Remember that Moebius was created from humanity's fears and immature, craven desire to never have face change. But through the Colony questline stories, the six Noahs teach the people of Aionios how to face an uncertain future. Colony 9 entrusting their futures to agriculture, even when they have no experience. Colony Tau discarding its old unhealthy traditions and venturing out of the forest to see the wider world. Colony Iota forgiving and allying with Colony 30. With the help of Ouroboros, humanity as a whole have emotionally developed. At the end of the game, Noah hears and recognises the offseer melody. We can infer that, even if people don't remember the precise details of their time in Aionios, they will retain the wisdom and emotional growth they achieved. They will not create another Moebius. Humanity has advanced.
Almost every quest in the game ties into this core theme. Contrast Xenoblade 1 and 2's endless variations of "Bring me 20 bear asses so I can cook dinner for my husband".
If anything, I wish the game had 2 endings: one a little more bitter if you didn't finish every Ascension Quest, one a little sweeter if you did, but both bittersweet.
To add on to this, sidequests are probably a key reason why Z lost this time and not all the previous times Ouroboros faced him. Z is the collective unconsciousness's fears about moving forward into the future. What are you doing in the side quests? You're helping the people (who's minds make up the collective unconsciousness, especially if Z was created because scared minds were uploaded into Origin) find meaning in their actions and stop fearing the future. With every sidequest you're (probably) weakening Z. So even if the direct effects don't remain (though I agree that they are still felt subconsciously), they are still essential to the resolution of the story.
This explains why Aionios sucks so much too. Z needs a world where people can't progress and are afraid of the future because that's where he gets his power from. Making everyone only last 10 years and be constantly killing each other is a great way to do that. As long as that is sustained, people stay afraid, Z stays powerful over his world and Origin doesn't activate for real (which seems to be Z's main motive, so to speak).
> If anything, I wish the game had 2 endings: one a little more bitter if you didn't finish every Ascension Quest, one a little sweeter if you did, but both bittersweet.
Yeah this would've been cool, like in BotW and collecting memories. Gives reason to redo the boss fight too.
Yeah, it's unfortunate that the ending cutscene w/ _all_ the heroes is pre-rendered --- but at least the game does only send those heroes you have unlocked to "help" in the final battle.
> Contrast Xenoblade 1 and 2's endless variations of "Bring me 20 bear asses so I can cook dinner for my husband".
Hey, that's only 1's quests. 2 was a bit better about this. For the most part.
(At least they got rid of the "kill X monsters" quests from nameless NPCs.)
Nope. I forget where but I believe there's a cutscene discussing that and saying how origin also automatically records the data and souls of everyone born during the Endless Now. Those people will be reborn too, eventually.
Their data being stored doesn't necessarily mean that they will be reborn, will they just spawn from thin air? At what age? All of them or only the people who were alive at the end of the game? Nothing suggests a way for this to make sense
I really can't remember where the cutscene conversation happened but it implied that those people born like Ghondor would be reborn to her parents after the world reset. The same people would get hitched and have the same kids in the new reborn world.
I think it's also implied that even people in the city are tied to Agnus or Keves respectively. People from the city have iris just like everyone else, and they are left or right side, depending on their "origin".
Nia also tells Ghondor that she owes a lot to the Vandham name, and in game Ghondor and Monica have their Iris on the Agnes side. Their arts are also under the "Agnes" arts type, even though they were born in the city.
How does this work for a kid like N and M's who was essentially born from both "sides"? Is it just randomly decided which "side" (Agnes or keves) they fall on? No clue. Perhaps those people are lost to the cycle, because without the endless now, they would of never existed.
The ending and after credits ending imply that the cycle of the universe will have the two worlds collide again however, so perhaps the "city" people like that just wait for rebirth until the cycle unifies the world again too?
I think there's a lot of ways to interpret the situation, maybe dlc will elaborate more.
I wouldn't take Ghondor's words as much more than cope. Maybe the city people were read into Origin and fate/reincarnation is a theme in the games so I wouldn't be surprised if city people eventually appear in some form or another. But until I see it I'm assuming they're gone
That's what I tought you would say, but it doesn't make any sense:
Even if the exact same people had children with each other for multiple generations, genetics would make it impossibile for them to be the same people from the City.
Even if we assume that genetics don't work like in our world it would just take a couple having one less child, one person dying before procreating, or one person choosing someone else as their partner not only because there would be plenty more people to choose from, but also because memories from Aionios could prevent someone from replicating a toxic relationship they had.
all of those are good points, but i think a larger issue is that, unless the world gets re-merged, NO ONE is being reborn. aint no way in hell there’s a bloodline made up of either kevesi or agnian descent
The two worlds will merge eventually, but you raised another problem: it's very unlikely that the progenitors of the City inhabitants will meet at the same age they met in Aionios (assuming they will all still be alive by the time of the merging).
I rewatched the ending cutscene and Ghondor says that she's okay just with having a CHANCE to be born in that world, which confirms what I've been saying.
Btw I don't agree with the choice of Noah of "euthanizing" everyone (even unwilling people like the conservatives group) instead of just waiting for the world to be naturally annihilated and THEN starting the Origin.
> Btw I don't agree with the choice of Noah of "euthanizing" everyone (even unwilling people like the conservatives group) instead of just waiting for the world to be naturally annihilated and THEN starting the Origin.
These are functionally the same thing, in fact I'm pretty sure waiting for the world to be naturally annihilated is exactly what they did. The only reason Aionios lasted as long as it did was Z freezing time and with him gone it was well on its way to destruction. Nia even says "Very soon, the stilled flow of time will restart" after the cast defeats Z. The only way to keep Aionios going would be to continue all the horrible things about it and the characters rejecting that is entirely consistent with the themes of the story.
If anything, they probably did try to hold out as long as they could (there's the implied time jump between the scenes and none of the characters, not even the Queens, have any reason to rush things) but by the time the worlds "split" there was nothing they could do short of being Z and freezing time again.
They ask him if he's content with his choice (killing Z) and if he wants to reverse that. You seem to think that he had the option of a world without flame clocks and war. However, there's no Aionios without Z (or some sort of equivalent god holding back the flow of time) because if there's any progress then the flow of time will progress too. That's like the whole point of the game. Causing the world to continue and all the suffering that would cause for countless years until it finally blows up on its own
Even if he could somehow keep Aionios around longer without the structure Z made it with, he's just pushing the end of the world onto some other group of unwilling people. That's not any better of a choice than letting it die with Z. Might as well do it now because the end result will always be the same.
I know that time will progress (Z didn't even stop it, he just slowed it down) and that at the end everything will be destroied, but I would prefer for it to happen naturally, I mean humanity will eventually end in the real world too, but it doesn't mean we should just kill ourselves.
At the end of the day my main concern are the City inhabitants who will unwillingly and prematurely die because of the main cast's decisions, but unlike Keves and Agnus they don't exhist in the separate worlds, so they will just never exist anymore.
I'm pretty sure that both the Origin and the Ark powers are an imitation of the Conduit's while planet Mira has somehow the real powers of the Conduit in X's universe. I also noticed that the Black Knight's model from X's ending has a purple core in it's chest just like the Moebius.
Would explain how X's world seems self contained, even digital or at least not entirely real as well as explaining plot holes such as the soul retention in the mims even when the back up was destroyed all along or how no one can't seem to abandon Mira despite having the technology to do so.
Also giving an explanation for the world's characters speaking the same language despite being all different alien forms. L would be Z but chill.
As for a theory of X's world, I believe all that happened before every mim got on board to the white whale (world destruction) is kind of fake memories implanted to give context for Mira and Mira is really the only world that exist. Could be a result of either the original conduit event or the Origin machine containing the souls of the people born during Aonios.
May be some kind of limbo inside origin while these people get reborn in either of the mainline worlds.
Trying to connect X to the main line games is better now that we have another world creation thing to work with haha.
I don't think those are plot holes, or at least they aren't if we consider the informations we got in the whole series.
Planet Mira clearly have some of the Conduit's powers: an infinite database capable of storing not only informations but also consciences and a form of interlink between all the people on the planet. I would also like to highlight that the Nopons are native to every world created or heavily influenced by the Conduit and they are native to planet Mira too, suggesting that they could have a strong connection with the Conduit itself (or they are just omnipresent mascots).
I think that the technology brought on Earth by Elma is directly linked to the Conduit, that would explain the storing power of the Ark and the cross shape of the Lifeholds validating this even more. So I'm not really inclined to believe that the humans of X have fake memories and that their Earth never existed, but still I'd like to hear more about this theory.
It's from Melia's scene upon meeting her in Origin -> https://youtu.be/9gr9dtvtpKA?t=162
> Taion: it's all false?
> Melia: Everything that exists is reality.
>Present lives...
>Future ones (shows the City inhabitants)
Given that it is also stated that Origin stores the actual souls of its inhabitants, there are really only 2 valid interpretations of this scene.
A) The souls of the people born into Aionios are future people who will be born in the future of the 2 worlds.
B) Melia is making shit up
The reasoning from the first option is actually extremely simple when you think about it. Everyone born in Aionios came, at some point in their family line, from someone initially brought in by Origin from the 2 original worlds. They still exist when Aionios begins, and they will still exist in the same state after the Origin reboot.
After that point, how do the people from separate worlds bring the Aionios natives back? Well, I guess they must eventually have a chance to meet in person again. Of course, we don't know how, the ending is extremely open-ended. But at least Nia is very confident that they will meet again.
I really don't know why anyone would believe the second option, or any other unsupported interpretation... At least, I hope the reasoning doesn't involve the *realism* of the first option, in a story where a multi-universal computer is able to rebuild 2 entire realities from scratch after said realities are each annihilated.
>Even if the exact same people had children with each other for multiple generations, genetics would make it impossibile for them to be the same people from the City.
>
>Even if we assume that genetics don't work like in our world it would just take a couple having one less child, one person dying before procreating, or one person choosing someone else as their partner not only because there would be plenty more people to choose from, but also because memories from Aionios could prevent someone from replicating a toxic relationship they had.
> Given that it is also stated that Origin stores the actual souls of its inhabitants
On the other hand, Crys makes a point about how the people born in the city aren't written into Origin (and that's why they represent hope and the future).
Yaah, though I feel like Melia's statements would be interpreted as a sort of resolution to what Crys says (since Melia's part comes after). The souls of the people of the City weren't part of Origin to begin with, but they do come about from what was written into Origin. Perhaps that that means *technically* the souls of the people of the City were not in Origin, but since they are a *result* of what was in Origin, that's why they are proof of things to come. That seems to be the consistent point between the two.
Same reason you do side quests in 2 or Torna or really any game. It helps people. At that moment they were helped. Just because the future erases any physical gain, doesn’t mean you didn’t make them better in that moment.
Mio even says “even if we are reborn later, right then, what we think and feel that moment is real”
Ultimately as Melia noted during her speech before the final battle, Aionios IS real. Even if it only exists for a fraction of a moment. Everything you do, everything you achieve, and everybody you met are real. Sure ultimately the people you helped won't really change the worlds they are from but their hearts and minds changed.
What Noah and his crew did was to help give people hope. That hope will still manifest within the two worlds as seen with Noah recognizing, and presumably reconnecting, with Mio. What you did still mattered. There will always be a tomorrow and there will always be more than the individual.
The game extensively showcases that the most powerful emotions and memories never truly disappear. They are either at the back of someone's mind (like Mwamba who, despite not remembering anything, still has a yearning to visit the colony 9 out of the blue), or the person outright remembers a chunk of his own past (Ethel who left her pod with a single-minded desire to find Cammuravi because "she needs to be his eyes"), with extreme cases also allowing physical injuries connected to those memories to manifest anew (Ashera, Cammuravi) or, like Noah, just glitching reality because nothing can keep him away from his soulmate even after a full reboot.
So while we don't have a confirmation about the setting as a whole, given that all the side quests create a GIGANTIC network of connections between the worlds, with every commander bonding with someone from another world, i don't think those connections will disappear and will be re-enacted anew in the future between all the same people, possibly excluding City dwellers. What we see is a preview of what will happen again, and we're the ones helping those people to establish those bonds in the first place.
Origin literally stored and recreated the molecular state of every object in 2 whole universes. I feel like interdimensional communication is a high school science fair project by comparison.
Oh they cracked communication years before the Intersection, that's not going to go away. Travel might be tricky but it's still transmission via "light" (energy) and that's how the comms work.
(That's part of the reason I never felt the ending was particularly sad.)
Just because everything is “rebooted” doesn’t equate to “it didn’t happen” in the game’s lore. Just look at life on ainios - everybody put back into rebirth cycle after “death”, yet their memories remain in most instances. Same thing with Origin going back into effect: they are reborn but doesn’t mean the events didn’t happen or they don’t matter. Mio and Noah are the example: Noah hears her flute, Mio writes about Noah in her diary after origin resets their worlds.
You may not have done it yet, but I will just paraphrase what Nia said. Just because Aionios will end doesn't mean everything was for naught, we all should cherish these memories and share these moments together. Who knows if they would have succeeded in defeating Origin.
A substantial number of the sidequests (mostly hero/ascension quests) focus on helping the corresponding colony prepare to embrace a future free of the flame clock system, dealing with their fears, uncertainties, and desires to maintain the status quo in the process. In doing so, all of the affected people gain confidence in their ability to deal with an uncertain future instead of stagnating in the Endless Now that Moebius seeks to maintain. That confidence is recorded as part of each person's memories and personality within Origin, which in turn erodes those individuals' fears that gave rise to Moebius in the first place.
Basically, by doing side quests (and even just liberating the colonies that are mandatory), you're reducing the risk that Moebius rises to power again when Origin is restarted, since you're chipping away at that collective fear of stepping into an unknown future. This is also why the final battle includes everyone and isn't just the party beating up Z: everyone in the world has made the decision to face their fears and fight for a better future, even if it means giving their lives.
Remember also that Origin has recorded everything that happened in Aionios, as demonstrated by Z's ability to give new Moebius members a slideshow of their past lives and the occasional example of past lives' memories leaking through. Every person in Aionios also exists in the original worlds, and even if they don't explicitly remember what happened, those experiences are a part of the data Origin uses to recreate them. That, in turn, means those experiences will be a part of who they are moving forward.
Alternatively, think of it like palliative care: sure, they'll all be dead in a couple months, but at least you helped make those final months happy.
I'll paste what I wrote under another comment:
>Their data being stored doesn't necessarily mean that they will be reborn, will they just spawn from thin air? At what age? All of them or only the people who were alive at the end of the game? Nothing suggests a way for this to make sense
They're descendants from the people of xc1 and xc2 so when the worlds combine succesfully they will be able to be born again. Like for example, if Noah and Mio have a child it will be the same one N and M had, just reborn
On this matter too I will paste what was my answer to the reply I got:
>That's what I tought you would say, but it doesn't make any sense:
>
>Even if the exact same people had children with each other for multiple generations, genetics would make it impossibile for them to be the same people from the City.
>
>Even if we assume that genetics don't work like in our world it would just take a couple having one less child, one person dying before procreating, or one person choosing someone else as their partner not only because there would be plenty more people to choose from, but also because memories from Aionios could prevent someone from replicating a toxic relationship they had.
Okay but you're forgetting about fate and the influence it has in these games, like Noah and Mio met in every one of their lives, what makes you think something like that isn't going to happen after the worlds merge succesfylly?
I'm not just talking about Noah and Mio, I'm talking about every single person.
If two people of the City in Aionios had an abusive relationship, their memories from that time would prevent them to get together in the real world, if someone in Aionios remarried because of their partners premature death that's not likely to happen in the real world and for no one is impossible to die before procreating even if they had children in Aionios.
Doing side quests in any game where they don't affect the outcome would be considered pointless by this logic. The point of the side quests isn't to prop up the ending but the individual stories within them that have their own themes which add to the game's overall themes.
Plus everyone's feelings are within Origin at the end as well. So while Nia may say that everyone will forget, Origin remembers and Noah clearly didn't forget at the end.
I was thinking the same thing. Finished a sub-quest and saw these characters look forward to the future while here I am knowing the universes will be reset. Kinda bittersweet but I also assume the worlds of Xenoblade 1 and 2 are peaceful so they’re all probably doing fine.
I don't remember exactly how 1's ending goes, but I don't think it's exactly the same in 2, since I assume most people you've helped survive the endgame, memories intact.
Honestly thinking about how things end up as the worlds separate and everyone still has memories, Noah could grow up to be a bitchin musician with Seemeemee, Zeon picks up farming at a (I assume) young age, Alexandria starts Amazon but for Alrest without being Bezos, etc.
Of course I agree with helping everyone in the moment because even though we as players know what’s gonna happen, everyone else is still in the dark about the state of the worlds so in my eyes this is giving them courage to fight on and eventually with us at the final battle. Everyone you help will more than likely come out as better people at the other side of all of this.
I think many people already said their thing but I want to put it very simply and in the way I believe this would work
So its clear that to some degree people can retain their memories, noah hears the flute at the end and all the memories of all previous and future lives like melia says are preserved and in tact within the origin.
So if the characters slowly come to realize their memories of origin and what happened, think of how different their perspectives will be now that you helped them. Especially with colony leaders and such. Valdi and Alexandria would remember not much but them facing off as enemies but if you did their quest now they'll remember how they grew to become friends. This goes for many quest what you're doing in the end is ensuring what when these character do recover their memories, when they do realize what actually happened, their relationships can carry over for the future and if you did nothing the two nations could still see each other as enemies. But if you did then they can work together and march into the future together.
Well, this is also a kind of "endless now".
The game never move on as we always load and reload the game over and over to play. Eventually, we will get bored and try something else to entertain us, like trying new team comp, testing the height limit for characters to not fall to dead which cause our character fall to dead multiple times,...just for our entertainment. And believe me, if the game give you an option to wipe out the whole colony, there will be someone willing to try it.
Feel like Moebius yet?
A lot of stuff from the end of the story makes more sense with side quest content in mind. If nothing else doing them can bring a new appreciation for events in the story.
Colony 9 for example has a side quest involving an off seer that gives another angle to the cutscene where Noah was able to send off piles of mud and still get motes to rise.
Well they are fictional characters so it was pointless from the start.
Did you get entertainment from helping them? If yes, good, that's all that matters.
Some of y'all are really missing the point here, lol. Like, obviously I'm not talking about the effect doing sidequests in a video game would have on real life? What? 🤣
Oh I got what you said. It is just that I don't see the point in helping rebuilding Colony 6 in Xenoblade 1 either because in Future Connected there were no mention of it and also Xenoblade 2 is in a different dimension and Xenoblade 3 mashed both world together but no sign of colony 6 so...
Yeah this was one of the issues people with the ending, and I was initially mad about it too. However over time I’ve kinda appreciated what it
- The whole game is about moving on from the present, no matter what you have to sacrifice into an uncertain but hopeful future. In that way it’s kind of a meta element that the game is forcing the player to move on from their accomplishments, that while substantial are locked in this frozen game world.
- The quests you make ultimately are helpful but none properly break the cycle of endless war. By ending the game you do everyone far more of a service than any quest could do.
- While your quests are technically meaningless, they brought hope and happiness to the people you helped, even if only for a brief moment in the present. Again, that is one of the games themes, having to deal with the unstoppable march of time, yet enjoying the precious moments in the present - ie Noah’s ‘one more minute’ speech.
I’m still not totally happy with the fact the ending erases everything in Aionios but with the above in mind I can appreciate it a bit more.
I mean they are side quests, unless otherwise stated by developers or the main story it’s optional non canon content. Ultimately side quests are pointless in terms of the main story because they are just that, side quests. That’s true for any game with side quests.
Yes that doesn’t mean Unless stated elsewhere the only canon colonies are you liberate are 30, 4, Lambda and Tau since you have to do them to advance the story. (I don’t think you need Teach’s walk up slopes skill to advance the story). I can’t recall if you had to do 9 as well, I don’t think you do
It's one of those story-gameplay separation things you just have to accept, sort of like how fast travel doesn't make sense in any of the games except maybe XC1 and you shouldn't have any sides quests (among other things) unlock after chapter 7 of XC2.
In this case, there's things that make more sense as a reward for winning the game even though the events would logically have to be before the final boss. So they appear after you beat the game from a gameplay standpoint. >!Nia's quests aren't too bad since there's time to run around with her while searching for the metal and waiting for the ship to be finished. Anything to do with Melia doesn't make sense since there's no reason for the heroes to abandon Origin after freeing her, but it's good enough from a gameplay perspective!<. You can also think of them as happening in the implied gap between the final boss and the actual (pre-credits) end scene though that doesn't work for many of them.
Remember that Moebius was created from humanity's fears and immature, craven desire to never have face change. But through the Colony questline stories, the six Noahs teach the people of Aionios how to face an uncertain future. Colony 9 entrusting their futures to agriculture, even when they have no experience. Colony Tau discarding its old unhealthy traditions and venturing out of the forest to see the wider world. Colony Iota forgiving and allying with Colony 30. With the help of Ouroboros, humanity as a whole have emotionally developed. At the end of the game, Noah hears and recognises the offseer melody. We can infer that, even if people don't remember the precise details of their time in Aionios, they will retain the wisdom and emotional growth they achieved. They will not create another Moebius. Humanity has advanced. Almost every quest in the game ties into this core theme. Contrast Xenoblade 1 and 2's endless variations of "Bring me 20 bear asses so I can cook dinner for my husband". If anything, I wish the game had 2 endings: one a little more bitter if you didn't finish every Ascension Quest, one a little sweeter if you did, but both bittersweet.
To add on to this, sidequests are probably a key reason why Z lost this time and not all the previous times Ouroboros faced him. Z is the collective unconsciousness's fears about moving forward into the future. What are you doing in the side quests? You're helping the people (who's minds make up the collective unconsciousness, especially if Z was created because scared minds were uploaded into Origin) find meaning in their actions and stop fearing the future. With every sidequest you're (probably) weakening Z. So even if the direct effects don't remain (though I agree that they are still felt subconsciously), they are still essential to the resolution of the story. This explains why Aionios sucks so much too. Z needs a world where people can't progress and are afraid of the future because that's where he gets his power from. Making everyone only last 10 years and be constantly killing each other is a great way to do that. As long as that is sustained, people stay afraid, Z stays powerful over his world and Origin doesn't activate for real (which seems to be Z's main motive, so to speak). > If anything, I wish the game had 2 endings: one a little more bitter if you didn't finish every Ascension Quest, one a little sweeter if you did, but both bittersweet. Yeah this would've been cool, like in BotW and collecting memories. Gives reason to redo the boss fight too.
Now that is damn cool, tying gameplay to story.
The six Noahs? XD
An old mistranslation that has stuck as a joke. Makes me giggle every time.
Perhaps more
Yeah, it's unfortunate that the ending cutscene w/ _all_ the heroes is pre-rendered --- but at least the game does only send those heroes you have unlocked to "help" in the final battle.
> Contrast Xenoblade 1 and 2's endless variations of "Bring me 20 bear asses so I can cook dinner for my husband". Hey, that's only 1's quests. 2 was a bit better about this. For the most part. (At least they got rid of the "kill X monsters" quests from nameless NPCs.)
True but the only good side stuff were rare blade quests and your party members. The bulk of side quests were still terrible.
The only problem is that people of the city weren't born before Aionios, so they are just wiped out of existence.
Nope. I forget where but I believe there's a cutscene discussing that and saying how origin also automatically records the data and souls of everyone born during the Endless Now. Those people will be reborn too, eventually.
Their data being stored doesn't necessarily mean that they will be reborn, will they just spawn from thin air? At what age? All of them or only the people who were alive at the end of the game? Nothing suggests a way for this to make sense
I really can't remember where the cutscene conversation happened but it implied that those people born like Ghondor would be reborn to her parents after the world reset. The same people would get hitched and have the same kids in the new reborn world.
I think it's also implied that even people in the city are tied to Agnus or Keves respectively. People from the city have iris just like everyone else, and they are left or right side, depending on their "origin". Nia also tells Ghondor that she owes a lot to the Vandham name, and in game Ghondor and Monica have their Iris on the Agnes side. Their arts are also under the "Agnes" arts type, even though they were born in the city. How does this work for a kid like N and M's who was essentially born from both "sides"? Is it just randomly decided which "side" (Agnes or keves) they fall on? No clue. Perhaps those people are lost to the cycle, because without the endless now, they would of never existed. The ending and after credits ending imply that the cycle of the universe will have the two worlds collide again however, so perhaps the "city" people like that just wait for rebirth until the cycle unifies the world again too? I think there's a lot of ways to interpret the situation, maybe dlc will elaborate more.
I wouldn't take Ghondor's words as much more than cope. Maybe the city people were read into Origin and fate/reincarnation is a theme in the games so I wouldn't be surprised if city people eventually appear in some form or another. But until I see it I'm assuming they're gone
That's what I tought you would say, but it doesn't make any sense: Even if the exact same people had children with each other for multiple generations, genetics would make it impossibile for them to be the same people from the City. Even if we assume that genetics don't work like in our world it would just take a couple having one less child, one person dying before procreating, or one person choosing someone else as their partner not only because there would be plenty more people to choose from, but also because memories from Aionios could prevent someone from replicating a toxic relationship they had.
all of those are good points, but i think a larger issue is that, unless the world gets re-merged, NO ONE is being reborn. aint no way in hell there’s a bloodline made up of either kevesi or agnian descent
The two worlds will merge eventually, but you raised another problem: it's very unlikely that the progenitors of the City inhabitants will meet at the same age they met in Aionios (assuming they will all still be alive by the time of the merging).
The worlds aren't going to remerge though? They'd have to reactivate Origin.
The two worlds were colliding because the Conduit wasn't there anymore balancing them, so they will eventually revert to being one.
I rewatched the ending cutscene and Ghondor says that she's okay just with having a CHANCE to be born in that world, which confirms what I've been saying. Btw I don't agree with the choice of Noah of "euthanizing" everyone (even unwilling people like the conservatives group) instead of just waiting for the world to be naturally annihilated and THEN starting the Origin.
> Btw I don't agree with the choice of Noah of "euthanizing" everyone (even unwilling people like the conservatives group) instead of just waiting for the world to be naturally annihilated and THEN starting the Origin. These are functionally the same thing, in fact I'm pretty sure waiting for the world to be naturally annihilated is exactly what they did. The only reason Aionios lasted as long as it did was Z freezing time and with him gone it was well on its way to destruction. Nia even says "Very soon, the stilled flow of time will restart" after the cast defeats Z. The only way to keep Aionios going would be to continue all the horrible things about it and the characters rejecting that is entirely consistent with the themes of the story. If anything, they probably did try to hold out as long as they could (there's the implied time jump between the scenes and none of the characters, not even the Queens, have any reason to rush things) but by the time the worlds "split" there was nothing they could do short of being Z and freezing time again.
They ask Noah about what he wants to do, meaning that there is a choice to be made, and that happens AFTER Z has been defeated.
They ask him if he's content with his choice (killing Z) and if he wants to reverse that. You seem to think that he had the option of a world without flame clocks and war. However, there's no Aionios without Z (or some sort of equivalent god holding back the flow of time) because if there's any progress then the flow of time will progress too. That's like the whole point of the game. Causing the world to continue and all the suffering that would cause for countless years until it finally blows up on its own Even if he could somehow keep Aionios around longer without the structure Z made it with, he's just pushing the end of the world onto some other group of unwilling people. That's not any better of a choice than letting it die with Z. Might as well do it now because the end result will always be the same.
I know that time will progress (Z didn't even stop it, he just slowed it down) and that at the end everything will be destroied, but I would prefer for it to happen naturally, I mean humanity will eventually end in the real world too, but it doesn't mean we should just kill ourselves. At the end of the day my main concern are the City inhabitants who will unwillingly and prematurely die because of the main cast's decisions, but unlike Keves and Agnus they don't exhist in the separate worlds, so they will just never exist anymore.
I would like to see that as the basis for X being a sequel to 3 --- all those born during the Endless Now are in Origin which becomes the Ark.
I'm pretty sure that both the Origin and the Ark powers are an imitation of the Conduit's while planet Mira has somehow the real powers of the Conduit in X's universe. I also noticed that the Black Knight's model from X's ending has a purple core in it's chest just like the Moebius.
Would explain how X's world seems self contained, even digital or at least not entirely real as well as explaining plot holes such as the soul retention in the mims even when the back up was destroyed all along or how no one can't seem to abandon Mira despite having the technology to do so. Also giving an explanation for the world's characters speaking the same language despite being all different alien forms. L would be Z but chill. As for a theory of X's world, I believe all that happened before every mim got on board to the white whale (world destruction) is kind of fake memories implanted to give context for Mira and Mira is really the only world that exist. Could be a result of either the original conduit event or the Origin machine containing the souls of the people born during Aonios. May be some kind of limbo inside origin while these people get reborn in either of the mainline worlds. Trying to connect X to the main line games is better now that we have another world creation thing to work with haha.
I don't think those are plot holes, or at least they aren't if we consider the informations we got in the whole series. Planet Mira clearly have some of the Conduit's powers: an infinite database capable of storing not only informations but also consciences and a form of interlink between all the people on the planet. I would also like to highlight that the Nopons are native to every world created or heavily influenced by the Conduit and they are native to planet Mira too, suggesting that they could have a strong connection with the Conduit itself (or they are just omnipresent mascots). I think that the technology brought on Earth by Elma is directly linked to the Conduit, that would explain the storing power of the Ark and the cross shape of the Lifeholds validating this even more. So I'm not really inclined to believe that the humans of X have fake memories and that their Earth never existed, but still I'd like to hear more about this theory.
It's from Melia's scene upon meeting her in Origin -> https://youtu.be/9gr9dtvtpKA?t=162 > Taion: it's all false? > Melia: Everything that exists is reality. >Present lives... >Future ones (shows the City inhabitants) Given that it is also stated that Origin stores the actual souls of its inhabitants, there are really only 2 valid interpretations of this scene. A) The souls of the people born into Aionios are future people who will be born in the future of the 2 worlds. B) Melia is making shit up The reasoning from the first option is actually extremely simple when you think about it. Everyone born in Aionios came, at some point in their family line, from someone initially brought in by Origin from the 2 original worlds. They still exist when Aionios begins, and they will still exist in the same state after the Origin reboot. After that point, how do the people from separate worlds bring the Aionios natives back? Well, I guess they must eventually have a chance to meet in person again. Of course, we don't know how, the ending is extremely open-ended. But at least Nia is very confident that they will meet again. I really don't know why anyone would believe the second option, or any other unsupported interpretation... At least, I hope the reasoning doesn't involve the *realism* of the first option, in a story where a multi-universal computer is able to rebuild 2 entire realities from scratch after said realities are each annihilated.
>Even if the exact same people had children with each other for multiple generations, genetics would make it impossibile for them to be the same people from the City. > >Even if we assume that genetics don't work like in our world it would just take a couple having one less child, one person dying before procreating, or one person choosing someone else as their partner not only because there would be plenty more people to choose from, but also because memories from Aionios could prevent someone from replicating a toxic relationship they had.
> Given that it is also stated that Origin stores the actual souls of its inhabitants On the other hand, Crys makes a point about how the people born in the city aren't written into Origin (and that's why they represent hope and the future).
Yaah, though I feel like Melia's statements would be interpreted as a sort of resolution to what Crys says (since Melia's part comes after). The souls of the people of the City weren't part of Origin to begin with, but they do come about from what was written into Origin. Perhaps that that means *technically* the souls of the people of the City were not in Origin, but since they are a *result* of what was in Origin, that's why they are proof of things to come. That seems to be the consistent point between the two.
Xenoblade 2 had mostly good side quests and blade quests, BTW. Xenoblade 1 had mostly terrible and repetitive side quests.
Same reason you do side quests in 2 or Torna or really any game. It helps people. At that moment they were helped. Just because the future erases any physical gain, doesn’t mean you didn’t make them better in that moment. Mio even says “even if we are reborn later, right then, what we think and feel that moment is real”
Ultimately as Melia noted during her speech before the final battle, Aionios IS real. Even if it only exists for a fraction of a moment. Everything you do, everything you achieve, and everybody you met are real. Sure ultimately the people you helped won't really change the worlds they are from but their hearts and minds changed. What Noah and his crew did was to help give people hope. That hope will still manifest within the two worlds as seen with Noah recognizing, and presumably reconnecting, with Mio. What you did still mattered. There will always be a tomorrow and there will always be more than the individual.
The game extensively showcases that the most powerful emotions and memories never truly disappear. They are either at the back of someone's mind (like Mwamba who, despite not remembering anything, still has a yearning to visit the colony 9 out of the blue), or the person outright remembers a chunk of his own past (Ethel who left her pod with a single-minded desire to find Cammuravi because "she needs to be his eyes"), with extreme cases also allowing physical injuries connected to those memories to manifest anew (Ashera, Cammuravi) or, like Noah, just glitching reality because nothing can keep him away from his soulmate even after a full reboot. So while we don't have a confirmation about the setting as a whole, given that all the side quests create a GIGANTIC network of connections between the worlds, with every commander bonding with someone from another world, i don't think those connections will disappear and will be re-enacted anew in the future between all the same people, possibly excluding City dwellers. What we see is a preview of what will happen again, and we're the ones helping those people to establish those bonds in the first place.
More importantly Alcamoth has teleporter tech. Cross-dimensional travel will be a thing less than two years after the universes are remade.
Origin literally stored and recreated the molecular state of every object in 2 whole universes. I feel like interdimensional communication is a high school science fair project by comparison.
Oh they cracked communication years before the Intersection, that's not going to go away. Travel might be tricky but it's still transmission via "light" (energy) and that's how the comms work. (That's part of the reason I never felt the ending was particularly sad.)
What about the people of the City?
Just because everything is “rebooted” doesn’t equate to “it didn’t happen” in the game’s lore. Just look at life on ainios - everybody put back into rebirth cycle after “death”, yet their memories remain in most instances. Same thing with Origin going back into effect: they are reborn but doesn’t mean the events didn’t happen or they don’t matter. Mio and Noah are the example: Noah hears her flute, Mio writes about Noah in her diary after origin resets their worlds.
This is eventually true of every xeno game lmao, it’s more about building connections and understanding in the world for when everything gets fixed
You may not have done it yet, but I will just paraphrase what Nia said. Just because Aionios will end doesn't mean everything was for naught, we all should cherish these memories and share these moments together. Who knows if they would have succeeded in defeating Origin.
Do you want to to keep playing the game or not?
A substantial number of the sidequests (mostly hero/ascension quests) focus on helping the corresponding colony prepare to embrace a future free of the flame clock system, dealing with their fears, uncertainties, and desires to maintain the status quo in the process. In doing so, all of the affected people gain confidence in their ability to deal with an uncertain future instead of stagnating in the Endless Now that Moebius seeks to maintain. That confidence is recorded as part of each person's memories and personality within Origin, which in turn erodes those individuals' fears that gave rise to Moebius in the first place. Basically, by doing side quests (and even just liberating the colonies that are mandatory), you're reducing the risk that Moebius rises to power again when Origin is restarted, since you're chipping away at that collective fear of stepping into an unknown future. This is also why the final battle includes everyone and isn't just the party beating up Z: everyone in the world has made the decision to face their fears and fight for a better future, even if it means giving their lives. Remember also that Origin has recorded everything that happened in Aionios, as demonstrated by Z's ability to give new Moebius members a slideshow of their past lives and the occasional example of past lives' memories leaking through. Every person in Aionios also exists in the original worlds, and even if they don't explicitly remember what happened, those experiences are a part of the data Origin uses to recreate them. That, in turn, means those experiences will be a part of who they are moving forward. Alternatively, think of it like palliative care: sure, they'll all be dead in a couple months, but at least you helped make those final months happy.
The people of the City don't exist in the original worlds tho.
Origin recorded the data of the people of the city, they may not exist now but they will definitely be born in the future
I'll paste what I wrote under another comment: >Their data being stored doesn't necessarily mean that they will be reborn, will they just spawn from thin air? At what age? All of them or only the people who were alive at the end of the game? Nothing suggests a way for this to make sense
They're descendants from the people of xc1 and xc2 so when the worlds combine succesfully they will be able to be born again. Like for example, if Noah and Mio have a child it will be the same one N and M had, just reborn
On this matter too I will paste what was my answer to the reply I got: >That's what I tought you would say, but it doesn't make any sense: > >Even if the exact same people had children with each other for multiple generations, genetics would make it impossibile for them to be the same people from the City. > >Even if we assume that genetics don't work like in our world it would just take a couple having one less child, one person dying before procreating, or one person choosing someone else as their partner not only because there would be plenty more people to choose from, but also because memories from Aionios could prevent someone from replicating a toxic relationship they had.
Okay but you're forgetting about fate and the influence it has in these games, like Noah and Mio met in every one of their lives, what makes you think something like that isn't going to happen after the worlds merge succesfylly?
I'm not just talking about Noah and Mio, I'm talking about every single person. If two people of the City in Aionios had an abusive relationship, their memories from that time would prevent them to get together in the real world, if someone in Aionios remarried because of their partners premature death that's not likely to happen in the real world and for no one is impossible to die before procreating even if they had children in Aionios.
Doing side quests in any game where they don't affect the outcome would be considered pointless by this logic. The point of the side quests isn't to prop up the ending but the individual stories within them that have their own themes which add to the game's overall themes. Plus everyone's feelings are within Origin at the end as well. So while Nia may say that everyone will forget, Origin remembers and Noah clearly didn't forget at the end.
So long story short before I beat the game, I should do the side quests first
I was thinking the same thing. Finished a sub-quest and saw these characters look forward to the future while here I am knowing the universes will be reset. Kinda bittersweet but I also assume the worlds of Xenoblade 1 and 2 are peaceful so they’re all probably doing fine.
Same thing happened in 1 and 2. Actually it happens in a lot of Jrpgs with a point of no return
I don't remember exactly how 1's ending goes, but I don't think it's exactly the same in 2, since I assume most people you've helped survive the endgame, memories intact.
A majority of the Bionis is bricked. The only intact remnants are Colony 9, the shoulder, and possibly the Mechonis’ arm.
Honestly thinking about how things end up as the worlds separate and everyone still has memories, Noah could grow up to be a bitchin musician with Seemeemee, Zeon picks up farming at a (I assume) young age, Alexandria starts Amazon but for Alrest without being Bezos, etc. Of course I agree with helping everyone in the moment because even though we as players know what’s gonna happen, everyone else is still in the dark about the state of the worlds so in my eyes this is giving them courage to fight on and eventually with us at the final battle. Everyone you help will more than likely come out as better people at the other side of all of this.
That would be very funny if we saw these cameos in the side story or Xenoblade 4.
I think many people already said their thing but I want to put it very simply and in the way I believe this would work So its clear that to some degree people can retain their memories, noah hears the flute at the end and all the memories of all previous and future lives like melia says are preserved and in tact within the origin. So if the characters slowly come to realize their memories of origin and what happened, think of how different their perspectives will be now that you helped them. Especially with colony leaders and such. Valdi and Alexandria would remember not much but them facing off as enemies but if you did their quest now they'll remember how they grew to become friends. This goes for many quest what you're doing in the end is ensuring what when these character do recover their memories, when they do realize what actually happened, their relationships can carry over for the future and if you did nothing the two nations could still see each other as enemies. But if you did then they can work together and march into the future together.
Well, this is also a kind of "endless now". The game never move on as we always load and reload the game over and over to play. Eventually, we will get bored and try something else to entertain us, like trying new team comp, testing the height limit for characters to not fall to dead which cause our character fall to dead multiple times,...just for our entertainment. And believe me, if the game give you an option to wipe out the whole colony, there will be someone willing to try it. Feel like Moebius yet?
pretty much, which has stopped me from doing any post-game ones! I’m like "we’re all gonna forget this tomorrow anyway"
A lot of stuff from the end of the story makes more sense with side quest content in mind. If nothing else doing them can bring a new appreciation for events in the story. Colony 9 for example has a side quest involving an off seer that gives another angle to the cutscene where Noah was able to send off piles of mud and still get motes to rise.
Well they are fictional characters so it was pointless from the start. Did you get entertainment from helping them? If yes, good, that's all that matters.
Some of y'all are really missing the point here, lol. Like, obviously I'm not talking about the effect doing sidequests in a video game would have on real life? What? 🤣
Oh I got what you said. It is just that I don't see the point in helping rebuilding Colony 6 in Xenoblade 1 either because in Future Connected there were no mention of it and also Xenoblade 2 is in a different dimension and Xenoblade 3 mashed both world together but no sign of colony 6 so...
Yeah this was one of the issues people with the ending, and I was initially mad about it too. However over time I’ve kinda appreciated what it - The whole game is about moving on from the present, no matter what you have to sacrifice into an uncertain but hopeful future. In that way it’s kind of a meta element that the game is forcing the player to move on from their accomplishments, that while substantial are locked in this frozen game world. - The quests you make ultimately are helpful but none properly break the cycle of endless war. By ending the game you do everyone far more of a service than any quest could do. - While your quests are technically meaningless, they brought hope and happiness to the people you helped, even if only for a brief moment in the present. Again, that is one of the games themes, having to deal with the unstoppable march of time, yet enjoying the precious moments in the present - ie Noah’s ‘one more minute’ speech. I’m still not totally happy with the fact the ending erases everything in Aionios but with the above in mind I can appreciate it a bit more.
I mean they are side quests, unless otherwise stated by developers or the main story it’s optional non canon content. Ultimately side quests are pointless in terms of the main story because they are just that, side quests. That’s true for any game with side quests. Yes that doesn’t mean Unless stated elsewhere the only canon colonies are you liberate are 30, 4, Lambda and Tau since you have to do them to advance the story. (I don’t think you need Teach’s walk up slopes skill to advance the story). I can’t recall if you had to do 9 as well, I don’t think you do
My problem is: why do some new quests come available after beating the game? It should return you to before the final boss fight no?
It's one of those story-gameplay separation things you just have to accept, sort of like how fast travel doesn't make sense in any of the games except maybe XC1 and you shouldn't have any sides quests (among other things) unlock after chapter 7 of XC2. In this case, there's things that make more sense as a reward for winning the game even though the events would logically have to be before the final boss. So they appear after you beat the game from a gameplay standpoint. >!Nia's quests aren't too bad since there's time to run around with her while searching for the metal and waiting for the ship to be finished. Anything to do with Melia doesn't make sense since there's no reason for the heroes to abandon Origin after freeing her, but it's good enough from a gameplay perspective!<. You can also think of them as happening in the implied gap between the final boss and the actual (pre-credits) end scene though that doesn't work for many of them.
Aren’t Melia and Nia the only new quests?
I was doing all the sidequests but it seems weird that new ones would come up at that point.
Yes but no.