Dynamis in hindsight (Massive 6.0 spoilers)

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Originally Posted by Veloran

I reject the idea of retroactively attributing things that were already easily explained as aetherial phenomena as Dynamis just because it's the new hot topic and lacks any rules or clear display of what it even is or does.

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What about phenomena that is not easily explained by aether?

If the voidsent are aether-starved, then surely the very concept of void magic is a contradiction in terms? How do you extract energy from enslaved voidsent and use it to power a ship if they're running a deficit of 'energy' in the first place?

As someone who only took beginners level physics but adore when fantasy magic systems align with physics in fun ways (Am I still tickled pink to this day that Tolkien having all of Ea created via Song and if String Theory is right then everything is vibrations?), I feel that having not everything be the product of aether makes the universe a hundred-fold more realistic and stronger, and that dynamic is deliberately paralleling Dark Energy is delightful. There were always elements of the lore that felt awkward assigning to aether and had to be handwaved as story trope willpower or emotion, so having those be something defined in-universe makes them less 'hand-wavey as plot demands'. Because dynamis isn't [yet] understood or studied in depth, there's still some ambiguity in the world mechanics which is necessary to have not only a plot but a world that feels real - if there was a Great Unifying Theory of how everything works with no great contradictions that the scholars haven't figured out, that's immediately immersion breaking.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

What about phenomena that is not easily explained by aether?

If the voidsent are aether-starved, then surely the very concept of void magic is a contradiction in terms? How do you extract energy from enslaved voidsent and use it to power a ship if they're running a deficit of 'energy' in the first place?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThahHzMScl4
Jesse Cox I think broke down that aspect well in his video on Astral vs Umbral

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And this changes how we see Voidsent creatures too. They aren't the absence of aether, but instead ACTIVELY draining it from the world - creating a void of aether, similar to the 13th. While the Sineaters of the First - the voidsents' light sided counterparts - are surrounded by an over abundance of aether, the gorge on it, are filled to the brim with it, and aren't using any of it.

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The Voidsent aren't like the Terminus Beasts, who literally are the absence of Aether (as Y'shtola could not see them) and replaced with Dynamis, the Voidsent are constantly consuming/draining aether and burning it off, and never letting it stabilize/"cool off". It's like Voidsent are always in the Astral Fire phase (from Black Mages), while Sin Eaters are only ever in the Umbral Ice phase.

Hm. I don't think that Darkness and the Void are necessarily the same thing, even if an imbalance of one created the other. If the EE is to believed, ambient Aether doesn't exist on the thirteenth anymore due to a disruption in the balance between Light and Dark. The 'Void' is literally the absence of Aether. The voidsent are described as 'aether-starved'. And I suppose that none of this comes as a particular surprise when you consider who FFXI's Dynamis is linked to.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Hm. I don't think that Darkness and the Void are necessarily the same thing, even if an imbalance of one created the other. If the EE is to believed, ambient Aether doesn't exist on the thirteenth anymore due to a disruption in the balance between Light and Dark. The 'Void' is literally the absence of Aether. The voidsent are described as 'aether-starved'. And I suppose that none of this comes as a particular surprise when you consider who FFXI's Dynamis is linked to.

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The First was also said to be at risk of becoming a Void (of Light) as well (before Minfilia halted the Flood). If someone like Y'shtola can see Sin Eaters and Voidsent, that consequently has to mean they are still made of Aether (but likely in a manner that is effectively unusable). So that likely means the "ambient" term is the key qualifying factor about the Aether in the 13th. Ambient aether is indicated to be a useable form of aether, like Vrtra said Midgardsormr fed off of the ambient aether in space during his journey to Etheirys. So like with the Empty making everything into an unusable Umbral wasteland/void, the 13th is probably in a state where everything is in an extreme Astral state and unable to stabilize and/or take form (aside from the Voidsent). The Voidsent aren't like the Terminus Beasts, they're the opposite of the Sin Eaters.

Also the term "Void" is partially just the name of the location of the 13th and part of the title of Voidsent, it's not literal nothingness in this context.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

What about phenomena that is not easily explained by aether?

If the voidsent are aether-starved, then surely the very concept of void magic is a contradiction in terms? How do you extract energy from enslaved voidsent and use it to power a ship if they're running a deficit of 'energy' in the first place?

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Due to the nature of sundered shards, and the 13th possibly being the last split, it's possible the aetherial density is naturally so thin there that modern Eorzean aetheromiters cannot even detect it.

I think the closest thing for me was the dancer job quest story haha. You learn that the dance troupe that gives you your job crystal tours the land to dispel negative emotions from their audience, because historically, these emotions have been known to birth physical manifestations that cause real-world harm. When I was doing MSQ I was like "Damn... The dancer job quest had it right all along huh" hahaha.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

Due to the nature of sundered shards, and the 13th possibly being the last split, it's possible the aetherial density is naturally so thin there that modern Eorzean aetheromiters cannot even detect it.

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I think a failure of the measurement device is a plausible explanation of it - e.g. that darkness has put the aether in such a high "kinetic" state that it defies measurement by regular aetherometers. Darkness and light are not too well understood as phenomena, and up to now the association of which is astral and which is umbral was the wrong way round. Given that voidsent can act as aether batteries to Reapers and Void Magi, it makes all the more sense.

I instantly remembered the DNC quests when dynamis came to the table.

I went back to revisit the quest text and indeed they say that is an aetherical manifestation... however, dynamis is not common knowledge. Even its akasa denomination is something quite esoteric even in Thavnairian alchemy and the Dancers from the Falsiam Troupe are Thavnairian. I could see they just not being knowledgeable enough about akasa and simply perceiving the Totentanz as aetherical in nature.

The DNC questline isn't way far back in time, just one xpac prior to EW. It's very possible that the idea of dynamis could have been in the works for that long, but they just didn't want to namedrop or complexify that idea so early.

Though, given the fact that we see NPCs from all sorts of job quests interacting with the MSQ, I really hoped that we had a cameo from Nashmeria to re-contextualize the Totentanz. I wonder if they forgot about how the DNC storyline could potentially enrich the MSQ.

The Totentanz = Dynamis idea doesn't make sense because Dynamis is still supposed to be all but imperceptible even for Sundered lifeforms. Nidhana describes it as an "unseen energy" theorized by Thavnairian alchemists. It's only when Meteion is dumping universal levels of the stuff on to Etheirys or utilizing similar amounts at the edge of the universe that actual tangible manifestations occur. This, in conjunction with the fact that the planet's aether shield was still intact and both seasoned Dancers and the game itself describe it as an aetherial manifestation, would preclude it from being Dynamis.

Frankly the fact that the Dancer quests were all written with an emotional aetheric phenomenon center stage does nothing but once more raise the question of why even write Dynamis into the story when everything it does could already be easily explained by an existing force.