Preferences for a new world in 6.x, 7.x and beyond

[Jandor]

As a sort of background story, something we're not particularly involved in but maybe a few of the Scions are, it would be nice to see the city states of the three great continents create a sort of UN or EU like body.

I want to go adventuring and fight big new monsters and such, but I do like a bit of political drama too.

[Cleretic]

As a sort of background story, something we're not particularly involved in but maybe a few of the Scions are, it would be nice to see the city states of the three great continents create a sort of UN or EU like body.

I want to go adventuring and fight big new monsters and such, but I do like a bit of political drama too.

Well, they effectively do have that, it's just that up until recently they've been in War Mode.

The thing I most want now that the greater conflicts are done, and I know it will never actually happen, is to just see a regular goddamn conference. Like, let's just see a trade meet, I wanna see how Ul'Dah and Gridania interact without a common enemy.

[Atmaweapon510]

A lot of people blow off time travel, but considering Graha Tia's continued existence, doesn't that mean his timeline is still around? This is is a timeline that gave so much to save our current timeline. If there's literally anything that can be done to help it in some way, then I can see the story heading there for an expansion to help set it on a better path, possibly even getting a "Zodiark Prime" boss fight where we figure out a way to give him a new heart so he could protect that world until they figure out a way to avoid destruction by Meteion.

[Cleretic]

A lot of people blow off time travel, but considering Graha Tia's continued existence, doesn't that mean his timeline is still around?

Well... yes and no.

First of all: no, G'raha Tia's continued existence doesn't mean that the timeline is still around. Remember that a significant component of the Alexander questline revolves around the fact that Quickthinx has a version of Roundrox's diary from an earlier cycle, which lets him predict what's going to happen in a way basically like Biff with the sports almanac in Back to the Future 2. The existence of the diary does not mean an alternate timeline still exists.

What does let us know that the timeline is still around is that one of the Tales from the Shadows is about the crew he left behind after traveling through time. By what we learned about time travel in Endwalker we know that G'raha couldn't go back there even if he wanted to, though.

That said, I'm not really sure there's a lot of potential in having an expansion about going there. Shadowbringers already gave us the 'visit a devastated alternate version of the world we know' experience. And if the finale is fighting Zodiark... I mean, we've already got a Zodiark fight.

[symbiote129]

A lot of people blow off time travel, but considering Graha Tia's continued existence, doesn't that mean his timeline is still around? This is is a timeline that gave so much to save our current timeline. If there's literally anything that can be done to help it in some way, then I can see the story heading there for an expansion to help set it on a better path, possibly even getting a "Zodiark Prime" boss fight where we figure out a way to give him a new heart so he could protect that world until they figure out a way to avoid destruction by Meteion.

Do you not know the short story about G'raha's previous reality? Cause it's tellling that they are on the road of recovery.

[Jandor]

Just head to the first if you want to fight Zodiark again

He wasn't fully restored, there are still 5 chunks of him out there.

[Atmaweapon510]

I just read it, but it's still open ended as to whether Midgardsormr can essentially do a better job than Hydaelyn when it comes to keeping things in check. Since we possibly never initiated the Elpis loop in that timeline, we're not even sure if Midgardsormr has that meta-knowledge in the event they might try to take out Zodiark or anything.

FFXI has done similar things. If we're going for self-contained story arcs, it'd be fine to expand on it just this once for FFXIV considering what this specific timeline has done for the "main" one. At the very least, we get to see a picture of what Etheirys might develop into centuries into the future before going back to a more grounded setting.

Edit: Also we'd get to see Midgardsormr again, that's a huge plus. Midgardsormr still has to take his 200 year nap to recover in the current timeline, so interacting with an actual full-power Midgardsormr as he tries to shepherd a world from the brink would be a treat.

On a final note, I really want to know why we ended up branching into alternate timelines rather than having the closed loops that Alexander and Elpis created. This will forever remain a plot hole until it gets resolved.

[MikkoAkure]

On a final note, I really want to know why we ended up branching into alternate timelines rather than having the closed loops that Alexander and Elpis created. This will forever remain a plot hole until it gets resolved.

After spending some time to think about it, I don't think there's a plot hole because that involved one-way time travel. G'raha's journey also changed the timeline so much that he would be completely unable to return to that branch even if he wanted to.

Though then again, how did Biff manage to get the Delorean back to normal 2015 after giving his young self Gray's Sports Almanac yet Doc and Marty go to an alternate 1985...

[RyuDragnier]

After spending some time to think about it, I don't think there's a plot hole because that involved one-way time travel. G'raha's journey also changed the timeline so much that he would be completely unable to return to that branch even if he wanted to.

This is likely the case. If you notice the time loops we've had, they've always required the target going back in time and then returning to their normal destination. G'raha's journey however, was a one way trip not only through time, but also space, breaking the normal rules of time travel we've had.

[Jandor]

My personal theory is that timelines in the XIV verse divide down when split, rather than the standard 'doubling up' you normally see in time travel stories, where you end up with two identically "dense" timelines. If a timeline on Ethirys is split, everyone gets sundered to make it work, after all, what are the reflections of the source at their most basic if not 13 different timelines?

Under this theory, our actions in Elpis can't result in a split as it would make everything that comes after impossible, leading to a paradox and none of it actually happening.

Our adventures in Alexander imply that he could theoretically split the timeline, he just doesn't really want to, and his comments about doing it too much causing reality to crumble imply (to me at least) that you get a limited amount of timeline to work with and trying to spread it around too much eventually results in it being too diluted to work.

G'raha didn't particularly intend to split his timeline from the source, but his adventure doesn't really work unless events on the Source leading up to it are allowed to play out, so the Alex-tech at his machines heart splits the timeline to make it work. Luckily the original source timeline has had enough stray threads wound back together that you can tear one away again without any major issue.