Post EW, I still have Questions

[Alleluia]

So, Endwalker answered several questions I've had about events surrounding the final days and such. But it also left a few, as well as raising some, to me.

1. How did Emet and Lahabrea avoid being sundered?
1a. How is Elidibus unsundered when he's the heart of Zodiark and Zodiark is sundered???

2. Where was Azem during the Final Days and what were they doing?

3. What did Fandaniel mean when he said "Did Emet-Selch truly find a way...?" in response to hearing that Zenos has dreamed of the Final Days his whole life?

4. If tempering is an add-on to primal summoning and not an unavoidable requirement, then who included it in Zodiark's summoning and why?

5. Why does Azem seem to know about our pending presence in Pandaemonium, to the point they can (cryptically) tell Elidibus to be on the lookout for us? (And if they do, did they know we'd be in Elpis proper, too, and avoided us?)

6. And this might just be me, but why isn't Azem a proper character in their own right like Ardert, instead of being somehow determined by our CC choices in the future?

7. Was the moon ship idea ever supposed to be considered a viable option? I mean, they weren't remotely prepared despite 12k plus years. Also, nothing stopped Meteion from just redirecting her "gift" at whatever planet we landed on. Or the moon ship itself, though that possibly had an aetheric field properly shielding it. Was it just a play by Venat to give hope to people? Even Venat herself is like, "All I did in that time was prepare a way to flee? That seems dumb." And it wasn't even properly prepped, so...



I have a feeling the Pandeamonium raid is going to answer 4 and 5. (Current theory on 4 is that Lahabrea did it and that the trouble in Pan is his early tempering expermients running amok. Also there's vampires. For some reason.)

Rant about question 6:

With the addition of Azem seemingly knowing the future, or at least our specific movements in it, I am forming a crazy theory that the answer to 6 might be b/c we ARE Azem somehow? Not as in "we're a soul shard of them", but as in time travel is a loop and somehow we become them or end up creating them in our image or something?

There's also the fact that Azem was "less than half" Venat's age and yet surprisingly strong, a strength we have and which Venat immediately implies correlates to having "endured considerable hardship". And yet the society Azem is ostensibly from notabely doesn't have much hardship in it. Its the entire reason they were not able to cope with the despair Metion threw at them. Its also why Hermes was driven to despair: he seemed to be alone in feeling suffering. The Elpis blooms always being white indicated literally no one else felt such grief. While I find that difficult to believe, its what we're shown and told. So how'd such a young Azem grow so strong in such a society, then? What if their strength is from us... somehow?

Its crazy, and when it was just ShB I thought the devs were just being oddly selective about what they thought could break our immersion (Female WoL must apprently come from a female Azem, but having a male soul shard in Ardbert wasn't just as "weird" why???). However, now I'm not so sure??? lol

So yeah, least crazy option is we pass on our memories, via the Echo or a crystal, to a young pre-Venat Azem at some point. Most crazy is we (or an altered clone of us or something) ARE Azem.

Feel free to discuss or add your own questions.

[Rannie]

About 5, we do get a premonition about the final days after Zodiark is killed and the watcher said that our echo granted that premonition to us. I myself don't find it too unlikely that Azem of the past had one of us helping Themis with Pandaemonium. *shrugs* or atleast be a possible reason as to why.

Also about the rant

I'm still going to highly doubt it since we would have to find some way to travel so far into the past. And I mean really far for that like way before Emet became Emet and quite possibly before our past life became Azem. We did travel with both Emet and Hythlodeaus and helped people. (It's what gave Emet the unanimous support to be given the seat of Emet Selch to begin with.) Next is unless we merge with all the other Shards then we would be too thin soul wise as well as aether wise to even really be able to do anything.

Plus if you remember since we've joined with Ardbert our soul is now denser than even what the sources people are. So the rejoining would still have to happen other wise when we are sundered our soul would be less dense after 9 rejoining as opposed to said being denser as the Nu Moh said after the fake ardbert appeared

[Alleluia]

Also about the rant

I'm still going to highly doubt it since we would have to find some way to travel so far into the past. And I mean really far for that like way before Emet became Emet and quite possibly before our past life became Azem. We did travel with both Emet and Hythlodeaus and helped people. (It's what gave Emet the unanimous support to be given the seat of Emet Selch to begin with.) Next is unless we merge with all the other Shards then we would be too thin soul wise as well as aether wise to even really be able to do anything.

Plus if you remember since we've joined with Ardbert our soul is now denser than even what the sources people are. So the rejoining would still have to happen other wise when we are sundered our soul would be less dense after 9 rejoining as opposed to said being denser as the Nu Moh said after the fake ardbert appeared

Oh, I know. Like I said, its a crazy idea at this point. I mean, I do wonder if we're going to end up merged with our other soul shards at some point, but even if we do, the time travel would be an issue. Also, if we do influence young Azem (or are them somehow) why don't we stop the Final Days entirely? Though... I suppose we're back to time being a loop again? It could tie into why Azem is just plain nowhere to be found during the whole thing.

[Cilia]

7 is the only one that can be properly answered. Kind of.

Whether or not the moon exodus plan was really viable depends on whether or not Meteion's song of oblivion had to be directed. If so, escaping Etheirys to settle a distant, random planet she would need an unforeseen amount of time to find would work. If not, nope. We don't know one way or another though.

The moon wasn't fully finished because making it into an ark was retrofitting; originally it was nothing but Zodiark's prison, until thousands of years later Hydaelyn created the loporrits and charged them with making the moon inhabitable by the people of Etheriys. Besides which the moon is inhabitable, it's just not quite... to scale because the loporrits didn't know the modern people of Etheriys are a lot shorter than the Ancients. It doesn't have the creature comforts people are accustomed to because the loporrits got all their knowledge on modern Etheriys from the infamously austere Sharlayans, that's all. The main obstacle to the exodus is that there's no quick transit between the moon and the planet (other than the Tower of Babil, which wasn't completed until very recently and is dangerous to access besides).

The exodus was also the Plan B, to be executed only if the people of Etheriys wanted to flee rather than fight. Confronting pain and sorrow rather than running from it was kind of a major theme in Endwalker though, so...

[Alleluia]

The moon wasn't fully finished because making it into an ark was retrofitting; originally it was nothing but Zodiark's prison, until thousands of years later Hydaelyn created the loporrits and charged them with making the moon inhabitable by the people of Etheriys.

I thought Hydaelyn created the Lopporits with the moon?

[Cilia]

I thought Hydaelyn created the Lopporits with the moon?

After, not with. We don't have a precise point in time but the loporrits were created thousands of years after the Sundering and Zodiark's imprisonment, but before Allag launched Dalamud.

They tell you all this when you visit the moon.

[Alleluia]

After, not with. We don't have a precise point in time but the loporrits were created thousands of years after the Sundering and Zodiark's imprisonment, but before Allag launched Dalamud.

They tell you all this when you visit the moon.

I do not recall ever being told or having it implied the lopporits were created thousands of years after the moon was. Can you give me an idea where to look for that, beyond just the moon in general? Was it MSQ? Landscape quest dialogue? I assume its a lopporit that says it.

[Cilia]

I do not recall ever being told or having it implied the lopporits were created thousands of years after the moon was. Can you give me an idea where to look for that, beyond just the moon in general? Was it MSQ? Landscape quest dialogue? I assume its a lopporit that says it.

OK, I was wrong.

Well, it's not as if we've been waiting twelve thousand years to meet the people of Etheirys. Oh wait, we have!

Regardless, I can understand why it wouldn't be ready. 12,000 years is a long time but turning a celestial body into a spaceship would be no mean feat... and, well, the loporrits are not the most, ah, sensible folk. Besides which it was ready, just not very comfortable, and the main obstacle was getting stuff up from Etheirys. (Domiciles were 3x larger than necessary.)

[MikkoAkure]

1. How did Emet and Lahabrea avoid being sundered?
1a. How is Elisibus unsundered when he's the heart of Zodiark and Zodiark is sundered???

We haven't learned why the unsundered are unsundered yet, but Elidibus was spat out of Zodiark before the Sundering. There was a good deal of time from the 2nd act of Zodiark to the Sundering. We don't know how much time, but it was at the very least enough for the Ancients to have their first big disagreement ever, Elidibus to eject himself to mediate, and Venat to gather her supporters and summon Hydaelyn.

2. Where was Azem during the Final Days and what were they doing?

No one knows yet.

4. If tempering is an add-on to primal summoning and not an unavoidable requirement, then who included it in Zodiark's summoning and why?

Part of tempering is the shift in your aether towards a certain element. It wasn't specifically built into Zodiark, but he is so powerful and aetherically dense that his summoning shifting the aether to those present to darkness was unavoidable. The degree to which they're tempered is debatable because of the fact they're Ancients and it wasn't intentional, but the Ascians still spent 12000 years praying to their "one true god" and talking about plunging the world into darkness etc. so it at least had some effect and thousands of years of doing this didn't help their mental state.

6. And this might just be me, but why isn't Azem a proper character in their own right like Ardert, instead of being somehow determined by our CC choices in the future?

I feel like Azem is closer to "us" specifically than Ardbert is. That's also why Azem's gender changes depending on your character. Plus Ardbert was created all the way back in Heavensward before they had even planned for Shadowbringers so him being the First's part of our soul was probably a retcon behind the scenes. From what was said during a Fan Fest, it seems that a lot of the writing isn't planned too far away and they leave just enough open threads for possible future plotlines. But now we'll probably never see Azem in person since they look like your character only if you play Hyur. It would be especially difficult to reconcile if you're a lalafell or hrothgar.

[Kuroka]

1. How did Emet and Lahabrea avoid being sundered?
1a. How is Elisibus unsundered when he's the heart of Zodiark and Zodiark is sundered???

2. Where was Azem during the Final Days and what were they doing?

Both or those could be explained by Venat knowing the future - they never really escaped, she spared em as she knew it was needed.

And Azem might have tried to find another way, or stayed back on her wish... we might learn it... as "we" somehow are involved on the raid as well...