...

I'm both impressed and slightly fearful at the amount of thought, interpretation and extrapolation that's gone into this.

The FF games are rife with references to myth and legend, from beings like Gilgamesh and Ifrit and the names of weapons and artefacts, to the Moai that appear now and then. It can be downright perilous to read too much into these references.

As for that article on changing history... if it's possible to travel through time, then it's possible to change the past. The very presence of a time traveler in the past alters what actually happened, from the position of air molecules that their body displaces to the overall mass of the universe. It's not something that needs to be focussed on too much in an FFVIII discussion...