Atomos! [WoD/T13 Spoilers]

Atomos shows up again in the WoD in the form of three of the typical Atomos enemies we've come to recognise and a giant orange/red crystal hovering between them.

During the battle with the three enemies the crystal heals them. In the combat log, however, it states that the crystal is Atomos Prime infusing them with aether to keep them alive!

Does this mean that the crystal was the true aether crystal core of the primal, much like the crystal in Bahamut's chest housed Bahamut Prime? Had it even been confirmed that Atomos was actually a primal in XIV?

Either way we now have two Primes... which is begging some questions.

Does every primal have a Prime?

Can we infer any similarities to XI's system of Prime avatars (whereby the Prime is the true original and the actual summoned entities are just manifestations of that original)?

When we slay a Prime does that mean they can never be summoned again?

Pretty sure Atomos in that fight is a Voidsent, and not a Primal. I'm not sure I'd read too much into it having a Prime.

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Originally Posted by WyrahFhurrst

Pretty sure Atomos in that fight is a Voidsent, and not a Primal. I'm not sure I'd read too much into it having a Prime.

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The Prime is a giant aetheryte crystal identical to Bahamut's... There's only one type of being in this game that lives on aether from an aetheryte crystal. Not to mention if you've played FFXI you'll know that the word Prime definitely holds some significance with regards to summoning.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

The Prime is a giant aetheryte crystal identical to Bahamut's... There's only one type of being in this game that lives on aether from an aetheryte crystal. Not to mention if you've played FFXI you'll know that the word Prime definitely holds some significance with regards to summoning.

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All voidsent feed on aether.

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Originally Posted by Mholito

All voidsent feed on aether.

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Fine, ok yes voidsent feed on it too.

You're both totally dismissing my actual point with no reasoning though... Have either of you two ever played FFXI and seen the Prime Avatars? Have either of you seen Turn 13?

In T13 we directly ENTER the aetheryte crystal in Bahamut's chest. This is the crystal from which Bahamut is being summoned into our world, much like each of the other primals we've seen to date have all had an aetheryte crystal anchor of sorts. We cannot kill the actual Bahamut that has manifested in Eorzea so we enter his crystal and kill Bahamut Prime; in doing this the Bahamut in Eorzea is destroyed as he is merely a manifestation of the Prime that we destroyed within the crystal. This concept of having a Prime is identical to that in FFXI where a summoner could call forth an avatar but it was always merely a copy of the Prime that resided within an elemental crystal.

In WoD we see three Atomos' being sustained by a crystal identified as Atomos Prime. Given that the devs clearly used the term 'Prime' in T13 due to it bearing the exact same significance as in FFXI I fail to see why they would use the term erroneously for Atomos. The lore team in this game are very good, they would not make that mistake. If Bahamut Prime exists as the 'true' Bahamut from which copies are summoned then Atomos Prime has the exact same relationship with Atomos. He must be a primal.

Basically you are saying I'm wrong because the lore team used a loaded title for no reason... That makes no sense and is completely unsound logic. It makes more sense to assume the lore team used that title for a reason.

Or we could always use "Prime" as it's originally intended, to mean "first" or "original" and all Bahamut Prime is, is the original form of Bahamut, who had been swelled by thousands of years of worship and solar energy, and all Atomos Prime is, is the original form of the Atomos we've seen, or even the first of the race of Atomos.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

Does this mean that the crystal was the true aether crystal core of the primal?

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The aetherial crystal core of a primal? No. It's been confirmed multiple times since its first appearance in 1.0 that Atomos is a Voidsent.

That's the only thing I can say for sure. The rest is just speculation until I do a little digging.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

Can we infer any similarities to XI's system of Prime avatars

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Possibly. In FFXI, if I remember correctly, a prime was an incarnation that was created by its own essence. As summoner could summon an incarnation of Ifrit, but when the slumbering god manifested itself to fight you, it was Ifrit Prime. This would explain Bahamut Prime's name in FFXIV. Bahamut himself was as large as a city, but his Final Coil manifestation was created by that being within the crystal heart.

If I had to guess, I'd say the crystal known as Atomos Prime is simply a huge mass of aether gathered to Atomos' voidsent essence. Aether is required to maintain a physical manifestation, so I think Atomos' essence is divvying it up from the crystal to maintain the avatars that are under attack. I'm gonna load up a World of Darkness run and get back to you on that one.

You are asking one question we do not yet have in game, and one which has been brought up in the main scenario.

What is the true nature of Primals.

So what you are thinking is that the Prime, wherever it is as it has to be somewhere is the true primal and that what we fight are projected aetheric constructions that hold the will of the Prime but not the prime itself? Also due to AEthers unstable nature as it is said to dissipate in a short time is the reason that the primal projections need to keep draining aether otherwise they will dispate.

But there is so much tainted aether also, if the primals are draining aether could it also be that the corrupted Aether has a detrimental effect on, for want of a better term, their sanity?

Beastmen pray to their primal, the prime hears and then uses the Aether from their collected crystals to create a manifestation of themselves.

Which adds the question: How is it that Bahamut has the prims contained within his aetheric shell? Do all summoned primals have their Prime within themsleves? Is Titans Heart, fro example something to do with this?

Then you add Odin and King Moggle into the mixing pot which contradict so many theorys :S Shiva kinda makes sense as primals need aether and according to lore, all living creatures are made of Aether.

I think "Prime" is just a less lame way of saying "True". Bahamut Prime is the true Bahamut, as in the Bahamut which exists in the aetheric realm, while the Bahamut that broke out of Dalamud was effectively just a "shell" Bahamut/his worshipers created to allow him to exist in ours. Likewise for Atomos, the Maws are just something the true Atomos created to interact with the world around him.


I don't think it necessarily means Atomos is a Primal, thought it always could... While he is specifically called a Voidsent, that could simply be ignorance. Imagine if an ancient civilization did battle with the Primal Atomos, beat him down to a similar state Bahamut ended up in, but rather than entering the crystal "heart" to defeat Atomos Prime like we do with Bahamut, they just opened the Voidgate and banished him there... When a small manifestation of him pops out eras later, is it a Voidsent or a Primal? It came from the Void so it must be a Voidsent, but that doesn't rule out the possibility of it being a Primal from the Void (rather than a banished Primal it could even just be a Primal summoned by Imps).

Really not enough to go off, so I'd say Atomos is just a regular Voidsent like Diabolos with Prime not being specific to Primals, and that doesn't matter as far as gameplay goes. People generally dislike Diabolos being a Voidsent, but I don't get the issue... Summoner wont get him? So what... Summoner didn't get the Sylph summon either, Scholar did, there is absolutely nothing stopping the developers making a Job which turns the tables on Voidsent and has them do its bidding.

I like the theory this is spawning. Here's a question though - Where do primals exist when they're not manifested in our realm? Is the "Aetherial Stream" a physical place or is it simply a mode of transportation within and between the realms? I'm leaning more toward the latter, and if that's the case, the primals "essence" has to come from somewhere.

According to the game, when a being dies its "spirit" travels to the void, no? This is what I understand of the "ascian mechanic" - they prevent themselves from entering that "dead-plane" (making them immortal). This explains why the primals we know enough about so far were long-dead, legendary figures before their summoning (Moggle Mog, Shiva, Bahamut). So, when a primal is summoned, it's really just necromancy.

So, if the primals are coming back from the dead, they're all technically "Voidsent" - Sent/Summoned from the Void.

If we look at the word "Primal" as "From Prime" or "Of Prime", meaning it was created of the original entity, Nalien makes a lot of sense. At the heart of every primal could be a crystal or aetherite from which the "Prime" creates and gives command to it's physical form. Thinking of this aetherite like the ones we use daily, it can just as well be used as a communication device, transferring the enitys consciousness to its corporeal manifestation. The movie "Surrogates" comes to mind here. Obviously, aether from our realm is needed for the aetherite to take form and continue functioning. The collected aether becomes the aetherite, encases it a form reminiscent of it's prime and literally feeds the manifestation, inflating it's size and power when aether is provided in excess, much like food stores in the human body. As for the worship required, it simply serves as motivation for the prime to manifest via that aether.

Basically, when we travel into T13, we're teleporting through the aetherite within Bahamut and into his spiritual domain within the void. There, we defeat the real Bahamut, his consciousness, completely erasing his existence. If this theory holds true, we'll never see Bahamut again.

"But, Vik, that doesn't explain why Atomos is a crystalized formation within the void!"

Well, if we look again at our aetherite system, two nodes are required to make a connection, no? These "Primes" simply reside within their own aetherite in the void. Maybe the act of summoning transfers enough aether to the void necessary to build such a device.

What we see in World of Darkness is Atomos, within his crystalline home, controlling several avatars of himself (the same number from Labyrinth of the Ancients, actually).

If I had to guess, I'd say there's a small chunk of aetherite inside each of Atomos' "primal", allowing for this remote-control.


NOTE: Physical beings are made of aether (as is Zantetsuken), making it possible for a prime to control as well, granted the host is willing/does the summoning.

A minor note on terminology and a caution on how to treat Final Fantasy lore in general. Never, ever, ever presuppose that an assumption that holds in one Final Fantasy game will also hold for another game. The use of the word Prime in FFXI was significant in that game, but there are enemies in other games which use the word Prime in their names that are nothing to do with that - notably off the top of my head is Cactuar Prime from FF13, which was not the "Prime" form of the Fal'Cie Cactuar as one might expect using the FFXI definition, just a really strong Cactuar.

That's not to say that your theory doesn't have some merit but apart from Bahamut Prime and Atomos Prime we have not seen any other "Primes" in the storyline, and given how important Primals are in FFXIV, I am sure they would have appeared by now, and their first appearence would not have been in 1.) the hardest battle content in the game, and 2.) an optional side-story questline based on FFIII. As far as Atomos Prime is concerned ... I thought it might've been a graphical glitch that I did not see a giant Atomos we were fighting but apparently it is not. But if Atomos Prime were the "Prime" Atomos ... is there any evidence (Other than Egi which are slightly different) that any primal can be summoned more than once at any given time.

I have other things to say about Primals, mostly to do with gestalt psychology and collective conciousness but I'll leave those thoughts for another day.

One theory : Atomos feeds on aether. Let's say it stores it somewhere. Like, in a big crystal feeding all the incarnations of Atomos.

Atomos feeds -> Aether goes to the crystal 'Atomos Prime' -> Crystal creates copies of Atomos to feed more.

Which is pretty much what we've seen, with the crystal feeding its incarnations when they're about to disappear.
'Prime' could come from the fact the crystal is the 'source' of the atomos : no crystal, no incarnations.

So now, is there a big Atomos using crystals to create copies of himself, or is the Voidsent a crystal itself, and the big maws we see only its way to feed and grow. /mmh.

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Originally Posted by Alenore

One theory : Atomos feeds on aether. Let's say it stores it somewhere. Like, in a big crystal feeding all the incarnations of Atomos.

Atomos feeds -> Aether goes to the crystal 'Atomos Prime' -> Crystal creates copies of Atomos to feed more.

Which is pretty much what we've seen, with the crystal feeding its incarnations when they're about to disappear.
'Prime' could come from the fact the crystal is the 'source' of the atomos : no crystal, no incarnations.

So now, is there a big Atomos using crystals to create copies of himself, or is the Voidsent a crystal itself, and the big maws we see only its way to feed and grow. /mmh.

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Sounds similar to what it was like in FFII, with one main looking entity that had multiple instances of itself. Except it would also consume entire realities and timelines beyond aether as long as it had a presence there.