Alexander is such a great concept. Just to further the idea of being on 'the best timeline', if you play the ultimate (TEA) and fail on the final phase enrage, your group doesn't actually wipe. Alex merely sends you back to the start until you land on the timeline where your group succeeds. He is on your side and knows that success isn't just a hope--it's an inevitability.
So alex is helping us fighting alex, itself, that's some mind fuckery stuffs. "I'm completely aware that I need to be stopped but i aint making it easy for you either"
@@ADKV95 isnt it like one of those villains who are secretly good guys who just want ot make sure you are strong enough to face whatever is coming afterwards
Let's be honest, the only reason the coffee machines are now sentient is because Cid finally gave up on trying to remember to fill it, so he made it fill itself.
@@midnightmiqo “I’ll make it fill itself… eh, while I’m at it it may as well pour it for me… eh too slow, let’s just have it fire it straight into the cup……… hey their aim is good, I wonder if…”
I wasn’t really interested in FFXIV for a while. And yet one day a meme video of the twining popped up in my feed. And I just kept listening, and learning, and went “fuck it, why does everyone say this dungeon goes even harder with context” 3000 hours later, I’m so addicted to everything FFXIV does and in *so* glad that this dungeon sucked me in and never let me go until I finished it.
@@xpl0d1n Wild, same for me, was a wow refugee, eyeing ffxiv for a while, but the Twinning meme was the tipping point, like a week before the horrible revelations of the lawsuits.
I had a similar moment but with the game in general. For years it drove me mad that people evangelized the game and I chalked it up to weebs being weebs. Then at some point a couple months ago I came across a video that explained the Shadowbringers setup with the First and all (big sucker but protagonists discovering new worlds and being a fish out of water in them) so I said "fine fuck it" and finally got the game trail etc. Now I'm well into Endwalker and the game is already one of my favorite games of all time. And I still don't even fully know why lol.
As for what sends Tycoon running amok, there is a theory that it was programmed to intentionally do so once it confirms the timeline is altered/WoL saved, on the assumption that the WoL would inevitably come to deal with it and ultimately destroy it, ensuring the secrets of time travel are lost to prevent misuse.
@@Aaron.Arcanum well after knowing what happens at the end of Endwalker. Emit helping Elidibus in his release makes sense as the mind wipe is nullified once he rejoins the aetherial sea. He remembers everything and was able more or less predict what needed to be done. As what's his face said, you can wipe the mind but it's hard to wipe what's etched on the soul.
I’m glad that you took the time to read the tales from the shadows entries It really is insane to think just how much the WoL touched the hearts of the people. That Cid’s entire plan was dead in the water until he changed tact and said “this isn’t for the world, this is for the Warrior of Light.” Everyone giving up what little supplies they had left (since black rose also killed most plant life) at the small chance that even if their own world can’t be saved, they could do their part to let their hero live once more and keep fighting, unbroken
@@insertcognomen i dunno about that. Elden Ring is destroying the competition without the need to conform to the forgettable sludge that is most video game plots. Yes it's a different animal than FF, but between the two is really does suggest there is a market for deep immersive storytelling in videogames. 'gamers' aren't all brain dead teenagers that just wanna kill something in a virtual world. I think there's publishers out there who will see this success and decide to give other ambitious games a chance. The market exists, and is badly under-served at the moment.
For those wondering why in the original timeline Zenos didn't snatch back his body and stopped the whole black rose thingy: we killed it. Without G'Raha interfering and Estinien *(He's The Azure Dragoon)* to help us Elidibus easily ran out of luck.
That's always what I thought too. G'raha unintentionally making us lose that fight was probably the biggest point of divergence for the timeline, causing a cascade of so many events before the WoL even set foot on the First.
Most of the other Scions could have been there as well to help deal with elidibus, while we also do not know what alphi would have done in garlemald if he would not have been knocked out.
A fun little detail with the datalogs in the Twinning, they're numbered based on the expansion in which the raid they're describing existed. Datalog 2.5 talks about the events of the Crystal Tower, and Crystal Tower was in the 2.X patch series. Same thing for the others, the Alexander datalog is 3.5, and the Omega datalog is 4.5. That's why it doesn't start at 1.
my first time seeing cid in praetorium after finishing the twinning when he says Don't even think about dying your too bloody useful I had the biggest smile on my face. also I think Alexander at least knew about Endsinger because of the lyric Celestial noise detected.
Just wanted to mention that a nice touch is there is an enemy in the dungeon that is an improved model of Wedge's kettle the "Thermocoil Boilbuster." Always makes me smile. ^^
I play Twinning every once in a while just to see everything and hear the music... Plus I loved the ShB, Exarch, time travel stuff. p.s. the actions of Ironworks Gang is the ultimate rebuttal to the "pple of Etheirys won't look beyond their own individual wants for the good of many"...
One way of thinking about it that I felt tracked pretty well- When we destroy the Tycoon in the twinning's basement, we're doing a hard disconnect on the tower (and our G'raha) from their previous future timeline. Something that I think ties to that, is during the jump pad ride down there, there is a slightly disjointed WoL copy visible when you move your camera around on the green swirly background. I think that kind hints that that part of the tower is out of synch now with the prime timeline.
Thank you so much for making this video. Firstly, I love how happy you get about the lore for ffxiv, you never seem scared to speculate because you always are content with the devs' results and that's awesome. Secondly, I had no idea about these references. I knew the main story because I played through it all, but I hadn't touched omega and Alexander. I knew that we died, but i didnt connect it's importance to the world at large. I had basically forgotten how gorgeous this piece of world building was because I was too busy with the gorgeous spectacle and loving lyna and graha and the whole first. There really is something for everybody in ffxiv.
This just shows what's possible with talented writers armed with loads of imagination and a thorough understanding of the established lore. Hack writers think up a specific story, and then retcon anything they need to retcon in order to make their plot work, prior lore be damned. They replace what already happened with something else that makes their new story easier to tell, often times cheapening all that prior build-up. Talented writers build something new and grand using what's already happened as a solid foundation, adding depth and complexity and making it feel like everything that has happened is important. The worst and most common kind of retcon is subtractive. It takes a story already told, that had ups and downs, progression and motivation and fine details, and it replaces it with the equivalent of a couple paragraphs. "Actually what happened was this, this, and this, and we can just hand-wave away the hours of storytelling you'd experienced as not particularly relevant." The Jailer stuff in WoW is exactly this - reframing a decade+ of storytelling and character growth as just all being one big Xanatos Gambit. The kind of retcon that can be made to work is in filling in motivations and understanding for things that happened before. Adding new context that doesn't overwrite what's already occurred but bolsters it. It can be additive and enhance a story if used sparingly and well.
I think what also helps is that we do know that internally the FFXIV team has a lore/Setting/Info Bible that they will consult with to try and avoid most plotholes and retcon. It's not like the public Encyclopedia Eorzeas, though so many FFXIV lore enthusiasts would LOVE to get their hands on it; This internal source apparently has future content or ideas also added so writers can pick something and then write a prompt to see if, once reviewed, it would work within the whole 14 universe.
Its also interesting to note that in the other timeline, the Ascians are one step closer to restoring Zodiark. I love how in post-shb Elidibus remarks about G'raha's aetheric density being higher than he expected, since his soul has experienced an 8th rejoining putting him on a similar level to the WoL (now joined with Ardbert).
I like the implication that even if you haven't done the raids etc before then because of the way the timeline works it just means that you would do at some point.
Hope they go deep into the Weapons questline too. Its one of the biggest hidden gems of all the side stories there is, and has some of the best moments and soundtrack, which we hear in Endwalker again, because its so profound and impactful.
I find it hilarious that when Midgardsormr wakes up and sees Omega, all he can do is laugh. Midgardsormr has been around and seen enough stuff that I'm sure he knows Omega is in the toy. His greatest enemy, reduced to that.
It was always funny to me that one of the enemy types you fight towards the end of that dungeon were the monsters made of discs that float around an transform. Those are enemies from FFXI called Ghrah, which is similar to G'raha's name. It's just a dumb thing but it made me smile.
This isn't necessarily an "Endwalker spoiler" even though this is something that is only observed in Endwalker: the Graha we have in the Source is the same Graha that worked with the Ironworks for 3 generations to pull off their gambit in saving the WoL & the first. As a result, Graha has a very strong bond with the AU ironworks team. The Ironworks team in our timeline is not the same one that Graha worked with, but you can still tell that he expresses a deep love and fondness of them when interacting with them despite the Ironworks team having no memories or experiences with Graha. It's so bittersweet to see Graha fawn over Cid and Biggs and Wedge like brothers while the Ironworks boys are totally oblivious to his feelings and see him as a Scion and not the dearest comrade he sees them as.
@@MicahBoy Graha was their key into the crystal tower, yes, but that was when they first met & then our Ironworks team never saw him again until ShB. They definitely worked together before, but Graha's timeline was 3 generations worth of collaboration as opposed to only a couple days as an excavation team in our timeline.
The Twinning and its implications remain interesting even with Endwalker! For one, I like what you mentioned about Omega learning hope and feelings and stuff. Will that tie into the promised future Omega content? I hope so! Then there's also the wild, out-there speculation of how the 8th Umbral Era timeline will handle the matter of Zodiark, Hydaelin, and the still-potentially-looming final days. There's a whole separate game's worth of story contained in that, honestly! We really DO have the best timeline, because the Warrior of Light surviving through all of this ensures that we AGAIN travel through time, form a closed time loop, and stop the Endsinger.
Bellular, if you’ve enjoyed all the interactions with the people of the Garlond Ironworks then you’re gonna love how involved they get with the Ivalice/Bozja content. Glad you’re still enjoying the game!
When I 1st joined a Twinning instance, I did the usual "Hey guys 1st time, anything I should know" in party chat. All they said was "Turn your Volume up and enjoy the ride" 🤣
I new this music before I even started playing FFXIV. My friend sent me a video of all job limit breaks set to this music and it convinced me to try the game.
If you want your mind to be blown: At the end of Crystal Tower questline in ARR Nero throws away his detection compass into abyss. As we zoom out it starts to make some sort of jagged signal. Turns out, when translated in morse code it says - "IT'S ALL WRONG!" which is exactly what Meteion said during Endwalker.
Honestly I feel like I'm in some sort of a bizarre fucking loop because whenever I hear people talk about FFXIV story I'm just like ''And..you think that's great?'' and never have I felt it more than while watching this.
I find it funny that Pyromancer didn't like the Time Travel storyline in Shadowbringers... until he did The Twinning, and saw how everything was tied together and grounded in established information.
@@semiramisubw4864 I absolutely *despised* my time in WoD, I tried to advertently skip it... Until Legion was announced and the only thing I felt accomplished, I guess was getting the Pathfinder Achievement to unlock flying. Only played for a FULL month in Legion and left soon afterward. Because I didn't want to *frequently* grind again for similar bullshit. That was in WoD. It took me from that month of Legion's First month of launch all the way to June 26, 2020, to even get a wonderful feeling, called I don't have to play World of Warcraft EVER AGAIN. Because I absolutely hated it, but the small experiences like the Wrathgate Cinematic, Battle of Undercity were great. Aka the reason why was because I was forced to play WoW by my father. I learned I had to restart from scratch four years *after* I stopped playing WoW in Legion's first month. So I skipped all the unnecessary bullshit that has been piling up and up after Legion. The Mythic+ Grind, the Raiding Grind, the Legiondary grind, etc. Shadowlands *was* the expansion to get me back into the game, but it was the expansion that made me leave the game permanently too. All before it was released. Because I saw the price of the expansion when it first launched via pre-order bonuses was around 82 BLEEDING Dollars, that wasn't Worth it at all. Not to mention I was hearing that no one in the WoW community enjoyed the Covenant system, but enjoyed Alpha Torghast before it was turned into Choreghast. Aka, they learned the wrong lessons from the failure of Warlords of Draenor and decided to micromanage everyone's time even harder than it had to even be the case. I am glad I dropped World of Warcraft, entirely for a game I started playing on Feb. 8th, 2018. And that was FFXIV. The two of the cutest minions got me into the game but I stayed for the ENTIRE STORY afterwards. Because it was SOO much better than the garbage that was in World of Warcraft... Sorry for the Rant, but it still grinds my gears I had to restart from scratch. And I don't feel like Blizzard's Customer Support would help me because I had *two* of my Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty CD-Key's Banned and had to buy a third copy. To even play it.
9:30 funnily enough, the fate extra series covers this with an additional question: "What if hteres too many potential less alternate timelines". e.g. timelines in which black rose happened? The answer is ,it culls them, threadsb ack everything that can be threaded back and then leads to one solid stump from which multiple timelines can spring forth again
They bring up the branching timelines in Endwalker too. Elidibus warns that you could change the future, but it won't be your future and won't help. Venat surmised that too. But of course in EW's case the twist is that your trip to the past always happened.
FFXIV is like the Terminator franchise (or at least the first 3 films) in that it utilizes both Multiverse Theory time travel and Fixed timeline/Casual Loop time travel within the same narrative. Also they avoid Dynamic/Fluid timeline time travel storytelling where paradoxes just have to be ignored/accepted/logic hand-waved away (which isn’t necessarily bad sci-fi writing to be clear, like The Back to the Future films operate under those time time travel “rules” and they’re great stories).
See, this is a plot point that I think about. In G'raha time line, the WoL doesn't travel to Elpis, presumably, and yet the events still played out thr same in the past. That means it might not have been essential that the WoL traveled to the past at all.
@@SuperRamos619 not essential for the first Final Days and Sundering to have occurred in the original timeline, yeah most likely. As Hermes sent the Meteia off on their mission well before the WoL arrived in Elpis. And the Meteion in Elpis would have received the despair message from the Meteia regardless of whether or not the WoL was present or not. And I can definitely see Venat still becoming Hydaelyn even without the knowledge of the future she received from the WoL. In the original post-8th Umbral Calamity timeline the threat of the second Final Days is still safeguarded by Zodiark still being in existence and thus still passively protecting Etheirys from the Song of Despair.
@@TheoVorster makes you wonder if there are also alternate timeline ascians as well or if in their pan-dimensional nature they somehow avoid copies of themselves. I guess Zodiark can help for now until that timeline discovers the Final Days.
@@BlumenCT Most likely they are. In the Exarch!G’raha’s original timeline Emet-Selch, Elidibus, and Fandaniel are all most assuredly still alive in that timeline (as Elidibus himself in 5.3 said, when he peaked into the Exarch’s memories, he was able to witness a future where his brethren’s plans were still proceeding apace).
Talking about repurposing old songs for new content: the one that amazes me the most is what they did with Answers. That song first played for the cutscene event of Bahamut quite literally destroying 1.0. Fast-forward a decade and they play it again - and quite a lot - in Endwalker. Same song, same lyrics, but those lyrics now have an incredibly different meaning based on the context of what we now know about the Ascians and their history, and how their history directly ties into and births our own history. Good lord, just thinking of the last line of that song "Thou must live, die, and know" gives me goosebumps.
Wow, when I did The Twinning, I just thought "oh, it's a cool dungeon." I didn't think it's that deep. Also Cid and Nero are so hilarious. When Nero said "Don't be some mean to me, I'm someone who thrive with encouragement" and Cid responded "Then you would thrive at somewhere else with I encourage you to fuck off" Would never forget this exchange.
oh man, i just posted this on another video about Ascians but i think its relevant here too since i just love mapping out the timelines. One thing I love pointing out when people talk about how bad Emet Selch was, was that G'raha and the Iron Works team were no better. They intended their timeline to disappear. A time line which existed for a further 200 years. 200 of years of lives and the rebuilding of civilization wiped out because they wanted to remake the world the way it used to be because they saw it as a morally better world. I'm glad we got the short story showing they were wrong, but that was in no way their intention. Its 200 years vs 12000 years, makes you realise that for the Ascians at first they probably thought the same was Iron Works did
whats hooked me with like all FF games is following the little sliver of hope, no matter how dark things get, somehow in someway you find a way to make things right again. The better story I have experience in games have been through these games. It also really cool they have took so many parts and are able to weave them all together like it was effortless and make it seem like this was how it was planned all along.
One of the most underrated but HEAVY points about the scenario of Worst Timeline…Lord Edmont’s ‘Heavensward’ book is the inspiration that sparked the Ironworks plan into action. Beautiful perfect catalyst
I'm pretty sure the main plot point that saw the Warrior of Darkness being sent into the depths of the Crystal Tower was the weird monsters unlike anything anyone in the First had ever seen before suddenly appearing out of it's cellar... Monsters that should be fairly familiar to the players from the Coils and Azys Lla...
IF it is possible lorewise, an expansion centered around the 13th would be fire imo. Like trying to revive it's aetherflow or countering a massive invasion
@@Xyrenos I don't want to spoil anything if you haven't, but I'll just say those seeds were planted in a way in ShB if you did all the role quests and the unified quest chain after
@@Fulldre thats a good point. We only saw so little of it during the Syrcus-tower questline that it seems to me like it isn't properly connected in itself anymore to make 6 zones work scalewise.
it's a great little hook they dropped in there at the end of the current MSQ. Where does the story go from here? well, they had one character drop a bunch of locations on the current game world and another mention the possibility of entire new ones to explore. Vague? yes. interesting? oh hells yes.
The best part of all this is you piecing together. You have a better experience than me, that experienced as content patch. That means I made quests, then saw other quests after years of patches. You can enjoy all this in a small timeframe of months, at your own pace, without having to wait months and months for the next MSQ patch.. That enables you to keep the story fresh in your mind and link them better. While that, waiting for patch after patch, our minds slowly drift away from MSQ since we all end up EX and Savage farming in between. So there are a few things, specially pertaining Stormblood and Shadowbringers, that I didn't even remembered, because I saw that over months and months apart.
Alexander and endwalker treat time as a closed loop. You can't change the past cause the past where you did what you did is already part of your timeline. This leaves Graha's timeline as an unresolved paradox, and would explain why Elidibus complains that history has become a muddled mess beyond him to perceive.
Actually Alexander is not quite as clear cut. While stopping Alexander is indeed a closed time loop, there is reference to Alexander looking into multiple potential futures and in the end choosing the closed loop in which it is defeated as being the best possible outcome out of all the possible futures it could bring to bear (99% of the time because it's continued existence would have doomed the world). This implies that creating the closed time loop was an active choice on Alexander's part, but not the only outcome it could have facilitated. I do believe the quest also mentions that Alexander could not see the WoL's future past a certain point, but knew the WoL would be important to those events, something which in hindsight could be Alexander only being able to perceive our future up until the timeline split. I do agree that some clarification on the rules of time travel would still be nice.
@@TheTriforceDragon You're not wrong here. Another interesting through, is if alexander knew all of history, it would know of Meteion. So, the Aether it absorbed had a tangible cost to reality, which might explain why it brought that future to bear where it shuts itself down.
if doctor who teached anything is that the casual time paradox would create a fixed point in time and you would still exist even if you killed your ancestry as a time anomaly would be created
There is one factor I think most people are missing. Note this contains spoilers for Endwalker -------------------------- There is a closed time loop in Endwalker. So we have 2 in universe examples, Alexander and Elpis, of closed time loops. So the question is why was G'Raha able to change time when all other examples of time travel just involve you causing the same events that already occured. My answer is that G'Raha had to change history to preserve a closed time loop. If we had died to Black Rose then we would never have met Emet-Selch and traveled to Elpis. If we never went to Elpis to tell Venat our story she would never have sundered the world. G'Raha was born into that sundered world. So by traveling back and changing the timeline G'Raha repaired the timeline.
I'm ashamed to say I was in such a rush to catch up and finish ShB to get to EW that I ran through the Twinning without taking the time to examine the lore behind it. I'm glad to have the chance to truly appreciate it now. They've really done a good job with the story.
It's also interesting how some raids (Crystal Tower, Alexander and Omega) are obligatory for the story to happen the way it does, but only the Crystal Tower is obligatory for the player to do. And that's only been the case since patch 5.3. Because of time-travel shenanigans, it is possible that the player clears 2.0 to 6.0 without knowing anything about Omega or Alexander and it still makes sense, because the WoL might do these things after the main story and it still makes sense. But with 5.3 something was changed so it is obligatory for the WoL to put young G'raha into the tower before the events of 5.3, which is why that's now become obligatory content. But for some players until that patch it was cannon that the WoL gets to know G'raha in the First for the first time (not having a selectable option in that one cutscene) until they eventually decide to travel back in time relative to G'raha's perception to get know young G'raha in the Source and put him to sleep afterwards. They could have also have implemented it in a way that you only need to beat Crystal Tower until the end of patch 5.2, but I guess they didn't want to make lvl 50 content a roadblock at level 80.
best thing about the FF storylines is no matter what they story they commit to it as a story. They don't feel the need to front load with exposition so you understand the mechanics of what all is actually going on, no matter how weird it may seem, they'll fill in the details as the story requires. Which really helps maintain the immersion throughout. It feels less like an episodic game, being played level by level, and more like you're in the middle of a book or a movie.
I think the double slit experiment was a good reference from the start. It's not a branching timeline. Reality exists in a superposition of all states simultaneously and what happens is what we observe as happening.
If you think from tataru's pov, there is no paradox at all. From what she sees, scions are in a catatonic state and wol "disappeared". From that point generates 8th calamity and resulted events from crystal exarch pov. He goes back in time and jumped to another shard and pulls scions from the source ensuring his existence in doing so. After 5.3 the gang stopped definitely any risk of rejoining of Zodiark and put a definitive stop for 8th calamity from happening. The changes of timeline catching up to graha and he turns into crystal ( pure aether form like any other object). Back to tataru's pov: Scions return and they awaken the young graha with just "extra data". The only changes realistically are a few extra aether form the 1st to the source under the form of graha's remnants' memory, the same aether that should be in source anyway. No paradox at all it's just the timeline correcting it self. Like the grandfather paradox would never to be cuz if you go back in time to kill your grandfather you will find there is always something that prevent you for doing so.
Love to see you breakdown and appreciate this dungeon, even if its been done before I can tell you loved every little detail and implication this story brought into light which makes your enjoyment infectious
Just as a heads-up, but all of the creature models in The Twinning (with very few exceptions) were all ones used in the FFXIII sub series. The dungeon aesthetics were also likewise similar in design to those game's worlds. Even down to the gravity lifts using similar visual effects to Lightning's Anti Gravity Recovery System. The Twinning is as much a shout out to FFXIII as it is a love letter to XIV's lore up to that point, and I love it!
Not sure if you caught this, but if you look at the screens during the Tycoon fight, you will see cutscenes from the Omega raids playing. These only play during the fight and shut down when you knock out the boss, which makes them totally a trap to distract you midfight lol
It is worth noting that the only case of actually creating seperate timelines that we know for certain have involved demensional shinanigans. That would suggest that without demensional factors, actually changing history is very difficult.
It's amazing how Soken makes one of the tightest bangers by mashing up a bunch of disconnected Raid themes, which thematically tells the story of the entire time-warp dungeon itself.
Alexander: "In order for you to travel back in time and establish a time loop within a time loop, first a catboy needs to travel back in time AND dimensions to escape time loop rules so an alternate timeline can be established, so then you can close the loop you got going with the supreme goddess and fight a bird at the end of the universe, so you need to survive this fight with me, and for that to happen, i need to not exist." WoL: "..... What." Alex:"what." Zovaal: "I need me a pocket Alexander."
Omega learns hope. Makes G'rahas words to the Omicron leader about not letting the past define who you are really hit home, especially with Omega being Omicronian in origin.
I assume the reason Omega is getting a new quest series is to maybe explore a little with the Omicrons. So Omega can be empowered enough to establish a permanent bridge to the First which will lead to Y'Shtola fulfilling her promise, Ryne & Thancred getting more scenes together, and allowing the Dwarves/Pixies/Qitari to join the Eorzean Alliance.
@@Hatfright yea I think that was the generic behemoth model from ff13 as well. The second boss meanwhile was the Vercingetorix super boss from the first FF13 game which was a Ceith.
I think a cool raid series idea for a future expansion would be Ironworks finding evidence that the original timeline still exists and realizing there's some way we can help the people in that alternate future. So we go on a quest to help the people that saved *our* timeline.
Michael, for bigger boss fights, if you hold ctrl + up arrow on your arrow keys, you can pitch up the camera. Might help for more glamor shots of those taller bosses. Nice video though, cheers lad.
ok now i realise there is a plot issue with the "doommed" timelime with the scarlet rose and end walker spoiler warning from endwalker story we are effectively required to go back in time to learn about what happened to the first and set up a bunch of things for the past of the game. The player dies in that timeline, thus we never meet hermes, emet, hythlodaeus, elidibus, or venat. The most notable of this is venat knowing what happens in the future. The doomed timeline would have to exist and would have a separate timeline unless our actions from endwalker also affected the doomed timeline.
There is, of course, another possibility of what happened to the original timeline that had the WoL die. It depends on how quickly a timeline changes. If the new timeline is overwriting the old one, in real time, then the future that sent the Crystal Tower to the First will exist for about 200 years - at which point the Tower would vanish from the First. (give or take however many years from the time differential between the shards)
Have to say - i would love a spoiler free review of the game i can send to friends that are not yet playing FF14~ Your analysis etc. really is on point and i could never summarize this game without spoilers myself apart from an "just try it" :'D
I'm sure Mike was told about the extra job quest once you have done all the others. I doubt he'll get to play it soon, but he should see it at least. That is definitely his jam. His mind will rev like mad for ages. I foresee at least 2 vids, one about the quest, and a later one about what it could mean.
now go rewatch the Shadowbringers trailer......the scenes with the WoL take place in that other timeline where we die, until Graha intervenes. We beat Zenos, which doesnt happen in our timeline because Graha interuppted us; we wander a blighted land consumed in Light and fight a losing battle; meanwhile the Scions are doing what they have to in the First to avert the Calamity; and then finally Graha symbolically intervenes in that cinematic cut and then we triumph and go to the First. :)
I can imagine someone asking about the subtleties brought by the combinations of themes and story implications and Soken just saying "I had some empty cups and I just wanted to make a banger :D"
So here is my issue with time travel. So as you may or may not know, there are three types of time travel in fiction. Endwalker (and the Alexander raid series) presents time as the single continuum variety, where you cannot make changes due to time travel, because if you time travel, you were always meant to time travel. Hence why Venat had to subltely lead you to time travel without being obvious about it. That's great, I think single continuum time travel is the best way to go about time travel because it is a super easy thing to fuck up. HOWEVER, that is not the same type of time travel employed by Graha and the Crystal Tower in ShB. So, unless I'm missing something, we have two different types of time travel in FF14, which technically shouldnt be possible. The Crystal Tower scenario uses the infinite alternatives time travel scenario.
There can be both, I think. There's no reason why single continuum time travel can't exist alongside multiple timeline time travel. Venat's concerns about time travel and the fact you went back in time to solve elpis and meteion aren't incompatible with multiple timeline travel, there's every possibility that our travel back in time did split time off again, although I see no evidence of an alternate timeline so perhaps every timeline that reached this point had the same result. But the single continuum travel isn't mutually exclusive with split timeline travel. However, there is a form of time travel that doesn't require any of those - the "there is no time" travel. Wherein time exists in all moments simultaneously and you're basically just moving blocks around in a sandbox that is being perceived as time travelling forward. This aligns with the aether reincarnation too, as perhaps aether and dynamis is the sandbox itself and that's why it keeps "reusing blocks" (reincarnation).
There's also that Black Rose was never properly deployed in our timeline, thanks to Gaius and Zenos. I don't think it was mentioned if they ever intervened in the other timeline.
Those two able to destroy black rose facility because we stop the flow of light aether from the first. Basically black rose has same affinity with light aether and the use of it enables the flood to be experienced in the source, further increasing the potency of the weapon
It's a bigger wiplash with Endwalker. The WoL dying in the first place was not the "original timeline", it was destiny snapping back into a perfect loop to become what it was suposed to be, otherwise a certain event in Endwalker would cause a massive time paradox.
The other timeline isn't so much erased, as it is being rewritten. Basically, it means that the timeline doesn't instantly disappear, so if you are from 200 years in the future, you will have 200 years before the changed flow of time catches up to you. For the people in the future those 200 years are essentially instantanious, but in the new timeline, it'll be 200 years before it caught up to the old timeline, which at this point is completely rewritten to match the new timeline.
Alexander is such a great concept. Just to further the idea of being on 'the best timeline', if you play the ultimate (TEA) and fail on the final phase enrage, your group doesn't actually wipe. Alex merely sends you back to the start until you land on the timeline where your group succeeds. He is on your side and knows that success isn't just a hope--it's an inevitability.
My mind is blown....
So alex is helping us fighting alex, itself, that's some mind fuckery stuffs.
"I'm completely aware that I need to be stopped but i aint making it easy for you either"
@@ADKV95 isnt it like one of those villains who are secretly good guys who just want ot make sure you are strong enough to face whatever is coming afterwards
@@ADKV95 the normal mode is that alex is trying to kill him self.
YO MY MIND! 🤯
One of the best dungeons in the game, if not the best. Cid not only made sentient killer coffee machines... but he reversed engineered a god.
This is the thing so few people don't fully grasp. When I ran the dungeon on release I lost my shit.
Let's be honest, the only reason the coffee machines are now sentient is because Cid finally gave up on trying to remember to fill it, so he made it fill itself.
@@midnightmiqo “I’ll make it fill itself… eh, while I’m at it it may as well pour it for me… eh too slow, let’s just have it fire it straight into the cup……… hey their aim is good, I wonder if…”
Idk man Aurum Vale.... xD jk
tbf it was not actually him, I don't know if he died in the calamity but at the very least he didn't live 200 years :P
I wasn’t really interested in FFXIV for a while. And yet one day a meme video of the twining popped up in my feed. And I just kept listening, and learning, and went “fuck it, why does everyone say this dungeon goes even harder with context”
3000 hours later, I’m so addicted to everything FFXIV does and in *so* glad that this dungeon sucked me in and never let me go until I finished it.
That meme video is exactly the reason i installed ffxiv and now hundreds of hours later im a savage raider and a lore addict lol
@@xpl0d1n Wild, same for me, was a wow refugee, eyeing ffxiv for a while, but the Twinning meme was the tipping point, like a week before the horrible revelations of the lawsuits.
I had a similar moment but with the game in general. For years it drove me mad that people evangelized the game and I chalked it up to weebs being weebs. Then at some point a couple months ago I came across a video that explained the Shadowbringers setup with the First and all (big sucker but protagonists discovering new worlds and being a fish out of water in them) so I said "fine fuck it" and finally got the game trail etc. Now I'm well into Endwalker and the game is already one of my favorite games of all time. And I still don't even fully know why lol.
As for what sends Tycoon running amok, there is a theory that it was programmed to intentionally do so once it confirms the timeline is altered/WoL saved, on the assumption that the WoL would inevitably come to deal with it and ultimately destroy it, ensuring the secrets of time travel are lost to prevent misuse.
@@Aaron.Arcanum Thanks for the remainder, now I am sad all over again T T
@@Aaron.Arcanum well after knowing what happens at the end of Endwalker. Emit helping Elidibus in his release makes sense as the mind wipe is nullified once he rejoins the aetherial sea. He remembers everything and was able more or less predict what needed to be done. As what's his face said, you can wipe the mind but it's hard to wipe what's etched on the soul.
So basically a self-destruct mechanism by WoL.
I’m glad that you took the time to read the tales from the shadows entries
It really is insane to think just how much the WoL touched the hearts of the people. That Cid’s entire plan was dead in the water until he changed tact and said “this isn’t for the world, this is for the Warrior of Light.” Everyone giving up what little supplies they had left (since black rose also killed most plant life) at the small chance that even if their own world can’t be saved, they could do their part to let their hero live once more and keep fighting, unbroken
Speaking of Tales from The Shadows - it's interesting that Labirynthos is built inside of a mysteriously dead volcano, isn't it?
@@korrul With some really good grapes, too!
@@korrul @Sean Heath - It's more likely said Volcano is O'ghomoro, and the grapes were Bacchus grapes.
I feel like it's an actual privilege to have a game as good as FFXIV.
enjoy it while you can. it will never come again. your children and your children's children never will
@@insertcognomen i dunno about that. Elden Ring is destroying the competition without the need to conform to the forgettable sludge that is most video game plots. Yes it's a different animal than FF, but between the two is really does suggest there is a market for deep immersive storytelling in videogames. 'gamers' aren't all brain dead teenagers that just wanna kill something in a virtual world.
I think there's publishers out there who will see this success and decide to give other ambitious games a chance. The market exists, and is badly under-served at the moment.
@@petriew2018 there it is, never ever will artists stop making masterpieces.
cringy comment jesus christ this game seems like an actual cult.
@@nicolaj8387 ok
For those wondering why in the original timeline Zenos didn't snatch back his body and stopped the whole black rose thingy: we killed it.
Without G'Raha interfering and Estinien *(He's The Azure Dragoon)* to help us Elidibus easily ran out of luck.
Oh shit now the shb opening video makes waaaay more sense!
That's always what I thought too. G'raha unintentionally making us lose that fight was probably the biggest point of divergence for the timeline, causing a cascade of so many events before the WoL even set foot on the First.
Most of the other Scions could have been there as well to help deal with elidibus, while we also do not know what alphi would have done in garlemald if he would not have been knocked out.
@@Aseruxx why the new god emperor of garlemald of course. Alphy can probably bullshit his way into that spot.
You did the thing! *snicker*
A fun little detail with the datalogs in the Twinning, they're numbered based on the expansion in which the raid they're describing existed. Datalog 2.5 talks about the events of the Crystal Tower, and Crystal Tower was in the 2.X patch series. Same thing for the others, the Alexander datalog is 3.5, and the Omega datalog is 4.5. That's why it doesn't start at 1.
my first time seeing cid in praetorium after finishing the twinning when he says Don't even think about dying your too bloody useful I had the biggest smile on my face. also I think Alexander at least knew about Endsinger because of the lyric Celestial noise detected.
SO glad you were able to experience the glory that is The Twinning.
Just wanted to mention that a nice touch is there is an enemy in the dungeon that is an improved model of Wedge's kettle the "Thermocoil Boilbuster." Always makes me smile. ^^
This is what I like about XIV so much, there is story everywhere. When I did the Carpenter Heavensward Job quests I did not expect to tear up.
You should try the alchemist questline then, iirc it's 60-70.
XD
the Goldsmith 50-60 will give you diabetes coz of how sweet the questline is.
@@earvindinoso7689 This ^ so much is there an orchestrion of that specific music ?
@@dawnway6291 I just replayed the cutscene now and I think it's just a rearrangement of The Maker's Ruin for a music box. It drops from Ultima's Bane.
Even the custom deliveries quest lines alone made me more emotional than 99% of video games I've played in my life.
Sorrows of werlyt next, please. Need to hear Bell's thoughts on the trial series!!!
Fuck yeah yes please!!
Gaius character development.
I want to see his thoughts too
I play Twinning every once in a while just to see everything and hear the music... Plus I loved the ShB, Exarch, time travel stuff.
p.s. the actions of Ironworks Gang is the ultimate rebuttal to the "pple of Etheirys won't look beyond their own individual wants for the good of many"...
Wondrous Tails wants me to do a level 80 dungeon? To the Twinning we go!
Not really a rebuttal. There are always some but there are not that many. Definitely not half of the planet.
One way of thinking about it that I felt tracked pretty well- When we destroy the Tycoon in the twinning's basement, we're doing a hard disconnect on the tower (and our G'raha) from their previous future timeline.
Something that I think ties to that, is during the jump pad ride down there, there is a slightly disjointed WoL copy visible when you move your camera around on the green swirly background.
I think that kind hints that that part of the tower is out of synch now with the prime timeline.
Thank you so much for making this video. Firstly, I love how happy you get about the lore for ffxiv, you never seem scared to speculate because you always are content with the devs' results and that's awesome. Secondly, I had no idea about these references. I knew the main story because I played through it all, but I hadn't touched omega and Alexander. I knew that we died, but i didnt connect it's importance to the world at large. I had basically forgotten how gorgeous this piece of world building was because I was too busy with the gorgeous spectacle and loving lyna and graha and the whole first. There really is something for everybody in ffxiv.
It's crazy to think this was planned since warcraft 3.
Well played mate!
Lol
This just shows what's possible with talented writers armed with loads of imagination and a thorough understanding of the established lore. Hack writers think up a specific story, and then retcon anything they need to retcon in order to make their plot work, prior lore be damned. They replace what already happened with something else that makes their new story easier to tell, often times cheapening all that prior build-up. Talented writers build something new and grand using what's already happened as a solid foundation, adding depth and complexity and making it feel like everything that has happened is important.
The worst and most common kind of retcon is subtractive. It takes a story already told, that had ups and downs, progression and motivation and fine details, and it replaces it with the equivalent of a couple paragraphs. "Actually what happened was this, this, and this, and we can just hand-wave away the hours of storytelling you'd experienced as not particularly relevant." The Jailer stuff in WoW is exactly this - reframing a decade+ of storytelling and character growth as just all being one big Xanatos Gambit.
The kind of retcon that can be made to work is in filling in motivations and understanding for things that happened before. Adding new context that doesn't overwrite what's already occurred but bolsters it. It can be additive and enhance a story if used sparingly and well.
I think what also helps is that we do know that internally the FFXIV team has a lore/Setting/Info Bible that they will consult with to try and avoid most plotholes and retcon. It's not like the public Encyclopedia Eorzeas, though so many FFXIV lore enthusiasts would LOVE to get their hands on it; This internal source apparently has future content or ideas also added so writers can pick something and then write a prompt to see if, once reviewed, it would work within the whole 14 universe.
Don't forget creative freedom also plays a part and it's nice that yoshida both helps and supports the team in their creative pursuits
To paraphrase DBZA:
Biggs III: [watches the Crystal Tower disappear] "...and Multiverse Theory it is. ...shit."
Its also interesting to note that in the other timeline, the Ascians are one step closer to restoring Zodiark.
I love how in post-shb Elidibus remarks about G'raha's aetheric density being higher than he expected, since his soul has experienced an 8th rejoining putting him on a similar level to the WoL (now joined with Ardbert).
When Cid's Theme starts playing for the Biggs III datalog, I can't fight the tears. :(
Id finished 5.3 before I found that data terminal. I was just chillin and thought I was done with the heart wrenching content. I was not.
I like the implication that even if you haven't done the raids etc before then because of the way the timeline works it just means that you would do at some point.
Hope they go deep into the Weapons questline too. Its one of the biggest hidden gems of all the side stories there is, and has some of the best moments and soundtrack, which we hear in Endwalker again, because its so profound and impactful.
Cannot wait til he does the Werlyt quest/trial chain, and i wonder if he'll catch any of the "hidden in plain sight" scenelets
@@MrKnaives without spoilers, a game of hide and seek
I find it hilarious that when Midgardsormr wakes up and sees Omega, all he can do is laugh. Midgardsormr has been around and seen enough stuff that I'm sure he knows Omega is in the toy.
His greatest enemy, reduced to that.
It was always funny to me that one of the enemy types you fight towards the end of that dungeon were the monsters made of discs that float around an transform. Those are enemies from FFXI called Ghrah, which is similar to G'raha's name. It's just a dumb thing but it made me smile.
This isn't necessarily an "Endwalker spoiler" even though this is something that is only observed in Endwalker:
the Graha we have in the Source is the same Graha that worked with the Ironworks for 3 generations to pull off their gambit in saving the WoL & the first. As a result, Graha has a very strong bond with the AU ironworks team. The Ironworks team in our timeline is not the same one that Graha worked with, but you can still tell that he expresses a deep love and fondness of them when interacting with them despite the Ironworks team having no memories or experiences with Graha.
It's so bittersweet to see Graha fawn over Cid and Biggs and Wedge like brothers while the Ironworks boys are totally oblivious to his feelings and see him as a Scion and not the dearest comrade he sees them as.
Didn't they work together during the Crystal Tower raids? I'm sure that's true to some extent though
@@MicahBoy Graha was their key into the crystal tower, yes, but that was when they first met & then our Ironworks team never saw him again until ShB.
They definitely worked together before, but Graha's timeline was 3 generations worth of collaboration as opposed to only a couple days as an excavation team in our timeline.
The Twinning and its implications remain interesting even with Endwalker! For one, I like what you mentioned about Omega learning hope and feelings and stuff. Will that tie into the promised future Omega content? I hope so!
Then there's also the wild, out-there speculation of how the 8th Umbral Era timeline will handle the matter of Zodiark, Hydaelin, and the still-potentially-looming final days. There's a whole separate game's worth of story contained in that, honestly! We really DO have the best timeline, because the Warrior of Light surviving through all of this ensures that we AGAIN travel through time, form a closed time loop, and stop the Endsinger.
Bellular: How the hell did they pull this off?
Fanbase: Competent writers.
Bellular, if you’ve enjoyed all the interactions with the people of the Garlond Ironworks then you’re gonna love how involved they get with the Ivalice/Bozja content.
Glad you’re still enjoying the game!
When I 1st joined a Twinning instance, I did the usual "Hey guys 1st time, anything I should know" in party chat.
All they said was "Turn your Volume up and enjoy the ride" 🤣
I have definitely said this to a few people. xD
@@Shannara360
Same here!
I new this music before I even started playing FFXIV. My friend sent me a video of all job limit breaks set to this music and it convinced me to try the game.
- Are you twinning, son?
- Yes.
If you want your mind to be blown:
At the end of Crystal Tower questline in ARR Nero throws away his detection compass into abyss. As we zoom out it starts to make some sort of jagged signal. Turns out, when translated in morse code it says - "IT'S ALL WRONG!" which is exactly what Meteion said during Endwalker.
Hint at larger threat? Zovaal maybe?
Honestly I feel like I'm in some sort of a bizarre fucking loop because whenever I hear people talk about FFXIV story I'm just like ''And..you think that's great?'' and never have I felt it more than while watching this.
Really enjoy your deep dive analysis into FFXIV.
Thank you!
Shadowbringers in its entirety is a better Time traveling story than Warlords of Draenor. lol
that was not really hard to setup for a thing better than WoD lmao even tho gameplay wise WoD was the last time i had fun in WoW.
Thats not really a good example WoD is worse than ARR (which is actually good). It's even one of the worst WoW expansions
I find it funny that Pyromancer didn't like the Time Travel storyline in Shadowbringers... until he did The Twinning, and saw how everything was tied together and grounded in established information.
@@ericbright1742 Guess he was like, 'Eureka! Now, this all made sense.'
The Twinning MAKES everything tied in. It's a GREAT Dungeon and rocking music.
@@semiramisubw4864 I absolutely *despised* my time in WoD, I tried to advertently skip it...
Until Legion was announced and the only thing I felt accomplished, I guess was getting the Pathfinder Achievement to unlock flying.
Only played for a FULL month in Legion and left soon afterward. Because I didn't want to *frequently* grind again for similar bullshit. That was in WoD.
It took me from that month of Legion's First month of launch all the way to June 26, 2020, to even get a wonderful feeling, called I don't have to play World of Warcraft EVER AGAIN. Because I absolutely hated it, but the small experiences like the Wrathgate Cinematic, Battle of Undercity were great.
Aka the reason why was because I was forced to play WoW by my father. I learned I had to restart from scratch four years *after* I stopped playing WoW in Legion's first month. So I skipped all the unnecessary bullshit that has been piling up and up after Legion.
The Mythic+ Grind, the Raiding Grind, the Legiondary grind, etc. Shadowlands *was* the expansion to get me back into the game, but it was the expansion that made me leave the game permanently too. All before it was released. Because I saw the price of the expansion when it first launched via pre-order bonuses was around 82 BLEEDING Dollars, that wasn't Worth it at all. Not to mention I was hearing that no one in the WoW community enjoyed the Covenant system, but enjoyed Alpha Torghast before it was turned into Choreghast.
Aka, they learned the wrong lessons from the failure of Warlords of Draenor and decided to micromanage everyone's time even harder than it had to even be the case.
I am glad I dropped World of Warcraft, entirely for a game I started playing on Feb. 8th, 2018. And that was FFXIV.
The two of the cutest minions got me into the game but I stayed for the ENTIRE STORY afterwards. Because it was SOO much better than the garbage that was in World of Warcraft...
Sorry for the Rant, but it still grinds my gears I had to restart from scratch. And I don't feel like Blizzard's Customer Support would help me because I had *two* of my Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty CD-Key's Banned and had to buy a third copy. To even play it.
The way Twinning ties everything up is mindblowingly good. This is a great video!
9:30 funnily enough, the fate extra series covers this with an additional question: "What if hteres too many potential less alternate timelines". e.g. timelines in which black rose happened?
The answer is ,it culls them, threadsb ack everything that can be threaded back and then leads to one solid stump from which multiple timelines can spring forth again
They bring up the branching timelines in Endwalker too. Elidibus warns that you could change the future, but it won't be your future and won't help. Venat surmised that too. But of course in EW's case the twist is that your trip to the past always happened.
FFXIV is like the Terminator franchise (or at least the first 3 films) in that it utilizes both Multiverse Theory time travel and Fixed timeline/Casual Loop time travel within the same narrative.
Also they avoid Dynamic/Fluid timeline time travel storytelling where paradoxes just have to be ignored/accepted/logic hand-waved away (which isn’t necessarily bad sci-fi writing to be clear, like The Back to the Future films operate under those time time travel “rules” and they’re great stories).
See, this is a plot point that I think about. In G'raha time line, the WoL doesn't travel to Elpis, presumably, and yet the events still played out thr same in the past. That means it might not have been essential that the WoL traveled to the past at all.
@@SuperRamos619 not essential for the first Final Days and Sundering to have occurred in the original timeline, yeah most likely. As Hermes sent the Meteia off on their mission well before the WoL arrived in Elpis. And the Meteion in Elpis would have received the despair message from the Meteia regardless of whether or not the WoL was present or not. And I can definitely see Venat still becoming Hydaelyn even without the knowledge of the future she received from the WoL.
In the original post-8th Umbral Calamity timeline the threat of the second Final Days is still safeguarded by Zodiark still being in existence and thus still passively protecting Etheirys from the Song of Despair.
@@TheoVorster makes you wonder if there are also alternate timeline ascians as well or if in their pan-dimensional nature they somehow avoid copies of themselves. I guess Zodiark can help for now until that timeline discovers the Final Days.
@@BlumenCT Most likely they are. In the Exarch!G’raha’s original timeline Emet-Selch, Elidibus, and Fandaniel are all most assuredly still alive in that timeline (as Elidibus himself in 5.3 said, when he peaked into the Exarch’s memories, he was able to witness a future where his brethren’s plans were still proceeding apace).
Talking about repurposing old songs for new content: the one that amazes me the most is what they did with Answers. That song first played for the cutscene event of Bahamut quite literally destroying 1.0. Fast-forward a decade and they play it again - and quite a lot - in Endwalker. Same song, same lyrics, but those lyrics now have an incredibly different meaning based on the context of what we now know about the Ascians and their history, and how their history directly ties into and births our own history.
Good lord, just thinking of the last line of that song "Thou must live, die, and know" gives me goosebumps.
Wow, when I did The Twinning, I just thought "oh, it's a cool dungeon." I didn't think it's that deep.
Also Cid and Nero are so hilarious. When Nero said "Don't be some mean to me, I'm someone who thrive with encouragement" and Cid responded "Then you would thrive at somewhere else with I encourage you to fuck off"
Would never forget this exchange.
oh man, i just posted this on another video about Ascians but i think its relevant here too since i just love mapping out the timelines.
One thing I love pointing out when people talk about how bad Emet Selch was, was that G'raha and the Iron Works team were no better. They intended their timeline to disappear. A time line which existed for a further 200 years. 200 of years of lives and the rebuilding of civilization wiped out because they wanted to remake the world the way it used to be because they saw it as a morally better world. I'm glad we got the short story showing they were wrong, but that was in no way their intention. Its 200 years vs 12000 years, makes you realise that for the Ascians at first they probably thought the same was Iron Works did
whats hooked me with like all FF games is following the little sliver of hope, no matter how dark things get, somehow in someway you find a way to make things right again. The better story I have experience in games have been through these games. It also really cool they have took so many parts and are able to weave them all together like it was effortless and make it seem like this was how it was planned all along.
Incredible editing 14/10
One of the most underrated but HEAVY points about the scenario of Worst Timeline…Lord Edmont’s ‘Heavensward’ book is the inspiration that sparked the Ironworks plan into action. Beautiful perfect catalyst
I'm pretty sure the main plot point that saw the Warrior of Darkness being sent into the depths of the Crystal Tower was the weird monsters unlike anything anyone in the First had ever seen before suddenly appearing out of it's cellar... Monsters that should be fairly familiar to the players from the Coils and Azys Lla...
Really would like to see some of the remaining shards - especially if Y’shtola is successful in finding a way to travel between them freely.
IF it is possible lorewise, an expansion centered around the 13th would be fire imo.
Like trying to revive it's aetherflow or countering a massive invasion
@@Xyrenos I don't want to spoil anything if you haven't, but I'll just say those seeds were planted in a way in ShB if you did all the role quests and the unified quest chain after
@@Xyrenos probably not enough for a full xpac to the 13th but maybe a bozja style exploration zone
@@Fulldre thats a good point.
We only saw so little of it during the Syrcus-tower questline that it seems to me like it isn't properly connected in itself anymore to make 6 zones work scalewise.
it's a great little hook they dropped in there at the end of the current MSQ. Where does the story go from here? well, they had one character drop a bunch of locations on the current game world and another mention the possibility of entire new ones to explore. Vague? yes. interesting? oh hells yes.
I really love how much you've fallen down the rabbit hole of FFXIV lore, and I appreciate your videos and perspectives
The best part of all this is you piecing together. You have a better experience than me, that experienced as content patch. That means I made quests, then saw other quests after years of patches.
You can enjoy all this in a small timeframe of months, at your own pace, without having to wait months and months for the next MSQ patch.. That enables you to keep the story fresh in your mind and link them better.
While that, waiting for patch after patch, our minds slowly drift away from MSQ since we all end up EX and Savage farming in between.
So there are a few things, specially pertaining Stormblood and Shadowbringers, that I didn't even remembered, because I saw that over months and months apart.
One of my favorite dungeons. Not just the music but the story behind it and all the call backs to previous instances
Alexander and endwalker treat time as a closed loop. You can't change the past cause the past where you did what you did is already part of your timeline. This leaves Graha's timeline as an unresolved paradox, and would explain why Elidibus complains that history has become a muddled mess beyond him to perceive.
Actually Alexander is not quite as clear cut. While stopping Alexander is indeed a closed time loop, there is reference to Alexander looking into multiple potential futures and in the end choosing the closed loop in which it is defeated as being the best possible outcome out of all the possible futures it could bring to bear (99% of the time because it's continued existence would have doomed the world). This implies that creating the closed time loop was an active choice on Alexander's part, but not the only outcome it could have facilitated.
I do believe the quest also mentions that Alexander could not see the WoL's future past a certain point, but knew the WoL would be important to those events, something which in hindsight could be Alexander only being able to perceive our future up until the timeline split.
I do agree that some clarification on the rules of time travel would still be nice.
@@TheTriforceDragon You're not wrong here. Another interesting through, is if alexander knew all of history, it would know of Meteion. So, the Aether it absorbed had a tangible cost to reality, which might explain why it brought that future to bear where it shuts itself down.
The Twinning is still my favorite dungeon in the game, even with all the great EW dungeons
if doctor who teached anything is that the casual time paradox would create a fixed point in time and you would still exist even if you killed your ancestry as a time anomaly would be created
There is one factor I think most people are missing. Note this contains spoilers for Endwalker
--------------------------
There is a closed time loop in Endwalker. So we have 2 in universe examples, Alexander and Elpis, of closed time loops. So the question is why was G'Raha able to change time when all other examples of time travel just involve you causing the same events that already occured. My answer is that G'Raha had to change history to preserve a closed time loop. If we had died to Black Rose then we would never have met Emet-Selch and traveled to Elpis. If we never went to Elpis to tell Venat our story she would never have sundered the world. G'Raha was born into that sundered world. So by traveling back and changing the timeline G'Raha repaired the timeline.
I'm ashamed to say I was in such a rush to catch up and finish ShB to get to EW that I ran through the Twinning without taking the time to examine the lore behind it. I'm glad to have the chance to truly appreciate it now. They've really done a good job with the story.
It's also interesting how some raids (Crystal Tower, Alexander and Omega) are obligatory for the story to happen the way it does, but only the Crystal Tower is obligatory for the player to do. And that's only been the case since patch 5.3.
Because of time-travel shenanigans, it is possible that the player clears 2.0 to 6.0 without knowing anything about Omega or Alexander and it still makes sense, because the WoL might do these things after the main story and it still makes sense. But with 5.3 something was changed so it is obligatory for the WoL to put young G'raha into the tower before the events of 5.3, which is why that's now become obligatory content. But for some players until that patch it was cannon that the WoL gets to know G'raha in the First for the first time (not having a selectable option in that one cutscene) until they eventually decide to travel back in time relative to G'raha's perception to get know young G'raha in the Source and put him to sleep afterwards.
They could have also have implemented it in a way that you only need to beat Crystal Tower until the end of patch 5.2, but I guess they didn't want to make lvl 50 content a roadblock at level 80.
best thing about the FF storylines is no matter what they story they commit to it as a story. They don't feel the need to front load with exposition so you understand the mechanics of what all is actually going on, no matter how weird it may seem, they'll fill in the details as the story requires. Which really helps maintain the immersion throughout. It feels less like an episodic game, being played level by level, and more like you're in the middle of a book or a movie.
I think the double slit experiment was a good reference from the start.
It's not a branching timeline. Reality exists in a superposition of all states simultaneously and what happens is what we observe as happening.
If you think from tataru's pov, there is no paradox at all. From what she sees, scions are in a catatonic state and wol "disappeared". From that point generates 8th calamity and resulted events from crystal exarch pov. He goes back in time and jumped to another shard and pulls scions from the source ensuring his existence in doing so. After 5.3 the gang stopped definitely any risk of rejoining of Zodiark and put a definitive stop for 8th calamity from happening. The changes of timeline catching up to graha and he turns into crystal ( pure aether form like any other object).
Back to tataru's pov: Scions return and they awaken the young graha with just "extra data". The only changes realistically are a few extra aether form the 1st to the source under the form of graha's remnants' memory, the same aether that should be in source anyway. No paradox at all it's just the timeline correcting it self. Like the grandfather paradox would never to be cuz if you go back in time to kill your grandfather you will find there is always something that prevent you for doing so.
Bellular pissing off the WoW fanboys again by praising FFXIV! Today is a good day.
Love to see you breakdown and appreciate this dungeon, even if its been done before I can tell you loved every little detail and implication this story brought into light which makes your enjoyment infectious
Just as a heads-up, but all of the creature models in The Twinning (with very few exceptions) were all ones used in the FFXIII sub series. The dungeon aesthetics were also likewise similar in design to those game's worlds. Even down to the gravity lifts using similar visual effects to Lightning's Anti Gravity Recovery System.
The Twinning is as much a shout out to FFXIII as it is a love letter to XIV's lore up to that point, and I love it!
such a great thought provoking intertwined story telling. its great you got around to this, forever one the the top dungeons of all FFXIV.
Not sure if you caught this, but if you look at the screens during the Tycoon fight, you will see cutscenes from the Omega raids playing. These only play during the fight and shut down when you knock out the boss, which makes them totally a trap to distract you midfight lol
How did I miss these incredibly pivotal plot points? I don’t think I knew ANY of this until I watched this video! 🥺
if you love cid and the gang then you must do shb trials quest ‘sorrow of werlyt’ and the relic weapons bozja quests.
It is worth noting that the only case of actually creating seperate timelines that we know for certain have involved demensional shinanigans. That would suggest that without demensional factors, actually changing history is very difficult.
There is also the Mk CXLIV Thermocoil Boilbuster mobs in the dungeon which are apparently the final evolution of Tataru's magitek kettle
It's amazing how Soken makes one of the tightest bangers by mashing up a bunch of disconnected Raid themes, which thematically tells the story of the entire time-warp dungeon itself.
Alexander: "In order for you to travel back in time and establish a time loop within a time loop, first a catboy needs to travel back in time AND dimensions to escape time loop rules so an alternate timeline can be established, so then you can close the loop you got going with the supreme goddess and fight a bird at the end of the universe, so you need to survive this fight with me, and for that to happen, i need to not exist."
WoL: "..... What."
Alex:"what."
Zovaal: "I need me a pocket Alexander."
Came for the rave, stayed for the feels. Honestly one of my favs
Omega learns hope. Makes G'rahas words to the Omicron leader about not letting the past define who you are really hit home, especially with Omega being Omicronian in origin.
I assume the reason Omega is getting a new quest series is to maybe explore a little with the Omicrons. So Omega can be empowered enough to establish a permanent bridge to the First which will lead to Y'Shtola fulfilling her promise, Ryne & Thancred getting more scenes together, and allowing the Dwarves/Pixies/Qitari to join the Eorzean Alliance.
Fun fact, the twinning has many enemy models from final fantasy 13 including the second boss
First one too, no? I started ff13 after I beat up all the story in ShB, before Endwalker came out and was like "wait a minute, that's Twining mobs".
@@Hatfright yea I think that was the generic behemoth model from ff13 as well. The second boss meanwhile was the Vercingetorix super boss from the first FF13 game which was a Ceith.
@@YUXKE Ah, good to know. I never finished ff13, got bored around the festival bit and never looked back. =\
Twinning should've been included in the MSQ. I bet there's a percentage of players that slept on it.
I just completed this last week. (Msq seemed more important than side story) what a beautiful dungeon
I think a cool raid series idea for a future expansion would be Ironworks finding evidence that the original timeline still exists and realizing there's some way we can help the people in that alternate future. So we go on a quest to help the people that saved *our* timeline.
Midgardsormr full grown boi id love to see it
Michael, for bigger boss fights, if you hold ctrl + up arrow on your arrow keys, you can pitch up the camera. Might help for more glamor shots of those taller bosses. Nice video though, cheers lad.
ok now i realise there is a plot issue with the "doommed" timelime with the scarlet rose and end walker
spoiler warning from endwalker story
we are effectively required to go back in time to learn about what happened to the first and set up a bunch of things for the past of the game. The player dies in that timeline, thus we never meet hermes, emet, hythlodaeus, elidibus, or venat. The most notable of this is venat knowing what happens in the future. The doomed timeline would have to exist and would have a separate timeline unless our actions from endwalker also affected the doomed timeline.
There is, of course, another possibility of what happened to the original timeline that had the WoL die. It depends on how quickly a timeline changes.
If the new timeline is overwriting the old one, in real time, then the future that sent the Crystal Tower to the First will exist for about 200 years - at which point the Tower would vanish from the First. (give or take however many years from the time differential between the shards)
I am pretty sure Alexander knew everything. Look up the lyrics of Metal: Brute Justice Mode.
A timeline where WoL diea means a possible timeline where the Ascians succeeded in the rejoining. I'd love to see that AU story
Have to say - i would love a spoiler free review of the game i can send to friends that are not yet playing FF14~
Your analysis etc. really is on point and i could never summarize this game without spoilers myself apart from an "just try it" :'D
One thing is sure, FF14 story is amazing and well written
Let's also appreciate the Devs danced to this on stage the same way the meme video did
I'm sure Mike was told about the extra job quest once you have done all the others. I doubt he'll get to play it soon, but he should see it at least. That is definitely his jam. His mind will rev like mad for ages. I foresee at least 2 vids, one about the quest, and a later one about what it could mean.
now go rewatch the Shadowbringers trailer......the scenes with the WoL take place in that other timeline where we die, until Graha intervenes. We beat Zenos, which doesnt happen in our timeline because Graha interuppted us; we wander a blighted land consumed in Light and fight a losing battle; meanwhile the Scions are doing what they have to in the First to avert the Calamity; and then finally Graha symbolically intervenes in that cinematic cut and then we triumph and go to the First. :)
Ahh yes, Richard and Moritimer, my favorite show.
I can imagine someone asking about the subtleties brought by the combinations of themes and story implications and Soken just saying "I had some empty cups and I just wanted to make a banger :D"
one dungeon explains so much lore for the ShB MSQ
And there is still so much you dont know....
Keep playing, you'll get there.
So glad you did this video, it’s such an amazing lore dump and everyone should experience it 💕
So here is my issue with time travel.
So as you may or may not know, there are three types of time travel in fiction. Endwalker (and the Alexander raid series) presents time as the single continuum variety, where you cannot make changes due to time travel, because if you time travel, you were always meant to time travel. Hence why Venat had to subltely lead you to time travel without being obvious about it. That's great, I think single continuum time travel is the best way to go about time travel because it is a super easy thing to fuck up. HOWEVER, that is not the same type of time travel employed by Graha and the Crystal Tower in ShB. So, unless I'm missing something, we have two different types of time travel in FF14, which technically shouldnt be possible. The Crystal Tower scenario uses the infinite alternatives time travel scenario.
There can be both, I think. There's no reason why single continuum time travel can't exist alongside multiple timeline time travel. Venat's concerns about time travel and the fact you went back in time to solve elpis and meteion aren't incompatible with multiple timeline travel, there's every possibility that our travel back in time did split time off again, although I see no evidence of an alternate timeline so perhaps every timeline that reached this point had the same result. But the single continuum travel isn't mutually exclusive with split timeline travel. However, there is a form of time travel that doesn't require any of those - the "there is no time" travel. Wherein time exists in all moments simultaneously and you're basically just moving blocks around in a sandbox that is being perceived as time travelling forward. This aligns with the aether reincarnation too, as perhaps aether and dynamis is the sandbox itself and that's why it keeps "reusing blocks" (reincarnation).
There's also that Black Rose was never properly deployed in our timeline, thanks to Gaius and Zenos.
I don't think it was mentioned if they ever intervened in the other timeline.
Those two able to destroy black rose facility because we stop the flow of light aether from the first. Basically black rose has same affinity with light aether and the use of it enables the flood to be experienced in the source, further increasing the potency of the weapon
It's a bigger wiplash with Endwalker. The WoL dying in the first place was not the "original timeline", it was destiny snapping back into a perfect loop to become what it was suposed to be, otherwise a certain event in Endwalker would cause a massive time paradox.
The other timeline isn't so much erased, as it is being rewritten. Basically, it means that the timeline doesn't instantly disappear, so if you are from 200 years in the future, you will have 200 years before the changed flow of time catches up to you. For the people in the future those 200 years are essentially instantanious, but in the new timeline, it'll be 200 years before it caught up to the old timeline, which at this point is completely rewritten to match the new timeline.
I accidently imagined Bellular being 4 foot and now I can't go back
There's a short story that confirms the "failed future" timeline is still intact and still going.
did u notice the thermaboiler adds are Tataru's tea or coffee makers that Wedge made here ? :)