You know when I heard that there was a city in the depths I was expecting something like a couple buildings and maybe some roads. You know, a "city" scaled down for MMO purposes. Amaurot...is not that. Amaurot is goddamn MASSIVE in scope and I know I can only access a tiny portion of it. And all this ambient lore to pick up. No one knows exactly what the catastrophe actually is, but they know what it does: cause them to lose control of their creation magic and begin manifesting all their nightmares and fears. And as Y'shtola says the original citizens of Amaurot had so much mana that they could perform what was essentially primal summoning at will for pretty much anything they desired in their lives. For that kind of power to go rampant on a global scale would indeed be the end of the world for the inhabitants. And these masks on the phantoms, they're very similar to those worn by the Ascians we know. And their unique red face symbols, those are probably the marks of their offices/titles I'm presuming, which would explain why they all have different ones.
The ritual to summon Zodiark was intended to imbue the star with a will. Hydaelyn's final blow to Zodiark was so great she sundered him into pieces along with the rest of existence with the Source remaining as the origin. The Ascians want to rejoin the shards to the Source in order to resurrect Zodiark...but that's not actually the goal is it?
"Of course you wouldn't remember." Emet-Selch's passing words just before the Ladder. Hydaelyn's ennervation ability halving her target, with the target being everything, resulting in fourteen total fragments of a whole for everything. But why would she need to target everything when Zodiark was her foe? Because the Ascians succeeded in imbuing the star with will, with Zodiark. In other words, Zodiark IS the star and thus so is the Source and all the shards. The rejoining isn't to resurrect Zodiark, it's to make him whole because he was never dead to begin with, just halved and halved and halved and so on until he was so spread out he was practically nothing. Now seven times the rejoining has succeeded, which would mean Zodiark is halfway restored and may be able to project that will somewhat by now.
Edit: Bah, how did I lose my original train of thought. Everything was halved. EVERYTHING. All souls return to the Lifestream upon death, whereupon they are reborn eventually. In other words, souls are enduring unless directly destroyed, so the flow does not change. "Of course you wouldn't remember." All split into fragments. Souls remain constant and as Emet-Selch hinted at each has a unique color.
The WoL included. The WoL halved and halved and halved much the same as Zodiark. The WoL also existing during the time of Amaurot, known to Emet-Selch in their original self, very likely one of the people who helped summon Hydaelyn in the first place, meaning she wasn't tempered by the appearance of that crystal or contact with Hydaelyn, she's always had a connection because her original self helped to summon her.
This is all just conjecture of course. I'm standing at the big aetheryte in Aumurot waiting to log in after I had to stop last night and go to sleep so I can properly appreciate story beats with a clear mind. The MSQ has hit Level 80 so I'm very near the end. Time for the final push and to see what big finale awaits.
Added a little more because clearly I wasn't awake enough to keep the train of thought on track.
Amourat is 100% a game changer for the whole expansion, and I was 100% unspoiled on it. Happy you got the same experience.
General spoilers for your thoughts:
Zodiark from what we know is something of an abomination in that while it will "technically" keep the Star alive, it does so at a cost of eternal sacrifice. It's like Sin from FFX, it was designed as a "solution" to the problem of extinction, but it is as bad as the problem it was meant to solve. And Hydaelyn was built to prevent it from ruling creation for all time.
From the Ascian perspective handful of militant survivors, sure, Hydaelyn is a horrible weapon that split the universe. However, their plan is to mash all the multiverse bits back together, killing everyone and everything that exists in order to return things to "the way they were". And about half of the surviving Ascians, a thoughtful, gentle people, were NOT okay with this.
Amourat is 100% a game changer for the whole expansion, and I was 100% unspoiled on it. Happy you got the same experience.
General spoilers for your thoughts:
Zodiark from what we know is something of an abomination in that while it will "technically" keep the Star alive, it does so at a cost of eternal sacrifice. It's like Sin from FFX, it was designed as a "solution" to the problem of extinction, but it is as bad as the problem it was meant to solve. And Hydaelyn was built to prevent it from ruling creation for all time.
From the Ascian perspective handful of militant survivors, sure, Hydaelyn is a horrible weapon that split the universe. However, their plan is to mash all the multiverse bits back together, killing everyone and everything that exists in order to return things to "the way they were". And about half of the surviving Ascians, a thoughtful, gentle people, were NOT okay with this.
Response to your spoilers. @Madican, I'd hold off on looking at these discussions until after you finish 5.0.
I don't know if we have enough information to say that maintaining Zodiark required constant eternal sacrifice. We do know that every time they wanted to pull the lever of a major wish/action on the part of Zodiark, it required a major sacrifice to fuel the major wish/action. There had to be a cost in aether paid in order to fuel the action, it wasn't a matter of getting something for nothing as a giant wish granting machine.
Perhaps not continual as fuel, but the conversation with the rebels seems to indicate the decision to use Zodiark in itself leads to the decision to keep using it. As whatever caused the Final Days likely isn't going away. Again, it's a "fix" as bad as the cure.
It's still a downward spiral of ever-doubling down on sacrifice to protect the old world... which of course is the same thing Ascians hate about Hydaelyn. The only difference is they get to keep "their" world a little while longer.
Perhaps not continual as fuel, but the conversation with the rebels seems to indicate the decision to use Zodiark in itself leads to the decision to keep using it. As whatever caused the Final Days likely isn't going away. Again, it's a "fix" as bad as the cure.
It's still a downward spiral of ever-doubling down on sacrifice to protect the old world... which of course is the same thing Ascians hate about Hydaelyn. The only difference is they get to keep "their" world a little while longer.
That's actually an interesting point. 5.0 stuff:
The Ascians complain about the sundering diminishing souls by splitting and splitting... but Zodiark required (though this may have been exagerrated by Emet-Selch) half the population being sacrificed, and then half the remaining population again.
Kind of makes me think of the two questions from Babylon 5. Who are you? What do you want?
Haven't read any spoilers but I'm now queued up for the final Trial and enjoying the music in the meanwhile. I'll wait until after to gather my thoughts.
turtleantGunpla Dadis the best.Registered Userregular
End of ShBr/ShBr patch stuff
I do hope they actually grapple with the fact that, in the process of Hydalen stopping Zodiark, she did, ya know, murder literally every living thing except for like 3 dudes.
Yeah sure souls life stream blah blah blah, every person/plant/animal etc that was alive when she did the big steppy was just gone. You lop me into 14 pieces I'm still dead as dogshit even if those pieces get up and go be different people.
Also that, while the Zodiark summoning was a solution to a problem that broke real bad, it was something that the majority of the people wanted and had no way to know how sour that solution would turn out. Whereas, Hydalen as far as we can tell, was a decision only a handful of people decided to carry out. Possibly not even including Azem. That doesn't mean stopping Zodiark was bad, but you gotta have some kind of reckoning for characters that essentially ended their world, regardless of the circumstances.
If the story in EW doesn't address the fact that Hydalen is also a super powerful primal, and one who is essentially constantly broadcasting tempering waves to grab anyone who happens to subconsciously remember Amurot, I'm gonna be fairly grumpy. It's like my one big concern going into the xpack's story.
I do hope they actually grapple with the fact that, in the process of Hydalen stopping Zodiark, she did, ya know, murder literally every living thing except for like 3 dudes.
Yeah sure souls life stream blah blah blah, every person/plant/animal etc that was alive when she did the big steppy was just gone. You lop me into 14 pieces I'm still dead as dogshit even if those pieces get up and go be different people.
Also that, while the Zodiark summoning was a solution to a problem that broke real bad, it was something that the majority of the people wanted and had no way to know how sour that solution would turn out. Whereas, Hydalen as far as we can tell, was a decision only a handful of people decided to carry out. Possibly not even including Azem. That doesn't mean stopping Zodiark was bad, but you gotta have some kind of reckoning for characters that essentially ended their world, regardless of the circumstances.
If the story in EW doesn't address the fact that Hydalen is also a super powerful primal, and one who is essentially constantly broadcasting tempering waves to grab anyone who happens to subconsciously remember Amurot, I'm gonna be fairly grumpy. It's like my one big concern going into the xpack's story.
What would you consider to be a satisfying way to address it?
I do hope they actually grapple with the fact that, in the process of Hydalen stopping Zodiark, she did, ya know, murder literally every living thing except for like 3 dudes.
Yeah sure souls life stream blah blah blah, every person/plant/animal etc that was alive when she did the big steppy was just gone. You lop me into 14 pieces I'm still dead as dogshit even if those pieces get up and go be different people.
Also that, while the Zodiark summoning was a solution to a problem that broke real bad, it was something that the majority of the people wanted and had no way to know how sour that solution would turn out. Whereas, Hydalen as far as we can tell, was a decision only a handful of people decided to carry out. Possibly not even including Azem. That doesn't mean stopping Zodiark was bad, but you gotta have some kind of reckoning for characters that essentially ended their world, regardless of the circumstances.
If the story in EW doesn't address the fact that Hydalen is also a super powerful primal, and one who is essentially constantly broadcasting tempering waves to grab anyone who happens to subconsciously remember Amurot, I'm gonna be fairly grumpy. It's like my one big concern going into the xpack's story.
Spoilers for Shadowbringers, post ShB patches and Endwalker promotional stuff.
The issue is that the next sacrifice on the Zodiark chopping block was all the life that had been allowed to flourish after the end times were stopped.
Like, they were going to let things build up and then cull it to bring back the ancients who'd died.
Venat's faction were very much against that particular bit of fuckery.
I assume we're going to get a more personal perspective on that though, since the mysterious woman in the trailers is probably Venat/Hydaelyn.
That was a very satisfying conclusion to the tale. Turns out that yes the WoD is actually the WoL, or rather they're two fragments of the same soul, and that's why the WoL can see him and resonates with him. I was already expecting he would be taking his turn to do the self-sacrifice thing to bolster the WoL's soul but that didn't make the actual event any less impactful as the raging Light was suddenly contained and controlled within a fully-powered WoL ready to beat an Ascian's face in.
Speaking of Ascians, I had been thinking that them looking human was probably not their true form but I wasn't expecting motherfucking HADES to be Emet-Selch's true self. That was a bigger surprise to me than when Vauthry turned into Winged Dio. Epic fight, epic cutscene, and one of the top Ascians destroyed for good. I think that just leaves Elidibus as the last of the original Ascians considering we murked Lahabrea back in Heavensward. He probably didn't get to reveal his true form because that's when he had no idea we could destroy him for good up until we actually did it. Shame, would have been interesting to see his true name. Poseidon? Zeus? I'm thinking Poseidon and Elidibus is Zeus. Or maybe they're not thematic in that way and I'll find out the real names as I go through patch stuff. Or Endwalker. Many possibilities!
The dungeon preceding it was cool enough, but really I was expecting something a bit...more from the Third Doom. Bahamut ZERO perhaps, I saw the light beam coming from a dragon-like thing early on and it got my hopes up. As it was I greatly appreciated the Trust system letting me progress through the dungeon, all the dungeons really, for the first time at my own pace. I got to actually figure out fights and learn mechanics rather than feeling under pressure like I do in normal parties where I don't know what's happening.
Most of all though, I appreciate how interacting with Emet-Selch helped to make the Ascians more relatable in a sense. They're not just immortal, flesh-stealing harbingers of chaos, they're people who have reasons to do what they're doing. As several of the Scions have said, they would probably do the same in Ascian shoes. The thing that pits us against them is that their goals are antithetical to ours. They seek to resurrect their old world by destroying everyone and everything of the new. We seek to protect our world and in so doing we deny them. That's not to say the Ascians aren't evil, because of course they are when their goals involve sacrificing everyone currently living to Zodiark, but that now I actually understand why they're fighting and what they're fighting for. I'll still destroy all of them, that hasn't changed, but they're no longer just random villains who I only know as trying to resurrect a dark god because For the Evulz.
I can only hope that I get more of this Ascian and Zodiark lore in the post-Shadowbringers patch content. I still don't think I'll be done before Endwalker releases, but who knows eh?
That was a very satisfying conclusion to the tale. Turns out that yes the WoD is actually the WoL, or rather they're two fragments of the same soul, and that's why the WoL can see him and resonates with him. I was already expecting he would be taking his turn to do the self-sacrifice thing to bolster the WoL's soul but that didn't make the actual event any less impactful as the raging Light was suddenly contained and controlled within a fully-powered WoL ready to beat an Ascian's face in.
Speaking of Ascians, I had been thinking that them looking human was probably not their true form but I wasn't expecting motherfucking HADES to be Emet-Selch's true self. That was a bigger surprise to me than when Vauthry turned into Winged Dio. Epic fight, epic cutscene, and one of the top Ascians destroyed for good. I think that just leaves Elidibus as the last of the original Ascians considering we murked Lahabrea back in Heavensward. He probably didn't get to reveal his true form because that's when he had no idea we could destroy him for good up until we actually did it. Shame, would have been interesting to see his true name. Poseidon? Zeus? I'm thinking Poseidon and Elidibus is Zeus. Or maybe they're not thematic in that way and I'll find out the real names as I go through patch stuff. Or Endwalker. Many possibilities!
The dungeon preceding it was cool enough, but really I was expecting something a bit...more from the Third Doom. Bahamut ZERO perhaps, I saw the light beam coming from a dragon-like thing early on and it got my hopes up. As it was I greatly appreciated the Trust system letting me progress through the dungeon, all the dungeons really, for the first time at my own pace. I got to actually figure out fights and learn mechanics rather than feeling under pressure like I do in normal parties where I don't know what's happening.
Most of all though, I appreciate how interacting with Emet-Selch helped to make the Ascians more relatable in a sense. They're not just immortal, flesh-stealing harbingers of chaos, they're people who have reasons to do what they're doing. As several of the Scions have said, they would probably do the same in Ascian shoes. The thing that pits us against them is that their goals are antithetical to ours. They seek to resurrect their old world by destroying everyone and everything of the new. We seek to protect our world and in so doing we deny them. That's not to say the Ascians aren't evil, because of course they are when their goals involve sacrificing everyone currently living to Zodiark, but that now I actually understand why they're fighting and what they're fighting for. I'll still destroy all of them, that hasn't changed, but they're no longer just random villains who I only know as trying to resurrect a dark god because For the Evulz.
I can only hope that I get more of this Ascian and Zodiark lore in the post-Shadowbringers patch content. I still don't think I'll be done before Endwalker releases, but who knows eh?
Onwards, to Patch 5.1 stuff! I think.
Speculation, based on 5.0 stuff.
They mention Laha as being big on creating things in some Amaurot dialogue, so I've been suspecting Hephaestus.
That was a very satisfying conclusion to the tale. Turns out that yes the WoD is actually the WoL, or rather they're two fragments of the same soul, and that's why the WoL can see him and resonates with him. I was already expecting he would be taking his turn to do the self-sacrifice thing to bolster the WoL's soul but that didn't make the actual event any less impactful as the raging Light was suddenly contained and controlled within a fully-powered WoL ready to beat an Ascian's face in.
Speaking of Ascians, I had been thinking that them looking human was probably not their true form but I wasn't expecting motherfucking HADES to be Emet-Selch's true self. That was a bigger surprise to me than when Vauthry turned into Winged Dio. Epic fight, epic cutscene, and one of the top Ascians destroyed for good. I think that just leaves Elidibus as the last of the original Ascians considering we murked Lahabrea back in Heavensward. He probably didn't get to reveal his true form because that's when he had no idea we could destroy him for good up until we actually did it. Shame, would have been interesting to see his true name. Poseidon? Zeus? I'm thinking Poseidon and Elidibus is Zeus. Or maybe they're not thematic in that way and I'll find out the real names as I go through patch stuff. Or Endwalker. Many possibilities!
The dungeon preceding it was cool enough, but really I was expecting something a bit...more from the Third Doom. Bahamut ZERO perhaps, I saw the light beam coming from a dragon-like thing early on and it got my hopes up. As it was I greatly appreciated the Trust system letting me progress through the dungeon, all the dungeons really, for the first time at my own pace. I got to actually figure out fights and learn mechanics rather than feeling under pressure like I do in normal parties where I don't know what's happening.
Most of all though, I appreciate how interacting with Emet-Selch helped to make the Ascians more relatable in a sense. They're not just immortal, flesh-stealing harbingers of chaos, they're people who have reasons to do what they're doing. As several of the Scions have said, they would probably do the same in Ascian shoes. The thing that pits us against them is that their goals are antithetical to ours. They seek to resurrect their old world by destroying everyone and everything of the new. We seek to protect our world and in so doing we deny them. That's not to say the Ascians aren't evil, because of course they are when their goals involve sacrificing everyone currently living to Zodiark, but that now I actually understand why they're fighting and what they're fighting for. I'll still destroy all of them, that hasn't changed, but they're no longer just random villains who I only know as trying to resurrect a dark god because For the Evulz.
I can only hope that I get more of this Ascian and Zodiark lore in the post-Shadowbringers patch content. I still don't think I'll be done before Endwalker releases, but who knows eh?
Onwards, to Patch 5.1 stuff! I think.
Speculation, based on 5.0 stuff.
They mention Laha as being big on creating things in some Amaurot dialogue, so I've been suspecting Hephaestus.
Could very well be!
+1
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turtleantGunpla Dadis the best.Registered Userregular
I do hope they actually grapple with the fact that, in the process of Hydalen stopping Zodiark, she did, ya know, murder literally every living thing except for like 3 dudes.
Yeah sure souls life stream blah blah blah, every person/plant/animal etc that was alive when she did the big steppy was just gone. You lop me into 14 pieces I'm still dead as dogshit even if those pieces get up and go be different people.
Also that, while the Zodiark summoning was a solution to a problem that broke real bad, it was something that the majority of the people wanted and had no way to know how sour that solution would turn out. Whereas, Hydalen as far as we can tell, was a decision only a handful of people decided to carry out. Possibly not even including Azem. That doesn't mean stopping Zodiark was bad, but you gotta have some kind of reckoning for characters that essentially ended their world, regardless of the circumstances.
If the story in EW doesn't address the fact that Hydalen is also a super powerful primal, and one who is essentially constantly broadcasting tempering waves to grab anyone who happens to subconsciously remember Amurot, I'm gonna be fairly grumpy. It's like my one big concern going into the xpack's story.
What would you consider to be a satisfying way to address it?
Hopefully whatever solution we find for Zodiark involves Hydalen also going away.
Preferably, for me, SOMEBODY fuckin at least calls Hydalen out on attempting to subconsciously control hundreds/thousands of people and like, using Minfillia and also all the girls Minfillia kept getting reincarnated into on the first until they die.
I'm just worried Hydalen is just gonna be the tragic nice lady and get a free pass on everything
That was a very satisfying conclusion to the tale. Turns out that yes the WoD is actually the WoL, or rather they're two fragments of the same soul, and that's why the WoL can see him and resonates with him. I was already expecting he would be taking his turn to do the self-sacrifice thing to bolster the WoL's soul but that didn't make the actual event any less impactful as the raging Light was suddenly contained and controlled within a fully-powered WoL ready to beat an Ascian's face in.
Speaking of Ascians, I had been thinking that them looking human was probably not their true form but I wasn't expecting motherfucking HADES to be Emet-Selch's true self. That was a bigger surprise to me than when Vauthry turned into Winged Dio. Epic fight, epic cutscene, and one of the top Ascians destroyed for good. I think that just leaves Elidibus as the last of the original Ascians considering we murked Lahabrea back in Heavensward. He probably didn't get to reveal his true form because that's when he had no idea we could destroy him for good up until we actually did it. Shame, would have been interesting to see his true name. Poseidon? Zeus? I'm thinking Poseidon and Elidibus is Zeus. Or maybe they're not thematic in that way and I'll find out the real names as I go through patch stuff. Or Endwalker. Many possibilities!
The dungeon preceding it was cool enough, but really I was expecting something a bit...more from the Third Doom. Bahamut ZERO perhaps, I saw the light beam coming from a dragon-like thing early on and it got my hopes up. As it was I greatly appreciated the Trust system letting me progress through the dungeon, all the dungeons really, for the first time at my own pace. I got to actually figure out fights and learn mechanics rather than feeling under pressure like I do in normal parties where I don't know what's happening.
Most of all though, I appreciate how interacting with Emet-Selch helped to make the Ascians more relatable in a sense. They're not just immortal, flesh-stealing harbingers of chaos, they're people who have reasons to do what they're doing. As several of the Scions have said, they would probably do the same in Ascian shoes. The thing that pits us against them is that their goals are antithetical to ours. They seek to resurrect their old world by destroying everyone and everything of the new. We seek to protect our world and in so doing we deny them. That's not to say the Ascians aren't evil, because of course they are when their goals involve sacrificing everyone currently living to Zodiark, but that now I actually understand why they're fighting and what they're fighting for. I'll still destroy all of them, that hasn't changed, but they're no longer just random villains who I only know as trying to resurrect a dark god because For the Evulz.
I can only hope that I get more of this Ascian and Zodiark lore in the post-Shadowbringers patch content. I still don't think I'll be done before Endwalker releases, but who knows eh?
Onwards, to Patch 5.1 stuff! I think.
Making the Ascians good villains is one of SB's more impressive bits of writing.
And as you said,
The mega WoD/WoL nuke is probably my favorite protagonist moment in the series. And all the Sions get their chance to shine during the lead up to it with Thancred destroying Auracite and the Twins, Y'shtola and Urianger tearing Elmet's aether apart.
I do hope they actually grapple with the fact that, in the process of Hydalen stopping Zodiark, she did, ya know, murder literally every living thing except for like 3 dudes.
Yeah sure souls life stream blah blah blah, every person/plant/animal etc that was alive when she did the big steppy was just gone. You lop me into 14 pieces I'm still dead as dogshit even if those pieces get up and go be different people.
Also that, while the Zodiark summoning was a solution to a problem that broke real bad, it was something that the majority of the people wanted and had no way to know how sour that solution would turn out. Whereas, Hydalen as far as we can tell, was a decision only a handful of people decided to carry out. Possibly not even including Azem. That doesn't mean stopping Zodiark was bad, but you gotta have some kind of reckoning for characters that essentially ended their world, regardless of the circumstances.
If the story in EW doesn't address the fact that Hydalen is also a super powerful primal, and one who is essentially constantly broadcasting tempering waves to grab anyone who happens to subconsciously remember Amurot, I'm gonna be fairly grumpy. It's like my one big concern going into the xpack's story.
What would you consider to be a satisfying way to address it?
Hopefully whatever solution we find for Zodiark involves Hydalen also going away.
Preferably, for me, SOMEBODY fuckin at least calls Hydalen out on attempting to subconsciously control hundreds/thousands of people and like, using Minfillia and also all the girls Minfillia kept getting reincarnated into on the first until they die.
I'm just worried Hydalen is just gonna be the tragic nice lady and get a free pass on everything
Hydaelyn is pretty close to dead already - she's been running on fumes since the end of 2.0.
It's never been really clear how much Hydaelyn herself influences people either. The thing with all the Minfilias on the First isn't even Hydaelyn's fault - that's on the Ascians, they all died holding the sin eaters at bay basically.
I do hope they actually grapple with the fact that, in the process of Hydalen stopping Zodiark, she did, ya know, murder literally every living thing except for like 3 dudes.
Yeah sure souls life stream blah blah blah, every person/plant/animal etc that was alive when she did the big steppy was just gone. You lop me into 14 pieces I'm still dead as dogshit even if those pieces get up and go be different people.
Also that, while the Zodiark summoning was a solution to a problem that broke real bad, it was something that the majority of the people wanted and had no way to know how sour that solution would turn out. Whereas, Hydalen as far as we can tell, was a decision only a handful of people decided to carry out. Possibly not even including Azem. That doesn't mean stopping Zodiark was bad, but you gotta have some kind of reckoning for characters that essentially ended their world, regardless of the circumstances.
If the story in EW doesn't address the fact that Hydalen is also a super powerful primal, and one who is essentially constantly broadcasting tempering waves to grab anyone who happens to subconsciously remember Amurot, I'm gonna be fairly grumpy. It's like my one big concern going into the xpack's story.
What would you consider to be a satisfying way to address it?
Hopefully whatever solution we find for Zodiark involves Hydalen also going away.
Preferably, for me, SOMEBODY fuckin at least calls Hydalen out on attempting to subconsciously control hundreds/thousands of people and like, using Minfillia and also all the girls Minfillia kept getting reincarnated into on the first until they die.
I'm just worried Hydalen is just gonna be the tragic nice lady and get a free pass on everything
Hydaelyn is pretty close to dead already - she's been running on fumes since the end of 2.0.
It's never been really clear how much Hydaelyn herself influences people either. The thing with all the Minfilias on the First isn't even Hydaelyn's fault - that's on the Ascians, they all died holding the sin eaters at bay basically.
Yeah. We don’t know how exactly what Hydaelyn’s message does at this point. It could be anything from Tempering to just a literal message played on a loop.
It should also be noted that her message is not the same thing as receiving the Echo. The main trigger for the Echo is seeing something that awakens deep-seated memories of the Final Days. This is because the powers we call the Echo are something that everyone in the old world had to some degree. The varying effects of the Echo might be related to how much the trigger awakened, or maybe even what powers you had in that previous life.
Gaining the Echo only allows you to hear the message Hydalyn is broadcasting everywhere at all times.
That being said, there are still some questions. Primarily: if the Echo is something every Ancient had, then how did Zodiark Temper the Ascians who summoned him? The other universal effect of the Echo, aside from hearing Hydalyn, is total immunity to Tempering. And even the power to defend others from it. Ysayle, Ryne, and our character even performed primal summoning with no adverse effects. So, is Hydalyn’s broadcast instilling that effect (which might make it Tempering)? Is Zodiark just that powerful that other Primals’ Tempering efforts don’t compare? Or has the Echo changed somehow?
I’m skeptical to assume that Hydaelyn has Tempered us, just because the effects of Tempering have been researched. We know that it’s the result of (among other things) a forced change to the target’s elemental aetheric balance. Not everyone has the Echo, so you’d think that (especially considering Y’shtola’s and Matoya’s knowledge) someone would’ve noticed something strange about the aether of those with the Echo. But then, that mad scientist did basically scan Krile’s aether to reproduce her Echo.
Not sure what my point is after all that, other than there are a lot of questions, and no answer seems to perfectly fit just yet.
I do hope they actually grapple with the fact that, in the process of Hydalen stopping Zodiark, she did, ya know, murder literally every living thing except for like 3 dudes.
Yeah sure souls life stream blah blah blah, every person/plant/animal etc that was alive when she did the big steppy was just gone. You lop me into 14 pieces I'm still dead as dogshit even if those pieces get up and go be different people.
Also that, while the Zodiark summoning was a solution to a problem that broke real bad, it was something that the majority of the people wanted and had no way to know how sour that solution would turn out. Whereas, Hydalen as far as we can tell, was a decision only a handful of people decided to carry out. Possibly not even including Azem. That doesn't mean stopping Zodiark was bad, but you gotta have some kind of reckoning for characters that essentially ended their world, regardless of the circumstances.
If the story in EW doesn't address the fact that Hydalen is also a super powerful primal, and one who is essentially constantly broadcasting tempering waves to grab anyone who happens to subconsciously remember Amurot, I'm gonna be fairly grumpy. It's like my one big concern going into the xpack's story.
What would you consider to be a satisfying way to address it?
Hopefully whatever solution we find for Zodiark involves Hydalen also going away.
Preferably, for me, SOMEBODY fuckin at least calls Hydalen out on attempting to subconsciously control hundreds/thousands of people and like, using Minfillia and also all the girls Minfillia kept getting reincarnated into on the first until they die.
I'm just worried Hydalen is just gonna be the tragic nice lady and get a free pass on everything
Hydaelyn is pretty close to dead already - she's been running on fumes since the end of 2.0.
It's never been really clear how much Hydaelyn herself influences people either. The thing with all the Minfilias on the First isn't even Hydaelyn's fault - that's on the Ascians, they all died holding the sin eaters at bay basically.
Yeah. We don’t know how exactly what Hydaelyn’s message does at this point. It could be anything from Tempering to just a literal message played on a loop.
It should also be noted that her message is not the same thing as receiving the Echo. The main trigger for the Echo is seeing something that awakens deep-seated memories of the Final Days. This is because the powers we call the Echo are something that everyone in the old world had to some degree. The varying effects of the Echo might be related to how much the trigger awakened, or maybe even what powers you had in that previous life.
Gaining the Echo only allows you to hear the message Hydalyn is broadcasting everywhere at all times.
That being said, there are still some questions. Primarily: if the Echo is something every Ancient had, then how did Zodiark Temper the Ascians who summoned him? The other universal effect of the Echo, aside from hearing Hydalyn, is total immunity to Tempering. And even the power to defend others from it. Ysayle, Ryne, and our character even performed primal summoning with no adverse effects. So, is Hydalyn’s broadcast instilling that effect (which might make it Tempering)? Is Zodiark just that powerful that other Primals’ Tempering efforts don’t compare? Or has the Echo changed somehow?
I’m skeptical to assume that Hydaelyn has Tempered us, just because the effects of Tempering have been researched. We know that it’s the result of (among other things) a forced change to the target’s elemental aetheric balance. Not everyone has the Echo, so you’d think that (especially considering Y’shtola’s and Matoya’s knowledge) someone would’ve noticed something strange about the aether of those with the Echo. But then, that mad scientist did basically scan Krile’s aether to reproduce her Echo.
Not sure what my point is after all that, other than there are a lot of questions, and no answer seems to perfectly fit just yet.
As I read it, the other powers of the echo are tied to starting to remember the ancient apocalypse, but the tempering immunity is a side effect of Hydaelyn tempering you when you start to remember the apocalypse. What other effects her tempering have is still unclear, whether it's just to empower you, or to keep you from fully remembering the final days for mysterious reasons like remembering the "sound" would bring it back, or compel you to be her servant, or what.
Well I hit my first snag in the post Shadowbringers stuff pretty fast. New dungeon opened up but oops requires 430 ilevel to enter which...I do not have. I picked up the stuff in the Tempest when I advanced that part of the MSQ but seems I still need to replace my belt (useless as it'll be in a few weeks) and for the right side bracers + both rings. There a vendor I can make use of or should I do some dungeon queues then buy the latest with poetics? If I even can.
Hyd really is tempering people... but she's too weak/diffuse to actually issue commands through it, at least compared to other primals. Like taking the phone off the hook but it's just static on the line. So like you're tempered and can't be re-tempered, but you're not receiving instructions either, at least not in the same way.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
there's a couple 70 dungeons you can unlock and do with the free 70 class set's item level, one in crystarium by the front steps of the tower and one in the last zone, should be able to find the + quest mark on the map. You can't use poetics to get 70 gear (until endwalker is out) but you can get tomestones of allegory and revelation from running content on a 70 job, which you can use to buy 70 tomestone gear in Eulmore. Or you can buy crafted gear with a good ilvl on the market board for gil.
Well I hit my first snag in the post Shadowbringers stuff pretty fast. New dungeon opened up but oops requires 430 ilevel to enter which...I do not have. I picked up the stuff in the Tempest when I advanced that part of the MSQ but seems I still need to replace my belt (useless as it'll be in a few weeks) and for the right side bracers + both rings. There a vendor I can make use of or should I do some dungeon queues then buy the latest with poetics? If I even can.
You should have unlocked a new Dungeon in the Crystarium marked with a Blue + Quest marker, "By the time you hear this."
Well I hit my first snag in the post Shadowbringers stuff pretty fast. New dungeon opened up but oops requires 430 ilevel to enter which...I do not have. I picked up the stuff in the Tempest when I advanced that part of the MSQ but seems I still need to replace my belt (useless as it'll be in a few weeks) and for the right side bracers + both rings. There a vendor I can make use of or should I do some dungeon queues then buy the latest with poetics? If I even can.
You should have unlocked a new Dungeon in the Crystarium marked with a Blue + Quest marker, "By the time you hear this."
Do it, you wont regret it.
*gets dungeon theme stuck in head immediately*
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turtleantGunpla Dadis the best.Registered Userregular
Well I hit my first snag in the post Shadowbringers stuff pretty fast. New dungeon opened up but oops requires 430 ilevel to enter which...I do not have. I picked up the stuff in the Tempest when I advanced that part of the MSQ but seems I still need to replace my belt (useless as it'll be in a few weeks) and for the right side bracers + both rings. There a vendor I can make use of or should I do some dungeon queues then buy the latest with poetics? If I even can.
The tomestone vendor is in Eulmore. Second from the left will have options for Allegory and Revelations. You could also throw some gil at the problem and buy Exarchic gear-- it'd be worth grabbing a weapon.
Checked the market board for Exarchic stuff and picked up a weapon + two rings. That brought me to 450 ilevel which should suffice to get me through the remainder of pre-EW stuff I hope. If not then I'll have some current content tomes to spend by then I'm sure. Feels very weird to be current when a month and a half ago I was still in HW after resubbing.
Well I hit my first snag in the post Shadowbringers stuff pretty fast. New dungeon opened up but oops requires 430 ilevel to enter which...I do not have. I picked up the stuff in the Tempest when I advanced that part of the MSQ but seems I still need to replace my belt (useless as it'll be in a few weeks) and for the right side bracers + both rings. There a vendor I can make use of or should I do some dungeon queues then buy the latest with poetics? If I even can.
You should have unlocked a new Dungeon in the Crystarium marked with a Blue + Quest marker, "By the time you hear this."
Do it, you wont regret it.
That was an interesting dungeon. Music, picking up the lore bits scattered around (as my party charged off elsewhere no regrets), and finding an artificial Alexander at the bottom. Definitely worth the run.
It was about 100K gil for each one. But really I have almost 3 million of it and what am I really gonna use it on right now anyway when I don't even have two feet on the ground yet.
turtleantGunpla Dadis the best.Registered Userregular
I wouldn't spend more on gear than you need to to hit whatever min ilvl you need, the Cryptlurker stuff is going to be up for poetics in a week and change.
Checked the market board for Exarchic stuff and picked up a weapon + two rings. That brought me to 450 ilevel which should suffice to get me through the remainder of pre-EW stuff I hope. If not then I'll have some current content tomes to spend by then I'm sure. Feels very weird to be current when a month and a half ago I was still in HW after resubbing.
Well I hit my first snag in the post Shadowbringers stuff pretty fast. New dungeon opened up but oops requires 430 ilevel to enter which...I do not have. I picked up the stuff in the Tempest when I advanced that part of the MSQ but seems I still need to replace my belt (useless as it'll be in a few weeks) and for the right side bracers + both rings. There a vendor I can make use of or should I do some dungeon queues then buy the latest with poetics? If I even can.
You should have unlocked a new Dungeon in the Crystarium marked with a Blue + Quest marker, "By the time you hear this."
Do it, you wont regret it.
That was an interesting dungeon. Music, picking up the lore bits scattered around (as my party charged off elsewhere no regrets), and finding an artificial Alexander at the bottom. Definitely worth the run.
That boss is...
The result of Cid and Wedge's work spanning several generations. They rebuilt/reverse engineered Alexander with Omega which is how the Crystal tower jumped from the Source to the First AND back in time. It wasn't just a big teleport spell, it was Tycoon, which broke after activating.
As soon as you hit 435, you can start the first Nier raid too at the Dwarf village in Kholusia, which you should absolutely do.
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The ritual to summon Zodiark was intended to imbue the star with a will. Hydaelyn's final blow to Zodiark was so great she sundered him into pieces along with the rest of existence with the Source remaining as the origin. The Ascians want to rejoin the shards to the Source in order to resurrect Zodiark...but that's not actually the goal is it?
"Of course you wouldn't remember." Emet-Selch's passing words just before the Ladder. Hydaelyn's ennervation ability halving her target, with the target being everything, resulting in fourteen total fragments of a whole for everything. But why would she need to target everything when Zodiark was her foe? Because the Ascians succeeded in imbuing the star with will, with Zodiark. In other words, Zodiark IS the star and thus so is the Source and all the shards. The rejoining isn't to resurrect Zodiark, it's to make him whole because he was never dead to begin with, just halved and halved and halved and so on until he was so spread out he was practically nothing. Now seven times the rejoining has succeeded, which would mean Zodiark is halfway restored and may be able to project that will somewhat by now.
Edit: Bah, how did I lose my original train of thought. Everything was halved. EVERYTHING. All souls return to the Lifestream upon death, whereupon they are reborn eventually. In other words, souls are enduring unless directly destroyed, so the flow does not change. "Of course you wouldn't remember." All split into fragments. Souls remain constant and as Emet-Selch hinted at each has a unique color.
The WoL included. The WoL halved and halved and halved much the same as Zodiark. The WoL also existing during the time of Amaurot, known to Emet-Selch in their original self, very likely one of the people who helped summon Hydaelyn in the first place, meaning she wasn't tempered by the appearance of that crystal or contact with Hydaelyn, she's always had a connection because her original self helped to summon her.
This is all just conjecture of course. I'm standing at the big aetheryte in Aumurot waiting to log in after I had to stop last night and go to sleep so I can properly appreciate story beats with a clear mind. The MSQ has hit Level 80 so I'm very near the end. Time for the final push and to see what big finale awaits.
Added a little more because clearly I wasn't awake enough to keep the train of thought on track.
General spoilers for your thoughts:
From the Ascian perspective handful of militant survivors, sure, Hydaelyn is a horrible weapon that split the universe. However, their plan is to mash all the multiverse bits back together, killing everyone and everything that exists in order to return things to "the way they were". And about half of the surviving Ascians, a thoughtful, gentle people, were NOT okay with this.
FYI that twitter feed is very NSFW.
Without spoiling too directly...
Response to your spoilers. @Madican, I'd hold off on looking at these discussions until after you finish 5.0.
It's still a downward spiral of ever-doubling down on sacrifice to protect the old world... which of course is the same thing Ascians hate about Hydaelyn. The only difference is they get to keep "their" world a little while longer.
That's actually an interesting point. 5.0 stuff:
Kind of makes me think of the two questions from Babylon 5. Who are you? What do you want?
Yeah sure souls life stream blah blah blah, every person/plant/animal etc that was alive when she did the big steppy was just gone. You lop me into 14 pieces I'm still dead as dogshit even if those pieces get up and go be different people.
Also that, while the Zodiark summoning was a solution to a problem that broke real bad, it was something that the majority of the people wanted and had no way to know how sour that solution would turn out. Whereas, Hydalen as far as we can tell, was a decision only a handful of people decided to carry out. Possibly not even including Azem. That doesn't mean stopping Zodiark was bad, but you gotta have some kind of reckoning for characters that essentially ended their world, regardless of the circumstances.
If the story in EW doesn't address the fact that Hydalen is also a super powerful primal, and one who is essentially constantly broadcasting tempering waves to grab anyone who happens to subconsciously remember Amurot, I'm gonna be fairly grumpy. It's like my one big concern going into the xpack's story.
Spoilers for Shadowbringers, post ShB patches and Endwalker promotional stuff.
Like, they were going to let things build up and then cull it to bring back the ancients who'd died.
Venat's faction were very much against that particular bit of fuckery.
I assume we're going to get a more personal perspective on that though, since the mysterious woman in the trailers is probably Venat/Hydaelyn.
Speaking of Ascians, I had been thinking that them looking human was probably not their true form but I wasn't expecting motherfucking HADES to be Emet-Selch's true self. That was a bigger surprise to me than when Vauthry turned into Winged Dio. Epic fight, epic cutscene, and one of the top Ascians destroyed for good. I think that just leaves Elidibus as the last of the original Ascians considering we murked Lahabrea back in Heavensward. He probably didn't get to reveal his true form because that's when he had no idea we could destroy him for good up until we actually did it. Shame, would have been interesting to see his true name. Poseidon? Zeus? I'm thinking Poseidon and Elidibus is Zeus. Or maybe they're not thematic in that way and I'll find out the real names as I go through patch stuff. Or Endwalker. Many possibilities!
The dungeon preceding it was cool enough, but really I was expecting something a bit...more from the Third Doom. Bahamut ZERO perhaps, I saw the light beam coming from a dragon-like thing early on and it got my hopes up. As it was I greatly appreciated the Trust system letting me progress through the dungeon, all the dungeons really, for the first time at my own pace. I got to actually figure out fights and learn mechanics rather than feeling under pressure like I do in normal parties where I don't know what's happening.
Most of all though, I appreciate how interacting with Emet-Selch helped to make the Ascians more relatable in a sense. They're not just immortal, flesh-stealing harbingers of chaos, they're people who have reasons to do what they're doing. As several of the Scions have said, they would probably do the same in Ascian shoes. The thing that pits us against them is that their goals are antithetical to ours. They seek to resurrect their old world by destroying everyone and everything of the new. We seek to protect our world and in so doing we deny them. That's not to say the Ascians aren't evil, because of course they are when their goals involve sacrificing everyone currently living to Zodiark, but that now I actually understand why they're fighting and what they're fighting for. I'll still destroy all of them, that hasn't changed, but they're no longer just random villains who I only know as trying to resurrect a dark god because For the Evulz.
I can only hope that I get more of this Ascian and Zodiark lore in the post-Shadowbringers patch content. I still don't think I'll be done before Endwalker releases, but who knows eh?
Onwards, to Patch 5.1 stuff! I think.
Speculation, based on 5.0 stuff.
Could very well be!
Preferably, for me, SOMEBODY fuckin at least calls Hydalen out on attempting to subconsciously control hundreds/thousands of people and like, using Minfillia and also all the girls Minfillia kept getting reincarnated into on the first until they die.
I'm just worried Hydalen is just gonna be the tragic nice lady and get a free pass on everything
Making the Ascians good villains is one of SB's more impressive bits of writing.
And as you said,
It's never been really clear how much Hydaelyn herself influences people either. The thing with all the Minfilias on the First isn't even Hydaelyn's fault - that's on the Ascians, they all died holding the sin eaters at bay basically.
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It should also be noted that her message is not the same thing as receiving the Echo. The main trigger for the Echo is seeing something that awakens deep-seated memories of the Final Days. This is because the powers we call the Echo are something that everyone in the old world had to some degree. The varying effects of the Echo might be related to how much the trigger awakened, or maybe even what powers you had in that previous life.
Gaining the Echo only allows you to hear the message Hydalyn is broadcasting everywhere at all times.
That being said, there are still some questions. Primarily: if the Echo is something every Ancient had, then how did Zodiark Temper the Ascians who summoned him? The other universal effect of the Echo, aside from hearing Hydalyn, is total immunity to Tempering. And even the power to defend others from it. Ysayle, Ryne, and our character even performed primal summoning with no adverse effects. So, is Hydalyn’s broadcast instilling that effect (which might make it Tempering)? Is Zodiark just that powerful that other Primals’ Tempering efforts don’t compare? Or has the Echo changed somehow?
I’m skeptical to assume that Hydaelyn has Tempered us, just because the effects of Tempering have been researched. We know that it’s the result of (among other things) a forced change to the target’s elemental aetheric balance. Not everyone has the Echo, so you’d think that (especially considering Y’shtola’s and Matoya’s knowledge) someone would’ve noticed something strange about the aether of those with the Echo. But then, that mad scientist did basically scan Krile’s aether to reproduce her Echo.
Not sure what my point is after all that, other than there are a lot of questions, and no answer seems to perfectly fit just yet.
You should have unlocked a new Dungeon in the Crystarium marked with a Blue + Quest marker, "By the time you hear this."
Do it, you wont regret it.
*gets dungeon theme stuck in head immediately*
The tomestone vendor is in Eulmore. Second from the left will have options for Allegory and Revelations. You could also throw some gil at the problem and buy Exarchic gear-- it'd be worth grabbing a weapon.
I think only the Tomestone of Revelation gear and stuff from very last raid tiers is better.
That boss is...
As soon as you hit 435, you can start the first Nier raid too at the Dwarf village in Kholusia, which you should absolutely do.