I have finished the storyline, and I do not think the interpretation of the Echo as reminiscence of a past were 'we died' can be supported for non-Legacy players (I have no idea if the Legacy storyline changes enough to justify it, though, but I do not think it does).
I can understand where it comes from, though: the first Echo scenes with the Scions show Dalamud up in the sky before they use they Scion-Gadget-o Vision googles to notice aetheric disturbances and immediately head to the place where you have just met them. So it does seem like the writers were trying to hint at something, but the ball is dropped immediately and is never brought back. As far as the storyline is concerned, it's just something that happened 5 years ago too. A coincidence.
With that said, apparently Hydaelyn can 'temper' people (or chose them, if you will) and give them the Echo, which allows them to 'connect' with people on a primordial level (kind of an empathic link, I'd say) and see their memories.
It is not a voluntary ability, though, so your character won't be able to use it consciously. And when an Echo scene happens, your character will be oblivious of the world around her for quite a while. Judging by the storyline, the ammount of time you spend 'in trance' depends on how long the scene is. So keep that in mind if you RP an Echo user.
Incidentally, having the Echo doesn't really give you any awesome ability beyond that (though I guess you could argue that all the feats you are capable of during the main storyline are because of it). The only 'Mary-Sue-ish' use you could do with the Echo is forcing people into revealing details of their characters to you. But you can easily solve that by giving them full control of what you are able to see. Ask them OOCly with a whisper if they are okay with your character having an "Echo-scene" about their character and then ask them to give you a description of what she'd see (because, remember, your character has literally no control over the Echo, so you wouldn't be able to interact with the memory at all).
As long as you give the other player full control of what information you can gather with the Echo, I don't think there should be any problems with it.
I can understand where it comes from, though: the first Echo scenes with the Scions show Dalamud up in the sky before they use they Scion-Gadget-o Vision googles to notice aetheric disturbances and immediately head to the place where you have just met them. So it does seem like the writers were trying to hint at something, but the ball is dropped immediately and is never brought back. As far as the storyline is concerned, it's just something that happened 5 years ago too. A coincidence.
With that said, apparently Hydaelyn can 'temper' people (or chose them, if you will) and give them the Echo, which allows them to 'connect' with people on a primordial level (kind of an empathic link, I'd say) and see their memories.
It is not a voluntary ability, though, so your character won't be able to use it consciously. And when an Echo scene happens, your character will be oblivious of the world around her for quite a while. Judging by the storyline, the ammount of time you spend 'in trance' depends on how long the scene is. So keep that in mind if you RP an Echo user.
Incidentally, having the Echo doesn't really give you any awesome ability beyond that (though I guess you could argue that all the feats you are capable of during the main storyline are because of it). The only 'Mary-Sue-ish' use you could do with the Echo is forcing people into revealing details of their characters to you. But you can easily solve that by giving them full control of what you are able to see. Ask them OOCly with a whisper if they are okay with your character having an "Echo-scene" about their character and then ask them to give you a description of what she'd see (because, remember, your character has literally no control over the Echo, so you wouldn't be able to interact with the memory at all).
As long as you give the other player full control of what information you can gather with the Echo, I don't think there should be any problems with it.
![[Image: DWv3oGi.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/DWv3oGi.jpg)
