Possible Inconsistency: Saint Coinach and Allagan Pieces

In recent weeks, I've been approached to help out with some articles by others, including two specifically about the Allagan Empire and the Autumn War. I think I might have stumbled upon an inconsistency in the midst of these subjects.

My Little Chocobo Makeover? is an old Harbor Herald article released before the Calamity which states that the First and Second Battles of Tinolqa (later referred to as the Autumn War) took place in 1468 and 1469 Sixth Astral Era, respectively. 109 years ago

A 2014 post on gil, delivered by Corvinoobus of the Dev. Team, reported that the currency "was officially adopted by the city-states of Eorzea roughly one-hundred years ago", before which "each city-state minted and regulated its own currency, which led to unpredictable exchange rates and prompted many traders to use ancient Allagan pieces in lieu of other coinage". 108 years ago

However, we were told at the end of 1.0, during To Kill a Raven, that Saint Coinach earned his place amongst the saints seen on guildleves by first discovering true proof of Allag's existence in a time when most considered it a faerie tale... one century ago.

Is this an inconsistency?

It seems odd that around the same time Coinach proved Allag wasn't a myth, people considered Allagan currency a reliable standard. Were merchants ignorant of the coins' origin? Or did they just leave their tongue firmly in cheek about "Allagan" coins because, hey, silver is silver?

(There is definitely a Coinach joke here somewhere...)

The tl'dr is that Gil became the stadard currency a year after the Autumn War, that people were using Allagan Pieces before that and that Allag's existence was proven after the standardization of currency via Gil. The implication is that people possibly used counterfeit coins before Gil was a thing or that people were unaware that the odd coins in their purses were of Allagan origin.

I'd guess that people traded the Allagan Pieces without really knowing much of their origin, they probably just assumed they were shiny trinkets from earlier civilisation, perhaps they were retroactively named Allagan Pieces?

I wonder why would Allagan Pieces be used? It's not like they can make any more of them and it's such a finite resource that'll require excavation parties.

Wouldn't a "gold standard" type of currency make more sense?

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Originally Posted by myahele

I wonder why would Allagan Pieces be used? It's not like they can make any more of them and it's such a finite resource that'll require excavation parties.

Wouldn't a "gold standard" type of currency make more sense?

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I assume its because Allagan Pieces are the Doubloons of Eorzea. Old and valuable currency that is worth more than their weight in gold. (note that even the least valuable piece is still 25x the value of 1 gil)

Plus they are likely more common than tomestones, an we all know how endless those are :P

Considering that to this day, "Native Americans" are still called "Indians," even sometimes by themselves, hundreds of years after the Americas were proven to not be connected to India, it seems unlikely that a commonly used currency could be retroactively renamed in any way that would stick.

Perhaps they were always called "Allagan Pieces," but someone over in Sharlayan, hundreds of years earlier, wrote a really convincing treatise on the subject that set out to prove that much of the currency identified as "Allagan" in common parlance was minted far more recently, based on molds made from some old coins that the ignorant masses had at some point mistaken to be Allagan in origin. So people would be calling them "Allagan" while telling themselves that they were, in fact, really convincing forgeries worth their weight in whatever metal they were minted in, and still more stable than anything minted in Gridania.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

However, we were told at the end of 1.0, during To Kill a Raven, that Saint Coinach earned his place amongst the saints seen on guildleves by first discovering true proof of Allag's existence in a time when most considered it a faerie tale... one century ago.

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So this was a dilly of a pickle. We reviewed some internal docs, old 1.0 transcripts and back revisions, and eventually had to seek clarification from Oda-san. Long story short, this was an error that occurred in the editing process (it should've read "hundreds of years ago," to be precise).

To clarify further, Saint Coinach did his thing some five, six centuries back, not the one century ago stated in the aforementioned 1.0 line.

...What? You didn't really think I'd give you an exact date, did you?

Timelines updated and citations citated! Er... cited.

Such a tiny thing to cause a stir at the higher levels of the bookshelf, though... Sorry. (-_-')7
Thanks for taking the time to dig around, errybodeh, and thanks for letting us know, Corvin!

I'm chalking this up to Calamity nerves on the part of the NPCs.
Fact check while the moon's going all Dawn of the Final Day on you? Ain't nobody got time for that.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Timelines updated and citations citated! Er... cited.

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Where might one view this? :)

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Originally Posted by Tadacho

Where might one view this? :)

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It's a <mumble>spreadsheet<mumble> that I'm slooowly rebuilding in my Loremonger sandbox. One big delay was that I took some time out to figure out how to show and hide spoilers on command so there can be two versions - one full, spoilerific version, and one that you can load up and click all the patches you've completed so far and it'll hide revelations from later patches.

I'm hoping to focus a bit more on it before 3.3 drops and I have to dive back into transcripts and the bestiary once more.

Keep pressing for that lore Moose! Especially that 1.0 stuff. I know the dev team want to forget about it, but I find it fascinating.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

I'm hoping to focus a bit more on it before 3.3 drops and I have to dive back into transcripts and the bestiary once more.

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You might have to get a wriggle on as it's possible that 3.3 drops with 7-14 days my friend! Whenever it arrives I'll be grateful as the lore you, & others in this forum, keep providing is fascinating to me. Excellent work.