandaniel as being a traitor, they would have no reason to keep those memories or raise him up with them. And if such memories don't exist in the stone, then why would the current Fandaniel inherit the desire to end the world from his past self?

I get that folks want there to be some big twist, but I think the writers can do a lot better than this.

The thing is, we don't exactly know in what way the stones "ascend" the Ascians into the people they once were. It's my belief that while the memories within the crystals are from the Unsundered, the purpose of those memories isn't to be transferred directly to the sundered, but rather used as the catalyst that awakens their own memories. Kind of a much more advanced version of the starshower triggering bygone memories of the Final Days and awakening the Echo in people.

If that were the case, it would then be possible for Fandaniel to have memories that the Unsundered were never aware of.

In regards to Fandaniel's madness, assuming that it's a legitimate desire to destroy everything, it could simply have come about as an evolution of his character over time. He may share the Ascians' belief that mortals are inferior beings, barely qualifying as life, and ALSO have come to the conclusion that the remaining Ascians, both Sundered and not have become so depraved and corrupt that they, too, are no longer deserving of salvation.

It doesn't have to be something he inherited from the original Fandaniel. He may simply have changed over twelve thousand years (or however long it's been since he was raised to be an Ascian). He's accepted that the Ancients' time is done. Their world is dead and gone. But that doesn't mean he's going to hand everything over to the worms that infest their world's corpse now - no, the best way to memorialize the past is with a world-sized tomestone...

I also tend to think that the memory stones did not so much "rewrite" the memories of the raised Ascians so much as it JOGGED them. Whoever Fandaniel was before he was raised up is still there, but he also has access to the memories contained within his soul fragment. In the case of most Ascians, this is enough to get them to side with the Ascians' goals - but in Fandaniel's case, he merely decided to play along (or, perhaps, was legitimately on board at first, but changed his mind later).

So, new interview with Yoshi-P.

Past expansions have taken the cast of FFXIV to different, visually striking regions. For example, Heavensward took us to Ishgard, where marvelous, towering spires faithfully imitated Gothic French designs. Stormblood took us to Ala Mhigo, an Eorzean city-state conquered two decades prior to the game, and Doma, a Far Eastern nation. Shadowbringers focused less on displaying a specific set of cultures and more on “subversion” — introducing locations in an alternate reality that mirrored familiar settings from The Source (the world where FFXIV takes place).

Yoshida says Endwalker will be similar. Rather than taking direct inspiration from the real world, its traversable locations have been created “to fill in the pieces of the puzzle, so to speak, and create a full picture for this story arc.” When comparing the locations to those in previews expansions, Yoshida explained “this might be the most varied adventure. We hope our players are excited to explore these new areas.”

So with Thavnair, the Moon, and Garlemald confirmed as zones, I'm intrigued with the whole "fill in pieces of the puzzle" part.

(Also technically speaking Thavnair does have some real world influence, but mostly of a Fantasy Arabia/India, kinda thing, so side-stepping the fact that Arabic Cultures are kind of different amongst themselves)