[Spoiler] Did they forget Porxies exist?

[NobleWinter]

The thing most odd to me was that after noticing we clearly skipped any mention of Porxies to help this situation is that the Queen clearly explains the entire world they came from used technology that changed Lighting Aether to anything else. That's how the city functions. So why are the people sick with too much lightning aether sleeping on regular beds in regular rooms? All your technology changes lighting aether to something else and no one knows how to remove excess lightning aether from the body? They can literally split souls apart from memory, store both without corruption, and redistribute them as prizes for doing chores, but they haven't figured out how to isolate a sick patient in a room without any lightning energy? Like the whole problem seems utterly ridiculous.

[Cleretic]

I suspect that would be the best in game lore friendly route to use, but I also expect the game to just have Koana to have some kind of miracle cure we’ve never even heard of before ready to go, but totally hand waves the problem away.

Something like “oh yeah didn’t you know this here Pelupelu tea just happens to dampen Lightning aether! Go figure!”

I feel like if this problem actually is fixed, it's going to be something like this, although I very much doubt it'll be a 'hand-wave' solution.

A logical next step of the MSQ is probably exploring the new neighboring relationship between Tural and Alexandria. And while diplomatic relations are important and what the story's currently been on the level of, it does make sense that the next step would be 'so what can we do for each other', and Tural having the tools or expertise to solve a very Alexandrian problem is actually a pretty solid angle.

It'd especially be a neat focus for a Koana story, as he'd be faced with the fact that maybe his own country's not a dumb backwater that needs help from everyone else; that they've got things to offer. That'd have to be a real story to explore it, though, you wouldn't just handwave it. Especially because it's honestly a really minor element; if they just wanted to go 'don't worry about it' they'd be more likely to ignore it completely than to give it a cheap answer.

[Lyth]

The thing most odd to me was that after noticing we clearly skipped any mention of Porxies to help this situation is that the Queen clearly explains the entire world they came from used technology that changed Lighting Aether to anything else. That's how the city functions.

I think this is a really interesting point. Eden's plotline used aspected summons to try to rebalance the Empty. You should also in theory be able to do this to address lightning-aspected aetheric corruption in the environs of Solution 9, if the technology lets you convert between aspected aether types at will.

If we're going the route of abducting Porxies to help out in S9, though, might we nab Ezel II? He's also great at eating bad dreams, and I'm sure that the Pixies wouldn't notice immediately. You'd just need a reasonably sized burlap sac and dimensional travel. I would definitely be up for an Ezel II story arc in the patch MSQ. He could even be the new main character this time around and defeat the final boss for us. I would totally be in for this.

You could write entire books about what the writer of Dawntrail forgot about the world he was writing a story in.

The best part is that they've already been written.

"Only an Ascian could ever possibly know what shard this is. Who cares anyways, it's not like I'm a shard scholar or anything." (rough paraphrasing, Y'shtola Rhul, Archon with a research interest in dimensional travel)

Looks over at the EE volume 3 p.13, sees only four unexplored intact shards, and watches as Hiroi marks in 'e' on a four-answer multiple choice question.

[Cleretic]

"Only an Ascian could ever possibly know what shard this is. Who cares anyways, it's not like I'm a shard scholar or anything." (rough paraphrasing)
Looks over at the EE volume 3 p.13, sees only four unexplored intact shards, and watches as Hiroi marks in 'e' on a four-answer multiple choice question.

Okay you're just being obstinate here. The entire point is that you don't know; sure, you've got a 25% chance of being right if you take a stab, but who's going to confirm it? Being right means nothing with no way to check your work; if you baselessly got a one-in-four chance right, I'm not going to be impressed unless you can tell me you had actual reasoning. I can look out my window, point at a star and say 'that one's got aliens around it', but nobody knows for sure, and it's not impressive if I just guessed right.

Also, the EE3 itself is of... dubious factual value even in-universe. The first page basically says 'look the Scions came back and said some wild stuff, and we don't think they're lying, but we can't fact-check any of this'. We as players know it's legit, but frankly some of the specific facts even we can't verify. I have no reason to doubt that the shards they listed as still there are, in fact, still there, but I have no idea how they'd actually be able to know or check.

[Ayche]

I remember it being worded more like "lightning aether allergy" rather than direct imbalance.

[Lyth]

...

'I do not have the knowledge to prove or disprove your conclusion. In my mortal years, I doubt that I could even approach the wisdom of the Ea. But of one thing I am absolutely certain: I would not be happier in ignorance.' (also Y'shtola Rhul, Archon with an interest in dimensional travel, Where Kn∞wledge Leads, Lv.89)

Y'shtola's speech to the Ea has always resonated with me. I think doubt and uncertainty drive human knowledge, and there are parallels to game lore in this too. I'm okay with not knowing right now. But asking me to believe that we won't ever know something and should stop trying? That's a lot harder. I think if you can already narrow the choices down to four, then it's likely we can narrow this down even further with more information. I think Mitron's statements in the Eden storyline are relevant here as well, because we know that Floods create linked aetheric imbalances on other worlds (i.e. Flood of Darkness on the 13th and the Light-aspected imbalance on the First). So it wouldn't take much to pinpoint a specific world out of the remaining choices, and we've discussed some postulates about this already in another thread.

On the subject of the EE, I would have accepted your point even a few months ago. If we take the EE as an in-universe text, then its authors are fallible. I'm not sure if you remember this, but one of my first posts in this subforum was about the possibility of the Loporrits basing their views of humanity off of an early edition of the EE.

But Anonymoose recently linked an interesting article in which Yoshi-p discusses the role of the EE:

I'm going to make a small point about reflections. What you can find in the Encyclopaedia Eorzea is considered canon. There won't be any plot twists like “It was written in the Enclyclopaedia Eorzea that this world had disappeared because of a calamity and rejoined the Source, but in reality it hadn't disappeared at all”.

That's a pretty interesting statement, because it places a lot of factual significance on the EE. And the interview confirms this point on the reflections as well:

Go back to the Encyclopaedia Eorzea, take a look at the diagram of the different reflections and make a history of what has disappeared. This should help you.

By the way, that chart he's talking about is in the EE volume 3, p.13. See my previous post for details.

[Cleretic]

Y'shtola's speech to the Ea has always resonated with me. I think doubt and uncertainty drive human knowledge, and there are parallels to game lore in this too. I'm okay with not knowing right now. But asking me to believe that we won't ever know something and should stop trying? That's a lot harder. I think if you can already narrow the choices down to four, then it's likely we can narrow this down even further with more information. I think Mitron's statements in the Eden storyline are relevant here as well, because we know that Floods create linked aetheric imbalances on other worlds (i.e. Flood of Darkness on the 13th and the Light-aspected imbalance on the First). So it wouldn't take much to pinpoint a specific world out of the remaining choices, and we've discussed some postulates about this already in another thread.

You are not actually addressing what I said, you're making an entirely different comment (that actually agrees with me; yes the EE3 information is true, yes it's a bit weird that its writers know that stuff). And it sounds nice, sure, but I don't really care to address it. To go back to my actual post, I'm gonna let the game itself say this one instead of letting your paraphrase stand:

Beyond lies an unknown reflection. Short of asking an Ascian, we have no way of identifying which it is.

Well, what we do know is that it's Sphene's domain--a place where she brings back those who've been lost. So for now, why don't we call it the unlost world!

You were the one that asserted that she does not care; the rest of the scene shows that she very clearly does. But I think there's one important thing here: Present tense. She's not saying that it's some grand unknown that she's accepting forever more, she's saying, right now, that they don't know what shard's through that gate--but with Wuk Lamat pointing out that at least they have an idea of what's on the other end.

The point Y'shtola was making is that we don't know right now, and that perhaps those academic truths aren't that useful at the moment. It's not the writers throwing in the towel and erasing the curiosity at the core of her identity: it's basic in-the-moment prioritization. They didn't 'pick a fifth out of four options', they just realized it's not worth declaring any right now.

[Lyth]

It might be localization nuance, but Y'shtola didn't qualify her statement with a 'right now'. If you're also of the mind that we could prove which shard this is through further data gathering, then I won't disagree with your sentiment. I think that mindset of wanting to know is central to lore.

It's never not worth it. What does utility have to do with anything? Several of our travelling companions have done research dissertations. When did a topic being 'just academic' ever stop the Scions from nerding out over it?

[Luizgazen]

I belive the reason they didn't bother trying porxies is because the issue has absolutely nothing to do with tempering... rather it seemed to me to be more like an extreme alergic reaction, or a lack of resistance to lightning aether making them very susceptible to it's effects, so as long as the afflicted stay in a region with strong lightning aether, there is nothing that can be done, even if they do relieve the symptoms the sickness would still remains and they would soon relapse anyways...

[Dorito_Burrito]

I belive the reason they didn't bother trying porxies is because the issue has absolutely nothing to do with tempering... rather it seemed to me to be more like an extreme alergic reaction, or a lack of resistance to lightning aether making them very susceptible to it's effects, so as long as the afflicted stay in a region with strong lightning aether, there is nothing that can be done, even if they do relieve the symptoms the sickness would still remains and they would soon relapse anyways...

I was thinking it was caused by Solution Nine's equivalent of "city air".