I need an Umbral Calamity refresher as Dawntrail has me confused

[Puremallace]

Below is my question regarding endgame MSQ. Spoilers below

So Sphene clearly calls it the "Calamity of lightening" and in FF14 lore that references the 2nd calamity. Right off the wiki

The Second Umbral Calamity or Calamity of Lightning came on the heels of the First Astral Era, an age where mankind learned to forge stone tools and established settlements and towns, which grew into kingdoms that soon went to war, each seeking to expand their domain. To forge their tools and weapons, mountains were gutted and skies blackened.

This calamity occurred before the 5th Calamity of Ice.

The Fifth Umbral Calamity or Calamity of Ice is shrouded in mystery, much like the preceding Fourth Astral Era. It began the Age of Endless Frost, a seemingly never-ending winter that brought raging snowstorms and giant rivers of ice.

According to the endgame zone the South Sea Lalas evacuated to the shard Sphene is from and invented Electrope on that shard. The world went to war and Emet or someone caused a rejoining by tricking probably Cid into using the Lightening weapon.

How does the 5th Calamity occur leading the Lalas to leave for a place that ends up having the 2nd Calamity?!?!?

It has to be time travel right?!?!?

[Ilenya]

My assumptions

This was a shard set up for a later Calamity and Rejoining, prepped for it, and gone a bit out of control without an Ascian there to coax it to work properly.

[Puremallace]

Now 2 possible solutions

My assumptions

This was a shard set up for a later Calamity and Rejoining, prepped for it, and gone a bit out of control without an Ascian there to coax it to work properly.

This would explain how the shard still exist then and we get a sun set at the end of the MSQ once the dome drops. Is it another shard that has like 1% of its surface not fully turned to a Calamity?

It is either that or the lalas traveled back in time and initiated the Calamity of Lightening creating a time loop. The devs better have this explained once we goto the South Sea isles which they clearly setup.

[Ilenya]

Now 2 possible solutions

This would explain how the shard still exist then and we get a sun set at the end of the MSQ once the dome drops. Is it another shard that has like 1% of its surface not fully turned to a Calamity?

It is either that or the lalas traveled back in time and initiated the Calamity of Lightening creating a time loop. The devs better have this explained once we goto the South Sea isles which they clearly setup.

Main reason for my assumption:

I'm...fairly sure that the Ascians would need to Rejoin all the shards, so some of the elements would inevitable double up. At a guess, the plan would have doubled up all save Light and Dark, but the Void caused all sorts of chaos with The Plan.

[silentwindfr]

My assumptions

This was a shard set up for a later Calamity and Rejoining, prepped for it, and gone a bit out of control without an Ascian there to coax it to work properly.

hmmmm... about this

make no sense, the difference of time it's how fast the time pass from one shard to another, not rewind time. it's more how the time pass faster in one shard and slower in another, in the case it seems the primal world is generally the one slower....
if we take this as fact, then the 2nd calamity can't be link to the the shard we did meet, 2 reason:
- one the shard still exist as we see at the end of the story when the sun rise. and it's not possible to have a shard exist after a fusion, they are fused and disappear into the primal world.
- second, we know this shard go faster than the primal. since it seems the event of the arrival of the lalafell was very very very long ago for this shard. and the fact that 30 years did pass before the two dimension was aligned temporaly. and it explain too, why the technology is soo evolved in comparaison with the primal world.

means this shard is definitivly another one than the one of the 2nd.
another point, we don't have 13 element even with light and darkness. then at one time it was possible to have another shard affected by the same element than another one, without forget maybe they have mess up them own world. without the ascian help...

[Ilenya]

hmmmm... about this

make no sense, the difference of time it's how fast the time pass from one shard to another, not rewind time. it's more how the time pass faster in one shard and slower in another, in the case it seems the primal world is generally the one slower....
if we take this as fact, then the 2nd calamity can't be link to the the shard we did meet, 2 reason:
- one the shard still exist as we see at the end of the story when the sun rise. and it's not possible to have a shard exist after a fusion, they are fused and disappear into the primal world.
- second, we know this shard go faster than the primal. since it seems the event of the arrival of the lalafell was very very very long ago for this shard. and the fact that 30 years did pass before the two dimension was aligned temporaly. and it explain too, why the technology is soo evolved in comparaison with the primal world.

means this shard is definitivly another one than the one of the 2nd.
another point, we don't have 13 element even with light and darkness. then at one time it was possible to have another shard affected by the same element than another one, without forget maybe they have mess up them own world. without the ascian help...

You're misunderstanding.

Some of the elements have to be doubled (or the whole elemental thing is wildly different than we were led to believe, but let's play it safer) so a second Lightning Calamity would be possible. And while time travel isn't generally possible, that wouldn't matter for a Lightning-Aspected Shard being prepared for a later Calamity. Also, I'm pretty sure the time dilation is entirely because of the aetherial warping and the void, considering the First never gets a synced connection but happens to be on Source time when we get there. It's even brought up in Shadowbringers.

[Sairys]

You're misunderstanding.

Some of the elements have to be doubled (or the whole elemental thing is wildly different than we were led to believe, but let's play it safer) so a second Lightning Calamity would be possible. And while time travel isn't generally possible, that wouldn't matter for a Lightning-Aspected Shard being prepared for a later Calamity. Also, I'm pretty sure the time dilation is entirely because of the aetherial warping and the void, considering the First never gets a synced connection but happens to be on Source time when we get there. It's even brought up in Shadowbringers.

I don't think that's the safer assumption because of Shadowbringers and the elemental chart.

The first six calamities follow the generative elemental cycle which works clockwise around the wheel. Then we have the "aspected" calamities of Darkness and Light. The elemental chart also contains the Conquests (Earth, Water, Lightning) and Submissions (Fire, Ice, Wind) as well as the Solar(Fire and Earth), Lunar(Water and Wind), and Celestial(Lightning and Ice) pairings, assuming the Astro cards are correct and the chart has Lunar and Solar pairings reversed. If each of those is a potential calamity that's a perfect thirteen unique calamities represented on the elemental chart.

Personally, the time dilation is further reason to doubt it's the Ascians preparing the shard. The lightning in Alexandria's world started before Krile was born, she was brought across as a baby before the seventh calamity, and she's now twenty-two. Given only a few days passed in the source while thirty years passed in Alexandria, potentially tens of thousands of years have passed in Alexandria since Krile was born. It doesn't make sense for the Ascians to risk another situation like the Thirteenth by keeping the reflection on the edge of calamity for that long, especially because the time dilation would mean even a year on the source would give them hundreds of years to work with on the shard. If it's an Ascian calamity, they had at least two other calamities to work on before this and they would have needed to prep the source for a lightning calamity.

I'm pretty sure that weirdness is intentional especially because it's happening at the beginning of a new cycle of expansions, the next saga after the one we've just finished. I think it's meant to provoke these questions and the feeling that something is out of place.
The wrongness for me points to it not being Ascians, that it's another group that doesn't know everything that we've learned in the previous saga. This then leads to questions about who that could be, where I think we should consider things like... the source survives and grows stronger with rejoinings, interdimensional travel was discovered on the source around the fifth calamity and it's not necessarily the only time it could have been, people from the source thought the sixth calamity could have been the last because it completed that cycle of elements, and we learned in Shadowbringers that the source's understanding of the elements isn't necessarily complete or accurate. I think that provides the potential for a villain faction from the source that wants the calamities to continue for their own reasons separate from the Ascians.

At the same time, we've also learned that time dilation can result in reflections that have capabilities far beyond what is possible for the source right now which is only reinforced by part of the defences against the Alexandrians being derived from G'raha's time on the First. The technology that allowed Alexandria to fuse with the source was originally from the source, then taken to a world where time is faster and developed much further due to need. If you take that concept and expand on it, it's not too difficult to see how an interdimensional faction could utilise time dilation to more deliberately develop things and enact plans. Similarly, if travel between shards could become more common that sets up the potential for more conflict with the remaining shards. Can't imagine that they'd be too pleased to hear about what a rejoining would mean for them.

[GrizzlyTank]

Slightly relevant.

Exactly which shard was Kriles parents from? 6th or the Source

[Sairys]

Slightly relevant.

Exactly which shard was Kriles parents from? 6th or the Source

Kinda relevant yeah

They would be from the Alexandria shard, whichever one that is but it wouldn't be the sixth. The theory presented in game, AFAIK, is that their ancestors are originally from the Southern Seas (Aloalo seems mentioned) on the source when the Fifth Calamity (Ice) hit the Sixth. They were present on Alexandria's shard for so long that their origins have become almost mythic.

[SushiJaguar]

I would consider such a thing to be a major mistake, but since it got past the QA of every single language involved in this product, it must have been intentional. Thus, I think it's safe to say that with the release of DT, old lore no longer matters and isn't going to be taken into consideration moving forward.