Which Reflection is it? - FFXIV Lore Theory 

I always assumed reflections ceased to exist when rejoined.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

It's the 9th because all the FF9 references and because it was probably being set up for the 9th rejoining. EZ solve.

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.

I like the idea that living memory is now on Vana'diel and that's where the FFXI raid series comes in. It would make a lot of sense.

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

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

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!

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.

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.

ive always maintained that because of the dome, alexandria was protected from the rejoining, and everything beyond the dome was consumed

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 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

I posit a simpler hypothesis; there's a lot of FFIX stuff going on, therefore it is the 9th Reflection. No need to overthink things... yet.

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.

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.

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.

We now have it confirmed that it is the 9th reflection- from a recent interview with Yoshi P

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.

it's the ninth reflection because it's a reference to ff9, bam, ez solve B)

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.

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.

**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

The eleventh could be FF11 don't forget, the raid thats coming out is appearantly rumored to be a reflection (especially with the crossover quest)

Whatever the answer turns out to be, I just want the locals of Unlost to come knocking now that Living Memory has no shield up anymore.

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.

My theory was 12 for lightning, 9 for theming, and 13 for soul aether.

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.

I think the sky in living memory is actually outside of heritage found, since they partially rejoined already.

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

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.

I think there are still aspected worlds, they're just split into Astral and Umbral states.

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

Giant T-Rex sized chocobo should be the next primal

I just finished the MSQ and got here, if they really did fuse Living Memory with Vana'diel would be just genius

Yoshi-P has confirmed in an interview it's the Ninth.

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.

So it can't be the 12th shard, commenters have already established that. I personally believe that it's the 9th, as a nod to all the FF9 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

The question i have is how can we be so sure this dome could protect them floating accross the rift?

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.

Wow, excellent theory. Kinda sad that I didn't figured it out.

Living Memory was probably transported above the sky in The Source

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 dont know if it matters but living memory has the same skybox as elpis except it has a moon when elpis doesnt

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 wonder if the lightning aspected world was accidentally rejoined with sphene's shard somehow

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.

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.

All this wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff 🤯

“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 think Deadwalk is lost in the rift. Rejoined reflections don't exist anymore, so you couldn't return to it?

No shard can be straight up another game because it would undermine it.

I think it's the fourth, it's the only one that makes sense.Besides just going, it's based off final fantasy, nine ninth shard

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.

The thumbnail for this video took me out 💀

it's not the 12th lol it's one of the shards still unrejoined. so 4th 8th 9th or 11th since these 4 are the choices it's clearly the 9th

Void != darkness