Revelations from SHADOWBRINGERS

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Originally Posted by RicaRuin

No official word, but since Emet-Selch only speaks about them as incomplete, they are sundered for sure. Can still be both, though, as the new life would've been sundered with the world just like the Ancients.

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Oh yeah, the sundering isn't in doubt either way, just curious about the origin.

IMHO it makes Emet a tad more sympathetic if mankind is essentially made up of oblivious chunks of his own dead race blindly bumbling about.

Although I personally think it's probably more likely mankind is descended from the Zodiark seeded life, summoning Hydaelyn and shattering the world into shards in order to save a load of non-sentient wildlife seems overkill.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

Oh yeah, the sundering isn't in doubt either way, just curious about the origin.

IMHO it makes Emet a tad more sympathetic if mankind is essentially made up of oblivious chunks of his own dead race blindly bumbling about.

Although I personally think it's probably more likely mankind is descended from the Zodiark seeded life, summoning Hydaelyn and shattering the world into shards in order to save a load of non-sentient wildlife seems overkill.

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I got the impression that the physical life itself was the life the Amaurotine created which was intended as fuel for Zodiark but after the sundering, the now mortal Amaurotine souls would pass on after their death to the new races. Hence why Emet's friend's soul possibly ended up in a Miqo'te. After all, Emet did state that sundering did not alter the physical appearance of the being being split in two when he demonstrated this using Lyse. Theoretically an Amaurotine split 14 times would still appear the same, only they would merely possess a 14th of the aether/power/creation magic.

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Originally Posted by Edax

I got the impression that the physical life itself was the life the Amaurotine created which was intended as fuel for Zodiark but after the sundering, the now mortal Amaurotine souls would pass on after their death to the new races. Hence why Emet's friend's soul possibly ended up in a Miqo'te. After all, Emet did state that sundering did not alter the physical appearance of the being being split in two when he demonstrated this using Lyse. Theoretically an Amaurotine split 14 times would still appear the same, only they would merely possess a 14th of the aether/power/creation magic.

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From what was said in 5.0, it appears that limited life is due to the sundering of the Soul. If the Soul was complete they will not suffer from any aging or at least stop aging once they reach a certain age.

With the soul split, the body begins to undergo aging until their current body dies and then they are reborn again in their next life as a cycle of death and rebirth.

As we seen in 5.0, each individual soul have a certain color to separate them all out in the aether so we know the Soul will always remain the same even if their body are different.

He could've just been lied to, but didn't Varis' little speech back in 4.5 imply that the different races only existed after the sundering?

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

He could've just been lied to, but didn't Varis' little speech back in 4.5 imply that the different races only existed after the sundering?

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It depends on what he means by "Mankind".

https://i.imgur.com/GG6LmvM.png

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Honestly, while not yet confirmed, I think it's being hinted that the Ancients' creation abilities depend on the planet in some way. They might be able to create a spaceship, but once they actually get into space none of their abilities work anymore - which would be HORRIFYING to them. A bit like if we lost our hands upon going into space.

If this is the case, I'd imagine they may have made some initial forays into space, but when they experienced the consequences they noped right on home again.

It does seem that the Ascians are perfectly comfortable on the moon, but that could still be close enough to the planet to be fine, OR it could be that their abilities still work because Zodiark is housed there. If the former is true and near-space is close enough - perhaps they DID. The planet was in shambles near the end, and it's certainly possible that the survivors moved into space while Zodiark tidied up the planet. The creation-depends-on-the-planet thing, though, could still be the reason they never traveled to other stars.

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Good point but then their power really does not seem that great anymore if its somehow only connected to the planet and not to themselves. (Which makes Ystholas words about them only using their own aether and not the aether of the world a bit strange) Also since the planet was dieing and at the end kinda death thanks to all the calamities how would they still have enough power to summon Zodiark? And why are the unsundered Ascian still with their old power if the planet they get it from was split in so many ways? Shouldnt that in some way effect them? Heck even if Zodiark is now their power source, he is also split up.

Maybe it just comes down to them believing that they would easily handle that if it came to their city (while the ignored the plight around the world) and that the council thought that Zodiark was the best and thus ignored any other idea that could be great. Like they were so into believing that they know the best that they became blind for anything else...

(Everytime I run the Academia and the Amaurot dungeon I am quite shocked how weak they seem to be in the face of danger.)

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Originally Posted by RicaRuin

No official word, but since Emet-Selch only speaks about them as incomplete, they are sundered for sure. Can still be both, though, as the new life would've been sundered with the world just like the Ancients.

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I think its both. I mean there had to be more Ancient ones alive at the time of sundering and I doubt that all of them sacrificed themselves to Hydealyn or died in the conflict between the two. So maybe those with the echo are Ancient ones and the rest is from the new races? And over time their souls were reborn into the bodies of the new races.

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Originally Posted by Edax

I got the impression that the physical life itself was the life the Amaurotine created which was intended as fuel for Zodiark but after the sundering, the now mortal Amaurotine souls would pass on after their death to the new races. Hence why Emet's friend's soul possibly ended up in a Miqo'te. After all, Emet did state that sundering did not alter the physical appearance of the being being split in two when he demonstrated this using Lyse. Theoretically an Amaurotine split 14 times would still appear the same, only they would merely possess a 14th of the aether/power/creation magic.

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The thing is that the conflict started when everyone still had a complete soul. Would the ancient ones that summoned Hydealyn really be against sacrificing something that has no soul? Would Zodiark even be fueled by something that has no soul, especially if its a exchange for an ancient soul which is powerful? We know from the short story that their creations lacked a soul and was not really considered a living being. (Which now makes sense that we would grind a certain monster into a crystal without any remorse) Yet Hythlo talked about them wanting to sacrifice the new life for Zodiark which imo means that this life already had a soul. Which imo shows that the side that summoned Hydealyn saw everything as a soul as worth to live while the Ascians just saw their own race as something worth living and the rest as sacrifices..even at that time and with complete souls they imo had a horrible view on anything not their race.

It could also be even darker than that. We do know that they had some kind of underworld where the souls of the death go (and probably be just reborn again). In that calamity unknown numbers of Ancient ones died, including a huge number of Amaurotines. Yet the Ascians and their supporters only wanted those back that were sacrificed to Zodiark. But what if the future lifes mostly included a lot of Ancient ones because they are reborn again and the Ascians simply did not care about them because they were not those that sacrificed themselves thus not worthy enough to live? Seeing how they were already tempered I honestly could see them being blind to what they would do..including to their own race.

My "Click to Show" button does nothing - any suggestions?

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Would the ancient ones that summoned Hydealyn really be against sacrificing something that has no soul? Would Zodiark even be fueled by something that has no soul, especially if its a exchange for an ancient soul which is powerful? We know from the short story that their creations lacked a soul and was not really considered a living being. (Which now makes sense that we would grind a certain monster into a crystal without any remorse)

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It's possible. Mankind slaughter animals for their meat. For some this is fine, for others this is barbaric. Mankind destroys entire ecosystems (forests, jungles, rivers, Detroit, ect.) for resources. For some this is fine, for others it is not. A forest need not have a soul to have it's loss be lemented. Perhaps for Hydaelyn, rendering the planet barren again to remake the dead Amaurotine after so much work recreating life was too much.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Would Zodiark even be fueled by something that has no soul, especially if its a exchange for an ancient soul which is powerful? We know from the short story that their creations lacked a soul and was not really considered a living being. (Which now makes sense that we would grind a certain monster into a crystal without any remorse)

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Primals are fueled by aether and crystals. We can grind flowers into crystals in this game but few would dispute that flowers have no "soul".

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Originally Posted by Edax

It's possible. Mankind slaughter animals for their meat. For some this is fine, for others this is barbaric. Mankind destroys entire ecosystems (forests, jungles, rivers, Detroit, ect.) for resources. For some this is fine, for others it is not. A forest need not have a soul to have it's loss be lemented. Perhaps for Hydaelyn, rendering the planet barren again to remake the dead Amaurotine after so much work recreating life was too much.



Primals are fueled by aether and crystals. We can grind flowers into crystals in this game but few would dispute that flowers have no "soul".

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How do we know that flowers truly have a soul? Just because they are made out of aether does not mean that they have one. Also it was not Hydealyn that decided on stuff but her summoners. Hythlo even mentions that these people wanted to leave the planet in the hands of the new life and later on Emet comments how he does not see us spoken races as good enough to be the stewards of this planet. All of this together paints the picture for me that we are talking about the sacrifice of living people. Not plants, not animals but sentient and sapient beings.

I would also argue that there is a difference in killing something to eat it which is natural for a lot of animals on the planet and going through whole genocide. Also not sure what our own rl problems with the destruction of our planet has to do with the topic?

In the end I really doubt that any of the ones that summoned Hydealyn would have done this huge change just because the Ascians decided to plant some trees and later chop them down to sacrifice to Zodiark..and I somehow doubt that these trees would have a soul anyway.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

How do we know that flowers truly have a soul? Just because they are made out of aether does not mean that they have one.

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According to FFXIV, there is apparently a clear and understandable way to tell if a being has a soul: whether that being can be understood by someone with the Echo.

Hence the big reaction when we could suddenly understand Alpha at the end of the Omega raid questline.

In any case, I'm fine with assuming that the "life" that the Zodiark-aligned Amaurotines wanted to sacrifice did have souls and sapience. Because if they didn't, that would kind of be a huge thing that I would assume Hythlodaeus would have mentioned, given that he (and Emet-Selch) could see souls, and Hythlodaeus apparently more clearly than Hades.