btw they let Gulool Ja have a sword

anyway so it's not really a secret that I overall really liked 7.3

They put a lot into it that I fear won't get really noticed or picked up by the players at large

The first Alexandrians to stand up and fight for themselves and support Sphene are largely ones living outside the city in Heritage Found or are ones who are closer to death than the normal citizens

Like the ex Arcadion fighter, we probably remember him as the one who yelled at Sphene in 7.0 MSQ

Because he has no souls left, and I highly doubt he had gotten any new ones in the mean time

Definitely not after the end of 7.0 since the entire soul system was shut down afterwards

These NPCs are the ones in the most danger and have the most to lose, but they're the first to support Alexandria's new way forward

Anyway I do want to talk about Calyx for a bit

Namely that he's just a big fucking liar

Everything he promises about being an Endless and supporting his goals is just wrong or not how he presents it

You'll be a pillar of mankind's evolution and ascension to a higher being? Ha ha no you're just fodder for him

You're either a nameless lackey, a test subject, or a power source to him

You'll be remembered forever and be immortal? The Endless inside the Meso Terminal are literally faceless

He's trying to save mankind? No, he's only trying to save himself.

Calyx doesn't actually have any altruistic aims

He really only just wants one thing: to prove himself right

It's like a reverse Thanos when you think about it just instead of killing a bunch of people, he wants to "save" people solely for the sake of his own ego

CALYX IS A TECHBRO AND ALEXANDRIA IS THE TORMENT NEXUS

Calyx is so far removed from Alexandria and its people that Meso Terminal, "his" dungeon, doesn't even use the Alexandria/Living Memory theme

Most dungeons in the game use a remix of the area they're located or associated with

but Meso Terminal notably uses a Smile remix instead

Moving on to the reactivation of Living Memory, at first I wasn't sure what to think about it but now I really like it

I genuinely wonder how much of it is intentional because all of Alexandria and especially Calyx is just such an on point and scathing criticism of modern tech industry

I thought shutting down Living Memory, one of the most beautiful maps in the game, and leaving it in its dead empty mall state was a brave and notable thing to do and I thought turning it back on might undo that

but the restored Living Memory is gorgeous

it's even more beautiful than it was before

The natural weather and lighting elevates it in a way it couldn't before, when it was wrapped in the fake virtual gold

And I think it's a symbol that Alexandria is ready to rejoin the real world and stop trying to defy nature

They don't have to give up everything they've created and achieved, just stop trying to avoid death

and since Living Memory is still located in the Ninth, it's also a sign that their shard is not a lost cause

I've seen people compare the different LM appearances to the stages of the Alexandrians' grief. Like the painfully fake and gaudy original version is their unhealthy attachment to the past and inability to let go

Shut down LM is when they're all in the period of uncertainty and suddenly having to deal with real grief and being unable to cope

New LM symbolizes that they're finally learning how to cope with death in a healthy way

This isn't strictly 7.3 related, but I do think it's important that a large number of NPCs you meet in Living Memory are like "Yeah I'm ready to die for fucking real now"

Cahciua is not that big of an anomaly, the Endless are painfully aware of their own fake existences

She was just the one to try and actually do something about it

Which says to me that being an Endless really sucks, actually

It's not just that you're just a computer program, you know you're a computer program and while you get those "second chances" to do things you missed out on life, you don't actually have a real future

And your "second chances" are driven by an algorithm

Oh, you never got to confess your love to that special someone? How convenient, Living Memory just coughed them up right next to you!

Like the Erudite man who finally got to propose to the love of his life, it's great in the moment but then what happens after that? Nothing. They don't get to build lives together, start a family, or anything else.

They get to walk around Canal Town and eat fake popcorn until the system decides to dismantle them to free up resources for the next set of Endless

This is why I feel like the fandom saying we pull an emet selch by shutting LM down doesn't sit well with me. The endless were already dead and everything they do now is run by a computer!

because it literally cannot support having Endless active

By the time we get there, it's only able to create 10% of all possible Endless at a time

Sundered people grow and learn and change and LIVE

ah yeah the "you did a genocide" gotcha that isn't really a gotcha

Living Memory is just a shittier imitation of what Meteon was able to achieve in Ultima Thule

Anyway another thing I wasn't sure of was making Sphene queen of Alexandria again

Alexandria would have genocided the entire universe and every shard to keep NFT Disneyland going if we hadn't shut down Living Memory but sure, we're the bad guys

And it wouldn't have even worked

The amount of energy and aether required is just too high

Alexandria could have gone back in time and genocided the Unsundered World and they still won't have enough energy

It's literally a compounding problem that requires actually infinite power to work

Because the number of Endless just goes up and up and up

anyway back to Sphene, it's a bit awkward because she's Sphene and it was like FOR TOO LONG THE REIGN OF QUEEN SPHENE HAS HELD ALEXANDRIA IN A DARK AGE

but like realistically there's no other choice to lead Alexandria now

Gulool Ja is too young

Alexandrians themselves are, for the lack of better word, too helpless at the moment to take care of themselves

And we get a weird circular narrative about how Sphene has inherited the legacy and will of Endless Sphene to protect the people, which Endless Sphene had gotten from Sphene herself

but Preservation did take that legacy and twist it

They manipulated and distorted it to change from a simple desire to ensure the safety and happiness of one's people into an obsessive all consuming desire

So the original Sphene retaking the throne can set this back on course

I think looking to the future, Alexandria won't have a monarchy forever and they will slowly transition to a new form of government in the future

Gulool Ja is still technically the king, but that's functionally just a title for now

He will probably take what he learns from his family and the outside world to help guide it to a better future

Alternatively, I could see "King" and "Queen" still being a title but not being hereditary

and that Alexandria will just have two main rulers supported by a less useless government

Alexandria joining the Etherys world stage will also expose them to the rest of the world and it'll change in ways we can't predict

I feel like Sphene and Gulool Jr are definitely going to borrow heavily from how Tulliyolal operates

so sphene and lamaty'i will have an excuse to hang out a lot

the strongest alliance is one where your leaders are smooching

I wonder of Alexandria will have to be under the dome forever btw

they did kind of bring their shitty perpetual lightning with them so it might be a necessity

I don't think electrope will spread far across the star since Alexandria is so reliant on it

I do kind of wonder if part of the bridge to 8.0 narrative will be accompanying Sphene to other parts of the star to establish diplomatic ties. Wuk Lamat too but Tural has at least started that process to an extent

Alexandria literally just showed up and has more to do on that front

Tural has an alliance with Thavnair now but yeah Alexandria needs to uhhh

I guess show the rest of the world they're not a threat first lmao

Which will be hard when the first thing they did when they appeared was colonize a part of Xak Tural and attack the Turali capital

Even if Wuk Lamat promises they're cool now

Like even if they just don't mention the "they were gonna destroy our world" thing that alone will rouse a healthy amount of suspicion

Anyway I think a lot of how this plays out will depend on what 8.0 is

Also I just want to say if I had a nickel every time I played an MMO where an entire ass society just came out of nowhere and just appeared onto the world I would have 2 nickels