Alright, getting back to this thread, sorry for the delay. I saw/read this post yesterday, but it was in the middle of my Yakuza Kiwami session, and I was going to respond to it when I finished, but my internet decided to go on the fritz, and I wasn't going to type this on my phone, so... I slept.
You're
begging the question here, in that your "standard" is just the rule you are asserting should be so, but the very question is whether they would move beyond that point. I'd also challenge your assertion that no previous part of anybody's narrative has gone beyond the events depicted in SCI: Cassandra's narrative clearly covers SCII events, as does Amy's (Amy is a child when we see her in the prologue movie of SCII, an event that clearly takes place early in Amy's SCVI chronicle (her age in SCIII also seems to be younger than that of her final age in SCVI). And the same for Hilde: her story clearly ends close enough to the events of SCIV that at least some portion of her narrative is virtually certain to have taken place contemporaneous with events in SCII and SCIII.
There are only two possible ways to resolve these facts: entire portions of the story take place earlier than they previously did, or certain events for certain characters now occur at different times, relative to those of other characters. Whichever it is, it invalidates your premise that there is a strict and inviolable standard here that precludes anyone not introduced before SCII being added. And honestly, I would have thought that Hilde would have disabused you of the belief that we could make grand proclamations about who will get in based on such an assertion.
And I'll defend my position that I'm only going by what they've shown me. There is a bias in my beliefs, to be certain, and there's no illusion that there isn't, before I say anything else, but... Cassandra's story doesn't cover SoulCalibur II events, because everything she did predates the birth of Pyrrha and Patroklos, which is between SoulCalibur and SoulCalibur II. There's some mirroring in what she does, but it's not the same. This Cassandra stole Sophitia's old weapons from SoulBlade, while SoulCalibur II Cassandra stole Sophitia's reforged weapons from SoulCalibur. This jaunt about her getting god power blessings in the weapons and her visited by her future self is "new", but it's still all before SoulCalibur II.
Amy's doesn't either, as that child version of Amy in the SoulCalibur II opening is a prologue of sorts to Raphael's story, as that Raphael is also before the beginning of SoulCalibur II, being chased by the soldiers. Chronologically, it doesn't clash. Amy's SoulCalibur III appearance versus what she looks like in SoulCalibur VI, I feel is mostly a design clash and the general ever-expanding proportions of SoulCalibur. Compare SoulCalibur VI Talim to SoulCalibur II Talim, and you'll see a similar discrepancy, or any other female character, for that matter. But no, if you consult with Raphael's SoulCalibur II bio, it covers the events that we saw play out for the first time in SoulCalibur VI, of child Amy saving Raphael, and she becomes a teenager by SoulCalibur II-IV time.
Hilde's is the only one that's a bit ambiguous, because there's some sort of a timeskip during her last chapter, the part where Wilhelm departs and then the part where Hilde addresses her people. She speaks of Nightmare returning, but it isn't clear if she's referring to Siegfried coming back for SoulCalibur II (my interpretation, of course) or the Nightmare from SoulCalibur IV. The only thing that really makes it uncertain is that she's wearing her SoulCalibur IV armor in the scene, where in even just before, where Wilhelm leaves, she's still wearing her SoulCalibur VI armor. It could be extrapolated, however, that her SoulCalibur IV armor is her official armor when she ascended the throne, though why it's less gaudy than what she had before is anyone's guess. Hilde's got a long-standing grudge against Nightmare, so her bout with the one from SoulCalibur IV is not her first. You could say it's a "retcon", but that's more in-line with everything else they've done, using SoulCalibur VI as if everything created after SoulCalibur existed, but was in SoulCalibur.
So no, my stance hasn't changed, everything in SoulCalibur VI is before SoulCalibur II begins, and everything to come is almost certainly as well.
Wait, what? How does that exclude anything? Viola's story would always have to take place after Amy's--there's never been any doubt about that.
Because Amy's SoulCalibur VI story concludes right at the precipice of SoulCalibur II, and it can't possibly go any further, due to the standards set.
Again, you're begging the question. And I might add, that all of this is premised on your belief that the events of the previous games will be absolutely, unerringly (and boringly) repeated, ad nauseum--a belief the rest of us as a class pretty much completely reject. In fact, I'd go farther and say that the last few Soul Chronicles have already clearly demonstrated events that are either absolutely at variance with the previous story or which heavily imply such a variance.
I haven't been led to believe otherwise, so I'm not sure why it's so alien to believe that history will repeat itself. We have Cassandra and Zasalamel with knowledge of the future, but that's really it. No one else is the wiser, and they won't be, as both of them are sworn themselves to secrecy. As it stands, due to this, because of this, or in spite of this, history could still very well repeat itself, because the majority of the cast is unaware that they are repeating themselves, so they have no reason to behave differently, unless they are given external stimulus by some overarching change, in the bigger picture. So far, this has not happened.
SoulCalibur VI could very well have started to make the changes to set up the future, but they didn't. They gave us hints and teases about both a new future (Cassandra, Zasalamel) as well as the future we already know (Raphael, Amy, Siegfried). It's like they covered their bases for both scenarios, and so SoulCalibur VII will be the game to have real answers one way or the other. It stands to reason that all remaining SoulCalibur VI content will continue to do as the content up until now has done, playing it safe, catering to fans, and not rocking the boat too much.
But even if the auto-pilot repeat was the objective, that would still not rule out a soul chronicle that took place later in the narrative (that's just your rule) and the entire selling point of an immediately-post-transformation/amnesiac Viola is that it permits for preview chapter that doesn't create many problems for the future storytelling. Which is A) what Ramusu was inquiring about, and B) really the only practical issue here: there is no reason to believe that a rule you believe you perceive will hold, nor is "they haven't done it yet" a compelling argument--they hadn't added a SCIV original character until Hilde either, and they hadn't had a late-series tie-in until future Cassandra came back. Clearly the farther they get in, the more the classic vibe is eroding.
It's not my rule. I didn't make it, I've just observed what's been given to us so far and reported on it. To have a story breach the start of SoulCalibur II would be to start a new trend. Not impossible, no, but nothing has done it yet, so I'm not sure why, all the other content playing by that rule, all of a sudden, why Viola would be allowed to break it. The bigger issue lies with that it's presumed that Amy will continue to be Amy through, at the absolute bare minimum, barring a story divergence, the events of SoulCalibur II. She could transition either during or after the events of SoulCalibur II, or even make it all the way through SoulCalibur IV. As of right now, we do not know. But Viola will not exist prior to SoulCalibur II, and that's the important key factor in deciding whether or not she's allowed to have a story in SoulCalibur VI. I've explained above why Cassandra and Hilde also aren't breaking anything, as they are. I'm also not really convinced that Setsuka would have anything in her story that would break anything, and Hwang certainly won't.
The other folks who don't have stories, 2B and Haohmaru, are justified in not having them, not because they're guests, but because their stories take place in the distant future and the not-so-distant-but-still-distant-enough future where they cannot coincide with the events of the present. Geralt got a pass because he caught a portal from his world into SoulCalibur's world, which is also our world. Both Nier and Samurai Shodown also use our world as a base, much like SoulCalibur does, but The Witcher does not, which is what allowed it to be the exception for guests having stories. I guarantee you that if we actually got a period-specific guest from another franchise, they could and would probably have a story. But that's the thing, they may have chosen the guests specifically because they couldn't have a story, to save the costs/time to make a story, to put some real-world logic to it.
Eh, those sound more like the standards which would match up most cleanly your over-arching theories regarding the plot, and which you are putting in the devs' mouths. They certainly have said nothing explicit about having such standards, and as to contextual evidence in the plot itself, most of us think the 'absolute redux' is already a dead-in-the-water theory based on the contents of the recent soul chronicles (and never was that likely to begin with).
Of course they do, as is the nature of any such speculation, you speak from your heart, what you believe is happening and what you believe will happen. I'm calling it like I see it. No, they haven't said it explicitly, and they won't, because they're leaving their options open. Same goes for this being a "reboot", they pretty much went silent on that
soon after Okubo's statement that "reboot" wasn't really the correct term to use, which is what spurred my beliefs in the first place. The game has done almost nothing but support me at every turn, save Cassandra's and Zasalamel's potential influence.
As for the "absolute redux" thing, as I mentioned above, it is that, except they have more things to work with now than what they did back in the late 90s. They used everything that has been created before, during, and after SoulCalibur to remake SoulCalibur into a "what it would have been" if all of that stuff had existed from the beginning. That's my position, if I'm not being clear enough. Cassandra's goal to save Sophitia, albeit with information that she may or may not have had before, hasn't changed. Zasalamel's goal has changed, to cultivate humanity instead of just wishing for his own death, but you could even see his cultivating humanity notion in his SoulCalibur IV ending, where he exists in the future where business suits and helicopters do, and he's still doing his overseer time lord thing. So this could be a jumpstart rather than a change, a way to avoid revisiting Abyss, perhaps to give Night Terror center stage for the canon this go-around. SoulCalibur III never was really clear as to what exactly happened during its ending, whether it was canon to fight Abyss or to fight Night Terror, and Night Terror definitely exists in canon, while Abyss didn't return to SoulCalibur IV, sooo... yeah.
Anyway, I'm stating all of the above to play devil's advocate to some claims you make about what "absolute cannot happen" (or sometimes only slightly more softly phrased as "they would clearly never do that"/"they have clearly decided not to do that") That's just way too much of an overstatement of the certainty of your pet theory. There are any number of reasons why they may choose to include here, and any number of ways to bend the plot to accommodate that if they choose to.
I stand by my convictions pretty heavily, I guess, is all I can really say about it. It's the way I'd prefer it happen, for various reasons, and they've more than framed things in a way that they seem to be on the same page, or at least in the same book, as I am. At the end of the day, yes, if they want to include Viola, they will, and they'll write in a way to make it happen. I've never said that they couldn't. But that also was not the original question, either. It was, and I quote:
is there any way they can add Viola without it being incredibly convoluted? I feel that there is no way they can do so until a sequel for her to "fit".
No, they cannot do it without it being incredibly convoluted. Our back and forth about what they're doing, what they plan to do, what they can do, etc., should more than be evidence enough to quantify that statement. There is not a way to "fit" Viola into the story of before SoulCalibur II, which is the story of SoulCalibur VI (from the end of SoulBlade to the beginning of SoulCalibur II), unless they pull something completely out of left field like time travel, portals, memory transmission, deadly premonition, what have you. And they certainly can and are within their rights to do so, I'm not disputing that. It's just that as it stands, Viola showing up, saying, "Hey guys, I exist now." (except super cryptically with references to the moon and wine), wouldn't be something that I would consider normal or well-reasoned.
Do I think she is the most likely character? No, I think there are probably three, four, maybe five characters that are more likely than she is to take one of those last three or four legacy spots. But is it a "they would never even think about it" kind of situation? Not remotely. She's a popular character as the remaining legacy characters go, her moveset is unique and would bring a lot to the game mechanically, she's the only remaining female legacy character after Setsuka who is alive early enough to be added, and her story (particularly if she is added last) could be a narrative bridge to future installments, giving a little glimpse of the future--which is a pretty standard story trope in pop speculative fiction.
Gameplay is the only thing she really has going for her, honestly. But you could say the same of Z.W.E.I., and we both know how you feel about him. They were both reasonably popular, far more popular than the kids who replaced the veterans. Viola more popular than Z.W.E.I. for a few different reasons, but practically speaking, Z.W.E.I. was, hands down, the worst character of SoulCalibur V, and support was dropped before he could be retooled into a competitive beast. He could stand to see a second chance, his style brought up to speed, especially with SoulCalibur VI's gimmick appeal and general flashiness, Z.W.E.I. would feel right at home. But I harp on about Z.W.E.I. because she and Viola are practically joined at the hip, as it relates to their character identities, and having one without the other would feel strange. Which is, to the core of my beliefs, why I will stand by the feeling that they plan to hold on to Viola (and Z.W.E.I.) for the sequel. They teased Amy traveling with a male companion on her quest to save Raphael for the SoulCalibur II events. It is very likely that this gentleman will be the one who will turn out to be Z.W.E.I., whoever he is at the present time (ooo mystery).
And I'll put this here, because it addresses the last thing you said:
Is a description of something else entirely.
It was a possible interpretation of what you said, in that any Viola would be necessarily from the future (as she is Amy and Amy is Viola, and Amy, right now, is pretty busy being Amy), and the framing for such a story would thus need to be her recalling her past, or at least trying, with her memory loss issues. This kind of plot revelation, however, I feel is more appropriate for when we get back to her, she does get her memories back (if she does), and is ruminating to herself the events that transpired to lead her to her current state.
Edit: Typo fix.
to be DLC