Endwalker Main Scenario Commentary & Feedback

[Illicium]

Thoughts on time travel related shenanigans

The whole time loop aspect of the story just feels really jarring to me as it just seems to go out of it's way to break the story's own rules in regards to time travel in ways which are just unnecessary. Sure you could say that this is how it's meant to play out, we always went back in time, told Venat about the final days and Zodiark and her role in summoning Hydaelyn but by their own rules set out in Shadowbringers that cannot be the case.

We're supposed to be dead.

The entire catalyst for the Shadowbringers story is that the Garlean Empire brought about the 8th calamity which resulted in our death. This then lead descendants of Cid and the Ironworks guys to find a way to change the past resulting in G'raha being woken up and sent to the first to stop the flood of light. This then results in a new timeline being created where the 8th calamity didn't happen allowing us to survive. If this new timeline hadn't been created we would not have been able to travel back in time to Elpis to meet Venat and tell her everything that happens as we would be dead. Doesn't this then just result in a Paradox? We're only able to find Meteion in the end because Venat tagged her with that tracking crystal, but if we weren't there Venat wouldn't have been there either as the only reason she gets involved is because we tell her our story. By the stories own logic, this should have resulted in a new timeline, but didn't. Instead, it's set up as a time loop and we were always there, but we can't have been as in the original timeline as well... we were dead and had no means to travel back in time besides.

The only possible logical explanation that I can come up with is that by us telling Hydaelyn that we met her in Elpis somehow blended these two timelines together but that just seems so needlessly messy.

[KageTokage]

Thoughts on time travel related shenanigans

The whole time loop aspect of the story just feels really jarring to me as it just seems to go out of it's way to break the story's own rules in regards to time travel in ways which are just necessary. Sure you could say that this is how it's meant to play out, we always went back in time, told Venat about the final days and Zodiark and her role in summoning Hydaelyn but by their own rules set out in Shadowbringers that cannot be the case.

We're supposed to be dead.

The entire catalyst for the Shadowbringers story is that the Garlean Empire brought about the 8th calamity which resulted in our death. This then lead descendants of Cid and the Ironworks guys to find a way to change the past resulting in G'raha being woken up and sent to the first to stop the flood of light. This then results in a new timeline being created where the 8th calamity didn't happen allowing us to survive. If this new timeline hadn't been created we would not have been able to travel back in time to Elpis to meet Venat and tell her everything that happens as we would be dead. Doesn't this then just result in a Paradox? We're only able to find Meteion in the end because Venat tagged her with that tracking crystal, but if we weren't there Venat wouldn't have been there either as the only reason she gets involved is because we tell her our story. By the stories own logic, this should have resulted in a new timeline, but didn't. Instead, it's set up as a time loop and we were always there, but we can't have been as in the original timeline as well... we were dead and had no means to travel back in time besides.

The only possible logical explanation that I can come up with is that by us telling Hydaelyn that we met her in Elpis somehow blended these two timelines together but that just seems so needlessly messy.

G'raha's continued existence after averting the events that caused the eighth Umbral calamity suggested that it did create an alternate timeline and was later confirmed with one of the Tales from Shadows side stories.

At this point I'm mostly curious how Pandemonium is going to play into things given that against all my expectations it also seems to take place in the past.

[Cleretic]

Thoughts on time travel related shenanigans

The whole time loop aspect of the story just feels really jarring to me as it just seems to go out of it's way to break the story's own rules in regards to time travel in ways which are just necessary. Sure you could say that this is how it's meant to play out, we always went back in time, told Venat about the final days and Zodiark and her role in summoning Hydaelyn but by their own rules set out in Shadowbringers that cannot be the case.

We're supposed to be dead.

The entire catalyst for the Shadowbringers story is that the Garlean Empire brought about the 8th calamity which resulted in our death. This then lead descendants of Cid and the Ironworks guys to find a way to change the past resulting in G'raha being woken up and sent to the first to stop the flood of light. This then results in a new timeline being created where the 8th calamity didn't happen allowing us to survive. If this new timeline hadn't been created we would not have been able to travel back in time to Elpis to meet Venat and tell her everything that happens as we would be dead. Doesn't this then just result in a Paradox? We're only able to find Meteion in the end because Venat tagged her with that tracking crystal, but if we weren't there Venat wouldn't have been there either as the only reason she gets involved is because we tell her our story. By the stories own logic, this should have resulted in a new timeline, but didn't. Instead, it's set up as a time loop and we were always there, but we can't have been as in the original timeline as well... we were dead and had no means to travel back in time besides.

The only possible logical explanation that I can come up with is that by us telling Hydaelyn that we met her in Elpis somehow blended these two timelines together but that just seems so needlessly messy.

I've got a couple angles on this one that might get us in the right place.

1. Our appearance ultimately didn't change a whole lot of Venat's plan. She was always going to do pretty much all of those components whether or not we were there, still responding in the same way to all the same events, so a theoretical WoL-less timeline still played out in, broadly, exactly the same way. Therefore, things don't break.

2. Similar to how Alexander's time loop had Quickthinx's time loop as a smaller component, the Elpis time loop already required the Exarch time loop as a component, and so the Exarch time loop was always a necessary element. Essentially, Shadowbringers was causally required to happen.

3. The story works on Bill and Ted rules, and so all time travel has, ultimately, already happened; there is no 'original' time loop, no version of events where the WoL wasn't in Elpis that day. This is actually consistent with how the Alexander storyline plays out, Alexander also uses Bill and Ted rules.

Personally I think #3 is most plausible.