Quote Originally Posted by Loggos View Post
I really agree with this analysis. Still, I do love


I loved Elpis - it was my favourite part of EW next to the final zone - and I would not want for it to be removed from the story under any circumstances. But I think they used it too late in the story for its revelations to be properly integrated into the rest of it.

On the 87 zone,
Friend and i had a rather long discussion about the implications of that time travel and we basically concluded that we did in fact create a divergent timeline in keeping with the rules they set out in Shadowbringers.

It kind of depends on whether or not Venat would have placed the beacon on Meteion regardless of whether or not we were present.
If the events of that day in Elpis had played out precisely the same way even if we were never there, AKA Emet and Hythlo get mindwiped but Venat escapes after tagging Meteion, then no divergent timeline as nothing was changed aside from the fact that we can take our observations into the future. (Which is what seems to be the case)

But if Venat managed to avoid the Kairos mindwipe and tag her the first time, then she should have been able to avert the Final Days by filling Emet in on what caused it in the first place, Averting the need for Zodiark and Hydaelyn.
But when we encounter him in Shadowbringers, he even says they never found the cause.
Thus a paradox.

Either Venat knew what caused it and said nothing because she wanted Meteion to win in the original history, which flies in the face of what we know about both sides of her character or we caused a divergent timeline in which Venat was not present to find out about Meteion in our original history and a new timeline in which she does find out about her and place the tracker on Meteion.
After which, she plays the script we gave her on how our original history played out and her role in it, so that our description of the future came true for her to witness as Hydaelyn.

The third option is that Venat DID witness Meteion in the original timeline but got mindwiped, leading to her original plan of using the Moon as an Ark. This i think could be used to explain why there was no divergent timeline.
But theres a problem with that. She has the navigation crystal, which means she WASN'T mindwiped.

Thus my friend and i concluded that we did infact create a branched timeline in keeping with the time travel rules set out in Shadowbringers.
Conlusion being: Our presence in Elpis changed the past, but due to when it was changed our character becomes a resident of that timeline and ends up in the diverged future wholly unaware that it diverged in the first place upon returning to the Source.

We do not notice in-universe because we told Venat all about every single event that led to the moment we went to the First to gather information on Elpis. Remember, she told us about how the Echo worked and we know from Emet that every Ancient had it. We can't see the divergence because we're living in it, basically.
While we were telling her stories of our adventures, she was literally watching them via the Echo and used that information to ensure that the diverged timeline resembled the original one we came from with the beacon on Meteion being the sole point of difference.
Which means theres a timeline out there where we didn't chance upon Emet and left before discovering Meteion, leading to our use of the Moon Ark and that universe ending anyway because the Final Days was on a universal scale to begin with.

... But thats just a theory XD