Thread: Revelations from Patch 7.4: Into the Mist

I do just want to say that while I think we technically can't rule 'Azem made the crystal' out (although I do think their case is exceptionally weak), I do think it's by far the least interesting option.

Raw chronology says that whoever made the key had to exist before the Fourth Calamity; that knocks out all but a few societies, basically just leaving us with Allag, the general 'Matsuno-penned nations' (mainly Ivalice and Bozja), whatever was going on in Meracydia, technically Thirteenth nations like Baron and Troia... and, yes, the Ancients. Or, of course, a group that we don't even know exists from any point in that period of time, that may or may not still live in some form. Now, some of those would be weird picks--I feel like we're all ignoring Allag as an option for good reason, and we'd mostly just be confused if it turned out it was Baron.

But out of all those candidates, the Ancients feel like the dud option to me, because they don't have any skin in this game. After the End of Days hit they had some more directly relevant problems to deal with, and 'let's create something that, after our destruction, could be used to travel to alternate worlds that don't exist right now' doesn't just sound like something they can't do, it sounds like something they wouldn't do; that sounds like a nonsense plan. At least post-Sundering civilizations could come up with this thing to travel to places that actually exist in their time; Allag and the Thirteenth's people in particular definitely knew that as a fact, and would have active reasons to want to pursue it, but there's no reason that, say, Goug wouldn't be interested; Ivalice and Bozja certainly already had vested interest in the type of Magic Rock that we all generally believe this is. And that's without factoring in unknowns; for all we know, Meracydia has/had a civilization that would both come up with something like this and would've had reason to bridge the unusual gaps like 'why did it show the Azem symbol'.

Every other option seems a damn sight more likely and more interesting than 'an Ancient made a thing to solve a problem that didn't exist yet', primarily because then we don't just have questions of 'who' and 'what' to answer, but 'why', the pressing personal reasons these people made the thing in the first place. There's story potential in a place like Damcyan realizing their world is doomed, but that the very people dooming it have given them a shot at evacuation. There's potential in an Ivalician scientist realizing that there's something else out there, and they want to see it. There's potential in a Meracydian clan that worships some abstract, mythical 'traveler' whose story is passed down through the ages, who were just crazy enough to make something that let them follow in their footsteps.

Theoretically the way to bridge that would be to flesh out Azem, the person who supposedly could have done this; I don't believe that they could have made this thing, but theoretically the developers could tell that story. ...except they can't; Azem has never been seen because they are a very player insert standin, molded in a very specifically nonspecific way; they are a cipher for you to decide what your interpretation of Azem would be, with no information ever given that could possibly refute that. (Venat's crew not being able to contact them is a good example of that; it's not explicit rejection, it's 'they didn't come to the phone', you're meant to decide why... while the writers get to dodge actually depicting them.) That's a cool idea and evidently a very successful execution by how many people love writing their own Azem... but it's not a character. And it can't be written like one, because to do so would break the illusion. Writing the story of how Azem made the key would only work at the cost of throwing away why a lot of people even like Azem in the first place.

Originally Posted by Cleretic

I do just want to say that while I think we technically can't rule 'Azem made the crystal' out (although I do think their case is exceptionally weak), I do think it's by far the least interesting option.

Yeah, I get it, you don't like the Ancients. The rest wasn't necessary.

Edit: Catching up on the thread, and to answer something a little less pointed:

Originally Posted by Cilia

Beyond that is just speculation, but why would Azem create the Key if s/he knew s/he was going to lose their memories in the Sundering (and by extension both what the Key was and how to use it properly)?

Perhaps to ensure knowledge of the shards and their existence, and/ or the world prior to the Sundering and its inhabitants, for any number of reasons. To combat a yet-unknown threat that might require certain information or access to a particular period in time, as we had with Elpis? That it might not simply be forgotten (sentimental, admittedly, but we have seen how devoted the Convocation could be)? For a chance at reversing the effects of the Sundering in some form? To enable their future self to do the above? I don't think any of these ideas are especially out of line for Azem. And while it's true they hasn't ever been "stated" to have foresight, the prediction of our time in Elpis and their defecting from the Convocation feel like pretty big plot points it'd be silly to dismiss outright.

I'm not even going the whole hog and suggesting they would have been diametrically opposed to the Sundering, but we are now both Hydaelyn and Zodiark-less, who acted as the anchors around which the current world was stabilised. Who's to say what might happen without them? And then obviously there's the auracite. I feel there's an intentional thread left lingering post-Pandaemonium with regards to that, and logically speaking it's the most likely place we're like to divine future information should the issue arise again.

Edit, Part 2: The reference to their researching concepts to aid travel in the short story... the time frame is interesting. Much like Lahabrea was researching Guardian entitites to the end of developing the Zodiark concept, could Azem have been researching the subject in pursuit of a different goal? A funny tidbit to drop. I might check out the other versions to compare.

Originally Posted by Lunaxia

Perhaps to ensure knowledge of the shards and their existence, and/ or the world prior to the Sundering and its inhabitants, for any number of reasons. To combat a yet-unknown threat that might require certain information or access to a particular period in time, as we had with Elpis? That it might not simply be forgotten (sentimental, admittedly, but we have seen how devoted the Convocation could be)? For a chance at reversing the effects of the Sundering in some form? To enable their future self to do the above?

I think right now we just don't have enough information about the key to know about it's purpose. It could, like you wrote, have several functions.

Opening rifts to shards might only be a byproduct of it's original function.
Maybe it was a solution to the sundering and a means of escape from people of the Shards if the withering happened or maybe it simply is a literal key to something in another dimension like something sealed by Azem and that's why it has that power.
Interesting for me is that Calyx and his scientists, even with the help of an Ascian seemingly don't know it's function.
For all intents and purposes the Key could be even older than Azem and the Ancients and the former one was just the last one to use it's power.


Outside the key what I do find interesting from 7.4 was the indication that at least one Ascian actually seemingly cares for the sundered in some way, from a shard even.
We already knew beforehand that the sundered Ascians weren't all in line with the plans of the unsundered ones but never we seen something like that.
Tbh I had already hoped for their help back when we flew to deal with the Endsinger and my hope is still there that we might actually get a sundered Ascian in our team down the line.
On the other hand the withering could also simply be because of the tinkering of the Ascians of tilting the balance of a shard and that without a rejoining, an emergency break like on the first or a collapse like the void could in time simply wither it away if nothing is done, though I think that would be a bit too easy and on the nose.

What we do know is that sundered souls can live normally on the Source and that the aspect of a Shards aether influences how easily it can interact with the Source (the thirteens the easiest and the first actually the hardest).
My guess was always that the ninth through lightning was also rather "easy" to connect with the source.
The monsters in the last dungeon showed (though we already knew that to an extent) that inhabitants, in this case the monsters, evolve to survive in there, no matter the aetherial aspect.
If the ninth is any indication then all of the shards might be aetherial imbalanced nowadays.
7.4 could maybe also have been meant as an introduction as to how even there people are still alive and fighting and I do wish we see more of them.

What I wonder though is if the key has always been in the posession of the Lalas and was only on the Source and 9th or if through the ages it has been in several Shards and we might have more connections to them then we thought.

Honestly, I don't reject the Ancient/Azem key theory not because of a dislike for the Ancients or Azem; it's just that when that's the only theory being entertained, everything else kinda has to take the form of a refutation.

I don't like the theory because it's not their story, and there's just more potential and interest in giving that 'creator' role to to people whose story it is. I don't care about the key because it's the key, it's interesting because of its part in the story of the milalla and Alexandria; how it's simultaneously a tool of exploration, migration and domination, and the symbol of curiosity, relief and terror that all brings. The things that it can do are so enormous and meaningful, and so the story should link it to previous bearers that can actually grapple with those ideas and potentials: people who, for good or ill, want to use it themselves, eventually to the point of making it*.

The Ancients are a poor answer to the question not because they are an inherently bad answer, but because that route is just... a dead end. The Ancients don't have those gears, that's just not the notes their story plays. Making the key a product of Azem, or any Ancient (save maybe Venat, but that story was already told), just makes less story; there are not compelling, satisfying and interesting answers to the questions the key raises if those questions are being asked in the Ancient world.

There are just more exciting answers to this question than 'Azem', and honestly I really, REALLY wish this forum (and the playerbase as a whole but these forums are exceptionally bad about it) would stop immediately insisting that the answer to every mystery is the shortest possible line they can draw to 'the Ancients' or 'the Ascians', and ignoring all possible answers otherwise. I'd have thought people would have learned from when Sphene's hip ornament and the Arcadion's logo both turned out to not be Ascian glyphs, but apparently not.

*For another example of an alternate theory I wish we'd be able to discuss more and independently: I'm not certain anyone 'made' the key. Knowing what we do now that the chalice is merely a control system and the 'key' is the crystal inside, I think it's entirely possible that it's a natural occurrence. Which raises its own suite of entirely different questions.

Originally Posted by Lunaxia

We currently have a key with Azem's exact associated purpose, colour and symbol, down to the fading lines on the circle, Ascians, and the suggestion of another imminent calamity. I don't think this is one of those times.

And doesn't it seem much more interesting to consider that someone else put that symbol there? That someone else, long after they were gone, cares about that story so much that they built something that lets them follow in their own interpretation of what that means?

To be clear I don't expect you to find that more interesting, you've been quite open that your entire interest in this game begins and ends with a single Endwalker zone. But I'm hoping someone else sees where I'm coming from; I think there's a lot more to this game's world than over-centralizing theories like this give it credit for.