Tales from the Calamity Lore Discussion

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Originally Posted by Volsung

Since both Rosensthal and Sthalmann exist in cutscenes in the same time period,

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Ahh, but do they? Try watching the Lominsan quests again, but every time your hear a sound like whoosh, imagine that you've just entered or exited an Echo of 1562 because you've triggered a memory in who you're talking to. See if things start suddenly making a lot of sense. (Big Hint: Whenever Sthalmann is around, the Admiral is a man.)

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Currently working hard to get the annotated Tales finished before the next one comes out, but popping in to say that I did manage to read the translations of the other languages. Indeed, English is unique in Louisoix saying "If I don't return" rather than "I will not be returning." The English version conveys Louisoix's gentle personality, actually leaving out his admission and simply saying he told Minfilia "the rest." The German translation articulates the concise Japanese most clearly without omitting the blunt truth.

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Das Ritual ähnelte einer Primae-Beschwörung und barg die Gefahr, alle Bewohner Eorzeas in von den Zwölf Besessene zu verwandeln.
The ritual resembled a primal summong and had the potential to turn every resident of Eorzea into Twelve's tempered servants.

Er würde die Kraft der Götter kanalisieren müssen, ohne ihnen Gelegenheit zu geben, sich körperlich zu manifestieren.
He would have to channel the power of the gods, but without giving them the opportunity to manifest physically.

Dazu gab es nur einen Weg: die Eliminierung des Mediums, kurz bevor dies geschah.
There was only one way: the elimination of the medium, just before this happened.

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We've known for a while that Louisoix's plan failed because the Twelve's strength alone was not enough to overcome Bahamut's power, but we didn't know that even if Dalamud was a simply moon, even if Bahamut did not appear, even if the Twelve's power were enough to raise Dalamud, Louisoix still intended to die. The plan was that, after the Twelve's power was invoked, but before they could physically manifest, he would take his own life to interrupt the ritual. He never got far enough into the summoning for us to see that part, however, because Bahamut interrupted the ritual well beforehand and he decided to fall back on something else...

Makes you wonder, though... when he sends the Warriors of Light away, you see the same type of circular glyph that appears around the wrists of summoners around his own, and within it is the symbol of Althyk. Were Bahamut's disappearance and all this memory loss a result of Althyk's power, as well? Was this invocation interrupted, or did Althyk manifest somewhere? Or is it all related to something else?

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Granted, English would have him lying benevolently about the possibility of his return. The whole thing where Lou doesn't spell out in exquisite detail what is going to happen at the summoning... Well, it's just that. Even using "Gaius language," the implication is that The 12 are capable of doing everything that we know primals are able to do. As the expanded explicit explanation details, their summoning is so similar to that of Primals as to be indistinguishable. And if a full summoning would have been done, that would have been 12 Primals manifest on Eorzea simultaneously at the same location. Probably that would have desolated, if not the realm, certainly Carteneau. I find the idea of Althyk having been manifest and potentially still manifest somewhere on Hydaelyn to be an interesting conjecture.

And to go on a complete tangent, the official wording of Althyk's description has always bugged me: "Althyk is the surveyor of change and space and god of time." Too many "ands." It seems more likely that the intended meaning is "Althyk is the god of space and time and the surveyor of change." You might also say "Althyk is the god of space, time, and of surveying change." As someone who occasionally does writing and editing work, the wording in some of these descriptions - Althyk, here, in particular - offends my sense of grammatical style as taught to me by my teachers and nurtured by my own hard work. I acknowledge that I hold no degree in any writing disciplines and don't do any such work full time, so it's entirely possible that the whole thing is grammatically sound, stylistically sound, makes sense, and I'm the only one whose troubled and confused.

Getting back to the matter at hand... I am hopeful that as we learn the deeper mysteries of Primals and Ascians, we will also learn more about the true nature of Eorzea's Gods and their symbols. We are certain that the symbols of Eorzea's Gods date back to at least the Allagan Empire. The 12 walking among mortals in the first astral era could very much be an error of recorded history. A Song of Ice and Fire goes out of its way in more recent volumes to state that history and prophecies can be influenced by who recorded them and also by playing "translation telephone." Yoshida has indicated that Primals will begin to be less chaotic, selfish, and destruction focused as Ifrit, Garuda, and Leviathan and more thoughtful and purpose driven as Titan and Ramuh were. I hope that's right and am curious to see what motivates Shiva. Would be even more interested to see what the agenda of a manifest member of Eorzea's pantheon would be.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

The plan was that, after the Twelve's power was invoked, but before they could physically manifest, he would take his own life to interrupt the ritual. He never got far enough into the summoning for us to see that part, however, because Bahamut interrupted the ritual well beforehand and he decided to fall back on something else...

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... I wonder if Gaius knew all this, and that's why he taunts us that way on the elevator to the Ultima Weapon's cradle. One thing is for sure, it now makes perfect sense why we DON'T do as he mockingly suggested.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Makes you wonder, though... when he sends the Warriors of Light away, you see the same type of circular glyph that appears around the wrists of summoners around his own, and within it is the symbol of Althyk. Were Bahamut's disappearance and all this memory loss a result of Althyk's power, as well? Was this invocation interrupted, or did Althyk manifest somewhere? Or is it all related to something else?

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Althyk's domain is time. Could he simple have invoked the remnants of Althyk's dissipating power to transplant the Warriors of Light (and perhaps Bahamut too?) to a later, safer time period? But it still makes no sense that Bahamut now lies beneath Carteneaux, restrained by his Neuro-links and the three (or perhaps four?) Ragnarok interrment hulks. Isn't he visibly free of all of those things during the End of an Era cutscene?

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Originally Posted by Saikou

Probably that would have desolated, if not the realm

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Yeah, it was stated as the ritual was prepared that fully summoning twelve deities would probably reduce the realm to a lifeless husk.

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Originally Posted by Saikou

the official wording of Althyk's description has always bugged me

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I hold no more of a linguistically-related degree than you do, so take this with a grain of salt, but I feel that the issue is a lack of agreement between the two intended blocks. Althyk is [the surveyor of change and space] and [god of time]. Without a second "the" to create agreement, the third "and" disrupts the intended two-block perception and creates the confusing illusion of three sections. Saying "Althyk is [the surveyor of change and space] and [the god of time]" would be - maybe not more clear - but more grammatically correct. I would have used an interrupter, myself, but I do so love my interrupters: "Althyk, god of time, is the surveyor of change and space."

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Originally Posted by Brine_Gildchaff

I wonder if Gaius knew all this

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He knew enough, though probably not as much as people might give him credit for. As far as I can tell, his specific observation, "Why do you not respond in kind?" about summoning the Twelve to face the primals was less about showing us how much he knew, and more of a rhetorical question meant to link "Why do you place your faith in false gods?" to "Because you are weak, and that's why I will win." He doesn't really know all that much. I mean, he allied with the freakin' Ascians; how well-informed about the true nature of our reality could he be? For all he knows, our leaders are weak and the Twelve are real. Granted you probably still shouldn't summon them lest they omnomnom the vital essence of our reality, but still.

SE's kept this whole The Twelve thing up for far too long for the truth to be entirely atheistic, methinks. As much sense as I can make out of theories that the Twelve aren't actually deities, I can't shake the feeling that there's something there. "Eorzea - a land embraced by mighty gods" was literally the first thing in the reveal, the first thing in every promotion, and a huge part of the PR. How cheap would it be for all that to be bullshit? (And that's coming from the guy who came up with the theory that the Twelve were just a bunch of leftover augmented Allagans like Phlegethon that wowed the crap out of recent migrants to the realm and inspired a religion. I just like putting on the darksteelfoil hat and musing, sometimes.)

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Originally Posted by Brine_Gildchaff

Althyk's domain is time. Could he simple have invoked the remnants of Althyk's dissipating power to transplant the Warriors of Light (and perhaps Bahamut too?) to a later, safer time period?

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Althyk could definitely swing our teleportation into spacetime limbo, and I think we're meant to assume that he did. After that, though, Louisoix just gives up as Bahamut charges a massive attack and looks away, smiling as he embraces death. Something unrelated to his spell may have come into play at that moment. As I said earlier in the thread, my original guess was that Dalamud was so well-engineered that, even in shattered pieces, it attempted to initiate repairs and reintegrate, causing Bahamut to be torn asunder when the fallen internment hulks embedded in the ground re-linked. Or maybe Althyk's magicks were still working and the bright light was the god's power binding Bahamut and annihilating Louisoix, interrupting both of their spells before the flare could go off or Althyk could manifest, thus hitting the pause button on the Calamity to let the realm heal enough to survive until we could clean house. Whatever happened, it's meant to be a mystery revealed at the end of the third coil, so I've stopped trying to figure it out.

I wonder if they were sealed off by the warring tribes of old? After which the 1st Astral era/age of Man came to be.

Could it be possible that the 12 created/control man (the playable races and beyond) and used them to fight each other. Something happens, rebellion ensues and they got themselves sealed. Now untempered man was free and the lands aether no longer drained by the 12. Thus ushering the 1st astral era.

Shocking reveal - the twins have parents.

Dear Fourchenault Leveilleur, please come and collect your children before Alphinaud decides we're too stupid to make our own decisions and makes himself God-Emperor.

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Originally Posted by FJerome

Dear Fourchenault Leveilleur, please come and collect your children before Alphinaud decides we're too stupid to make our own decisions and makes himself God-Emperor.

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I must say like all the others it's a great personal story. I hope there will be more such stories in the future. Either outside of the game or in game.

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Originally Posted by ruskie

I must say like all the others it's a great personal story. I hope there will be more such stories in the future. Either outside of the game or in game.

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It's probably my favourite so far, probably because of all entirely new (to my knowlege) information about Sharlayan. It's good character insight into the twins, too.

ETA: I'd rather we'd get most of our lore in-game, though, if only because it's easier for new people to come across it that way. For example, if you only started playing with ARR it's pretty easy right now to never find out about the old 1.0 newspaper articles.

I think for my part I'd say my favorite is the Elder seedseers. But they all brought a tear or two to my eyes - really want more strong emotional things in this game(I loved the events after story titan - still my favorite part of it - story went so well from that point - I want to see more of such).

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Originally Posted by FJerome

Shocking reveal - the twins have parents.

Dear Fourchenault Leveilleur, please come and collect your children before Alphinaud decides we're too stupid to make our own decisions and makes himself God-Emperor.

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You say that like we aren't too stupid to make our own decisions. ?_? Man though, I don't think anyone called the twins being the last entry, haha.

Reading through all of these has been really nice. Especially being able to get better insight into how the characters think, and some of their less obvious relationships with one another. Good job to all the people that worked on these! And here's hoping that more of this sort of characterization comes through in the game itself.

This one had a lot more perspective and emotion than new information, so I imagine I can have this final one annotated by the end of the day, easily. I'm going to need to work my way through a few past summaries and update, them, however, based on the one major piece of new info we got: Louisoix was absent from Eorzea from 1562 to 1572. I'm pretty sure my summaries never went explicitly out of their way to disinclude him from Yda, Papalymo, Thancred, and Y'shtola's presence, even though they did make it pretty clear that his "arrival" was a recent event.

I also thought Urianger's perspective was pretty interesting. I'd never fully realized in its own right how The Battle of Cartenau must have looked to the members of the Circle, who spent the battle in their assigned city-states offering prayer and then had their memories wiped by the bright white light. To them, Bahamut popped out of the Wonder Ball, Louisoix stuck to his original plan, and the invocation of the Twelve saved Eorzea. If this wasn't Althyk's doing, I imagine they're in for an even bigger surprise than we are at the end of the Coil.

A small aside, I love the quote “As Sharlayans, it is our task to observe—to chart the course of history, not to change it." from the son of the leader of the Circle of Knowing and the father of twins who split up to simultaneously disable the threat posed by fallen Dalamud, orchestrate Operation Archon against the Garlean Empire, and found their own Grand Company.

Something I noticed:

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“Even had you not gained admission to the Studium—and made me exceedingly proud in so doing—these gifts would have been yours regardless. Here—one for each of you. When read together, these two grimoires form a single tome. Provided you support one another’s studies, I have no doubt that you will soon come to understand the lessons inscribed therein.” The volumes Louisoix gave to his grandchildren scant hours before his departure were curious indeed. Crafted such that the contents of one could not be deciphered without the other, they hinted at the impish humor which danced behind the ofttimes solemn visage of Sharlayan’s preeminent sage and scholar.

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It makes me wonder if their books are the "key" of which Alphinaud spoke of.

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

Something I noticed:



It makes me wonder if their books are the "key" of which Alphinaud spoke of.

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I was wondering the same thing.

It makes a lot more sense now that the story has focused so much on how the twins have fallen out. Alphinaud wishes to complete Louisoix's work and live up to his legacy whilst Alisaie wants to find out what happened to him and avenge him. They ultimately both want the same thing (both paths would lead to facing Bahamut) but they no longer see eye to eye on how to get there and have entirely different motivations.

The fact that their grimoires contain a special knowledge of some kind that can only be accessed if they read both together suggests they're going to need to resolve their differences in order to get it. I just wander what it actually is... We've seen Alisaie use Ruin in T9 so we know they're arcanists. Could the books contain some special form of arcanima glyph?

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Originally Posted by Alberel

Could the books contain some special form of arcanima glyph?

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I actually do think there may be some big-time foreshadowing here. They saved this tale for last, and it was fairly tame compared to Minfilia's entry, which makes me wonder if they truly wanted a simple uplifting sentiment, or if perhaps it'll be mind-blowing in retrospect. I could see you two being on to something with the grimoires; Louisoix gave them to them just as he left, it's the perfect place to hide a fail-safe only his legacies could discover in time if he didn't return.

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Originally Posted by Alphinaud

Will you now find a use for the secret─for the key that only you and I hold?

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I like that interpretation better than the others I've heard so far.

... a fail-safe, contained within arcanima grimoires. A pair of books possibly containing some advanced/special form of arcanima glyph. Arcanima, which we know can be used to shape ambient aether into a living form that does NOT drain the aether of the land around simply by existing.

This is shaky at best, I know... but what if their "key" is some alternate method of summoning "egis" of the Twelve? A way to call forth their power without the dangerous and suicidal summoning method that Louisoux was forced to use at Carteneau?

(By the way, where and when exactly does Alphinaud say the line that Moose quoted? I'm afraid I don't remember, or else haven't reached it yet since I've yet to conquer Turn 9.)

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Originally Posted by Brine_Gildchaff

Where and when exactly does Alphinaud say the line that Moose quoted?

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The full Second Coil is contained in the quest Another Turn in the Coil, and the quote is the final line of the post-Coil wrap-up, Alisaie's Resolve.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

The full Second Coil is contained in the quest Another Turn in the Coil, and the quote is the final line of the post-Coil wrap-up, Alisaie's Resolve.

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Ah, that explains it, I'm still stuck on Melusine. (Then again, considering I only finally beat Twin last week, that's pretty quick progress...)

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

I've decided to preserve each tale from the Calamity in my over-ambitious, likely-never-to-be-finished-solo project Loremonger. Relevant terms link to their wiki articles (though most are in dire need of fleshing out) and annotated footnotes have been added elaborating on the lore of topics mentioned in the installment (those I'd recommend reading)

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The first pass of all five Tales is done, though I'm sure I'll tweak the footnote wording and formatting plenty over the ages. As expected, Louisoix's tale didn't include much to elaborate on (about as much as Kan-E's). I can't say this enough, if you bother with these and find any accidental misinformation or have any further questions or think that I missed an opportunity to ramble on and on about something, lemme know!

The Annotated Tales from the Calamity

Huge, huge thanks to the team for all the effort on these! XI's lore posts were always fun, but were often just tongue-in-cheek light roleplay for the sake of not being boring about information delivery and promotion. XIV's really gone out of its way to stay in character and expand the world for the sake of expanding the world, and we notice. Special thanks for all the little throwbacks to 1.0 hidden in these!

What next... I think I'm just excited to dive back into my Warrens of Lominsan Past (1.0 LL Summary) and move on to the other two cities and beyond. Believe it or not, between refining the transcripts and translations over freaking years, hints from Fernehalwes when he can find some scraps to throw our way, and some truly awesome gems hidden in these tales, I think I actually understand 99% of them now and will be able to give them a proper burial in Loremonger's archives.

Funny enough, at the moment, I'm just sitting here pondering about Linkshells. The final Tale specifically used the word linkshell. You don't see that very often coming from lore sources or even NPCs. We see the pearls from time to time, but the most in-depth explanation I remember was back in 1.0 and basically said "Minfilia's given out thousands of these things, but they aren't terribly reliable. Linkpearls are to voices as aetherytes are to bodies, other than that it's a total mystery!" Does anybody remember hearing anything about them or should we make a thread for it like we did how the athernet was restored and who's on the gil coin? Remember, lore-wise, linkshell technology is even a big part of Free Company communication! How are people running these shells if they're such a mystery!? Obviously, I mean, something something Sharlayan engineering something something based on old technology something something Allagans. But still. I'm imagining 1.0 Minfilia sitting at a table with this giant shell in her lap laughing hysterically while it spits out hundreds linkpearls for her recruits. "Ahahah! Go home, shellphone, you're drunk!"

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

One thing I noticed about today's - it says Minfilia gained the echo one year before her 18th nameday, which makes it 1567 of the Sixth Astral Era. I'd always assumed she was one of the first who got it in 1562 with the starshower (during which they make note that "the echo has sounded"). I thought that was why they kept mentioning that Minfilia was "one of the few survivors of the Fall of the Keeper," which I took to mean she was in Mor Dhona during the Battle of Silvertear Skies. I wonder what the significance of that was, then, if there was any.

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I wonder about this too, Ascilia and Warburton are in Ul'dah with the whole premise of a greater threat than the Garleans. I always assumed Ascilia had the Echo and therefore held the answer and it's why Warburton risked so much smuggling her out of Ala Mhigo and bringing her to Ul'dah.

Edit: Also I'm sure you hit the nail on the head and we'll see them change it to Linkpearls lol it's why we have this forum to nitpick and scrutinize~

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Funny enough, at the moment, I'm just sitting here pondering about Linkshells. The final Tale specifically used the word linkshell. You don't see that very often coming from lore sources or even NPCs. We see the pearls from time to time, but the most in-depth explanation I remember was back in 1.0 and basically said "Minfilia's given out thousands of these things, but they aren't terribly reliable. Linkpearls are to voices as aetherytes are to bodies, other than that it's a total mystery!" Does anybody remember hearing anything about them or should we make a thread for it like we did how the athernet was restored and who's on the gil coin? Remember, lore-wise, linkshell technology is even a big part of Free Company communication! How are people running these shells if they're such a mystery!? Obviously, I mean, something something Sharlayan engineering something something based on old technology something something Allagans. But still. I'm imagining 1.0 Minfilia sitting at a table with this giant shell in her lap laughing hysterically while it spits out hundreds linkpearls for her recruits. "Ahahah! Go home, shellphone, you're drunk!"

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I'm liable to regard the terms 'linkshell' and 'linkpearl' as meaning different things in the narrative, as gameplay wise naturally they're distinct ('linkshell' being the actual network and linkpearls being the devices that connect to it). But like how no one really uses the term 'world wide web' anymore when referring to accessing websites on the internet, and just use the term 'internet' to describe the same thing, how it was written in Tales of the Calamity is probably just using it as a generic term that transcends it's original use to cover different aspects of it's functionality.

As for where they come from, FFXI specifically stated that linkshells were literal, magical, shells, but here I'm not so sure. Cid revealed during the 2.0 storyline that they're actually radio devices, thus making it analogous to a mobile phone (after all, a phone-like tone is even heard when the player and npcs are shown using linkpearls in cutscenes!).

And given the fact that the Garleans use the exact same technology, I wouldn't be surprised if it's another example of Garlean technology that has filtered out into Eorzea (probably through the Ironworks) and cheaply released to the realm at large. But this is all just assumptions on my part. :p

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

As for where they come from, FFXI specifically stated that linkshells were literal, magical, shells, but here I'm not so sure. Cid revealed during the 2.0 storyline that they're actually radio devices, thus making it analogous to a mobile phone (after all, a phone-like tone is even heard when the player and npcs are shown using linkpearls in cutscenes!).

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In that case this seems to eb more advanced than actual mobiles (except maybe those with Bluetooth)

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

In that case this seems to eb more advanced than actual mobiles (except maybe those with Bluetooth)

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They're closer to radio, with broadcast frequencies, considering their military applications in issuing and relaying orders.

My assumption has always been that they transmit using aether in some way.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

They're closer to radio, with broadcast frequencies, considering their military applications in issuing and relaying orders.

My assumption has always been that they transmit using aether in some way.

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It actually is radio - Cid specifically states during the questline leading up to the raid on Castrum Centri that they use electromagnetic waves, ala, radio. Of course this just results in the player's character looking at him blankly and forcing him to dumb down his explanation as 'lightning-aspected aetheric energy travelling through the air'. But it's clearly a radio device.

Of course mobile phone technology are also radio devices as well, but the big difference is mobile phones are 'full duplex' where both users at either end can speak at the same time, where as traditional radio communication (such as CB radio) is semi-duplex, requiring each person to take turns as transmitter and receiver. It's unclear whether linkshells are either full or semi-duplex, but either way it's clear they're wireless technology.

Good luck Moose! I only played through the Lominsa 1.0 storyline so I'm eagerly awaiting your write up of the Ul'dah and Gridania storylines. It's only extremely recently that I've finally figured out the significance of names like Niellefresne and Warburton but still have very little context for what they did.

I wonder whats the origin of those horns, especially the horn that louisoix had? We know Alagan summoners need "horns" to summon.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

I used to think that the cause was Dalamud itself - that it was so well engineered that even in pieces it tried to re-connect what chunks of itself it could, causing Bahamut to be torn apart as he was pulled back between the internment hulks. Now, I've just stopped theorizing and am going to let the surprise happen.

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Maybe I should have taken that theory a little further...

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/de6...ce9ea3b9_1.png
The Final Coil of Bahamut