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Now contains 6.1 spoilers!
Alright, I said I would type it up in full, so here goes:
First and foremost, I'm almost certain that we will end up going to Corvos in 7.0. Now, for anyone unaware, Corvos was first mentioned in the Zenos short story exclusively published in the Chronicles of Light anthology. In it, Zenos' sword tutor came from Corvos. We didn't get any real detail on Corvos beyond it being an imperial province then, including the fact that Corvos is actually where the Garleans came from too. At the time, it was just a background flavour name.
Now, 6.0 has added a surprising amount of detail to it. G'raha being Corvosi by birth? Corvos being a former Allagan colony/outpost/whatever, with Allagan remnants still being there? Corvos/Locus Amoenus being the Garleans' origin as well? None of this information was necessary, and Corvos as it stood didn't really need any fleshing out.
Unless, of course, they're prepping to have it star in the next expansion.
I could be wrong, of course, there are other things they could use Corvos for, but the sheer number of times this randomly came up makes me think it will feature in something prominent.
This is the part I'm fairly certain about; now gather round while I don the tinfoil hat.
Theory #1: The Garleans are an artificial Allagan creation (and that's how they originated from Corvos).
Fact #1: We know the Allagans artificially engineered entire species. The Ixal are confirmed to be one such species.
Fact #2: Affinity with aether leads to less affinity with dynamis and vice versa.
Fact #3: Garleans can't use aether.
Fact #4: Travelling through space requires enormous amounts of aether, or alternatively control of dynamis.
Fact #5: Amon wanted to go to space even during his Allagan days.
Fact #6: Amon dreamed of his amaurotine days, and even as a sundered soul clearly retained some of Hermes' traits.
Conclusion: Amon engineered the Garleans to be suited to space travel, based on possibly half-remembered facts from his former life. As they don't seem to have any of Meteion's capabilities, we can surmise that they were deemed a failed creation, if so.
If this is the case then it would fit perfectly into introducing Corvos, as that would be where those experiments would have taken place, and records of it can easily be implemented in whatever ruins remain.
And if Garleans feature heavily in 6.x/7.0—that brings me to my next point! Zenos.
Okay, yes, I *know* I said I would go forward under the assumption we would get no more Zenos content, but it makes *no god damn sense* for him never to feature again. You want to tell me that they would leave everything about him open after literally delaying the expansion to ensure all loose ends were tied up? Because:
-We don't know what his dreams about the Final Days are about. This is as recent as 5.2. (Edited to add: Fandaniel actually brought them up in 6.0 too!)
-We don't know what experiments Emet conducted on him (also 5.2).
-We don't know why he mastered the Resonant to a degree no other Sundered ever has, not even close. Why can he see souls? How did he end up being a bodyhopper? The latter came up *in* 6.0!
-His voidsent has a special design, but it barely features. For all it did in 6.0, they might as well have used the one the players get, it's not like it's a bad design.
-What's the deal with naming him viator? That means traveller. Not only is that an odd title to give someone for being a traitor, you also can't tell me that's not significant.
(-This is conjecture but I couldn't help but notice that they put his hair in his coat in the same expansion as giving Estinien a ponytail to prevent his hair from clipping everywhere...)
Look, yeah, I don't want to be disappointed again either, but come on. Don't tell me it wouldn't be seriously weird if they just dropped all of this without resolving it.
And besides, it would fit perfectly into exploring the Garleans' Allagan origin. He's also an experiment. Whatever Emet did might well have used data from that, if any of this is accurate. Furthermore, Fandaniel clearly knew at least some things about what Emet was doing, which leads me to think that Zenos might be especially involved with dynamis—might even be an entelechy.
Potential explanation for his dreams: Being so in tune with dynamis would make him susceptible to Meteion's influence in ways that others might not be, so perhaps it isn't so much that he dreams of the Final Days specifically but the memories of them are reawakened by Meteion's influence? And if that is the case, might he not have been influenced by her to not value life, which would go a long way towards explaining why he is the way he is?
(And *that* leaves the question of how he would fare without her in the picture... but let's not get carried away too far.)
And that leads me to my third prediction!
Late 5.x introduced a void questline, a little thing tacked on after the 3.x trial series and after completing all Shadowbringers rolequests in which Unukalhai and Taynor send a scouting familiar into the void to see if they can find a way to restore it, or something to that effect. It was a nice quest, and also feels *kind of significant actually*. Now, this is locked behind an optional trial series and completing all 5.0 rolequests, so a big chunk of the playerbase is never going to do those, but! Guess who else has a potential connection to the void?
Zenos and his special design voidsent.
And yeah, it sure looked like he's dead, but also it's Zenos. I can think of several ways for him to make it out alive, if the writers are so inclined.
So this is my prediction of where the story will go. 6.x will lead towards exploring the origins of the Garlean people, which, through Zenos as a catalyst, will lead towards the Void. Possibly to restore it? Who knows.
Also, the Garleans are totally the third beast tribe of 6.x.
EDIT 19/02/2022:
Two extra things:
Live letter 68 strongly indicated that Zenos being a reaper is going to be relevant to future content (as they said they thought about it but couldn't talk about it). It also hinted that Zenos isn't actually dead for real (that much dodging a real answer is suspicious).
Also, as it turns out, the Void is said to be devoid of all aether. At the time this wasn't something that had much significance, but we know about dynamis now. If I'm correct and the Garleans are somehow related to dynamis, then that only ties them to the void more.
EDIT 12/04/2022:
Notes from 6.1 regarding this theory:
-Zenos' voidsent is back, and the void is strongly indicated to be the focus of the next storyline.
-Zenos' voidsent being back means that it IS possible for souls to leave Absolute Horizon, and it's quite telling that Yoshi-P et al. focused heavily on Zenos' body when talking about the matter of his death. Zenos likely has the ability to shard-hop with his soul, since Ascians are able to do it as well. This also ties into Y'shtola talking about how voidsent are frequently only summoned as souls, which may apply to this voidsent as well.
-I don't think the voidsent actually is Zenos in any capacity. The "bereft of saviours" line makes little sense for Zenos to say, in my opinion.
-6.1 possibly hinted at the old lore stuff about the void being devoid of all aether being retconned? Not entirely sure.
Alright, I said I would type it up in full, so here goes:
First and foremost, I'm almost certain that we will end up going to Corvos in 7.0. Now, for anyone unaware, Corvos was first mentioned in the Zenos short story exclusively published in the Chronicles of Light anthology. In it, Zenos' sword tutor came from Corvos. We didn't get any real detail on Corvos beyond it being an imperial province then, including the fact that Corvos is actually where the Garleans came from too. At the time, it was just a background flavour name.
Now, 6.0 has added a surprising amount of detail to it. G'raha being Corvosi by birth? Corvos being a former Allagan colony/outpost/whatever, with Allagan remnants still being there? Corvos/Locus Amoenus being the Garleans' origin as well? None of this information was necessary, and Corvos as it stood didn't really need any fleshing out.
Unless, of course, they're prepping to have it star in the next expansion.
I could be wrong, of course, there are other things they could use Corvos for, but the sheer number of times this randomly came up makes me think it will feature in something prominent.
This is the part I'm fairly certain about; now gather round while I don the tinfoil hat.
Theory #1: The Garleans are an artificial Allagan creation (and that's how they originated from Corvos).
Fact #1: We know the Allagans artificially engineered entire species. The Ixal are confirmed to be one such species.
Fact #2: Affinity with aether leads to less affinity with dynamis and vice versa.
Fact #3: Garleans can't use aether.
Fact #4: Travelling through space requires enormous amounts of aether, or alternatively control of dynamis.
Fact #5: Amon wanted to go to space even during his Allagan days.
Fact #6: Amon dreamed of his amaurotine days, and even as a sundered soul clearly retained some of Hermes' traits.
Conclusion: Amon engineered the Garleans to be suited to space travel, based on possibly half-remembered facts from his former life. As they don't seem to have any of Meteion's capabilities, we can surmise that they were deemed a failed creation, if so.
If this is the case then it would fit perfectly into introducing Corvos, as that would be where those experiments would have taken place, and records of it can easily be implemented in whatever ruins remain.
And if Garleans feature heavily in 6.x/7.0—that brings me to my next point! Zenos.
Okay, yes, I *know* I said I would go forward under the assumption we would get no more Zenos content, but it makes *no god damn sense* for him never to feature again. You want to tell me that they would leave everything about him open after literally delaying the expansion to ensure all loose ends were tied up? Because:
-We don't know what his dreams about the Final Days are about. This is as recent as 5.2. (Edited to add: Fandaniel actually brought them up in 6.0 too!)
-We don't know what experiments Emet conducted on him (also 5.2).
-We don't know why he mastered the Resonant to a degree no other Sundered ever has, not even close. Why can he see souls? How did he end up being a bodyhopper? The latter came up *in* 6.0!
-His voidsent has a special design, but it barely features. For all it did in 6.0, they might as well have used the one the players get, it's not like it's a bad design.
-What's the deal with naming him viator? That means traveller. Not only is that an odd title to give someone for being a traitor, you also can't tell me that's not significant.
(-This is conjecture but I couldn't help but notice that they put his hair in his coat in the same expansion as giving Estinien a ponytail to prevent his hair from clipping everywhere...)
Look, yeah, I don't want to be disappointed again either, but come on. Don't tell me it wouldn't be seriously weird if they just dropped all of this without resolving it.
And besides, it would fit perfectly into exploring the Garleans' Allagan origin. He's also an experiment. Whatever Emet did might well have used data from that, if any of this is accurate. Furthermore, Fandaniel clearly knew at least some things about what Emet was doing, which leads me to think that Zenos might be especially involved with dynamis—might even be an entelechy.
Potential explanation for his dreams: Being so in tune with dynamis would make him susceptible to Meteion's influence in ways that others might not be, so perhaps it isn't so much that he dreams of the Final Days specifically but the memories of them are reawakened by Meteion's influence? And if that is the case, might he not have been influenced by her to not value life, which would go a long way towards explaining why he is the way he is?
(And *that* leaves the question of how he would fare without her in the picture... but let's not get carried away too far.)
And that leads me to my third prediction!
Late 5.x introduced a void questline, a little thing tacked on after the 3.x trial series and after completing all Shadowbringers rolequests in which Unukalhai and Taynor send a scouting familiar into the void to see if they can find a way to restore it, or something to that effect. It was a nice quest, and also feels *kind of significant actually*. Now, this is locked behind an optional trial series and completing all 5.0 rolequests, so a big chunk of the playerbase is never going to do those, but! Guess who else has a potential connection to the void?
Zenos and his special design voidsent.
And yeah, it sure looked like he's dead, but also it's Zenos. I can think of several ways for him to make it out alive, if the writers are so inclined.
So this is my prediction of where the story will go. 6.x will lead towards exploring the origins of the Garlean people, which, through Zenos as a catalyst, will lead towards the Void. Possibly to restore it? Who knows.
Also, the Garleans are totally the third beast tribe of 6.x.
EDIT 19/02/2022:
Two extra things:
Live letter 68 strongly indicated that Zenos being a reaper is going to be relevant to future content (as they said they thought about it but couldn't talk about it). It also hinted that Zenos isn't actually dead for real (that much dodging a real answer is suspicious).
Also, as it turns out, the Void is said to be devoid of all aether. At the time this wasn't something that had much significance, but we know about dynamis now. If I'm correct and the Garleans are somehow related to dynamis, then that only ties them to the void more.
EDIT 12/04/2022:
Notes from 6.1 regarding this theory:
-Zenos' voidsent is back, and the void is strongly indicated to be the focus of the next storyline.
-Zenos' voidsent being back means that it IS possible for souls to leave Absolute Horizon, and it's quite telling that Yoshi-P et al. focused heavily on Zenos' body when talking about the matter of his death. Zenos likely has the ability to shard-hop with his soul, since Ascians are able to do it as well. This also ties into Y'shtola talking about how voidsent are frequently only summoned as souls, which may apply to this voidsent as well.
-I don't think the voidsent actually is Zenos in any capacity. The "bereft of saviours" line makes little sense for Zenos to say, in my opinion.
-6.1 possibly hinted at the old lore stuff about the void being devoid of all aether being retconned? Not entirely sure.
