Giants and Allagans

I've been toying with this idea for a while, and I'm keen to hear what the rest of you think.

Many people hold the idea that it will be the Giants that summon Shiva, but I believe that is off the mark. I believe the Giants will play a more significant part in unfolding the story of the Allagan Empire. In fact, I suspect the giants are the race of the Allagans.

One of the sidequests around Saint Coinach's Find revolves around the giant's fascination with the crystal tower, something they hold as sacred, as well as any depictions of it. Also consider the Flames' levequest, "Who Writes History".

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Gigas converge on the Crystal Tower, led by a firebrand calling himself Okeanos the Red. He incites the mob to take back Silvertear Falls and reconsecrate the ruins of the Allagan Empire, from which he claims descent. Reunite Okeanos with his ancestors, and let any who stand in the way anoint the ground with hot fear and cold blood.

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In the fight, he says the following:

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Okeanos the Red: MY PEOPLE CLIMB TOWER AND RETURN TO HEAVENS!

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On top of this, Acheron himself is described as an Allagan hero, and the guy is huge. Like, Giant-breed huge. To top it all off, NOAH comes to the conclusion that whoever built the Labyrinth of the Ancients "clearly thought bigger was better".

Or maybe just giant-sized?

Yeah, what do you think?

Were the Garleans also descendants of the Allag as well? That is, the three-eyed Garleans?

I have by doubts about it, writing off the claims of lineage as those of a crazed fanatic. Remember we also have house Darnus that held many Allag secrets and given that Nael was successful in calling down Meteor seems like a more legit claim to me (unless there's any 2nd Coil spoilers regarding that which I don't know yet)

As for Acheron, there's a specific story about him being made monstrous and a slave, no? Does that tale mention anything about the size?

Well, I don't think Acheron is really an accurate representation of what he once was in life, given the fact it was stated he was 'reborn', or rather 'rebuilt' after death to serve as a guardian of the tower.

EDIT: I've looked through my screenshots of the cutscene that plays after completing the Labyrinth of the Ancients for the first time for clarification about what Acheron once was, and this is what I found:

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Originally Posted by main scenario quest 'Labyrinth of the Ancients'

G'raha Tia: "...A giant of a man wielding a shimmering scimitar you say? Yes, that would have been Acheron. He was a hero of the Allagan revolution."
Cid: "And you gleaned that from what exactly? His choice of weapon?"
G'raha Tia: "Well I am a historian. And I have a certain, shall we say, affinity, for the lore of the Allagan Empire."
G'raha Tia: "It is, of course, all knowledge gleaned from musty scrolls and tomes. The ancient texts claim that the Crystal Tower is defended by the champions of eld, ressurected and augmented through the Allagans' extraordinary technology."

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Also, during the cutscene of the meeting back at Saint Coinach's Find after leaving the Tower, there's this bit of info:

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Originally Posted by main scenario quest "For Prosperity"

Rammbroes: "According to <insert player name here>'s account, the labyrinth's defenses were most emphatically active. Disturbingly, <his/her>'s report also mentions a violent encounter with a sentry heavily augmented by Allagan technology."

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And when you remember Nael was meant to be an Allagan descendent, and he (or she, the jury is still out on exactly what Nael's canonical gender really is!), was only an elezen of average height. Plus the Ultima Weapon was built by the Allag and the control cabin in it's head was barely big enough to hold Gaius, a mere hyur! So yeah, I disagree the giants/gigas are Allagans.

Instead, I'm thinking it's entirely possible that the giants might have been created by the Allag during their heyday, and rebelled (remember their cousins the hecatonchiers did the same thing thousands of years later in Ul'dah during the Thorne Dynasty). It's appears to me at least they were simply exploited as a source of manual labour. The reason they're obsessed with the Crystal Tower might stem from the fact they probably helped build it, and some kind of cultural memory passed down through generations has been retained, albeit twisted, into an obsession with the place they no longer understand.

Ooh, I like Enkidoh's idea there.

It also doesn't sit well with me that if they were actual descendents, they would have devolved from the most technological civilization Eorzea had ever seen to simple brutes who whack at stuff with clubs still and speak like stereotypical cavemen.

Ragnarok class space ship means Allags are ALIENS! Or, they simply moved to colonize other planets due to Zodiark might have wiped life on Hydaelyn resulting in a catastrophic cataclysm which rendered Hydaelyn unhospitable atm and Crystal Tower with Coil as its power source might be a terraforming structure to render Hydaelyn back to its former state

I like Enkidoh's idea too - the Allag seem to have genetically engineered many creatures in Eorzea, and I would not put it past them to engineer a workforce which would be our present day giants!

If Enkidoh and I came to the same idea, it might be worth looking into. At the time, I was just rambling possibilities.

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Originally Posted by "Anonymoose

This game has gone to extreme lengths to show the illusion of organic growth and development in language, culture, history, and religion. Even the word Dalamud is just the word Bahamut distorted by "a few thousand years of imperfect historical record." If the Gigas were truly the distorted descendants of the Allag, that would mean that, somewhere along the evolutionary line, they lost a finger and two toes, which seems like a crazy stretch of biological tendency. The five fingered hand is so far back in the evolutionary chain that it's part of the human arm, the dolphin flipper, and the bat wing - yet somehow it might have been lost in the 3,000 years between Allagan and Gigant? I'd be disappointed in someone at HQ. A firm thrashing would be in order, kupo. They'd have to apologize in front of absolutely everybody.

Now... oh, wait.

<puts darksteelfoil hat on>

Now, that means that the gigantism shown by Acheron was probably part of his modifications. After all, the stairs in the Labyrinth of Ancients are for "normal" people. Surely Acheron wasn't the only monstrously modified man they left on auto-pilot in their fall. By the time the wandering races appeared in the by-then empty Eorzea, there could have been a few of them wandering around... Twelve of them, maybe. I bet the sight of THAT would have inspired some stories. Giant heroes that helped get the realm in order before disappearing... and over time, legends of heroes become legends of gods.

But is that in line with Square Enix's inspiration of Ancient Greece? Twelve "Olympic" figures who seal primordial forces away to rule in their stead? And after the Titans were sealed away, the Olympians took hecatonchiers as slaves. Perhaps the Gigants weren't descendend from the Allag but from those that served them. Perhaps the Allag created them to be a slave race using early methods of the same modifications Acheron underwent, and they've been using the same slave traditions to separate Gigas/Giant/Hecatonchier ever since. The Gigas claim to be descendant of the Allag, but, if this nonsense I'm rambling is true, who's going to call them out on that bluff? I don't see any Allag around to challenge the claim.

<takes darksteelfoil hat off>

What was I talking about? Oh, right. A firm thrashing, kupo.

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Then again, hey, who can trust fully in biological evidence when magick and technology! <waves fingers and says, "o0o0o0o">

It could also be a case that it was something like the Tonberry sickness? Not sure they'd play that card twice but on the other hand if you set the precedent that there's diseases in Ezorea that can mutate a person to that extent, it seems odd that there's only one case of it.

Well, I've been won over rather quickly there.

That, and I just encountered...

...a bioweapon storage. Yeah, they were biologically organised it seems.

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Originally Posted by Myranda

It also doesn't sit well with me that if they were actual descendents, they would have devolved from the most technological civilization Eorzea had ever seen to simple brutes who whack at stuff with clubs still and speak like stereotypical cavemen.

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It worked for the Sleestaks in the Original Land of the Lost. I think its even a trope: Descendants of a highly advanced ancient civilization are cavemen due to ancient apocalypse.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Now, that means that the gigantism shown by Acheron was probably part of his modifications. After all, the stairs in the Labyrinth of Ancients are for "normal" people. Surely Acheron wasn't the only monstrously modified man they left on auto-pilot in their fall. By the time the wandering races appeared in the by-then empty Eorzea, there could have been a few of them wandering around... Twelve of them, maybe. I bet the sight of THAT would have inspired some stories. Giant heroes that helped get the realm in order before disappearing... and over time, legends of heroes become legends of gods.

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I like to think that the Allag became so advanced and/or enlightened that they ascended to a higher plane of existence. Correct me if I'm wrong but Dalamund was of Allagan technology and, using the summoned power of the Twelve, the scions tried to trap Bahamut in a second Dalamund during the opening cinematic. This also explains the sudden disappearance of the Allag.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

But is that in line with Square Enix's inspiration of Ancient Greece? Twelve "Olympic" figures who seal primordial forces away to rule in their stead? And after the Titans were sealed away, the Olympians took hecatonchiers as slaves. Perhaps the Gigants weren't descendend from the Allag but from those that served them. Perhaps the Allag created them to be a slave race using early methods of the same modifications Acheron underwent, and they've been using the same slave traditions to separate Gigas/Giant/Hecatonchier ever since. The Gigas claim to be descendant of the Allag, but, if this nonsense I'm rambling is true, who's going to call them out on that bluff? I don't see any Allag around to challenge the claim.

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If it was possible to alter Archeon in such a way, could they not have created the Gigas of their own race? Perhaps they were prisoners and better served them laboring rather than rotting in a cell. The Gigas could also be their failed attempts at creating champions of Archeon's proportion or even deformed, mentally and physically, by their own power/technology, failing to ascend and instead descending.

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Originally Posted by DoctaruRavenbe

It worked for the Sleestaks in the Original Land of the Lost. I think its even a trope: Descendants of a highly advanced ancient civilization are cavemen due to ancient apocalypse.

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And that's why I never trust a dude in a tunic.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Well, I don't think Acheron is really an accurate representation of what he once was in life, given the fact it was stated he was 'reborn', or rather 'rebuilt' after death to serve as a guardian of the tower.

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he probably was...but was he that massive in life, or was that due to modifications...or something more.

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And when you remember Nael was meant to be an Allagan descendent, and he (or she, the jury is still out on exactly what Nael's canonical gender really is!), was only an elezen of average height. Plus the Ultima Weapon was built by the Allag and the control cabin in it's head was barely big enough to hold Gaius, a mere hyur! So yeah, I disagree the giants/gigas are Allagans.

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from what i am aware, garleans all belong to the same race (garlean) nael's appearance as seen in turn 9 definitely does not have any elezen ears of the sort. i'm assuming that nael was an exceptionally tall garlean who simply takes a similar stance as elezen (probably by game design, they likely had to use the elezen default rig to make him that tall.)

there is also a very high chance that ultima weapon was refitted by the garlean empire to be able to seat a hyur-sized individual...in fact it probably is using a similar control setup to a magitek reaper, albeit with more buttons.

It seems that a lot of discussion about Nael in 2.2 comes from people who've only read half of the spoilers for some odd reason.

(So probably stop reading if you don't want the other half, I guess)

Alisaie seems to say flat out that the Coil Deus Darnus is a hastily built, erroneously projected copy housing the very last of Nael's essence.

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Originally Posted by Alisaie

Bahamut denied you death, and imprisoned what little was left of you in an aetherial shell resembling...what, I wonder? Images from your memory, perhaps?

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That's not necessarily implying that Nael was a woman, or even that he wasn't Elezen - only that this woman's image was strongly imprinted within his psyche. She was likely important to him, ever present in his thoughts; someone he dwelled on frequently and may even have thought about as his essence was dissipating. Even after the encounter and in the next quest, Alisaie uses the masculine pronoun in reference to Darnus. I'd believe that she was Bradamante herself before I'd believe she was an accurate representation of anything Nael van Darnus without stronger evidence than one of Bahamut's projections.

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Originally Posted by Urianger (to Legacies)

By your leave, I would speak first of the coil's late guardian, Nael van Darnus. Fear not. No lengthy history shall I give to thee of this man whom thou hast now defeated twice. Or man and maid, I should rather say, through Bahamut's queer oversight.

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Originally Posted by Alisaie

'Tis little wonder he was so loath to part with him. Why let a simple thing like death deprive one of so useful a pawn? ...Though we may accuse him of bungling van Darnus's resurrection, I daresay Bahamut was as content to have a handmaiden as a manservant.

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The Coil Copy of Louisoix isn't much better of a copy considering he worships Bahamut and agrees that Nael is a woman.

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Originally Posted by Louisoix

Foolish girl. How could the White Raven allow herself to be bested by such sniveling opponents? Listen well. We all exist at the pleasure of one divine will. And the word of Lord Bahamut is absolute! Scurry back into your holes, vermin. You have been granted this one reprieve. But should you be so foolish as to crawl into my lord's domain again, I will crush the life from you myself.

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Until the Hyur showed up in droves, the Elezen considered Eorzea a gift from the Twelve to their kind. That's why there was animosity between those two races; the Hyuran migratory waves were akin to an invasion and seizure of their Promised Land. This took place a thousand years ago (500 Sixth Astral Era), and the Miqo'te came in the Fifth Umbral Era. In the Third Astral, Elezen likely were the overwhelmingly dominant race (barring the idea that they were once diverse and only the Elezen stayed, for which there is nothing to suggest so far, or that they were not of the five races at all, which is a possibility brought up in this thread). If Nael was a descendant of the Allag, it makes sense he would be Elezen, too. Those two likelihoods fit together nicely in an Occam's Razor sense, and that's a lot of useful information to toss out the window based on "an aetherial shell resembling ... something from [Darnus'] memory, perhaps."