Grinding Gear Reacts to the Dawntrail Launch Trailer with  

I am routinely perplexed by how no one sees the obvious in the name "Solution Nine." Hydaelyn herself said she searched for many solutions to the Final Days. *points to the purple Tron city* That's failed solution #9.

It's sort of remarkable. If you went back in time four years and told anyone on screen that they'd one day be doing a podcast, excitedly discussing lore and theories, just generally geeking out... but about FFXIV... every one of them would likely have laughed you out of the room. It's a hell of a thing, really.

Jordan being caught live by JC ratting it out live 😂 And her continuing to show off the binder 😂

I'm with Jesse on thinking that Solution Nine is going to have some kind of undue influence over the rite of succession happening in Tuliyollal. The Wild West aesthetics of some of the towns we've seen have been paired with the hyper-futuristic looking stuff that we see taken to the extreme in Solution Nine, and not only that, but when Heritage Found was revealed, one of the screenshots showed ceruleum. I think it's pretty clearly meant to be an analogue for the US. Meanwhile, Tuliyollal and the surrounding areas are a mix of Peruvian, Mexican, and Brazilian cultural references and aesthetics, and in all of the Fan Fest keynotes, the emphasis has been on how the people who live there prioritize living in harmony with nature (as opposed to the Solution Nine/North American aesthetic). And if you want to tell a single story that describes the relationship between North and South America, at some point, historically, you have to acknowledge the ways that the US (and specifically the CIA) interfered with a lot of Central and South American elections and political leadership for self-serving ends. The team has never been shy about dealing with sensitive, real-world political issues, whether the effects of propaganda/historical revisionism and war as a self-fulfilling prophecy in Heavensward, the politics of resistance and colonial violence in Stormblood, or the various issues of living in a collapsing empire and international relations between formerly hostile powers in Endwalker. Dawntrail seems poised to follow in those footsteps and I couldn't be more ready.

You're cooking right along with us! Sprouts grow up so fast...

As someone who's been a big PSO2 fan for years, it makes me happy seeing all the people refer to solution nine as the PSO2 aesthstetic lol. There are dozens of us, DOZENS! It's crazy though seeing you guys be all caught up and able to watch the launch trailets and cook with the rest of the community.

absolutely perfect timing to release this on the very last day before Dawntrail maint. Time to get hype again!

I'm surprised that Jesse was able to call the Solution9 plot with such precision. xxD

When it comes to Ascian's, I've said for a while that it would be interesting to have one of the ones that are left be using their powers for "good" now that Zodiark and the tempering is gone. An Ascian that could potentially be on our side and help bring out our powers of the echo for example

Next expansion, you gotta bring in Pint too

i think the golden city didnt want to be part of the war between mericydia and allegan emperor so they did what jesse said build a digital world where they could be insolated and live forever

It's a bit of a throw away in early Shadowbringers and brushed off to avoid time-difference while we're interacting with it, but time flows differently on the shards. So there very well could be a hyper-advanced shard out there.

Crazy thought. At the end the new girl says we got so far without sacrifice and then WoL poses. I wonder because we are so op, bosses at this scale should really be a joke to us. We beat the universe ender and some random Lizard is supposed to scare us? I think we are going to sacrifice our power somehow and get powered down to a scale that is more in line with the power level we are at in the story.

My only worry is that the digital world thing is going to be THE big twist. Like, we'll go through the gate and arrive in Solution 9. Everyone will assume it was actually a transporter to another shard and we'll operate on that assumption until level 97 or so when they drop the big bombshell that we actually just digitized ourselves and the shard is long destroyed. I hope we're not all hyping ourselves up for a level of strangeness that never comes.

Cid remembers us appearing in light in deliver his goggles to him, an event we never did. So it's confirmed that we WILL time travel at some point, it's just a matter of when (heh, time jokes).

*SPOLIER * back here after msq, damn, so close

the war of the magi thing had me do a full on brainblast, in a lot of the promotional stuff/art there are morphos, and if you read the morpho description it says "The wings of this butterfly were highly sought after during the War of the Magi, as their scales could be used to make poison that inhibited the restoration of magical energy. As a result, they were hunted to near extinction, and now very few remain"

Maybe the AI thing is right...and till lvl 97 the one head Mamool Ja is the baddy but then green cat boy snatches the AI and all the technology and trys to "better" the world with it but everything goes wrong then and he becomes the new bad guy

My read is 2 headed challenger lizard is gonna kill 1 headed challenger lizard and then put the 'key cup' into his hand and it'll somehow revive him to show off the power. That's what that scene is in the trailer.

1st good morning all o/

Wuk Lamat: I will be the Hokage!

Morning all o/

jesse's theory sounds a bit like xenoblade 3's story. as a big fan, def super hyped for that possibility

2nd wooo

Whats the popular HBO show?

18:43 Trolley mention

FF4 is the foundation of Endwalker, love FF4 Now Dawntrail is FF9, another fav FF title too. Maybe 8.0 will be FF5 based, I hope