Sundering stuff established in the Q&A

[Rosenstrauch]

The sundering is just messy. I assume it's a holdover from 1.0, but I've never liked the idea of split souls.

From what I recall, the Sundering first came up in Heavensward. Prior to that, there was no mention of it. It's possible that it came up in 1.0, but I have my doubts.

My headcanon was that Azem helped Emet escape being sundered.

That was my headcanon as well, with the addition that Azem was also the one leading the arguments against further sacrifices rather than Venat.

I made this distinction in my head to explain why Emet-Selch seemed to believe one thing about her motives while the recording in Anamnesis Anyder showed her and her followers expressing very different motives. There was definitely room in the story for Emet-Selch to attribute Azem's actions to her, or believe they were cooperating when they actually weren't.

Being wrong on both accounts has left me a bit annoyed, to say the least.

As it stands, Azem looks like they've just been sitting on their thumbs the whole time, doing absolutely nothing to avoid upsetting the playerbase by assigning a choice they don't agree with to that character. Never mind that doing nothing is also a consciously made choice.

And Venat? It's not impossible for a character to hold multiple conflicting views. But the impression I get at this point is that she's simply a very two-faced individual—it would go a long way towards explaining her outright lying and extreme ends-justify-means behavior.

[Theodric]

One problem though is where would we find this information, we do not as of right now have access to the new world and amaurot is mostly under water off the coast of limsa pretty much... secondly how much of the information on the source survived with the 7 region destroying Calamaties that have hit in 12,000 or more years since said sundering?

There's almost certainly going to be at least two more trips to Elpis in order to deal with Pandaemonium. In 6.2 and 6.4 with the established pattern for raid content. They may or may take a cue from the Nier raids and have a story quest for Pandaemonium in 6.1. Given how Themis is established as 'good friends' with Azem we might learn more through him.

Failing that, another opportunity would arise when if and when we travel to the Reflections at some point in the future. Remnants of the Ancient world may very well be intact there leading to further discoveries.

[Rannie]

There's almost certainly going to be at least two more trips to Elpis in order to deal with Pandaemonium. In 6.2 and 6.4 with the established pattern for raid content. They may or may take a cue from the Nier raids and have a story quest for Pandaemonium in 6.1. Given how Themis is established as 'good friends' with Azem we might learn more through him.

Failing that, another opportunity would arise when if and when we travel to the Reflections at some point in the future. Remnants of the Ancient world may very well be intact there leading to further discoveries.

That would be good places, I kinda wasn't thinking of those... source would be a no go though unless maybe Meracydia or the new world (if anything could be found).

[Alsbet]

Maybe this was answered before but I have to ask. Was the world and its people the only thing sundered or did that also extend to the universe? Like say for example, if we ended getting a proper invasion from Omega's crew, would they end up hitting the Source or one of the reflections?

[Rannie]

Maybe this was answered before but I have to ask. Was the world and its people the only thing sundered or did that also extend to the universe? Like say for example, if we ended getting a proper invasion from Omega's crew, would they end up hitting the Source or one of the reflections?

It was just the world and the people on it... the universe was untouched by the time midgard got to the source it was already shattered and scattered. And it seems they would only happen upon the source since that's what happened to Midgard and Omega already.

[Alsbet]

So, does that mean that the other reflections are in their own pocket dimension? I understand that if the source is gone, so are the rest of worlds. But I'm still trying to get how it would look to outside sources, like it would for the space faring races out in the universe.

[Rannie]

From what I could make out from what Vrtra said that when Midgard reached Ethereiys it was already broken and the shards were scattered.

Give me a moment to get out of a cutscene and get to an inn and I'll have to exact quote

Vrtra: "Nay. When war and strife drove my sire from his home, he crossed the Great expanse with only our unhatched eggs as company. He alighted upon a shattered Source, it's thirteen reflections long scattered beyond the rift."

The Jewel of Thavnair Cutscene #1 in the Unending Journal

[Rulakir]

Did Elidibus know Venat was Hydaelyn? His ending dialog in the Crystal Tower is, "Yours is the mantle of the last of us." Was something lost in translation or perhaps another consistency error?

From what I recall, the Sundering first came up in Heavensward. Prior to that, there was no mention of it. It's possible that it came up in 1.0, but I have my doubts.

I was thinking of the intro cutscene to ARR with the Mothercrystal surrounded by 14 shards. I suppose they could have written it backwards, like they did with the song "Answers".

As it stands, Azem looks like they've just been sitting on their thumbs the whole time, doing absolutely nothing to avoid upsetting the playerbase by assigning a choice they don't agree with to that character. Never mind that doing nothing is also a consciously made choice.

I'd consider finding an alternate solution to be the most neutral path. I agree that Azem doing nothing is a bad look and isn't consistent with what we know of their character.

[KageTokage]

I do question the nature of the sundered worlds. Do they exist within their own universes proper with their own stars and worlds out there in the cosmos?

I feel like whatever this secondary reason for the moons of the Source and the shards existing is might shed some light on that.

[Iscah]

In other words, Yoshi-P favors the idea of it being a stable time loop, and most of the in-game events do support this interpretation. Moreover, this would mean it's not the first loop, and it won't be the last. Stable time loops are eternal unless some external force swoops in to disrupt them. Makes one wonder just how many times the loop has repeated now. The entire system would essentially be consigned to it, as the loop was forced into being a necessity for Etheirys to survive.

This is all very wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey but the "loop" part of a stable time loop does not actually mean that events happen over and over.

The events form a loop in that every part of it relies on some other part supporting its existence, but it all happens along one timeline, and everyone and everything involved only experiences their role (or multiple roles at different points in their life) in the loop once. It all happens in a single pass chronologically, even though the movement of people around the timeline may be non-linear.

(In a story that is strictly a time loop model there is nothing that can be disrupted here. In this game's model, with the potential for time to be altered as in Shadowbringers, the disrupted sequence of events would likely spin off into an alternate timeline.)

It does result in a unsatisfying "where did ideas come from" question if knowledge gets passed from the future to the past and then relied upon in setting up that future, which is why I maintain in this case that we either shouldn't have spoken the whole truth, instead concealing the specific roles that the others would play, or that Venat should have lost her memory with the others.

Either of those paths would make her decisions (right or wrong) hers to make, but now we are faced with an awkward conundrum of responsibility where – on the assumption that she feels obliged to continue and not break the timeline as we described it – she basically has no say in any of the things she does. She is merely walking an ordained path that we enforced upon her by describing her own past actions.

Maybe she would have chosen to do the things anyway, but she never had the chance to consider it or even come up with the ideas independently.