Sundering stuff established in the Q&A

[KageTokage]

The destruction wrought by the fall of Dalamud (and Bahamut's subsequent rampage) caused quite a few awakenings of the Echo. All it takes is imagery associated with the Final Days and the right latent potential. Venat was never a requirement for it.

We know it's by no means a requirement but she presumably was responsible for the vast majority of Echo bearers since the post-Sundering world began as it's not like such imagery is a frequent occurrence...at least not in our corner of the world.

I do hope that they don't gloss over the fact that the second coming of the Final Days would've logically awakened even more people to the Echo wherever the skies had begun to burn, though.

[Rulakir]

At the very least we had some dialogue options to give disdain and disagree with Emet. We didn’t even get that with Venat. The only thing we get is to call her out on her lies to the watcher and it’s immediately handwaved. She also gets her own minion calling her a hero. Emet didn’t get that(Emet hasn’t gotten any minion sadly).

We only had negative (or at best neutral) dialog towards Emet. Even with Zenos I had the option to "accept" him before the Shinryu battle. The only negative options for Hydaelyn are before you go to Elpis. At most you get to say you can't trust her because she's a primal and question the Watcher about the origin story she told you. Once you meet Venat everything is downhill from there, you'll never get another opportunity to say anything to her that isn't kind or favorable.

I think more people should NG+ ShB after EW. Going back in hindsight you recognize a lot more. G'raha and Thancred hated Emet. Y'shtola tells Emet they can't abide by him killing millions to restore his world. I honestly don't know where this "it was only Alisaie" comes from because it was most definitely not just her. Alphinaud was only stumped because he couldn't think of a good counter-argument to Emet at the last because he was right, half of the sundered wouldn't sacrifice themselves to save the other half.

Certainly, there's a mismatch between the degree of reverence for Hydaelyn and her actions, but rather than wishing to see her equally admonished, I wish the reason for the admonishment never happened.

I don't find any joy at all in this "actually everyone was flawed and did terrible things by choice" revelation. I just wanted a story about likeable people doing their best to make the world better, even if (for the ancients) things went wrong in the end.

I expected the sundering to be accidental. I thought that was the whole reason for the setup of making Zodiark the "will of the star" and Emet saying when he was sundered everything associated with him was too. The decision to make the sundering of everyone intentional and with knowledge of the future is baffling.

It's not mentioned as much as it should be, but having the WoL being an accomplice was horrible too. We're essentially responsible for knocking over that first domino by making the mistake of trusting Venat with knowledge of the future to misuse. I don't want that kind of guilt and responsibility. The WoL wasn't involved in assisting any rejoinings, but we're directly involved in causing the whole sundering mess in the first place. That sucks.

[Rannie]

It's not mentioned as much as it should be, but having the WoL being an accomplice was horrible too. We're essentially responsible for knocking over that first domino by making the mistake of trusting Venat with knowledge of the future to misuse. I don't want that kind of guilt and responsibility. The WoL wasn't involved in assisting any rejoinings, but we're directly involved in causing the whole sundering mess in the first place. That sucks.

I dont know if I would call the WoL an accomplice exactly to what Venat did. Remember while it was she who realized that our character was from the future it was all of them including Emet that forced our character to speak about it. Also ultimately it was Venat herself who decided to act the way she did. Heck before we even leave we have the option to say that maybe we should stay in the past to assist them.

One other telling thing as well is I think our character was kinda hoping that after we told Emet about what happened, he would then help us in any way shape and form. Especially after what Hythlodaeus had told us what he did about him. Unfortunately that hope ended up getting dashed when, what I would call, fate conspiring against it and causing those two to forget. But that's just my thoughts...

[Firlont]

Didn't Elidibus do that as well?

[Rosenstrauch]

Didn't Elidibus do that as well?

Aye. He used the illusion of a meteor shower to awaken the Echo in people on the First. It's possible that someone could repeat that act. Hell, it's possible that the player could do it, given the means to create such an illusion.

[Firlont]

Aye. He used the illusion of a meteor shower to awaken the Echo in people on the First. It's possible that someone could repeat that act. Hell, it's possible that the player could do it, given the means to create such an illusion.

Yeah, the way Elidibus talked on the First he had previously engaged in that ploy to lead people around multiple times in history and even made it sound almost as if they were always dancing to his tune. The one thing I would have really liked to hear at some point would be how many times, if ever, aside from our own efforts on the First and mistakes on the Thirteenth, did the efforts to create a Rejoining fail? The Ascians never talk about having failed, and would probably never choose to. Hydaelyn was silent for so long, with her strength being used only to tell us what was needed. We can't easily know, now, as the principal figures involved in those times are all gone.

The Word of the Mother said she failed seven times, and the Darkness grew stronger, but she never said anything about never having succeeded.

[Iscah]

The Word of the Mother said she failed seven times, and the Darkness grew stronger, but she never said anything about never having succeeded.

The thing is, it's an uneven game. On the assumption that she cannot re-sunder the shards now, she can only lose ground from here and the Ascians can only gain, because rejoining is permanent. The Ascians can succeed in rejoining a shard; Hydaelyn can only thwart them "for now" until they try again.

There is no "win" state for Hydaelyn except for wiping out all the Ascians so they can't perform further rejoinings, and that's still just preventing further losses.

[KageTokage]

The Ancient world was likely extremely uniform and lacking the cultural diversity of the sundered world given that we know at minimum that they shunned behavior that would draw attention to oneself whether by violating their dress code or utilizing transformation magicks in the public eye, and it seemed like the bulk of their creative expression was limited to...well, their creation magicks.

I do wonder if other less open-minded Ancients would've found the notion of such a world more offensive then interesting.

[Skyborne]

Aye. He used the illusion of a meteor shower to awaken the Echo in people on the First. It's possible that someone could repeat that act. Hell, it's possible that the player could do it, given the means to create such an illusion.

Time for me to put on my white cowl and run around launching those meteor fireworks and watch all the Echoes awaken. I don't know if they would hear the whole 'hear, feel, think' spiel anymore though.

The Ancient world was likely extremely uniform and lacking the cultural diversity of the sundered world given that we know at minimum that they shunned behavior that would draw attention to oneself whether by violating their dress code or utilizing transformation magicks in the public eye, and it seemed like the bulk of their creative expression was limited to...well, their creation magicks.

I do wonder if other less open-minded Ancients would've found the notion of such a world more offensive then interesting.

I was kind of hoping we would learn about the other settlements that were out there, but unfortunately, Elpis was largely an MSQ setpiece and we were focused on one particular mission. Like that city across the sea from Amaurot mentioned in ShB, and the islands in the grape tale. It also seemed to me that the Amaurotines were more focused on diversity of thought, rather than diversity of appearance. Everyone was 'anonymous' and only their thoughts, talents, and ideas mattered. They also had plays and probably other kinds of arts, considering the seat of Altima was dedicated to it.