CG Midlander

[Mieck]

(Potentially) Legendary stuff

A while back, when we (as Lore-mad thread occupants) were running with the as-was-then unconfirmed Ascilia/Minfilia and Khrimm/Hermit connection, I asked what the Limsa equivalent was, and I didn't like the Sthalmann suggestion as candidate. It wasn't neat enough, and quite often, SE do "neat" (once all is visible). And yes, I admit there are a lot of assumptions going on here. It was probably down to Sthalmann's hidden identity not being very hidden, and also playing a part in the MRD quests, whereas the others were entirely (as far as I can see) restricted to the main story line.

Great work, Moose

[Catapult]

THANK YOU!

Emerick is exactly the sort of connection I was looking for and would complete the triangle nicely.
Ascilia/Emerick/Khrimm -> Minfilia/Blackburn/Hermit

Your thoughts on Y'shtola being in her own time line up with simmilar comment and remarks made about the Echo by Papalymo and (iirc) Thancred. Likewise the fact that she knows who you are (and is on a mission involving the echo) in Futures Perfect.

On the topic of changing history, I'm not sure I've found what I'm looking for. Even before your involvement, Stahl-person had been shamed and the Admiral-dude had been replaced by Merlwyb (Stahl would have needed to win the Trident anyway and would have been relying on the horn to do so). Let us try something else, with a more subtle lead-up and more significant consequences...

Before the echo sequence, we're told Emerick/Blackburn (yes, I'm running with this) and Rostnstahlman are often at the Gods Grip searching for what they lost - presumably the key/horn.
But then, inside the echo, everyone, including these folks Stahlmann and Y'shtola, see Trevanchet nab it and run.
Is this something that wasn't supposed to happen?
If the echo hadn't interrupted their fight, would Y'shtola have won, nicked the horn and buggered off, leaving Stahlmann without his prize and no means of winning the Trident anyway?

Oh and on the topic of the "one sparkle", this is also seen in the other city states:

Yda: They're falling towards the lake, Papalymo. Are you thinking what I'm th―
Papalymo: Do you need even ask? We should have stopped it and we didn't. It has begun.

I think Trev riding in on the starshower is a red herring, but maybe it could still be related to his appearance in the first place? Or maybe he just felt the first of many rips in spacetime when you echoed-in-an-echo and decided to check it out? In that case, lucky him!

I may also be off-target, but that is what this thread is for!

[Anonymoose]

Ascilia/Emerick/Khrimm -> Minfilia/Blackburn/Hermit

I'm just surprised to see that Lominsa, if I'm not building a case out of an unlikely coincidence, has two people with secret identities. It's gonna make me paranoid! No one is immune from suspicion now!

Stahlmann and Y'shtola, see Trevanchet nab it and run. Is this something that wasn't supposed to happen? If the echo hadn't interrupted their fight, would Y'shtola have won, nicked the horn and buggered off, leaving Stahlmann without his prize and no means of winning the Trident anyway?

That's a possibility; Sthalmann clearly didn't know how to use the Key in the first place - and his plan to beat the answer out of Y'shtola was going over pretty badly. I'm wondering, to build on your idea, if the activation of the Key is what drew Travachant to the area. Y'shtola seems like she doesn't know what's going on when the Echo hits, so it might be that she's never experienced one before. Therefore one might assume that if neither Sthalmann nor Y'shtola has experienced and Echo, and the Echo is triggered by the activation of the Key, then your presence has something to do with it. Perhaps Travachant honed in on the very activation of the Key, caused by your presence.

That makes me a little uncomfortable, though; that's Harry Potter levels of "everything would have been fine if the protagonist just stayed at home."

[Catapult]

I'm just surprised to see that Lominsa, if I'm not building a case out of an unlikely coincidence, has two people with secret identities. It's gonna make me paranoid! No one is immune from suspicion now!

We're already wondering what has happened to Fye in the last decade and where she has ended up now that her reason to wander the wood has been completely annulled. Likewise, Merodaulyn remains unaccounted for, as does Nielle's killer. I'm also wondering what has happened to Damielliot (although I haven't played the alchemist quests). And if you want to start talking about state secrets, I could go on about the padjal and Gridanian Lore for hours.

So no, I don't think that this is of particular concern.

[NoloeTazier]

[FONT=Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman]Snip~~~
Most importantly, what is that friggin' 'starshower'??!! And when does it actually take place? Is it heralding a war between the Astral Heavens and the Umbral depths? If so, where are the astral versions of the ascians? They need to jump on getting those horns too, otherwise we is S.O.L.!

Sorry can't really answer the other questions, but wanted to try and hit on the Starshowers from one of my earlier posts. I felt that the First Starshower we saw, was the explosion from the Battle of Silvertear Skies. We saw the release of the Primals and this somehow coincided with our awakening of the Echo. But it's kind of confusing because all that took place within an Echo itself, because it happened 10 years prior to our arrival to whichever City-State we chose(opening scenes I mean). But maybe that's just what happens when the Echo awakens within people. They see the 'beginning' the Starshower. As for the Second Starshower, I feel that that was a vision of what comes down the road, Minfilia tells us about people with the Echo being able to see what happens down the road and they don't want to speak of it. Regardless of which direction that Second Starshower took us (Yoshi-P or Tanaka) there was going to be some kind of huge exploding ball. With Yoshi-P it became Dalamud. When the Second Starshower happens, we blackout/passout afterwards that could just be the side-effect of seeing down the rabbit-hole so to speak.

So to sum it up:
First Starshower: the release of the Primals.
Second Starshower: Dalamud.

I may be completely wrong, but hopefully I helped in some way.

[HiirNoivl]

:O "They're"????

[Skies]

I can state that Damielliot does not appears in the Alchemist quests, as I have done them all.
The ALC quests revolve around a sick boy who has a mysterious disease where he will suddenly fall asleep and not awake for large stretches of time.
Time and time again the ALC guild heals him with more and more complex solutions (he's the son of one of the leaders) until at the point the character gets involved, nothing at all is working.

In the end, what actually saves him is the Echo, actually. You use the Echo to travel to a turning point in his past (he had been kindnapped, but a dragon soaring over bowled him and his kidnappers off one of those gigantic pitfalls in Coerthas, he was near-dead, his kidnappers had died) and you'd apply the medicine inside the Echo on him.
What was interesting is also that originally, who healed him was a dragon. But now you jump into the echo and heal him, and when you return, he's awakened and thanks you for saving him. Somehow he knows you saved him right now, even if someone else was who saved him back then...
Crap I DON'T have the text of that adventure saved, argh.

[Anonymoose]

Damielliot does not appear in the Alchemist quests <...> The ALC quests revolve around a sick boy

That sick boy the ALC quest revolves around is named Damielliot. Yes, this is the same Damielliot as is seen collapsing in Calamity Cometh. I believe that truly understanding his role in that quest, as well as the ALC storyline, is immensely helped by looking at the big picture, combining those appearances.

(I've yet to do this; it's on my to-do-when-I-get-there lists)

Crap I DON'T have the text of that adventure saved, argh.

Heeeere you go!

Was it you who worked this miracle, Forename? I have just heard it from the children─that Damielliot came to whilst you were at his bedside. And that he spoke words of thanks to you─for saving him. There is no reason to suspect that our treatments suddenly started working. I wonder if it was not something within you that roused him from his sleep. Any alchemist who has practiced the healing arts for long enough has seen things like this. Things which can only be described as miracles. You are no less than a hero to the children now, Forename─and to all of us. Miracle or not, I am grateful that you were here. Please, take this─a scarcely adequate token of our immense appreciation.

This is seen as the holy grail of "The Echo can't change the past!" being irrefutably wrong. The thing that gets me is ... Squenix doesn't give one-example hints. In my humble opinion, either this one is being interpreted improperly, or there are plenty of other examples we're just not attributing to our own influence.

My Theory
I'm wondering if what's really going on is that Damielliot has the Echo and doesn't know it or how to control it. You'll recall that before the player masters the echo, they, too, have a tendency to mysteriously pass out a lot. That might be what his sickness really is, and why he responds to the player's presence. Would that not make the dialogue much more in line with what happened? We might not have changed history at all.

Again, I haven't critically analyzed these scenes yet; I could be way off. I have faith that Catapult will nail that idea to the wall if it's wrong, though - so you're in luck!

[Catapult]

Thanks for the overview of Damielliot. As I mentioned before, I never got to play those quests, but what you have told me still fits in with my theory that we are breaking the normal rules of the echo, which is what makes the player so special (and makes for a more awesome story). Even from the very start, we have been messing with causality, such as how we obtain our baloon fish/treant vine/velodyna cosmos. Curing a sick boy in the past doesn't feel like a stretch to the player, does it? Although it might to others. Some Walkers can't understand the words of the beast tribes, others can do this but not walk the warrens of the past.

Llysander, I think you might be following a red herring. Voidsent still cast shadows. Even Atomos cast a shadow. Classifying ascians biologically may not even be possible and I currently have no reason to believe there could be as "astral version" of them, unless we perhaps consider the Twelve themselves.