Hopefully enough people have caught up in the MSQ now that we can start covering some of the more heavy details in Dawntrails lore! Be sure to let me know your thoughts in the comment section bellow. Tell me what you think the MSQ will do with Spheneâs character in the future if at all!
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Thereâs a misunderstanding here. In the esoteric systems the game is most likely drawing upon its soul lore, the soul is merely a vehicle â itâs not you. Systems like hermetics split the person in 3 (much like the game): The body, the soul and the spirit. In this naming convention the soul is a merely a vehicle for the spirit which is the immortal version of you.
The body contains the soul and allows presence in and interaction with the physical world. The soul contains the spirit and allows for interaction with the astral and subtle planes. The spirit is pure consciousness, eternal but unable to interact with either of the other realms without a vehicle.
The memory contents being the personality aspect, point out to it acting as the spirit principle â especially since basically any memory can use any soul as a vehicle for expression. We have not been told explicitly that memories âdisappearâ we have been told only that they are separated from the soul.
If I had to guess the path memories take when split from the soul will likely be revealed to be tied to Dyanmis/Akasha. Not only would this explain why the Ancients couldnât study or understand it â and why we have struggled to do the same â but the Akashic Records are a common name for the repository of all the memories/information of all creation in a number of traditions already referenced by the game so it ties in nicely.
Zoraal Ja's glowing trophy wife, is a malfunctioning overseer program, powered by stolen souls, stuck in a logic error.
it's not the last we'll see of her I hope that we will get better closure to Alexandria than the trash they wrote for it.
What does Spheen do if she is not the queen? maybe we will get a Agent Smith situation AI robbed of it's purpose
14:15 ??? don't we literally have dialogue about Preservation capturing her soul after her death, but being unable to do anything with it until they perfect the system with Otis
upon which they split the memories and replace holes with programming and her prime directive, also symantics đ
it's regulator, not resonator
resonator? i thought they were called regulators?
I definitely think there's something to Sphene's resonator. After all, why else would it suddenly start glowing after the credits rolled? Something about it is likely going to play a part in the patch content and maybe be something that'll lead into the next expansion. I don't see any other reason they'd she her crown resonator suddenly light up.
If tge regulator was just a lie, then the end of the msq wouldnt of flashed the image for a second to plant the thought in out head, to remind us "Wait she has a regulator!" Idk if the soul inside is the original sphenes soul, or a composit of souls, that energy when she was defeated may have been gathered into it, but perhaps unlike the other ones, it takes longer to revive her, either way, sphene is not gone and I will bet money she reappears to perhaps freed of her programing, or freed of the defiant portion of her soul,
also side rant in the msq when alisae sees that old womans soul get taken, there is a second orange orb of light, this cant be memories as its shown later memories are on the soul, and thats what gives them the blue hue they have, when purfiied they turn white, I posit this, that orb is dynamis, and thats gonna be one hell of a quagmire, but I think that everyone has a bit of dynamis in them, perhaps its the core or nucleius of a soul, surrounded byaether, but that dosnt fit the two orbs we see, we know dynamis on the source is overshadowed by aether, and is theorized to have slowly attributed to the apearance of the 12 by graha, overshadowed by aether perhaps dynamis does play a factor in maintaining the "nature" of a soul, thats how memories can be perminatly etched onto them, as its etched onto the dynamis of the soul? just speculating,nothing concrete, and speculation on my part.
theyre called regulators however resonator sounds so much more fitting.
My theory is that we're trapped in the basement of Castle Oblivion. Which is a very ancient ruin in Tural from the 9th. We've been there since the boat ride when the Queen Eternal kidnapped us by possessing the Elezen goldsmith on the boat. She then transferred her consciousness to Wuk Lamatt. We've been wandering around an Electrope Holodeck ever since then. The reason she kidnapped us, Krile, and Erenville is because she was sealed away by Princess Sphene and the rebel faction Oblivion on the Source before the 9th was rejoined during the Second Umbral Calamity. No time travel was involved. The Key is not just an Azem device for teleportation to other worlds but the literal key to her prison which she will swipe off our inn room desk using her orange cat puppet in order to free herself. The reason she was sealed away was because Preservation used the power of the Void to unwittingly turn her into the "Prime Voidsent" for want of a better term making her effectively unkillable on all worlds not just the 13th. Furthermore, she can open Voidgates at will and unlike us doesn't need the Key to travel to other worlds. She will then travel to the 13th to absorb even more power before travelling to the 1st to absorb Edens power. She will then use an Electrope device to hack the Crystal Tower to open a Timegate to the 9th so she can regain her lost kingdom and rule as the Queen Eternal. She will fail and be forced to retreat back to the present, but the battle will rupture time and space creating Timegates in multiple worlds and time periods because just like Athena the Queen Eternal is a puppet of the Entity responsible for creating Ultima and it's Auracite. This will also allow space travel between shards in the present day. She will then retreat to the 13th to spread Darkness over all the other shards in one last ditch desperate attempt at killing everything else because she believes that nothing should be allowed to exist without her. The peoples of the Source, 1st, 13th, and 9th will then pull their military resources together and attack the Queen Eternals homebase on the 13th guarded by an army of Voidsent, Sin Eaters, and automated Electrope powered drones for the final battle of Dawntrail. Calling it now.
Good video as always, helps clear up some of the fogginess I had around Sphene.
You got one thing wrong though: you repeatedly call the "regulators" "resonators" đ€
I had to go back and double check my reference screenshots from when I 3D modelled them to make sure they did call them regulators đ
She wasn't a real person. Just a AI following instructions.
There is no way to explain the endless and sphene that doesnt horrify me, resulting in the fell cleaving of every single endless. Rightfully putting an end to the practice of cheap and casual soul extraction.
Sphene's soul of the ninth reflection has returned to the lifestream. Sphene's soul of the source may be alive and kicking.
While I think that the endless are basically not alive is true, I want to propose a little different point of view to this. You see, while intentional or not, Alexandria touched a very old and complicated philosophical question of what actually makes us human. You say that endless are not alive, because they have no body(mostly) and no soul, which is true. But, does it really matter? You see, soul + body + memories make us a whole living being, but not human. Because human is an individual, collected image of ideas, a grander idea as a whole, if you want, and that individuality is created mostly from our experience = memories. That's why at the end of the day, if you place a normal human and an endless near each other and talk to each of them, you won't notice a difference, if you won't know that one is alive and the other is just an image. Cahciua does not feel like a fake human at all, and it does not matter than we talk to her inside a robot, because body actually plays little value to us when we identify someone as human. That's why it's sad to remove endless, because we sympathize them as real humans.
What do you think about the idea of memory aether in relation to the Echo? I found it odd that most if not all abilities that we know of so far can all be explained in a technical sense as an interaction or mastery over memory aether, of oneself or with another. Video idea perhaps?
I don't think we have enough information just yet to say what she was and, more importantly, waht her resonator is. We know from the MSQ that her resonator is special, maybe the people just meant it in the sense of its design, but who knows.
Maybe it really does contain the original soul and maybe it did contain her living memories prior to their deletion. In which case Sphene is now rendered as good as a newborn if we could use her resonator to bring her back in some way, a ghost in the machine most likely.
Though maybe, and not necessarily exclusive of the previous idea, her resonator worked in part like a physical access key, a factor of authentication which allowed the system, be it just that of the Queen Eternal or the conjunction of machine and soul, to exercise their power as monarch of Alexandria. In which case, have we purged the Queen Eternal from the system? Could the soul of the queen live on through a new bearer or is it nothing more than an artifact to be wielded… Or destroyed, that Sphene may finally, truly rest?
Oh! What if they have cloned Sphene? That is why she has a regulator. To transfer her memories to the clone? Which would expose why Zooral Ja has Goola Ja. They clone the two people in case they died.
It seems to me that her crown being a more decorative resonator was just a story told to the people of Alexandria, because the MSQ shows that she's not really a physical presence, just a hologram over a robot soldier.
I have a question, are you Graha himself? or a kindred spirit/twin of him? you really do sound like him!
This video perfectly explains why I didn't like Sphene and Alexandria and the response from the scions. What they do with the souls is vile but yet everyone acted like "its fine its a different culture we just need to accept that they're different and we can't tell them its wrong because they're just different."
Her Majesty, Sphene Alexandros XIV, did absolutely nothing wrong. You know, I don't get it. When meeting the Yok Huy and learning about their view on death, everyone was like "that's so TRUE!! The dead will LIVE on in us!!!," but when her Grace puts it into practice, everyone is all like "these things aren't real!! DELETE THEM!!!" The endless may not have souls, but they are no less people, just as the sundered are no less people than the Ascians!!! The only issue here is the COST of maintaining the Endless.
The only thing that needed to be "unlifed" is those Wolverine-ass sideburns…
In my opinion Scribe, I think we need to talk about Preservation a lot more. We have NEXT TO NOTHING ON THEM other than what they were made for. Heck, we don't know if Preservation is still there, but the only assumption that my friends say is that Preservation is gone, even after I dived into all the Side Quests for Living Memory.
There has to be more to that crown at the end, and it has to lead back to Preservation, either as a flashback or as an entity that still exists in Alexandria trying to further their nation's future(such as trying to find a cure for levin sickness, perhaps?). I just want to see where this comes to a head, because if Preservation is just used and thrown away as an idea, that just doesn't make sense given what little we get in Living Memory and their whole fiasco of Interdimensional Fusion.
My questions to pose are 'Does Preservation still exist' and 'What are they planning to do now that their machine has been destroyed'?
I saw living memory as a location where they were using soul aether to provide memory the corporal form to exist. To have a physical self that could then live out and act upon regret. Just enough to sustain, but not enough to give it substance or depth. Mind you this may not be entirely right, as there is the fact that you can interact with it but it lacks taste, but it is emphasized that despite the fact that there is energy enough to hold the memory, there isn't enough energy to give form to the endless and they are put in a form of stasis until enough surplus is harvested to make it viable.
This stasis I think is important to keep in mind when discussing Queen Sphene herself. Or rather Sphene as she got preserved upon her original death. It is my thought that the Alexandrians figured out the first part of the process first, the extraction and maintenance of a soul in stasis before figuring out how to impart that memory on another unit later. Sphene could very well be much like how the memoriate crystals are from the void, soul and memory locked in a seemingly permanent shape, but then they figured out how to remove that memory and use its coded information to duplicate and impart on other things. The two Otis seems significant for this part. That stored memory isn't precious. It isn't unique.
Everkeep and it's systems were built after Sphene's death. The eternal queen, the program and unit, were built afterword. The process of purifying souls and repurposing them seems to be an after her death. Hers was not the first one to have been put through that process, I strongly believe. I more suspect that her original essence was kept on hand as a failsafe, a reserve in order to maintain the program if recalibration ever was necessary. After all, as a organization that…. Might not be entirely benevolent what purpose would they have to faithfully recreate Sphene entirely? They needed the illusion of her to satisfy the people who adored her and would do all they could for her.
It is my thought that we are going to find the original holding chamber for Sphene. And figure out how to properly reverse the process in order to give her peace, and to give us the tool to free other souls trapped in a similar form of stasis.
I've been wondering if I'm weird to have felt horror (in the sense of a horror game, not in the sense of this is horrible) at the whole soul and memory thing they had going on. Like, it felt gross that they would use souls as batteries but at least I understood how their culture came to do that. But then they rip peoples memories of their loved ones away when they die, memories they don't get back (I assume they were necessary for the living memory creations) and thinking about that was deeply unsettling. Imagine if you lost all memories of people you care about. For the Alexandrians this was how things always were their whole lives but for the turali people it was something they agreed to for their own safety and security. And sure it was voluntary (thank goodness), but then the ones who accepted it just imposed it on their kids without those kids consent cos they weren't old enough for it (see the aether side quest chain with the bunny girl). But then there's another layer of horror specific to this world's universe since we know souls continue to carry the memories of their past lives when they are reborn, they just don't remember them. But the ascians were able to awaken at least the souls' ancient memories (enough that the one sundered ascian remembered he used to be Gaia's boyfriend and be obsessed and angry enough to not accept her sundered soul shard on the first having a new life without him). But this process removes all the memories from the soul. Or, at least all the active ones. Maybe those souls still have their more deeply buried memories, but just the ones extracted for living memory are lost in this process. Which then means the memories in living memory are the only ones that won't be eternal, since all the lives that get to go to the a athereal sea are there while living memory's lives were shut down.
And holy moly to impose what happened on the 13th (an end to the cycle) on purpose…which I understand how and why, they didn't know that is what they were doing they were just trying to survive the end of their world, but man. (And any hope of their world recovering may have been lost because of what they did, too, if they drained the aether from the world at large.)
All that is to say…a lot of thoughts and comtemplstions spin rent free in my head.
I found it strange that Queen Sphene couldn't answer a simple question of "What was your favorite food". Maybe those kinds of memories were erased at some point to make room for newer ones, like all the names and details of living Alexandrians.
Or maybe Queen Sphenes memories are an artificial patchwork of what other people remember of her. If most people agree that she was a kind and caring girl, then that must have been true. Differing accounts of irrelevant or private details won't make her a better ruler, so those can be ignored.
Wait a minute… Wasn't there a group of people on the Source who also tried to resurrect a beloved ruler? What did they do about the lack of preserved memories?
8:20 Yes, they're basically practicing an even more abhorrent version of necromancy. Thats why I find it so infuriating that the WoL's only choice is to "respect their culture".
It's not a fun quirk, an artistic expression or a harmless spiritual belief like with the cultures we met in Yok Tural. It's necromancy and must be ceased immediately. Feelings of the citizens be damned.
Really hoping the patch content deals with this but I worry they're just gonna brush it under the rug.
"Moral relativism and all that. I do not believe you are truly alive, ergo it is not murder if i kill you." The endless ask if we can do as Emet did. And canonically, we give that a quite enthusiastic yes.
She's memories from the presivation
I hope we can unlife her again. She was so sweet.
It makes me wonder if maybe, cliched I know, dynamis perhaps has something to do with memory. Dynamis seems to have something to do with emotion and memories and emotion are deeply tied together. Perhaps that's why memories seem to fade so quickly without a soul to contain them, dynamis is largely overridden by aether and so can only exist in places that lack aether like Mare Lamentorum. If that is the case, then it suggests that the Endless could continue on or even maybe take on new forms of life by placing what remains of Alexandria in a location or maybe even a realm that is abundant in dynamis.
i do cry if my carbuncel dies đ
Sephiro-er, I mean Sphene: I will never be… only a memory.
In actuality while I liked most of DT, I really didn't like how Sphene was done simply because she continuously had to fight for screentime and development with Zoraal Ja, and I felt the emotional stakes fall flat when the Endless were fully revealed. It's said that they can be shut down and kept in storage, and that it's been done to mitigate power draw, so at least to me there's logically no reason why she can't just put Living Memory and all the Endless in there in sleep mode and look for a better option. Hydaelyn knows we have options, from Allagan cloning to the Omicrons having completely converted themselves to a digital consciousness and even Otis persisting in a robotic body for over 400 years with no energy issues. There's just too many ways around this that weren't addressed for me to really have felt anything for the plight of this toaster/character.
Am I seriously the only one that sees the parallel between FFXIV and Destinyâs Final Shape story?
This is why I liked Dawntrail, because THIS is horror.
Sure Endwalker had apocalyptic – end of days – horror (but like⊠its a video game so its not that bad)
But this is a sort of deeply unsettling horror, the kinda that, for me, makes you go âThere is something extremely wrong hereâŠâ and then you find out the truth and that feeling sinks in deep.
Memory aether sounds like dynamis in its functionality compared to other types of aether
At 11:43 you say that souls likely never reincarnate again after being used as fuel in Alexandria. While I agree this process is concerning, we haven't been given much information about the consequences for the souls that go through this. In particular, when it comes to reincarnation, we have a counterexample: Elidibus, whose entire being, "soul and all", was absorbed by the Crystal tower during the events of 5.3.
When the WoL talks to him prior to visiting Elpis, he clearly states that the magick that will send you there will "consume every last mote of his essence". Yet at the end of Pandaemonium we meet his shade again in the form of Themis, Athena having plucked him from the aetherial sea and given him temporary form once more. This should not be possible if there was truly nothing left of his soul after the Crystal Tower burned it up. It could very well be that souls "expended" in Alexandria likewise return to the aetherial sea.
As for the process of soul purification, storage and use, we don't know if this is experienced on some level as agonizing torture or more like: "Close your eyes. Count to 1. That's how long reincarnation feels."
I'm hoping these questions will be expanded upon in upcoming content.
Something just occurred to me. If Living Memory's residents aren't technically alive, just their knowledge and experiences, then it wouldn't be inaccurate to just call it a library.
A Library. From Alexandria.
We literally end this expansion by metaphorically burning down the Library of Alexandria to a blackened husk of itself.
I just ran Alexandria the other day and there was a particular line that stood out to me after watching this video. During the last segments of the dungeon, thereâs a character that says that they were able to âpreserve SpheneâsâŠâ but then it cut off. I first just assumed that they were talking about her memories, considering everything they talked about up to that point. But then when I thought about Otis and his situation between his endless form and his robot form. now making me think that what they did with Sphene is a lot more one-to-one to what they did with Otis. What if it wasnât just the memories that they were able to say, but her soul as well? Something else I also notices that throughout all of Alexandria never actually see Sphene. You either just miss her or only here for voice during the actual events. In truth, we donât really know what speed actually looks like. The version we saw her and interacted with throughout the entire expansion, may not be who she actually is. we couldâve very well then interacting with a younger form of herself. Maybe what she looked like before her death. The post patches could take a route similar to like with Yotsuyu in Stormblood.
Coupla theories here: 1.) Sphene, as the only Endless to "go on walkabout" outside Living Memory (other than Cahciua, but since she was working for a rebel faction, she was clearly Not Authorized), her crown-regulator might have been an enhanced one that allowed her "new" memories to be captured (and analyzed by Preservation/the Eternal Queen and used to further the purpose of preserving the Endless. She'd make a good ambassador-slash-scout-probe in whatever new places the bubble could force itself into, presenting herself as the local authority and beloved by all the shiny happy people while the data was being analyzed by Robot Mother.
2.) The original Preservation was Ascian-adjacent–aware of their efforts and either studying them, influenced by them, or fighting them. What else are Regulators but "memory crystals" on steroids? And, when presented with the knowledge that a Calamity was being engineered to obliterate their world and everything they were in service to a Rejoining with the Source, what else would someone do if unable to stop the Calamity? Preserve everything they could about their people for a post-Calamity reboot. It obviously went waaaay out of control, likely far past the original intent. (The Milala escaping their Calamity to Alexandria via their "Speaker" and dimensional traversal speaks of Meddling from a Higher Power, which would easily suffer "scope-creep" as people learned about the technology and expanded on it).