Even when the story doesn’t say their name, the Allagan Empire’s history still finds a way to rear its head. Grinning with that twist smile that saw once thriving culture devolve into a deplorable nightmare. Alexandria isn’t to far off from that fate, so lets discuss the how and why before hopefully putting a stop to their madness in later patches.
Follow me at: https://twitter.com/ScribeSynodic
Channel Art by Catti: https://ko-fi.com/catticatgame21234
Join the Channel’s Discord: https://discord.gg/YKBu4sQBEk
Support the Channel on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/synodicscribe?fan_landing=true
Disclaimer: The MMORPG known as FinalFantasy XIV Online as well as all its related publications and merchandise are owned by Square Enix. I have no claims to it.
Primary Sources:
Video Games-
FinalFantasy XIV Online
Publications-
Encyclopedia Eorzea Volume I
Encyclopedia Eorzea Volume II
Encyclopedia Eorzea Volume III
Alternative Sources:
FinalFantasyXIV, The Lodestone/Sidestory
FFXIV, Letter from the Producer
Published FFXIV Brand Art Books
#ffxiv #dawntrail #lore
source
"One kingdom's fall is another kingdom's freedom.
One sovereign's war is another sovereign's peace.
One mother's pride is another mother's sorrow.
Their tears both soak the land that they love."
To live is to suffer, to drink of calamity. It is a perilous path. Death lurks in the dark. Do not avert your eyes. See your life for what it is. See how the hardships make you strong, every doubt reforged as scales for your armor
I recomend the story of ff type 0, you play as a group that fully embrace the idea of losing memories of the dead and what it means to lose said memories
I saw its similarities to Allag immediately. One of my OCs has a tie to Allag, and yeah… you bet I plopped him right into the dome and am unfolding a personal story for him over those 30 years in the dome of discovering just how fucked up everything was, and how similar it all is.
Some people complain the story is too samey… but I LOVE how it all ties back. It sends shivers down my spine to think about it.
Solution 9 maybe filled with Alexandrians…but it truly is Zanarkand…a city that never lets its souls sleep.
Me and a friend started calling Akexandria as a "Kingdom of ghosts and walking corpses". And with the recent patch's MSQ development, especially after that sneaky glitch after "Sphene" came back, it seems like "the devil once again snuck into Eden".
I'm actually kinda surprised the ascian especially Hades let Alexandria did this, I assume they will be enraged and horrified then destroy alexandria asap.
I wonder what Meteion would've thought about those Alexandrian freaks.
I am reminded of Plato's cave with being awoken to the pains of reality and retreating back into their comfortable ignorance
Not gonna lie, this reminds me of the doomed world in Meteion’s report more than any other place. A world that only sought joy and joy alone, that sorrow was expunged. Within the Dead Ends, we see that civilization. A golden paradise that had their people wait for their own turn to be erased by their own god, as they blissfully watched and waited. Their contentment was a numb world without knowing joy for there was no sorrow, and their end was a slow, painfully bitter end that they would be blind to… and willingly at that.
Seeing that it was also there, on our world, after the Final Days had come and came to pass by our own hands… People who have seen and heard the testaments of the reports? Yeah, I don’t blame any Warrior of Light for hating this system and knowing just how doomed it is from the onset.
I knew right away that using souls as an infinite resource would have terrible consequences, especially after seeing the aftermath of hoarding the memories of the departed. Eventually both systems will collapse, and I doubt the Alexandrians have the means (or willpower) to make the dramatic changes needed to save themselves.
I missed the connection to how the Allagans were also numb to their own doomed-to-fail system of treating everything as an experiment or game.
When i discovered what they were doing i could only think about how this would disrupt the cycle of rebirth established in the game , and how disgusted Emet would have been when he saw all of this happening.
I saw the horror just beneath the surface of Everkeep and Alexandria in 7.0. And honestly I thought it was a flaw of the writing that this was not given more screentime, and left at the surface level. But with 7.1 and your video, I see the writing team not only trusted in our ability to remember the history of Etherys, but also fully intended to utilize the horror aspects they implied in 7.0. I think for this reason 7.1 might be my new favorite X.1 patch, and I want to speculate so so bad about what has happened and what will happen. I think I have like 3 different plot points all cooking into 1 theory that I hope can happen and my excitement is high.
I also think about something interesting you explained. Some content creators going thru 7.0 had these or similar sentiments when in Living Memory – "Why are there so many children." I chalked it to 2 explanations, first being that the children may have died young due to the levin sickness, as we do see a young boy almost fully paralyzed by it. The second more nebulas explanation was that they were the most happy as children, implying some horrible hardship befell them as adults. BUT you brought another explanation to mind… that as adults, Everkeep and Alexandria have just left everyone bereft of any true joy, besides those that take greater risk such as hunters in the Thunder Yards or the Champions in Arcadion. Everkeep takes away almost all risk of death, and in turn also all true happiness outside of childhood. No one really has the change to grow up and learn from life, they just age and die without any greater fulfillment UNLESS they decide to gamble with their life. With this system in place, no one would have much opportunity to mature beyond adolescents, and so when they did pass on and go to Living Memory, they only happiness they remember is in their childhood. That is genuinely much sadder than I initially understood.
And ALL these thoughts has also given me more respect for the people of Oblivion who willingly choose to remember the departed, and risk their lives for progress. I initially did not really think that Oblivion was a big deal, just a handful of people choosing a life without a regulators, but they are also choosing to actually grow up and face the realities of the system, like Eulmore did. And minor spoilers for what we now of the Arcadion storyline, but the Champions are also maturing through risking their lives in the ring. And there is a larger mystery to crack there that was not spoiled in the video so I will not here either, but this got me thinking about them and respecting that story even more.
Great video, much to ponder, and I hope the writing team continues to pull at these threads to their full potential.
It's nice to find a video actually talking about the msq.
I don't see anyone else saying this so excuse me if someone already has. This is INCREDIBLY similar to the Sumeru storyline of Genshin Impact. Yes, the Breath of the Wild gacha game from MiHoYo. In that game, everyone from Sumeru wore Akasha Terminals, and they were very similar to the Regulators, except they had built-in Google Search, they could look up any knowledge in the Akasha, a supercomputer tied into the World Tree Irminsul, created by the previous God of Dendro. This allowed them to instantly know anything they asked about that wasn't restricted, but their memories were also uploaded and altered. At one point, they were also kept in dreams to use their brains as processing power, and at another the people were turned against the Traveler (player character) in a scene very similar to how Sphene stared at us along with everyone else when that glitch happened on the wall screen. The difference was that in Genshin they were being puppeted to attack us, whereas here it's more of a warning. If their memories were altered to believe Wuk Lamat was an enemy or that the people of Tuliyollal were making war on them, they could turn the population against us. Whoever is pulling the strings could make the people, innocents, even children, believe anything they wanted. This is exactly the terror of the Sumeru storyline.
Oddly enough, there was also someone with direct control over the system who was kept away from meddling in the affairs of the people pulling the strings, the current God of Dendro, Nahida. Similar to how the Sphene we see in Living Memory at the end of the patch will be, I predict.
alexandrians, eulmorians, ancients… living in a paradise and bliss never ends well.
This video made me appreciate DT more
There's one common link between Allagan & Eulmore (and I wouldn't be shocked if it also linked to Alexandria) – those civilizations were puppets for the Ascians to trigger calamities & rejoinings. And given that Preservation developed tech to trigger rejoinings (and are the real villains behind Dawntrail – Part 2), I would not be surprised if they were led by one (or both) of the remaining Ascians (even Yoshi-P teased that we should remember all of the seats of the Convocation of Fourteen to prepare for Dawntrail in an interview with Jesse Cox)
By choosing to extinguish the living in order to sustain the a copy of the dead, was Sphene really any better than the Ascians?
It probably helps that I have read quite a lot of different stories in the past, so I was able to very quickly pick out the 'Utopian society built on the back of a dark secret' trope. XD
The thing is, I do not think Sphene herself was evil in any way. The system she was meant to be part of was built upon terrible prices, but Sphene herself was merely trying to do what she believed was for the greater good and the sake of her citizens. We have already been given some hints that there is some other individual, or collective, pulling the strings from behind the scenes, and that the scientists who helped create the system were answering to someone other than the royal family.
And with what recently happened in the newest patch… pretty sure that hidden player is exerting it's influence again.
IT….WAS BY…. …DESIGN??!!!!!!
This’ll be short since I’m at work; but as someone who adores the themes of Type-0, my very first thought was: “wait, this is just Type-0, this is really really really bad news” despite not having finished that game yet, I know how things go, and it’s dark, and I hope we can make Alexandria aware of that
Dawntrail is the worst expansion in MMO history.
Dawntrails story was just some Young "Girl" following the steps of her father before her; with none of the intrigue or action involved.
Dawntrail is basically just "a story of two girl-bosses" and it sucks balls
I noticed a lot of this right away, and the patch only added more to support my reaction. The mere idea of memory loss is something I fear, and it hit me as soon as we find out that's a factor. Or even before, the regulators never sat well with me even beforehand.