Watching this video made me realize that the Calamity of Lightning was the second, and the lalafels of the south seas escaped to the unlost world during the fifth, so the unlost world can’t be the tenth reflection.
I have a theory to explain it, the tech the lala used was reversed engineered from gateway key and ruins by Kriel’s parents/people, factoring in the similar ruins on both north Tural and The first I think that the during the 2nd era the gateways were built by those we came to known in Shadowbringers as the Rokan and they migrated to all the still alive shards
It does if the key opens a time-space portal. In the source, the calamity of lightning happens first, then the calamity of ice. During the calamity of ice the Lalafells escaped to the unlost world. However it is possible that the key can not only open through space but time as well. It’s possible that the portal opened into the unlost world at a different point in time. As they kept the powers of the key vague. There is also proof that time is whacky. Remember that on Norvrant the flood of light and the crystal tower. On the source and our battle with Arbert Minfilia takes them to the first and stops the flood of light. Then crystal tower appears in Lakeland and 100 years passes before synching up with the source. The key factor is when the crystal tower appears, because the crystal that shows up in Lakeland is not our current time crystal tower but a crystal tower from the far future going to Norvrant’s past. So a future that has not yet happened for us sent an object back in time to a different reflection so that they can intercept the key time period of the source to prevent said future.
@@jamesgreene6113 Time loops aside as a possible theory, if one shard’s time moves relatively fast and another’s relatively slow, it’s entirely possible that jumping between shards would place them into the Unlost world far before the calamity that has already happened. Think of it like light reaching us from different stars in the sky. There are countless stars we can observe that may have already expired, but the light is still reaching us because of distance. Meanwhile, we have The Sun, which we see daily due to its relatively close proximity. Time flow is all perspective, based on how far away we’re observing.
There's another way Living Memory could have a sky clear of Lightning as well: It's simply at a higher elevation than the storm is. Which was my initial thought on it as it was high elevation to begin with as well. Using Electrope they can easily turn Lightning Aether into Air Aether to keep things airborne.
It could also be that the 12th is an empty husk like the Empty on the first. The storms and the aether that created them being absorbed into the source.
@@TheImpolitelad that is true, but then what would be the difference between what little remained on the first and what little remained on the unlost world? yeah, Alexandria is way smaller but still there, so at what point would it be considered to be a world rejoined? The first is certainly not rejoined. And since the calamity of lightning DID happen, then I doubt its the 12th reflection... unless they retcon or explain some time shenanigans in the plot. Considering the island lalas traveled during the ice calamity which happened AFTER the lightning calamity.
Unless time travel is explicitly mentioned I don't think because of the Milala being there that this can be the 12th. I think this is one of the unknown reflections and welike you said in the video that we will find out more information in the Alliance raid soon.
The 12th shard was rejoined in a lightning calamity. The 12th has suffered a lightning calamity. Shouldnt be too hard to put those together. There is also no guarantee that a rejoined shard actually disappears. It could be all life on it (that isnt shielded somehow) gets sucked away, and the souls rejoin the Source. Its also possible that, given enough time (and by the throne we know the time passes a lot faster in the 12th thanks to the dome), the reflection that got rejoined might stabilise itself after all the excess aether gets siphoned away into the source. The only reason the 13th is completely FUBAR is because the dark-aspected aether had nowhere to go. Likewise with the First, no calamity took place in the Source, so the Light-aspected aether had nowhere to go. It would've turned the place into a void of light. But with the 12th, calamities took place in both worlds, just as the Ascians needed. It could be all of the above here is wrong. But until SE explicitly states it is NOT the 12th, it'll be the simple answer for me. And that is that its the 12th shard.
@@shoulderpyro It doesn't work. The milala's left the source during the fifth calamity, which - also on the source - happened thousands of years after the second calamity (lightning). While they've allowed for source and reflection to be out of synch by decades or perhaps centuries, there's no way for reflections to actually go back in time.
@@lacdirk and they also say the entirety of FF14 takes place in under a year. Time is very optional I'd say. Until SE comes out directly however, theres no way for us to know for sure
@@shoulderpyro In the end they can do what they want, but I think they went as far as they could possibly go and still retain some credibility with the time travel in ShB
Something that adds extra complexity to everything is that there is a Lalafell in living memory who mentions his ancestors had a peculiar greeting and then does a Lali-ho. So it seems Lalafell have done this kinda jump more than once.
that's a reference to 9's original small race as is with the location. I don't see why alexandria can't have lalafells, even if you don't see them in the story rn.
@@SataChannelDayo They do exist? They're just called Milalla in FFXIV Alexandria. I was pointing out that Lali-Ho is a greeting that is so far exclusively used by the Dwarves of the First in FFXIV. Hence me saying they did the reflection hop more than once. I just dont tend to bother making the name distinctions for races between reflections.
@@Zoly633 ah my apologies. But yeah, the phase laliho is a direct reference to the racial greeting in the original 9, I don't think it has anything to do with the first.
I remember that greeting as well, i think the lalafels from the Source left their legacy in that shard. But there's also the HUGE fact that the Source seems to be the twin of this shard, where ever Living Memory is. If anyone actually read the dialogue from Wuk's time with the giants, they believe that you will live on as long as ur remembered (last line of Emet-Selch-easter egg?), and more or less the deeds of their life etched in stone. The entirety of Sphene's ideology is based on this. (Also mentioning that some monsters in the open world in Living Memory are the same or very similar to the Source and the First. ) Im also thinking that because our worlds are so similar, do we have the mineral electrope waiting to dig up and discover, or create as well? (Even if it exists or could be created in the Source i dont the devs would add that)
And also, yes, they jumped twice. They could have jumped a 3rd time (or at least Krile'd parents, a 3rd time) but thats where they were in the process of creating a failed experiment to place a soul into a machine. But also they were being hunted down as traitors so they probably would have gotten found anyways.
I find it hard to believe that the 12th is The Unlost World; and not because of time travel shenanigans from the Lalafell. Simply put, is the nature of Rejoining itself. We currently have no reason to believe that Rejoined shards such as the 12th even *exist* anymore; a rejoining could be taken literally as what we saw in Yyasulani; everything that was the 12th shard is now part of The Source. The 13th and 1st are outliers; with the former being a failed rejoining, and the 1st being in this inbetween state where the actual Rejoining event hasnt happened yet. I believe whichever shard The Unlost World is still in that inbetween state; unable to rejoin thanks to the WoL's efforts; but I also believe it doesnt really matter *which* shard is The Unlost World. If the Dev's really wanted to pull the short stick and say Unlost is the 9th shard, they would have just said so in Living Memory
I agree. With G'rahas little demonstration about rejoinings we can see which shards remain. One i posit is the unlost world, the 9th reflection. Cause you know..all the ff9 stuff
Honestly, the failure with the 13th shows the Ascians were not all knowing with the process, and were kind of winging it. it wouldn't be hard to imagine that sometimes someone succeeded at some form of ark or island that preserved a small fragment.
@@NeroLucifarious Well the thing about his demonstration is, even he himself does not know (and has admitted as such) how interdimensional travel actually works. It might be possible that a rejoining does not delete the entire reflection, but just the ("human") souls on it to be rejoined to their source counterparts - and that overtime the planet stabilises again after the excess aether got siphoned away. With both the First and 13th, the excess aether had nowhere to go. In the First, it wasnt even fully completed yet but, without a calamity in the Source to weaken the barrier, it had nowhere to go regardless. The 13th, they FUBAR'd that one beyond all comprehension. But who's to say the 12th didnt recover? There might no longer be any sentient souls left on that place, bar the few endless that refuse to depart, but the world itself might yet endure. For all we know, Raha's lil demonstration was merely his theory on what he presumed happened. Unless we specifically take an ascian aside to interrogate them (and good luck now they're all dead), we'll never know the truth. ..Until SE /explicitly/ states the Unlost World is not the 12th, itll be the 12th for me
@@doctorcis3510 and that is not a crazy idea because we had that in previous entries. In FFV the void is a mix of both worlds, the real world that was divided into the world of Light and Darkness and by the end with Exdeath sure the gate was opened but we saw that there were lands and life (even if it was only monsters) still inside that void. Then FFXIII has the Void and Void Beyond which is the domain of Chaos and inside of it there is an Ark where the souls of the dead can enter and seek glorious fighting but never escape being the Colosseum. Also there are worlds inside of it like the paradise of pleasure and gambling Serendipity, Valhalla and more. So it wouldn't be crazy that the Twelfth was rejoined but a part of it escaped said rejoining. Given the properties of Electrope that could be well between the realm of the possible as a lightning calamity could overcharge it and the dome basically shielded them making them float in the void between stars. And thanks to Endwalker, we know there are worlds in FFXIV void like those who were destroyed by Meteion, like the world of the Pupu that was lost as well and many more. Also, it's hard to believe that any of the reminding reflections is at fault because the third encyclopedia stated that the worlds that were left without rejoining, are reflections that were not pushed far enough if at all by the Ascians and are doing pretty well by the time Endwalker happened so unless they effed up greatly and brought a Flood of Lightning, I don't see a reason for any of the reflections to go against the source or any of the other shards. Sure, they could eff up wildly but thanks to the First and the Thirteenth, we know that when a Flood happens we get an elemental void where the ether stagnates and changes the rules of reality and we also know it has direct repercussions to the source and so far, we haven't heard anything of the sort. So I do see Alexandria as the sole survivors of the Twelfth until we have further confirmation that they are not in fact part of the Twelfth. As I said, given that we have voids with life and worlds or cities that can harbour life in previous games, I don't think it's too crazy or far fetched to think that is what's happening here as well
@@shoulderpyro Alexandria still have living souls so they are not rejoined. I don't believe in HALF-ASSED rejoinings. The first is a clear example of this, almost the whole planet was taken out but still some little portion remained and there was no rejoining nor calamity in the source. Both worlds had a las bastion that should have prevented a full rejoining. It can't be the 12th unless they retcon how rejoinings work, or create a plot hole that they'll never explain. It's easier to say its another reflection.
Regarding the fact that when you shut down Living Memory, you can see a blue sky above you - if you look *down* from one of the electrope platforms in Living Memory, what you'll see is clouds. Living Memory is also supposed to be the very uppermost top floor of Everkeep, which didn't get merged with the Source. So I think it's possible Living Memory was just so high up that it's actually above the cloud tops where all the lightning storms are happening. I've been assuming this is why you don't see any lightning... I haven't had any sense that Living Memory got merged with some other reflection somewhere.
That's true! With precedents like the Sea of Clouds and Azys Lla, it's entirely possible that Living Memory was rejoined to the Source in the final trial, just floating way, way up in the sky above Everkeep. Or, narratively, could be anywhere else entirely in the Source. There is no explanation why Everkeep was dropped on top of Yyaslaoni (sp) beyond narrative convenience, which for the characters of Hydaelyn makes it seem Everkeep's specific location is random, beyond Zareel Ja's desire to have a place convenient for staging an invasion. Right now the story is frozen in the weeks following Sphene's defeat. We'll learn more over coming patches but I much doubt we'll see satisfying resolution to whether Alexandria came from the Twelfth, because it doesn't have any narrative power. Unlike with Zero and the First, there's nothing left in the Twelfth, so no reason for the writers to visit it again.
That would mean Living Memory is above cloud level, but there can be cloudy and rainy weather. So I don't think that it's just sitting above the storm.
One thing i don't see people mention is in the cutscen when robot Sphene absorbs the key, you can see Azems symbol on it which could imply that either Azem created it or someone else who knew Azems invokations. The key doesn't look like any of the technology party we saw so far that the Ancients were using. Maybe Azem build it or someone on their behalf, this could imply that Azem maybe created multiple items for interdimensional travel in order to connect the reflections. Maybe it was Azems intention to create a form of the rejoining without causing a calamity by simply giving everyone an artifact to travel to other reflections and connecting them.
so the fun thing with azem's symbol appearing on the chalice: queen eternal pulls the chalice out, wol does the azem crystal summon, THEN the azem symbol appears over the chalice and the chalice was drawn back into qe did the chalice recognize azem's magic? is it another crystal that can do something similar? azem was known for getting their allies exactly when and where they were needed, why can't the summon have some time magic involved in it? hell, time magic could be the part of the echo that lets the wol "see" their failed battles (aka respawn)
I had that same initial conclusion: that Alexandria was simply a remnant of the 12th shard that had been saved from the rejoining by some means. The issue with that is the Milalla. We learn in Living Memory that the group of lalafells that lived in Alexandria before the Storm Surge were actually refugees that fled the Source during the 5th Umbral Calamity. The Twelfth was rejoined during the 2nd Umbral Calamity, thousands of years earlier from our perspective. Now, we know that time can flow at different rates from reflection to reflection, but we have no evidence that it flows in different directions. Which is to say, the Unlost World can't be the Twelfth, or what's left of it, because the Twelfth was long gone before the Milalla and electrope even came on the scene. We also see from NPC dialogue during the third stage of Alexandria the dungeon that Everkeep and its barrier weren't constructed until AFTER the Storm Surge. The dome we see in the sky throughout the dungeon is not a literal dome, but rather indicative of the fact that we're exploring a technological simulation of Sphene's memories. It starts to glitch in the third area because it's being actively deleted while we're inside of it. I also don't think there's a shard where FFXI exists. There may well be one that has a very similar world to FFXI, but the actual FFXI is an entirely separate universe. Same goes for FFIX. The Alexandria of FFXIV is similar to the original Alexandria, but it's not the exact same world. Gaia and Terra don't exist in FFXIV. The similarity is a narrative convention, not canonical confirmation that every FF game exists in the same universe simultaneously.
Alexandria being the 12th complicates things so much It still can be explained by time dilation shenanigans that the lalas got there after the fifth but before the second but it adds so many complications
Time dilation shenanigans can change how much time passes between each shard in relation to others, but it has never been shown to change the sequence those events occur. So it still seems unlikely that the Unlost World is the 12th.
Its also possible the lalas did NOT come from the 5th. This was my initial assumption too but then they started bringing up the Aloaloa islands.. and its very likely the lalas are just from the Source. ..then again, wibbly wobbly time stuff, apparently all of FF14's story takes place in less than a year or so, so time has barely any impact on events
2:30 The element the Ascians use to rejoin is irrelevant so far as having to maintain a "balance"; it only has to match the elemental leaning in the source to cause a rejoining to occur. They could have used 7 fire aspected rejoinings if they wanted to, but they probably found that impossible to achieve/inconvenient or found that rejoining the same element over and over would cause problems - in which case they probably only required a vague balance and could fix any leanings with time and effort afterwards. My guess is that each of the shards were more predisposed to certain elements and just exploited those pre-existing elemental leanings- whatever was most achievable in the least amount of time. Also, Etheirys always returns to normal after a calamity despite an entire shard aspected to a single element rejoining- there being an additional rejoining of another element has no precedent for causing an irreversible imbalance. Also, the way we know rejoinings to work means they MUST be aspected to an element: the 7th being unaspected cannot be and it being aspected to darkness was always the case or (if otherwise stated) a necessary retcon to make the method used to rejoin consistent. the most likely reasoning is that whatever shard Alexandria exists in is one that was primed to be rejoined like the first was and only required a lightning aspected calamity to occur in the source for a rejoining to occur. This would also explain why Emet sent us looking for the golden city, him and his comrades would be more than aware of their meddling in pushing Alexandria's shard to the brink of rejoining as well as the presence of the Azem Artifact. Unless demonstrated otherwise, shards that are rejoined no longer exist.
I figured there was two versions of each element, the astral and the umbral. The astral Lighting reflection could be the one that was destroyed during the second calamity, while umbral lighting is still in play, waiting to rejoin. The thirteenth could be an Umbral aligned element that never reached its elemental destruction.
This would account for twelve Reflections, but the First and Seventh were both to be Rejoined via pure Light and Darkness, respectively, leaving eleven, including the failed attempt with Thirteenth, thus throwing off the numbers. If there was just one more Reflection, then it could have been 6 Astral Elements, plus the pure Astral Seventh, then a pure Umbral Eighth, then 6 Umbral Elements. But it being an odd number of Reflections and an even number of Elements throws things off a bit.
@@Gloomdrake To be fair to the video, I also thought that Alexandria was a splinter of the Tenth that managed to escape the Second Calamity, until I learned that the Lalafell of the Source had run away to the Reflection Alexandria was in during the Fifth Calamity. So unless time travel is involved, that part of the video is unlikely, but it still seems disingenuous to not watch a video because of the comments.
I still have the idea that Iroha, still being on Hydaelin last I recalled, will be the lead into the Echoes raids, her attempt to get home to Vana'Diel... But... I love the idea that Living Memory might have ended up there... It's so.. interesting, and if they follow through, maybe well have some new zone to explore in 11... haha
@@WyrmLimion I say that because Yoshi-P is on record stating that events such as the FF11 crossover events and other such things are not considered canon to FFXIV. Sure we have grey areas like the Nier raids but stuff like what went on with Iroha should fall under the non-canon but have fun category.
@@zedorian6547 I normally write those events off as "Weird tales, myths, and legends" as well, but Iroha is unique in that she stays in our reality, which none of the others do. Researching ff11 lore Iroha also has a lot of "gets kicked out of reality" moments due to time and disaster shenaigins. So even FF11 supports her getting shunted into a new world.
@@naoshihanazawa9408 They can name any shard they want Previous calamities for example prior to 7 was just random shards to random calamity And then when they was doing ARR they write that in 7 calamity 7th shard was rejoined. It's just convenient. So unlost having so much 9 references and presumably 9 rejoining It would be convienient too
@@shaamu2717 I have an idea. In HW when King Thordan is summoned both Nidhogg's eye and Azys Lla itself seem to have a lot of lightning aspected aether. Thus Ascians must have prepared "the Ninth" accordingly to flow into Thordan's rampage, amplifying it greatly and rejoining the shard. But since we've defeated Thordan they abandoned this plan, stabilized the reflection somehow for future use, and started working on The First. Thus Ardbert's odd appearance right after in postHW MSQ
Hardly related but im sure the "Echoes" of Vanadiel has more of a meaning than we think. Echoes being the past, and Vanadiel taking place in our past would make some sense but if it is its own shard that would be sick too.
It's at least supporting my theory from long ago that other worlds within the franchise would serve as reflections. Also, when they say they're aspected toward an element, is there a possibility in intervention that made one of the reflections that didn't have one, end up leaning toward an element. I could see Gaia falling victim to that.
My take on living memory was it was a mockup of what Alexandria used to be and had basically a VR projection over the buildings which is why when you turn off the towers they go gray like that.
Just as a thing for people who believe the lala came from the 5th, its mentioned that they came from islands and they were very good at arcanima. Arcanima as we know from the source came from the southern islands, whose original inhabitants mysteriously disappeared. They also say the lala were from islands, and there were clear arcanists which were mentioned how odd they were being so close to arcanima were in the arena fight
people keep thinking that the island lalas were like the only lalas on the source the 'dahs already existed, y'all, there were plenty of other lalas to go around
Interesting theory, the issue with it is Krile's parents are descendents of those who came from the 5th Umbral Calamity. The Elder used the Keystone to travel from the Source to Alexandria. If the reflection was the one described it would have already rejoined with the Source long long before Krile's ancestors left to escape the 5th. If this holds true that places Alexandria as the 6th Reflection
@@Zerix3Dragonkin The time differential would account for a difference of time between the Source and its Reflections. What it wouldn't account for is the Umbral Calamity that happened on the Source. That being the Second and the Fifth.
No it doesn't, as the Sixth is the world that was rejoined by the 5th Calamity. The only reflections left are the First, Fourth, Eighth, Ninth, Eleventh, and Thirteenth.
@@DragonmasterCire well, there is the whole matter of the key strongly resembling a great big Hourglass as if to say TIME STUFF IS HAPPENING. I don't think it could prevent the calamity of lightnining, but I do think Alexandria is a single city that shielded itself from the rejoining on that reflection, and was cast into the rift. Nor is this the first time Time Travel has occured. I think the eventual full truth will be something along these lines, but hey, excited to find out as the story continues.
Also we don't know enough about how three rejoining works, during the world be Calamity and rehoming of the first, Graha used the other in the crystal tower to travel back in time to the first, before the rejoining, but is the rejoining was already happening, the first wouldn't even exist. The mechanisations of reminding could mean that the world is just left aetherless, much like living memory is more (but there are still pockets if aether left). So, if civilizations like Alexandria are able to save themselves from the remaining then they could still be left in tact on an aetherless world, making aether a finite resource like we see with Alexandria.
I was very confident that Alexandria was from the 12th reflection when they first described the history with lightning, then confused when we actually manage to travel there, since as things stand destroyed worlds should be fully gone. Then I figured that living memory was probably the one remaining little chunk of the world, maybe floating in the rift where the 12th used to be, when it was described as the 'unlost world' because that does feel like how you'd describe a piece of a destroyed reflection that managed to survive. The reveal of a clear sky was what really threw me since that implies that wherever living memory is includes the rest of a surviving shard. If Alexandria was from the 12th then either it survived and the place we see is above the storms, or it got sent to a reflection other than the source or 12th. Lalafels fleeing the 5th calamity would also mean that for Alexandria to be on the 12th it'd have involve travel backwards in time to before the 2nd calamity. The crystal tower does prove that time travel is tied dimensional travel, but it'd prefer to think that travel backwards in time is a unique property of the crystal tower because surely the ascians were aware of dimensional fusion, but Emet-Selch found the time travel potential of the crystal tower uniquely interesting. If the lightning calamity Alexandria experienced wasn't the calamity of lighting that destroyed the 12th, that'd create some much bigger questions for me. The 1st never experienced a calamity until the ascians started tipping it to light for the 8th umbral calamity, and my understanding of shadowbringers/endwalker was that the 8th calamity was probably the last one before zodiark would have been able to break out. No idea if it was actually said that the majority of reflections being destroyed and the whole element checklist ticked off would have meant zodiark could overpower hydaelyn, or if I just assumed that because the stakes sound high. So it wouldn't make sense for the lighning to be a result of ascians or rejoinings that we already know about if it's not the 2nd calamity, and would have to be something entirely unknown. Exciting!
The Relic might be the final element to this theory. Its clearly able to open portals between worlds, but there may also be a capability of bridging between time as well. From their own admission, the Milalla don't know ow it works, they prayed to it and it activated. Even when modern day Alexandria augmented it with electrope, they still didn't understand how it works. Ill need to middle it over some more, as many elements seem to be circling the Relic Key. I have a futuee video planned for this.
If time travel *isn't* involved, it could be something I saw someone else comment: It was another reflection being prepared for a Rejoining, probably meant to be next after the First, before we completely derailed everything throughout Shadowbringers. Of course, that would beg the question of where the lesser Ascians recruited from that reflection are, but as we've seen, while still dangerous, those that weren't Convocation members were far more easily dealt with, and could've lost the plot (or been processed by the Everkeep) after the only ones able to cross the rift to other reflections weren't around to intervene any longer.
Time travel and inter-dimensional travel are separate things, as seen by the separate raids series that involve them, Alexander and Omega. Alexander has power over time, and Omega has the ability to travel the interdimensional rifht. The people of the Eight Umbral Era reverse-engineered Alexander and Omega's capabilities, and combined that knowledge to send G'raha and the Tower back in time to the First. The CT is extremely good at channeling energy, so I think that's why they used it, but I don't think it has any innate time traveling capabilities.
Your understanding is wrong. ALL 13 Shards had to be rejoined for Zodiark to be complete again. The 8th Calamity was only stated in promotional materials to be the last because we would go on to not only kill both of the remaining Unsundered, but Zodiark as well, rendering future rejoinings pointless.
Me: Focused on listening to the theory because this is a very interesting topic Wyrm Limion: Let me put Living Memory OST in the background and remind you what you went through in the MSQ
I just wanted to leave this here too: When the Crystal Tower did interdimensional fusion to the 1st, it did so through time as well. After it had re-joined, they went back in time to when that reflection still existed and fused the tower there. When Elidibus sent us to Elpis it was through the rift and through time. So we do have precedent of rift travel through time, and as we don't fully understand how it works, it is possible that the rift travel the Milala's took after the 5th calamity involved time travel to the reflection they ended up on which could have been a reflection that used to exist, thus making it possible that it was the 12th, and they actually went back to the past as well. Not saying it IS the case, but that it is a possibility for explaining how they ended up on the 12th AFTER it was re-joined by the Source's timeline.
The final boss for the story says in her cutscene "World bridging complete" so she successfully managed to teleport that part of the dome to another reflection completely. Whether Living Memory was still on that original reflection (OR suspended in the rift due to an unsuccessful previous attempt - and possibly that reflection was rejoined long ago) doesn't seem to matter anymore because she world bridged anyway and so we can't actually go there. With the Milala arrival timing complicating matters it could be a difficult sell to make it the 12th.
Lalafells near alo-alo fled from the source to the alexandrian shard during the ice calamity, which we know happened after the lightning one, and as far as we know that ice calamity happened several decades to hundreds of years after the lightning one. They arrived before any lightning issues were happening in alexandria, implied hundreds of years before the war or the proper invention of electrope even. Timeline wise, alexandria just cannot be the twelth unless you just randomly decide the lalafells ALSO traveled backwards in time over several hundred years, even though there's no indication that the azem key thingy is even capable of any time travel. All we know about rejoinings also implies that a simple technological barrier that Alexandria could potentially create wouldn't stop "everything" from being absorbed back into the source. Rejoinings are a final end to all existence of every piece of aether and matter on a shard, all of it gets sucked up by the source by just force of nature and some protective bubble shouldn't stop that, from what we know. And if it did, the ascians would have had A LOT of time to just destroy the bubble and cause full absorption. Just too many things making the 12th iEXTRMELY improbable as an option. Sphene also brings up dimension fusion but iirc, she wants to fuse the source first and eventually move on to other reflections, I don't believe we have any indication that living memory is already in a fused state. She JUST got the key and when we arrive she is just starting the memory wipe process that would allow her to start dimensional fusions. Most likely, alexandria exists on a still existing reflection that is still currently undergoing a rising calamity, but before things got bad enough to cause a rejoining. We know from the first that calamities have a slow enough build up that people can react to it, plan around for it and travel around to try and find solutions before the big all consuming end starts. Living memory likely being build in a place that is currently still safe. Would make for a good post-MSQ plotline as well, fix alexiandrias shards aether, stop the lightning issues, allow people to live peaceful on there again etc.
Why is time travel suddenly such a hurdle when G'raha did it in Shadowbringers, and the WoL did it in Endwalker? Endwalker, in fact, proved a person can go to a world that has been destroyed. I think it's much more likely that Azem's Key is a compliment to Azem's Crystals. Instead of summoning allies, it sends you to potential allies. That would explain why the gate opened at the exact moment Baldesion was around to take Krile into his care. If Azem did in fact create the crystal the key is built around, it's original purpose could not have been travel between reflections because, as far as we know, Azem was sundered with the rest of Etheirys before there were any reflections to travel to. My assumption is that the chaos of a Calamity, when the walls between reflections are weakest, the Key ripped a hole in spacetime, much like the Crystal Tower did in previous expansion, and the tracking spell drew them into the past of the 12th more or less on accident. Hydaelyn was more active then and we know she's aware of time travel and Azem's magic, so maybe she guided them there. I've seen some comments on other website about why the ascians wouldn't realize a group of lalafels suddenly disappeared on the Source and/or appeared on the 12th in the past. My answer is the Ascians are not omniscient and are numb to the genocides they commit. What's one small island nation vanished beneath the ice to creatures that are bored of murdering entire worlds? Also we met Lahabrea and Ilidibus in the past, and neither of them realized we were time travelers. I don't think Emet even realized G'raha was a time traveler until he took his hood off, despite the massive flipping Tower staring him in the face.
My only problem with it being the 12th is that the calamity of lightning was the 2nd calamity, and the calamity of ice, which caused the milala to migrate to that shard, was the 5th. There's no way they would've been able to a reflection that doesn't exist anymore. And I've heard people try to say "but time shenanigans," but this argument doesn't work either, because the source is the constant between the two. They would've had to go back in time BEFORE traveling to a different shard, which as far as we know can only be done with the crystal tower, and only if you possess the blood of the royal family of allag. The rhalgr theory is kinda cool, until you realize that the 12 aren't going to be involved in rejoinings at all, that's entirely an Ascian thing. As boring as it sounds, I think the simplest answer is going to be the 9th, because it's there, and there's all the references to ffix. It's boring, but it fits.
Yea I have made this argument as well. But it is possible they could just be like "VOODOOMAGICKEYDOESTIMETRAVEL" so its hard to really speculate. They literally can write whatever they want at this point and find justification for it since they have introduced an object we know next to nothing about and as Y'Shtola put makes interdimensional gates at an extremely advanced level beyond anything we have seen.
But time shenanigans though! We’ve only seen direct time comparisons between the Source and the First in terms of time distortion, relating to months in the First passing by in hours on the Source. The lightning dome, similarly, translates 30 years to roughly 3 days outside of it.
@@maxspecs yes, but the difference is that the source is the source. It's the default, the status quo. By the time of the 5th calamity, as the source understands it, the 12th was destroyed long ago. Even if time were SOOOO screwed up that the 12th somehow didn't know they were rejoined until after the 5th calamity (which already makes my head hurt, and brings up more questions than it answers), the milala are on the source, so there's no more 12th from the sources perspective. They would've had to first go back in time, and THEN traveled to the 12th. I also just don't buy that the dome is strong enough to isolate what's inside of it from a rejoining. You're talking about a magic bubble that can deny GOD telling you she's going to eat you now. No way.
@@WolfmanXD Yes I agree with your sentiment though. There is a continuity disconnect if you go with how we currently understand the shards to work for sure.
Regarding the Slayborough Deadwalks: the portal leading to it is clearly a voidgate, and mentions of one are in the text leading up to it. Also, everything we see in there aligns with voidsent modeling themselves to their environment. Also, it is mentioned that this chunk of LM was lost in the previous fusion, being scattered to other shards. I'm of the firm belief that Slayburough Deadwalks is on the 13th.
Y'shtola specifically mentioned that what we call "voidgates" aren't specifically gates to the Thirteenth; they're just the natural result of a tear between dimensions. If you opened an aetherial tear between the Source and the First, it would look like what we recognize as a voidgate despite the Void not being involved at all. Even the massive rift at the top of Everkeep looked like a gigantic voidgate, despite not actually leading to the Thirteenth.
When the writers wrote the Scions from the future stopping the Flood of Light, they opened the Pandora's box of time travel narration: when you cross the Rift, you can traverse time as well as reflections. Like the Scions with the First, the Milalla traversed time to before the Second calamity when they crossed the rift to the Twelfth. The Everkeep and Living Memory was all that remained of the Twelfth by the time of Dawntrail. The events of Dawntrail fused the Twelfth to the Source within Heritage Found but Living Memory was an incomplete fusion: it moved it to the Source instead. Like Azys Lla and Sea of Clouds, Living Memory floats somewhere in the Source. Living Memory's location is unspecified until the writers need to do so for gameplay or narrative purposes. There's nothing left in the Twelfth. I don't think it'll be visited again, beyond as a convenience for pulling in new narrative dragons for the WoL to defeat.
I believe the only reason Crystal Exarch could ever go backwards in time is because future G'raha and the crew spent like 200 years researching Alexander technology. Even Emet-Selch himself was shocked when he learned time travel is even possible. And this for a guy who crossed the Rift like his own backyard
@pixiesnakes4293 Yes, and undoubtedly the Key is as astounding a technological achievement as G'raha's time travel feat. Pandora's box is open and the writers can't put time travel shenanigans back in it again.
The Scions did not time travel when they were summoned to the First. It was on the verge of Rejoining, but it still existed. When the First's Warriors of Light traveled back with Minfilia, the First still existed. That 100 years passed on the First between Heavensward and Shadowbringers is a matter of time flowing faster there as compared to the Source. The WoL travels through time on two occasions: Once during the Alexander raids where we travel with it back to its initial summoning, and again during the Elpis arc in EW.
I was definitely thinking the Twelfth mainly because it being one of the earlier calamities. I honestly feel like the research into interdimensional fusion being something started by Ascian research due to their failure in the Thirteenth. Though I think this research started on the Fifth and even successful to usher in the first calamity, continued effort in the Twelfth might have better let them perfect the process of Rejoining. All speculation of course
After reading through the comments, I would like to throw my two-cents into the hat. I don’t believe that they’re even from the same plane of reality in which our timeline stems from. As convoluted and confusing as that is, we now know from the mouth of Yoshi-P that branch theory is CANON, that means there’s a version in a different timeline where all choices happen, and don’t happen, splitting off each time something different occurs. Yoshi-P also brought up the fact that the Ascians subsisted in the space between time; what if Azem knew this? And what if his answer to the sundering was to merge timelines instead of calamitous rejoinings? - the obvious answer then is that Alexandria indeed hails from the 12th, but a version of it where it has not yet been rejoined.
You make a very fair point, and things seem to be returning to Azem and the Relic. Both of them are connected, but we dont know why. But I do have a theory which will be the subject of a future video, nothing very long just getting the idea out there :)
Alexandria is like Eulmore, the last point of stability in an otherwise lost shard ready for rejoining. There are 13 reflections and 8 possible affinities, some are going to have to repeat, just so long as we follow up a neutral rejoining by getting back to the cycle it will be fine. The milala traveled to that reflection, likely with ascian help, after the fifth calmity which means it has to be after the second, because Emet didnt know how to manage time travel. This was supposed to be the reflection joined for the ninth calamity, just held in stasis. Its why we were told explicitly to go there, to clean up the mess the Ascians left after Hades fully entrusted us with the future of the star.
@@bendonatier The tale of the Twelve has seven Heavens and seven Hells, being astral and umbral variations of the 6 elements as well as unaspected. The main reason I bring this up is the tale of the Heaven of Lightning, shared by Byregot and Rhalgr. A paradise that was nearly destroyed by a meteor, only for the ore in that meteor to be reshaped into a tower that converts Rhalgr’s destruction into the very power that protects it. It’s too on the nose to not mean something here, and has me trying to figure out similarities to the First and Thirteenth among the various Heavens and Hells…
Something I wonder, where was Alexandria in the Unlost World and where does that equate to on the Source? When we traveled to the First, we went from Mor Dhona to Lakeland, which are pretty equivalent geographically. I'd be inclined to believe that Yyasulani is where it would be, but then the question of the portal in Yak T'el remains. Also the Yok Huy got their visions down in Yak T'el and then felt compelled to search in Xak Tural. I hope the patch stories will shed some light on these questions.
I think Unlost World is still the Twelfth due to its elemental calamity. But then there is also a problem with the Milala. They are confirmed that coming from the Source before end up on Unlost World but that is the problem with timeline. They are of the Aloalo island "during the Fifth Calamity" which by that time if the Unlost World is Twelfth, it should already be aged past.
Few days late but i think i NEED to point something out here: While i cannot directly say which reflection it is, it is NOT the 12th or any of those which are already rejoined. Rather imo we have a situation on our hand like the first - prepared to rejoin, but without a calamity to rejoin. The perfect clues are inside solution 9, where a boy is being plagued by lightning sickness which restricts his movement. The weather in heritage found is UMBRAL LEVIN. The insides of heritate found merged with our world, which means the Umbral levin stems from the other side. Imo Heritage Found and Solution 9 are quite siminlar to Norvandt, even more the Crystal tower if i am bold to say. Therefore, just as the lore about the 12 mentions a "Heaven" and "Hell" of each element, there is reason to believe the calamities were indeed aspected. Just as in the first, where urianger talked about the properties of Umbral and Astral being scewed and Light and Dark working different depending on the aspect. We would have needed one astral and umbral calamity then. There is enough reason to believe this was supposed to be a world rejoined by umbral levin, while the 12th must have been astral levin. I'm actually rather dissapointed no ascians are to be seen, because Zoraal Ja's plans basically would have meant the upcoming of a large scale, maybe even "world" war - which probably would be the prime candidate for the makings for yet another rejoining. And yes, i know this doesnt sound that it dosnt account for Astral Light, Astral Darkness, Umbral Darkness, Umbral light..... Hydaelyn itself is Astral Light, given she is unsundered there is no need for a rejoining of that aspect. The First was Umbral Light, given its properties and effects on the world. Darkness is a bit scewed, because i believe the Void was supposed to be Astral Darkness (Given no one can die there), meanwhile Umbral darkness might as well be strewn all about the reflections with bits and pieces of Zodiark.
If Living Memory had merged with another shard, I would have expected the golden gate to have shut itself or malfunctioned. Nothing happened to the gate at all, however.
As others have stated, it is physically impossible for the 12th to be Alexandria without DRASTIC time shenanigans that would also throw many other canon ideas out the window. The Milala/Lalafell of the South Seas, escaped during the Calamity of Ice, which comes AFTER the Calamity of Lightning, significantly. You can't reconcile this with Reflection time dilation, as one event causes the other, which means the Reflection couldn't have been the 12th. Additionally... 1.) Significant WMDs have yet to cause full rejoinings without it being on OUR end of the tunnel. Black Rose, Bahamut, being the greatest examples of the use of WMDs to facilitate OUR side of the rejoining. And these even were only regional on OUR end, whereas the events that cause the Rejoinings on the Reflection side has to encompass the whole of the Star. 2.) We know that the Floods of Light and Dark were unsuccessful because they were not controlled but were close enough that if they had been slowed down or stopped in time, they could have been used by the Ascians. 3.)We know that each Reflection is a complete duplicate of both Moon and Eitherys in size and continental layout. We know this by what we have seen from the Void Moon and from superimposing the maps of The First on locations in the Source. With those set aside... Alexandria was on a Xak Tural equivalent because of the nature of Superimposition/Interdimensional Fusion (similar event to what happened with throwing the Crystal Tower into the First, it only shifted to a respective location.) That means that the WMD would have had to not only impact the whole continent of Tural, but then spread through the whole of the Star and cause the complete collapse of the balance of the Star's Aether. We know this because of 2, but we also know that, by admission of Emet Selch in Shadowbringers, that the ONLY failure was the 13th, because Hydaelyn saved the 1st from becoming another one. If this aetheric imbalance lasted as long as they said it did (implications are... generations, so hundreds if not thousands of years,) the Star would have fallen to Lightning and become another failure. We know there was that organization called Preservation (or something similar, am not at home to double check some convo notes I took,) that was who developed the technology to create the Endless. This group obviously had reasons why they wanted to keep Alexandria as Alexandria, so why not create a false narrative that everything outside the dome was bad? We know that during multiple Calamities that Eorzea, and for other Calamities, other areas, had to suffer through generations of bad weather, but we see places like Azim Steppe unaffected by the changes in weather/geographic catastrophes. TLDR: Unlost Memory is one of the four remaining reflections, there is enough evidence to show that, and that the dome had become more of a power necessity than an actual safety necessity nowadays. Also, Calamity is not calamity, is not Calamity.
For anyone wondering about the time inconsistencies between the second and fifth calamities as well as Alexandria: The Milala, Lalafell, and Sphene all used the "Key", which in the last trial had the symbol of Azem when we used our crystal. I believe that Key is the answer to these time inconsistencies. It's unconfirmed but I believe it's a tool or a device used to travel through time and space; just like what we did with an abundance of Aether to travel back to Elpis in the Crystal Power; however, powered by fervent desires (possibly wishes and prayers too, like our crystal). To get even crazier, Azem probably made the tool to travel wherever they wished, knowing how much of an adventurer they also were I wouldn't dismiss it either.
Oh and I just got reminded that the Key seems to function similar to how Dynamis works: Empowering a person based on their deepest fervent desires. The Milala used it via fervent prayers of many to escape the Fifth Umbral calamity and traveled to Alexandria. Although i'm unsure or unclear as to why the Key didn't work the second time when Krile's parents tried using it during Alexandria's Lightning crisis but I theorize that either there wasn't enough Dynamis or possibly the Key has sometime of cool-down before being used again (although that would be problematic if used as a plot device further on).
@@auronthesergal8076 If the Keystone really is one of Azem's relics as it seems to be, given the color of the keystone itself and how it responded to the activation of our crystal's magicks, there's only one sensible reason why the Speaker was able to use the Keystone and nobody else could afterward: The Speaker of the Milala was a reincarnation of Azem. It would also explain why the Speaker had all those masks on the wall in their Chamber - an aetheric memory of the Convocation imprinted on Azem's soul, similar to the situation with Fandaniel's.
The timey-wimey stuff is important to keep in mind. Some reflections are "ahead" in time compared to the Source and some are far "behind". From the Ascian's point of view the Calamities occur concurrently, but from the perspective of people in the Reflection and/or Source it might look like they happen hundreds of years apart. It isn't really explained how this works, we just need to roll with it. Ascian's are smart I guess. Another thing is that whatever element the Calamity is in a Reflection it will be the opposite element in the Source. ie: Lighting for the Unlost World equals an Ice Calamity in the Source. Or a more recent example is the Light Calamity in the First would have meant a Dark Calamity in the Source, but we prevented it.
That’s not correct about the aspects with rejoinings: in the bad future graha is from, the first was rejoined, and Black Rose, the source’s calamity, was very definitely light aspected
All I need is a "temporary Zone" like Wyrlit or Zero's Domain, to be the city of Juno, and if I can see Living memory from there, then it's all true :D
I think it's the 12th. I also think The Ascians were the catalyst that hastened the Calamity by introducing the Miracle Metal. It suddenly appears and is useful, but it's scarce enough to motivate nations to war over it. This escalates in the doomsday weapon that caused the 12th to rejoin. Alexandria survives due to the bubble and the Ascians don't care because they want the rejoining. As far as we know, the time dilation as we know it (Alexandria flows faster) occurs between The Source and The Bubble on The Source. It doesn't necessarily mean it's the same when The Twelfth was unjoined. Perhaps the Deal is made before The Twelfth fully gets rejoined, so Alexandria fuses to The Source in time. This could also explain how the people of the Southern Isles managed to flee the Ice Calamity to join a world before its Lighting Calamity. I'm fond of my theory of How Ascians caused the Twelfth's rejoining because we don't really know the details of how they achieved all the rejoinings. We know they manipulate, as in The First and Thirteenth. But if it's also The Twelfth, it's a different kind of manipulation. And I think it's cool that even though their story is over, their Sins still echo. I also like the idea of opening up the story of Antagonistic Shards. Yes, we kinda had it with The Void, but that would be building on the hand-wavey place where evil-not-Ascian stuff comes from. This story has another Shard committing Colonialism out of survival. And that's really interesting to me. Also, how would have The Endsinger affected Alexandria?
A lot of people have assumed that Alexandria comes from the twelfth reflection, which rejoined in a calamity of lightning. That is appealing, but the timeline does not work: there cannot have been milalas on the reflection if it rejoined in the second umbral calamity, because the milalas fled the source in the calamity of ice, i.e. the fifth umbral calamity. My starting points: 1/ Because of the milalas being present and well-established in Alexandria's reflection, whatever happened to Alexandria happened centuries or millennia after the fifth calamity (Ice). That calamity happened roughly 4,000 years before ARR. 2/ Alexandria's history turns on the use of lightning through elektrope. It consumed the aether of the land, the people and living things around it in order to feed its energy needs. In the process, it converted all aether to electricity, gradually aspecting the whole reflection towards electricity. According to the Alexandrian timeline, this happened over a period of many hundreds of years, starting 1000 years ago. This is a reflection timeline, so it is not 100% aligned to the Source timeline, but over long periods it must be roughly similar. 3/ The sixth calamity (water) happened around 1577 years before ARR. The seventh (astral) happened just before ARR. The eighth (light) was going to happen only a short time in the future. From the previous two points, it looks like the Ascians planned to massively speed up the rejoinings, from once every 1500 to 2000 years all the way to one every few decades. It's quite possible that Alexandria's reflection was going to be rejoined shortly after the 8th, which was delayed by Minfilia and then ultimately prevented. But we don't know which Ascians were pushing Alexandria's reflection towards rejoining. And I can't see a way - yet - to find out what reflection is was. But it can not have been the 12th.
Incidentally, there's no reason to assume that overall the Source and its reflections remain balanced. Creation of one type of elemental aspected energy does not appear to be balanced by the creation of its opposite. It's perfectly reasonable to assume that the Ascians meant the Alexandrian world to rejoin in another electrical calamity.
I find it difficult to assume the unlost world is part of a rejoined reflection. The Ascian's, Emet specifically have been very honest about when they succeed and when they fail. I feel they would be aware that the second rejoining wasn't a 100% Additionally in the Arcadion quest line we are teased about the president. A person who is apparently powerful enough to only be challenged by Sphene in Authority. It is likely this president will be an Ascian who was assigned to this world, which would make it an unrejoined reflection. After all the Ascian's were pushing their agenda's right up to the moment we killed Zodiark, so the unlost world being on the brink would fit the goal of another realm that was being primed. I understand this seems like a stretch but one of the early solution nine arts did have the symbol resembling an Ascian's mask. I do like your theory that living memory is probably connected to another reflection now do to Inter-dimensional Fusion, and hope that ends up being the truth.
If they make us deal with an Ascian again after more than ten years of that and then officially wrapping that stuff all up, I dunno what the playerbase will do.
**Probably** ***If the time doesn't fold on itself and the calamities happen in order as Ascean tackled them one by one*** The calamity of lightning is the 2nd umbral calamity. The calamity of ice is the 5th umbral calamity. The Lalafel from the source who invented the key and traveled to the unlost world during the calamity of ice and reach there before the lightning calamity happened there. So IF there's no time displaced happens during the traveling like when Graha use the crystal tower to travel to the first, then the unlost world is not the twelfth. I have to put the big "if" there
I used to think alexandria was the remaining of the 12th too but then we learn that krile ancestor came to alexandria from the 5th or some frozen part of the source durring the 5th umbral calmity. So while still pssible, it make thing much less smooth.
I think the FF11 alliance raids are going to be some giant related to that cranky tribe who still want to conquer everything and exploring Tural's history rather than a reflection. Also the Encyclopedias are only our current understanding. Wouldnt surprise me if they updated soem reflection knowledge soon.
My gut still says the Twelfth, but the Milalas apparently showing up in Alexandria after the 5th Calamity in the Source complicates things. It's easier to accept a fragment of the Twelfth remained after the Second Umbral Calamity, but apparent time travel is...a lot. Yet I don't think it's a coincidence that Sphene's description sounds a *lot* like a Rejoining. Living Memory I honestly hadn't thought about the sky change. I don't know if that necessarily mean much? Living Memory is well....memory. It's data. The Meso Terminal could have been influencing the sky, and with it shut down, the world reverts to its default state?
I'm kind of guessing its the voids neighbour 12th, or a tiny chunk lingering on of that floating around (and now stabilized with us). On top of soul devouring being very void-esque and maybe, even slightly or subconciously, inspired by them, but even if its unaspected this works, plenty confidant the ascians would be fine leaving this small lingering chunk of a reflection, or just another unjoined one alone (now, I'm sure they had a hand in helping lindblum figure out how to make their bomb really effective), because the mortals there themselves are inevitably going to wind up trying to merge dimensions and/or drain others to keep themselves running, and even if they never fail to do that every time they try, it's still eventually doomed. When you're an immortal ascian not only can you wait, but now you got these dumb mortals doing your job for you (even if badly and slowly), why interupt that when you have however many whole reflections to still mess with.
I do not think the Unlost world is the 12th. Instead, I think this was another reflection being primed for a rejoining. The 12th led to an Astral lightning calamity, this would have led to an Umbral lightning calamity. There's not enough elements for all 14, so alignment has to matter and some can be repeated with a different alignment.
You CAN'T have have an unaspected rejoining. In order for a rejoining to be possible, a world needs to have it's elemental balance shifted heavily towards one of the elements or polarities. It also has to be aspected towards only a single element or polarity, or it won't work. Furthermore, since there are only 13 reflections, not all of them would be able to be used twice. That being said, it is unlikely that the Ascians originally intended to have a light-aspected rejoining at all, and instead only did it out of necessity. The same goes for a second attempt at using darkness. What was most likely their original intent was to have each of the 6 elements be used twice - once aspected to the Astral polarity, and once to the Umbral polarity. The remaining shard would be rejoined by darkness, as that is Zodiark's element/polarity. From what we know of the 2nd Umbral Calamity, it seems to have been Astrally aspected Lightning. Compare that to the most common weather in Heritage found - Umbral Static, and you can see that the Storm Surge was most likely born of Umbrally aspected Lightning. I actually have a theory that the rejoining of Alexandria's world was supposed to be the 8th Umbral Calamity, until the Flood of Light happened, and the Ascians went into panic/damage control mode. Note how Lahabrea went from helping the technologically advanced Empire by giving them access to a powerful new weapon to wage more war with (similar to what happened in the Storm Surge), to helping the Archbishop try and bring about a world of absolute order.
Also the Zorral ja battle confirms Heritage Found is in the source and Living Memory is not, as there was a massive rift, and when it shut down, so did any connection to it.
Oh thank goodness you are linking Shadowlord, Alexandria, and the 11th. There must be a connection... one that is either the Shadowlord is a part of Alexandria's history, meaning likely Alexandria will be from the 11th, or that during the fight with the Queen, the 11th was the one she was tapping and that event is leading towards the Shadowlord appearance for xyz reason For those that don't know. Shadowlord is the 'big bad' (sorta) of Final Fantasy XI ... Which is why some of us believe the 11th Reflection will come into play during the 24-man raids of Dawntrail coming soon
Alexandria is probably not from the 11th. The sphene fight shows us this. She shows us “other (not Alexandria) worlds”. One with an 8 platform and one with an 11 platform. While this doesn’t tell us what shard Alexandria is, logically, we can deduce which ones it is not. 8 or 11
There’s more Reflections than there are elements, it wouldn’t be strange to think that an element may be reused. At least, that’s my assumption. Besides, it can’t be the 12th. We know , straight from Emet himself, that it has already been rejoined. So, it should no longer exists. It can’t even be said that they were protected from the Rejoining by their barrier. Because Living Memory is shown to still have a sky. Meaning that, despite the Calamity that envelops it (Or so it’s assumed), the Reflection itself is still intact. If it was the Twelfth, it would just be a void. As for the Calamity itself, all we know so far is that Lindblum fired a super weapon that had the unforeseen consequence of tilting the balance towards lightning. Whether there was Ascian involvement with that or not, is unknown. While there are still Ascians that are unaccounted for, i thought their story of the Ancients as a whole were concluded. So it’ll be weird to bring one of them back, even the previously unaccounted for.
I remember it being mentioned the reason why the Source can connect to the 13th and 1st is because they are essentially right next to each other, so combined with your theory, I would assume the Lost World is the 9th and connected to the 8th.
Spoilers regarding DT raid series! Please do not read if you don’t want to hear the theory or potential spoilers on the raid series! This theory sounds very plausible! Just about mid way you made me realize that if this is indeed true; the black cat’s older sister who wants our soul to survive actually *may* be a shard of us from this reflection! We’ll have to see of course, but it’s also true that if their world was one of those who had a warrior of light which already did fuse with us in the 7 times rejoining then maybe not, but it would make it interesting! Edit: wanted to clarify what I meant about the 7 times rejoining but I didn’t write it correctly at first
Was going with Alexandria being the 12th as well mainly cause of the lightning. Found a theory chart online saying that the kingdom somehow time travelled and escaped the rejoining to the source. If it connected with the source through the portal in Skydeep Cenote, or that portal is to another reflection that Alexandria arrived on. Started hearing it could just be the 9th reflection cause of FF9 references. But it could also be the 4th, 8th or 11th. Saying it's the 9th cause of FF9 could make sense. But the 13th was FF4 mixed with FF3 when the world is covered in darkness. 7th reflection was lost to darkness when the ascians figured out how to use it and was probably FF3.
I'm still sticking to my theory about the axis in the reflections that splits them in the middle between the source and the seventh. I think the Thirteenth and First should never have been attempted to be rejoined with darkness and light. And the 6.x story is set up to cancel out the darkness and light abundance in the Thirteenth and First. Assuming this will make it possible for all the elements in each astral and umbral aspect be able to be represented in the reflections. Not exactly about Alexandria, but it narrows the possibility for which reflection Alexandria came from to the Twelfth, since no other reflection has been rejoined with lightning. The interdimensional fusion device simply "safely" rejoined the rest of the Twelfth. I think the unlost world is a construct just like the matrix. And defeating the AI that assumed control of Sphene's stored memories just made the system reset.
I don’t think the Unlost World can be from the Twelfth reflection. Even with the time dilation differences between The Source and its shards that doesn’t mean traveling between reflections can be tantamount to time travel. If it was there would have been no need for the Irons Works to have invented time travel in addition to crossing the rift to send G’raha Tia to The First. The Milalla from The Source traveled to the reflection of Alexandria during the 5th Umbral Calamity, meaning that the Twelfth Reflection would have been impossible to access (without time travel) in the same it was for the alternate timeline of the 8th Umbral Calamity. Furthermore, even discounting time shenanigans the other reason why Alexandria’ reflection still had to be in existence is that fact that people were able to be born with new souls, which thus requires an existing Lifestream. When a reflection gets rejoined The Source as part of the destruction of its entire plain of existence that shard’s Lifestream gets folded into/fused with the Lifestream of The Source. If Alexandria had been a fragment floating in the Rift it would have had a Lifestream for new lives/souls to be born from. Thus the Unlost World’s shard/reflection still has to exist. The Strayborough Deadwalk was actually a fragment of Alexandria that got sent to the Rift hence why its denizens are likely all undead ghosts now. If I had to guess which reflection the Unlost World is from I would currently guess that it is from the Nineth to fit with the FFIX references.
I still think it's the 9th. Just because of FFIX ^^; As for the calamities elements, I think that the Ascians caused them differently aspected on purpose, so they could start working on multiple shards at the same time. As the source can probably only be shifted towards one element at a time and be rejoined with only one shard at a time, why not aspect the shards differently and once the source starts leaning towards one of the elements, the Ascians only need to tip the scale slightly for a calamity to happen as there will already be a shard with the perfect aspect for re-joining ready. Thus I believe the Ascians only started to tip the 9th shard towards lightning, after the twelfth was already absorbed. In case there was another leaning of the source towards lighting, the shard would already be ready. _I hope I could explain my thinking..._ As for the alliance raid it might could tie in with something mentioned during the Wachumeqimeqi CRP/LTW/WVR delivery. Spoilers if you have not done it yet. In the lvl 95 quest, the NPCs tell the story about the moblins, having dug deep into the earth and building an underground city called Movalpolos, same name as the big goblin/moblin city in FFXI. This city they had to abandon however as they dug too deep and _supposedly_ pierced the ocean which flooded the city. Remnants of that city should still be around and ready for us to be explored one day! And I do believe it could be part of the alliance raid :D
I find it weird how they cant tell us what shard it is, because it shouldn't matter, right? That makes me think it matters. And why has no one mentioned we should be saving this shard? Its on its way to being another void, if its a remaining shard that is, its like the characters in game interpreted what Sphene told them as the shard already having been rejoined, and why call it a calamity? I dont remember shb doing that. Look at the design of the portal we go through as well, that part that sticks out look as though it points to where the 12th is on the fanmade image of the shards. I also found it strange that we didn't get that rift crossing cutscene like we did when we went to the other shards, its used again in the strayborough deadwalk so its not like they forgot. It seems to me that might mean Unlost world isn't on another reflection, and what remains of the 12th is technically not a shard, just its own pocket dimension now so it would make sense. Also seen theories on it being a virtual world? Idk about that though. I did however, notice a few things in Living Memory (before you shut it down), the biggest one is that in the volcano sort of area one of the rooms has a globe with 3 orbiting planets surrounding it, now this could mean moons or satellites, but there are 4 in total including the big one in the middle. The big one is lit up and so is one of the smaller ones, the other two are darker, this seems like a hint to this world being the 4th and that smaller lit up one being the 1st, the two darker ones being the 2nd and 3rd which have rejoined. I hope this isnt the case because it being a remaining reflection really is a waste as its a slightly less ruined 12th. This next part should be taken with a grain of salt but there's a lot of 4 in specifically the area you learn about the shards history, not only is there the thing i just mentioned, you read from 4 pages for the quiz you take and there are 4 types of masks/faces in that one room, the whole of LM is made up of 4 areas too but it could be coincidence. The general design as well of that area i mentioned includes a lot of 4 but that may just be normal. I think the keys purpose is to give the rejoined reflections branching futures where they survive via us saving them. Oh and there's a moon on living memory after the shutdown, idk if there's one before but its probably not visible. And also it would make sense for Strayborough deadwalk to have been fused to the 13th because its right next to the 12th, or whats left of it.
I don't believe the reflections have elemental tilt naturally. That was achieved through Ascian meddling. I suspect there is weird time stuff going on with Alexandria.
I dont think reflections have attached elements, ascians just pick one for the rejoinings. As for the lalas, they did literally what g'raha did in ShB: travel back in time from a the source to a reflection, but how they created the key and how does it works, remains to be explained. Now, where is living memory is the question. I dont remember sphene saying she was syphoning aether from another reflection, but if that is the case, LM could be in that non-rejoined reflection, or simply was pulled into the source like the rest of everkeep, cause remember that we only make a rift travel when we go into the dungeon (wich is a piece of everkeep drifting in the rift) but not to go into living memory. I dont know man...
I disagree. I believe that Alexandria was from The SIxth, and here's why: The lalas in Alexandria were said to have come from Aloalo Island, which was overrun by glaciers during the Fifth Umbral Calamity, the Calamity of Ice. Calamities appear to be some kind of balancing operation. Opposites attract. For a rejoining to occur, the aspect of aether in the Source must be the OPPOSITE of the aspect of aether flooding the target reflection. You may ask: what is the opposite of Ice, then? That would be lightning. Keep in mind, of course, that time can flow differently between reflections, so it's possible that the moment the Lalas fled Aloalo island, the Ice Flood was rapidly approaching, but when they arrived in the Sixth, it hadn't reached its crescendo yet, giving them the time needed to adapt Arcanima to the recently-discovered (or provided-by-Ascians) Electrope. It's possible that the compatibility between the two hadn't been fully expected by the Ascians, which is why Alexandria was able to relatively escape the fate of the rest of the Sixth.
I would agree with this theory but given the chronological order of rejoinings, and how the Second Umbral Calamity (Levin) happened thousands of years before the Fifth Umbral Calamity, that being of Ice, it simply doesn't make sense to me. To explain, in Living Memory we discover that the Milala peoples hailed from 'another world' and brought with them a various few things along with them, that being arcanistry (arcanist / scholar abilities), and the key, and spoke of an island homeland that froze over that pushed them to find a new home. This happened before the great calamity that swallowed the Unlost World. Regardless in which way the messy timeways of the interdimensional rift provide to each shard, it by the end has to come back relative to the source, and up to this point, the Twelfth world was gone by thousands of years before Electrope, Interdimensional Fusion, and the subsequent building of Everkeep could even take place. We learn that this is the connection due to the Aloalo Island variant dungeon in Endwalker, where we learn about the mysterious disappearance of the Lalafell civilization that vanished at the cusp of the Fifth Umbral Calamity, in which Etheiryian historians believe the tribes and civilizations present went extinct. Thorough analysis however proves that they didn't really go anywhere else, and that they're more or less an empty spot on the map where their trail simply ends. It's effectively all but directly stated that the Milala of the Unlost World are simply the native Lalafell of the South Sea Isles. Meaning, it cannot be the Twelfth, as the Fifth Umbral Calamity is a direct catalyst for the understanding of Dimensional Fusion, among other interactions in Alexandria's world.
There's two things that I think contradict this. 1. The Milalla fled to Alexandria before the Storm Surge, but they were fleeing the Fifth Calamity. If Alexandria was the Twelfth, then it would've already had been rejoined. 2. I'm pretty sure Strayborough is supposed to be stuck in the Void, given the animation before getting there has the same VFX as other Void-related stuff, and the enemies feel very voidsent-adjacent.
i think its also worth noting that dt's msq employs the first coins and have also changed the description of them why give us nightworld pieces if there is some other ancient civilisation
The source and reflection need to be tilted away from each other, not in the same direction, so we need to look at what lightning would be effective against, in this case water. Its still the 10, imo, cause its the calamity of water. 4 ascieans (masked people) lead the Lala from Aloaloa to the 10 and they created the tech for electrope in the fighting its creation techniques were lost leading to people harvesting it like Garleans did Allagan tech. The wars were lightning aspected due to the electrope. Alendrea shield that protected it let it get swallowed whole instead of broken down into lightning aether.
That's not how it works at all. Water Calamity was due to the war between Mhach and Amdapor using up all manner of Aether with the exception of Water. The Source needs a respective calamity to use the overabundance of Aether from the reflection. It's why Black Rose would've worked so well for all that Light-Aether.
@@hallc91 I really really REALLY want to agree with you, but we know with 100% certainty that the Milala left the source during the 'Age of Ice', the 5th calamity, and Lightning was the 2nd calamity. If DT represented the 12th then that means that the ascians caused a paradox to trigger the second calamity, and given they had only one success and one catastrophic failure I doubt they would be willing to take a chance. The Milala left our source and went to the reflection, not a G'Raha leaving another timeline on another source and going to a reflection in our past. The Milala of Aloalo need to arrive in their own past, and not create another version. That said you are not the first to correct me, but nobody has yet to counter this without just saying time travel when that only worsens the argument.
@@WarGiver What are you even saying? I wasn't at all stating anything to do with time travel at all, merely that the calamities are aligned on both shard and source rather than opposing. I'm of the opinion that the Alexandria shard is one of the so far, mysterious ones that are still out there. This also tallys up with what Emet Selch said at the end of Endwalker and so far that speech has been a roadmap. "Ruins beneath the Bounty" - 6.1 Dungeon. "Treasure Islands in Othard's North" - Still a mystery "Fabled golden cities of the New world & Forgotten people of the South Sea Isles" - Dawntrail clearly. "Meracydia" - Presumably a future expansion location "True identities of the Twelve" - EW Alliance Raid "Some of the civilizations in the reflections will surprise you" - Very easily could point on to Alexandria and similar too. Originally I thought like some others that Alexandria would be some remnant of the 12th shard but the moment the timeline became clear I disregarded that notion entirely. It'd be overly convoluted to say the least.
@@hallc91 While I would be more then happy to agree that its an undiscovered one, unfortunately we do know because of the FF9 reference its trying to be that it must be one that rejoined and this is a remainder. The Milala (Lalafell from Aloalo) left the source during the 5th calamity, the Lightning calamity was the 2nd, and the Milala were behind the tech for electrope which caused the calamity on the reflection. So if it is what the source saw as the calamity of lightning it must involve time travel.
I don't believe a rejoining can happen with a neutral or balanced shard. If memory serves, Emet-Selch explains it during ShB - they have to tip a shard to an aspect, and use a countering aspect in the source to trigger the rejoining itself. With the first, he tipped it towards Light. Alongside that, he promoted the use of Black Rose in the source to increase the balance of dark here - the rejoining taking place to neutralise it as the opposites are drawn into each other, as happened in the original timeline that we averted. It also makes sense that the Ascians would likely prime multiple shards concurrently once they'd worked out how to get the rejoining working - this world being lined up as the 9th rejoining. (fitting as our 8th rejoining had Eden and the VIII-inspired content), and as an Astral element, would help mitigate the effects of rejoining with the First, and keeps with the alternating Umbral-Astral pattern seen so far with rejoinings 1 through 8, presumably using a pendulums momentum to help trigger each successive rejoining. Additionally, so far any time-travel shenanigans have been related to Alexander. Either by Alexander itself, or by one created in the future to replicate the effects (pushing the Crystal Tower into the past, and the same used to help open the passage to Elpis). While I can't rule out the key having such powers as it's largely unknown, it makes sense that it would keep this link.
Black Rose tipped the Source towards Light, same as the First. Light is the element of stasis and serenity; the flow of aether on the Source was thinning and Black Rose worked by stopping the victim's flow of aether. Rejoinings occur when a reflection and the Source are overwhelmed with the *same* element, not an opposing one
@@jedimasterpickle3 Interesting. I'll go double check, but if I'm wrong there, then the above is only slightly off. The current pattern still holds though, as does the requirement for an imbalance in order for a rejoining to take place
“Unaspected” is still correct. Dark and Light are not elemental aspects, they are polarities. The Seventh wasn’t aspected towards any element, it was all elements tipped to the Astral polarity.
I must say I'd rather be content with Unlost World/Gaia simply being the 9th and Vana'diel being the 11th (and by the power of wishful thinking, FFX world as 8th reflection and FFVIII as 4th) Preferably verbatim 😀
So... Darkness isn't exactly Astral, Light isn't exactly Umbral. They are greater tendencies of both light and darkness. My opinion...i dont think will exist the same "type of calamities" so im not counting light (or Umbral Light) and darkness (or Astral Darkness) as options. The Seventh Calamity was a calamity of All 6 elements "Astral" Aspected. And thats a LOT different then "Darkness" (as in the Void) And we know that these elements have too "tendencies", My theory is... As Lighting (within the six elements) is the element with most astral tendency, a calamity of "all of the elements in Astral alignment" as the Seventh Calamity could be "similar" to a calamity of "mostly lightning" on the reflection, because of the bigger astral tendency lighting has. So in a way, the unlost world could be the Seventh too. (Just saying that is one option to consider) Aaaaand the 7th (7th calamity, Astral aspected) rejoined after the 6th (5th calamity of Ice) what would make most sense for the Millala timeline. BUUUUT yeah, regardless of which reflection it WAS, the sun at the end of the MSQ make almost everythink possible right now... the final zone may have been merged with another unknown reflection at the end of the msq, or the reflection in question may be one of the worlds without rejoining until then. BETTER wait for more information about all that... 😢
isn't it the 12th since thats the shard collapsed by lightning during Emet-Selch's Crystal Tower Powerpoint? I mean, we know that portions of sundered shards can appear on other shards, so I figured the preserved Alexandria 'landed' on Etherys.. hmmm
I definitely think the Unlost World may very well not be situated in the reflection Alexandria is originally from. That was my original assumption even prior to watching your video, and I'm even more convinced now.
Maybe in the post patches we can see what's around Living Memory. If its all emptiness than we are on the 12 floating in the rift. If there is land around us then we are on one of the four unaspected reflections seeing as there is clear skies. I think it's most likely we are on the 12 and the skies are clear because the 12th rejoined and there is no calamity presently going on. Then again The Straybourgh Deadwalk is in the 12th because there is endless there and the enemies are made of Electrope, and since the opening cutscene is the cutscene used for reflection travel that would imply that Living Memory is currently not in the 12th reflection. We cannot definitively say anything at this time.
This theory about Alexandria being from the 12th is absurd. It's made very clear that when a rejoining happens, that reflection is completely gone because all of it has been reduced to aether and rejoined with the source. When we shutdown the Endless and the skies open up in Living Memory, we not only see sunshine, but we also see other weather like fog and rain, and at night there is even still a moon in the sky. The amount of time dilation needed for your theory to work is beyond ludicrous, seeing as how the 2nd calamity was several eons ago, as is this notion of their electrope dome floating around in the void or interstice after their star was rejoined. The answer to which reflection is it is really the simplest answer. The 9th. "Solution 9" and the plethora of FF9 references make it pretty obvious that's what the writers are intending.