question about summoning in lore

[HisuianMiqote]

would it be possible for hydaelyn or someone else powerful in the ffxiv universe to summon a person from a world that isn't part of the source/shards (or other FF universes)? for example: if hydaelyn Really Wanted To could she summon someone from our earth to the source?

[Cleretic]

would it be possible for hydaelyn or someone else powerful in the ffxiv universe to summon a person from a world that isn't part of the source/shards (or other FF universes)? for example: if hydaelyn Really Wanted To could she summon someone from our earth to the source?

There have been several incursions form other FF universes to FFXIV's, and the reasoning more or less comes from the Dissidia games; they're a connected multiverse, with the Interdimensional Rift between them. The only figure that's ever done that intentionally is Exdeath, and even he only really took a step into the Rift rather than any further destination; generally speaking, the Rift is depicted as too chaotic and incomprehensible to be plausibly traversed with a destination in mind. Even the gods of the Dissidia games themselves don't bother with actually reaching across to other worlds, they just copy figures from them.

Earth isn't actually part of any of those (the ending of XIII-3 notwithstanding), but here's the funky part: we actually don't need it, because we also already have it. 2B and 9S came from Earth, somehow, and a few mentions of stars in both AST weapons and Ultima Thule suggest that cosmically speaking, we are in the same universe as Earth, and not far away at that. Really the main hurdle is that, if we assume 2B and 9S to have made the trip with no unstated time jumps, then Earth is ten thousand years in the future and eradicated by countless wars against machines.

But if you just want to do an isekai, don't worry about that. Anyone who wants to reject that character concept isn't really going to be swayed by deeply-considered lore justification, the concept itself is something you're either into or you're not. I would steer clear of using Hydaelyn, girl's too strapped for aether to really be taking that sort of a punt, but other than that you're in 'sure why not' territory. We had Clive turn up, why not an accountant from Santa Cruz?

[Enkidoh]

Actually, Earth does have a connection to several FF titles, if at least tangententaly, although those are spinoffs (and two are not games but animated features) - FF Tactics Advance's 'St Ivalice' is obviously a contemporary Earth city somewhere, presumedly Europe/the UK judging by the architecture, and FF Unlimited started in then contemporary Japan (with the JSDF torn apart by Bahamut!)... and then there's FF The Spirits Within set in a post-apocalyptic Earth (and mostly in New York). FFVII also was meant to be on Earth in New York in an early draft of it's story (with those discarded ideas recycled for FFTSW).

As for 'calling' someone from Earth to Hydaelyn/the Source, it could theoretically be done, but, it appears that to call summon from across the Rift from another world is extremely difficult and dangerous - when Elidibus hijacked G'raha's call spell and started summoning other Shards' WoLs in ShB at random, he wasn't fully summoning them but merely pulling their spirits across (effectively killing them in their home worlds).

And even the Azem crystal seems to only work on those we've met or journyed with in the past, it doesn't seem to just pull in some random adventurer who happened to be sitting on the privy at the time. And although the Azem crystal did seem to work across the Shards or even on the other side of the Universe, again it only works on those we know - it doesn't seem to have the power to just randomly pull in average Japanese high school student #28654 from his bedroom. And yes, characters from other worlds, both FF and non-FF have been appearing in crossover events, as Cleretic mentioned, so the possibility is there.

Breaking the Fourth Wall though, in some respects, maybe you yourself have been already summoned to Hydaelyn in a manner of speaking? (In the form of your character, when you login to the game). The game has teased that possibility a few times in a tongue-firmly-in-cheek manner, but that mind-bending idea still persists.... "Heed the Crystal's Call" indeed....

*Pulls out darksteel foil hat again*

[kaynide]

Re: FF connection to Earth

I hate to say it, but if Nier is canon, FF is directly connected;

Spoiiiilllerrs for the Nier series:

Ultra simplified (and no I don’t care enough to check into detail because it’s awful in the first place, despite the games individually being quite good)

Drakkengard-> Dragon warps to modern times, somehow, and gets shot down by a fighter jet…
Nier 1 -> Which causes a disease that wipes out humanity, which get replaced by androids
Nier 2 -> which get into a never ending war with alien invaders, which also are dead and have robots of their own that mimic human societies, for some reason
FFXIV -> which after completely resolved and somehow manage to replicate parts of Nier 2 for…reasons.. on the -not even the main plane of existence-.

That final boss of the Nier raids, with the trains? Yeah that was meant to be faux Tokyo.

Re: Traversing the Rift

Also, I think Gilgamesh is canon to be only one guy across all the games. That is the guy we mess with in theManderville line is the exact same guy you mess with in Final Fantasy 5, as opposed to just a name-recycle (see Cid/Biggs/Wedge/etc)

I believe he has the ability to move between worlds, albeit I’m not sure he can choose a destination.

[Bloody_Kenny]

Even the gods of the Dissidia games themselves don't bother with actually reaching across to other worlds, they just copy figures from them.

Actually (nerd mode on), Dissidia gods summon not copies, but real characters to help them. The memories of the OG Dissidia and 012 events are sealed into each character who participated in them, and only awaken when the character returns to the Dissidia world. These memories are the reason why NT happens, as Cosmos doesn't want them to disappear and her desire to protect these memories takes the form of Materia. A little nod to that is a flavor text from the "Wind-up Kefka" minion, as Y'shtola thinks the doll is "eerily familiar". That is because she has sealed memories of fighting him before.

[SannaR]

Re: FF connection to Earth

I hate to say it, but if Nier is canon, FF is directly connected;

Spoiiiilllerrs for the Nier series:

Ultra simplified (and no I don’t care enough to check into detail because it’s awful in the first place, despite the games individually being quite good)

Drakkengard-> Dragon warps to modern times, somehow, and gets shot down by a fighter jet…
Nier 1 -> Which causes a disease that wipes out humanity, which get replaced by androids
Nier 2 -> which get into a never ending war with alien invaders, which also are dead and have robots of their own that mimic human societies, for some reason
FFXIV -> which after completely resolved and somehow manage to replicate parts of Nier 2 for…reasons.. on the -not even the main plane of existence-.

That final boss of the Nier raids, with the trains? Yeah that was meant to be faux Tokyo.

Re: Traversing the Rift

Also, I think Gilgamesh is canon to be only one guy across all the games. That is the guy we mess with in theManderville line is the exact same guy you mess with in Final Fantasy 5, as opposed to just a name-recycle (see Cid/Biggs/Wedge/etc)

I believe he has the ability to move between worlds, albeit I’m not sure he can choose a destination.

Yes Greg is the same one. The same is for a lot of the different Omegas. Also reading your very basic run down of the Nier time line has made me go "Oh no no no no. No no no please gods no. Why do I have to be reminded about that part of Nier lore?" Cause part of the reason we even get to androids is due to the disease caused by the atoms that were left from said goddess's death some of the human population down loaded themselves into the grimiore( I could be wrong in remembering) and awaited for a time when the plague had been cured but that day never came and some of them became corrupted. And I know I said I was done with Solution 9 wild assed theories but it just fist and now I wanna use Kiros on my Nier knowledge.

[Anonymoose]

With regard to multiverse shenanigans, I've always been a (very grumpy) proponent of the idea that authorities from both games should opt into the connection before a two-way connection is considered hard canon. For example, theoretically it should be possible for Dissidia and FFIII to both be canon to Dissidia without Dissidia being canon to FFIII. Aliens vs. Predator doesn't necessary make itself canon to Alien or Predator, or Predator to Alien, or Alien to Predator. (Even though Predator 2 arguably opened the door.)

I've never been terribly fond of the idea that one creative team can say to another, "your world includes my world now" regardless of their consent. And if there are crossovers or meta-references but the creative teams just say, "Eh, don't worry about it; it's just for fun," (e.g. Yokai Watch) then perhaps we shouldn't think too hard about the implications, anyway. Granted, my preference for consent-before-connection is awkward with Final Fantasy; there are brand-level authorities who can override game-level authorities if they want to.

And I'm only grumpy about it because - as an archivist who likes taking things apart and making sense of them - I've grown increasingly jaded watching the quality and integrity of the fandom interpretations of various world-settings permanently eroded due to enthusiasm for fun nonsense leading to the enforcement of the implications of said fun nonsense on the hard canon forever after. Hells, FFXIV sometimes makes tongue-in-cheek meta-references to the passage of Earth time and there are often efforts to impose those on the hard-canon timeline, held back only by other content in the "more authoritative" canon continuing to adhere to the blank-check-bubble.

Anyway, this rant vaguely replying to the discussion about the question has little to do with the question, does it...

But like Cleretic said, isekai featuring a character from Earth is very much one of those aforementioned situations. It'll never be canon to Earth, so it's already a one-way connection favoring the creative authority (you), and anyone who doesn't like it isn't going to be convinced by whatever you come up with on the FFXIV side. Imho, you don't even need to find an FFXIV-based excuse; you can just blame something from the Earth side if you get stuck. A one-way connection can't contradict you!

But if you do want an FFXIV-side excuse, I'd just go with the rift. Whatever it is, it seems to include a limitless, chaotic sea of unmanifest potential timelines and events. Who - who hasn't already walked away from the idea - can possibly find a citation to contradict the ultimate hand-wave? And if any of the people who want to contract you also want Dissidia imposed on FFXIV, you already have them halfway backed into a logical corner, lol.

Didn't Lightning end up in France? Isn't that how she started working for Louis Vuitton? (/s)

[WhiteArchmage]

Actually (nerd mode on), Dissidia gods summon not copies, but real characters to help them. The memories of the OG Dissidia and 012 events are sealed into each character who participated in them, and only awaken when the character returns to the Dissidia world. These memories are the reason why NT happens, as Cosmos doesn't want them to disappear and her desire to protect these memories takes the form of Materia. A little nod to that is a flavor text from the "Wind-up Kefka" minion, as Y'shtola thinks the doll is "eerily familiar". That is because she has sealed memories of fighting him before.

As a fellow Dissidia nerd, it gets even more complicated. Basically, Dissidia 1 had the actual heroes and villains summoned from their respective universes, this got even more complicated with the sequels and prequels adding more information about the setting, explaining how and why some characters kept their memories while others didn't; but they all affirm that the heroes summoned are the actual people from said FF universes. It's only Dissidia NT's ending that puts forth that the heroes left their memories to be put into Mannikins for Materia and Spiritus to continue their unending fight in the World of Conflict, because it needs conflict to exist, unlike Opera Omnia's World of Respite which is its whole separate can of worms.

Basically, Dissidia exists in this bubble in which all the FF games are canon to Dissidia but Dissidia itself isn't canon to them.

Didn't Lightning end up in France? Isn't that how she started working for Louis Vuitton? (/s)

[Memories unlocked. Incoherent screaming]

[Cleretic]

Didn't Lightning end up in France? Isn't that how she started working for Louis Vuitton? (/s)

Yeah, that's what I meant when I said 'XIII-3 notwithstanding'. I'm not particularly sure how that connects to Dissidia's angle on the multiverse, which is the one XIV takes to be true while also keeping a reasonable distance from it.

Like, does that mean that XIII's universe eventually transforms into the one with Earth in it? That it's connected to Earth through a link that's out of the 'network' that connects the other FF universes?

[Zero-ELEC]

Didn't Lightning end up in France? Isn't that how she started working for Louis Vuitton? (/s)

Technically not France, just a "France-like" place in the new world she created.