A Travelog of Ivalice, Part XII: A Saucerful of Secrets

By The Rocketeer Posted Wednesday Mar 30, 2022

Filed under: FFXII 58 comments

There are indeed a few of Reddas’ shortbus pirates with the lowdown on the Feywood awaiting Vaan outside. Well, that does them a bit too much credit; they tell us it’s south of Golmore and is rich in mist, which I already knew from the previous conversation and, in fact, from having already been there to farm monster parts. They do mention some sort of trial, the passing of which is necessary to reach Giruvegan beyond, and indeed there was a path I couldn’t traverse before.

Rocketeer's actual correspondence to Shamus: ''We absolutely have to have some picture of these chucklefucks and a caption to the effect that they make the cast of Final Fantasy X look like a fucking Brooks Brothers catalog''
Rocketeer's actual correspondence to Shamus: ''We absolutely have to have some picture of these chucklefucks and a caption to the effect that they make the cast of Final Fantasy X look like a fucking Brooks Brothers catalog''

A quick stroll on out to the Feywood later, and that path, previously blocked by a thick current of rushing mist,mist can do anything, shut up clears up at Ashe’s approach as the mist dissipates with a final howl. On cue, Rasler appears and wanders deeper into the snowy wood, beckoning her further.

Et voilà.
Et voilà.

He could have at least warned us about the boss fight in the next area, the spooky Nabradian git. Thanks to the multitude of status effects at its disposal it managed to annoy me a bit despite my overpoweredness. So! That must have been the trial of the Feywood, which means Giruvegan lies just ahead.

I'm guessing Shamus didn't have much trouble either, given that it appears Vaan deleted 10% of its HP in two swipes of that weeb stick.
I'm guessing Shamus didn't have much trouble either, given that it appears Vaan deleted 10% of its HP in two swipes of that weeb stick.

Or not. Turns out the boss was just some overgrown plant; the actual trial of the Feywood is just beyond. Several shrines lie in a snowy field, shaped more or less like gazebos. Standing in the middle, one exit will show an illusory image of a verdant paradise rather than the desolate landscape without, and heading straight out in that direction will lead to another shrine. Repeat until you are led right out of the area and to the next. Trying to proceed without using the shrines will result in the old Lost Woods standard of returning you to the entrance of the zone you were in.

Here’s what gets me: at the end of the next area, the real trick of entering Giruvegan is a gate that will only open if Belias is summoned and present. That’s pretty clever, and, during my first playthrough of this game, was the only time any Esper ever got let out of its Poké Ball. But what the fuck was the point of the elementary-school shrine puzzle?! In what world is someone capable of besting and commanding a fucking gigas but incapable of solving the most rudimentary riddles presentable, with no penalty for failure? Was that built expressly to troll non-heirs of Raithwall? Could we have shown our Gigas-pass at the gate of the park and be let right in without the wait?

How the fuck did Doctor Cid get through, anyway? Balthier claimed he was missing in the Jagd Difohr for six years, was most of that time spent knocking very patiently until VenatWhose bright fucking idea was it to name Vaan, Vayne, and Venat? got fed up with the clamor?

My God, a huge hidden city, cloistered away from the world. A completely alien culture. I can't wait to see what this place is like.
My God, a huge hidden city, cloistered away from the world. A completely alien culture. I can't wait to see what this place is like.

Once opened by the gigas’ presence, the gate to Giruvegan leads… nowhere, it seems. We find ourselves on a high causeway floating in an endless pool of water as clear and still as glass. Fog blocks line of sight beyond any significant distance, but the high domes and spires of a great city stretching from horizon to horizon is visible far beyond the end of the path, sitting out on the water’s surface.

Fran remarks on the extreme mist floating around, and Penelo worries that she might flip her shit like back on the Leviathan. Of course, she assures us that that was a one-use plot device, and will never come up again. (She’s right.) Balthier seems determined to lie in wait for Cid, believing he hasn’t arrived yet. I don’t know, Balthier, do you really think we outran the guy who knew exactly how to get here, and took an airship here, while we fucked around getting directions from pirates and hiking here on foot (after hunting marks for a month or two)?

<b>Fran:</b> *sigh* ''Look, there was nothing wrong with me on the Leviathan. I'd had a long day, I was frustrated about Ba— about things, and I just wanted to flip the fuck out and kick a guy's head clean through another guy's chest. It's just part of being a woman. You'll understand someday.''
Fran: *sigh* ''Look, there was nothing wrong with me on the Leviathan. I'd had a long day, I was frustrated about Ba— about things, and I just wanted to flip the fuck out and kick a guy's head clean through another guy's chest. It's just part of being a woman. You'll understand someday.''

Anyway, Balthier is more concerned about what might happen if they press on than about Cid; he was the only man ever known to travel here and return, and it twisted him up like a corkscrew. Luckily for the plot, Ashe has the big dick of the party, and no one gives a shit what Balthier says; Ashe sets off after yet another vision of Rasler, and Vaan encourages the party to follow.

They do, but Vaan makes the curious mistake of saying “She sees him,” to explain her rationale. No one but him should have any idea that Ashe is seeing dead people, nor should he really let on that she is. No one makes any comment, though, so they’ve probably long accepted Ashe is batshit insane and long ago resigned themselves to their slavery to the crazy bitch. Well, that and no one pays any attention to what Vaan says in the first place.

It looks like the angry hedge back in the woods wasn’t enough of a test for whoever oversees this place, so another (easier) boss battle takes place, and the way is open to… oh. Oooh NO!

NOT THIS FUCKING PLACE!!

I’ll level with you, I took a long break before gathering the strength to tackle this next segment. It’s an incredible setpiece, and would be very interesting and awesome to see but for the fact that it’s a god damn chore to play through: the Great Crystal.

See, we aren’t going to get to see that mysterious, foggy city just beyond our reach. No, the only way forward is a teleporter to some sort of immense cylindrical cavern, slowly working our way across stone terraces and hard-light platforms spiraling a long, loooooong way downward, eventually encircling a shimmering orange crystal of titanic proportions. We’re talking a literal mountain-sized crystal, well over a kilometer in height, and that’s our destination.

Eventually, we reach the third terrace, and another set of green, hard-light platforms reaches out toward the crystal, with another boss fight at the end waiting to be curbstomped. With that out of the way, well, here we are, folks. The Great Crystal itself. Whistle through your teeth at it, take pictures. What? No, I didn’t mean getting to the crystal was our destination; it’s the next dungeon.

Yes, the crystal itself comprises a massive area, honeycombed with dozens of identical platforms crawling with difficult enemies. Progression relies on a number of mild gate-unlocking puzzles. There is no place to resupply, and if you ever have business here, the closest way in our out is the gate crystal waaaaay back at the entrance just after the Feywood. There is no map.

THERE. IS. NO. FUCKING. MAP.

Not pictured: a fucking map.
Not pictured: a fucking map.

I swear to God, this fucking game.

I’m convinced that after Final Fantasy X, some very proud game designer overheard someone suggest, “Spheres are great and all, but I wish we went back to crystals,” and just absolutely lost his fucking sanity. “Crystals?! You want… CRYSTALS, do you?!” he cried, tearing his shirt and hopping up and down. “I’LL GIVE YOU SO MANY CRYSTALS YOU SHIT THEM IN YOUR SLEEP! From stones to halcyons, we’ll have magicite crystals, and nethicite crystals, and skystones and memstones and gate crystals and save crystals.” At this point the cafeteria was evacuated as he began scratching plans in the tile with a fork and drinking soy by the pint. “We’ll have a Sun-Cryst, and a special crystal for every time of the day! Maybe some for meals and holidays! We’ll have crystal enemies, and a… crystal… DUNGEON…” he finished, as his eyes widened and a terrible clarity consumed him whole.

Luckily, most of the ire I reserve for the area stems from the many, many side-quests that lead to this place; the only mandatory trip here is fairly linear, for whatever that’s worth when every room leads to an identical room with multiple exits and no stated goal or direction.

For reasons almost definitely unrelated to getting distracted searching through terabytes of HuniePop footage, Shamus couldn't find any video from which to excerpt a screenshot of the Great Crystal. Instead, I've graciously provided this screenshot I took myself on my PlayStation® 2 video game console.
For reasons almost definitely unrelated to getting distracted searching through terabytes of HuniePop footage, Shamus couldn't find any video from which to excerpt a screenshot of the Great Crystal. Instead, I've graciously provided this screenshot I took myself on my PlayStation® 2 video game console.

The party works its way downward. At the bottom— which we better fucking hope is our goal, since no one actually has any god damn clue— an immense sphere seems to have formed in the surrounding crystal lattice, and dense mist pours out of it like a gale. The party seems certain it is nethicite. In fact, the entire Great Crystal may be nethicite, for all we know. Penelo worries once more that Fran might go Jason Voorhees on us, but she reiterates, “What part of ‘one-use gimmick’ don’t you understand,” and the party turns its attention to Ashe, who is salivating openly at the sight of the nethicite. Fran very sarcastically notes that it would be enough nethicite for Ashe to bomb the entire planet to zombie-gnawed cinders, doing her part for once in the party’s eternal quest to constantly guilt-trip Ashe for wanting nethicite while working tirelessly to help her obtain it.

We step through one last tele-pedestal, and arrive in… a building, I guess? It has the architecture of the terrace-steps, but is enclosed. Maybe we’re in the city itself. But no time to worry about it; it’s an ambush! A bizarre, misshapen creature flies at us in a rage; it’s Shemhazai, the Whisperer!

Look, ma’am, no offense but I’ve already fought an esper that was slightly easier than cutting out my own wisdom teeth with a soup can lid: Chaos, Walker of the Wheel, and he’s just itching to meet you.

One humiliating boss stomp later, Shemhazai is mine to command, and the last of waaay too many bosses needed to get an audience with the residents of Giruvegan. I mean, I assume this is one of those whole, “Destiny foresaw you would come someday,” type deals, so am I really proving my worth, or am I just jerking off some lonely dungeon designer the other Occuria don’t talk to?

If this view is supposed to impress us, it's working.
If this view is supposed to impress us, it's working.

What’s an Occuria? Well, we’re about to find out. The party touches one final waystone, and Ashe finds herself alone, floating on a tiny round platform high, high above Giruvegan, the city visible below: dozens of walled, circular districts sitting here and there on the glass-still surface of the water, from horizon to horizon, connected by serpentine highways. Another layer of similar layout floats above the clouds, as high above Ashe as she is above the water, with small floating structures dotting the sky midway between the two.

Ashe can’t believe the sight, but a mystic voice greets her with that most angelic of catchphrases: “Be not afraid.” A being of the same sort as Venat materializes, and in an androgynous iambic tetrameter lays out a gameplan for the princess. Ashe really is the chosen one, and Cid wasn’t lying: they really do want to give her new nethicite to forge a new Ivalice however she sees fit. But nethicite is a sort of self-serve deal: the Dynast-King’s three stones were just tiny shards of a massive hunk of nethicite made for the purpose, the Sun-Cryst.

Never mind feeling afraid. For the first time in her life, Ashelia is feeling underdressed.
Never mind feeling afraid. For the first time in her life, Ashelia is feeling underdressed.

Ashe can do little more than stammer out her amazement, so the Occuria, named Gerun, presses on. Ages and ages ago, the Occuria thought they might give a little firm guidance to human affairs by granting power to a worthy hume: the Dynast-King, of course. That turned out rather well for about a thousand years, but Ivalice has gone to shit without their influence and they think Ashe is just the lady to succeed her great ancestor. To symbolize the new treaty, they grant her a sword that marks her as the new Dynast-Queen, a symbol of the Occuria’s favor and, conveniently enough, a blade able to carve new nethicite shards from the Sun-Cryst.

Oh, and take care of Venat while you’re rebuilding your shitsack world. Ashe is confused on that point; she points out that Venat is an Occuria, like them, and the representative speaks in a voice that shakes the platform: Venat is basically the lovechild of Prometheus and Satan. A whole slew of Occuria, of various shapes and colors, materialize around Ashe. Gerun firmly explains that nethicite isn’t the sort of thing you want just anyone to have, as evidenced by their not seeing fit to give it out more than once every thousand or more years, and then only to a single person recognized expressly worthy of its use. Venat ran off and started giving its blueprints to madmen, to be used by the most ambitious and ruthless would-be tyrant alive in the world. Part of Ashe’s duties in building a better Ivalice, naturally, is to knock off the renegade angel and any trace of knowledge pertaining to the manufacture of more nethicite.

Like Bigfoot, the Occuria are naturally blurry.
Like Bigfoot, the Occuria are naturally blurry.

So, that’s that: Ashe is Heaven’s first-draft pick to clear up all this political bullshit that’s been going down and usher in a new thousand-year golden age of Ivalician unity and prosperity, and we’ve got the tools to do it: nethicite in as little or great an amount as we so choose, a means to destroy that nethicite if we deem it too dangerous or no longer worth keeping around, and a mandate no one on the planet can talk back to! Quick, ask them how to use nethicite in a manner other than “nuke mode!”

Instead of asking how to use nethicite, which I might point out we still don’t know, Ashe gets cold feet instead, choosing the worst possible time to treat the idea of making war on the Empire— a wish she’s borne with an almost sexual desire up to this point— with a sudden distaste. Gerun, with a mix of authority and incredulity, calmly explains that, as immortal, omniscient beings, they’ve had to step in and stop humanity from destroying itself more times than they care to remember throughout history, more or less as a hobby. Appointing a human champion to take care of these things is just their way of giving history a light nudge in the right direction every now and then. The Occuria, figuring taunting might work where having a brain in your fucking skull has clearly failed, conjures up the illusion of Rasler, placing his hand on the Treaty-Blade’s hilt to guide her, and tells her to avenge her kingdom and claim her birthright.

While I've always been confused by the party's immediate and thorough disregard for the Occuria, the revelation that what seemed to be the ghost of Rasler is actually an Occurian party favor is the most compelling proof that they aren't brokering honestly with Ashe. On the other hand, I'm not sure this is supposed to be as obvious as it seems, given that Ashe doesn't immediately realize this. No one else mentions it either.
While I've always been confused by the party's immediate and thorough disregard for the Occuria, the revelation that what seemed to be the ghost of Rasler is actually an Occurian party favor is the most compelling proof that they aren't brokering honestly with Ashe. On the other hand, I'm not sure this is supposed to be as obvious as it seems, given that Ashe doesn't immediately realize this. No one else mentions it either.

Ashe’s baser impulses sufficiently appealed to, she reluctantly grasps the blade, and a quick flash of light later the Occuria are gone, with the rest of the party filing in around her in their place. They seem to have heard the conversation, despite being unable to take part in it. Vaan is immediately suspicious of their authority by virtue of being a shithead teenager, but no one pays any attention. Basch, though, doesn’t trust the Occuria one bit, suddenly believing very firmly that mankind shouldn’t take orders from beings beyond their comprehension and orders of magnitude beyond them in power. Furthermore, he thinks destroying the Empire outright might be going a bit too far.

I was tempted to add a nice pink vignette and some floating hearts to this screenshot, but tampering with or misrepresenting game visuals would violate my bond of faith with the readers.
I was tempted to add a nice pink vignette and some floating hearts to this screenshot, but tampering with or misrepresenting game visuals would violate my bond of faith with the readers.

Altogether, everyone immediately determines that the Occuria are shady no-goodniks, despite their previous interactions of this nature resulting in the greatest golden age the world ever experienced.

Penelo points out that we came here expecting to find Cid, but Balthier sardonically states what the audience likely figured out back at Draklor: he never intended to come here; he was just baiting us into coming ourselves, certainly to facilitate this very meeting.

It's not that I think the party is dumb. It's that the party *knows* they're dumb.
It's not that I think the party is dumb. It's that the party *knows* they're dumb.

What’s more mysterious is his motive for doing so. Cid is 100% behind Vayne and his ambitions, and just led his worst enemies into ludicrous power. He conjectures that the good doctor might just want to see what happens when you give nethicite to both sides of a war, but that seems more Larsa’s style than Cid’s. More than anything, Balthier just seems dazed and upset that his father really had been chatting up a real-live Occuria all those years, long after he came to terms with his father simply being Looney Tunes. Ashe decides we might as well seek out the Sun-Cryst before deciding a course of action, essentially pleading “just the tiiii~p!” to the nay-sayers in the party. I’m on to you, princess! And I’m not the only one.

The scene skips over to Archades, as the brothers Solidor converse. Judge Gabranth looks on as Larsa pleads with Vayne to bury the hatchet with Dalmasca and let Ashe take her throne back; he seems to think it’s the best way to settle down the Resistance and the Rozarrians, a grand gesture to avert the looming war. Vayne is pessimistic, pointing out that Ashe herself wants the war as much as anyone. Which, I mean, is totally a fair assessment. Larsa argues that she wouldn’t care to war with them if she already had her throne back, and they break down to a short, circular squabble. Vayne gets a light bulb, and, likely as a way to end the discussion more than anything, tells Gabranth to find the gal herself and just ask if she wants to rumble or not.

I actually like the content of this scene, but the tone of its participants mystifies me. People speak of Larsa as a doe-eyed kid, but the lad must have veins of cold steel to converse so coolly with Vayne after he murdered their father and staged a coup d'état. Likewise, I'm literally straining my ears for a hint to Gabranth's disposition, hoping in vain for some connective tissue between his previous and future scenes.
I actually like the content of this scene, but the tone of its participants mystifies me. People speak of Larsa as a doe-eyed kid, but the lad must have veins of cold steel to converse so coolly with Vayne after he murdered their father and staged a coup d'état. Likewise, I'm literally straining my ears for a hint to Gabranth's disposition, hoping in vain for some connective tissue between his previous and future scenes.

Well, that’s certainly straightforward. Gabranth wants to know if he should go ahead and shishkebab her if the 8-Ball turns up “War,” but Larsa interjects that it won’t come to that and sends him on his way. I’d tell Larsa this is a fine fucking time for a hefty, one-time bonus to find its way to Gabranth with Larsa’s name on the receipt if he wants to get this question settled the quick and easy way, but Vayne’s plan (Sending Gabranth alone to hunt down Ashe and Basch and shout “D’ya wanna fucken FIGHT?!”) is so likely to end in a tragic misunderstanding that Larsa probably took a big step towards becoming a man the moment he heard it. The little lord excuses himself to sort through the strange mix of feelings that come from witnessing a troll more masterful than himself.

Cid, who until this point has been twitching and muttering to himself like a collected, reasonable individual in the background, struts up to Vayne and remarks how unlikely it is that such a sweet kid could be the brother of such a sinister asshole. Vayne takes this as a compliment, yet while Vayne is without mercy, it seems he is not without remorse. He admires his brother’s nobility, naïve though it may be.

Cid gets a message from Venat, and is happy to report that Ashe has “taken the bait.” Vayne, too, seems to be counting on the party having their meeting with the Occuria, though they don’t yet tip their hand to the audience as to why. Cid takes a moment to gloat, trivializing the Occuria and their nethicite. Vayne isn’t amused, though; as he says, they had to “conquer two kingdoms so he could study those ‘baubles.’” But Cid brushes him off, thinking his work with manufacted nethicite well worth it. He calls upon Venat to stroke his ego further, and she complies, appearing personally to praise his work and the incredible speed with which he undertook it. Cid boasts that humans don’t have thousands of years to spend on their pet projects like the Occuria, and Vayne agrees; if they had time to piss away, Vayne would rather not have spent it starting wars and building superweapons. Cid tells him to cheer the fuck up: taking the reins of history back (in the hands of man!) from the Occuria was never going to be easy. Venat concurs, mocking the charade of Gerun and the others appointing themselves curators of the world’s events.

Vayne gets a knot in the pit of his stomach looking across the table and realizing these are his only two ''friends'' in the whole wide world.
Vayne gets a knot in the pit of his stomach looking across the table and realizing these are his only two ''friends'' in the whole wide world.

This is about as close we get to a stated motivation for Venat; it seems that everything she does is to spite and subvert the other Occuria. Whether or not she genuinely cares about humanity or just wants to service her celestial beef is an open question, but I know where my money lies…

Vayne can only hope her optimism isn’t unfounded. He’s more than ready for all the blood he’s shed to start paying its long-overdue dividends.

The Travelog continues next week.

 

Footnotes:

[1] mist can do anything, shut up

[2] Whose bright fucking idea was it to name Vaan, Vayne, and Venat?



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58 thoughts on “A Travelog of Ivalice, Part XII: A Saucerful of Secrets

  1. You might as well check out this week’s potpourri, because if you don’t think JRPG’s and psychedelic rock go together, then baby, you don’t know Hironobu Sakaguchi.

    Also, it’s a shame that screenshot of the shortbus pirates doesn’t actually show their preposterous, stumbled-through-the-wardrobe-at-a-clown-brothel outfits. Take a gander at the galleries for Rikken and Elza once you swallow your drink. I’m not making fun of their buddy Raz because for all I know he dresses perfectly reasonably for a bangaa pirate with dwarfism.

    1. Shamus says:

      I scrubbed back and forth through my footage, looking for an angle of Elza that shows off her underwear-on-the-outside outfit. But I couldn’t find a good angle, and she always had that dumb text box in front of her. I was sure there were better shots of her, but I couldn’t find them.

      I was just going through the footage for next week’s post, and THAT’S where we get a good look at her. She appears in the cutscene with Reddas just before flying to the edge of the world.

      So maybe next week?

      1. BlueHorus says:

        She did turn up in the comments of one of the previous articles, too.
        Though I’ll repeat something someone said at the time: For all those clothes, she’s somehow dressed MORE provocatively than if she were just in her underwear.

        1. Chad+Miller says:

          All the way back in the first article, it turns out!

          https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=53030#comment-1315489

          1. Chad+Miller says:

            As an aside, while Elza remains ridiculous, the addition of Spike Chunsoft’s VNs to Game Pass has now introduced me to someone so ridiculous that it makes it almost feel petty that I ever laughed at anyone’s outfit in this game.

            I’m playing Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors. In that game, one of the characters you’re locked in a deadly game with is a programmer who’s old enough to have two children in college. So, just try and imagine what someone like that might look like.

            Did you imagine…this?

            1. Syal says:

              Just wait until you get to the sequel.

              1. BlueHorus says:

                Wow, is that choker/bra garment all metal? That looks so uncomfortable to wear that it probably rivals Fran’s getup.

              2. Chad+Miller says:

                Ha!

                “You’ve heard of a boob window. How about…a boob PORTHOLE?”

    2. Retsam says:

      FFXII has been high on my list of “should actually finish that game someday”… but not quite as high as Lost Odyssey. Are either you or Shamus interested in doing a blogpost series so I finally have an excuse to finish it?

      … no? But just think of all the dramatic cutscenes you could ruin by having absurd accessories equipped!

      In the list of games I’d like to see remastered, Lost Odyssey is… well… the entire list, basically.

      1. Mye says:

        Lost Odyssey has a couple of really cool idea… and one so terrible it killed my entire motivation to play the game. At some point in the game you end up with two kids as part of your party and the writer decided to go for the double scoop of the “annoying kid” bucket when making them. You eventually have to play as them for a section of the game and I noped out so hard at that point.

        The idea of playing as a group of immortal is interesting, but sadly nothing is done with it, your character may as well be regular people (the only difference is that they come back to life after a few turns if they die in combat). But story wise its just a traditional story with no interesting time skip where you’d revisit area you’d been before after centuries. The game does have these sort of light novel segment which reveal part of the character life as immortal, those are sadly far more interesting than the actual game which just makes me wish they were the game rather than the generic “bad guy is evil, stop him” plot.

        Lost odyssey might get a remaster one day, it was part of microsoft attempt to make the xbox popular in japan that also saw last remnant (another game full of interesting idea… and quite a few terrible one) and it got remastered not too long ago iirc.

        1. Lachlan the Sane says:

          If the section where you play as the annoying kids is the one I’m thinking of (just after you arrive at the city made out of giant pendulums), I can reassure you that this section is relatively brief and you don’t have to face any combat with the two children.

          That whole section of the game is rather odd, though. It seems like the writers had a bit of paper that said “the party arrives at pendulum city”, and another bit of paper that says “the party is scattered all over the world and has to reunite”, but they had no idea what would be necessary to join those two bits of paper together. You wind up with a sequence of basically random events with very little internal logic. It feels quite badly underwritten and in need of a few extra editorial passes. Still, it’s probably better to have an underwritten section in the middle of your game than it is to have an underwritten ending…

  2. BlueHorus says:

    God dammit.
    Now it’s apparently ALL Nethicite! What was the Magicite for? Where was the Magicite? Weren’t the Shards originally from the Occuria ‘Magicite’? Did I just imagine that?

    Ridiculously-long sounding dungeon crawling aside, though, I…like…this story? At least, what it could have been. We start with some human/mortal politics and we go to interesting places, discover that there’s more to the situation, and end up being drawn into a much grander conflict.
    So far, so similar to other Final Fantasy stories.
    I love the idea that – after all the Empire’s schemes, and the mystique behind the Occuria is pulled away – it’s all part of conflicts by ‘Gods’ that seem every bit as falliable as humans.

    It all falls apart in the execution, of course, but this is very much a story that could have worked.

    1. Syal says:

      The original stone was called the Goddess Magicite, before being revealed to be the Dusk Shard, before being revealed to be Nethicite. So Magicite is just Nethicite.

      If they had built on this story (and probably revealed it much earlier), it could have worked. But the game is silent about too many plot points, and the next dungeon… well that’s for next week.

    2. John says:

      Now it’s apparently ALL Nethicite! What was the Magicite for? Where was the Magicite? Weren’t the Shards originally from the Occuria ‘Magicite’? Did I just imagine that?

      Could be worse. The sequel, Revenant Wings, introduces an entirely new -cite, auracite, and possibly an entirely new pantheon, though, not having having played FFXII and having mostly forgotten Revenant Wings, I’m not entirely sure about that last part.

    3. Sleeping Dragon says:

      Yeah, sure. This is the “up the stakes” thing in the middle of an FF game, we’ve seen that before. The problem is that the game does almost nothing with this worldshattering revelation.

  3. tmtvl says:

    shaped more or less like gazebos.

    Oh crap, anyone have an axe? I heard they’re also weak to fire, maybe break out the wand of fireballs.

    Oh, and I’m sure crystals had their place in the creation of FFXII.

    1. Philadelphus says:

      The gazebo shows no response to your actions.

      1. Rho says:

        We may need the Head of Vecba to defeat it!

    2. Abnaxis says:

      Ooh, I have some fire arrows for just such an occasion. What’s its AC?

  4. Kathryn says:

    As a completionist, I HATE THE GREAT CRYSTAL. SO MUCH. I’ve done two mostly-complete playthroughs, and both times I carefully optimized my sidequests to minimize the time spent there. Thank goodness for fan maps.

    1. Chad+Miller says:

      “Great Crystal fan-map” is right up there with the Bazaar in terms of “quantity of information that should have been in the game itself”.

      The Zodiac Age remaster has a “show map” button, which is usually very handy but in this case just ends up trolling you if you forget what the “map” actually is.

  5. Syal says:

    Giruvegan needs more kicking.

    Rocketeer mostly complains about the final section of Giruvegan, but this is a three-section dungeon, and all of them are bad.

    The first section is a set of two paths headed in opposite directions, both covered in switchbacks. It has a wonderful gimmick where one path has a giant door blocking you, and the means of unlocking the door is down the other path, right before that side’s giant door. I don’t remember exactly how many doors there are on these paths, but I do remember backtracking and forthtracking across this damn serrated hillside for an infuriating amount of time. Also this is the first dungeon with Entites (the horrible floating death balls) that are essentially mandatory fights; the path is too narrow to get around them and the constant door backtracking means you can’t run past them to the exit like elsewhere. You shouldn’t have much trouble at this point, but they still take a long time to die.

    So that’s the first section. The second section starts using invisible bridges; the paths have little tripping hazard edges, and wherever they stop having tripping hazards, there’s a path that doesn’t show up on your map. I actually had to pull up a guide to get past an empty room here, because the map doesn’t show the exit and the exit is like, dead center of the thing where the main room loops around itself and you wouldn’t think to look for an exit.

    And then the third section is entirely invisible bridges connecting teleporters in identical-looking gazebos, and the map is replaced by a big picture of a static crystal, much like the picture above. The gazebos have multiple invisible exits, and it’s possible to teleport to a new gazebo and then teleport to an old one without realizing it*.

    I did no sidequests in this area and was well and truly sick of the place by the time I got out.

    …the next dungeon might be worse.

    *(They’re numbered, so you’ll figure it out eventually, but your first visit you don’t even know which direction the numbers should be going.)

    1. Chad+Miller says:

      I didn’t find the initial trip all that bad; I guess the developers’ one hint about the intended direction (going up led to a bunch of overpowered monsters, so I guess I’m supposed to go down) worked well enough.

      But sidequesting…if you want to do the sidequests at anywhere near an appropriate level, you’re going to come back here three times after the main story. There are three optional bosses and they’re nowhere near each other in power level. In fact it’s literally impossible to do all three at once (the mind flayer variant is a gate for the later hunts which open up Omega. I think you can technically do Ultima immediately after the main story event detailed in this post but unless you’re grossly overleveled you’ll get creamed by the mooks on the way to her chamber, let alone Ultima herself)

  6. Joshua says:

    No one but him should have any idea that Ashe is seeing dead people, nor should he really let on that she is.

    I’ve seen several lazy writers (mostly TV shows) pretend that if one character knows something interesting/important and it’s been divulged to the audience, then other main characters will end up knowing that same thing even if it’s incredibly unlikely that the original characters would have shared it. I’m not talking about explicit secrets, just things that probably wouldn’t have come up in conversation, as in it’s too much of a hassle for the writers to keep track of who knows what, so main characters get up to a lot of chatting with each other when they’re off-screen.

    1. Syal says:

      It’s also completely in character for Vaan to say this, because Vaan is the idiot who recommended testing the Nethicite-destroying sword on the Dalmascan royal emblem. Vaan just kind of says things.

  7. Rho says:

    It’s a ridiculous plot, but the game finally develops an actual conflict, characters, and stakes. Only took 60 hours.

    One problem which will get bigger: ok, Its actually understandable for some in the party to question the Occuria. This is mainly bc they’re not even a myth so the party is suddenly confronted with a very powerful and unknown factor in the world. However, the party and villains seem to take the assumption that these guys “don’t count” as part of the world either. And come across a bit human-supremacist. I don’t expect “Putting the reins back in the Hand of Man will include Supinellu or Mjrn.

    And when your catchphrase sounds like something the Imperium on Man would declare, it’s a problem. Also, I just realized that Archadia *also* has a super-powered Emperor who betrays everyone and bargains with evil demigods to gather the power to conquer the world.

    1. Kathryn says:

      The really exciting part is when, after the initial subplot with Vayne and Ashe and the rule of Dalmasca gets resolved, the team goes back to Giruvegan to resolve the main plot with the Occuria!

      …wait

    2. guy says:

      Also, I just realized that Archadia *also* has a super-powered Emperor who betrays everyone and bargains with evil demigods to gather the power to conquer the world.

      Total tangent, but I’m suspicious about that being true as presented in WH40k. Our sources that the Emperor bargained with the Chaos Gods for power then screwed them over are, as far as I know, a daemon prince and Horus who probably learned it from daemons and the Chaos Gods, who are all in on appealing to his pride and ego.

      It seems pretty clear the Emperor went to Moloch, entered the portal and came out with (even more) superpowers, but by a bargain he never intended to keep? He outplayed them? Really? He decieved Tzeentch? There is no way Tzeentch wouldn’t know the Emperor intended to screw them, and the Emperor is not a total idiot who’d think he could decieve the Great Deciever. Some part of the story is a lie.

      1. Rho says:

        Well, not that I intended to get that deep into 40K lore, however:

        My interpretation* is that the Emperor 100% no questions did fully intend to betray the Dark Powers, and that he couldn’t deceive Khorne let alone Tzeentch. They concluded their bargain knowing he was going to do this. That’s OK though – they’re quite happy to take their payment in kind… Really, the state of the galaxy makes very good sense if you assume that the Ruinous Powers knew the Emperor’s schemes were going to blow up in his face, and each one simply had their own choice morsels picked out for the feast. And then, well, they’ve had the after-meal entertainment for eons.

        And it would make extreme sense for the Emperor to assume that he could control when and how the payment would occur, not realizing that he was essentially inviting the debt collector inside for tea. He always blamed everyone else for his plans failing in different way and/or for him being “forced” to betray his allies & servants, but he was the one constant there.

        *For all you Non-40k Nerds out there, basically the game has no 100% true-in-all-cases canon. There is only a lot of material, usually without hard numbers or where the numbers may be deliberately wrong, and interpretation. The fact that people can have arguments over whether the God-Emperor was literally the most evil being in the history of the galaxy, or a positive figure who created a golden age, is part and parcel of this.

      2. BlueHorus says:

        The issue is that both the Emperor (or his cronies) and the followers of Chaos (or their cronies) are all more than happy to blatantly lie about a situation to save face / make theselves look smart / make their enemies look dumb / deny the obvious.

        I always understood that bargaining with the Chaos Gods was the only way for Big E to gain his Primarch supersoldiers, and he just lied about it because he was:
        a) scared to be seen as anything other than omnipotent
        b) trying to hide the presence of Chaos from everyone
        c) arrogant enough to think that he could just handle whatever the Chaos Gods were planning.

        ‘But Big E’s too smart for that!’, you might say. to which I would quietly point out some of the many, many, questionable decisions he made, one of which was having so much of his grand plan resting on a bargain with entities literally called the Gods of Chaos.

        You can blame some of this on the…variable…quality of Black Library writers*, but it’s fairly consistent across the lore that the setting is so bad because the Emperor screwed up badly.

        *His intelligence – and the intelligence of pretty much every character, really – varies a LOT from writer to writer, not unlike Mass Effect’s** Reapers…
        **Drink!

        1. guy says:

          I’m not convinced the bargain even exists, because while he certainly makes mistakes he did not get where he is by being so dumb as to think Tzeentch would offer a bargain that did not totally screw him over. And its existence, as far as I recall, has not been confirmed by our Perpetual viewpoints, one of whom was actually part of the expedition to the warp gate. The sequence of events described strikes me as implausible on its face, the sources are unreliable, and Horus is pretty credulous when it comes to being told he’s awesome. I’m also pretty sure that his trillion-year warp excursion to claim similar power by force was deliberately thrown by the Chaos Gods to make Horus think he did it all himself when he wouldn’t bargain away his autonomy.

          I think the most likely scenario is that the Emperor went in and “stole” the power to make the Primarchs, but much like with Horus that was a ploy by Tzeentch, basically the same outcome as a trapped bargain but set up in a way that’s less obviously suspicious than just handing The Anathema the power to create super-soldiers for his anti-Chaos crusade.

          1. Shufflecat says:

            My headcanon is that the ruinous powers are subject to their own domains as much as they are masters of them. So Khorne can barely think more than 20 seconds ahead, much less strategize, because his mind is mostly a red mist. Nurgle is as happy in defeat as in victory, so he doesn’t try all that hard. Slaanesh is the king/queen of self-distraction, with no stomach for delayed gratification. Tzeentch is constantly changing plans mid-stream, and his schemes are so complex they frequently suffer from a crippling case of right hand vs left hand.

            Like, keep in mind that lore-wise, Tzeench, god of secrets and lies and conspiracies, canonically plays by showing up at the battlefield with openly Tzeench-bannered legions led by Tzeench-specific bird demons, when the way you’d actually expect him to play based on his hype is for the Tzeench player to show up with no minis, and when asked, say “They’re in your army: have fun figuring out which ones!”

            “How about… this one? He’s been rolling bad.”

            “Oh, no: he’s a genestealer. Nice try though!”

            “Wait… wat?”

            And the Empire, for it’s part, is actively though not awarely farming for them. Despite it’s tenants, everything about it feeds rather than denies the big four. You’ve got a political system that’s all but designed to be a hurricane of backstabbing scheming power climbing (Tzeench). An enormous military force that’s indoctrinated to dogmatically glorify the hate, destruction, and killing of the Other in any and all forms (Khorne). An entire populace who’s ground down and taught from birth to accept their lives of misery and horror as the way things always are and must be (Nurgle), which in turn is a pressure cooker for turning literally any pleasure one can find into an illicit obsession (Slaanesh).

            The whole thing is not so much an epic struggle to hold back the tide, or a doomed galaxy circling the drain, as it is that one Simpsons gag about Mr. Burns living so long because all his deadly ailments are interfering with each other in a perfectly balanced way like the three stooges getting wedged in a door.

            Under this framework, I have no trouble believing that the Emperor maybe just had Big Plans he was objectively wrong about because he was basing it on flawed assumptions/intel, so it’s kind of perfectly in-canon for even out-of-universe fans to argue endlessly with no consensus.

            IMO 40K is best when viewed from the POV of an inquisitor named Blackadder and his scribe Baldric. But that’s just me.

  8. Retsam says:

    They do, but Vaan makes the curious mistake of saying “She sees him,” to explain her rationale. No one but him should have any idea that Ashe is seeing dead people, nor should he really let on that she is. No one makes any comment, though, so they’ve probably long accepted Ashe is batshit insane

    I actually think this is an error on the translation’s part, not the original writings, and Vaan’s original line is more ambiguous. The English line is “She can see him. Let’s follow her”, but if I’m hearing it right it’s “Ashe ni wa, mieteirunda”, and if my shoddy, two-bit translation skills are correct, extremely literally it’s “to ashe: visible”, said in the form of an explanation (the “nda” ending).

    The big difference from the English: there’s actually no subject in this sentence, no “him”. (There’s also no mention of following, but I think that’s implied by the explanatory form?) So Vaan isn’t telling everyone that she sees dead people, just that there’s something only visible to her, and what that is – (a path, 1000 gil lying on the ground, the ghost of her dead husband) – is left ambiguous.

    … which, yeah, still raises follow-up questions, like what she’s seeing and how Vaan would know that, but it’s a lot less awkward than the English translation, where Vaan’s answer wouldn’t make sense to anyone else.

    1. Actually, I’ve come up with a better explanation: the rest of the party just thinks Vaan is referring to the obvious boss monster waiting at the end of the causeway. Everyone knows that when Ashe is ready to disembowel something with a katana, the time for conversation has passed.

  9. I’m sitting here kicking myself. In both the original Travelog and now my second bite at the apple, I managed to completely overlook what may he my favorite scene in the game!

    As the party descends the Giruvegan terrace steps, they encounter Final Fantasy XII’s rendition of the series’ iconic Behemoth enemy, and upon their defeat they acquire delicious, invigorating Behemoth Steak. For a moment the party is eager to relish their hard-earned repast— but wait! Behemoths in FFXII are clearly sapient. They walk upright, wield weapons and wear armor. Their bestiary entry reveals they were created by the Occuria, but while it’s possible they didn’t create and wouldn’t be capable of creating their own armaments, their ability to use these tools suggests a degree of intelligence far in excess of the merely bestial. What’s more, Fran warns that the creatures are empowered bodily by the spirits of their felled foes.

    Dare we dine upon the fell filet?

    Without hesitation, Basch volunteers to starve. A tense silence follows as everyone looks to Ashe to decide their dinner destiny. Though she lets slip an anime gasp betraying her inner conflict, Ashe decides: they shall prepare the portentous porterhouse before deciding whether to eat it.

    The party watches in awe as the wraithly Rasler rustles the skillet, whistling inaudibly as he puts a lovely sear on the slab. Vaan recoils in trepidation from the buttery aroma of thyme and black pepper, making his reservations clear to the princess but nevertheless reconciling himself to just going along with whatever she wants. Behind him, Penelo peers over his shoulder, closed hands clutched to her chest, resolving internally to scold Vaan for not chewing his food enough or for not getting enough to eat depending on what he chooses. With the foil-wrapped T-bone finishing in the oven, Balthier is obviously choking back grave objections to the culinary corruption before us but opts instead for ass-headed derision of the wine chosen for deglazing the skillet, a lovely pan sauce well on the way. Silently, Fran is desperate for a bite, but says nothing and will likely be stuck with Balthier’s leftovers if he has any.

    But as Ashe nears terms with a supper set to jeopardize her very soul, little does she understand that waiting in the wings, novelty bibs tied, are—

    Oh wait, none of this happens. *shrug*

    1. Mye says:

      The “is it okay to eat this meat?” question in world like FF12, populated by many different humanoid species, must get pretty complicated. Did all the various species co evolve from different starting species or do they all come from the same one (ie are Viera descendant from rabbit or monkey just like Hume)? Does it matter? You could say that the line should be drawn at tool use, but plenty of animal in our world have been recorded as using tool and few people care when it comes to eating them, octopus are well known to be extremely intelligent yet are routinely consumed. I guess the line would maybe be drawn at the ability to communicate in a way that human understand, I guess when your meat can say “don’t eat me please” things get pretty weird.

      I wonder how the various species would interact with each others when they were all in the tribal phase, would they actively hunt each others? Unless this is a case where hunting journal entry #685 reveal that all the non human species were made by Occuria so never really interacted before civilization.

      1. Kathryn says:

        I won’t eat octopus precisely because they’re too intelligent for me to feel comfortable eating them. I wouldn’t eat a corvid, either. (Of course, I (currently…) have the luxury of not starving.)

        1. RFS-81 says:

          I don’t like seafood anyway, but I avoid pig because they’re fellow gamers.

      2. Philadelphus says:

        You could say that the line should be drawn at tool use, but plenty of animal in our world have been recorded as using tool and few people care when it comes to eating them

        Multiple groups in history have been fine with dining on other humans, too.

      3. Syal says:

        Remember that only the tail of the mermaid is edible; the upper body is only useful as bait to lure more mermaids.

        1. tmtvl says:

          Ah, now I remember the days of Dwarf Fortress mermaid farming. Which went so far beyond the pale Toady decided to devalue mermaid bones to stop it.

          1. bobbert says:

            Forget the bone carving. Do you know what people paid for soap made from authentic mermaid fat?

    2. tmtvl says:

      Orc meat is a delicacy in various Japanese light novels. It’s a little unsettling to read about an adventurer wiping out an orc village so they can be turned into bacon.

    3. Rho says:

      This post is a work of art. I want it framed and hanging on my wall.

  10. guy says:

    Yeah I’m really not following why exactly the party is suspicious and distrustful when they find the guys they’re looking for, they’re magical angel things and the guys who empowered the legendary hero-king, and they say Ashe can get some superweapons for the war against her archenemy so long as she uses them and also fights the guy who’s been giving them superweapons. Do they think the Occuria are lying about giving the dynast-king his magical superweapons?

    I mean, there is generalized distrust of a hidden manipulator, but they apparently manipulated things to be completely awesome and Ashe’s entire family history traces back to them giving swag to her ancestor. I’d really expect Ashe at least to be totally sold at this point, while people who do not have a claim to the throne by virtue of being descended from the last guy who made this deal might be skeptical.

    1. Ninety-Three says:

      I don’t get what their alternative is. Like suppose they somehow got proof the Occuria were lying: are they just going to let the evil empire win because they learned some sinister angel dudes want it to lose? It seems like their only available course of action, as it has been for most of the game, is to continue bumbling around in search of superweapons to solve their plot problem.

      1. Syal says:

        As a tangent, I do appreciate stories that actually address that lack of alternatives. There was a book, Lord of Snow and Shadows, where a tiny backwater nation is attacked by a massive industrial one, and fights back with the power of an invincible ghost dragon that powers itself on the blood of the innocent and slowly turns its hosts into bloodthirsty killers. And the new ghost dragon host decides the larger nation conguering them is the lesser evil, and drives it out in the middle of the conflict*. And, like, that’s a high-stakes moral dilemma; choose between Hitler or the Devil.

        *(And then there were two more books where the ghost dragon came back with a bunch of other ghost dragons and then everyone became friends or something. I liked the first one’s ending more.)

      2. guy says:

        Well, if they think the angel dudes are sufficently sus they could actually just formally surrender to the evil empire and suck up being tyrannized over ending up in an SMT Law ending. That is an option.

        Alternatively they have the anti-nethicite sword already, right? If they can find a way to jump the guys who have the nethicite in their sleep and stab rogue angel guy and Cid so they can’t make more we’re back to a conventional airship war we can win. That’d be pretty tough to pull off but a plucky band of heroes could go for it.

        But really I don’t see why they think the angel dudes are sus at all unless they figured out ghost man was an illusion. To players it can easily look too good to be true, but as far as the characters are concerned it was totally true last time, and Ashe is a descendant of the dynast-king and this has been apparently authenticated by the dungeons they’ve been visiting. It’d be like if someone is running around claiming to be the descendant of King Arthur, believes they’re the descendant of King Arthur, opens doors that only the blood of Arthur may pass, and then the Lady Of The Lake shows up and hands them Excalibur and tells them to rule Britain.

        Haven’t watched the cutscenes so maybe it comes across as too hard a sell, but the only fly in the ointment Rocketeer’s described is that the bad guy is one of their renegades, so maybe suspicious types think this is a long con of some kind.

        1. Syal says:

          The story would have been improved if… well, there’s lots of ways, but reversing Venat and the Occuria is a really simple one; Instead of Venat possessing Mjrn AND Bergan AND Cid, you make those three different Occuria, and Venat is the renegade promising Ashe Nethicite to destroy the others.

          Which basically turns them into the Lucavi from Final Fantasy Tactics, but hey, Lucavi worked.

          1. BlueHorus says:

            Wait, they were ALL Venat? I assumed that at least some of them were Occuria trying to get Ashe to follow her ‘destiny’. That would have made sens-

            …ah, I see where I’m going wrong.
            And of course, the visions of Rastler are what the Occuria are using to herd Ashe around.

            1. bobbert says:

              Yes, amazing how that cuts the legs off of the ‘Put the reins of history in the hands of man.’ subplot.

              What is the point of brainwashing your allies whose goals align with yours to start with?

              Prometheus wants to give man fire, but the gods think that is foolish and will end badly is ALREADY an interesting story. It really feels like there was a saboteur on the writing team.

  11. Dreadjaws says:

    It’s curious to see how the great majority of FF games are about the heroes fighting deities and in the one game where the latter are allies the former are instantly distrustful. This would make sense in a franchise where all entries are set in the same world, but clearly not here.

    Then there’s FFXIII, where the heroes are absolutely against the deities yet they still go along with their plan, which is sort of like if the Avengers just decided to give Thanos the Infinity Stones thinking “Yeah! That’ll teach him!”

    Man, I really miss when FF protagonists weren’t a bunch of relentless morons.

    1. BlueHorus says:

      Well, you say that, but I can’t actually think of a Final Fantasy game I’ve played where the party did something particularly clever in the story.
      They quite often do sensible things, things that are often useful, but it’s usually the pretty obvious stuff. They’re just reacting to events in the story.

      (Immediately coming to mind is the way the party in V go from one magic crystal to another in order to ‘protect’ them, only to arrive just in time for the crystal to explode, or the bad guy to burst in and say ‘Haha, you’ve defeated the crystal’s guardian FOR me!’ and smash it personally.)

      Offhand, the only party action I can think of in a Final Fantasy game that was ‘unexpectedly intelligent’ was Tidus, volunteering to become an Esper because it would break the cycle of Sin.

      1. Henson says:

        FFV was particularly silly when I battled through a dungeon to shut down a machine that was in danger of overloading the crystal, and succeeded in shutting down the machine, only for some random mook to come in the back door and flip a switch which made the overloading unstoppable.

  12. Boobah says:

    One thing that bugs me:

    Rocketeer seems to think that Vayne betrayed his dad when he killed him; I got the impression that that was part of the old emperor’s scheme.

    See, the emperor and the senate have been fighting over control of the Achadian Empire; the last time the emperor screwed up enough that it looked like the senate would win, he sacrificed his two older sons and blamed all the badness on them. After all, he still had a couple of spares.

    This time, the emperor’s running low on sons and for whatever reason (too young/innocent/troll) he doesn’t think Larsa a good choice for emperor, so he needs Vayne. But that does leave one family member to sacrifice for the House, himself.

    So his solution this time is to dissolve the senate and have Vayne kill him for doing so; while Vayne consolidates power as the new emperor, he just ‘forgets’ to restore the senate (or promises to do so ‘tomorrow’) while basking in the prestige of having avenged it. The Emperor is dead, but House Solidor is now the unopposed ruler of the Achadian Empire.

    Now, you can argue that Vayne intentionally arranged things so that his father had to go, and that’s not the most outlandish thing. As far as I know, only Vayne was in Cid’s (and by extension, Venat’s) confidence. Do you think plugging the nethecite into the airship engine the Judge’s idea, or Vayne’s suggestion?

    1. The Rocketeer says:

      I don’t think Hramis had any plan at all.

      There’s no indication at all that the deaths of Gramis’s two eldest sons was pretextual or part of a power play with the Senate. No idea where you’re getting that.

      It’s pretty firmly established by the time of his death that de facto power has already passed from the emperor. He is openly mocked by the Senate as they maneuver to solidify their authority over succession. He has a sardonic attitude towards them, regarding them spitefully but accepting that he can’t meaningfully oppose them.

      I think he has the exact same attitude toward Vayne. When he realizes what Vayne is planning to do, he says, “And so House Solidor lives on.” He knows exactly how Vayne is going to spin Gramis’ murder, and despises Vayne’s soullessness, but he reconciles himself to what he cannot control.

      As for the 8th Fleet, I think people overread this a little and think the idea that loading the nethicite into the ship’s drive was obviously insane. I don’t think they had any reason to expect this would go badly and when they realized their error they tried to stop it but couldn’t. To the extent that it was anyone’s “plan,” I’d attribute it to the Shard itself, which we know has some measure of its own will, or to the Occuria, who I think have at least some control over the nethicite (and whose control of them may be the “will” sensed in the stones) and who would not want the Empire to control the Shard.

      Now then you can ask “does the shard/the Occuria realize this will kill Ashe barring some miracle” but the narrative is thoroughly littered with questions like these. Every years-long planning being run by multiple different factions turns out to be saturated with hundreds of coincidences, decisions and contingencies that have to go exactly the right way that can’t be controlled and could only be predicted by a very high level of omniscience. I honestly have no idea if this is intentional or not and either way it raises way more questions than it answers.

      1. bobert says:

        All that said, I don’t think Hramis is all that broken up that the Senate is going down too.

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