If pure-blooded Garleans can't use magic...

Then what is Gaius doing while you fight him in Praetorium? How does he teleport, use that blue cross skill, and make that blue fire area around him? I don't think it's magitek or straight up machina like Nero, Livia, and Rhitatyn use.

Any answers/theories? :O

It's Ninjutsu!

The last two you mentioned make use of ceruleum/something, I think, or whatever fuel do garlean machines use. It does not seem like magic, the description of the damage of the AoE said something about that if I'm not mistaken. About teleporting...aside from "being really fast", no clue.

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Originally Posted by Baithin

Then what is Gaius doing while you fight him in Praetorium? How does he teleport, use that blue cross skill, and make that blue fire area around him? I don't think it's magitek or straight up machina like Nero, Livia, and Rhitatyn use.

Any answers/theories? :O

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Must be magiteck, they can do almost anything magic with magitek even if you can't use magic yourself, I guess his armor gets imbued with power when it turns golden.

Hence the term "Magi"tek

In one of the 1.0 cutscenes, Nael moves so quickly it looks like he's teleporting. I assume Gaius is capable of the same thing since they're about as powerful as each other.

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Originally Posted by Baithin

Any answers/theories? :O

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There are two things to look at to make a guess - the color shift in his armor, and the attacks he uses in the fight.

Golden Armor
When the shift occurs, he draws Heirsbane and electricity crackles around him before exploding outwards in a golden flame that seems to change the material of his armor. When Ultima begins to fall apart, an explosion in the cockpit blasts him out of the back of it and, as he lands on the ground, another golden electrical explosion is seen and his armor reverts to black. At first, I had assumed that this was due to his alliance with Lahabrea - that the Ascian had given him a little oomph, the way "Almighty Dalamud" had "gifted" some magickal power to Nael van Darnus. Now, I'm not so sure. Baelsar doesn't seem to think twice about it and seems pretty confident in magitek. The mount guide says that some magitek are gilded to dampen magickal attacks against them - perhaps Baelsar's armor has some type of small, magitek device that temporarily gilds his armor in battle against those who can wield magicks against him.

Battle Abilities
Most of his attacks are either related to his swordsmanship or with blue flames. Blue flame is the result of ceruleum, an unstable fuel used to power Magitek and weaponry, so, really, none if his attacks may be magickal in nature at all. The flying blue X is the most likely culprit (aside from the Super Saiyan Steel), and even that might just be flourished ceruleum-infused swordsmanship.

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Originally Posted by Riepah

It's Ninjutsu!

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Ninjutsu is a form of magick. :p

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Originally Posted by Sholah

In one of the 1.0 cutscenes, Nael moves so quickly it looks like he's teleporting. I assume Gaius is capable of the same thing since they're about as powerful as each other.

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Darnus definitely had magick as a result of his connection with Bahamut. Gaius, it's possible, due to his association with Lahabrea, but I find it less likely than the animation team getting really into the potential of magitek.

Nanomachines.

I just took it that his armour was magitek enhanced (I mean, he has a magitek cannon mounted on his wrists!), and given the fact that part of the Praetorium was smothered in aether (Cid clearly stated this, and it's the reason why the linkshell transmission between him and the player was lost), his armour is probably designed for this very purpose - to utilize whatever aether (or cereleum, the processed form of aether) it can pull from the surrounding environment, something not too dissimilar to how magic in Eorzea actually works (and this fits the in-universe information about the Garleans developing magitek to actually compensate for their lack of magical aptitude - it makes sense that magitek would actually function like magic).

Hence it's likely his armour simply drew the aether from the surrounding air and empowered him. Not that it helped him really - he still folded faster than Superman on laundry day. ;)

Any sufficiently advanced technology... you know the rest.

"Magic" in some definitions is any phenomenon that can't be rationally explained, identified, or recreated by the use of scientific method. Princess Bubblegum in Adventure time said it best; "All magic is science! You just don't know what you're doing, so you call it magic!". On the other side really, really, really advanced supper-science can also be described as "magic" if all its laws and principles are beyond you ability to reason or understand them. As such they can replicate the appearance and effects associated with magic through a mechanical means.. Like that gun (Caster) in Outlaw Star. My theory is Gaius had and was using a "Caster" or something like it... Everything else was prestidigitation.

If you read the description of the gilded magitek mount you'll know why gaius's armor turns gold, as for the teleporting I just assume it's magitek.

I believe it's possible for garleans to imitate magic via magitek, basically 'artificial' magic in the form of consumables or equipment. We can see this when Cid fights alongside you in a few story quests, instead of cure he uses a garlean magitek gadget of some sort (forgot the name of the item/action)

"Teleportation" can be described/theorized in several ways.

The first being the deconstruction and reconstruction of matter from one location to the other. Needless to say this would take a metric-f-ton of energy to accomplish and precision enough to not end up with your naughty bits on your face when you are reconstructed. Or worst case scenario is where you have so much energy built up and not distributed properly which leads to a reaction not unlike throwing a can of hairspray into an open log fire.

The second would be the compression of space in between two points making the distance required to be crossed effectively shorter and the decompression of the space would appear as though there was no or little time was spent in moving through that space.

The final that I can think of is displacement at a high velocity. But this would require him to move faster than light itself, and if he did his surroundings would ignite/spark due to the friction of his body making contact with solid or liquid surroundings. This can be seen with the Mantis Shrimp and how the water itself can be ignited from it punching. (This is one of the most coolest things I had ever learned about in zoology)

The most likely though is that the Garleans discovered technology that can compress space between one point and another. As that wouldn't lead to either detonating a human bomb/making an abomination or the Garleans being more unbalanced than DC's Flash.

Cid uses a potion called 'Aqua Vitae' on the players. I'm assuming that's just the garleans version of potions.

Here is a little fun fact Nael Van Darnus is most likely NOT Pure Blood Garlean because he himself could manipulate Aether and according to what little lore we have on the White Raven he has Allagan blood meaning that somewhere in his family line was some great almighty Allagan sorcerer of sorts. Gaius Van Baelsar is pureblood Garlean so he must use Magitek in order to fight those who use Aether I wonder what it would be like if Nael and Gaius went into a one on one battle against each other.

Because Gaius isn't really garlean. He's from Battlestar Galactica, with his last name ever so barely changed to avoid copyright issues.

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Originally Posted by lilirulu

Cid uses a potion called 'Aqua Vitae' on the players. I'm assuming that's just the garleans version of potions.

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Nope. Because the Alchemist brother of the Thaumaturge Guildmasters has also used Aqua Vitae. It is likely a variation of potions, but not the Garlean one.

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Originally Posted by Crystallis91

Here is a little fun fact Nael Van Darnus is most likely NOT Pure Blood Garlean because he himself could manipulate Aether and according to what little lore we have on the White Raven he has Allagan blood meaning that somewhere in his family line was some great almighty Allagan sorcerer of sorts.

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This assumption follows a logical path, but draws a (probably) incorrect conclusion.

All of the "pure-blood" Garleans we've seen so far have been Hyur, whereas all of Nael van Darnus' gear and animations were built on an Elezen frame - so that's something - and House Darnus did indeed descend from Allagan blood. But Nael van Darnus could not use magick before Bahamut got involved (at least according to the clarification liner notes I was provided in 2012). When Darnus uses magick for the first time, even his own men are shocked, and his achievements made them zealously loyal to him as if he truly were connected to the divine. The Battle of Cartenau happened because his men were so fanatical that they refused to believe he was truly dead, entrenching themselves where Dalamud was to fall so that they could (unsuccessfully) prevent Louisoix from interfering. The fact that Darnus uses magick is one of the first hints foreshadowing that his power is not entirely his own. If I'm not mistaken, Darnus was magickless and had a third eye and all that jazz; after all, you don't get much more Garlean than "my father was a founding member of the Empire."

Gaius van Baelsar vs. Nael van Darnus would be an interesting "Who would win!?" concept, though, provided you did a little field leveling. Pre-Bahamut Nael vs. Pre-Silvertear Gaius. Guy kinda lost his mojo when he lost Agrius, and being ordered to be Darnus' lapdog sure didn't do any favors for his confidence (until Lahabrea propped him up, anyway).

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Originally Posted by Baithin

Then what is Gaius doing while you fight him in Praetorium? How does he teleport, use that blue cross skill, and make that blue fire area around him? I don't think it's magitek or straight up machina like Nero, Livia, and Rhitatyn use.

Any answers/theories? :O

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The blue cross skill and teleporting is common, you don't even need magic for that. Paladins create a huge shockwave from Rage of Halone, Dragoons can jump really high with only using their legs, Monks can create a huge shockwave with their fists, etc.

No need to think too hard about logic since we're in a world where you get hit by a hellfire to the face and only lose 1000 HP.

His armor actually turned gold for the duration of that fight, so I wonder... did Gaius use Trance?

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Originally Posted by Sholah

In one of the 1.0 cutscenes, Nael moves so quickly it looks like he's teleporting. I assume Gaius is capable of the same thing since they're about as powerful as each other.

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I didn't remember the nael's fight to be such a joke that Gaius's one is though. Poor Gaius, the years made him too old and rusty too fast

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Originally Posted by HakuroDK

His armor actually turned gold for the duration of that fight, so I wonder... did Gaius use Trance?

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Read the description of the gilded magitek armor mount.