Solution 9 - Unfounded Speculation!

[Iscah]

Oh people will definitely be upset and I think you'll be surprised by how many will remember these conversations.

Prettymuch, yeah. It's clear that some portion of the fanbase are dead certain that this lightning aspect is something super special and unnatural, but the lorebook sets out that this sort of thing can be just how the world naturally functions.

I know people are bringing up the alphabet topic, and since I don't really follow, can somebody kindly point me to citation where I can read up on that, please?

Simple enough, the recently released third lorebook had a page on a "hypothetical common ancestor" to the Eorzean and Vrandtine alphabets (basically Eorzean with a few extra lines, used on maps in Amaurot and Elpis), and then a week later Fan Fest gave us the setting preview for S9 which conveniently is using that very same proto-alphabet.

[kaynide]

Is there a really hard/fine combed overview of what we see in the images given? I’ve seen some bits, but a general just-the-facts list?

Like:

1) Uses “ancient” texts
2) Has puzzling signage, like “soul supply”
3) Purple neon “main” coloration, cyberpunk aesthetic, blue screens
4) We never actually see the sky in any of the given pictures.
5) There are icons in the pictures of (what appears to be) a charging battery, a chocobo, and some other mundane signage like “nexus bar”.
6) There are a pair of eyes where it says “dancer” to the right. It looks like miqo’te, but can’t confirm.
7) at the Fan Fest, YoshiP said they removed some parts to keep S9 spoiler free. What was removed? People?

Pic for reference:Here

Ok, so speculation:

What was removed from the images? If people, what is so different or “spoiler-y” about them that they needed removing? Are the people different or important in some way (aka same as Garleans, or some other “new” kinda people like the Genome in ff9)


Big big speculation:

Solution 9 was created by the Ancients as a place for the souls “brought back” to be revived; the people living here are all constructs that have to recharge their “souls” from time to time, because the the Ancient souls never came.

[Iscah]

Wild guess: it's the home base for the moblins, who have to fit in somewhere and don't look like they're from the jungle or the wild west. (Unless they've got some kind of more steampunk base out there.)

They seem like a strange thing to have produced now as a separate group now, though, because those designs were already used for the Idyllshire goblins.

[Denishia]

Gunning for the most anticlimactic reason for Solution Nine at the moment. Just what a civilization designs when the aether is overwhelmingly electric. That there’s no Shards involved and it’s a lot younger than anyone, including my previous guess, has suggested. Not even an earlier Astral Era. Everything text or quasi glyph-based is red herrings. Going to set low - and thus reasonable- expectations. Because at this point a nonAscian/Ancient/Shard/Alien connection would be subverted expectations.

[kaynide]

I mean, if we want to go deep rabbit hole delving… S9 could be in the inter dimensional cleft.

Hear me out, as a grab my red string and tinfoil hat.

So, the expansions very loosely get inspiration from older FF games; FF3 and the Crystal tower/warriors of darkness for SB, A lot of FF4 obviously being in EW.

Assuming the trend continues, FF5 is the next reasonable source of inspiration. Major plot points include the inter dimensional rift between worlds.

In addition, FF5 had the Warriors of Dawn (whose trail we may or may not be following in 7.0), which included Galuf…(Krile’s father in both FF5 and 14). FF5 also involved the reunion of 2 worlds.

If I had to go even more deep, I’d say the game necessitates planar travel for future expacs as an alternative “solution” to merging worlds. Because we know at some point we are going to reunite Thancred and Y’shtola with their loved ones on the First.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Gunning for the most anticlimactic reason for Solution Nine at the moment. Just what a civilization designs when the aether is overwhelmingly electric. That there’s no Shards involved and it’s a lot younger than anyone, including my previous guess, has suggested. Not even an earlier Astral Era. Everything text or quasi glyph-based is red herrings. Going to set low - and thus reasonable- expectations. Because at this point a nonAscian/Ancient/Shard/Alien connection would be subverted expectations.

I think the most anticlimactic explanation is they are an isolationist society that's been there the whole time. Like they found a way to survive the second umbral calamity and they've just been in hiding. "Yeah, we've just been down in this cave the past 7000 years perfecting our cyberpunk aesthetic. A meteor? Hurled right at your continent? Ya don't say."

[DPZ2]

What was removed from the images?

Scale, probably. And robed figures wearing masks.

Or not. If it was "Ancient Central" you'd have expected the Ascians to have spent more time there than in that ugly temple in ARR.

[Cleretic]

Or not. If it was "Ancient Central" you'd have expected the Ascians to have spent more time there than in that ugly temple in ARR.

Look, when you're sent to GM Jail, it's not up to you when you can leave.

[Cilia]

If it was "Ancient Central" you'd have expected the Ascians to have spent more time there than in that ugly temple in ARR.

Probably the biggest knock against the idea it's a surviving cloister of Ancients... if there were such a thing I have a hard time believing the Ascians wouldn't have found them and at least attempted to convert them to the cause, and given we know the lion's share of them would sooner die than live in a world without "paradise"...

Still not sure what it is, but I can tell you what it probably isn't.

[Yuella]

and given we know the lion's share of them would sooner die than live in a world without "paradise"...

Still not sure what it is, but I can tell you what it probably isn't.

They could find a new paradise in Solution 9. They could decide that they needed to move forward instead of trying to reclaim the past. Solution 9's lightning aether could protect them from the Ascians' detection etc etc.