You thought Mage vs. Templar was complicated? JUST YOU WAIT FOR...

Oh I'm anticipating the next best and hottest romance to be a Qunari who will positively try to kill you if you don't choose the Qun.

Given how Bioware has been able to sell Bhelen as the better choice, in spite of his slight shortcoming of being a vengeful tyrant , I'm expecting every trick in the book to sell both sides.

I am actually not so sure the veil was down In Hushed Whispers. Indeed, if Solas is to be believed, to the veil was just "shattered" as opposed actually being completely gone. And this seems to match up with the Breach still being around (albeit to such a degree it was described as 'everywhere'). If the veil was indeed completely gone, any breach, large or small, would theoretically disappear since there is no separation to 'pierce'. It would also seemingly match up with Solas wanting to enter the Fade before tearing the veil down rather than collapsing it on the physical side.

Regardless, I do believe if the veil was significantly damaged it would play out like you said. But...I don't think the game will go that route. To truly portray the en masse chaos and changes happening to material realm in that circumstance would require significant game resources. An inordinate amount, in fact. So unless they want to portray those changes via an ending cutscene or the final boss fight, I don't think they will go that route. That said, another Breach situation may be more likely, since its game changes could basically be summed up in rifts opening in several regions, a fancy mega-rift in the sky, and more demons spawning. 

The reason I think it may have originally been the intention that the Veil is removed at some point is this original trailer from 2013. The scenes at the beginning aren't so different to what we finally got but from 0.55 onwards that changes. There are meteorite type objects falling from the sky on the fortress and then the Veil is shown tearing open across the sky, not just the hole we got in the actual game. Not only are demons pouring through but the dragon seems to have emerged through the tear. Then Morrigan speaks about standing against the darkness or leading the world to its bitter end. Now the "Darkness" is what Corypheus found in the Black City and is a word associated with the Blight, so it is entirely possible that removing the Veil will also release whatever was contained in the Black City that is the origin of the Blight. Whatever the case, let's face it Solas' track record isn't good for predicting the outcome of his actions correctly, so it could be a case of him (or someone else) ripping the Veil and our hero trying to find a way of either reversing it or dealing with the consequences, or more likely both. In which case, we may only allow Solas to live in order to get his expertise on all things Veil related, which he will give because once again he will be regretting his action.



You are correct in saying that the Veil wasn't completely gone but nevertheless the Waking World and the Fade seemed to have bled together. I seem to recall that if Solas is with you that he says something about "this world must never come to pass" and it is possible that he is truly horrified because he knows that back in the present this is what he was working towards but not the outcome he wanted. It is interesting that back in our own time most people seem to accept that what we experienced was real but Solas questions it as being a "trick of the Fade". Actually I much preferred this explanation than the idea we time traveled but the important part is that he seemed in denial about what we had encountered in the future where the Veil was all but gone. Referring back to what I say above, it may be that it won't be the simple wiping the world clean with fire that is also part of the prediction of Drakon and also the belief of the Promissors. It will be chaos, with wholesale death and destruction, but it will be possible to survive it and may be even reverse it. Which is where the Qun might also have an important part to play.

Well if they are going to make Drakon's apocalypse be an genuine prophesy then it speaks of many things that follow the tearing of the Veil that can be tied back to the races we know:
Seventy time seven men of stone immense rose up from the earth like sleeper waking at the dawn - the Titans or may be golems in their image serving them.
From the east a great cry as men who were beasts warred with their brothers - werewolves or possibly the Vashoth/Qunari
Those who slept, the ancient ones, awoke, for their dreams had been devoured by a demon that prowled the Fade - The Evanuris and Fen'Harel
The Sacred mountain on which resides the mortal dust of Andraste rises to the heavens (seemingly out of order except they were no longer at Haven)

After all of this has happened "The seven gates of the Black City shatter and darkness cloaked both realms." That pretty much fits the 2013 trailer.  I've always thought it interesting that the City is said to have seven gates and there were 7 original Evanuris and 7 Old Gods.   Could it be the 7 gates are in fact eluvians?

Would just mention that in the ancient lore we discover in DAI and Trespasser the sky/air = Fade and the earth = Waking World. So Skyhold was the "place where the sky was held back", in other words quite possibly either the place or one of many where the Veil was created. Spirits are "our brethren of the air", whilst the Titans are the earth that fights back against the invasion of the Waking World by the beings who belong in the Fade/Sky and their use of magic to alter the world that is meant to be unchanging, as explained by the spirit tutor to the elves:
"The unchanging world is delicate: spells of power invite disaster and annihilation. The unchanging world is stubborn: the pull of the earth fiercely resists making fire run like water or stone rise like mist. The unchanging world rings with its own harmony. Listen with fearless hearts, and great works will unfold."

As you say, it could be that what they were showing was part of the Hushed Whispers plot that got watered down in the final version. It is also true that since much was dropped from what we saw in that trailer and the sample game play that was around at the same time, that we got everything that was predicted in the trailer but just not as dark. The "Darkness" we stood against could simply have been Corypheus, who was the embodiment of it by his own admission.

I suppose it is just wishful thinking on my part that we are finally going to see those parts of that original trailer actually in game. Even if that was the intention at one time, they could well have altered direction since then. Except, why do we see that concept art of a floating landscape, very reminiscent of what happened at the end of DAI? So may be there is going to be some sort of weakening of the Veil in a localised area, such as Arlathan Forest, but will not extend beyond its borders. Weird stuff will be happening in that location, including the emergence of strange new god-like monsters, either from the sea or the Deep Roads, which we will have to deal with but overall the fabric of reality will be unchanged. It could be that we use what happens within Arlathan Forest to try and "prove" to Solas that his actions are not going to have the desired effect, for those who want to save him, or just make our hero all that more determined to stop him by any means.

I've seen the theory about it being in the Fade before but that would make it unlike most areas of the Fade that we have been to in the past, except of course that section when we are in the Fade Haven with Solas. I've never been entirely sure who is controlling that; is it our dream that Solas has entered or is he simply controlling our mind and creating what we see within it? I wouldn't go by anything he actually said about it because he is apt to leave out bits or explanations that don't fit his agenda. Curiously, I think I am right in saying that you never experience that Fade Haven if you are not on good terms with him. So in a way, once you have shown a degree of willingness to be influenced to his way of thinking, he capitalises on this to manipulate you further via your subconscious. Whereas he recognises that the person who never expresses any interest in engaging with him or constantly takes a line he doesn't approve of, will be less susceptible to his influence and even alerted against him if he tries it. Still, I accept that could be an explanation of those scenes with the floating landscape; that Solas or some other Dreamer is entering your subconscious and making the landscape real through your dreams.

I really hope they don't send us back in time, except via the Fade dream suggested above. I found the explanation given for the time travel in DAI, with all the contradictions and anomalies it creates, very dubious and I honestly think what we can say to Dorian "it's magic, go for it", was really as far as they went with considering the problems both plot wise and with the setting. The other problem I have with the floating landscape being set in the past, suggesting this was the way the world was before the Veil, is the impossibility of anything living on the surface. Also, it would not just be the elven constructs that were linked to the Crossroads, half in and half out of the Fade, that would have been destroyed by the Veil but when everything fell back to earth, everything would have been pulverised. To be honest, that was a problem I had with the ending of DAI. All over the place the mountains were fragmenting and lifting up, with the Temple of Sacred Ashes particularly elevated and yet when we shut off the magic allowing this and supposedly crashed back to earth, we all survived! In reality there should just have been a series a enormous craters and even if our party survived by means of magical protection, those we left behind down below should have been wiped out. To be honest, why should gravity stop working just because the Veil is no longer there? Clearly the laws of physics don't apply to Thedas.

That is an interesting theory. I doubt the pocket dimension is actually where the Evanuris are since he implied it was going to be hell for them and living in something approximating to your ancient empire would hardly be a punishment, even if you can't leave it. Still he does talk about banishing them, so may be you could be on to something. Banishing is usually sending people away from where you have control rather than locking them up, so what he did to the Evanuris may have sent them to a pocket dimension beyond the Fade; I just imagine he thought it was not a particularly pleasant one. Interestingly, in Tevinter Nights, Dorian when speculating about the origin of the Cekorax, talks about a conversation he had with a drunken Mortalitasi when she spoke of "things past the Veil of our world", neither demon or spirit. So it is possible she was also talking about a place beyond the Fade which she had seen.

Unless this is the final Dragon Age game, I highly doubt that will be a choice. That just leaves things too different for future games, and they learned that lesson from ME3. So either the Veil will always stay up, always come down, or some thing in between will always happen. 

So basically...we become the Maker?

It could be the last game in the "Dragon Age". After all, Flemeth called us the Herald of a new age and, of course, the reason we got that title is that the Orlesian Chantry promote the vision that Drakon was allegedly given of the end of times, when Andraste would return and the Maker would restore the world as a paradise, which was preceded by the "air rent asunder, spilling unearthly light from the Fade, opening as an eye", which is where our Herald fits in.

However, unless it is going to be the final game in the franchise, they are going to have to make a decision about how the plot resolves itself or, as others have pointed out, they are going to paint themselves into a corner again as they did with ME3. Such a reality changing decision cannot be left to player choice if they want a world that continues beyond DA4.   Alternatively, they would have to make it clear in the epilogue that if you made a choice against their preferred canon, then the world for you had ended and your world state would not be carried forward.
"Will you stand against the Darkness or lead this world to its bitter end?"   In other words, your choice led to the end of the world.   

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." Do you really thing the writers are insane?

On the other hand, Solas does qualify, so I'm expecting that whatever he does, it ends up backfiring spectacularly. Alternatively, our Hero doesn't learn from history and so their actions end up doing the same. I fully expect some sort of twist at the end this time round so things don't work out as we thought they would no matter what we choose to do but there will be one final outcome.

At the end of DAO the threat of the Arch-demon is always removed and the Blight stopped; at the end of DA2 the city has always been saved from the Qunari, the Chantry is always destroyed and Meredith always ends up as a statue; at the end of DAI Corypheus is always sent to the Fade/obliterated.   There is no choice about any of these outcomes.    As for Trespasser, despite the illusion of choice over the fate of the Inquisition, it always continues in some form or other, either officially or unofficially.  Dragon Age always ends in a definitive resolution to the main plot, even if minor details vary.   Why should they deviate from that formula?

This is what I mean about a twist at the end. May be no matter what path we chart, even slaying the Wolf, the Veil is removed but life goes on. It would open the way for developing an interesting new status quo in subsequent games, with all the conflict that would involve whilst it is established. Done well, it could be amazing, building on what has gone before without remaining moribund in a setting that never changes except in superficial details.

Think about it, the societies in Tevinter, Orlais and Orzammar have remained pretty much unchanged for 1000 years (or longer). That is not a normal state of affairs. The Chantry has been the dominant religion of the south and a modified version of it in Tevinter throughout that time. The Qunari bursting on the scene shook these up a fair bit but that was back in the past and so we never experienced it in game. The mage rebellion in the south didn't really change things that much, the Chantry is still (allegedly) a unifying force across southern Thedas and the aristocracy are still in control in Orlais via their Game, no matter who is on the throne. To get the bleakest outlook with regard to these things in DAI, to be honest you really have to mess up. Essentially, no matter what we do, it is business as usual and beyond the routine saving the country/city/world our hero hasn't had a lasting impact.

So wouldn't it be ironic if our Hero felt a failure for not preserving the world as they knew it but nevertheless was remembered for being involved in bringing about lasting change that upended the existing power structures and enabled a new world order to develop. Since I don't like any of the major powers currently in Thedas, I would find that deeply satisfying, just so long as it didn't involve the mass genocide that Solas is predicting.    They may even not be remembered favourably for bringing it about.   "They call me the Dread Wolf, what will they call you?"   Solas' actions may have led to the destruction of the elven civilisation and the rule of their gods but it did free the world from their dominance and allowed both the human and dwarven societies to develop largely free from their influence (although it is possible not totally).   It is also possible, since we do not yet know their history, that it also freed the Kossith/Vashoth.    Unfortunately, a new ruling elite was established over time in all these races that seems unlikely to be overturned except by some drastic change in circumstances.  Removing the Veil could be what is required.

As much as I would prefer otherwise, I can actually see the current Bioware removing the Veil without too many negative consequences to Thedas. It would ignore previously established disparate cultures and dangers of magic in favor of Player Entitlement, power fantasy and wish fulfillment. Not mention make Dragon Age more like the Forgotten Realms-lite game they'd clearly rather be playing, instead of the deconstruction it was originally meant to be.