Solution 9 - Unfounded Speculation!

[Alleluia]

FFXIV's official Instagram is posting sections of Solution Nine artwork piece by piece and someone on Reddit pasted them together to show the picture we have so far.

Anything anyone can glean from this? I notice a bunch of viera but I'm not sure if that means anything.

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=htt...c1qq9tc4d1.png
https://www.instagram.com/p/C7wEdHbxHot/

I notice lots of robes/cloaks on the people below. Prolly just to save on time on the art, but also might be a hint at tie to the ancients? Also viper!Meteor (?) in the right is now sporting a very cyberpunky undercut.

My off the wall speculation is that this city is somehow tied to that city across the sea we heard about in Glamaurot. The name like "Archadion" sounds very ancienty to me. Also there's the tech level and the seeming proto-alphabet.

Also, I think it might be a VR city, literally data stored inside the tower above Heritage Found, which is a server kept powered by all the leven.

[Ayche]

Yeah I am starting to become completely unsoundly convinced that Solution 9 is just Tron, it is cyberspace.

[kaynide]

Wild Speculation #3421:

So, an Ascian is a spirit that can inhabit any body they choose as a vessel, yeah?

So, what if it chooses an inanimate object as a vessel. Or an interconnected city?

“Zeus” == Master Control Program from Tron, and is running the city, possibly going HAL.

Arena battles to the death because hey, death releases aether and a city’s gotta eat!

[Cleretic]

Wild Speculation #3421:

So, an Ascian is a spirit that can inhabit any body they choose as a vessel, yeah?

So, what if it chooses an inanimate object as a vessel. Or an interconnected city?

“Zeus” == Master Control Program from Tron, and is running the city, possibly going HAL.

Arena battles to the death because hey, death releases aether and a city’s gotta eat!

I don't think this is plausible, but I would say this is the most interesting pitch I've heard for an Ascian related to Arcadion/Solution Nine, by far. (Also I would pitch Deudalaphon as the one doing this, because there'd be a fun echo with their historical role being the head of architecture.)

I still think a lot of Solution Nine theories are struggling with both overcomplexifying their angle by taking other people's theories as fact, and with the actual position of Solution Nine in the game. Like, we need to build into every single theory about Solution Nine that it's the secondary city of the expansion; it's the Eulmore or Radz-at-Han. That means that not only won't it dominate the story (because Tulliyolal still needs its half of it), but it also needs to still exist afterwards. In fact, it needs to exist in an even more functional state than it first appears in, because the vendor NPCs become available after the MSQ ends, not before.

[MikkoAkure]

New picture just dropped.

If we don’t get boombox emote, we riot.

https://www.instagram.com/ffxiv/p/C7ypPQAxc6-/

[Ayche]

How do we tie Solution 9 to a unified theme with rest of the expansion? I don't remember if I am making this up, but was not Tulliyolal set up as a naturalist society that tries to reject technological progress at the cost of nature. A cybercity would be a clear counterpart.

[MikkoAkure]

How do we tie Solution 9 to a unified theme with rest of the expansion? I don't remember if I am making this up, but was not Tulliyolal set up as a naturalist society that tries to reject technological progress at the cost of nature. A cybercity would be a clear counterpart.

Shaaloani in Xak Tural (Fantasy North America) is described as maintaining their traditions despite all the changes occurring including the construction of a railroad due to the discovery of ceruleum.

Solution Nine is described as being a wholly separate civilization from Tuliyollal


There seems to be a theme of changes and technological progress already going on. Wuk Lamat’s brother Koana, one of the other heirs to the throne, is already technologically minded and has been attending the Studium. In the Dawntrail trailer there are a lot of miqo’te wearing more “non-native”-looking clothing like suspenders, who may be from Shaaloani. There’s also a shot from Shaaloani showing a bar that is very clearly labeled in Eorzean but I don’t know if it’s because that region is colonized or because the devs decided everyone writes Eorzean now (except Solution Nine).

I wonder if a part of the plot may involve discussions or attempts to bring Solution Nine into the Tural fold. We know one of the brothers is a warmonger and there’s shots of burning Solution Nine-looking architecture.

Though there’s also scorch marks on a cliff side in Yok Tural in the Andes-looking region and that’s where the warmonger brother is in the benchmark.

[Cleretic]

Shaaloani in Xak Tural (Fantasy North America) is described as maintaining their traditions despite all the changes occurring including the construction of a railroad due to the discovery of ceruleum.

Solution Nine is described as being a wholly separate civilization from Tuliyollal


There seems to be a theme of changes and technological progress already going on. Wuk Lamat’s brother Koana, one of the other heirs to the throne, is already technologically minded and has been attending the Studium. In the Dawntrail trailer there are a lot of miqo’te wearing more “non-native”-looking clothing like suspenders, who may be from Shaaloani. There’s also a shot from Shaaloani showing a bar that is very clearly labeled in Eorzean but I don’t know if it’s because that region is colonized or because the devs decided everyone writes Eorzean now (except Solution Nine).

I wonder if a part of the plot may involve discussions or attempts to bring Solution Nine into the Tural fold. We know one of the brothers is a warmonger and there’s shots of burning Solution Nine-looking architecture.

Though there’s also scorch marks on a cliff side in Yok Tural in the Andes-looking region and that’s where the warmonger brother is in the benchmark.

Basically, given all the individual pieces of the expansion that we have, it is fairly likely that there's some kind of 'traditionalism versus modernity' thing going on, but nothing has explicitly been said. Ayche probably just jumped a couple reasonable conclusions ahead, and then forgot she did.

I suspect it's not the whole thing, and there's probably more facets to it all, but I would expect a major element of the central conflict is in how much Tulliyolal should stick to what's already worked for them, versus how much they should modernize and become more like their neighbors from the north (possibly by taking said neighbor's stuff). It'd actually be a fairly clean way to slot in that inter-Scion conflict that's been hanging over the plot, that I feel like we should be speculating more about and just don't have enough info to do so; out of every Scion I could easily see Thancred being the one to take the side of modernity, and meanwhile there's a few Scions I could pitch as being the types to stand in support of 'there's no need to throw out the old ways', G'raha's one of the ones most likely to in my book. (The actual most likelies being Estinien and Y'shtola, who are still wildcards.)

[Ayche]

Basically, given all the individual pieces of the expansion that we have, it is fairly likely that there's some kind of 'traditionalism versus modernity' thing going on, but nothing has explicitly been said. Ayche probably just jumped a couple reasonable conclusions ahead, and then forgot she did.

I went back to the NA Fanfest stream because I was sure I heard this from somewhere, and I think I got the idea from this line that Kate translates about Tulliyolal. "Unlike some other places we have been to, this city is not very industrialized because it is inhabited by myriad people who prioritize living with nature."

[SannaR]

New picture just dropped.

If we don’t get boombox emote, we riot.

https://www.instagram.com/ffxiv/p/C7ypPQAxc6-/

I'm surprised we didn't get any radios as orchestrions post 6.0. Also can't wait for those who are highly opposed to anything modern in an FF game to get very angry at the drink fountain cup the Miqo'te is holding. I do love that the hat they're wearing isn't lopping off their ears.

I know this has probably been said already and maybe even in this thread, but the one screen shot of Solution 9 that's on the official site just screams the Persidium on the Citidel. So, even if I don't expect to get any ME representation or jokes put in I'll be a little sad I don't have a hologram that tells me either to not to poke a squat praying mantis looking thing with a backpack on it or a random button nearby.