#i really cannot get over it… SO MUCH of the dialogue in the Manifest Destiny scene would work SO well for them

[starbuck]

Nacho and Lalo are so Boyd and Ives-coded, it’s unreal.

[avauntus]

I was recently lured back to Final Fantasy XIV by their “returner” campaign (if you are away a while, log in and play for free for two weeks). I’ve been having a great deal of fun, got over my “healing yips” and jumped into group content, and finished the Shadowbringers main “5.0″ storyline.

(Yes, it made me cry. Yes, like everyone else-- I concede it is excellent as everyone says.)

Final Fantasy games always kind of...”wink and nod” at their series traditions. And thus I’ve been happily playing along (when I’m not sobbing, natch), running across the occasional call-back to threads I know from earlier in the series, going “Oh, that’s cute. That’s clever,” and not thinking too hard...until the most recent breadcrumb dialogue line for the continuation of the story (patch 5.1) made me put down my controller, put my head in my hands, and go “Aaaaaargh!”

Urianger in brief: “I think I’ll be a problem ON PURPOSE.” lol.

Theory overthinking hours! I can come back later and see if I was right. 

SPOILERS, after the cut, for Shadowbringers through 5.0 and, uh...Final Fantasies 3/6, 7, 10, and 12. (lol)

One of the very, very clever things Shadowbringers did is finish up much of the story of the Umbral Calamities by retconing the existence of the FFXIV storyline as taking place and/or belonging to the same universe of every single other Final Fantasy game all at once, many worlds existing side-by-side ignorant of each other, each just sliightly different from the next.

Which means all those “clever callbacks” aren’t just fun Easter eggs for fans-- they’re also fair game for the plot. If the game isn’t just being goofy, it’s leaning really hard into the Final Fantasy tradition of the “Oh NO Statues.” 😆

The what now?

The “Oh NO Statues” are my mental nickname for the recurring powerful, often sentient monuments that show up in Final Fantasy and invariably break the world:

 Kefka did a number on home values with these three in FFVI, for example.

Later Final Fantasy games would refine and riff on this, of course. “Oh no, the statue is a space alien (?)” (Jenova, FFVII); “Oh no, the statue came to life and destroyed our civilization!” (Sin, FFX).

This isn’t Zanarkand, but it totally could be, right?

And my personal favorite of the “Oh NO Statues” incarnations, The Occuria, FFXII. Statues who aim “guide the History of Man,” ancient beings who manifest as aetheric masked forms, often visible only to a few, whose origins are (in FFXII) unknown:

Balthier: This creature... So this is your Venat?

Cid: Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca! Just how far will you go for power? Does your lust for nethicite consume you? Am I right? I am, aren't I. A worthy daughter of the Dynast-King! You would do well to go to Giruvegan. Who knows? You may receive a new Stone for your trouble.

Ashe: Your words mean nothing to me!

Cid: The reins of History back in the hands of Man.

And later:

Cid: To hell with the Occuria and their stones! What good a power that cannot be harnessed? Baubles best-suited for study, no more.

Vayne: We conquered two kingdoms, that you might study these "baubles."

Cid: Oh, I am grateful for the sacrifice. Without it, manufacted nethicite would have eluded us - an unrivaled weapon. Tell me, Venat. Have I not been an apt pupil?

Venat: My counsel did but guide your able hand. Through power of Man, the Stones did you perfect. Yes. So much accomplished in six fleeting years. Man's fervor o'er all obstacles prevailing.

Cid: Our lives are much too short. You undying might waste long centuries away, but we, I fear, cannot.

Vayne: Just so. Had we more time, we might have used more "prudent" measures.

Cid: Your greatest work still lies before you. Not lightly will the Occuria allow you to wrest the reins of History from their grasp.

Venat: Indeed. What claim does Gerun have on history's reins... seated on throne immortal, rent from time? For your ascendance, Vayne, I offer prayer. May you attain all that which is your due.

Vayne: Attain it I shall.

This is... fascinating, because it is heavily implied by a different storyline in FFXIV that Ivalice and the events of FFXII, exist somewhere in the worlds that were shattered from the Source that was FFXIV’s ‘main world.’ There is even an Ivalice in FFXIV, but it is NOT the one we know from FFXII-- Fran exists in FFXIV as a general of Dalmasca, and to all appearances (that I’ve seen, so far), a key difference is Balthier never existed, or never left his position in the Empire.

(On realizing this, I took a good minute to be amused that Balthier really WAS the “leading man” as he so often trumpeted, that apparently so much depended on his existing in his bravura sky piratery, all unknowing-- bless.)    

As Ivalice exists -- well, the ‘Occuria’ are much like Emet-Selch and the other Ascians, aren’t they? “...seated on throne immortal, rent from time...” indeed.

Of course, in FFXIV, we’ve struck down most of the “relevant” Ascians by the end of Shadowbringers so what then? Almost certainly, the last “sane” one is gone. 

But what’s interesting to me is this: Emet-Selch asked us to remember his people, and he mentions the three Ascians we know as antagonists-- but every single time he talked about his “purpose” it wasn’t to save the named Ascians. It was to save some unnamed other or others, his “lost friends and loves”-- one of which is heavily implied to be connected to the player character. 

(There’s a whole “fragments of a shredded soul thing,” but-- ‘we don’t have time to get into that’ meme-- here.)

The other-other Ascian that is eluded to --heavily-- in the run-up to the end of Shadowbringers 5.0 is the Unnamed Fourteenth-- the Paragon who turned away from the other Ascian councilmembers when the details of their plan to save their civilization and the toll that would be paid were revealed. I think we’re meant to think this conscientious objector is the one who summoned the Light, to grant autonomy to mortals rather than guide them towards a destiny that would serve the Ascians’ return, even if the mortals were “shadows” of what had come before the worlds were split.

Beyond a lot of breadcrumbs, we don’t get much more than that in the ending bit of 5.0, but that sure sounds like Venat to me.

Venat was always portrayed by a woman voice actor, despite the Occuria being “genderless,” and...

OK, so...what does this have to do with nethicite?

In FFXIV, “manufactured nethicite” exists -- it’s called White Nethicite Auricite (oops!) and the Scions (the faction our character belongs to) use it to trap Ascians’ will and shatter their energies.

It’s also heavily implied that if natural auracite is allowed to feed on mortal souls and imbued with aether (energy), it will cause mortals to go insane. The Ivalice raid sequence spells all this out, but in short-- your fears and desires are made manifest in exchange for your life energy. Over time, auracite exposed to mortals gains a low-level chaotic will of its own, like the One Ring in Tolkien’s works.

It is, in short, a staggeringly insane idea to propose putting your soul into a soul-eating crystal as Urianger is doing. And Urianger has no way of knowing this, of course, but this will of the nethicite in FFXII came from the Occuria -- their tools to “guide the History of Man.”

There are no more unsundered Ascians left worth mentioning (Elidibius, lol), but the energy of that Unnamed Fourteenth is out there scattered in the Light-- and this is “White [light] Auracite.” Despite everything, I don’t know that the Light are all sunshine and rainbows for mortals. For one, they like stability. 

If the Scions start unknowingly imbuing themselves with the powers of Ascians by merging themselves with insane immortal chaos crystals (!!), they may manage to bring about the Eight Umbral Calamity and the end of civilization anyway by unbalancing the world(s) themselves.

...Wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants for Emet-Selch? I mean, if the main character hadn’t had to put him out of his misery already. (*sob*) 

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

Anthem wank

In which a man talks at length about stuff he doesn’t know a whole lot about.

The lore of Anthem is good, but is under-utilised and not especially well developed, I feel. Though do bear in mind I’m an idiot.

Also bear in mind that I’m largely basing my information on a combination of the in-game codex thingy, the wiki and just basic common sense (which is to say, my baseless opinion being used to fill in the blanks).

The wiki and the codex also not always lining up, either. For example, where on the wiki it states that the Javelin that the Sentinels routinely use - a Ranger MK1, apparently - cannot fly. This is baffling because it would seem to suggest that the Sentinels you encounter in the overworld walked there? Or took a Strider, I guess.

But at anyrate the Goddamn codex in-game states that waterfalls are useful for Freelancers and Sentinels alike for cooling off their Javelins - and why would that be useful for Sentinels if they weren’t flying? I REST MY CASE.

For real though Sentinels can fly around seriously what would be the fucking point otherwise.

Anyway, let’s baseless speculate and pontificate on stuff I liked. Ahem.

The relationship between Freelancers, the Sentinels and the Dominion

It’s not really touched on to any great length in the game proper, but the idea that the these three factions all split off from the Legion of Dawn is actually pretty interesting.

Of course, it’s pretty ham-fisted that they explicitly list three virtues of the Legion and then they break neatly along these three lines into these three guys, but whatever, let’s gloss over that.

Again, I’m mostly filling in for myself here but I do rather like how they’ve all taken the same basic concept of “Keep the people safe” and run it in three direction:

Sentinels: Keep people safe by maintaining order Dominion: Keep people safe by imposing order Freelancers: Keep people safe by doing what you think is good. And killing monsters.

You can kind of see why Freelancers might be looked down on a little by the others in this context.

Also, I still think ‘Freelancers’ is a dumb name. But whatever, it works. They called a faction ‘The Cabal’ in Destiny and that’s dumb too but it works so whatever.

Point is, this contrast and common origin is interesting fodder to chew through. Everyone wants to do the right thing, after all, they just can’t agree on what the right thing is.

The Anthem itself, Shapers, etcetera

Predictably there’s basically nothing on this, because it’s mysterious. Likely more will be revealed later when (if) further content is added to expand on it.

But I got my own ideas.

First, I like to think that the Anthem is a universal thing. Like, it’s not confined to this planet that the game is set on. It’s everywhere. It is a universal background thing. Like the energy grid in the culture. It’s some kind of background energy source...thing...that the Shapers made stuff run off.

The Shapers themselves I just like to imagine as some sufficiently advanced species. They were shaping up (heh) to sculpt this planet, got a little way done then got HELLA DISTRACTED and had to leave in a hurry. All their shit got left behind, obviously, and all in various states of operation and disrepair.

My idea, in my head, is that all their stuff they left is all still there to make the planet the way it was originally intended to be. But it’s not all working together anymore, which is bad, and most of it isn’t working at all.

You following this?

So, like, you’re a Shaper. You’re some ludicrously advanced alien that cruises around the cosmos. You’ve discovered this unlimited, borderline-magical force and learnt how to harness it with technology. You pick out some planet to turn into another lush paradise because, hey, that’s what you do.

You land all your fancy-pants Anthem-manipulation technology, set it up, start it running and everything is ticking over nicely. You’ve got this - you’ve done it a thousand times already!

Then suddenly - oh shit! - space ants! Space ghosts! Or civil war! Or whatever. Point is you got to go. Right now! No time to safely shut down. Just shut down whatever you can, if you can, and scarper! Some of your shit is left running, some isn’t, some of it is just broken but who cares, you had to go.

Thousands of years later humans show up for some reason.

That’s my idea anyway. I believe the kids call it a ‘headcanon’.

The effects of the Anthem

Kind of a shame that in game how the Anthem actually manifests is kind of...muddled and...underwhelming.

Cyphers talk about hearing it, which is a reasonable concept.

A lot of the time is just makes...lightning...and monsters...which isn’t that exciting.

Did split a guy into three different people that one time though. See? That was interesting. Confusing, but interesting.

The idea that the Shaper relics exist to imprint a very specific model of reality using the Anthem is basically what I had in mind, and everything else that follows that you see in the game is a result of misusing these relics.

Like, the Shapers had a design and their machines are meant to forward this, but most of that shit is broken now, and humans also got their hands on them and turned them around.

Seals, right? Kind of mentioned. The idea of just tapping into this eternal, omnipresent force and using it to make lightning where there was no lightning before - by forcing reality to MAKE LIGHTNING - is a good idea.

Having a dude turn huge and attack you in stages relating to elemental damage? Not a good idea. Kind of a bummer.

Man, can you imagine if, like, the final fight against the Monitor had had a phase where he’s remade reality so that the Dominion is totally in charge? Like, troops come flooding in, Faye and Haluk are just GONE? Then you shoot him a bunch and he loses control, and it snaps back?

That’d be awesome. Ah well.

The Urgoth

I keep getting these guys confused with the Orgoth, another evil species that enslaved humanity in the past and was only driven out by the aid of something badass and mechanical that got invented later.

Point is, it’s still a fantastic idea. I love that. And the idea they might come back? Oh! Scintilating! I’m a huge fan of anything involving an enemy thought defeated so long ago that everyone basically thinks they’re a myth, if anyone even knows about them at all.

That they’re supposedly pressing in on Dominion borders, thus forcing the Dominion’s hand and inadvertantly kicking off the events of that led to the Heart of Rage? Also great.

We call this going full circle.

Scars

Initially I didn’t think much of Scars but on reflection I’m actually rather fond of them. I just think they need to have their nature really emphasised.

Like, they’re humanoid now, but that’s just because they’re emulating humanity. And they’re actually just stacks of bugs taking a man-shape. Which is hilarious.

They’re basically an insect-driven cargo cult. That’s a cool fucking idea! Like them making towns and buildings and shit for no reason other than they see us doing it so they copy us.

Just need to kind of nail down how the Escari work. Like, do the Scars have a hive mind? If so, is an Escari like a budding off? Does it still obey the hive mind? Does it think for itself? Is it a new hive mind that can force its will on the other Scar?

Maybe this stuff will all be explained later.

Also the implication that they’re from off-planet is neat.

Skorpions and Outlaws

Skorpions you can’t do a whole lot with. Monsters, yo. Shoot ‘em.

Outlaws probably need some development. Kind of feels weird gunning down wave on wave of human being. Also feels a bit unfair if I’m in a Javelin and some poor sod with a shotgun is running at me achieving precisely dick before I break him in half.

I mean, how many fucking criminals are we throwing out into the jungle?! And how did they go so many Storms?!

Other humans

I’m not sure how to remedy this, but we know we’re just on a small part of a bigger world but one still just feels so...isolated...

Like, there’s royalty and a capital and a sea and we feel so hemmed in.

I think that Fort Tarsis is the only proper place we can walk around (it being, well, the only place around you can really walk around in...) doesn’t help. Like there’s this huge disconnet. This Is People Place In First Person. Then you go outside and 99% of the game is being in armour.

And, like, what’s with Haluk’s tattoos? Is that just a him thing?

You just get the impression all humanity is one bloc. And that’s weird. The world is a fractured place, you’d think you’d get people from all over and they’d be quite different. Like, what’s a stereotypical Freemark citizen like? What jokes were made about those guys?

Gameplay

Let’s not get into this too much.

Would this game have been better as a proper, single-player BioWare RPG with proper dialogue and a proper story and not this horrible MMO shooter setup? Obviously. Everyone knows that.

But no use crying over spilt milk.

Conclusion

BioWare. Call me.