This xpac msq is....?!!! [Ending spoiler]

[VictorSpoils]

I don't mind not being the protagonist. What I do mind is that the Scions have had their personalities removed. If they weren't around, I wouldn't even have noticed. Not to mention they seem to awfully conveniently only turn up for Trusts and then disappear again half the time.

That and I'm really, really tired of my WoL being forced to be a naive, trusting idiot. The only way Sphene could have been more obvious would be if she had a giant sign say "I'm the main villain, ask me how" and yet the only person having a reasonable reaction to her was Alisae, of all people.

Graha: Should I stay behind too?
Yshtola: Nope, they need a healer.

And the Alisaie scene was particularly amusing since she spends most of it hovering her hand over her sword.

[arstoka]

I mean, he holds the key/artifact that allows for dimensional merging. Without that, the Alexandrians are 100% stuck in their shard, slowly running out of energy and growing more and more desperate. I can see Zoraal Ja using the key and their desperation as leverage to force himself into more power than Sphene be willing to give him under different circumstances.

...With that said, it does feel like a ton of this is just not properly addressed ingame and instead handwaved away, like most plot points in the expansion.

That makes a lot of sense and I appreciate the clarification since the story tends to leave a lot of gaps in places that can only be understood retroactively.

My one concern is that...the 12th shard was the calamity of lightning and thus was absorbed through the 2nd umbral calamity. As for how the timing works on that...your guess is as good as mine (unless I'm misunderstanding the lore here which you should feel free to correct me if I'm misunderstanding).

[ShariusTC]

He seemed to have forced his way into admin permissions that actually superseded her authority when it came to the army, since she couldn't stop the attack on Solution Nine. I don't think it makes much sense (she could have given him limited permissions, making him believe he was in control), but it's what the narrative says.

he can't force himself to anything, sphene is not little girl like she look, she is a war machine that feed on living souls for hundreds of year, she is a system, and his artifact also being made (by azem, i asume) long before alexandrian build their network so it has no control over network, only plot hole is writer straightly give him absolute power over sphene system and doesn't explain anything, and i don't think he is a good hacker also consider when he met sphene his knowledge is from medieval time

[ZodaSoda]

he can't force himself to anything, sphene is not little girl like she look, she is a war machine that feed on living souls for hundreds of year, she is a system, and his artifact also being made (by azem, i asume) long before alexandrian build their network so it has no control over network, only plot hole is writer straightly give him absolute power over sphene system and doesn't explain anything, and i don't think he is a good hacker also consider when he met sphene his knowledge is from medieval time

I think they were going with the Idea, Sphene gave him control to do what was needed, that her current form couldnt do without Guilt and thus gave him Authority over military so her guilt couldnt intervene, Hence why after he's gone she "changes" herself to rid herself of the Original Sphenes ideals so she can do Tyrannical things, The concept is fine, but the writing and delivery is poor, It probably would have been better with Zoraal Ja revealed being more of a lackey and not attacking Solution 9, Instead with his death triggering some sort of failsafe in Sphene that commenced her rewriting into what was needed.

[ShariusTC]

I think they were going with the Idea, Sphene gave him control to do what was needed, that her current form couldnt do without Guilt and thus gave him Authority over military so her guilt couldnt intervene, Hence why after he's gone she "changes" herself to rid herself of the Original Sphenes ideals so she can do Tyrannical things, The concept is fine, but the writing and delivery is poor, It probably would have been better with Zoraal Ja revealed being more of a lackey and not attacking Solution 9, Instead with his death triggering some sort of failsafe in Sphene that commenced her rewriting into what was needed.

dunno, that's the thing i never understand from writer point of view, not sure if he didn't think about it or can't find an explain good enough so he just let it blank, but think about a super computer that miscalculate to the point that let a person suppose to be under her control turn her army to her people that she has been show overprotect them is the biggest plot hole of story

[Kaecilius]

That makes a lot of sense and I appreciate the clarification since the story tends to leave a lot of gaps in places that can only be understood retroactively.

My one concern is that...the 12th shard was the calamity of lightning and thus was absorbed through the 2nd umbral calamity. As for how the timing works on that...your guess is as good as mine (unless I'm misunderstanding the lore here which you should feel free to correct me if I'm misunderstanding).

I think we have way too many unknowns at this moment. I don't think they even confirm their reflection is the 12th Shard, but that is what makes the most sense given the evidence.

There's also the fact that we don't know how time dilation affected their shard. There's thousand of years in the Source between the 2nd umbral era and the 5th umbral era (when the lalafells crossed over with the key), but it could easily have been 5 minutes for the Alexandrians point of view if the writers want that to be the case.

Presumably Sphene-bot had spent a long time rebuilding her realm by the time the lalafells arrived, and the dome could have been erected to shield them from the 12th shard rejoining... But we just don't really know.

[ShariusTC]

also i want to add, writer probly want to mimic how kuja batray garland and end up destroy terra leave only small number of gnome survive in FF9, but can't find good way to write it down, so they just let it happen