Thread: 8.0 speculation

Somewhat 7.5 speculation but very much leads into what 8.0 might be about.

I couldn't help thinking after watching the trailer for 7.5 that whatever the withering is, is a natural process. Not like Meteion, an external threat which largely existed and was empowered by the natural process of life and the despair it inspired in mortals.
I paid maybe too much attention to the explanations in Shadowbringers about the shards and the rejoining processes. The points that stood out to me was that aether flows between the reflections, and it also flows back to the source. There is a lot of talk about water flowing down hill, rather like gravity. The story has already has us route a flow of aether to the first from the thirteenth. Thing is when there were 13 reflections, they were presumably balanced. I wonder if the first rejoining was harder, not just because the Ascians didn't know how, but because it's harder to initially break a balanced system. Once the system is unbalanced however, unbalancing it even more becomes easier.

What if the Source is now so much greater due to all the rejoinings that the remaining shards are going to rejoin without any influence. Thinking of aether as gravity, the Source's gravity is now so great it's pulling the reflections into itself, and the walls that might stop it are no longer reinforced by Hydaelyn and/or Zodiark. The Source would physically survive the rejoinings, but life on the Source and the reflections would not. Being rich in aether the Source would eventually produce new life, but it would take a long time for people to emerge from the soup of evolution. This could be the withering, and the Winterers plan a safe haven to wait out the period of no life (winter) until such a time as Ethierys can support life again.

This is where I see the key coming in for 8.0. Using the key to safely rejoin the worlds such that the withering and the winter of Ethierys does not happen.

Random speculation - very little evidence - just my thoughts after listening to the narration of the 7.5 trailer.