Solution 9 - Unfounded Speculation!

[MikkoAkure]

A pretty solid theory I've seen on Twitter for that red sign in the Arcadeon that people were fixated on: What if it's the Armodullahan from FFIX?

It looks like part of Ultima’s glyph from FFXII upside-down now that I see it closer. And that’s where the Ascian glyphs come from.

I don’t exist on Twitter/reddit, was this possibility already discussed there?


Edit: my extremely rough analysis:

[Cleretic]

It looks like part of Ultima’s glyph from FFXII upside-down now that I see it closer. And that’s where the Ascian glyphs come from.

I don’t exist on Twitter/reddit, was this possibility already discussed there?


Edit: my extremely rough analysis:

That theory came from Twitter, and is extremely easily debunked, because they don't look anything alike.

The Ascian glyphs are exact pulls from parts of the XII Esper sigils, one-to-one. They don't look 'sort of maybe' like part of it, you can overlay them near-perfectly. In fact, I have done that in a video to prove exactly this point; the imperfection here comes from the fact Emet's face is at a slight angle, not any alteration to the sigil.



People saw a red sign and wanted it to be an Ascian, it doesn't track whatsoever.

[MikkoAkure]

That theory came from Twitter, and is extremely easily debunked, because they don't look anything alike.

The Ascian glyphs are exact pulls from parts of the XII Esper sigils, one-to-one. They don't look 'sort of maybe' like part of it, you can overlay them near-perfectly. In fact, I have done that in a video to prove exactly this point.

People saw a red sign and wanted it to be an Ascian, it doesn't track whatsoever.

Obviously it's not 1-to-1 and it's not on an actual person's face, but it looks like it could be a stylized version of it copied over and over for a long time to a point where it's lost its original meaning.

I think the three lines on each side + horns + spiky crown + mess in the middle + wavy line on the bottom stand out and makes a more compelling or at least more interesting argument than an obscure boss.


Until release we can say just about anything since we don't have anything to really go on and this is the unfounded speculation thread.

If I wanted to really get my tin foil hat on I could say that the script under the 6 vertical lines is proto-Eorzean for "X", "upside-down L", "T", "I", "backwards M", "upside-down S": "Xltims", and that after getting killed by Gaius and reforming incompletely, Altima suffered amnesia/soul damage and can barely write her name or form her glyph anymore but a half-remembered mission on a shard resulted in her bringing a whole bunch of people to the Source in Solution Nine. Or she did show up long ago on a shard and the gylph became a symbol of being saved and over thousands of years became what we see now.

[Cleretic]

Obviously it's not 1-to-1 and it's not on an actual person's face, but it looks like it could be a stylized version of it copied over and over for a long time to a point where it's lost its original meaning.

I think the three lines on each side + horns + spiky crown + mess in the middle + wavy line on the bottom stand out and makes a more compelling or at least more interesting argument than an obscure boss.


Until release we can say just about anything since we don't have anything to really go on and this is the unfounded speculation thread.

If I wanted to really get my tin foil hat on I could say that the script under the 6 vertical lines is proto-Eorzean for "X", "upside-down L", "T", "I", "backwards M", "upside-down S": "Xltims", and that after getting killed by Gaius and reforming incompletely, Altima suffered amnesia/soul damage and can barely write her name or form her glyph anymore but a half-remembered mission on a shard resulted in her bringing a whole bunch of people to the Source in Solution Nine. Or she did show up long ago on a shard and the gylph became a symbol of being saved and over thousands of years became what we see now.

Okay, then what's this part?



Because here's the thing: that red sign wasn't the only thing in that art. It wasn't even the central thing in that art; my eyeballing says it's not even 10% of the picture. It's just the only thing most people are speculating about, because 'what if it's an Ascian' caught on as a theory really quick and some people really want that story arc to not be put to bed, despite its evidence being tenuous as hell. But I've never once seen the theory stretch to include any of the rest of the art.

If we accept that the red sign is reflective of a probably-filler boss that we may or may not have seen in a previous Final Fantasy game, these demon heads track: obviously those are another boss even if we don't have an ID for them, they certainly don't resemble anything in FFIX. But they're clearly deliberately designed, all three heads have different horn shapes, so it's not just a generic 'here be demons' sign.

So if the red sign is against all odds an Ascian, what are the demon heads?

[Lyth]

That's really interesting. Actually, the red 'glyph' in the picture also looks like it could represent three horned heads, now that I look at it.

Perhaps it's a historical insignia of a triple-headed Mamool Ja who founded the place.

[MikkoAkure]

It's just the only thing most people are speculating about, because 'what if it's an Ascian' caught on as a theory really quick and some people really want that story arc to not be put to bed, despite its evidence being tenuous as hell. But I've never once seen the theory stretch to include any of the rest of the art.

The theories we have for anything right now are tenuous as hell, which is why it’s easier to hang onto the ones that are interesting. The artwork is designed to tease and it’s done more than its own fair share apparently.


The thing about the “glyph” is that there’s not just one of it. Look down at the bottom and you can see there’s ANOTHER of the same exact red glyph mostly cut off at the bottom of the image spread on a billboard.

A hologram of it floating above the city and also on a billboard down below seemingly makes it more important than a potential trash mid-boss based on a forgettable boss from long ago. The past 2 raid artworks featured teasers key to the story of the raid more than the content anyway.


As for the 3 demon heads, my baseless speculation is that they’re the Alt(ima)-rock band that’s playing from the concert venue across the street from the Arcadion where all the purple lasers are coming from. Linkshellhead is known across Solution Nine for their song Paranoid Mammet and will be our introduction into the raid.

[fulminating]

Arcadia
noun
an image or idea of life in the countryside that is believed to be perfect
etymology
1. A regional unit of Greece in the central and southeastern Peloponnese. Tripoli is the capital and main city with a population over 47,000.
2. A mountainous region of Ancient Greece, named for Greek mythological hero Arcas; legendary home of the rustic god of nature, Pan.
3. Million places in america, named for 1. and 2.
4. Somewhere in Tucumán Argentina.

Arcadian
adjective
1. relating to or constituting an ideal rural paradise.
"the region was not quite the Arcadian idyll he had depicted"
noun
1. an idealized country dweller.
"the dark satanic mills inspired new generations of Arcadians from Blake to William Morris"


2. a native of Arcadia in Greece.

etymology: late 16th century: from Latin Arcadius, from Greek Arkadia.

It looks like a misspelling/variation on a Greek derived word. If it is meant to convey Greek, then it could be to do with the ancients given the naming convention used for them. Allag also uses greek names - scylla, amon etc and is typically portrayed more technologically than the ancients. The three headed icon could be a reference to cerberus (greek, but also world of darkness) as the heads look vaguely canine. The circle effect on some of the billboards is reminiscent of the control panels in azys lla - if you go to helix then up the ramp toward the computer area, the terminal on the left as you enter has a similar pattern flickering in and out over the blue ball in the control panel. This may just be the way projected screens are portrayed by the artist though and not necessarily relevant. As an addendum, outside of the fandaniel echo flashback in tower of zot, I don't remember any allagan technology that doesn't predate the fourth umbral calamity, so well maintained allagan cities may look different than we are used to. There isn't really much information to go off though and I don't know if allag went over to the new world in any capacity. Maybe they're going for a Rome/Constantinople style thing, but roman imagery is usually reserved for the garleans so probably not.

Unless it's sarcastically titled the likely meaning of the word doesn't really align with what we know about the ancients. Unless they want to really lean into the outer wilds spoiler

dreamworld/vr/matrix angle. Echoes of the eye has similar themes of a destroyed original world and retreating into a shared dream. This could be an interesting avenue to explore.

There's also the possibility that it's not one of the convocation's glyphs, but someone of similar status from far away lands. We know there were other cities because the amaurot npcs mention how it's sad that they got exploded or whatever. Presumably they had someone nominally in charge there, even if they were subservient to the amaurot society. There might be a musical motif shared with the solution 9 music and amaurot, but I lack musical talent. Finally the soul suppository translated text could be to do with the ancient's inability to create souls intentionally, could be placeholder or could be some as yet unknown group. It could also be similar to the resonant process - the floor mural in castrum albania looks pretty stylised.

I'm bored of speculating again and will probably forget I posted this in 5 minutes.

[SannaR]

Those three faces at least when blown up look male AU Ra-ish to me. And until I noticed that there were three mouths I had thought it was a very stylized male Au Ra face. But now they sort of remind me of the hobgoblins of the 1st. We will be getting moblins so maybe it's stylized moblin faces with their masks on.

That's it! It's Alexander 2.0 but this time it's a rave cause the Moblins are all about that techno. They heard the Loporrits's radio broadcasts and went "we can do better than that." and "everyone's" favorite minor Elezen Ascian picked up wind of their love for techno and edm music and told them he could hook em up.

[Grivvaint]

I think the juxtaposition of the proto-alphabet and chocobo signage means something and is probably the closest thing we have to a clue regarding Solution 9's origins.

I don't think it's possible to say for certain what it means at this point, but it's very odd because up until now we've only seen the proto-alphabet associated with Ancients and their creations and we've only seen chocobos associated with parts of modern-day Etheirys.

My theory here is that this could fit with Solution 9 being from the Levin-blasted 12th shard.

Each rejoining starts with manipulation by the Ascians to tilt the balance of a shard. This could have come in the form of advancing a civilization by giving them incredible technologies then stepping back and watching them overuse it. This also would tie into some themes we're seeing hints of in DT with a ceruleum rush in Tural. A bit of green theming or messaging there, maybe. We're hastening the ruin of our own world by chasing ceruleum and meeting people who have already ruined their own world with levin.

[kaynide]

Just throwing something dumb into the ring. I highly doubt it’s a thing, but why not.

So, S9 appears to be electric/lightning based right? Sure!

Zeus enters the chat. (Pashtarot?)

Also, Arcadion itself can be broken down into Greek:

Arcadia in Ancient Greek is a place, and means essentially a Utopia with an emphasis on the land and harmony with nature. -ion as a suffix just makes it a “thing”. So it’s a thing that is or does or makes utopia. The fact that it appears to be hyper-urbanized/“electric” is an interesting juxtaposition.

Using Greek based vocabulary seems to support Ancient meddling (though not necessarily Ascians). Also Utopia (the book) being strongly related to much of the Ascian storyline/naming through Shadowbringers.

(I’m pretty sure and hope this is not the case…also we don’t know if Pash is alive or not, nor do we know his Greek “real name”.)

My theory here is that this could fit with Solution 9 being from the Levin-blasted 12th shard.

I’m actually really curious if a “rejoining” is just the shard dissolving into ..say..an atomic level and being reabsorbed, or if rejoining actually involves entire chunks of land being ripped into the Source. At least with earlier attempts were the Ascians were still figuring it out.

We have a lot of weird geography in the world (like the Cataract), that might be explained by this kinda nonsense.