How will the new timeline diverge from the old?

Rusted Blade said:
...surely you have a thought or two about something you'd like to see happen that could not have happened in the original story because of the course events took therein?
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I mean kind of not really? I do continue to hope we get back to the events of SoulCalibur V in some way, shape, or form, particularly for Raphael, Amy/Viola, and Z.W.E.I.’s story. I want to know if they still had design notes from back then to actually make it happen this time so we can solve that mystery. I do also want to see Natsu have a second chance like Setsuka just got, seeing her origins fleshed out and her tutelage under Taki would be something I’m quite interested in.

About Hwang, it was implied in what I said that there would be new ground covered, as we only really have a tiny bit of actual Hwang lore as it is, since he predates the games actually trying to even halfway take its story seriously to have a narrative to begin with. I’m hoping that Hwang is given a fair shot at existing and continuing to exist moving forward, and not left behind in obscurity with Li Long. They’ll have to add some new hooks to his story to compete with the length of the Setsuka/Mitsurugi story we just got, and I can’t really see them walking back to make a shorter story, as they’ve been progressively making longer stories as they’ve gone along.

Beyond SoulCalibur VI, though, I would also like to see Dampierre and his gang actually exist and be fleshed out instead of Dampierre being a joke character with only allusions to his underlings. We could see a berth of new styles from them, perhaps, so they’re more than just comic relief. If handled properly, I feel they have some unrealized potential.

Depending on what they plan on doing with Grøh and the Aval Organization going forward, that opens a lot of other opportunities for new plot beats Azwel, and I mostly wonder if they’ll have pages in everyone’s story eventually, since I still think them working with Wolfkrone was a bit unexpected, anything could happen really.

I guess beyond all that, though, I’m just not really a storywriter. I enjoy and get immersed in stories that others tell, and will enrich myself in all the lore if I’m super interested in it, but making stuff up myself? Not really my strong suit.
 
LisaK said:
Right now I just want know who is the malfested bixxh in Setsuka Story Mode and how this will affect her..
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My vote is Anju. They say she died, but that didn’t stop Shugen from looming over Gyobu and driving him mad, so there’s something going on with the Kokonoe clan where they can keep living after death, it seems. Add Soul Edge shards to the mix, and anything’s possible, really.
 
DanteSC3 said:
My vote is Anju. They say she died, but that didn’t stop Shugen from looming over Gyobu and driving him mad, so there’s something going on with the Kokonoe clan where they can keep living after death, it seems. Add Soul Edge shards to the mix, and anything’s possible, really.
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WHO IS ANJU!!!!????
 
I'm assuming mystery woman's a new character. She seems to be a chess master of sorts going by her methods (well, method given how little we've seen of her), and that doesn't really fit with anyone I can think of already established. Maybe someone from Chronicles of the Sword or Legends, which isn't impossible given characters like Geki showing up, but it's not something I'd hold my breathe for.

DanteSC3 said:
My vote is Anju. They say she died, but that didn’t stop Shugen from looming over Gyobu and driving him mad, so there’s something going on with the Kokonoe clan where they can keep living after death, it seems. Add Soul Edge shards to the mix, and anything’s possible, really.
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I personally interpreted the 'Ghost of Shugen' thing being in Gyobu's head as a side effect of the malfestation, since he was implanted with a shard of Soul Edge.

Also, I'm operating under the assumption that Masked!Cass is still around to some degree since she's the Ancient Battle in Libra for her style. Because I like the idea of part of the old timeline sticking around further.
 
Metroidwave said:
someone from Chronicles of the Sword or Legends
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I'm sure the chronicles are part of a parallel reality, the characters themselves use Soul Calibur x Soul Edge, but how would that be possible if the swords are possesed by Xianghua, Cervantes, Siegfried, Nightmare..
As for Legends I doubt it, I think Azwel would be the closest to 'Iska', some could mention Geki and Maki, but both already existed, but they were only worked on Legends and recently in the Taki story.
 
DanteSC3 said:
But we’re in a new timeline now, so anything could happen. Kappa

Luna can be canon now. Make it happen Okubo! smallkappa
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Valeria first, surely! (Now the real struggle begins. :D)

You know, with all of the many new sword and shield dynamics that have been introduced between the last two games, how is it that none of Abelia's signature moves have been woven back in? What a missed opportunity.
 
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DanteSC3 said:
I believe I have to concede defeat as to my previous views. I said that I would admit that I was wrong when it was clearly proven that we are indeed on a new timeline, and, well, Setsuka's story has gone and done it. It's been a journey, to be sure, and this is an unexpected ending, for Setsuka, of all people, to be the first one to truly branch out and forge a new destiny, but... it is what it is. We'll see how the rest ends up. I'm excited to see what Hwang will bring us.

Her story ends in 1988, two years prior to SoulCalibur III, and not only did she flatly reject going for revenge on Mitsurugi, she's got an entirely new quest on her docket, which has nothing at all to do with her previous revenge / redemption plot. It's definitely more interesting than she was before, has a lot of potential to be interesting, and I hope she gets further developments on this story moving forward. Best of all, our mysterious entity at the end (Anju?) has ties to Soul Edge, clearly, so perhaps the Kokonoe clan will have a role to play in the future with regards to the swords as well.
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So, despite how much I've longed for this moment, I can't help but feel your concession is premature.

Her story here ends with her standing at Shugen's grave and telling him:

"Once I finish my task in Japan, I shall leave on a journey of vengeance... not as a pupil who lost her master, but as a woman robbed of her love.

(That man stole my master. He stole my life! Now, I live to defeat him.)

(Getting my revenge... will set me free!)

Master, I will find Heishiro Mitsurugi and slay him. Even if I must defy your wishes to do it!"
---

To me, this sounds like the same vengefully deluded woman we would expect to meet in 1590, two years later. There's plenty of time for her to see to her sidequest in Japan before pursuing Mitsurugi all over creation for her original silly mission.

I was momentarily excited to see you prepared to concede, but much as I expect would be the case with Shugen and Mitsurugi, I wouldn't have you accept defeat unearned.
Rusted Blade said:
I'm inquiring, in line with the thread title, about divergences from the original narrative: what might you like to see go differently? We all know you were the last to give up the ghost on this being a flat-out repeat of the original story, but now that you acknowledge this is not the case (and let's save any caveats about how the story is still cleaving pretty close to the original for now, aside from elements of Amy, Cassie, Zas, and Setsuka's story--that's granted for the purposes of this discussion), surely you have a thought or two about something you'd like to see happen that could not have happened in the original story because of the course events took therein?
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Definitely something different for Cassandra than that Astral Chaos bullshit.
 
TresDias said:
So, despite how much I've longed for this moment, I can't help but feel your concession is premature.
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Oh? Care to share details as to why you feel this way? I can still see the train, I can definitely hop back on board if there's reason to believe it's still running!
 
TresDias said:
I go into it under the spoiler tag.
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Oh, well I guess I'm blind. I didn't see that when I first saw your post. And actually... I'm not entirely sure how I missed that part of her ending. Maybe I spaced for some reason, but I could've sworn that she said she wasn't going to do that, that she would respect his wishes, that she was going to be burdened with her new mission to find out the mysteries of the Kokonoe clan to be worried about petty revenge. Oh well! -hops back on the train- :sc4amy1:

(I can already hear Rusted Blade crying out in despair.)
 
DanteSC3 said:
Oh, well I guess I'm blind. I didn't see that when I first saw your post. And actually... I'm not entirely sure how I missed that part of her ending. Maybe I spaced for some reason, but I could've sworn that she said she wasn't going to do that, that she would respect his wishes, that she was going to be burdened with her new mission to find out the mysteries of the Kokonoe clan to be worried about petty revenge. Oh well! -hops back on the train- :sc4amy1:

(I can already hear Rusted Blade crying out in despair.)
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No skin off of my nose. Besides, to be honest, while I think the writing has long been quite clearly on the wall about whether this is a strict redux story, the reasons really have very little to do with how Setsuka's story has played out.

It is kind of peculiar, I will say, that they left some degree of ambiguity as to this point though: they thematically go out of their way to make Shugen's thoughts on the matter plain to Setsuka and in a way where you would thinks he, of all people, would understand and respect his feelings, and for a time it certainly seems as if she is going to comply. The way they set that whole aspect of the story up, it honestly feels like her decision to ditch that perspective is more an insult to Shugen's dignity and memory than anything Mitsurugi did, so it's hard to feel that her motivations make much sense or are self-consistent with the story being told, or make for a relatable protagonist moving forward.

It would be one thing for her to find her master's body and learn of the ronin who cut him down and to pledge vengeance: that's a well-worn plot beat: tragic quest of vengeance based partly on mistake, or just willful ignorance of the facts. But here, Setsuka has all the context, knows the Shugen doesn't bear Mitsurugi any ill-will and indeed finds a kind of beauty and meaning in having met his end in the kind of exchange he had with Mitsurugi. That he loathes the idea of his student and his greatest opponent fighting, and that his last wish is for her to be free of any anger over the matter. And instead she pretty much says "Nah, I think I'll just be petty about this, even though I was specifically raised as a warrior to expect that this is the way it can end for any of us, and this particular situation is about as respectful and mutually agreed upon a way for it to happen as is possible." For....reasons?

The idea seems to be that her being in love with Shugen causes her to be unable to think beyond her own loss, whatever Shugen's desires, but her choice to express her love by refusing his dying wish (and I think, doesn't she even vow to Shugen not to take vengeance?) doesn't fit well with the rest of the context and seems so at odds with how they structure and pace the story. In short, I'm not surprised you were thrown, Dante. Your original interpretation may be refuted by the elements Tres mentions, but it certainly seems like the more intuitive end to that story.

But yeah, there were always better reasons than Setsuka's story to recognize the situation for what it is with regard to the rework--even if your initial read of Setsuka's story hadn't been undermined by Tres.
 
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Have to agree there: Dante's initial understanding was the far more intuitive interpretation of the direction it was headed until that final minute. I guess we really are supposed to see Setsuka as irrational.
 
Rusted Blade said:
But yeah, there were always better reasons than Setsuka's story to recognize the situation for what it is with regard to the rework--even if your initial read of Setsuka's story hadn't been undermined by Tres.
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This still has my disagreement, which is why I got back on the train. :sc2xia1:

But to Setsuka's story, they really did just, at the last second, throw the Mitsurugi revenge plot back on to the table. If that last line wasn't there, then my interpretation would be the way of things, but now I guess she's investigating the Kokonoe clan from 1588-1590 and then starts her revenge operations against Mitsurugi, putting us on the same world line of the original timeline once again. Cassandra is murky, Zasalamel remains to be seen, but everyone else is still headed to the same conclusion as before, it seems like, hence my contention.
 
Sigh Are we doing this again now? Tres, maybe I do have a bone to pick with you afterall!

DanteSC3 said:
Cassandra is murky,
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You have an interesting definition of 'murky' when it comes to pivotal plot points that flatly void out your pet theory that the plot is not a new timeline. Original timeline Cassandra comes back in time and tells her younger self what's what about her family's fate. Younger Cassandra thereafter has an entire adventure that it is expressly inconsistent with when she first takes up arms in the original narrative, and it's implied that's (of course) because she is determined things go differently this time. How is that in the least bit murky or vague?

Wait, don't answer that question--I already know your answer: well it's not a "substantial" deviance (in your subjective, vague assertion) and anyway, we don't know--she just might somehow end up doing everything the same from here. But that's not murky my friend--that's your OCD/fangirl hard-on for the lore of the series causing you go into deep denial about elements of the story that tell you expressly in facts and additionally in tone, clear indicators as to the creative intent.

DanteSC3 said:
Zasalamel remains to be seen,
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Again, he clearly has a vision about the future and clearly changes his very raison d'etre, which in turn means that virtually the entire plot of Soulcalibur III is changed.

DanteSC3 said:
but everyone else is still headed to the same conclusion as before, it seems like, hence my contention.
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If you say so. But here's the problem with taking you on faith about that: when you describe things like the above (and other elements you have dismissed) as either vague or not substantial enough to be counted, it means I can't altogether trust that there aren't other inconsistencies you don't mention that you've come across in your exhaustive scrutinizing of both the original narrative in the old games and this one, but which you just didn't even bother to flag because to you they are not enough to constitute "true" changes.


Anyway, getting back to speculation, it does seem that Azwel has some degree of understanding of the future and uses it to his advantage. I wonder if his role as Scholar of the Future can be taken to suggest that he craved the power of Soulcalibur and Soul Edge and foresaw that they would be lost to him, and so has schemed to manipulate events to keep that from happening. It's all a bit confused with him. Just within the timframe of this game, he wanted the weapons for the True Seed or whatever (more goofy pop fantasy nonsense), but its pretty vague as to what exactly that would entail. Maybe he timed his shot at the ritual for the only time he could predict/engineer having the weapons and when he was foiled, he had to act to preserve the weapons.

But I don't know, his whole story is just full of vagueries and narrative elements that I call 'not-even plot holes'; you can't exactly say his characters ambitions are inconsistent or not, because everything about his motivation is delivered in goblidogook dialogue. The story clearly treats him as a villain but he also has this vague "Saviour of Humanity" title, and if it's some sort of ironic statement on his delusional mind (or just macabre insincere, because he doesn't care about people really) it's not at all made clear. His voice performance is so over the top, it erases any hint that might have been given there as to whether he is actually someone who is conflicted about wanting to protect humanity and yet he has to do inhumane things to accomplish it.

So is the idea just that he's truly insane, such that he can hold these two conflictory ideas (that he's a hero, even as he wantonly acts a sociopath towards everyone in his path)? If so, the story again fails to deliver on that clarity, essentially just making him a kind of clownish figure that can only be taken seriously in the narrative because of his Power Level and the fact that the plot warps around him to make his schemes more viable than maybe they ought to be. But again, who can say for certainty--everything about the mystical energy plot and his conspiracy theory is just so generic and broadly drawn. Anyway, I have to think, whatever his initial plans, if he does have any kind of window into the future, he can't be keen to see those weapons locked away as they were at the end of SCV.

Lastly, there's another character here who bears mentioning: Edge Master. He is conspicuously missing as a POV character in this game, and he is the only one we have seen in the story so far who can use the Astral Chaos to time travel with some degree of control. If Azwel really is looking to manipulate events to his own purposes, one has to wonder if maybe a coordinated intervention by Cassandra, Zasalamel, and Edge Master might not be in the wings, hokey as that may sound, with the story gettign so heavily influenced by time travel shenanigans. But let's face it, that's where we are today with at least some characters--it's now as major a part of the lore as anything after the last few games (particularly if we count the non-numericals).
 
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I didn't back then and I'm still not arguing that Cassandra of the future visited Cassandra of the past, as that would just be foolish to deny the facts that are clearly in front of us. This causes her to take an early journey during SoulCalibur times instead of only setting out for the first time in SoulCalibur II times, but it's still factual that she's going to go on her SoulCalibur II times, and as of right now, she hasn't used any of her knowledge from the future to prevent anything from happening the way that it's destined to happen. I've suggested as much before, but I'll repeat myself in saying that she could have either stopped Sophitia from having children or she could have acted as a surrogate mother, because she knows that Pyrrha and Patroklos will be tainted due to the Soul Edge fragments wedged in Sophitia's heart. She chose to not do anything, so she is not herself changing fate, though she has the knowledge to do so if she so chooses. If she keeps on this path, finding herself unable to act, then history is indeed doomed to repeat itself. Her goal in the original course was to save Sophitia from her charge from the gods, and that's still true of our current chain of events.

The difference is that Cassandra has knowledge from the future, but if she never puts it to use, then it amounts to a hill of beans whether or not she has that knowledge or not. So yes, you knew what I was going to say before I said it, but that's just the way it is, at least for now. And it's important to consider, because like Setsuka's path that differs from the original (but only in that new information and new events have transpired, which don't in and of themselves avoid the future that is to come), yet still appears to continue to approach the same end result, it continues with it the history is doomed to repeat itself mantra, which means we're going to end up the same way we did before, whether we like it or not. It's fatalistic as all hell, I'm aware, but until a path presents itself that can't possibly end up the same way, that's essentially the guideline that I'm using the determine my point of view.

Zasalamel is another story, but his is the hardest to read, because he is perhaps the character who does the least acting in all of SoulCalibur VI, instead just observing and planning his future, trying to make sense of the current state of affairs, between his memory from the future that he received from himself, trying to rationalize that reality, and yet observing the world around him not go the way that he's expecting it to go, which in turn, all things considered, changes his goal from that of wishing to die to cultivating humanity to see what they can truly accomplish, which is quite different, granted, but still, ultimately, requires the power of the swords in order to accomplish, means that, while his intentions are different, it remains possible that his actions ultimately have the same end result, in that he either awakens Abyss inside himself and/or awakens Night Terror, and that surge of energy, combined with the duel between Siegfried and Nightmare, then awakens Algol, then we have repeated history, that's possible and probable a turn of events.

Stepping back a phase, because that would be SoulCalibur III stuff, the next opportunity for intervention lies with Azwel's manipulation of Raphael and Amy, whether or not their course plays out the same way for SoulCalibur II stuff, where Raphael is the one to stab Soul Edge to free Siegfried, that seems like it's still pretty likely to occur, but what happens after may or may not shape the destiny of those involved. It's also possible that Zasalamel breaks up this event, and claims Soul Edge (and Soul Calibur) for himself early, which would be a divergence point that couldn't be ignored, as it would prevent Raphael and Amy from suffering malfestation, though Amy would still be in Azwel's clutches, unless there was some other solution presented for that. This is assuming that gets changed, however, because Zasalamel could just as easy wait for Raphael to weaken Soul Edge, get afflicted, and then swoop in and steal it while it's weak, that could happen, still be different, and yet still doom Raphael and Amy to their tragic future.

I know what you're going to say next, too, that even if all of those things coalesce and the bigger picture future remains the same, the fact that there are differences at all along the path that leads to those events happening, in and of themselves, constitutes a new timeline. And that's where we disagree, as a matter of semantics. They have not as of yet defined the nature of SoulCalibur's timeline, where we could have multiverse or not, what the possibilities really are. The simplest possible interpretation of time travel theory is that there is only one line, until a divergence occurs to skew it off into a tangent, but thus far, none of the skewings have been sufficient to actually cause a tangent, and that's the hairs that are being split from my side of the argument, that until such a tangent occurs, we are practically on the same timeline, for all intents and purposes.

I've already touched on Azwel just a bit above, but his inclusion in the narrative is either a new element or it is not, and both possibilities are equal, in my eyes. The Aval Organization, much like the Guardians of the Spirit Sword before it, is a secret organization that acts behind the scenes away from the public eye. Azwel was once of the Aval Organization before casting it aside and just doing whatever in the hell he wants to do, but he still was one of them, meaning he knows how to get things done in secret, which is part of how he is such a master manipulator. It's a plot device of convenience, to be certain, but I'm not ruling it out that they can't pull the "it was there all along" card, since they've framed the organization as a whole in that light already. So we, the players, are just now learning of their existence, but whether or not they were even in the cards before to the developers is irrelevant, because of how they were written in. It's practically impossible that the Aval Organization existed back in the early 2000s, and I'm not even remotely suggesting that level of diabolical planning, but my point remains that it does not matter. The core mantra that "history hides away more than one truth" collaborates this, so again, sorry to sound like a broken record, but until one of Azwel's actions actually causes a turn of events that contradicts the original telling of the story, he cannot be tagged as an interloper or credited with changing history, because everything so far falls under the "well, it could have happened and we didn't know about it before" camp.

Edge Master is a bit of an enigma so far, yes. Since he's not a playable character, he didn't get a Soul Chronicle, and now that you mention that, it may have been a deliberate move to not include him on the roster, not due to the aversion of mimics, but to keep his knowledge of the goings-on a secret. He's even more passive than Zasalamel in this regard, but I didn't include him in my earlier comparison of Zasalamel to the rest of the cast due to his not being a playable character, so it's unfair to judge Edge Master's presence when he has very limited exposure to actually have a story or have his perspective be known. At that point, we'd be saying that Greed could be the mastermind behind it all because he was only in the one side event during the one quest in Libra of Soul, and after defeating Fiddler and Miser, they're never seen again, ooooo, spooky! But that silliness aside, knowing Edge Master's perspective could be seen as my ultimate goal, in a manner of speaking, since he's generally seen as the omnipotent presence of SoulCalibur, if such a thing exists. As it is, they've kept just enough things under wraps and us in the dark to sow the seeds of doubt, which is why I'm able to have my perspective in the first place. If it was as clear-cut as you make it out to be that we're definitely on a new course, then I couldn't possibly even have theories as to how it may be the way that I'm saying it could be.
 
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