The Omega Protocol

[SannaR]

Is there any lore we can go over from the newest Ultimate with a fine toothed comb? For those who don't know how the fight unfolds I'll go over a very generalized of what happens.

Opening phase we have beatle form Omega that has level checker towers, panacrator and wave cannons? After defeating it Omega goes into M and F and does attacks from that phase. The fight still not changing much from their normal and or savage versions. Once you beat M and F it goes into the form you only got to see in O12s in its 2nd phase. This form opens up with Hello World and Patch. You must kill it without any lingering debuffs on or you die. This phase also is where what used to be a double tank buster is now placed on certain party members and you have to aim it properly. I'm not sure if it's phase 3 or phase 4 where it uses the phase code smell as part of a debuff description.

By this time Omega's kind of fighting itself as part of it is trying to force a shutdown and reboot. While the other half doesn't want to and is going about dropping all of its inhibitors. You mechanics wise must get its HP down to or below 20% or it will kill you with Blue Screen. That's right folks it will literally give you a Blue Screen of death. For some reason it looks like a small nuclear explosion. This is also where in the fight Dynamis is used as right after this we go back to Omega M and F but they now have a golden glow of Dynamis surrounding them.

Phase 5 starts out like the 2nd phase only to have Omega F go away and have the fight go into its first trio phase where you need to bait some arms, break tethers at appropriate times, dodge the Big Eye in the background and dodge either a Larboard or Starboard that's been renamed at least in the English localization. All the while needing to have a Dynamis buff be passed amongst the group. If at any time said buff wears off you die.

The whole fight really is too far away up to phase 5 is too close or too far away from someone you die. All the while you're needing to dodge things even during transitions where Omega is still throwing out mechanics as it tries to figure out why you just won't die and how can it gain more strength to try and succeed in killing you. Anyway Omega F comes back and thinks oh well what if I give them the tiniest of safe spots will they be able to dodge it while collecting three stacks of Dynamis.

At some point during phase 5 we get to see the nuclear explosion go off again. Being another check point. Same with the monitors. At the end of phase 5 Omega F does a beam attack that sends your group to the edge of the arena. Afterwards you get the first real breather in the form of the start of the Cutscene that plays out at the end of O12. Where best boy and possibly 3rd highest on the fluffy hierarchy Alpha pops out and makes their way over to Omega F and Alpha Kwehs starts glowing with the golden color of Dynamis and combines with Omega. Omega is in its M form with a small Alpha in their chest, grows four more arms and gains a divinity halo. I guess Omega due to joining with Alpha is able to re-account its journey across the rift and space. As it opens up with an attack that looks like Giga Flare. Then tries to kill you with the power of a thousand sun's. Omega then tries to kill you with Exojoels er I mean Exo Flares and Dragoon LB3. The opening attack you need to use a tank LB3 that changes your Dynamis buff to a different names Dynamis buff.

Again if you somehow have a person die or loose the buff in any manner you wipe. After Omega tries to kill you with another round of the semi cross hatch and Exo Flare attacks he whips out meteors. Where the insta fill due to Dynamis LB vomit phase starts along with the enrage. You need to use a caster and physical range LB3s back to back to deal with all the meteors while the group deals with the other two flares and other minor attacks. Omega then needs you to tank LB into a Healer LB as the attack they unleash gives you a debuff that if not quickly cleansed will automatically kill you. The group then needs to also spend a physical LB3 as just the same in earlier phases you need to get the sucker's HP down pretty fast as the enrage has already started. It's just you don't know it has.

Omega then does the same attack that gave you that one debuff from a bit earlier which eats the other tank and healer LB3s. Then the final physical LB3 gets used up. All the while your group loses its Dynamis buff. This is the only time Omega doesn't automatically kill you for losing it. With Omega seemingly understanding how you can push past your limits for a species it never thought would have been worthwhile to even bother attacking chooses to try and claim victory with one last Ultimate attack. Only to be defeated and be left a little confused as it quickly transfers itself into the OMG "toy" chassie. Choosing to say goodbye to you and to go on what it does now post O12. Which is to go roaming with Alpha. While still not fully understanding what the heck Dynamis is or how it works.

[thegreatonemal]

It's just a what if Omega was able to harness "heart" aka dynamis. This is impossible given dyanmis does not lend itself to scientific understanding and the entire point is you can't manipulate it to do what you want when you want.

But forget all that what if it was possible. That's it.

[Lurina]

I feel like the concept of Dynamis kinda ruins the Omega raid's plot insofar as it changes the underlying implication from "traumatized robot numbed from millennia of unspeakable loneliness has forgotten the strength of will that comes from defending something you love" to "extremely powerful interstellar civilization somehow fails to discover that dark matter exists".

That's just me, though.

[RyuDragnier]

I feel like the concept of Dynamis kinda ruins the Omega raid's plot insofar as it changes the underlying implication from "traumatized robot numbed from millennia of unspeakable loneliness has forgotten the strength of will that comes from defending something you love" to "extremely powerful interstellar civilization somehow fails to discover that dark matter exists".

That's just me, though.

But Dynamis is strength of will and emotions.

[Lurina]

But Dynamis is strength of will and emotions.

Yeah, but it's also space energy that you can detect using science.

In my opinion, the more you construct a mechanical worldbuilding framework around something primarily thematic, the more it dilutes the actual meaning and authenticity that is the whole point in the first place.

Like, it's the same issue as midi-chlorians in Star Wars. The message and moral philosophy of that universe is grounded in Lucas's interpretation of Dharmic philosophy, and in the original movies, the nature of the Force is ambiguous, so it's relationship to those ideas can be less complicatedly centered by the narrative. Luke becomes powerful and prevails because he learns to let go of selfish desire, his fear of loss and death, and embrace unconditional compassion. His strength within the setting is directly tied with his realization of its themes.

How does the revelation that this was also because he had an unusual amount of special space bugs in his bloodstream further the message? It doesn't. It doesn't ruin it, but at best it's just confusing and muddying.

Likewise, if we assume the core message of the Omega story is "strength comes from finding things you love", the introduction of Dynamis as a quantifiable friendship energy just adds an extra layer of fluff between what we see in the story and the core truth it's trying to present. It's pointless and distracting.

[Vyrerus]

Midi-chlorians

To be fair, at least the Midi-chlorians have the angle of, "Showcasing that the contemporary Jedi Order had lost its way with what was truly important."

Neither in the Prequel nor original trilogy do the M-counts actually matter in the most important bits. In the prequels, Obi-wan defeats Anakin by knowing Anakin intimately as a person and playing against his faults. In the OT, Luke doesn't defeat Vader and the Emperor because he's simply more powerful than them. He defeats them by committing to his training and personal belief and his love for his father.

By comparison, Dynamis is now interlocked with gameplay as well as the narrative, so it's always going to directly impact everything. At scriptwriter's discretion. Especially since almost all of the beings in the current events of the setting do not have the information that it makes up the majority of the energy in the universe as stated by Hermes (who coulda been wrong, because I mean, real world reference aside, how has he observed the entirety of the universe and all its inherent energy?). Omega does, of course, but does Omega have the capacity to directly manipulate it forever and for always? Or is it dependent on his platform? It shouldn't be, he should just be able to roid out his OMG toy body with sheer emotion. It's all malarkey.

[thegreatonemal]

I feel like the concept of Dynamis kinda ruins the Omega raid's plot insofar as it changes the underlying implication from "traumatized robot numbed from millennia of unspeakable loneliness has forgotten the strength of will that comes from defending something you love" to "extremely powerful interstellar civilization somehow fails to discover that dark matter exists".

That's just me, though.

I mean robot never had that to begin with and is trying to understand that, only to find out that it wouldn't have helped it anyway.

[YianKutku]

"extremely powerful interstellar civilization somehow fails to discover that dark matter exists".

Dark energy. Different from dark matter.

It's called "dark" because nobody knows what it actually is, and it doesn't appear to interact with the rest of the observable universe in any way consistent with known physical laws. Dark energy in particular does not seem to have a source or point of origin: it's just presumably there, causing the expansion of the universe, and apparently evenly and consistently suffused throughout the entire universe.

Which matches the concepts of both the Sanskrit "akasha", and the classical idea of "aether". Since "aether" is already used in FFXIV's setting to mean something specific, I can understand the writing team using "akasha" to refer to the non-aether dynamis.

[Vyrerus]

I guess we get the info that if Omega could access Dynamis, it could become god-like.

Doesn't really mean much in the lore scheme of things though, imo, since we kill what normal people consider gods on the daily.

[Lyth]

It's the opposite, actually. We're moving away from a more well defined entity that follows fixed 'rules' to a more nebulous one based off of emotions and spiritualism.

Aether is the 'hard science' of Etheirys. The word itself is rooted in western Greco-Roman tradition, the word meaning 'sky'. They've quite deliberately chosen the Vedic word 'Akasha', which also means 'sky', to represent Aether's mystical and spiritual counterpart. It's really refreshing that every scholarly type we've run into in game so far has managed to handle the concept's introduction in a non-dogmatic and non-ethnocentric way.

'Hannish mystical theories that directly contradict my Archon's thesis? I never liked the old paperweight anyway. Please, teach me more!'