#but its the question 'what life were they planning on sacrificing to zodiark to get the sacrifices back?' :3

[seaseren]

I think my favorite thing about the Ancients in xiv is that they're an infinite discourse machine. Just a neverending fount of arguments. Infinite fractals of pedantry. It's beautiful.

[thegildedgun]

Musings on ShB spoilers V 1.0: Some Theories™ Ahead.

Specifically toward the end. I’ve got some thoughts, and I’m going to tag this post appropriately. There are no images, just some musings about the last leg of the MSQ and the Story Thus Far™.

After doing the final trial with the Siren’s Bounty (Or a fair number of them. There are a few who haven’t caught up just yet) there was a good hour-to-two spent just tossing ideas around in voice chat about the conclusion of 5.0′s MSQ. I spent a lot of time considering the final area in the Tempest, the lore we’re given through interacting with NPCs, and the explanations acquired through runs of the Twining and Akadaemia, not to mention Amaurot proper.

It all came back to a couple of questions about Amaurot itself, however, and its subsequent destruction during The Final Days.

What We Know:

-The First People who later became Ascians were immortal and capable of creation magics simply by focused thought and sufficient aether. Similarly(Indeed, a one-to-one comparison) to summoning magic utilized by beast tribes.

-We already know this to be no coincidence as the Ascians are the ones who taught summoning magic to the beast tribes in the first place.

-The people of Amaurot who created complex new ‘concepts’ and ‘ideas’ had to submit them for acceptance and approval, and then their ‘creation’ would be realized with the assistance of others. 

-Clothes, creatures, and objects were all within the purview of creation magics.

-Creation magic was not a 100% science and required intense focus and concentration to achieve. (As suggested with the Lucid Amaurotine Shade during the MSQ.)

-Having ostentatious clothing in Amaurot was considered ‘peculiar’ and largely discouraged, as one’s ‘inner creativity’ should be celebrated rather than their outer appearance. For this reason, the player is encouraged to go find robes akin to those worn by other Amaurotines.

-Outside of Amaurot, in far-flung reaches of the world spontaneous creation magic was taking place, unguided by conscious thought. Monsters were appearing, believed to be shaped by the innermost fears of the people.

-These were isolated incidents, culminating in the creation of Archaeotania, who was lifted to the Akadaemia Anyder to be contained and studied. Archaeotania would later escape, and cause a containment breach as several of the other creations then set upon the Amaurotines and kill a number of them.

-An Amaurotine within the Akadaemia creates a Guardian Force to contain the breach. This births Quetzalcoatl, but extinguishes the life of the Amaurotine who creates it.

-At some point, Amaurot faces the Final Days, an understood conclusion by the people of the city, who otherwise calmly go about their business while they await the Convocation of thirteen(fourteen) to deliver a solution to the issue.

-During the Final Days, the fabric of reality was somehow ‘pulled apart’ in terms unspecified and the convocation decided the solution was to somehow ‘rewrite’ them. 

-Also during the Final Days, the panic that had gripped the outside world as the First People began spontaneously manifesting their fears explodes, and the entire world faces destruction on a monumental scale.

-The proposed and carried out solution to the looming apocalypse was to give the ‘star’ a ‘will’, which would become Zodiark. Through the sacrifice of 1/2 of the population (Or rather, perhaps, their Aether) Zodiark is brought into being.

-The world After the Final Days is a barren waste, and another half of the remaining population sacrifices themselves to Zodiark to bring life back to the world. The remaining 1/3rd of the population of the original First People plan to nourish the world, then offer up a portion of its vitality for the return of their fellows.

-Dissidents to the idea of Zodiark’s rule came to create ‘Hydaelyn’, whose domain allowed ‘Her’ to split, divide, and halve all traits of anything ‘She’ touched. People, places, and even Zodiark himself.

Side Notes For Reference:

-Much of FFXIV’s story and themes takes from other games, literature, and real-world conflicts. This is perhaps nowhere more evident than in Shadowbringers, with liberal usage of themes from other FF titles in music, boss design, naming conventions, and environments.

-The terms “Amaurot” and “Anyder” are both direct pulls from Thomas Moore’s socio-political satire work “Utopia”. Amaurot was the capitol city of Utopia, while Anyder was the river that ran through the city. Interestingly, “Anyder” means “No Water”, cementing the concept of Utopia as an abject fantasy. (Utopia itself as a word means “Not a Place”.) I’m not going into too much detail about why this is important or what Utopia’s story and commentaries were about but suffice to say it is well worth the read if you want to get a little kick out of Amaurot’s concept.

Overarching Theory:

Much of what I have concluded through the MSQ boils down to this: the First People were a largely stifled lot, and we view them through the lens of Emet-Selch’s nostalgia. They wore identical robes and similar masks, concealed their bodies and faces, and their ideas and contributions had to be submitted and approved in order to be recognized. This, to me, exemplifies a society where one’s freedom of self-expression would be utterly strangled by rules and regulation. However, in Amaurot this incredible sense of control would also serve the purpose of keeping a leash on the greater rules and understanding of reality.

In the Final Days, reality comes apart at the seams. Monsters are created, yes, but more than that, fire rains from the sky and seas boil. These are non-specific fears of destruction, of reckoning without carefully defined parameters. This is the framework for an apocalypse born of the collective consciousness that was the First People. Fear is a mighty thing, especially when it is loosely defined. Imagine all of that creative magic and energy without perfect control and parameter, allowed to manifest incomplete but nevertheless horrifying concepts. The First Beast is a great example of this: too many mouths and teeth, too many legs and nothing but want for destruction, a creature who can call down fire like rain.

But what about the catalyst for all of this? The people of Amaurot didn’t spontaneously all start fearing for their lives, did they? No, no they did not. That particular honor belongs to Archaeotania, and the containment breach in Akadaemia Anyder. We know that Archaeotania was created on one of the colonies away from Amaurot in the preliminary ‘incidents’ of spontaneous creation, and was then transferred to the Akadaemia for containment and study. However, it couldn’t be contained, and that concept in and of itself has hefty implications.

Something, a monster, born of fear cannot be contained. Fear cannot be contained. 

What happens in the Akadaemia fosters growing panic, which then festers among the populace, and the Convocation (Already debating how to go about containing the threat of these ‘beasts’) realizes the situation is way out of control. What can be done? How do we contain this threat of fear that is burning through the people? How do we calm them all down?

They, of course, turn to the one tool at their disposal which started the mess, but also the only tool they really have: Creation Magic. The Guardian Force known as Quetzalcoatl serves as the tinder and spark for the idea of Zodiark: a being that could protect and guide the people. Zodiark, on the other hand, had to be on a massive scale and thus require a massive amount of aether.

Emet-Selch says a very interesting phrase about Zodiark. He mentions that Zodiark tempered them because ‘of course he did’. He also mentioned something about it being ‘futile to resist such power’.

It became startlingly clear to me after the fight with Hades why that phrase bugged me so much.

Zodiark tempering the First People is what saved them in the first place. Him, binding their will to His, and therefore stopping the rampant panic. 

In the sort of manner, you know, that an Abrahamic angel might shout BE NOT AFRAID. But with more ‘oomf’ behind it, if you will.

The ‘rewriting’ of the laws of reality was simply placing those ‘laws’ under Zodiark’s command. He decided what was and was not possible, what was and was not acceptable. 

Why is this so important though?

Because the First People were possessed of incredible power, but in order to ‘control’ it, sacrificed much of their self-expression and indeed, self-identity. When all of the rules of how and what to conceptualize went out the window and the First People lost their control over their thoughts and emotions, chaos ensued, monsters were born.

In a word, the First People were guilty only of ‘thought crime’. And Zodiark was the answer, tempering their minds so that they couldn’t create such unrefined concepts of fear and destruction. And with Zodiark holding hostage so much of the aether sacrificed to make him...no one could create anything.

Not without his say so.

He was the Will of the star, because nothing happened without his approval. 

Questions Yet Answered:

-How did Hydaelyn come into being, and how did Her creators escape Zodiark’s tempering?

-How does the WoL fit into the narrative, with a soul ‘seven times rejoined’? (Eight with Ardbert.) Do they happen to be a dissident? Were they the ‘fourteenth’? How were they ‘nostalgic’ to Emet-Selch, as was suggested in the MSQ?

-All this and more...

[ancsthctist-archived]

//. @crystalliccs // plotted starter // crystal exarch (post 5.0; pre 5.3)

     Primordial Light’s hold over the First had ceased, and the collective of Norvrandt was more than happy to revel in these most glad of tidings. The return of night was, by no stretch of anyone’s imagination, a welcome change, and for all the good it wrought, the absence of the Warrior of the Darkness from the celebrations was either keenly noted or easily missed. The party’s return to the Crystarium after the defeat of Emet-Selch was bereft of the warrior in question, for he had stayed behind--for his own reasons, of which he refused to divulge even to the closest of them. He remained there in the Tempest, for what likely seemed like forever to the Scions, but to Rham’ir, his eventual departure came much too soon.

     Rham’ir wasn’t a man of sunshine and rainbows--an old doctor who’d had enough of the warring conflict between children of Hydaelyn and Zodiark, he was a weapon being used against his will. No matter how hard he fought, how many times he tried to change the course of history, he could feel his agency slip through his fingers. Watching the Ascian dissipate against the backdrop of a ruined Amaurot had brought the realization of his crime to the forefront: he’d snuffed out the hope not at all dissimilar to his own from a man not at all dissimilar to himself--the hope of this man and his entire people. He had pushed an ancient people one step closer to their final oblivion.

     One might tell him that it was necessary--if not the life of Emet-Selch, then the life of the shard, and those who would be sacrificed through the Eighth Umbral Calamity. But why either? Why not neither? Had he not been on the cusp of turning into a literal monster, Rham’ir would have begged for parley, and its this noticeable difference in himself that incited a notion of despair--why would he? Why should he? Emet-Selch was a monster. A murderer. He created empires that wrought insurmountable harm to the fragments of those he once cared for and lost. Even should they be but scattered pieces of an ancient whole, that gave none of the Unsundered the divine right to cause this harm, right?

     He remembers Amaurot. And he remembers the anguish the very vision of it wrought upon him, his soul awakening to a very real, very distant nightmare. It’s that same part of him that wishes to speak. To speak with Emet-Selch. Yet not so to Elidibus... Why? Were these his true feelings? Or was he remembering things? Things he didn’t live through as he was? All these thoughts wracked him, forced him to isolate himself from the others, whether he realized it or not. Often times, during conversation, his eyes would go blank. And he was no longer there. Trapped in the promise of remembering. Trapped in the agony that he had cleaved something from himself. Trapped in the hatred of his ambivalence.

     This happened a lot with the Crystal Exarch. G’raha Tia. He remembered him from those strange and deeply worrying journeys into the Crystal Tower on the Source. But one thing he remembered was the scent. The voice. The Exarch was everything Emet-Selch was not. A comforting presence, at the very least, yet still so foreign. He didn’t know if he deserved the warmth the Exarch exuded, and so he remained at arm’s length. Perhaps he was still mad at the deception. Hells, he probably was. If a little bit. And it was with this trepidation that Rham’ir quietly, whilst in private with the Exarch, voiced his meager protestations to the plan of using his blood for vessels crafted for soul transference. He had no better ideas for it, of course--Soulcraft was so far beyond him that to get his perspective would be a laughable endeavor.

     ❝ I don’t like this plan, ❞ he said, ❝ Must it really be your blood that’s used? Can’t we... extract something from your skin or your hair or... something? ❞ It’s the most Rham’ir has said to the Exarch in a single sentence for a while since their bout in the Tempest. And the roughness in his voice bore testament to his lack of speaking overall in that time. Rham’ir, however, was a doctor. A surgeon. Everything from his point of view was far more on the scientific level--whatever compounds the Exarch’s blood had, it couldn’t have been much different from a hair sample, or even skin flakes, could it? No matter how dour he was, the health of anyone would always be enough to rouse him from whatever stupor he found himself in.