The Great Flood

[Zohar_Lahar]

Something has been bothering me about the Sixth Umbral Calamity: Where did all the flood waters go? It was apparently high enough to let an ark drift into the Gyr Abanian mountains. Yet that vessel is now nowhere near the sea, so all that water had to go somewhere. Or did the great continents just rise a few thousand malms by the start of the Sixth Astral Era?

[Anonymoose]

The Calamities are like a grab bag of Earth's hypothetical and mythological apocalypses. Much like the biblical flood myths, tales of the Sixth Umbral Calamity refer to sudden and unending rains that caused the floods.

The hydrological cycle of a planet (even when its out of whack) is a closed system - water isn't added or removed (or created or destroyed) on a large scale, it just changes forms and moves a lot. Whatever the cause, then, we can infer that the water at some point, in some way was sourced from the oceans, and to them did it eventually return. Unless it becomes trapped somewhere, water always heeds the call of gravity.

All rivers run toward the sea, but the sea is never full.

There are a few ways to adjust this mythology to make it more easy to believe.

First, there's the possibility that this wasn't a global phenomenon, but a regional one that was characterized as such. If something engulfs your whole world, as far as you can see, as far as you've been, many who tell that tale will suggest all that is affected. This seems to be the case with many real-world flood myths; geological evidence supports many of them, but rarely do the tale and evidence line up chronologically - suggesting many regional events remembered as global ones.

Another possibility is to blame aether. Measurements before the flood suggested the aetherial balance of the realm was experiencing an aspect-shift towards water. Look at the properties of a crystal or sprite that becomes aspected towards water - synthesis and quest flavor suggest that these energies facilitate drawing, absorbing, retaining, filtering, and extracting water depending on the situation. If the greater part of the realm's (world's...?) aetherial balance careens towards water, perhaps that makes it easier for the area around it to have water drawn to it and wash over it (as rain), receding when the imbalance abates.

[Zohar_Lahar]

If the Sixth Calamity only hit Eorzea, then that still leads to two other questions:

1. Where did Oha-sok draw all the water from to lather, rinse, and wash off all of Eorzea?

2. Does this mean places like the Far East were not reset by the Sixth Rejoining? If there were still civilizations there unscathed, then why did it take Lahabrea another 1500 years before the seventh rejoining could occur? I don't understand how the Rejoining affects global history at all.....

[alimdia]

Isn't Eorzea the most aether-gifted (not sure what term to use) region of the planet? So far seems like in every calamity attempt the ascians only focus on Eorzea, maybe that's Hydaelyn's "weak point".

[Alien_Gamer]

You can have a global calamity that affects each region differently; its very possible Ala Mhigo was flooded and Doma had a drought or blight or something else. Also, while we have a lot of Eorzean lore and history, I don't think we have nearly as much lore about Doma's history or what they went through during that time period.

As Anonymouse stated, the world is a closed system. The water came from the ocean, evaporated to the clouds, rained on Eorzea then drained away via rivers to thee ocean or returning to the underground aquifers over time. There's no reason to believe the water would have stayed that high for long (geologically speaking), maybe only a week or two at that height and a few months for water levels to subside to normal levels.

Think of our own world and how it floods; waters crest high, lose half that height relatively quickly then gradually return to normal levels afterward. We have no reason to believe Eorzea works differently in this regard.

[Shadotterdan]

I would lean towards blaming aether, but not so much that it gathered up water. If you have aether strongly aspected towards water it just creates water. After the calamity, the aether was unaspected and the water disappeared.

[Berethos]

It was apparently high enough to let an ark drift into the Gyr Abanian mountains

We actually don't know how higher the waters rose, but it's actually likely they didn't reach the height of the peaks in that area - the Roe responsible for building that ark (Nyunkrepf) also cast a teleportation spell when a tidal wave was bearing down on it, and that's how it ended up on top of the peaks in Gyr Abania. From the Lore Book description of those events, they were stuck there while waiting for the rain to stop, before fleeing the area and building another ship in the Dravinian Hinterlands and sailing north, eventually founding the city of Sharlayan.

Also of note is that the reason they fled Gyr Abania was to escape those who had also taken refuge in the peaks during that time who turned to fighting and killing over the resources (such as food) available in the area.

So while it was catastrophic in nature, it did not cover the entire realm in water.

[Kyan]

Without logging in to check (and using my dusty memory), the Ziggurat sightseeing log mentions it was built by the Amdapori and Mhachi refugees together, as an anchor to still the unbalanced aether currents in the region and calm the weather. So I would be inclined to think aether has a lot to do with the flood and rain?

[Shadotterdan]

Well, I think the nature of matter in FFXIV is highly different to real world examples. Simply put, manipulating aether can lead to effects that run counter to what would happen in a purely physical world. Much in the way that the aether currents are responsible for the freezing of Coerthas.

Aether strongly aspected to one element will cause that element to manifest, one needs only to look at spells like Stone or Fluid Aura. A sudden influx of an extremely large amount of water aether would appear as a massive flood, which then recedes as the aether balance tips back to normal.

In fact, I'm going to theorize that each of the calamities were actually the result of a large influx of aether of a specific element caused by the rejoining of one of the shards that happens at the same time.

[Alberel]

I would lean towards blaming aether, but not so much that it gathered up water. If you have aether strongly aspected towards water it just creates water. After the calamity, the aether was unaspected and the water disappeared.

This is also what I believe to be the most likely explanation. When a Conjurer casts a water spell they literally create water from aether. It stands to reason that the Elementals are capable of the same.