Endwalker Main Scenario Commentary & Feedback

[Iscah]

Re. inhabitants of the final zone

My other question is in regards to the status of the inhabitants of Ultima Thule after finishing 6.0: namely, are the inhabitants of UT now actually alive/living for real now?
Because I understood that the areas aren't the actual remnants of the original planets (i.e. stars) that the Meteia encountered in their journey, but rather are recreations of them. And I believe Y'shtola and/or Urianger compare the inhabitants to the shades of the Ancients in Emet-Selch's recreated Amaurot. So wouldn't that mean that like the Ancient shades, they weren't the actual original souls of the dead planets, right? But after Meteion is beat and she restores "life/hope" to the universe, did that turn the inhabitants of Ultima Thule into for-real alive/original souls denizens?

Because the way the game discusses them and the side-quests treat them (after beating 6.0), it appears like they are living beings with souls now. (and from what I understood Meteion collected the dead souls of the planets she had visited and sequestered them away in the dead sun, so that they wouldn't continue to be reincarnated/reborn into potential future new lives, right?)

Or were the inhabitants of UT always alive, & it was only the specific individuals that the Scions had to emotionally overcome in order to progress through the zone (the ones that turned into black birds) that weren't alive and were only recreated shades?

An explanation I've seen elsewhere that makes sense:

The inhabitants are initially recreated memories, as explained to us while we're exploring, but that changes when we summon Emet and Hyth and they work their magic to allow us to reclaim the other Scions' souls. This (according to the theory) flooded the whole zone with aether, replacing the dynamis that originally gave it form – so the Scions' aether is no longer needed to do the same job – and this seems to have affected the inhabitants as well. It has given them physical aether-based forms and they seem to have broken out of the frozen state they were trapped in.

On timelines:

The whole time shenanigan. G'raha's original timeline is now an oddity, cause if we caused a time loop to happen, then G'raha's future should have never happened in the first place, yet it needed to in order to save the first. Cause if we died in G'raha's timeline, then the time loop wouldn't have happened, and Venat might have never caused the sundering (unless she had already decided on it, even without meeting us).

What do you mean, I seem to have a pet subject...?

G'raha's timeline has always been an oddity because it contrasted with the Alexander plot before it, which indicates that time loops are the standard outcome of time travel shenanigans and G'raha's successful "breaking out" is inconsistent.

My own theory is that the split specifically happened because he altered the past in a way that could not be reconciled with his original future, so the timeline has to take a second course but the first one can't be shut down.

For everything else, the changes get absorbed into the single original timeline.

The "Elpis time loop" doesn't have anything to do with G'raha's time loop spiral besides that his actions paved the way for the timeline where the Elpis loop is completed.

You don't need one to happen "before" the other can be fulfilled. In the sort of objective whole-of-timeline view of everything that happened over time, they're just separate loops and swirls that link into each other.

We may feel like we "create" time as we live it, but as soon as it's possible to make contact with someone from another point in time, you have to accept that from another person's perspective your future has already happened even though you are in full control of your actions at all times.

On Zenos's fate:

We just…abandon his body to the edge of the universe. What does that mean for his soul? Did it endure once more due to his Resonant abilities, or was he somehow perma-killed? And if it’s the latter, does he get to return home to Etheirys’ aetherial sea for an opportunity to try again, or is he just drifting out there in the dark expanse? He got exactly what he wanted in the end, but the fate of his soul may be even unkinder than that of Amon’s, who wrought significantly more damage.

Emet and Hyth were successfully summoned out of Etheirys's Lifestream and talk as if they'll go back there once they dissipate, so presumably (if dead) Zenos would as well.

There's a line somewhere about souls returning to the Lifestream "or joining a larger flow"? Perhaps Etheirys is actually some kind of aetherial centre point for the entire universe and "Silvertear Lake as the source of all aether/magic" (I cant remember which) is not just for the planet itself.

Tower of Babil:

A thing I'd like to note about Barnabas, however: If you look at his forehead, you'll see that he has the Garlean Third Eye, meaning just like Inferno and Number #24 from Castrum Abania, he's another Hypertuned experiment.

Is he a Frankenstein's monster or a robot? Either way, any fully artificial creation of a human form by a Garlean (be it a statue or a child's drawing or a high-tech robotic abomination) is likely to have the third eye because that's what people are to them, in the same way that the statues on the Azim Steppe are horned Au Ra.

From general context it's likely that, if organic, Barnabas is a hypertuned – but the mere presence of a third eye isn't specific proof of that.