Let's play a game: Save the Ancients!

[redheadturk]

G'raha himself theorized that that is the reason he was not simply erased, as he thought he would be once the timeline had been changed, and the one Tales of the Shadow confirmed that yes, the timeline did branch. WoL would trust G'raha enough to know that it would be possible to do it again.

[Cleretic]

And yes, it is an unfortunate mismatch of themes that this gamble is exactly what G'raha was doing with the 8UE, which has always seemed like bad writing – again it seems like the writers were wanting to have it multiple ways at once at the small scale without stepping back to observe the contradictions. They pulled their punches on just how bad things were, when things needed to be irreversibly dire to justify what they were doing.

Yeah, my second-biggest 'I wouldn't have done that' issue with the game's story (behind killing Ysayle) is that short story, which I think just undercuts G'raha's journey in ways that really take away from him; now he didn't just make a difficult decision to evacuate a doomed timeline with no chance of revival, he just made a big deal out of leaving it. And also it doesn't have no chance of revival, that story is clearly written as if things will turn around, although it's admittedly just vague hopes and assurances.

I think there's people who read it as assurance that 'we could've saved the Ancients and everything would be just fine', but I honestly don't think so. Not only does that not hold--the Scions were waiting for the WoL to come back with crucial information and were completely screwed if they didn't get it, while nobody in the 8UC timeline really wanted or needed G'raha to be around--but honestly, I don't think the people arguing for saving the Ancients really needed it, they'd already decided they were letting the modern world die in favor of the perfect pretty people.

If I were to really chew on the 8UC timeline's situation I feel like its savior could come from Labyrinthos; it'd probably survive even if Sharlayan got gassed, and as essentially a seed bank, it'd have all the material to revive the world once the active threats dissolved. It'd even explain why none of the active people in the 8UC stories knew about it. But yeah, that's probably more thought put into the 8UC timeline's greater context than the writers did, or thought we'd do.

[Iscah]

G'raha himself theorized that that is the reason he was not simply erased, as he thought he would be once the timeline had been changed, and the one Tales of the Shadow confirmed that yes, the timeline did branch. WoL would trust G'raha enough to know that it would be possible to do it again.

Theorised in the general usage of the word, yes, but it's merely a hypothesis with no way of being tested. The characters have no way (to our awareness) to confirm whether the other timeline still exists alongside their own, or whether it is gone forever and G'raha survived simply by being in the new timeline when it overwrote the old one.

[redheadturk]

I have to thank a friend for this, but there is yet another context clue for the protagonist that the timeline G'raha hailed from still exists: G'raha's memories of that timeline still exist. If the timeline had vanished, the aether that makes up G'raha's memories of that timeline would have poofed too. They didn't, as we'd know because we uh. . .inserted those memories into his younger body on the source?

[Cleretic]

I have to thank a friend for this, but there is yet another context clue for the protagonist that the timeline G'raha hailed from still exists: G'raha's memories of that timeline still exist. If the timeline had vanished, the aether that makes up G'raha's memories of that timeline would have poofed too. They didn't, as we'd know because we uh. . .inserted those memories into his younger body on the source?

Your friend's 'clue' makes no sense whatsoever. For that to be evidence we'd need to have evidence that that's how it works in the first place, and that evidence just doesn't exist. It especially doesn't exist to the WoL, whose knowledge of tiem travel up to that point has been learning G'raha Tia, and probably also doing Alexander; in neither case did this observably happen. Your friend seems to be assuming that it works like other franchises' time travel works, like Star Trek or Doctor Who, but with no evidence that they actually do. ...except in most cases, those franchises also build in sort of an immunity to those effects for the time travellers, including both Star Trek and Doctor Who. Which, if that's how FFXIV works, would also leave G'raha able to remember everything just fine. So even if the WoL is an avid Whovian, this wouldn't register as evidence.

...and all of this is also ignoring that this isn't actually the issue, the issue is that changing the timeline strands you. Which is a pretty crucial thing in this case: unlike G'raha, whose original timeline didn't really have anything important for him to do, the WoL has a very specific job of 'go find out what an Elpis is and then come back and tell us if that's helpful'. I don't care how much questionably-educated faith the WoL has in the fact their home timeline will still exist, that's not the problem: the problem is that if they change the timeline, they can't go back to the one that needs their help.

Frankly, I'm surprised you don't reflexively know this, because the one that said it directly to our face is the Ascian you glorify in your signature. I would've thought that you of all people would've commited his whole thing to memory, but I'll happily link it if you haven't. Incidentally, I do find that it's a pretty poetic use of language by the localizaton team: he warns us that 'we cannot reshape the past', and at first it sounds like it's cannot as in 'won't be capable of', but it soon becomes clear it's cannot as in 'you mustn't'. Which, incidentally, makes more sense given we're using the same technique G'raha used, and we know where G'raha can't go back to.

[redheadturk]

And ya know what? That is where telling them after the congruence in a way that it won't matter if it strands us comes in. Besides, if we leave behind a message in a bottle so to speak for them to find after we've gone back no harm, no foul. How can it strand us if we've already returned and the timeline is still in flux? Is there a chance our message in a bottle may not be found in time? sure, but it's better than being "hurp a derp, nothing we can do" with our fingers in our ears and our thumbs up our butts.

[Lunaxia]

but honestly, I don't think the people arguing for saving the Ancients really needed it, they'd already decided they were letting the modern world die in favor of the perfect pretty people.

When you actually find any evidence demonstrating the existence of these people who have supposedly claimed they want the mortals to die in favour of the Ancients, or literally anywhere their appearance or, uh, "perfection" (I mean, really?) has been shown to play into these arguments, let me know. In the mean time, I'll send you over some straw, you must be running low by now.

On a brighter note, using the 8UC as a basis as to how one might conceivably save the Ancients could actually make for an interesting discussion. The point about how aware the Scions are regarding the ramifications of G'raha's time travel is a good one too. How might they ascertain the existence of the alternate timeline? Could what happened there, combined with Elpis, give them pause to consider time travel as a tool in certain scenarios? Should it, even? And would they be prompted to use it to save the Ancients somewhere down the line? And how? Thinking about it, if they truly wanted to go down that route at some point, that seems like the most viable way to do so.

...though on appraisal, perhaps a discussion for an altogether different thread, where good faith has a chance of being slightly more tangible than the mythical unicorn and the responses somewhat more coherent for not staggering under the attempt to bear the weight of their own perceived self-importance. Still, a fascinating subject, nonetheless.

[Dikatis]

When you actually find any evidence demonstrating the existence of these people who have supposedly claimed they want the mortals to die in favour of the Ancients, or literally anywhere their appearance or, uh, "perfection" (I mean, really?) has been shown to play into these arguments, let me know. In the mean time, I'll send you over some straw, you must be running low by now.

The present Etheirys and the World Unsundered are mutually exclusive. They cannot exist at the same time. As Cleretic said, if WoL were to somehow intervene and change the past, the Etheirys that they know, the one with all the people, places, and life they know and love, will be grandfather paradoxed out of existence as far as WoL could know. This also means all of the people of the Reflections would never exist too, such as the people of the First.

Even if we could create a branching timeline, that means we'd never be able to return to the main story's timeline just as G'raha could never return to his. And that timeline's Etheirys would be rendered a dead, barren wasteland by the Final Days without WoL bringing knowledge of Meteion back to the present.

Also, there are PLENTY of people on these forums who want all the reflections gone in favor of the Unsundered World and openly talk about their disappointment in us not letting the Ascians finish their plan.

[redheadturk]

Besides, if we leave behind a message in a bottle so to speak for them to find after we've gone back no harm, no foul. How can it strand us if we've already returned and the timeline is still in flux?

You seem to have forgotten this part of my quote. A message in a bottle [crystal in this case] would serve the purpose without stranding us, because the branching would occur after we had returned to our own time.

[Lunaxia]

Even if we could create a branching timeline, that means we'd never be able to return to the main story's timeline just as G'raha could never return to his. And that timeline's Etheirys would be rendered a dead, barren wasteland by the Final Days without WoL bringing knowledge of Meteion back to the present.

Granted, I've taken time away from the game in recent months, so if we've had more information that contradicts this then feel free to correct me, but how exactly do we know this? The last I heard, it was merely supposition. G'raha has never actually made the attempt to return to his time, so how do we - or they - know that's even the case that we couldn't return to our own?

And the cast are not entirely ignorant of the notion of an alternate timeline, since G'raha never faded away. As Iscah said, it might seem like too much of a risky gamble at this juncture, but not investigating the matter further seems to be an issue of just not caring enough to do so, lol.

Also, there are PLENTY of people on these forums who want all the reflections gone in favor of the Unsundered World and openly talk about their disappointment in us not letting the Ascians finish their plan.

I've yet to see any in this thread, nor even in any of the threads I've frequented in the entire time I've been here, including one popularly reviled as a haven for Ascian boot-lickers. It feels more like a fantasy that exists to conveniently undermine anyone with even the slightest inclination to question the Ancients' part in the story, honestly.