Crackpot Theory/Idea

[Midareyukki]

You know how we've and a certain best cat boi have been messing around with time travel for the last two expansions? Well, what if this all leads to the consequence of Ultimecia, FF8 main antagonist and ruler of all time within that game' story to appear in FFXIV?

Obviously, not the version directly from FF8, but A VERSION exclusive to FFXIV that takes advantage of us messing with time to try and compress all of time and space using the Crystal Tower on the First in an attempt to rule all existing timelines all at once.

And in so doing, our world,G'raha's old timeline ravaged by the Eighth Umbral Calamity and the World of the Unsundered inhabited by the Ancients are all set on a collision course to collide and fuse with one another. And so, it falls to us and the heroes of the other two respective world's to stop Ultimecia before its too late!

Also, would be a prime opportunity to brinf back Gigi from the HW Mandraville quests and bring in Time Mage as a possible job class. :3

Thoughts?

That'd be interesting. My only gripe is that time travel plots can backfire, but the boss's concept as a natural reaction to our actions is interesting. Especially if it evolves into having its own motivations. It'd also allow us to explore more esoteric areas as well, such as something inspired in Memoria from FF9 on the way to the boss, sort of as a nexus/amalgamation of all the moments in history crystallized in physical form. Perhaps it'd be a part of the Lifestream itself, allowing them to explain stuff like how aether and memories interact in further detail.

A promotion event in FFXIV would be great. I'd love to see Squall react to our version of the Gunblade. xD

Squall: "Maybe I'm a lion..."
FFXIV fanbase: "For 7€ you can be."

[Soge01]

That'd be interesting. My only gripe is that time travel plots can backfire, but the boss's concept as a natural reaction to our actions is interesting. Especially if it evolves into having its own motivations. It'd also allow us to explore more esoteric areas as well, such as something inspired in Memoria from FF9 on the way to the boss, sort of as a nexus/amalgamation of all the moments in history crystallized in physical form. Perhaps it'd be a part of the Lifestream itself, allowing them to explain stuff like how aether and memories interact in further detail.



Squall: "Maybe I'm a lion..."
FFXIV fanbase: "For 7€ you can be."

Maybe this Ultimecia could want time compression because of the first Final Days, developing an extreme cause of ptsd, paranoia and wanting to be in control over her own life and what happens around her.

Lol, would love it if our own Squall for this was actually a Hrothgar. xD

Where are you getting this part of the idea from? There is no indication that the world of the ancients exists as a separate parallel timeline – it is simply the past of our own.

And we never took the Crystal Tower to Elpis, but travelled through a portal that somehow uses the time-travel device in a different way and does not require G'raha's approach of uprooting of the entire structure to travel inside it.

Also, the First's Crystal Tower (relocated from the future of the 8UE timeline) is the only one that possesses time travel capabilities. The present-day tower in Mor Dhona is a big aether battery with a voidgate generator, but none of the modifications made by the Future Ironworks. Likewise, the present-day tower in the 8UE timeline is in the same state and additionally still occupied by sleepy G'raha for the next 200 years.

Oh no, I meant Ultimecia creates a parallel timeline of those timelines because those timelines are both already interconnected with our main timeline. Espon mensions how all three timelines basucally complete the timeloop and solidifies our own timeline without any cracks in the seams, if that makes since. Ultimecia wouldn't neccesarily be messing with those versions of the timelines, but ones where she interacts with them with the Crystal Tower.

Garlond Ironworks engineers have the memento/device that allows us to travel from the Source to the First. Its the means that creats the portal for us to travel between both worlds. And that's what I meant Ultimecia could steal in order to get to the First and gain access to its version of the Crystal Tower.

I never mentioned using the Source's Crystal Tower for time travel, but the First's. Ultimecia would gain the ability to exist in the World of the Unsundered, G'raha's timeline and the First all at the same time by traveling to the two former and then coming back to the latter. Thus establishing existence within time in three different timelines at once. And going from there, the Ultimecia that returned to the First would then use her Crystal Tower to establish a link to the other two Crystal Towers she used to travel to those two other timelines and thus create a gateway for her two past selves to come back to the present timeline on the First, use the rejoining technique Athena and Lahabrea demonstrated for us in the Pandemonium raid's story cutscene to make herself three times as powerful compared to your average Ancient. And then somehow compress all three timelines into one using the three Crystal Towers existing within all three timelines at once as a beacon of sorts, forcing time compression.

[Kazhar]

I think they already used all their Ultimecia references in E12S P2 with Gaia. We had Time Compression, The Extreme, Apocalypse, Hell's Judgement...
I know it's the fanservice FF but it would feel really cheap if they recycled a previous character twice.

[Enkidoh]

I think they already used all their Ultimecia references in E12S P2 with Gaia. We had Time Compression, The Extreme, Apocalypse, Hell's Judgement...
I know it's the fanservice FF but it would feel really cheap if they recycled a previous character twice.

^This. The FFVIII crossover was the Eden raids - they were even written by Tetsuya Nomura (who also famously provided the character design for Gaia, and it showed), and to a lesser extent with the whole GNB Job and Squall's outfit being the last veteran reward.

Considering also that Yoshi is apparently on record stating that the new story will be going in a direction that current or past story events do not hint at, I think we can safely rule out any kind of further Ultimecia apparence or reference I'm sorry to say.

[Midareyukki]

I think they already used all their Ultimecia references in E12S P2 with Gaia. We had Time Compression, The Extreme, Apocalypse, Hell's Judgement...
I know it's the fanservice FF but it would feel really cheap if they recycled a previous character twice.

Not counting the Eden raids recycling the ARR bosses...

[Iscah]

Not counting the Eden raids recycling the ARR bosses...

I assume that's more a case of two unrelated enemies making the same reference to a previous FF character?

[RitsukoSonoda]

The next time travel event in FFXIV will result in us somehow becoming our own grandpa regardless of character gender... >.>

[Soge01]

The next time travel event in FFXIV will result in us somehow becoming our own grandpa regardless of character gender... >.>

Hey! Azim's a sexy beast! How can you even resist em!? Even if its yourself! //slapped from existence

If we ever get a ff8 crossover, this should be all he says the entire quest, leading to the WOL and squall having a brooding contest

Can Laguna be invited to the club? Just so he can break the tension and hit on Y'shtola. :3

[Alien_Gamer]

I would take a different approach to it.

A brilliant sharlayan researcher who was studying the crystal tower and time travel had a brush with the Blasphemies and lost someone they were close to. Unable to bear the grief the researcher steals the time travel device and modifies it before jumping into the atiascope and using the unbound aether to power the device and travel to a different time with the intent to change recent history and save their loved one.

Concurrently, some researchers at Alexander get some unusual readings indicating Alexander may be awakening/becoming more active and request the help of the WoL to investigate due to our history with it. Inside, Alexander informs us someone has attempted to alter history at several points in time. Of course, we can't let that happen so we make a deal with Alexander to send us back to those times to prevent those changes.

The researcher was unable to harness sufficient power in the atiascope to make a change in the source so devised a way to capture aether from the source and channel it to the device. The researcher tapped into the periods in history with the highest amounts of ambient aether, the cataclysms at the end of each era, and siphoned that power. Removing that amount of aether would have drastic effects on both the source, the rejoining and the ascian plans which would end up rewriting history.

We could then have an expansion investigating one or two eras each before culminating in finding the researcher in the atiascope and destroying the device.

[Soge01]

"Wah!"