Eji Reacts to FFXIV: Dawntrail 7.1 Part 2 - From The Dead || Blind Playthrough

[@25xxfrostxx]

I remember Yoshi P making some very deliberately chosen comment about remembering which Ascians were still potentially alive. That could have been a red herring but it is also very possible that it's one of them. At the moment, Altima, Pashtarot, Deudalaphon and Halmarut are still in the wind. The way the monitor was glitching when things got tense when encountering Speen, I am guessing a sort of ghost in the machine villain that could be an ascian, some random nobody from preservation, or someone else involved in her medical procedure. It's just a guess but the first person thing at the end was probably Sphene (not to be confused with the definitely evil twin, Speen) who is all lightning sickness stricken and just came out of some kind of stasis and since she's not plugged in, someone else took over. Also, I had been thinking that all through the MSQ we were actually encountering two sphenes. That was why we saw the montage of scenes with her before the trial. Sometimes she was direct and forceful and others she was afraid to talk. I don't think she was afraid of Zoraal Ja hearing, she was likely not alone in the machine.

[@eji]

Yeah I'm wondering if the real Sphene was in some kind of induced hibernation or something by Preservation and potentially partially connected to what essentially was AI Sphene? So that it had some basis for "learning" how the real one behaved perhaps? But yeah, hearing that new one tell the people they could basically remove their own souls and put them in any new vessel they wished... that's basically what ascians did all the time. The ramifications are definitely troubling...

[@VainVanitas]

When I played the MSQ, I was ok with Koana, but he wasn't my favorite. Then watching you and others play through it, he easily became my favorite new character. This patch just solidified that. What a nerdy little badass.

[@eji]

He and his side story may not be as loud or prominently featured as Wuk's, but I like how he's still got his own thoughtful character arc where he's still growing and learning as he goes too. He's more understated which probably makes everyone else pass over him, but he kind of reminds me of someone like Urianger in that he's still got his own story to tell even when he's not one of the main driving forces.

[@TheoVorster]

Trains still have their own uses over aerial forms of transportation, like in real life trains can transport more cargo than planes are able to carry. If an Ascian is involved I think it is more likely as a surviving member of Preservation, as remember the Sphene from 7.0 never had a real flesh-and-blood body, she was just an image projected on to various Alexandrian robots, and as far as we know an Ascian can't possess a robotic vessel. I am guessing the fake Sphene could be a new programmed entity or simply someone with a powerful glamour. As for the memory manipulation, it wasn't just people with black neo-regulators who had their memories altered (other side/optional NPC dialogue is more explicit about this), but rather all people in Alexandria who had their memories altered (whether or not it affected people with regulators outside of the dome we'll have to wait and see). As for the Sphene who just regained consciousness in Living Memory, my first instinct is to also guess that maybe it was the original human Sphene waking up. That either her body was put on ice/suspended animation before she actually died, or she is a soul in a robotic vessel like the non-Endless Otis was (albeit in a more realistically human one).

[@eji]

yeah someone in chat during the stream made a good argument for freight trains and mass material transport, which is a good point; I guess I'd only seen their trains transporting civilians so my brain was thinking of general ferrying of people to and fro