What is Ceruleum, Magitek, and Aether and how does it work?

Me and my friends are role players who have decided that they want to role play engineers. But there seems to be little defined lore that I can find on how the technology in Eorzea actually works. We know Garleans use Magitek which I assume is powered by Ceruleum, and we don't have too much of a clue on how allagan technology works. I am guessing it runs on aether. I looked up on the ARR fan wiki and it said Ceruleum is a refined form of aether extracted from crystals. Can anyone source where this information is stated? If the information is true would that make Aether a form of matter? If it is wrong then what is Ceruleum really?

One of the 1.x botanist quests (The Grass is Always Greener) says conjurers think ceruleum is produced from ancient life somehow. Did they change that then? I'm not too up to date on the particulars of ARR lore, I don't recall any tidbit referencing crystals. There's also how Ceruleum Fields is said to be the only place in Eorzea with ceruleum, which just wouldn't make any kind of sense if it was obtained from crystals.

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Originally Posted by JGwinters

One of the 1.x botanist quests (The Grass is Always Greener) says conjurers think ceruleum is produced from ancient life somehow. Did they change that then? I'm not too up to date on the particulars of ARR lore, I don't recall any tidbit referencing crystals. There's also how Ceruleum Fields is said to be the only place in Eorzea with ceruleum, which just wouldn't make any kind of sense if it was obtained from crystals.

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I am not familiar with the lore on this, but maybe it would be like the lifestream or whatever it was in FFVII?

The specifics are still kind of murky. The game refers to it was an element (known in Japanese as blue phosphorous water) that returns a high amount of energy for a small amount of mass. It's highly unstable, occurs naturally (in raw form), and evaporates into a blueish haze on contact with air.

It is somehow aetheric in nature, according to the Sightseeing Log,

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To power their legions of war machina, the Garleans require a steady supply of the aether-based fuel known as ceruleum.

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but several quests in 1.0 made it seem like it wasn't quite as simple as extracting it from crystals, such as when Gridania crystalized the chaotic aether in Toto-rak

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But this news of them harnessing the power of aetheric energy and transforming it into crystalline form is intriguing, to say the least. It shows us that the forest city-state still believes it can match the power of the Empire and their ceruleum-driven machina with mere crystals.

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or the paranoid bit of foreshadowing that turned out to be more accurate than it let on...

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Hm? What do the imperials want with crystals when they got 'emselves ceruleum? Well, ye can't summon a primal with a pot o' blue piss now, can ye?

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I've always wondered where that wiki got "extracted from crystals and refined" from. Never did find anything. Maybe I wasn't looking at the right quest in the right language :(

Ceruleum is a concentrated, high energy form of aether, I think. (Like, if crystals were coal, ceruleum is natural gas?)

Magitek is...magical tech lol
Most of the magitek stuff is powered by ceruleum, it looks like.

Ceruleum is supposedly energy drained from crystals. I always thought of magitek as meaning the imitation of magic via technology, since members of the garlean race are genetically unable to control aether (use magic) naturally.

Aether could be described as the worlds energy, life, nature and the elements which can be manipulated by many races to conjure up spells and power magic based technology, perhaps even assisting in forging or building.

Aether, however, clearly has some physical substance, as under Pharos Sirius, there's a device clearly labeled as an Aether pump.

Crystals contain or trap aether. Ceruleum is pure aetheric energy in liquid form. It's probably similar to Mako energy from FF7.

I always thought that Ceruleum=unrefined oil; crystals=coal. Basically the same thing, but in different consistencies.

I wouldn't be too surprised if ceruleum can be naturally occuring; which is why camp bluefog is so profitaple. Sure, you can refine it from crystals, but perhaps the process is too expensive/time consuming than if it were already in a liquid state. Kinda like how you can probably make fuel from coal, but the cost to do it is impractical when easier sources can be found.

Lastly, does anyone know if the aether from ceruleum disappears forever once used up? Or does it return to the environment? I always thought it was eerily similar how mako energy drains the lifestream.