Theoretical Eorzean Miqo'te Lore

I do not know if this will actually go anywhere, but it was a fun little thought experiment regardless.
Oh, the things you think of in the shower.

So, ever since I met the Hhetsarro in Dawntrail, this has been bothering me.
Just running around the current camping site of the tribe we have met, and the surrounding areas of Shaaloani where you see the highest concentrations of their numbers, I did some counting, and came to the conclusion that, unlike the miqo'te, there seems to be a rough 50/50 split of males to females, more like the hyur, elezen and lalafel. And as far as I can tell, they do not rely on the cultural systems of the Seekers and Keepers, because there is no need to, and may form more monogamous family groups within the tribe.

This would not seem that odd in the miqo'te standing out, save that during one of the quests, a veira male has a chance to get to know a shetona male, and they realize, despite the differences of their peoples, they operate under a similar system of the male being fewer, and roaming to have offspring. Their culture is different, but not the fundamentals of their kind.

So why are the miqo'te and hhetsarro so different? There is every chance that it was simply something glossed over by the devs, as people have suggested, but I had another idea spring to mind that at least manages to make sense of it from a lore standpoint.

One thing we knew about Eorzea is that it is suffused with aether, more so than anywhere else on the star. We also know that there were twenty-six miqo'te tribes when they migrated into Eorzea during the age of ice, but what is not stated is whether those original tribes were already following the customs we see of Seekers and Keepers of the current era. These customs are mostly in place because of the low birth rate of male miqo'te to female miqo'te.
What if they didn't originally follow those customs, and their numbers were originally more evenly split like those of the hhetsarro? What if, over time, the unusual conditions in Eorzea somehow had an impact on the miqo'te, just something about their unique traits compared to the other races, and slowly their birth ratios became skewed?

Again, I do not know if this holds any water. It was merely an interesting possible explanation that popped into my head, and I thought it would be worth it to share.
Only time, and the devs, will ever be able to tell us what really happened, or it will forever remain glossed over in time.

Unless EE4, a random sidequest, or a surprise comment from Koji, Kate, Oda, Ishikawa etc. comes out and mentions it directly, we just don’t know.

Like I mentioned in the other Miqo’te thread here a couple of days ago, Mystel on the First are in the same situation as Tural’s Hhetsarro. But the G tribe has the same customs as Eorzean Sun Seekers despite being based in Ilsabard, so it’s not isolated to Eorzea.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

Unless EE4, a random sidequest, or a surprise comment from Koji, Kate, Oda, Ishikawa etc. comes out and mentions it directly, we just don’t know.

Like I mentioned in the other Miqo’te thread here a couple of days ago, Mystel on the First are in the same situation as Tural’s Hhetsarro. But the G tribe has the same customs as Eorzean Sun Seekers despite being based in Ilsabard, so it’s not isolated to Eorzea.

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Two threads worth within a couple of days lol. Didn't expect a resurrection so quickly. Waiting on the third Miqo'te population thread after a few days. But jokes aside.
The main continent Miqo'te very much have the same culture, since they spread from the same areas and part of history.

G'raha is from Corvos, on the other side of the strait from Radz-at-han. And Y'shtola commented on G'raha being able to challenge for Nunh if he wanted to. So the culture is very much the same in all of the main continent. Aside from naming conventions among Imperial Citizen Miqo'te of "Potitus" as their last name, which oddly enough means "Captured, obtained, controlled" in latin. And the Field Record of Dyunbu Pyr Potitus an Imperial Miqo'te doesn't really give a vibe of it being a forced name either. "See the path she walked which led to her adopting the surname Potitus, common among Miqo'te with imperial citizenship". So it's just the devs weirding it out.

I don't mind cultural differences, those make sense if there is enough distance, people adapt to their surroundings and absorb the nations culture they live in. The main oddity still is the birth-rate being wonky.

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

Aside from naming conventions among Imperial Citizen Miqo'te of "Potitus" as their last name, which oddly enough means "Captured, obtained, controlled" in latin. And the Field Record of Dyunbu Pyr Potitus an Imperial Miqo'te doesn't really give a vibe of it being a forced name either. "See the path she walked which led to her adopting the surname Potitus, common among Miqo'te with imperial citizenship".

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Considering what Potitus means, Rhitatyn's surname Arvina being "fat" in Latin, and who the Garleans were as people, I don't think it's exactly voluntary that the Miqo'te came up with on their own. It's probably something they have to take if they get citizenship, which is something probably more difficult for them due to being races likely prejudiced against if those names are anything to go by. It's probably also a mark of having abandoned their original culture for the Garleans'.


OP was theorizing that Eorzea's aether could be behind Miqo'te's gender distribution, but yeah, with the G tribe living in Ilsabard but having the same customs as Eorzean Miqo'te, that sort of sinks that theory. A few questions I do have are that the "26 tribes" thing was supposed to be the Miqo'te tribes who went back to Eorzea during the 5th Umbral Calamity, but why are there G tribe members in Ilsabard who claim heritage going back to the Third Astral Era and never having left? And how does that explain G tribe NPCs who are in Eorzea? And what is the whole deal with the Moon Keepers - where did they come from originally?

Ignore the wiki on this one, I already had that discussion with someone else recently where the wiki makes up stuff about the Miqo'te again.

I've often wondered about the Keepers, were they always like that with their traits or are their differences a result of being under the canopy of the Black Shroud. Perhaps the Ilsabard Miqo'te were the Seekers and the Meracydian Miqo'te are the Keepers? We just don't know as of yet, but I'd like to find out one day - Keeper lore especially is extreme sparse compared to the Seekers currently.

Much like the other thread, this is best discussed in the Gameplay->Lore subforum as that audience is going to be better prepared for speculation.

My take on it is the hhetsarro are fully a different 'clan' much like the Mystel were, and their evolution over the last 10k years led to a more stabilized birthrate in their environment across the salt. Differences in ambient aether led to variations in their genetics.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

A few questions I do have are that the "26 tribes" thing was supposed to be the Miqo'te tribes who went back to Eorzea during the 5th Umbral Calamity, but why are there G tribe members in Ilsabard who claim heritage going back to the Third Astral Era and never having left? And how does that explain G tribe NPCs who are in Eorzea? And what is the whole deal with the Moon Keepers - where did they come from originally?

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I noticed the same oddity when I was compiling my list of info on the Seeker tribes.

My best attempt at inventing a scenario to explain both facts being true – that the 26 tribes only took their Eorzean letter-prefixes upon arriving there but the G tribe got a letter despite staying behind:

1. Seeker tribal customs are already more or less in place by the time of the fall of Allag.

2. Migration happens; a 27th "Corvos tribe" stays behind.

3. A tia from the Eorzean G tribe goes adventuring and ends up claiming the Corvos tribe; since they have no letter he declares this to now be part of the G tribe. Alternately the whole tribe struggles to find a place in Eorzea and end up turning back and merging with the Corvos tribe.


Keepers could potentially be a completely separate initial migration from where the Miqo'te originally came from, or perhaps they're part of the same group that migrated to Eorzea the first time before the Allagans captured part of the population and took them to Ilsabard. (No canon support for any of this, though.)


Another thing that occurs to me is, perhaps the Allagans could have caused the gender imbalance – but not in the genetic-engineering way people like to propose. If – hypothetically – they were capturing a lot of the population and for whatever reason placed higher value on the men, or were assigning them more dangerous tasks or isolated tasks (army conscripts for example) then you end up with an artificial imbalance of genders and their culture reinforces that. (In this scenario perhaps the culture came about wholly in response to the imbalance, or perhaps the nunh was more of a chieftain role originally and the harem part only came about once there was an absence of other men per tribe. Likewise it could have been what drove Keeper men to stay away from their communities. Have it last long enough and maybe they start to forget what they did before.)


But this is all very hypothetical and not supported by canon lore.

I still find it a tremendous oversight to have barely any keeper in Norvrandt or Tural. Why don't they have a village or representatives? Why are they not mixed with seekers for unique interactions? Literally anything. It's something I realized after finishing the MSQ. They're nowhere to be found.

That, and the zero acknowledgement from the Turali miqo'te when it comes to the Eorzean ones. They're not surprised in the slighest.

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Originally Posted by Genisay

One thing we knew about Eorzea is that it is suffused with aether, more so than anywhere else on the star. We also know that there were twenty-six miqo'te tribes when they migrated into Eorzea during the age of ice, but what is not stated is whether those original tribes were already following the customs we see of Seekers and Keepers of the current era. These customs are mostly in place because of the low birth rate of male miqo'te to female miqo'te.
What if they didn't originally follow those customs, and their numbers were originally more evenly split like those of the hhetsarro? What if, over time, the unusual conditions in Eorzea somehow had an impact on the miqo'te, just something about their unique traits compared to the other races, and slowly their birth ratios became skewed?

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Perhaps it's the opposite: their birth ratio was normal originally and then the land where they come from had less aether due to the effects of a calamity, thus affecting them. And now that they migrated and live in a richer land, they might slowly regain the original rates. Only the devs know...