You’re Wrong About Time Travel - FFXIV Lore 

My head canon has always been that Elidibus memory loss both pre and post 5.3 are due to having become a primal, separating himself from it while leaving a good portion of himself behind, then having that primal broken into nuggets and scattered across dimensions.

There's also something a little poetic about it being two twin-loop timelines. One where the Ascians do slowly win, and one where Hydaelyn's vision for the future is trusted.

the only thing I disagree with in this video is the thumbnail, as it is common knowledge that Tataru will indeed live forever and have 0 change in appearance as time marches on. Literally a being beyond time.

The time moves differently in the shards except when the writers forgot about it. Time travels works the way it is currently needed.

I dunno why people think elidibus was warning us about changing the timeline, rather than simply stating that we cannot change it.

There is something haunting and eerie about the warrior of light being in a closed time loop, thinking they're changing things and making a difference when they've always been doing what they said they have already done... So cool

"I Hate Temporal Mechanics" -- Chief O'Brien (DS9: Visionary)

I personally am *obsessed* with chronomancy in games where its available and time travel where its involved. I do have to say what they've done is very impressive.

I went back in time to make this first comment.

I'm going to die on this hill, and that's ok. I believe firmly that in reality we live in a multiverse, and I think that Alexandr confirmed that XIV's universe lives in one as well. So every outcome has happened, and will happen, and on a pale reflection of reality, the members of Garlong Ironworks are rebuilding and believing their gambit succeeded. Maybe Midgardsormr will tell them.

I suppose one thing you could equate Astro's cards to is an invoking of fervent belief that victory will be obtained against the odds, or that someone will survive a grievous wound. We have seen several times that belief and faith in the series can make thing happen.

The one thing I have the most trouble dealing with is the paradox: the events that lead the WoL to travel back in time to Elpis does not occur unless Hydaelyn exists, however Hydaelyn does not exist unless the WoL travels back to the past to tell Venat about the future. How does the loop start in the first place in that case? It's literally impossible. I would have much preferred if the story in Elpis made it clear that Venat would have become Hydaelyn whether you were there or not, at least at that point the loop would have been logical and self contained.

For the most part, it seems FFXIV runs on "Doctor Who" type of Time travel where; Time heals itself automatically from Paradoxes (Either fixed causal loops or by shattering into two timelines) And that events from the past, if they threaten the future entirely, will not be remembered and will become forgotten once the person leaves. (I.E If a future you comes to the past, only they will remember the events that happened, so when it's your turn to do the events, it'll be like it was always you) Hence why Elidibus, who stored *all* his memories into Memory crystals still couldn't remember your events in Elpis despite them being very significant, because time wouldn't allow for it.

Another fantastic delve into the weave of the realm, Elioaux! It's a convoluted topic, yet not; and I think you and the rest continue to do an amazing job putting it all together.

Dude, your videos are really good. Priobably the best 14 lore vids out there.

What i love is that the loop has a bit of quantum mechanics to it, which itself is very real to how we understand the possibility of timetravel IRL. Cause the loop also relies on both timelines happening, the loop actually closes at the point it has that split with one timeline carrying on while the other eventually turns in and folds back to the start. Both can exist because they both exist, they stabalize each other, it it literally a perfect loop.

Just get me back in time to talk to Shatotto, a first hand account of the war of the magi seems especially important lately...

More stuff like this! Very interesting video good job guys!!!!!

The fact that Alexander foreshadowing Meteion could actually be true is mind boggling

If you tie a string on both ends and stretch it to a line, this represents the time line -- it's not a loop. All other events are like marbles that rolls by and sometimes bounces off the string. The collision bends the string and vibrates it a little, which represents the changes in the time line or multiple possibilities, but it doesn't break it, thus time eventually settles and continues as it was. Events in Shadowbringer has little effect on the outcome shown in Endwalker, for example. Loporrits are still the worst choice entrusting the survival of everyone when shit hits the fan -- what was Venat thinking?

As far as I understand it, the 13th has been linked to the source for it's passage of time precisely because it was the first reflection the ascians tried to rejoin and failed. Thus linking it to the source, its why voidsent have been a thing since the sundering

I really appreciate this video. Definitely helps me pin down how the timeline(s) of FFXIV works for a future project. ;3

Can't wait for our character dying to be the event that kicks off the next expansion and we have to deal with the 8th calamity!

What if, there aren't actually any loops? Someone travels back in time, events are altered, but still results in someone going back in time. Eventually you have two subsequent branches that are nigh-identical. Now, they could potentially repeat forever. But crucially this is only a stable system, and not an inviolable law of the universe. Also a spiral, not a circle.

we should be able to get the archon mark, just bc of this channel

And in the 8th Umbral Calamity Timeline, The Ironworks are capable of building Tycoon because Alexander had existed for a brief period of time before erase himself from existence. That means that Alexander seems he would be needed to exist in the best posible outcome, only for moments

OMG, is your dog a Swedish Vallhund? I love that breed so much. I had one when I was younger. They are adorable.

Remember to time travel responsibly

Did... you Just call the Crystal Tower a Ring pop? Anyway... past that hilarious monicure.... I think this is a fabulous breakdown of how time travel works within the lore of the game as well as explaining the WoL's place within it. That said, all of these deal within the "flow of time" theory, where time moves from point A to point B. There is, especially within this game, the possibility that instead of a rivers flow, with multiple branching paths, that maybe instead time is more of a lake with flows in and out as well as currents within it. It would account for not only the loops, but the various branches that are necessary, in addition to making the future (aka where the water in that lake is going) much more muddled. Anywho, that is my weird theory addition. Great Video! And I love the puns XD

17:14 - No it's not. Sure, the 8th umbral calamity timeline *must* happen, but it also logically must mean that it must collapse in upon itself, and not continue in parallel afterwards, but a timeline in which the 8th Umbral Calamity has happened, and the influences of it on the main timeline is over would logically necessitate a collapse for it to be a perfect loop. We *know* it doesn't collapse, so it cannot be a perfect loop. You *can* make it into a perfect loop, and I'll do that with my example down below, but I think it's much more likely that we're just operating upon the Many Worlds hypothesis in FFXIV, and the instances of perfect loops we have in this are simply parts of the one world of many that we're on. My example for how to fit this in with a perfect loop is inspired by Steins;Gate Zero. The premise of Steins;Gate Zero is that every single world line prior influences the next one active in some way, despite being seemingly independent, until the protagonist finally manages to accumulate the knowledge of the protagonist in every prior worldline, indicated by the wordlline divergence number: "1.123581%" , being the Fibonacci sequence. I don't actually believe this theory is the case, because it has its own flaws, and Occam's razor does tend to follow that the simplest explanation is often the correct one So, for the Hydaelyn-Zodiark saga to happen, we need six things, but they need not happen in the same iteration: 1. The Sundering *must* happen. 2. The Eighth Calamity *must* be averted 3. The Crystal Tower and an Eight Times Rejoined G'raha *must* travel back. 4. The Eighth Calamity timeline *must* continue to exist. 5. The Warrior of Light *must* travel back to observe the cause of the Final Days. 6. Argos must help the Warrior of Light in Mare Lamentorum, and Venat *must* have knowledge of the cause of the Final Days. Note here that The Sundering and the Warrior of Light travelling back are separate bullet points and aren't necessarily intrinsically linked. For a perfect loop with no branching timelines, we *actually* need at least three iterations. This hypothesis operates under only one timeline (referred to as worldline) being active at any given moment in time, using the act of Time Travel itself to act as a way to transfer information between two otherwise wholly independent iterations. It also assumes that the previous iteration's past forms the basis for the next iteration's past until the first instance of time travel being initiated, but not the future. The first iteration goes as follows: The Warrior of Light does *not* travel back in time. The Final Days happen as planned. Hydaelyn knows nothing of the future, but for some other reason we do not know chooses to work independently of the convocation. Perhaps out of a base disagreement about sacrificing this new life. Zodiark and Hydaelyn are summoned, the Ascians fail in rejoining the Void and this leads to everything we've seen up until but not including Shadowbringers. Instead, The Black Rose is deployed, the Flood of Light isn't halted, and the First rejoins the Source. The Crystal Exarch travels back, but isn't enough to cause a major worldline shift on its own. This is the timeline we know continues on from the Side Stories. At some point, the Ea's prophecy of the Universal Heat death comes true. The Second Iteration goes as follows: The Crystal Exarch from the first iteration arrives here. This time, the Warrior of Light succeeds in preventing the Eighth Calamity. Amon starts the Final Days. Hydaelyn has no knowledge of the cause of the Final Days. The Warrior of Light *does* travel back in time. Elidibus spots the Warrior of Light there for some different reason. Venat tests the Warrior of Light and Argos allows them to ride. When the Warrior of Light returns, they are unable to defeat Hydaelyn, and must flee to another star. At some point, the Ea's prophecy of the Universal Heat death comes true. You should see the events of Elpis as the first instance of time travel being initiated here. This iteration does not initiate the Exarch coming back, it is just the recipient. The Third Iteration is the one we're playing in in the game.

So if the 8th Umbral Calamity timeline is part of the loop. That implies that there is a bigger loop. Bigger as in bigger than the presented ones right?

What hurts my head is that we only could have "always gone to Elpis" in the branched/new timeline, since we already died from Black Rose in the original/tales from the shadows timeline. So the original Elpis events must have played out a bit differently and Hydaelyn had no special motivations to champion us. Would Emet even have teamed up with Venat to investigate Hermes further without us? Did Venat even find out about the Meteia plot? We had the Unsundered in the og timeline and we got told that Emet & Co were only able to escape the Sundering, because Venat allowed them to due to her knowledge she gained from us. But if she did not know they still had parts to play, because we never went there, then why did she? Oof...

i personally think the events from the 8th umbral calamity timeline are actually a parallel universe and thats why some events are slightly different like the Wol saving the falling girl in ishgard instead of the dragon. either that or Nymeia and Althyk are playing the role of Stellaron Hunters and trying to create the best possible timeline.

I notice you didn't mention anything about the Sharlayans apparently having been regular visitors to Elpis for years. Have you done the Studium quests yet? :)

Idea: Hydaelyn in the original timeline doesn't know the WoL and we get her message just because it's being broadcasted everywhere When graha travels he splits the timeline in the original with the wol gone and this new one we play through the entire game with the elpis time loop

Anyone else go find a seat in a lecture hall at The Studium any time your watching one of these videos or is that just me?

"Endwalker spoilers... are they gone?" No, keep going, I will see the lore

PUPPIES

What about those 5 years the WoL phased from Cartaneau to the Shroud, nobody remembers what happens after that battle lol. A plot hole to be filled? or just a plot hole that will forever remain hollow?

The Endwalker raids are good both gameplay and story wise, please go do them.

Is it expected to watch these videos at .75 speed? To lag the music to hear at a normal speed is still too hard to listen through.

Standing by my theory that it's the plot to 7.0, only forward. I think there'll be some kind of closed loop with exclusion, where something happens to the WoL in a fight and disappears. The world starts to fall apart without them (I'm still thinking Atomos go way out of control and create their own primal), and a future G'raha and Alphie summon the WoL using Althyk's spell powered by either the Crystal Tower (containing knowledge of the process by Elidibus) or partnering with Garlond Ironworks (since G'raha knows how that works). By doing so, they create a closed loop, where the WoL disappeared from that fight because of their action, which caused them to take that action. I'm still working out details, but if a swarm of Atomos (or Cavernous Maws, if you prefer), could allow a lot of visits to a lot of different areas in the world at their peak storytelling points. I have two questions I don't think will be answered, though. 1.) Since Radz-at-Han makes a deal with Garlemald for trade, and Old Sharlayan is no longer so isolationist, the ramifications of the changing economic world could be vast. Dalmasca is on the southern part of Othard, and used to be a major trade port. Without Garlean occupancy now, it's possible that Hancock and Tataru team up to reopen those ports, allowing travel to Dalmasca's old major trade partner: Meracydia. Hien reaches out in concern that while the Empire withdrew, they are opening talks with Dalmasca again, and that can be the hub to other places. 2.) Sharlayan researchers have figured out a way for those without aether manipulation to teleport, although with sickness. The ramifications of the ability for Garleans to teleport should be huge. They can travel faster than ever before, and move trade goods and refugees quickly. They might not like it, due to the sickness, but Jullus can use it to help guide the repair of the capital. I feel it would be too cliche to have an 'evil Garlean threat' figure out how to warp his army around, but it's a possible story beat. Overall, it should at least have another of those extended cutscenes where someone explains what is changing (or if we are yanked forward in time, what has changed and why Ul'dah is half Magitek now: the Monetarists are so concerned with Tataru's Alliance that they make deals to popularize magitek as a commercial product, introduced when we wake up in Ul'dah when yanked forward by someone helping us stand up with their magitek arm).

Technically the first bout of time travel are the 1.0 players :’) Edit: rofl nvm you bring it up.

The extreme ambient occlusion shader is extremely distracting. edit: To clarify, I really enjoy your videos, this is just the one nitpick

I was telling some friends the other day, if they ever "finish" FF14, there's a non zero chance that the last patch we ever get is with our WoL, now fully 14/14, going all the way back to Elpis and literally *being* Venat in the first place lol

I disagree, the 8th timeline is gone. Time travel is simple, anyone that goes back in time and changes the past is in that past, they do not disappear and if they go to the future, it would be the new future. They would have no connection to anything anymore.

This talking figure looks terrible, I'd rather have a blank background 😐

Slow down a tad your speaking a bit faster lately