[Spoilers] Material Ultimania Plus discussion

[Theozilla]

Sure there are differences in how FFXIV does its stuff compared to FFVII, but as was stated, part of that has been present in FFVII ever since the OG do to the nature of its ending.
Also with FFXIV it’s expansions while connected, are designed to be more self-contained with their own thematic story than what’s happening with the Remake project, where each installment is literally just one part of the greater story. I think the inherent difference in structure and release of how world building and lore are developed is the deciding factor, more than the content of lore/world building of the respective works themselves. So in that regard it’s a no brainer that FFXIV feels more “timely”.

To use an analogy FFXIV is like a series of paintings that are thematically/subject-wise connected in a serial fashion. While FFVII Remake is one big mural that has had only one part of its curtain removed.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Something so damning, shocking or completely sideways outside of the text of the Remake would need to be revealed about the characters to warrant intense discussion about them at this point, given we know everything about what's happened thus far. It's a Remake of the Midgar portion of FFVII that released a year ago.

And the characterization has been mostly 10/10, apparent and understandable within the story. Like I said earlier, nothing is so off the rails or bizarre that it's forcing people to puzzle over or discuss it to death to make heads or tails of it. It's not filled with stupidity or unintelligibility.

I think it's a wonderful thing. It can just be enjoyed. The most bizarre character aspect we've had to discuss thus far was how Cloud was unconsciously thinking of Zack while dancing happily on a stage. We've come a long ass way from say, discussing the meaning of a fucking make believe poem being recited ad nauseum by a red coated lunatic SOLDIER as he ruins the lives of his friends. I'm so happy for it.

 

[KindOfBlue]

At the risk of sounding dismissive, I’d like to point out the obvious fact that the remake is still years away from being over

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Also with FFXIV it’s expansions while connected, are designed to be more self-contained with their own thematic story than what’s happening with the Remake project, where each installment is literally just one part of the greater story.

This isn't quite true. The FFXIV expansions are about as contained to themselves as Remake is contained to itself. There is a "conclusion" to the expansions... just like getting out of Midgar was a "conclusion" to Remake. Everyone knows the story isn't over and the story never presents itself as being over at the end of an expansion.

Endwalker Expansion will be the closest thing to an "ending" FFXIV has ever gotten as it's the end of the Zodiark vs Hydaelyn conflict. To say it's similar to the ending Part of the Remake series (whenever that comes) isn't too far off.

FFXIV is what I keep comparing Remake Series to because the way they release stories is incredibly similar. FFXIV just has quite a few more "story dlc/patches" than Remake Series does which does effect how long fans feel they have to wait to get answers about certain things.

Remake ends up with longer dry spells than FFXIV does... and YMMV what has more to do in it. A game like Remake vs an MMO Expansion.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Well damn, they don't even talk about the Zack portion of the ending of Intermission at all in this book...

Sick bastards!

 

[Eerie]

She hasn't finished the translations of the Ultimania though, has she? She's just paused to read a bit of the novel, from what I gathered, but should be back to the Ultimania. They better talk about that last scene, dammit.

 

[Maidenofwar]

Well she is currently doing a stream. I don't know if she will talk of only what she has translated already or might mention other stuff. I think it is late in Japan so she might be going to bed soon?

 

[Makoeyes987]

She hasn't finished the translations of the Ultimania though, has she? She's just paused to read a bit of the novel, from what I gathered, but should be back to the Ultimania. They better talk about that last scene, dammit.

She says on stream that they completely omitted anything about Zack in the book. She immediately looked for it

Not even Zack's appearance in Chapter 18, Destiny's Crossroads, is discussed.

They are totally mum on it!

 

[Tetsujin]

Ultimania:

Zack?

 

[Eerie]

She says on stream that they completely omitted anything about Zack in the book. She immediately looked for it

Not even Zack's appearance in Chapter 18, Destiny's Crossroads, is discussed.

They are totally mum on it!

Nooooooooooooooooo how dare they

 

[Makoeyes987]

LMAO Zack is a fucking phantom at this point.

Toriyama saying that brief little bit of info regarding Jessie was the most we were gonna get on that mystery. That was pretty shocking in and of itself, tbh.

This is like trying to figure out who the hell the blond boy is in Kingdom Hearts Final Mix back in 2002 after watching the Another Side, Another Story [Deep Dive] movie, lol...

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

This is like trying to figure out who the hell the blond boy is in Kingdom Hearts Final Mix back in 2002 after watching the Another Side, Another Story [Deep Dive] movie, lol...

Thankfully the answer was a lot more mundane than the theories.

 

[Maidenofwar]

Stuff that made me sad (including from the novella as well)-

*Cloud's dad went into the mountains and a monster got him (probably eaten?) - yikes think I preferred not knowing anything about the poor guy!

*The meaning of Tifa's cat's name is Bad? Ruude. I hope maybe in the remake we get to find the descendants of this cat and rename one.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

The meaning of Tifa's cat's name is Bad? Ruude.

Cats with names like this always earn it.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I vowed I wouldn't come back to this, but I'm not going to argue any more, I just have a question:

Odysseus said: "Also, isn't the fact that the lifestream is made up of discordant memories the reason for mako poisoning? When Tifa falls in in Mideel she acts like she's talking to people for a minute before she gets overwhelmed. Then, during the sequence proper, she's going through and seeing his memories so she can clear up his misconceptions about the past and help him remember."

Mako said: "Yes, it's memories, knowledge, emotions, everything. It flows into a person's mind and like a container unable to contain it all, their mind bursts and the ego disintegrates."

My question is this: How exactly do you picture the composition of memories in the Lifestream? Odysseus describes it as "discordant", which I'm interpreting as "totally disorganised, chaotic, with no particle of it being connected to any other or to any mortal, temporary identities" (please correct me if I'm wrong, Ody).

So the way I'm picturing your conception of it is like this: were I to die and my spirit energy to return to the Lifestream, every single memory that is currently organised in me as my identity, would fall apart, in the same way that a house after an earthquake can fall apart into a heap of discrete bricks, which can then be used to build any number of new things. And these same bricks, before they were me, were something else. When they became me, they retained the impression of their previous me. And after they are no longer me, they will still retain the impression of me. Again, please correct me if I have misunderstood.

(By the way, Mako, I didn't say mako isn't a fifth element. It clearly is. I said that isn't ALL it is).

I agree that there isn't a fixed quantity of Lifestream swirling around the planet. The Cetra seem to have been able to 'cultivate' in a way that created more Lifestream. But there isn't an unlimited quantity of it either, because if there were, Shinra's mako energy wouldn't pose a threat to the planet's continued existence. So the question is, do we create brand new lifestream by living and creating memories? Are living things creators of mako? Or do we imprint our memories over the existing memories already recorded in any given particle of Lifestream? Is the Lifestream a kind of palimpsest?

That was a side question. My main question is, what kind of road for travelling through time do you see the Lifestream forming, if memories have been broken into individual "bricks" with no single brick being connected to any other?

(This all makes me think of Primo Levi's short story "Carbon", about the eternal life and many incarnations of a carbon atom).

 

[Makoeyes987]

My question is this: How exactly do you picture the composition of memories in the Lifestream? Odysseus describes it as "discordant", which I'm interpreting as "totally disorganised, chaotic, with no particle of it being connected to any other or to any mortal, temporary identities" (please correct me if I'm wrong, Ody).

So the way I'm picturing your conception of it is like this: were I to die and my spirit energy to return to the Lifestream, every single memory that is currently organised in me as my identity, would fall apart, in the same way that a house after an earthquake can fall apart into a heap of discrete bricks, which can then be used to build any number of new things. And these same bricks, before they were me, were something else. When they became me, they retained the impression of their previous me. And after they are no longer me, they will still retain the impression of me. Again, please correct me if I have misunderstood.

Do you remember the beginning of the Lifestream sequence with Cloud and Tifa in the OG?

When Tifa falls into the Lifestream, she hears and feels numerous things at once. First she thinks she hears people, she hears questions, then there's shouting. Laughing. Confusion. Anger. Just a flood of thoughts, memories, feelings, all of it. It's just complete chaotic human emotions and knowledge that hits you all at once and it's like drowning.

I mean, that's an interesting metaphor for it, I can see it working like that.

So the question is, do we create brand new lifestream by living and creating memories? Are living things creators of mako? Or do we imprint our memories over the existing memories already recorded in any given particle of Lifestream? Is the Lifestream a kind of palimpsest?

Yes, we create new lifestream by simply living and creating new memories, experiences, etc through our lives. Life creates new lifestream. It's how the planet is able to never run out of lifestream by giving new life to beings born in the physical realm. If no one died, their memories and knowledge would never join the planet, meaning eventually the planet would just collapse and die.

My main question is, what kind of road for travelling through time do you see the Lifestream forming, if memories have been broken into individual "bricks" with no single brick being connected to any other?

I would look at how Cloud somehow found himself in the future with Sephiroth after all the Whisper exploded in the final battle. He was pulled into the future by the Whispers. I posted about this awhile ago when I laid out my theory of how Sephiroth is from the distant future and basically, time travel can occur via tracing the chain of memories that connect within spirit energy to their originating source. So for someone like Sephiroth... He would trace the chain of memories that extend to the future, all the way to their strongest source.

Which would be Cloud. The one who he has the strongest connection to. The one who told Sephiroth to stay where he belonged. In his memories

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Presumably, though, the road formed by Cloud's memories ends at the point in time when he (Cloud) dies? So if Sephiroth is from the distant future, the literal end of time, a future long after Cloud's death, what does he use to bridge the span of time between the point that's 7 seconds from the end of the universe and the point where Cloud dies? Or does it not matter because the Lifestream exists outside of time and therefore contains all memories, past, present and future? Or perhaps, let us say, circulates through time? I'm struggling to reconcile a fifth element that circulates through time and contains all memories from every point in time with the finite resource Shinra is rapidly burning up in its reactors.

I'm just trying to understand how it works.

When I played the Remake, I assumed the entire final section, and "Cloud being pulled into the future", were illusions created by Sephiroth, no different really from what Cloud, Barret and Tifa experienced in the Videorama in the Shinra Museum when Sephiroth took it over. By illusion, I don't mean it's untrue, but that it's a vision of the future rather than them actually, literally, physically standing on the edge of the universe 7 seconds away from destruction. All the time Cloud's experiencing this, his physical body is still in Midgar. However, I'm happy to be told otherwise, if there's evidence to the contrary.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Presumably, though, the road formed by Cloud's memories ends at the point in time when he (Cloud) dies? So if Sephiroth is from the distant future, the literal end of time, a future long after Cloud's death, what does he use to bridge the span of time between the point that's 7 seconds from the end of the universe and the point where Cloud dies? Or does it not matter because the Lifestream exists outside of time and therefore contains all memories, past, present and future? Or perhaps, let us say, circulates through time? I'm struggling to reconcile a fifth element that circulates through time and contains all memories from every point in time with the finite resource Shinra is rapidly burning up in its reactors.

Even if Cloud were to die, his memories would still remain part of the Lifestream. As long as someone remembers Cloud, or remembers Sephiroth and there's a connection to remind him of himself and connect to that point in the past, Sephiroth can use that to connect. It's like how he rose back from the dead using Geostigma and the memories and misery he caused in the living world. That memory, that reminder, that connection allowed Sephiroth to remain whole and find a way.

When I played the Remake, I assumed the entire final section, and "Cloud being pulled into the future", were illusions created by Sephiroth, no different really from what Cloud, Barret and Tifa experienced in the Videorama in the Shinra Museum when Sephiroth took it over. By illusion, I don't mean it's untrue, but that it's a vision of the future rather than them actually, literally, physically standing on the edge of the universe 7 seconds away from destruction. All the time Cloud's experiencing this, his physical body is still in Midgar. However, I'm happy to be told otherwise, if there's evidence to the contrary.

Well we know that's not the case now given Ultimania Plus and it's explanation. It's the future. It's no mere illusion.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Or perhaps the destiny leading to the 'seven seconds to the end of the world' scenario is not so distant after all, but only a few years down the line? And Cloud is still alive or only just dead at that point?

What exactly does the Ultimania say which shows that it's the actual physical future they're standing in, and not a vision of the future? I was looking at Audrey's translation and couldn't see anything to that effect, but there may be something else I've forgotten about.

 

[Makoeyes987]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1415528240760819715

The Ultimania description coupled with the in-game synopsis makes it clear that the Edge of Creation is a place and time. It's not an illusion or vision. That is the end point of the world's entire space-time existence. Cloud gets taken to where the world is 7 seconds to it's final end. And Sephiroth is there.

And I don't think it's somewhere close by unless something really off the rails happens because the world is barren, stripped of its sky and it's called the absolute end of the world's existence. This doesn't look like the world on the brink of destruction from Meteor, which it survived. It looks like something else. Far worst and absolute.

 

[Eerie]

I wonder if Sephiroth is locked there because he can't do anything about the Planet dying, so in desperation he's trying to get Cloud to help him?

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Now that's an interesting thought, Eerie.

It still seems improbable to me that Sephiroth could have physically whisked Cloud from Midgar through time and space to the end of the world and then sent him back again, (not to mention unnecessary, like I don't really understand the point of it, since Sephiroth's more than capable of showing Cloud exactly the same thing through an illusion, and it would have the same effect), but I'm open to that being the case. Let's just say I'm not convinced but I'm also not a total non-believer.

 

[Odysseus]

His whole "Cloyd the planet's gonna die help" thing in the remake has had me wondering what he's after. If he was never fully dissolved into the life stream, he might literally be the only thing left by the end of the Planet's life.

 

[Shademp]

Makes you wonder if Omega has already carried most of the lifestream away by that point. Or if Omega is inert. Or if Sephiroth wants to ride Omega to other star systems etc. Bottom line: Lots of potential to involve Omega Weapon (or explain its absence) for an "end of the planet's life" scenario.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

So the question is, do we create brand new lifestream by living and creating memories? Are living things creators of mako?

That's how the Ultimanias describe it, yes. For example:

https://thelifestream.net/lifestrea...anniversary-ultimania-sources-of-power-in-ff/

“After death, a life will circle the planet and be born again as a new life. Lives enrich the planet and make it grow” — this worldview on life and death underlying “VII” is similar to ideas seen in “IX” and “X.”

Another:

https://thelifestream.net/lifestrea...lopment-materials-p-40-of-the-ffix-ultimania/

At the center of planets, the presence which governs the cycle of souls. Crystals send out souls to be born as living creatures, and when they die, the memories from their lifetimes are sent back to the crystal with their souls. Crystals grow through the accumulation of these memories, and from these complexities, are able to create ever more complex creatures. As crystals grow, their radiance increases and the planet becomes richer. If the circulation should become unable to continue, the accumulation of memory ends, the planet begins to decay, and the crystal itself is returned to the cosmos along with the planet.

That "returning to the cosmos" notion (i.e. Omega) is presumably what Sephiroth is referring to in Remake's ending.

My main question is, what kind of road for travelling through time do you see the Lifestream forming, if memories have been broken into individual "bricks" with no single brick being connected to any other?

I think my previous description of mismatched keys and doors works better here, but if you were to use a bricks metaphor, I'd say that bits of mortar that used to connect the various bricks still cling to them, leaving you with an absurdly-difficult-but-not-impossible jigsaw puzzle.

Well we know that's not the case now given Ultimania Plus and it's explanation. It's the future. It's no mere illusion.

What exactly does the Ultimania say which shows that it's the actual physical future they're standing in, and not a vision of the future? I was looking at Audrey's translation and couldn't see anything to that effect, but there may be something else I've forgotten about.

Mako is conflating "vision" with "illusion," which aren't necessarily the same.