akridx5712: Also, hidden lore. DawnTrail was a big train expansion. We build and crash a train with a montage, then we protect the train from the buffalo. Then we fight a train thats jacked! Train enjoyers stay winning.

jasonthomas7909: Seeing Calyx reduced to a glorified stuffed toy was incredibly satisfying.

hamakaze1413: I'm already in love with Halmarut. I hope she's around for the long-haul.

TheMexRAGE: I guess because the azem's crystal wasnt used and there is no trust involved, canonically, doomtrain was fully solo'd by the WoL.

FiohSion: Good to see Krile's lore get more fleshed out! Things seem to be building up to something exciting!

Skijaramaz: When it comes to the timelines of the Source and the ninth lining up, I wonder if the speed of time synchronizes between worlds when stable portals, or even temporary ones, open. For the time the gate is open, the two worlds become one, like two bubbles in a pond touching edges. It would explain why time synched up once the dome fully materialized and Vanguard was opened in The Source. Until the way between the fused locations was opened, the bubble breached, they were separate, albeit overlapping, spaces. Then Vanguard was completed when Alexandria launched its invasion, and as there is / was a big-ass portal linking to Living Memory above Everkeep, that would mean the ninth and the source were again linked up. And again when the door to the Golden City was finally prized and left open in the Skydeep Cenote. Now that we can freely leap to and from the ninth, the timelines are synced as the two bubbles are now tethered at that connecting point. It would also explain the lack of temporal variation when dealing with the Void. There's almost always an abundance of void gates connecting the Source to the Void, and at least one has been parked under Radz-at-han since the time of the Allegans, if I am remembering my timelines correctly. We don't have a direct portal to the First, though, just our own ability to jump to it.

of course, I ain't no lore scholar, so by all means, rip my ass apart if I got something wrong. This is all just stream of consciousness from me, I didn't double check a single source (ha) when writing it all out.

RPsouls: The way the twins left felt very... bookend-ish? Like they are preparing us to not see or hear them again for a long time. Makes me think they're about to get aged up somehow.

stainedincolor: As someone who is adopted, I love how they addressed Krile's issue of where she belongs. FF9 absolutely ROCKS with themes like this too and the call outs in this recent patch ('You're Not Alone!') were amazing to me.

pll3827: It was mentioned only briefly, but I find the concept of the Ninth being a post-apocalyptic world were civilization persists in domed cities connected by railways fascinating. Reminds me of another Japanese media (Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress) which has a similar concept but with zombies.

Insanity_pepper: They really made sure we heard that speaker's speech from their arrival on the 9th. I don't think there is a single coincidence that the speaker, who used the "key" to open a portal and then gave a speech about "unfurl your petals with furious joy and here bloom forevermore" in the same patch that we saw a Poison Ivy colored plant ascian.

I was glad to see that though the twins left Tural, the voice actors were still with us and I rather likes Lummul and Ayaney.

As far as the final scene, I like her. The voice actress is a big plus too, I liked her in 16 (and a side role in Shadowbringers). I get the feeling that Calyx might be the shard of another sundered ascian. His comment that "memories, being the essence of the self, can never be copied" in 7.3 could mean that the winterers have a number of people among them with the fragments of convocation members and now that Elidibus ate all of the Jolly Ranchers, they can't promote replacements. His dialogue near the end actually reminded me of another sundered ascian we dealt with not too long ago... One thing to note: Her wording of "soon, all worlds will tremble" makes me wonder if it's not a deliberate hint toward Ultima as the last two times I heard that kind of line, it was high seraph adjacent. If Hydaelyn and Zodiark were holding her back...

Also, if he stays in that body indefinitely I hope they play it straight faced and let the seriousness be the humor.

EDIT: As far as the time dilation, I was under the impression that 30 years passed inside the dome but not specifically on the 9th. Though they never bring up the temporal hijinks around living memory being on the other side of the rift. I assumed that from Treno's perspective, Alexandria had vanished fairly recently. They were in the bubble on the 9th for 400 years or so.

Zoeila: Calyx is a squirrel isnt that strange if you consider Ratatoskr from norse mythology

ftilxe: Hydaelyn reduced the aetheric density of Etheirys and its reflections, so it makes sense that at least the reflections would fade away now that she is no longer there to guide the flow of the Lifestream through them

hallowgram8863: I adore the calyx twist, he was so insistent on being in that plush specifically. I think he's letting out a bit of the child he never let himself be.

Azdaja13: The potential with Halmarut is that being Sundered and without the Unsundered around to strongarm her (and not appearing to be a madman like Fandaniel was...) is that she may actually be amenable to reason. Emet-Selch was tempered and Elidibus was the heart of a Primal but Halmarut should be both untempered and also free to make her own decisions.

She mentioned a great withering which makes sense since Zodiark wielded the powers of activity and growth, in his absence, things should start to wither and die. That is effectively what winter is: cold is simply an absence of heat. Chances are this coming catastrophe is going to be things suddenly stopping, aether just stopping. The remaining shards will probably wither and die first. However interdimensional fusion may end up being what saves the shards since it effectively rejoins them without destroying them, which is basically what happens in Final Fantasy V. I wonder if 8.0 is going to be Final Fantasy V themed... Halmarut does oppose Exodus after all...

swiftpinion: Your theory about the reflections fading or drifting into oblivion was something that never crossed my mind until you brought it up, but considering the laws of the star and how broken the sundering was on a space time level...it unfortunately makes a chilling amount of sense as a conclusion now both deities entwined with the event are lost.

Even should it survive, the source would be devastated and forever weakened, perhaps even fated to bleed and decline if this comes to pass.

Gonna be very interesting to see where they take this and what the Winterers are actually trying to do here.

argarock0: Something I haven't really seen anyone else mention, is the way that Halmarut describes the events. Particularly that "Every World shall Tremble"... A quote that, actually ties pretty directly to Ultima. Seeing as this is is the quote that both Lahabrea AND Athena say when casting Ultima.

Considering the theories people have already been having about Ultima being an upcoming villain, I feel like her using this phrase specifically adds a lot of credence to the idea.

dragowing1: I like the fact that the WoL didn’t used Azem’s crystal in the raid which means that they literally soloed the fight, but also if they used it and the fact Halmarut was spying on them she would recognised it as the same stone that the sundered Ascians use to remember who they are.

nexmeles8023: Honesty, my big question is how much did Azem know about the future. There's hint in Endwalkers that they knew what would come of thing, he told Elidibus that someone would join them for the investigation of Pandeamoium, for instance...

The key reacts to Azems magic, but a key to travel the shards wouldn't have needed to exist during the time before the sundering. When was this created, and by what means? It can be assumed Azem and Venat might have talked, and lead to Azem not joining the convocation during the pivotal moments, but what else does our past self know of the Future to come if this is some they left for our discovery?

It had to be Azem... Or someone close to with knowledge of their history.

ARKitect101: There were probably some consequences for losing our load-bearing primals

persofte: honestly after reading up on like, world tree/twin serpent theory as well im really starting to think that we're going to blindfrost next , and that it will be sort of a nordic themed expansion, and the start of a ragnarok-themed plot going forwards

my theory is that the winterers are literally trying to wait out a winter (or a fimbulwinter, if you're so inclined) - as in that their goal is "if all hell breaks loose and both hydaelyn and zodiark get killed somehow, how can we keep civilisation alive", and that our end goal will be meracydia and the world tree there, trying to fix the connections between the source and the shards to prevent everything from falling apart, as well as hunting down the truth about azem/the key/the void-traveling serpent

iyoub6931: We're so back

smol-raVee: What I find interesting is that it seems Halmurut actually wishes to speak to us, just on her own terms at a later date. I wonder if its possible the Winterers are not exactly evil, just that they seek to survive and some like Calyx have, not so morraly great ideas of doing that

kuronaialtani: An interesting bit about the key, with the new short story on the lodestone, told from the perspective of hythlodaeus, Azem had fourteen concepts to their name, all to “ease the burdens of travel.” And the one hyth is carrying is still in concept crystal form.

Mayhaps perhaps?

CipherPeonCYGNUS: Considering squirrels weather the winter like a "winterer", it seems rather fitting that Calyx would choose such a form to take!

maxkid6446: Professor I can only hope whatever happens next was just as epic as dawntrail was

GarretDejiko: It was a great patch. Despite feeling this was a sort of apologize from CBU3 about snubbing Krile during 7.0, I'm still happy we got more of her.

Hopefully CBU3 learns that, if they are going to bait and swtich, actually do it right and not for the worse

SilentCrypts-j2d: Are you implying there could be conflict in the New World? I don't understand. Everything there is peace and happiness and tacos. Eugenics can be stopped by shaking your head in disapproval. Slavery stops when you just tell them 'that makes people sad'.

Dec 25 2025

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