Thread: Some wild speculation about a certain macguffin from 7.0

Just my random thoughts on the key; lots of assumptions and very probably wrong..but!

a) Assuming it was the artifact made by Azem, it's abilities don't really make sense, unless it has something "else" to it; A guess might be Space-Time travel/teleportation without aetheryte (as seen in Ascians); With ancients, they have aetherytes and walk/fly/arrive at the main gate/move normally in Elpis, so one might assume they don't have ascian-bampf powers yet.

b) The shard-travel might be an unintended effect of what the key does. It could have been originally designed to traverse alternate dimensions or the inter-dimensional rift. Assuming the cross-travel of characters like Lightning or Shantoto are canon, access to other worlds might have been the goal. (I hope this isn't the case, and I hope the key isn't just thrown away a la "oh so that's how you get to the FF11 raid, lol")

c) because story reasons, it might be something strongly connected to Meracydia. Cargo-cult worship or Azem or something.

Just did the Pandaemonium follow up quest, and it was cute, but this house of cards remains untoppled! For now.

Originally Posted by kaynide

Assuming it was the artifact made by Azem, it's abilities don't really make sense, unless it has something "else" to it; A guess might be Space-Time travel/teleportation without aetheryte (as seen in Ascians); With ancients, they have aetherytes and walk/fly/arrive at the main gate/move normally in Elpis, so one might assume they don't have ascian-bampf powers yet.

Interestingly, they do already have Ascian-bampf powers. In the first boss fight in Ktisis Hyperborea, both Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus (who's always insisting that he's not that good at magic) use Ascian-style teleportation to evade one of the boss's mechanics.

Originally Posted by Shookbeast

Well, if you follow the theory that we are actually Azem, because we travel back in time during an expansion, and meet Venat at that campfire, then the key makes a lot of sense. We make it because we need it in the future.

Edit:
Or more likely Venat and our ancient frenemies make it for us - along with maybe a Catboy scientist/adventurer/philosopher with red hair who seems suspiciously familiar.

But the thing is, 'just becoming Azem again' kinda goes against everything that's being explored in Dawntrail -- especially in 7.2. The Warrior of Light carries the legacy of Azem, but they will never become Azem again. They are their own person. Which gave me the idea that The Key could be a warning, an unresolved burden from Azem, not a gift.

Originally Posted by mallleable

But the thing is, 'just becoming Azem again' kinda goes against everything that's being explored in Dawntrail -- especially in 7.2. The Warrior of Light carries the legacy of Azem, but they will never become Azem again. They are their own person. Which gave me the idea that The Key could be a warning, an unresolved burden from Azem, not a gift.

Also, very few of our characters resemble Azem physically. Hyur and elezen do, but for everyone else... well, Ancients don't have cat tails.

So sure, you can fit this mystery into that theory, but it doesn't stop that theory from falling apart or being directly against the themes of the game in literally every other respect.

I’m not sure we’d become Azem “again” though. I think us finding out that we create our own destiny fits in kinda perfectly with us finding out we’re “our” Azem through time travel. There is no “Ancient Wise Being” who set everything up for us. It’s just us, and our friends, once again trying to save the world/universe/timeline/lifestream. If the theory holds, we don't become some all powerful Ancient - we’re probably still just ourselves - and maybe even chuck the key through a portal in a fit of desperation.

I do like the idea of the key being a warning/burden though. That would be a pretty rad reveal from Calyx. “You dummy, this key is meant to lock things, not open them.” (Calyx proceeds to use the key to “open things” and starts the 8.0 storyline).

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...character_and/

So someone on Reddit has pointed out that Calyx's theme seems to borrow elements from the Pandaemonium lobby theme.

Please, I only have so much red thread for my conspiracy board!

Originally Posted by mallleable

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...character_and/

So someone on Reddit has pointed out that Calyx's theme seems to borrow elements from the Pandaemonium lobby theme.

Please, I only have so much red thread for my conspiracy board!

The instrumentation of Calyx's theme is pulling from the same 'ominous villain theme' box that Pandaemonium was, this most likely isn't anything beyond 'this is what Bad Guys sound like'. It's basically a new song to match Without Shadow or Paradaisical Predicaments.

Yeah, the Ascians frequently dominated this kind of music in the past, but that's more out of their general storytelling monopoly than anything. In isolation I actually associate these instruments more with Ishgard.