FFXIV storylines come in two flavours: Character Focus and World Focus.
The former are less controversial cause they're easy to digest where you're entirely focused on a single or group of characters storyline. Sometimes it is the WoL, sometimes it's a NPC.
The latter while having driving characters who are focal points of the story have a secondary or even primary goal of world building, laying foundations and hooks and potential future routes for the developers as they don't write the story 10 years in advance, they have a rough idea and then see which route they have that will fit best.
Despite being the expansions with a focus on another lead with Lyse and Wuk, Stormblood and Dawntrail are very much World Focus expansions. A Realm Reborn is also very much a World Focus storyline.
As such, and fitting for the expansion thats starting the next "arc" of ffxiv's life, Dawntrail is full of hooks and lore that could lead profound and interesting places, either in MSQ or side content.
So in this thread I want to touch on the points I noticed.
1: Lets get the easy one out of the way: The Mcguffin, the Chalice with Azems symbol. It has a billion questions around it, and is an obvious hook. It's being discussed to death and as such we won't dwell directly on it. Is it auracite, who made it, why does it "grant wishes", why does it only react to certain people.
2: Tural Vidraal and Valigarmanda- As the story notes multiple times there is a strong correlation between these creatures and the Auspices of the Far East. This is clearly a roundabout away for the developers to "free" the concept of ancient beasts and monsters that gain sentience for "side content jail". Auspices are now "MSQ Canonical" outside a small mention of Tamamo Gozen in Stormbloods msq appearing during the failed rebellion against the Garleans. Ancient creatures who after hundreds of years gain human level sapience and powers who then if left alone for even longer have the potential to go "feral" again and become Bahamut tier calamities.
3: The Yok Huy's dreams and the barriers between Shards - While it's not really heavily touched upon in the MSQ, the Gate to the Golden City wasn't there at the height of the Yok Huy's empire. However those within the Yak Tel region were having visions and dreams of the Golden City, and eventually the portal manifested there deep beneath the earth. While in the lore "Void Fissures" have always been a thing and the 13th and the 1st are described as been "the closest shards to the source", the Yok Huy's dreams and the emergence of the gate at that location indicate there are points across the planet that might be "weak points" between the Source and each shard, not just the 13th. Also the location of this "weak point" in addition to the two natural Void Fissures we found in the 6.X storylines been deep underground/under the water seems to indicate these weakpoints are directly related to how near to the aetheric sea you are. Also directly/indirectly related is final boss of Tender Valley
4: "The Great Sunken Gods" the Turali people reference in the same way a Eorzean might go "by the Twelve" and their connection to the great oceanic fissure that splits the New World continents off from each other. The little lore we have about the fissure makes it sound like it was caused by Hydaelyn and Zodiarks fight at the time of the Sundering. Who are the "Sunken Gods" and are there more "visual scars" of the two greatest primals clash on the planet, and what are these scars impacts
5: The nature of Living Memorys existence and where was Alexandria originally - Another obvious one people are hotly debating. Which Shard is Alexandria from, did its Shard rejoin and it somehow survived, or is it on one of the still existing shards. Whats outside Living Memory, if anything. Why did it remain behind when the other 11 floors of Everkeep were fused to the Source.
6: Another obvious two- The political ramifications of Alexandria losing both its leaders, its military being given over to a literal child, and "Preservation" the creators of "Queen Sphene" and the Chalice around the Mcguffin crystal. Most likely to be explored in the Dawntrail patches, as Erenvilles closing monologue directly references the whole "King Galool Ja" bit. Will Alexandrians accept a child as their "King". Do they still want Royalty? Will someone manipulate Galool Ja/take over his control over the robotic army of Alexandria. Does Preservation still exist and are they behind the scenes? If so how did Zoraal Ja assert so much authority if there is a shadowy group of scientists in the background. Will they be related to Sphene's regulator shown in the post credits.
7: Related to Erenvilles monologue- The ramifications Interdimensional Fusion has had on the planet. Not only did it physically occur once with Everkeep being dropped onto the planet, Sphene was in the middle of it in the final trial. She even teleported us to other Shards mid fight for mechanics. This...mistreatment of the barriers between the worlds, on top of the final trial of 6.5 also revolving around an entity smashing at the walls of reality and weakening them, will surely have a future impact. Rather than 7.1-7.3 I believe this will be the focus point of 7.4 and 7.5.
8: Back to another less obvious one - Lindblums "weapon" that caused the disaster on Alexanderia's home shard. All we know was it shot lightning, we don't know its form or its fate. If Alexandria is truely from a Shard that didn't rejoin whose to say this doomsday weapon isn't sitting outside the barrier that is now gone from over Living Memory
9: This one's pure speculation on my part but - The implication someone was "intervening" into the situation on Alexandria. The story we are told of the history of that shard is the planet was fine until their storm season extended to weeks, then months, then years. This sounds like the "trademark" plot of the Ascians to prepare a shard for a rejoining by tipping its balance towards a particular element and alignment. But then mysteriously one day a farmer "finds" Electrope that completely negates the issues of their planet becoming covered in lightning storms. Was this part of the Ascians plot and the whole "Storm Surge" was the intended disaster or did a third party introduce Electrope to the shard in an effort to forestall its rejoining.
Those are the 'major' points I believe have being set up from this expansion. There are a lot of "smaller" pieces here and there that might lead into something, but might not. The "radioactive" meteorites that created Yak Tels forest and Cenotes, the cave paintings in Shaaloani, the two named regions on the world map (one south of Yak Tel, one east of Shaaloani) we didn't visit at all, the lingering questions about Ceruleum beyond "its magitek oil"~ These might crop up or just be stuff that gets a fun paragraph in next Encyclopedia Eorzea.
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The former are less controversial cause they're easy to digest where you're entirely focused on a single or group of characters storyline. Sometimes it is the WoL, sometimes it's a NPC.
The latter while having driving characters who are focal points of the story have a secondary or even primary goal of world building, laying foundations and hooks and potential future routes for the developers as they don't write the story 10 years in advance, they have a rough idea and then see which route they have that will fit best.
Despite being the expansions with a focus on another lead with Lyse and Wuk, Stormblood and Dawntrail are very much World Focus expansions. A Realm Reborn is also very much a World Focus storyline.
As such, and fitting for the expansion thats starting the next "arc" of ffxiv's life, Dawntrail is full of hooks and lore that could lead profound and interesting places, either in MSQ or side content.
So in this thread I want to touch on the points I noticed.
1: Lets get the easy one out of the way: The Mcguffin, the Chalice with Azems symbol. It has a billion questions around it, and is an obvious hook. It's being discussed to death and as such we won't dwell directly on it. Is it auracite, who made it, why does it "grant wishes", why does it only react to certain people.
2: Tural Vidraal and Valigarmanda- As the story notes multiple times there is a strong correlation between these creatures and the Auspices of the Far East. This is clearly a roundabout away for the developers to "free" the concept of ancient beasts and monsters that gain sentience for "side content jail". Auspices are now "MSQ Canonical" outside a small mention of Tamamo Gozen in Stormbloods msq appearing during the failed rebellion against the Garleans. Ancient creatures who after hundreds of years gain human level sapience and powers who then if left alone for even longer have the potential to go "feral" again and become Bahamut tier calamities.
3: The Yok Huy's dreams and the barriers between Shards - While it's not really heavily touched upon in the MSQ, the Gate to the Golden City wasn't there at the height of the Yok Huy's empire. However those within the Yak Tel region were having visions and dreams of the Golden City, and eventually the portal manifested there deep beneath the earth. While in the lore "Void Fissures" have always been a thing and the 13th and the 1st are described as been "the closest shards to the source", the Yok Huy's dreams and the emergence of the gate at that location indicate there are points across the planet that might be "weak points" between the Source and each shard, not just the 13th. Also the location of this "weak point" in addition to the two natural Void Fissures we found in the 6.X storylines been deep underground/under the water seems to indicate these weakpoints are directly related to how near to the aetheric sea you are. Also directly/indirectly related is final boss of Tender Valley
4: "The Great Sunken Gods" the Turali people reference in the same way a Eorzean might go "by the Twelve" and their connection to the great oceanic fissure that splits the New World continents off from each other. The little lore we have about the fissure makes it sound like it was caused by Hydaelyn and Zodiarks fight at the time of the Sundering. Who are the "Sunken Gods" and are there more "visual scars" of the two greatest primals clash on the planet, and what are these scars impacts
5: The nature of Living Memorys existence and where was Alexandria originally - Another obvious one people are hotly debating. Which Shard is Alexandria from, did its Shard rejoin and it somehow survived, or is it on one of the still existing shards. Whats outside Living Memory, if anything. Why did it remain behind when the other 11 floors of Everkeep were fused to the Source.
6: Another obvious two- The political ramifications of Alexandria losing both its leaders, its military being given over to a literal child, and "Preservation" the creators of "Queen Sphene" and the Chalice around the Mcguffin crystal. Most likely to be explored in the Dawntrail patches, as Erenvilles closing monologue directly references the whole "King Galool Ja" bit. Will Alexandrians accept a child as their "King". Do they still want Royalty? Will someone manipulate Galool Ja/take over his control over the robotic army of Alexandria. Does Preservation still exist and are they behind the scenes? If so how did Zoraal Ja assert so much authority if there is a shadowy group of scientists in the background. Will they be related to Sphene's regulator shown in the post credits.
7: Related to Erenvilles monologue- The ramifications Interdimensional Fusion has had on the planet. Not only did it physically occur once with Everkeep being dropped onto the planet, Sphene was in the middle of it in the final trial. She even teleported us to other Shards mid fight for mechanics. This...mistreatment of the barriers between the worlds, on top of the final trial of 6.5 also revolving around an entity smashing at the walls of reality and weakening them, will surely have a future impact. Rather than 7.1-7.3 I believe this will be the focus point of 7.4 and 7.5.
8: Back to another less obvious one - Lindblums "weapon" that caused the disaster on Alexanderia's home shard. All we know was it shot lightning, we don't know its form or its fate. If Alexandria is truely from a Shard that didn't rejoin whose to say this doomsday weapon isn't sitting outside the barrier that is now gone from over Living Memory
9: This one's pure speculation on my part but - The implication someone was "intervening" into the situation on Alexandria. The story we are told of the history of that shard is the planet was fine until their storm season extended to weeks, then months, then years. This sounds like the "trademark" plot of the Ascians to prepare a shard for a rejoining by tipping its balance towards a particular element and alignment. But then mysteriously one day a farmer "finds" Electrope that completely negates the issues of their planet becoming covered in lightning storms. Was this part of the Ascians plot and the whole "Storm Surge" was the intended disaster or did a third party introduce Electrope to the shard in an effort to forestall its rejoining.
Those are the 'major' points I believe have being set up from this expansion. There are a lot of "smaller" pieces here and there that might lead into something, but might not. The "radioactive" meteorites that created Yak Tels forest and Cenotes, the cave paintings in Shaaloani, the two named regions on the world map (one south of Yak Tel, one east of Shaaloani) we didn't visit at all, the lingering questions about Ceruleum beyond "its magitek oil"~ These might crop up or just be stuff that gets a fun paragraph in next Encyclopedia Eorzea.
submitted by /u/---TheFierceDeity---
[link] [comments]
Continue reading...