During the media tour for Dawntrail Yoshida mentioned these lore bits

[MikkoAkure]

You'rei assuming the remaining Ascians would do things that make sense, case in point: All of Fandaniel. I don't think it's likely in any case, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. Until we've seen them or have discovered their fate in one way or another, they are loose ends.

Another piece of my point is that this is a constructed work of fiction and to retread the same tired plot again and again would be boring.

The main point was that you have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to convince yourself that it looks like an Ascian Glyph, when we've never seen any Ascian Glyphs that would have to be so ridiculously distorted to look like that. They've been ripped directly from FFXII. As for the other fighters you seem to be under the impression that they will all be player races when there are in fact a whole bunch of sentient races that look more like monsters than humans in FFXIV such as all of our Tribe buddies.

It doesn’t really take a giant leap of logic to make it look like an Ascian glyph. It has all the same elements of the bottom of Ultima’s symbol from FFXII flipped upside down like how all of the other Ascian glyphs are elements of upside down esper symbols. The only thing that makes it vague is the fact that instead of being perfect 1-1 it looks like it’s been run through a photocopier too many times.

A distorted symbol of an Ascian appearing over Solution Nine is a much more interesting theory than a distorted symbol meant to evoke a forgotten, skippable boss from a past game. And in my mind it’s more plausible too when we know there’s already an existing Ancient connection to the likely location of Arcadion. This art doesn’t exist in a vacuum and is meant to tease the playerbase about the upcoming raid. I don’t believe that something like this that they bothered to place in the background and then partially copy down below as well in the teaser artwork would amount to something trivial.

As for the enemies we’ll be facing, not once in my post did I say they’d be player races. This is a raid so the enemies we’ll be facing will be scaled up as always and have some sort of artistic flair, but I think the idea is that they’d be at least sentient beings and not outright monstrosities and my hope is that they don’t pull an Omega and just rip random mindless bosses from past FFs and paste them in with 0 context or point other than “this part of the raid is FFV bosses, do you remember this reference?”.

I never posted that claiming it 'debunked' anything

This was what the poster above was claiming.

[Iscah]

I don’t believe that something the artist bothered putting in the main artwork for Arcadion twice (high up in the center background and also partially cut off at the bottom) is going to amount to just a filler boss based on a forgotten enemy from long ago and I don’t see why it would have its own stylized logo.

In the context of a visually flashy "modern" city, there's nothing strange about seeing the same neon billboard image multiple times. It could just be the tournament logo or something.

[diamondedge83]

In the context of a visually flashy "modern" city, there's nothing strange about seeing the same neon billboard image multiple times. It could just be the tournament logo or something.

Right? Besides, it's clearly Gilgamesh...I mean Greg.

[MikkoAkure]

In the context of a visually flashy "modern" city, there's nothing strange about seeing the same neon billboard image multiple times. It could just be the tournament logo or something.

The symbol shows up more inside of Arcadion itself and is obviously a logo, but it must be more than just random brush strokes.

The first enemy shown according to google translate is "Black Cat" and the proto-alphabet signs around the ring all said "Black Cat" as well so that doesn't really help us much there.

[QuirkeeBee]

Here's my crazy, cracked-pot thoughts:
What if we NEED the Ascians and their expertise to fight the next big, bad threat? What if we sought out existing Ascians, or MADE NEW ONES in order to figure out how to solve current issues?

And it gets even crazier....
What if we needed to regather the entire Convocation of the 14 in order to deal with whatever nightmare has been unleashed? Maybe focus on one or 2 Ascians per expac then spend time towards the end summoning the unsundered that we "killed." I would love to play out that scenario.

[Cleretic]

Here's my crazy, cracked-pot thoughts:
What if we NEED the Ascians and their expertise to fight the next big, bad threat? What if we sought out existing Ascians, or MADE NEW ONES in order to figure out how to solve current issues?

And it gets even crazier....
What if we needed to regather the entire Convocation of the 14 in order to deal with whatever nightmare has been unleashed? Maybe focus on one or 2 Ascians per expac then spend time towards the end summoning the unsundered that we "killed." I would love to play out that scenario.

I can't even count the ways in which this would be a terrible idea on several levels.

[SannaR]

Oh I think we'll be dealing with Pashtarot if not a follower. If you look at the Enigmatic Maiden's picture she has an upright symbol for Belias. At least the top half and how it's shown in XII. While Pashtarot's that but upside-down.

[MikkoAkure]

Oh I think we'll be dealing with Pashtarot if not a follower. If you look at the Enigmatic Maiden's picture she has an upright symbol for Belias. At least the top half and how it's shown in XII. While Pashtarot's that but upside-down.

Belias is tied to Loghrif, not Pashtarot. Pashtarot is tied to Zeromus. We already see Gaia with Belias' upside-down glyph as her Ascian glyph and while it does look similar to the device on the Enigmatic Maiden's hip, Gaia/Loghrif are tied to a separate storyline unless they make it mandatory and I don't know if they'd bring back her Ascian past for a second storyline when there's other Ascians not completely accounted for.

[SannaR]

Belias is tied to Loghrif, not Pashtarot. Pashtarot is tied to Zeromus. We already see Gaia with Belias' upside-down glyph as her Ascian glyph and while it does look similar to the device on the Enigmatic Maiden's hip, Gaia/Loghrif are tied to a separate storyline unless they make it mandatory and I don't know if they'd bring back her Ascian past for a second storyline when there's other Ascians not completely accounted for.

Ahh I must have found a wrongfully labeled picture. I too hope we're not dealing with more Loghrif. Not that I don't like Gia. Still when I saw that badge/device on her hip I went wait that looks very similar. We do know that the convocation seats had "followers" in the Words of so she could still be a Word of.

[Cleretic]

That thing looks absolutely nothing like Belias or Zermous' glyphs, anyway. Y'all need to get your apophenic tendencies under control.