Solution 9 - Unfounded Speculation!

[Eisi]

Let's go peepz:

[diamondedge83]

I posted this in another thread, but it is my unfounded speulation that I have gleened:

"Lots of interesting possibilities. The expansions have had similarities to the main titles; Stormblood vaguely resembled FFII (War with the Empire, nothing too deep), Shadowbringers had several elements from FFIII (Crystal Tower, Warriors of Darkness, Light and Darkness are neither good nor evil, Eternal Wind), Endwalker FFIV (Too many to list, lol). Assuming this trend continues, Dawntrail should have FFV references and story beats. We already have Krile stepping up to be a more important role, her namesake being from FFV. The main story element that I think they'd use is two worlds once separated remerging into one, but of course that's nothing new for FFXIV. Another game that has a major story element of two worlds merging is FFIX. I'm thinking that's the Solution Nine reference, and could be another plan put in place by the Ascians. Perhaps the whole northern continent is from another shard, or another shard is bleeding over into the source and perhaps that's why there's a huge gash in the world, and also why there are two very different civilizations in the same place. The whole "Soul Supply" thing has me thinking about Zidane's people, the Genomes, who are vessels waiting to be filled with souls."

[Denishia]

I'm going to stake my flag of pure speculation on: It's homegrown Turali. A few centuries ago, a thousand or few at most, or even recently, people in North Tural were able to advance their technology to this cyberpunk-esque state because they had plenty of lightning aether and ceruleum to work with. And for outside help at most they uncovered some Ancient ruins to use as inspiration but instead of Creation Magic to summon concepts like the Benthos Ondo, went in a completely new direction. Ascians didn't wipe them out because they didn't have a Lightning-aspected Calamity scheduled yet and also miffed and ignoring them because whatever they were don't wouldn't matter when the Final Rejoining removed them and those people weren't recreating the homeland in the right way anyway. The place has a strong Digital Upload SF vibes, very Ea-like in end goal. Or, in a fun reversal of the Terra of IX and the most popular current theory- the souls trying to move over to another Shard are from the Source/Tural and Solution Nine is part of the attempt to transfer their souls to one of the Shards, maybe in a misunderstanding of how to escape Calamities/the Final Days. For deep dramatic irony.
Most society-leveling Calamities have a lessened impact the further out from Eorzea's epicenter one goes, according to SB, so North Tural was free to advance their tech in the past until something else culturally made them reject it and the Federation that governs Tural from Tuliyollal replaced it except for this enclave up north.

[Cilia]

The only concrete link to a previous title is the name coming from one of Zidane's Dyne attacks in IX. Dyne is a unit of measurement in physics, which is derived from the Greek word dynamis. As we know from Endwalker dynamis is an actual thing in the XIV universe, analagous to real world dark energy...

Beyond that, I can't say much. It's in North Tural, so maybe intended to symbolize the technological gap between North and South America? The architecture looks a little too cyberpunk compared to Amaurot's more solarpunk aesthetic to make me think they're connected.

[diamondedge83]

So the only thing I'm pretty confident will turn out to be true is S9 being connected to Ancients somehow, the proto-alphabet is a clear link between the people of S9, Loporrits and the Twelve (both of which we know were created by the Ancients) and the Ancients themselves who apparently use the same alphabet in their maps for Elpis and its subzones as well.

That being said, diamondedge83's post inspired me to pull out my tinfoil hat...

Admittedly I have not played FF9 and my speculation surrounding elements pertaining to that game will probably be of lower quality, but I read into it a bit and had some thoughts. What if S9 was created by the Ascians and is inhabited by Genomes, who were intended to take on the souls of the people who were trapped in Zodiark after the Ascians' plan was complete? I don't think we ever got any elaboration on how that part of the plan was supposed to work, we just assumed they would immediately be restored in body and soul, but maybe that wouldn't be possible on such a large scale and creating vessels for the souls of the sacrificed people was a compromise.

And in that case they've been blissfully partying it up in their cyberpunk city for thousands of years, waiting for their cue to go in and intercept all those souls and unaware of recent developments that will have made their original purpose obsolete. Maybe the people of S9 are either lacking souls entirely and we'll have to give them the bad news that the souls they've been awaiting aren't coming after all or they've been haphazardly pulling them from the Lifestream following Zodiark's demise.

FFIX is great, It's not my favorite, but it is the game I consider to be the quintessential FF game, you should play it if you get the chance. Your idea would also incorporate themes from FFX in the form of Zanarkand, a city made up of dreams (which aren't fundamentally different from souls). Someone else had mentioned that Azem had their own plan which is why they left the convocation, but didn't join Venat. Perhaps S9 could be that. Souls safely stored away in their own little Matrix-esque dream world, meanwhile outside, Genome like beings manage the city and can't be affected by the Endsinger as they are without souls.

[Cilia]

IX is a good game, but it's not without its flaws - the big one being it focuses so heavily on 3 of the main protagonists the rest get little to no time to truly shine as characters. It also has a massive number of time-sensitive sidequests, so if you wanna complete it 100%... (Well, that's virtually impossible, on account of Excalibur II and all.)

According to Sakaguchi himself it's everything he envisioned a Final Fantasy game to be, but just know what you're getting into before starting it up.

[Sensui]

It reminded me of the underground world in FF11s seekers of alduin.. been a while. But was where we battled hades and stuff.

[Sensui]

It reminded me of the underground world in FF11s seekers of alduin.. been a while. But was where we battled hades and stuff.

[Sensui]

Zone was called Ra'Kaznar Inner Court. Idk kinda look similar

[Nayukhuut]

My personal wish would have been a group of Ancients who somehow remembered who they were after the Sundering and decided to build back their city with tech rather than Creation Magic since they had been diminished. That or maybe an Ascian pet project at rebuilding their society in the new world. That is about as likely as a snowstorm in the Sahara though.

Elsewise I have heard everything from it being a nod to Terra in FF9, to it being connected to Azem or Ultima, to it being survivors from a rejoining of another Shard. I have heard that it could be a splinter of Allag as well that just didn't fall when the rest. When I say "I heard", it is just fan speculation I hear about the nets. No one has any concrete info. I just wanted to be clear.

Given the name of the city (Zidane's ability), Zidane's nature, and the fact that there was a sign mentioning souls in the very city, I would at least say that the city has something to do with an ancient species either from the Source, one of the Shards, or even space, who came here and are trying to maintain themselves.

No matter what, it was the first thing I have seen them present from Dawntrail that made me sit up and actually feel some interest, so I can't wait to find out what it is about.