/r/ffxivdiscussion: What's Next? Theories and Speculation (DT Edition)

[Jeeqbit]

Is Sphene coming back?

No.

Where Azem at?

Considering we have Azem's soul, we aren't gonna find Azem anywhere. We may find other fragments of Azem's soul in other shards, or travel to the past and meet, maybe, but probably not, since they want us to imagine that Azem is us in many ways.

Is the artefact the first step in some kind of big rejoining of the shards (except without the ensuing calamity)?

I suppose that could be done. Like how combining The Tempest back with the other shards might rebuild a clearer picture of Amaurot again and what Sastasha was supposed to look like. But SE won't do that specifically because The Tempest will continue to exist as a travel point.

Are we going to Australia or doing Stormblood 2.0 next (based on Yoshi-P's comments)?

There are plenty of other ways they could go. They have mentioned Corvos a lot, which could have it take place somewhere in the garlean territories. They have also mentioned other shards and might instead use the relic or the portal as a way to figure out how to actually travel to other shards freely.

The main hook we have is the Key, which is something Krile and Y'Shtola will be interested in.

That is one of the hooks. The other we have is Gulool Ja, who I think we will have to find childcare for and help them become a leader of Solution Nine (which will be boring, but SE feels the need to clean up loose ends so) and we may need Gulool Ja to enter passcodes and things.

The reason LM is so empty now is because these expeditions will set up camp there and maybe even have a sidequest or two, so it will get built back up kind of like Idyllshire back in HW.

I would really like for it to be built up again, but from the interviews I think a big part of the story is meant to be that they connect us to all these characters and then have us shut those characters down. Just like Shadowbringers was dubbed "Depressionbringers" and Endwalker was also dubbed that, turning LM from a vibrant happy place to a depressing place was meant to make us feel as depressed as the Shadowbringers and Endwalker plots.

Ideally they are rat people but they might cheap out and have them be human.

I think the only way they would be rat people is if they are going to make it a new race. Because if there are rat people on that shard then they are also in the other shards since the races have been mirrored so far as we've seen.

just like in FF9, Alexander is in Alexandria

Okay, now this is what I actually was expecting from the MSQ after I saw the Launch Trailer. I thought Sphene's comments implied that with our strength, we could change the past so I immediately thought "Alexander, the past, Alexandria from FF9". I thought maybe this would explore the origin of how Alexander came about. But the MSQ didn't go that way... at all. It took...a much darker turn than I was thinking. And that does make sense to a degree because of how it'd need to navigate the raid sidequest story.

I think the next overarching storyline will be about connecting all the shards together

I guess we could have an expansion where we travel Mercydia and try to create mini-rejoinings all over it, with each one causing enemies to appear (a dungeon). That would fit with their formula where we need to have 6 MSQ dungeons and 3 trials.

This will involving fixing the Void at some point

The reason we can't is because The Void being in this state allows our dark magics to work such as the Reaper art and mage lore. That's why they set The Void on the path to recovery, saying "it will now slowly recover over a period of time". But that period of time is unclear and obviously not meant to be in the lifetime of this game.

I think we need to use the Doodad to connect the World Trees of the Source (1) to all the Shards (+6 = 7 Wedges, or think of it as Sephirot/World Tree being 1 body and 6 arms/branches).

All I know is that Hydaelyn sundered everything into elemental shards. This is indicated multiple times, beginning with the Warrior of Light collecting all the elements to build Hydaelyn's Blessing. It's then indicated by Hydaelyn saying "reflections of the source, each possessed of a shard". It's then indicated in the explanation by Emet, where you can see the calamities are elemental in nature, depending on the element of that shard. Then you see it in the Hydaelyn trial, where her ultimate attack is this elemental sundering that is her main power. So to understand the way in which things remain sundered it is crucial to understand that it has been separated on an elemental level somehow.

Wuk Lamat is going to not appear whatsoever after 7.3 or so.

She's a city state leader. She was always destined to go the way of Ser Aymeric, Lord Hien, Lyse, Raubahn, Chai-Nuzz and Varshahn - ie. we will hardly talk to them after this.