msq 7.1

On the one hand I find it slightly baffling that we haven't (?) met or actively sought out any of the science lalas in solution 9 - there must be some kicking around, and it wouldn't have been that insensible to go round their lab and make sure they don't have a floppy with a sphene backup/soul nonsense etc. On the other, this venture into the secret science lab could be setting us on a course to deal with them properly. If we're going to use meta knowledge, the 7.3 trial is shaping up to be neo-sphene, likely referred to as necron because it's ff9, there's someone pulling strings and the black regulators have to have some kind of ulterior motive beyond mind wiping the funeral away.
The random death guy and discussion around that seemed interesting, it's only natural it would be a mostly novel concept to the alexandrians, even if there were those that didn't wear regulators.
I also liked the father/son discussion at the start, but think it would have worked better as a more environmental piece than being directly interacted with - I'd be interested to see more of the impact the dome's had on normal npcs as the patches progress, but felt the "here's our learn to do things without electrope school" line kind of cheapened the effect.


Alliance raid

I know this is the ffxi raid, but it will be interesting to see how much electrope and its abilities are explored. This does seem to be more evidence that the shards and extrashard interdimensional travel are not the same, which could tie back into that cup being a travel within the universe device.
Nice to see aquarius and the adventurers just before fafnir. Kind of suspected that zoraal ja's buddy was still alive, but never expected he'd show up here - really interested to see where it's going to go now. With the comments about the shadowlord being a johnny come lately, perhaps we'll see prometheia? We already have a fafnir in anemos, so this also allows us to unrule out absolute virtue/panda warden, even if they'd be harder to tie in. Lilith is also a possibility. Can't help but feel the echoes are going to be destroyed at the end of the raid, but it'd be nice to have a little pocket of vana'diel in game forever if they don't seal it all off. I'm also curious if we'll end up "developing" lower jeuno - extending to upper or the ru'lude gardens, acquiring more npcs/shades or getting to visit a similar snapshot of windy/sandy/bastok/wherever they feel like highlighting.


Pandaemonium

Cute story, didn't have that much meat to it. As a vehicle to get the orchestron roll it was nice - interesting to see that the door to the past is permanent in story though. I had hoped for a bit more - some groundwork to allow a split timeline as with the world of the 8th calamity if you looked at it right, but alas not. It would have been a nice continuation of the crystal time machine, you know like people working to make a better future for those they'll never meet.