CG Midlander

[Anonymoose]

What the wark?! Hold your chocobos Ferne! Is Minfilia from the future? I mean, we meet Ascilia in the present day for the UD story. How can they both exist at the same time? Do both versions (young and old) exist at the same time the game took place?. Ascilia could go to the Path HQ and see her older self? What the wark?

Oh man, my head hurts.

This is an incorrect assumption, is all. A very, very big chunk of the main storyline takes place in echoes - even before you know what the echo is! Before you gain control of the ability to "use the power of the echo" through the user interface, you're blindly and out-of-control jumping into and out of echoes all the time - it's not until a passerby understands what's happening to you that you're brought to the Path of the Twelve in the first place.

The very first echo you enter is in the very first quest you undertake regardless of city, when you see the starshower. After that, any time you hear a whoosh sound effect in the cutscenes, that's an echo beginning or ending.

Each city also seems to have some characters who've changed their identities since then - such as Rostnsthal once being Sthalmann (Limsa) and Milfinia once being Ascilia (Ul'dah).

[NoloeTazier]

What the wark?! Hold your chocobos Ferne! Is Minfilia from the future? I mean, we meet Ascilia in the present day for the UD story. How can they both exist at the same time? Do both versions (young and old) exist at the same time the game took place?. Ascilia could go to the Path HQ and see her older self? What the wark?

Oh man, my head hurts.

All is explained in earlier posts, lol we worked hard on these theories. When I was doing my synopsis of the Ul'dah storyline that's when I came up with the "Ascilia = Minfilia" theory and it's nice to be correct for once. Like Moose has already said, everything up until the Path of the Twelve is part of an Echo and you Echo within an Echo. dun dun dun

Thank you Ferne for responding so quickly to my questions and it's good to know we'll learn what actually is going on in the Ul'dah storyline because there's so much hidden. Can't wait to have that "ooooooooh" moment when we learn about who 'killed' Niellefresne. My money is on an assassin hired by Lord Lolorito of the Syndicate.

Also high five to all my buddies who stuck around and were just as curious as me.

The 1.0 story was a little deep for me (really hard to understand what was going on). Especially in the beginning, I thought it was all present day, but apparently UD intro (Where you ride the carriage into town and watch the parade with Warburton and Ascilia) was the past or something, or...yeah, I'm confused.

Yessir, check out the links in my sig and you'll get an explanation of both the Ul'dah storyline and Ascilia being Minfilia.

EDIT: Wait a tick... do you think the breaking of the aetherial seal is what made Seal Rock rise from the depths in the first place?

It could be Moose, everything related to Primals could have been 'released.'

[HiirNoivl]

So the umbral era ends when we show up I guess.

[Rocl]

i still need confirmation that rowena was actually unknowingly a pawn in an imperial plot for my life to be complete ;-;

[Anonymoose]

Hello all, and (an embarrassingly belated) Happy New Year!

Happy new year, Ferne (and LOC squad as a whole, of course)!

Oh, and about that Lore page in the new Lodestone forums... We're in the process of escalating the issue right on up to Yoshi-P, so he knows how important this is for you guys. And we won't stop until we get that page up and running.

That and I'm betting there are a few in the office who'd appreciate the subtle distinction between needing to clear up lore ambiguities and actual pure-blood text and dialogue errors - both localization issues, arguably, but definitely different species. Can't wait!

Ten year gap between events confirmed. Hermit = Krimm and Rostnstahl = Stahlmann inferred.

The good news is that Rostnsthal = Sthalmann is confirmed a few times if you know where to look, the best example being his referring to himself as "Rostnsthalmann" when trashed out of his mind - but you get a few tidbits from the "[Adjective] Adventurer" NPCs, such as the translations of his name, Man of Steel and Rusty Steel, etc.

I'll look into Hermit/Krimm when I get there - but the Loremonger for Treasures of the Main is going to be untwelvely long. I'm not even done with the raw transcript yet - which is coming after I go through the backlog of existing quotations and update to the new template format (old one was causing some issues, so now "link=" for no link, "link=y" for link is same as speaker, and "link=[Whatever Pagename Here]" is required).

Interestingly, if what you say is true, then all three city states experienced investigations headed by The Circle of Knowing at the exact same time, and these occurred shortly after the Battle of Silvertear Skies. Granted, the Fall of the Keeper and the breaking of the aetheric seal are grand reasons for the Sharlayans to get involved - just amazing that all of these very important things happened in such a short time span.

EDIT: Wait a tick... do you think the breaking of the aetherial seal is what made Seal Rock rise from the depths in the first place?

All that speculation paid off !!

I've gotta hand you this one, Warlock - your speculation can be as trigger happy and schizophrenic as my own at times, but you NAILED that one, lmao.

i still need confirmation that rowena was actually unknowingly a pawn in an imperial plot for my life to be complete ;-;

I half expect her to still be roaming Ul'dah peddling back-alley deals in A Realm Reborn. If I remember correctly, it was an Ishgardian noble that she was assisting - perhaps there is a turncoat in their midst?

[Galliano]

Something's up with this guy.

I've been analyzing this guy and his two parties on and off for two years now (trying to definitively state his story in a lore post) - and I've finally arrived at my conclusion. It don't think it's me - I think it's possible that Square Enix changed some things and forgot to change others (or maybe just didn't out those changes in a clear context). I'm posting this here since you LOCies have access to the core lore and maybe you can help clear up the disjoint.

I've been tossing around ideas of what's going on, ranging from echo to prophecy... from job change to aging... but no one assumption solves all the problems. (EDIT: Though we're now trying below!)

When we first meet this guy, he's with an Elezen Male and Miqo'te Female picking up some guildleves (presumably in Ishgard).

These two. (AKA AG Party)

Staring at a Resolve leve, he has a vision... He's no longer a gladiator - he's an archer. He's got new friends, an Elezen Female, a Lalafell Female, and a Roegadyn Male. Also, this is the battle of Silvertear Falls, which we know took place 10 years prior to Present Day.

(AKA 10 Years Ago Party*)
* The lalafell is, I assume, in this image... out of view there... by the feets.

After his vision, he snaps back to his gladiator self and he's with AG Party again. He says that he knows this is the leve he wants.

At first, I assumed he was in Present Day and echo-jumped backwards to a different context (possibly evidenced by the way 10 Years Ago Party reacts to him). However, it could also be interpreted that he is actually 10 years ago and is having a PROPHETIC vision of the future. This has troubled me for a long time... but now I think I've got my answer in the form of some other XIV Pre-Release shots... there is no answer because the video itself was edited in some areas. Here's one of several shots where he is 10 Years Ago ... with 10 Years Ago Party... as a gladiator.

So he could have just swapped jobs around, but it doesn't explain where AG party went when he showed up with 10 Years Ago Party.

And here he is as a gladiator during the Battle of Silvertear Falls in an earlier preview - except we already know that in this scene he is now an archer who's lost his bow while having a vision. There were edits made but I'm not sure what they imply. Compare:

I think that, originally, the scene in the AG scene didn't exist... it was just the 10 years ago content. Then, it was edited - are there mistakes and inconsistencies in the final version? It looks like it could be an echo, it could be prophetic, and he may very well be an interdimensional time lord with an identity crisis.

"Aw, sick! Maybe I'll level warrior, next!"



............

Flash forward to the Realm Reborn trailers. All the same characters are here - 10 Years Ago Party has MERGED with AG Party ... except that the roegadyn has armory system'd into the midlander's main job, and vice versa (and they went for each other's main job relic weapon, too, because why not). If these two parties had indeed met (we see them fighting together before and after this screenshot), why did they not fight together at Silvertear Falls? That was after he picked up the leave with them, no? And they were going with him, yes? So if it was in the future, what's up?

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M WEARING YOUR PA-
OH, GODS, WE DID IT AGAIN!"


--------------------------------------------

If you would be so kind, would you mind telling me the story of what's really going on here? Was the AG Isgard? Present Day 1572 Astral or before the Battle of Silvertear Falls in 1562 Sixth Astral? Was there editing or just he just hop jobs a lot?

If the Battle of Silvertear Falls was BEFORE the scene and he was echo-hopping to 10 years ago, where did he meet up with 10 Years Ago Party LATER? If it all took place 10 years ago and he was having a prophetic vision of was to come, why isn't the party he just told to accept the levequest with him helping him take out the marbol? (Theories below?)

... Did he really take that dive into the exploding primal ball? Midgardsormr's still dead so I assume so. How'd he swing surviving that one?

Hey Moose,

I remember a while back there was a thread about this, one of the lore devs made a huge post explaining it all in detail and linking the first CG with the new ones. However; you would need to search for it as I have no clue what it was called.

[Vilhem]

Hey Moose,

I remember a while back there was a thread about this, one of the lore devs made a huge post explaining it all in detail and linking the first CG with the new ones. However; you would need to search for it as I have no clue what it was called.

Um this is the same thread Lol. The huge lore post was made somewhere on page 50? I think.

[Anonymoose]

Um this is the same thread Lol. The huge lore post was made somewhere on page 50? I think.

He might mean the thread Campfire Discussion: Opening Cinematic Theories, which was (funny enough) also by me. Was my first attempt at trying to figure this out - loooong before Midgardsormr had a name or anything. Some of you were there, too. Nostalgiaaaaa.

[Galliano]

Um this is the same thread Lol. The huge lore post was made somewhere on page 50? I think.

Hahaha! you're right, I just checked. I really should pay more attention...

He might mean the thread Campfire Discussion: Opening Cinematic Theories, which was (funny enough) also by me. Was my first attempt at trying to figure this out - loooong before Midgardsormr had a name or anything. Some of you were there, too. Nostalgiaaaaa.

As above, it was this thread, sorry for the confusion! I just remembered reading it a while back.

[Lucke]

The 1.0 story was a little deep for me (really hard to understand what was going on). Especially in the beginning, I thought it was all present day, but apparently UD intro (Where you ride the carriage into town and watch the parade with Warburton and Ascilia) was the past or something, or...yeah, I'm confused.