The Binding of Triad

Me and a friend were talking today about the lore behind the allagans, and there was one thing that we were weren't sure of. The bound primals that are kept in azyz lla (the warring triad) are supposed to be a power source right? Well my questions are...

A) How are they being contained? Doesn't it take a great deal of prayer and aether crystals to keep a primal summoned like that? And it has been said that these primals have been contained for thousands of years, where is all this aether coming from?

B) if they have so much aether to fuel the primals, whats the point of containing the primals in the first place?

I know that these questions might have clear and obvious answers, but could someone more lore-versed explain how this process works?

The first answer is somewhat easy to answer: we know from both flavor text in the Sephirot quest and the Binding Coil of Bahamut storyline that the Allagan kept Primals/Eikons imprisoned and materialized in Hydaelyn by inducing a sort of a comatose state on their followers. Basically, they goad the tribes to summon a deiform, capture them by whatever means they use to capture Primals, and then capture the summoning population to sustain the deiform's existence.

The second question I'll have to dig up old threads and go over my Historia regum Allag before making any concrete claims but the immediate thing that comes to mind is that capturing a Primal prevents it from being used against the Allag again. That is to say, the primary purpose of capturing Primals wasn't for their unlimited energy or whatever, but to prevent their enemies from continually resummoning it.

A lot of the nitty-gritty of summoning is still unknown. We know the basic process: you offer aether in the form of crystals, and your fervent prayer attracts a soul from the Lifestream. The aether from the crystals is absorbed by the soul and shaped into the god to answer your prayers. This might answer our questions. Capturing the soul which answers the prayer prevents the resummoning. The aether used to summon it? A huge bonus. The Triad and Bahamut were summoned in a much more aether-rich era, their power wasn't so much the devotion of their followers or the soul which answered the call but the overabundance of aether available on Hydaelyn at the time. And so the Allag slowly drained them of their aether while imprisoned and ensured they wouldn't be summoned again--the deiform's soul trapped in the material plane, unable to dissipate into the aether.

I've spent like two hours now trying to wrap my head around the aether/worship divide here. We know worship/prayer is how a Primal is formed, but we're less sure of how it affects them once summoned. Lady of the Vortex (MSQ44) seems to indicate it can augment a deiform after the summoning rites, but we don't see this come up much more. I'm not making much headway into it, so I'm inclined to just stick with my gut.

The point to containing primals is to prevent their summoning.

For B) wasn't it said the triad actually made their own aether after becomeing to powerful? I do know that the allegans used them for a power source.

In the case of Sephirot, he had a special aetheric property that allowed for extreme growth. This was later harvested and used by the Allagans in their experiments which explains why there are so many giant creatures. And why Xande, Phlegethon, Amon, et al. were so large.

I speculate that the remaining Triad have special aetheric properties, too. Maybe with their powers combined they can make unlimited aether/power?

My theory is that their bonds are self sustaining, so Fiend powers Goddesses' bonds, Goddess powers Demons' bonds, and Demon powers the Fiends. This way the allagans don't need to keep an army of worshippers (like the Meracydian dragons kept inside Dalamud to keep Bahamut sustained). After all they are supposed to be a triad, which implies they are part of a set and that can't be just because they are all Meracydian eikons.

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Originally Posted by Griffey

My theory is that their bonds are self sustaining, so Fiend powers Goddesses' bonds, Goddess powers Demons' bonds, and Demon powers the Fiends. This way the allagans don't need to keep an army of worshippers (like the Meracydian dragons kept inside Dalamud to keep Bahamut sustained). After all they are supposed to be a triad, which implies they are part of a set and that can't be just because they are all Meracydian eikons.

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Except the Scions that went with Unukalhai and us noticed the Tree-like people in stasis while fending off the Garleans. Which would be redundant.

Its more likely that the set is because they are all base off certain bosses from Final Fantasy VI an the name "Warring Triad" is more for familiarity's sake

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Originally Posted by Rocl

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Thanks for your lengthy and informative post. I understood that they must have beast tribes in stasis in order to sustain the primal, the question was more about the aether that is required. So far (as far as we know) the primals on azyz lla are the only ones that don't have a strong source of aether to feed on (the beast tribes gathered crystals, thordan used nidhoggs eye, odin uses the aether of the black shroud, and Alexander does the same of the hinterlands), and I'm assuming that azyz lla is not naturally aether rich, being a dead hunk of rock with an air fortress attached that is high in the sky.

If they do feed off each other, that would be an explanation I suppose, but is that the actual lore or a theory?

It's going to be hilarious if Azyz Lla ends up crashing into Ala Mhigo or Ishgard as a result of the Triad being defeated and the 'batteries' keeping the place afloat vanishing with them.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

It's going to be hilarious if Azyz Lla ends up crashing into Ala Mhigo or Ishgard as a result of the Triad being defeated and the 'batteries' keeping the place afloat vanishing with them.

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Now THAT will be an interesting way to start the Expansion, Crash the Zone into Ala Mhigo, utterly destroying the place an pissing off the entire population, the survivors upon seeing the WoL do this immediacy demand sucession from Eorzea while Garlemald decides to sever Gyr Albana from the continent.

And then Illbred comes along and has even more of a hard time because the Crash will cause them to shun any possibility of wanting to be independent from Garlemald, who will also decide to march directly into Ul'Dah, Limsa, Gridania and Ishgard, supplemented by now Willing Ala Mhigans (Since they are already Genocidal when it comes to "eikon"-summoning species). The conflict shall be dubbed: The Winter War

4.0 will then be not about liberating Ala Mhigo, but instead preventing Garlemald from destroying Eorzea once more. With the WoL an the Scions graing a bad reputation in Ala Mhigo becuase they are now seen as a Destroyer of their Way of Life, and because Garlian control prevents al the details from getting through to them unless its twisted into propaganda. They may even paint the WoL as an Eikon themselves (or even an incarnation of Rhagr, just so that the Garleans can kill off any semblance of religion an use it to further control the citystate, or the 2nd coming of the King of Ruin), With their only allies being people within Garlemald and Ala Mhigo that are against the mass culling of Eorzea's Spoken races, as the Alliance and the Ironworks will be distracted by invaders from Garlemald, as well as fending off separate assassination attempts on the GC leaders, Ameryc, Cid, Lucea and maybe Nero (with the latter 3 for betrayal).

Alas, this seems unlikely unless the Devs decide to change the background to represent it being part of Gyr Albana for those that are past 3.5.

Azys Lla is an outside zone though and not a dungeon, so that kind of gives it plot armour, meaning it almost definitely will remain where it is and thus remain fully accessible. Of course things in it may change and sections appear or disappear as the plot progresses, but the zone will remain regardless of what happens. I hate to say it but I doubt we will ever see a 1.0-to-ARR style 'destroy all the zones as part of the storyline' event again, simply because the game world needs to be accessible to everyone, including those who actually aren't on that part of the story. You can roadblock areas off from people until they reach a part of the story (like with Ishgard), but any restriction to an existing area would be temporary at best.

But that's enough thread derailling from me. :p