Can someone explain Dalamud and Project Meteor and Meteor spell?

[Jonnycbad]

I know Dalamud was a satellite used to bind Bahamut and keep him summoned as an energy source but how did they keep him summoned without Aether?

1. Don't Primals need both Prayers/Faith *AND* crystals/Aether to sustain their form?

2. Also when they try to re-bind Bahamut in a blue field that looks a lot like Dalamud? Dalamud wasn't a magical field it was literally a physical binding.

3. Did the Garleans know if Dalamud had Bahamut in it?

4. Wasn't the project aimed to annihilate Eorzea and purge it of Primals? If so, why drop an elder primal on it(assuming they knew what was inside).

5. At some point Nael tried to cast "Meteor" when the original Dalamud Control System was lost. The lorebook says Meteor (BLM LB3) is a concentrated chunk of crystalized Aether that falls from the sky, resembling an asteroid (hence the name). Is BLM's Meteor different from the Allagan spell, "Meteor"?

6. How/why would the spell meteor drop Dalamud instead of simply calling down a Comet like raid bosses cast it (Thordan EX, Xande, etc). Or was the spell that Nael was trying to cast simply a spell that just magically drew Dalamud to the ground as a fail safe or something? I'm confused...

[ManuelBravo]

Did you go through the main story? It explains it unless your skipping it. The SE encyclopedia gives more back ground into it.

[Viridiana]

I know Dalamud was a satellite used to bind Bahamut and keep him summoned as an energy source but how did they keep him summoned without Aether?

1. Don't Primals need both Prayers/Faith *AND* crystals/Aether to sustain their form?

2. Also when they try to re-bind Bahamut in a blue field that looks a lot like Dalamud? Dalamud wasn't a magical field it was literally a physical binding.

3. Did the Garleans know if Dalamud had Bahamut in it?

4. Wasn't the project aimed to annihilate Eorzea and purge it of Primals? If so, why drop an elder primal on it(assuming they knew what was inside).

5. At some point Nael tried to cast "Meteor" when the original Dalamud Control System was lost. The lorebook says Meteor (BLM LB3) is a concentrated chunk of crystalized Aether that falls from the sky, resembling an asteroid (hence the name). Is BLM's Meteor different from the Allagan spell, "Meteor"?

6. How/why would the spell meteor drop Dalamud instead of simply calling down a Comet like raid bosses cast it (Thordan EX, Xande, etc). Or was the spell that Nael was trying to cast simply a spell that just magically drew Dalamud to the ground as a fail safe or something? I'm confused...

Answering these from memory, may be slightly off, especially since I didn't play much in 1.0 and 2.0 was years ago now.

1) Yes, but if they aren't active they don't need as much aether. They also don't need too many people praying for their existence, if the 3.0 primals are anything to go by.

2) I think this is more a case of "convergent evolution," so to speak. If you're going to put something in a cage, a symmetrical cage makes the most intuitive sense, and you don't get more symmetrical than a perfect sphere. I guess that doesn't explain the swords pinning him in, though...

3) I want to say Nael did. Even if he didn't, I'm pretty sure he was corrupted by Bahamut into doing what he did, so...

4) Because Nael was tempered. Tempered people kinda stop caring about their original plans.

5) This seems like something I would need to have played more 1.0 to answer, but in all the lore discussions I've seen, I don't recall Nael's Meteor Project being referenced as a spell. My memory is sometimes faulty, though.

6) What I do remember of Project Meteor was that it planned to drop a moon on Eorzea using Allagan technology that I assume was meant to control Dalamud. Maybe they left controls available incase they ever sensed the seals weakening? I wouldn't call it a fail safe, though. It's pretty much the opposite of fail safe.

Did you go through the main story? It explains it unless your skipping it.

Did they? I don't remember any of this being touched on in 2.0 or 3.0 MSQ. 2.0 MSQ seemed to be largely "Man, the Calamity sucked; we're still rebuilding. Man, these primals are killing the land; please go stop them. Man, the empire has a weapon that consumes primals; please go stop it."

[ManuelBravo]

Did they? I don't remember any of this being touched on in 2.0 or 3.0 MSQ. 2.0 MSQ seemed to be largely "Man, the Calamity sucked; we're still rebuilding. Man, these primals are killing the land; please go stop them. Man, the empire has a weapon that consumes primals; please go stop it."

Yep I played since v1 and also have an alternate. They show you scenes that explain it through both echo and normal dialog you start meeting the three nations and continue as you progress through main story.

[Viridiana]

Yep I played since v1 and also have an alternate. They show you scenes that explain it through both echo and normal dialog you start meeting the three nations and continue as you progress through main story.

Happen to remember a rough location of where they discuss it? I know MSQ has some flashbacks to Careneau, but they don't really go into the leadup from what I recall. Most of the Dalamud/Bahamut stuff was handled through Binding Coils, which is why those raids had some outstanding story. I seem to recall some of it being mentioned in the CT quests, as well, but neither of those were MSQ.

[Hainiryun]

1. Faith yes, Crystals not necesarily. Primals need Aether to sustain their physical forms. Crystals are just convenient concentrations of the stuff. Without Crystals Primals can and will leech ambient aether from the world at large, it's one of the reasons even non hostile Primals can't be allowed to manifest for too long.

2. The sealing spell hasn't been detailed too much as far as I know, but it was heavily reliant on faith to channel the power/perceived power of the Twelve. Dalmund being the manifestation of this sort of fits. Dalmund was what kept Bahamut sealed so Dalmund is something you could concieve being able to hold him.

3. Not directly, House Darnus held surviving Allagan records about Dalmund which conveniently omitted any mention of the Primal itself. The original aim was just to use the energy stored within Dalmund for various purposes. That failed and the project was shelved, Nael brought it back up when Solus decided he wanted to wipe out the Primal threat in Eorzea for good and break the stalemate that had developed after the battle of Silvertear Skies.

4. Garlean command thought it was just a big orb full of energy, they were essentially just planning to drop a big bomb. Nael knew what she was doing by the end, having already been tempered by Bahamut via the Lunar Transmitter.

5. Meteor is a legacy spell name really. It's the ultimate black magic in many entries so it makes sense to use it as the ultimate Black Mage spell. It's distinct from Project Meteor though, which is a more literal "drop a giant doom rock on their heads" scenario.

6. Again, Project Meteor is distinct from the spell Meteor. Nael wasn't using a spell, Project Meteor used an Allagan Lunar Transmitter to call down the Dalmund satelite.

[Astrid_Stormborn]

I know Dalamud was a satellite used to bind Bahamut and keep him summoned as an energy source but how did they keep him summoned without Aether?

1. Don't Primals need both Prayers/Faith *AND* crystals/Aether to sustain their form?

2. Also when they try to re-bind Bahamut in a blue field that looks a lot like Dalamud? Dalamud wasn't a magical field it was literally a physical binding.

3. Did the Garleans know if Dalamud had Bahamut in it?

4. Wasn't the project aimed to annihilate Eorzea and purge it of Primals? If so, why drop an elder primal on it(assuming they knew what was inside).

5. At some point Nael tried to cast "Meteor" when the original Dalamud Control System was lost. The lorebook says Meteor (BLM LB3) is a concentrated chunk of crystalized Aether that falls from the sky, resembling an asteroid (hence the name). Is BLM's Meteor different from the Allagan spell, "Meteor"?

6. How/why would the spell meteor drop Dalamud instead of simply calling down a Comet like raid bosses cast it (Thordan EX, Xande, etc). Or was the spell that Nael was trying to cast simply a spell that just magically drew Dalamud to the ground as a fail safe or something? I'm confused...

Dalamud, iirc, was meant to siphon solar energy and direct it to the Crystal Tower to open a voidgate, but failed and caused a Calamity as a result. Assumedly this fire-aspected aether also sustained Bahamut.

1. Aether I already answered, the prayers came from thousands of Meracydian dragons also imprisoned in Dalamud, kept alive but constantly tortured so they'd call Bahamut for help.

2. What Louisoix tried to use was a powerful sealing spell rather than a technological construct. Papalymo uses the same spell at the end of the 3.5 part 1 story.

3 & 4. Probably not. 'Nael' only started the project to use the family's Allagan tech to Meteor Drop Dalamud on Eorzea and wipe out any resistance. Bahamut just took advantage of it.

5 & 6. Supposedly at some point once 'Nael' was tempered by Bahamut, he became a beacon for Dalamud, replacing the Lunar transmitter that had been destroyed by players. Considering that Dalamud was also the world's biggest solar panel (see above), and Bahamut's heart had 1 of the biggest crystals outside of the floating islands of Heavensward, it's not unbelieveable that the spell was the method used (probably granted to 'Nael' by Bahamut, since pure-blood Garleans can't use magic).

[Jonnycbad]

5. Meteor is a legacy spell name really. It's the ultimate black magic in many entries so it makes sense to use it as the ultimate Black Mage spell. It's distinct from Project Meteor though, which is a more literal "drop a giant doom rock on their heads" scenario.

The wiki definitely mentions a spell named Meteor, and that Nael sought out 4 tomes which contained fragments of the incantation for said spell.

[Anonymoose]

To build a bit on what's come before in the thread...

For the sake of continuity, since we're talking pre-Turn 9 stuff, I'm going to refer to the White Raven in the masculine, by the name Nael.

1] Bahamut's imprisonment in Dalamud was itself a means to collect the boundless energies of the sun and direct them to the crystal tower. That energy was also used to power Dalamud itself, including the stasis of the dragons imprisoned in the internment hulks, which sustained and regenerated Bahamut. Remember that faith is itself often a transfer of spiritual aether. Even after Dalamud fell, the internment hulks sought out Bahamut to regenerate him.

2] The original Dalamud was a machine, the spell cast by Louisoix was ... a spell. Why did the sealing spell look similar to the machine? Hard to say until something is conclusively stated, but a primal looks like you imagine it to be - the summoning of the Twelve manifested as their SYMBOLS, the main thing everyone who prayed to them associated them with in kind - perhaps expectation heavily influenced the appearance of the spell. Prayer that Dalamud would be returned to the heavens, that Bahamut would be rebound; these things would evoke an image of the satellite itself.

3] Nearly everyone, including the Emperor, believed Dalamud to be a legitimate moon - a hunk of rock. Eorzeans hadn't begun tapping tomestones yet, either. By the end, Darnus probably had some grasp of what was inside, even though (despite being tempered) he never referred to Bahamut by name. It was always, "Almighty Dalamud." Did he worship the moon, knowing the moon was more than the moon, or was he sure it was specifically Bahamut the primal incarnation of a fallen celestial dragon captured in the battle for Meracydia and the game just omitted that to maintain the surprise factor? I'm not 100% sure. Maybe a little of each.

4] Everyone expected Eorzea to be a barren wasteland struck by a massive rock - no nations, no life, no healthy land, no healthy rivers of aether, no summoners, no primals. Nael van Darnus loathed the primals and wanted to drop a moon on them, but in his quest to accomplish this he was also tempered. As we've been over above, he worshipped the moon and/or its contents. If you strip some of the specifics out of it and keep in mind that he was brainwashed, it's easy to see how his goal wouldn't change: Bring about Almighty Dalamud's return that He might purify a tainted land in flame. He was being manipulated.

5] A lot of what Garlemald does is mimicry. They use Allagan aetherochemical machina and call it "magitek" but the true fusion of magic and technology is not what's driving them - it's ceruleum, basically the petroleum of aetherial matter. Nael promised a way to mimic a lost sorcery known as meteor.

6] Bahamut's "blessing" empowered Nael to use magicks, something no Garlean should be able to do ... or, going by a suspicious rephrasing in the lore book, VERY FEW Garleans should be able to do (Brace the RP floodgates!). The original meteor spell used by Shatotto was said to have ripped a star (classic term for any celestial object, sometimes even used to refer to the planet itself) from its course and bring it to ground. Crystal Tower and the Lunar Transmitters had their own way of influencing the satellite's behavior. Whatever Darnus was doing, he was either pulling it down a la Shatotto or he was mimicking the interactions of the transmitter; either way it was meteor mimicry and feels different than the BLM spell as it is known and used today.

Nael sought out 4 tomes which contained fragments of the incantation for said spell.

Does the wiki offer any citation for this? As far as I know, Nael never specified that the tomestones he sought contained fragments of spell incantations, he promised only that the data on them would allow him to "harness the power of Allagan technology" to complete the restoration of the lunar transmitter and precisely guide Dalamud onto Eorzea.

[Jonnycbad]

See below:

The Meteor Project was a plan conceived of by Nael van Darnus whereby the Garlean Empire would re-create the lost Meteor sorcery using Allagan technology. As the project progressed, it aimed specifically to guide the descent of the lesser moon, Dalamud, onto Eorzea in order to annihilate the realm's out-of-control primal threat and resistance to Imperial rule in one motion.[1] The realization of this plan in 1572 under the combined might of the VIIth and XIVth Imperial Legions directly led to the seventh Calamity.

n a later quest, the adventurer could use the echo to view the past of a Gridanian soldier, whom Darnus silenced for eavesdropping in a conversation between herself and Gaius Van Baelsar. In that dialogue, Darnus attempted to convince Gaius that conquering Eorzea was not enough to stop the primals; the forbidden Allagan magic Meteor should be cast upon the land to purge them. Gaius initially disagreed due to the unpredictable nature of Dalamud, until Darnus claimed she can find the three tomestones needed to fully control the Meteor spell.