A'dhen Tia

Before I present my evidence, I’d like to acknowledge the limitations of it. I’m not a hardcore raider, so if there’s more info given in either the Omega savage raid series or the Omega ultimate raid, I am unaware of it. I also only speak English and I am concentrating on the English translation of the game. Other languages, including the original Japanese, may be different or outright omit what I state here. In spite of these things, I still think examining the provenance of the Scaevan tome gear proves my point.

Let’s begin with the quest “Return to the Rift” which kicks off the Sigmascape tier of the Omega raids. Right before Cid, Nero, the Warrior of Light, and Alpha head off into dangers unknown, Jessie gifts Alpha with his own custom made Ironworks uniform. Immediately after, the Warrior of Light gets a choice of dialogue.

Which results in two possible responses from Jessie, as follows.

If the response is: “I wish I had that uniform…”

(Aside: I love how catty Nero is here.)

If the response is: ”What about my protective equipment?”

(I… don’t know if I’d call that “joking,” Jessie. Especially with what you’re paying us…)

After the conclusion of both of these, Nero is there to remind everyone that there are better things we could be doing.

The importance of this scene to my thesis is that Nero is present for the conversation where the Warrior of Light asks for their own protective gear and is, for lack of a better term, brushed off. He doesn’t seem to be too concerned because there’s a more interesting toy to play with… for now.

After the end of the Omega quests, but prior to the Endwalker follow-up quest, the player can return to Jessie and speak with her, to which she says:

Which gives us two questions. The first of which is “Why was Nero making patterns for new uniforms?” It could have been busywork assigned by Cid or Jessie during his “forced convalescence.” He could have complained enough about them, like he did so above, that they told him to try to do better. However, I believe the best answer to this question lies in the second: why did he sell the pattern to Rowena?

As a short refresher, Rowena is the entrepreneur who set up in Mor Dhona, specializing in buying relics that adventurers find on their travels and selling them gear. She takes all those tomes you collect when doing roulettes and gives you the tome gear in exchange, like, say, the Scaevan gear.

These two conversations prove that Nero, having heard the Warrior of Light ask for protective gear and be turned down, designed new gear for them. He then burned whatever goodwill he had with Jessie to make sure the Warrior of Light could obtain this protective gear if they so chose.

Keep in mind, Jessie was willing to pay Nero 80% of Cid’s salary (“a sultan’s ransom” in Cid’s own words), up front, because she wanted him to work with the Ironworks. While it is by far one of the funniest things she does, she does not make business decisions lightly. Throughout the Omega raids, she is often at odds with Cid because she is focused on making the Ironworks profitable as a business. She has to be, having kept the Ironworks afloat during Cid’s absence between 1.0 and ARR. It’s not something she did just to piss off Cid. If you speak to her just after starting the first quest in the Omega raid series (“The Hunt for Omega”), she is upset that Cid and Nero are wasting time—and therefore money—bickering. Jessie would have had to think at some point that Nero was a worthwhile investment for the Ironworks.

And Nero threw that away. For the Warrior of Light.

But, you say, Nero must have been acting in his own self-interest, right? He certainly could have been, but there is no narrative evidence to suggest it. In fact, there is evidence to suggest the opposite.

During Deltascape and Sigmascape, Nero gives the Warrior of Light gadgets to help them during Omega’s tests: The anti-gravity gimble to go against Catastrophe (O2N); The Chocobo Brush for Chadarnook (O6N). His behavior of gifting the Warrior of Light useful technology is one that was introduced back in the Crystal Tower alliance raids, albeit in a much more condescending way. Not only does Nero not mind giving the Warrior of Light tools he’d made for other purposes, he jumped at the chance to make the Chocobo Brush, for which Cid gives him a little light ribbing.

The reason why he’s forced to convalesce, why he’s not available to give the Warrior of Light gadgets during Alphascape, is because he was injured by Omega. Omega attacks Nero when he was alone in order to traumatize the Warrior of Light. Nero could have done what would have been in his own best interests, even his own survival, by getting medical treatment right then. He chooses not to do so, in part to spite Omega, but also another part that it may have a chance, no matter how small, of affecting the Warrior of Light before the fight to come. Both of these things together prove that Nero not only wants to make things that help the Warrior of Light, but that he can also act in ways that are detrimental to his self interest.

Why, then, did Nero not give the Warrior of Light a set of gear himself? There's a few possible diegetic answers. He could care enough about the Warrior of Light for them to have access to his work but not so much that he'd do the actual forging of the gear himself. His injuries from Omega may have prevented him from whipping up a prototype set before he left. Nero may have even been protecting his own feelings by not giving the Warrior of Light a chance to turn him down. (Non-diegetically, the answer is that FFXIV is a mmo with the expectation that you'll grind for in-game currency for rewards. Go figure.)

For my final caveat to this narrative theory is that Jessie only mentions that Nero sold “the pattern.” The. A singular article, meaning that he likely only designed one set. There are seven different sets in the game. There are a few ways to square that circle. Nero may have only designed the one set, which just so happened to be similar (or he’d claim better) to what the Warrior of Light already uses, also known as whatever your main job is. The other sets that the Warrior of Light does not use do not exist in the story. Another option is that Nero gave Rowena the rights to modify his pattern when he sold it; Nero created the base specifications, requirements, silhouettes, etc. and Rowena had other designers create the actual gear we see in the game. It’s possible, but unlikely, given that Nero is a talented designer in his own right.

The last option is also my favorite: Nero does not grasp the concept of moderation.

He may have offered or been assigned to create a single pattern for new engineer uniforms. However, we all have ran Praetorium: there is a significant amount of space dedicated in it containing spare arms for the Ultima Weapon. We must also recall that in the Sorrows of Werlyt questline, Nero ended up making so many spare parts for the damaged G-Warrior, the Ironworks not only repaired it, but built a whole new mech that would become the G-Savior Mk. II. He may have been responsible for making one pattern, but made seven (or more) just because he could. Because he wanted to do so. Because Nero does not do anything by halves. It’s one of his charm points.

As I come to the end of my analysis, I cannot help but think on when, specifically, the Scaevan gear is given to the player in the game. As the final tier of tome gear for the Post-Stormblood patches, there is hardly any better or any more convenient gear to use when heading into the next expansion, Shadowbringers. In which, the player finds out that Nero, along with the rest of the Ironworks crew, worked and fought and toiled through a calamity, an apocalypse, to lay down the theories for travelling across time and dimensions, the fruits of which they would never see, for the smallest chance to undo it all. The calamity. The pain and terror and starvation. The loss of dear friends and comrades, including the Warrior of Light’s own death. I keep thinking about how we can walk past the aetherometer Nero casts away at the end of the Crystal Tower raids, the symbol of his past obsession and jealousy. How the armor and arms Nero designed could be what protects the Warrior of Light block one more hit, cast one more spell, take one more step on the First. The Scaevan gear is not only proof that Nero cares for the Warrior of Light (whether its interpreted platonically or romantically or otherwise) to the point of invention, but how he’s grown as a character himself. Perhaps that growth only happens because he does learn to care for the Warrior of Light.

It's his favorite holiday, can you tell?