SPOILERS: After Endwalker... I have some questions

[HyoMinPark]

Pardon, some of us are used to just using spoiler tags everywhere due to the amount of people not yet finished with the MSQ. It’s a habit.

“Ultima Thule” also has real-life connotations to it that I think might have resulted in the lore team choosing it as the final zone’s namesake over “Terminus”. Terminus is more in reference to the blasphemies that we’ve fought, not necessarily a place. They don’t manifest from Ultima Thule, but rather from within an individual as the product of panic and despair—they don’t even manifest in Ultima Thule itself (I don’t recall any mobs with the name “Terminus” present there; I’ll have to swing by and check later).

Terminus is an end—the people that became blasphemies later ceased to be in their entirety, hence “the end” of them. Ultima Thule is simply a place at the edge of the in-game universe—hence the name “beyond the borders of the known world”. Even if it’s described as the “end of the universe”, the universe is massive. For all we know, it’s not the very end. Merely the furthest anyone has managed to travel. Much like our own universe.

[Iscah]

Terminus is an end

That's my point.

Not the end of the people who turned into blasphemies, but the end of their very worlds – the crumbling remnants of so many, hanging together in that alien sky. That's what the zone is about to me: not just being a "faraway place" but a place of endings.

Back on the would-be Kingdom Hearts reference I mentioned earlier, the "world terminus" was a sub-zone of the End of the World: a gauntlet of deserted and monster-infested recreations of the worlds you had visited previously. That's stuck with me even though I haven't played it in years.

[HyoMinPark]

That's my point.

Not the end of the people who turned into blasphemies, but the end of their very worlds – the crumbling remnants of so many, hanging together in that alien sky. That's what the zone is about to me: not just being a "faraway place" but a place of endings.

Back on the would-be Kingdom Hearts reference I mentioned earlier, the "world terminus" was a sub-zone of the End of the World: a gauntlet of deserted and monster-infested recreations of the worlds you had visited previously. That's stuck with me even though I haven't played it in years.

While I understand what you’re saying, I still have to disagree. Especially with the implications of post-Smileton where it seems like there isn’t going to be an end to everything there (at least with regards to the Omicron). I dislike the entire idea of a cafe at Nekropolis, but the storyline in and of itself insinuates anything but an end.

[Iscah]

I dislike the entire idea of a cafe at Nekropolis

I am so apprehensive about them doing that. Apart from it being a strange choice of setting to come across in the MSQ, the stuff we were doing there was so solemn and solitary that when there was a second player clearly MSQing alongside me I stepped away from the game for a few minutes so we weren't on top of each other. The prospect of having a throng of people there doing beast tribe quests or whatever they're winding up to just seems wrong.

[HyoMinPark]

I am so apprehensive about them doing that. Apart from it being a strange choice of setting to come across in the MSQ, the stuff we were doing there was so solemn and solitary that when there was a second player clearly MSQing alongside me I stepped away from the game for a few minutes so we weren't on top of each other. The prospect of having a throng of people there doing beast tribe quests or whatever they're winding up to just seems wrong.

I completely agree with this. I feel like the heavy events that happened in Nekropolis warrant it remaining an empty, silent reminder of our solemn journey. I was so irritated after finishing the Smileton quest that I complained loudly about it to my friends haha. It just seems very…tone-deaf and in bad taste. Horrible comparison to consider, but I told a friend that, to me, this is the equivalent of building a theme park on top of a war ground or burial site. Just doesn't sit well with me at all.

[RyuDragnier]

While I understand what you’re saying, I still have to disagree. Especially with the implications of post-Smileton where it seems like there isn’t going to be an end to everything there (at least with regards to the Omicron). I dislike the entire idea of a cafe at Nekropolis, but the storyline in and of itself insinuates anything but an end.

It does make you wonder though...even though those NPCs in Ultima Thule are just recreations...have they obtained a soul, or in the process of obtaining one?

[kaynide]

That's my point.

Not the end of the people who turned into blasphemies, but the end of their very worlds – the crumbling remnants of so many, hanging together in that alien sky. That's what the zone is about to me: not just being a "faraway place" but a place of endings.

Back on the would-be Kingdom Hearts reference I mentioned earlier, the "world terminus" was a sub-zone of the End of the World: a gauntlet of deserted and monster-infested recreations of the worlds you had visited previously. That's stuck with me even though I haven't played it in years.

I think that was their point; Ultima Thule does not represent an endpoint to the universe when it is infinitely large- in 3D space an end point makes no sense. Neither does it represent an end of hope, or even an end to life there as made clear by our victory there.

Moreover Terminus has a variety of meanings such as simply being a train station. More-moreover, I think they wanted to be careful NOT to evoke other SE franchises that utilize Terminus, such as Kingdom Hearts.

Ultima Thule is exactly what it means to be- a place “beyond the borders of what we know”. Not an end, just beyond. No weird connections or hidden meanings.