Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

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Daidraco

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Some Plebbitors speculating that it may be a city from one of the other Shards, perhaps the Twelfth, because that was the one that was Rejoined via lightning. It may have been unintentionally ripped onto the Source, or perhaps that there was an advanced Allagan-like civilization on the Twelfth that had had some forewarning that they were going to be Rejoined, thus they attempted to transport the city to the Source (thus the "Solution" in "Solution Nine".)
I'm hoping that it isnt as "tropey" as that. Hoping for some unexpected, off-the-wall type of shit.
 

Cybsled

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During the trailer for the city, there is a glowing blue kiosk-like sign at one point that has the FF14 style alphabet used on it and some directional arrows. One person who translated it says the top one says "employment" and the bottom one says "soul delivery". That bottom one seems pretty significant in terms of a clue. The fact it also uses the regular Eorzian alphabet for that world also means that whoever lives in that technocity speaks the common tongue and uses common writing - they've shown alien or ancient civilizations before and those have usually used alien or ancient writing, so that suggests the city/civilization has been around for a while on the planet. Plus some ad billboards show regular looking humans on them.

Other things I've noticed:

1) If you look at the world map, there is this big glowy ass thing up in "North America" either in Canada or the Rocky Mountains area that has a name above it - it looks like the banner they use for major cities, so I assume that is Solution Nine. To the south of that is desert, so presumably that is going to be the American Southwest/Texas looking area we saw earlier. We know the desert area has trains and harvests cereulium like it is petroleum. JP fanfest also showed a train below a big glowing purple tower looking thing. So it stands to reason that the cereulium is being transported to Solution Nine and the place is basically run off magitek or something like magitek.

2) "Solus" is credited with inventing magitek and the Garleans ultimately reversed engineering Allagan tech to get a tech boost. And Allagans reverse engineered Omicron tech to get a tech boost. However, since we know who Solus actually was in reality, it would seem odd that some ultra hyperadvanced city would just be allowed to chill out in isolation - you'd figure it would be influenced and corrupted to try to hasten a calamity, much like Allag and Garlemond were manipulated. So either that never happened or the people running the city were savy enough to not buy that bullshit? They're going to need some really good writing to explain why American/Canadian Wakanda didn't have that happen to them.

3) Speaking of Wakanda, the glowy thing on the map looks like a meteor icon from raid fights sorta. Maybe Ultima or Omicron stuff crashed there long ago and the people there got a massive tech/power boost from it, kind of like how Wakanda got a tech boost from the vibranium meteor?

They mentioned the xpac will have two narrative arcs, so I presume it might be a bit like Stormblood in that regard. We'll have the Brazil area contest about the new leader, but the actual meat and potatoes part of the narrative bit will be all the shit going on in North America.
 
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Merrith

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They mentioned the Scions being somewhat on opposite sides of things for part of the expac, too, I wonder if the hero and the main group get dragged in to the leader succession stuff, while the science group (Urianger/Y'shtola) get wind of whatever other thing is going on and how it's a problem the leadership doesn't want to deal with or whatever, and they go off to investigate that for the early part of the story.

Eventually obviously they link up. Some of the theories are interesting, it being from another shard would be kind of cool. Just wonder if they want to go the route of "here's another Allagan leftover that the Ascians totally knew about they just didn't mention at all"...or have some completely new, separate thing in order to start some bread crumbs for future issues.
 

Chris

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During the trailer for the city, there is a glowing blue kiosk-like sign at one point that has the FF14 style alphabet used on it and some directional arrows. One person who translated it says the top one says "employment" and the bottom one says "soul delivery". That bottom one seems pretty significant in terms of a clue. The fact it also uses the regular Eorzian alphabet for that world also means that whoever lives in that technocity speaks the common tongue and uses common writing - they've shown alien or ancient civilizations before and those have usually used alien or ancient writing, so that suggests the city/civilization has been around for a while on the planet. Plus some ad billboards show regular looking humans on them.

Other things I've noticed:

1) If you look at the world map, there is this big glowy ass thing up in "North America" either in Canada or the Rocky Mountains area that has a name above it - it looks like the banner they use for major cities, so I assume that is Solution Nine. To the south of that is desert, so presumably that is going to be the American Southwest/Texas looking area we saw earlier. We know the desert area has trains and harvests cereulium like it is petroleum. JP fanfest also showed a train below a big glowing purple tower looking thing. So it stands to reason that the cereulium is being transported to Solution Nine and the place is basically run off magitek or something like magitek.

2) "Solus" is credited with inventing magitek and the Garleans ultimately reversed engineering Allagan tech to get a tech boost. And Allagans reverse engineered Omicron tech to get a tech boost. However, since we know who Solus actually was in reality, it would seem odd that some ultra hyperadvanced city would just be allowed to chill out in isolation - you'd figure it would be influenced and corrupted to try to hasten a calamity, much like Allag and Garlemond were manipulated. So either that never happened or the people running the city were savy enough to not buy that bullshit? They're going to need some really good writing to explain why American/Canadian Wakanda didn't have that happen to them.

3) Speaking of Wakanda, the glowy thing on the map looks like a meteor icon from raid fights sorta. Maybe Ultima or Omicron stuff crashed there long ago and the people there got a massive tech/power boost from it, kind of like how Wakanda got a tech boost from the vibranium meteor?

They mentioned the xpac will have two narrative arcs, so I presume it might be a bit like Stormblood in that regard. We'll have the Brazil area contest about the new leader, but the actual meat and potatoes part of the narrative bit will be all the shit going on in North America.
Reddit is saying that Solution 9 is using the ancient alphabet from Amaurot and the map translation has it in the north like you say.

Also Solution 9 is one of Zidane's limit breaks, so with Zidane's character class being featured too, it's all probably one big FF9 reference and it's some "other" culture stealing souls to revive themselves.

It could be rogue Ascians. There are 3-5 not accounted for and it may be that they decided to just resurrect ancients in the current world, they could even be the source of the black masked Ascians that worked with Lahabrea.
 

Cybsled

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As far as we know, there were only 3 unsundered Ancients: Emet, Lahabrea, and Venat. Elidibus doesn't fully count because he was the heart of Zodiark and Zodiark was sundered. Making them rogue ancients/ascians doesn't make total sense, because they'd have to explain away Emet. Emet clearly knew about it - I suspect the "Golden Cities of the New World' is referring to Solution Nine vs. an actual El Dorado.

So you'd have to create a retcon or really solid reason why Emet seemingly didn't give a shit that Cyberpunk 2077 is going on in the New World and instead he was putzing around with Garlemond, who are seemingly less advanced than this new place.

The most logical explanation is they WERE doing something that aligned with Ascian goals and were essentially left to their own devices because things were more or less going to plan. Maybe the name is a clue. 'Solution Nine' is an odd name for a city - it sounds more like a project or an experiment.

Maybe it isn't from another shard, but they were experimenting with stuff related to shards and moving between them or combining them. Like that sign saying 'soul delivery'. What if they were experimenting with cross rift travel and essentially had created the soul vessel concept we used in ShB a while back?

Plot wise that helps setup cross rift travel to other shards (I mean, we have the moon gate, but it might solve the problem of how to make stable connections between other shards). It also potentially sets the stage for another high tech protagonist or antogonist nation, which might be useful if they decide to do a storyline involving Omicrons coming back or Allag coming back since Garlemond is all fucked up and they were the previously known main military/tech power. Given the fact the place will be a player hub like Eulmore, that means we can safely say the city won't be destroyed.
 

Zindan

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Someday we'll have an MMO that can have the same graphical fidelity as their trailer.
 

Cybsled

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I'm sure we will. I remember watching Toy Story 1 when it came out and thinking that one day video games would have graphics as good as that. Safe to say we are well beyond that now lol

1704653986241.jpeg
 

sleevedraw

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They mentioned the Scions being somewhat on opposite sides of things for part of the expac, too, I wonder if the hero and the main group get dragged in to the leader succession stuff, while the science group (Urianger/Y'shtola) get wind of whatever other thing is going on and how it's a problem the leadership doesn't want to deal with or whatever, and they go off to investigate that for the early part of the story.

Eventually obviously they link up. Some of the theories are interesting, it being from another shard would be kind of cool. Just wonder if they want to go the route of "here's another Allagan leftover that the Ascians totally knew about they just didn't mention at all"...or have some completely new, separate thing in order to start some bread crumbs for future issues.

I suspect these are the two Scion factions.

ekh3unbvuxac1.jpeg


Big Sis Cat and the smaller Mamool Ja likely are the two candidates to the Tural throne, and that'll be how the Scions divide. Gal on top of Gulool Ja Ja (the Mamool Ja king) might be from Solution Nine.

Team Dad (Urianger and Thancred) is probably employed either by the white-haired catboy or perhaps directly by the Mamool Ja prince.

The other Scions may be neutral or only nominally on one side. I couldn't see G'raha going with anybody but Team WoL because both Krile and the WoL are on it. However, rumors are that he may be on a bus/out of focus for this expansion because his VA has gotten popular and is doing a lot of other work ATM. Y'shtola I could absolutely see remaining neutral.
 
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Chris

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I suspect these are the two Scion factions.

View attachment 507867

Big Sis Cat and the smaller Mamool Ja likely are the two candidates to the Tural throne, and that'll be how the Scions divide. Gal on top of Gulool Ja Ja (the Mamool Ja king) might be from Solution Nine.

Team Dad (Urianger and Thancred) is probably employed either by the white-haired catboy or perhaps directly by the Mamool Ja prince.

The other Scions may be neutral or only nominally on one side. I couldn't see G'raha going with anybody but Team WoL because both Krile and the WoL are on it. However, rumors are that he may be on a bus/out of focus for this expansion because his VA has gotten popular and is doing a lot of other work ATM. Y'shtola I could absolutely see remaining neutral.
Graha, Alphinaud and Estinien better not side against me or they are dead to me. We been through too much.

The rest I don't care. Y'Shtola has a sister to replace her with, the Summoner class trainer.
 

Cybsled

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Y'Shtola will probably just be studying shit the whole xpac. I don't think we're really "against" the other Scions, probably just a friendly competition between them based on the teams.
 

sleevedraw

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1704665960443.png


Y'Shtola will probably just be studying shit the whole xpac. I don't think we're really "against" the other Scions, probably just a friendly competition between them based on the teams.

I see Shtola mostly sidelined until we get to Solution Nine and she sees that there's shit there involving soul transfer. Jells with her MO of getting back to Runar. I think Alphi will be the opposite: he'll be involved earlier with the succession politics and probably more out of focus once that gets resolved.

And yeah, I'm expecting this to be a friendly rivalry unless the succession dispute gets really dirty or Urianger/Thancred's employer is an asshole.
 
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Merrith

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Graha, Alphinaud and Estinien better not side against me or they are dead to me. We been through too much.

The rest I don't care. Y'Shtola has a sister to replace her with, the Summoner class trainer.

Think it's already been confirmed the twins are with the Warrior of Light, as well.
 

Pyros

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Kind of too late now, but spoilers? lol
Lots of this discussion is just speculations, if you mean spoilers for the existing story stuff it is over 2years old for most of what was spoilers(Endwalker stuff and what not) can't really expect spoilers to last forever.
 
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Pasteton

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I know they’re not going this route but woulda been pretty badass if they just shut down the ffxiv mmo after the end of endwalker , basically saying this mmo was about this story which is now complete. Then just create a new mmo with a whole new universe and storyline (but is ok to use same assets) rather than another xpac.
From an economics standpoint makes no sense but if money was no issue I think the team would love that as it really thematically is in line with how ff games operate
 

Folanlron

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I know they’re not going this route but woulda been pretty badass if they just shut down the ffxiv mmo after the end of endwalker , basically saying this mmo was about this story which is now complete. Then just create a new mmo with a whole new universe and storyline (but is ok to use same assets) rather than another xpac.
From an economics standpoint makes no sense but if money was no issue I think the team would love that as it really thematically is in line with how ff games operate


They already did that twice for this game. And the first Version was a fucking mess.

There will be some oddness in the expansion I think, just having to introduce new story elements/characters, it probably won't have the same impact as past expansions but hopefully Mercydia sooner rather then later, maybe even the Void shortly after that.
 

Chinaman889

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I still want to see more expacs on the other unexplored shards.

Aside from the 1st and 13th, there should be 4 more left?
 
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