Origins of Miqo'te?

So for the longest time, I thought Miqo'te were from Meracydia, but according to this pic (below) from the lore book, they're apparently from Ilsabard! That's a twist for what everyone thought, huh?

https://66.media.tumblr.com/0fe9ab91...11vo1_1280.jpg

To be sure, I never quite understood why so many people are so convinced that the miqo'te are from Meracydia. I know the theory came up from a handful of references in the text descriptions for various items.

But, somehow, I've always imagined that the miqo'te came from somewhere in the north, rather than the south. That's probably because of the earlier references to land links arising from a historical ice age.

Wait, doesn't this say that Miqo'te are from Eorzea but were driven away by the Allagan Empire to Ilsabard?

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Originally Posted by Rilasha

Wait, doesn't this say that Miqo'te are from Eorzea but were driven away by the Allagan Empire to Ilsabard?

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That's how I read it. They originated from Eorzea, were driven out by the Allagan Empire, settled in Ilsabard, and then came back to Eorzea. I will say, it's making me want to purchase the lore book though.

Well that is interesting. I wonder why the Allagan's persecuted the Miqote exactly. Im trying to remember exactly what was the source that Miqote were from Meracydia. I'm sure there is something.

It was from something you could gather as botanist. Can't say which item exactly though (sesame maybe?)

That said, I am for now inclined to believe that possible contradictions with in-game lore are part of the typos/'bugs' that managed to slip in

If I remember right the Miqo'te/Meracydia connection was two things:

Sesame Seeds, which have the description:
A tiny seed rich in aromatic oil, sesame is native to Meracydia, and thought to have first been brought to Eorzea by migrating Miqo'te.

And Aloe:
A thick spiny-leaved cactus indigenous to the southern continent of Meracydia. The Miqo'te are known to treat severe burns with the cool gel-like substance found inside the leaves.

...which, aside from the Miqo connection in the text, is only used to make Cordials and Forest Miq'abob (A traditional Keeper of the Moon dish consisting of freshly picked mushrooms on a stick, roasted to perfection.)

The key words in the flavour-text description for sesame seeds are "thought to have first been".

I personally never felt it to be conclusive, but given that there's not much other information to suggest otherwise (in contrast to other data that suggest Meracydian origins), there didn't seem to be strong reasons to deny the popular theory.

As for aloe, while it may be the case that miqo'te traditionally use them now as a salve for burns, there isn't actually anything in the flavour text to definitively say it was the miqo'te who brought the herb into Eorzea.

So, I would say that the lore encyclopedia isn't necesarily wrong, just that the popular theory turned out to be not so sound after all.

Well maybe the Miqo'te came to Eorzea from Meracydia during the time of the Allagan Empire. The Allagans persecuted the Mi'qote cause they stuck up poeple who hated furries. The miqo'te fled to Ilsabard while the Allagans decided to purge Furry land from it's inhabitants (Dragons and tree people). Later, after the empire fell the mi'qote came back. Why they didn't go to Meracydia is anyone's guess. Although it might have something to do with the war rendering it quite inhospitable.

Sounds possible, though I'd wonder why the miqo'te apparently settled in northern Eorzea, if they supposedly came from far south of the realm, beyond the Southern Islands.

From the passage above:

Tribal legend and local folklore does, however, speak of a seemingly endless winter that brought with it bitter cold, raging snowstorms, and giant rivers of ice. Without the ability to grow crops, much of the population perished, or was forced to flee to the south and its more temperate climes.

Those lines are somewhat ambigious, though, as it's not definitively clear that the "population" they're referring to is that of the ancient miqo'te.

But the passage does make clear that the miqo'te returned to northern Eorzea from southern Ilsabard. Which seems to me to suggest that's where the miqo'te used to roam, before their exodus in the Third Astral Era.

I just went diving for citations (I could swear that there used to be citations for this) and I can't find any.

I can find Miqo'te connections to Meracydia via Aloe and Sesame Seeds; I can find that the Miqo'te traversed the frozen seas during the Age of Endless Frost; but any connection between those two seems to be gone.

I could have sworn that there used to be a Help Tip that flat out said the Miqo'te traversed the frozen seas from Meracydia during the Fifth Umbral Era, also known as the Age of Endless Frost...

I'll ... get back to you.

EDIT: Yeah, aside from that removed tooltip (It is believed the Miqo'te first came to Eorzea during the Fifth Umbral Era, fleeing their ravaged homeland on the southern continent of Meracydia.), nothing seems to remain but Aloe and Sesame Seeds, plus their interactions with alchemy and cooking.

I have a question that might help (or not) :
Has anyone tried to make a complete map of hydaelyn from the location information we have ?

Because, if we can think of Eorzea (Vilebrand and Aldenar) being somewhat like Africa, Ilsabar being Eurasia, Othar being something like east asia, separated from Ilsabar by a big mountain chain (which can be arguably belong to Ilsabar or Othar)
Then, Meracydia might be like Australia, but farther south (and east) from Eorzea and South (eastish) from Ilsabar, which could connect both interpretation.

PS : It might be a good idea to create a thread gathering information of relative location of each know continent and try to create a map, that could help a lot to understand things.

I think there is a thread like that already. Althoguh it's just text with no actual maps. And not updated with Lorebook info.

Anonymoose made a rough map of when we saw Hydaelyn from the moon

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CKzopK2WEAA9Ff_.png

I think people also drew the connection between Meracydia and Miqo'te because of the presence of Meracydian ruins in Azys Lla that have bas-reliefs of the mark of Azeyma. (The Cathedral, x24 y28). Not that other civilzations haven't worshipped Azeyma but I think Seekers of the Sun are the only ones that have confirmed to have been so far.

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Originally Posted by myahele

Anonymoose made a rough map of when we saw Hydaelyn from the moon

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Who else? If he doesn't become a sharlayan scholar NPC in Stormblood, I'm going to riot.

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Originally Posted by myahele

Anonymoose made a rough map of when we saw Hydaelyn from the moon

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These days I like to add a few notes to that image:

1] That's really, really probably not Sharlayan. I put that label with a question mark there just in case at the time. (It was a small island, to the north, and it has a windrose under it, which on some maps might mean it's an important place, others no so much.) A popular knee-jerk reaction to seeing that is to yell, "Uh, akshully, it's definitely not!" in my general direction, so probably ignore that label entirely.

2] New World and Meracydia are probably accurate.

3] That Thavnair at the bottom there might be Thavnair, and might actually just be Othard wrapping back down, if it's a curvy continent. It all depends on whether the islands in the cloud cover there include the Near East, which they definitely might.

4] That's just about exactly 50% of the planet's surface, and even the visible parts that we don't have in-game maps for are approximate even going by the textures seen from the moon. Square Enix could slightly adjust bits of it as needed later.

I feel like Thavnair is nearer to Eorzea than Meracidia with the information we have, so Meracydia and Thavnair might be swaped on the map.

I've always liked Meracydia as "Australia". After all, they're both blasted places with relatively few actual habitable areas, and home to all manner of terrible and dangerous beasties.

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Originally Posted by Aura_Shurifon

I feel like Thavnair is nearer to Eorzea than Meracidia with the information we have, so Meracydia and Thavnair might be swaped on the map.

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Meracydia's proximity to Eorzea in that map (as well as the super cloudy version) has never really sat well with me, but the locations are correct and not swapped. We have lore pre-book that denotes Meracydia as a southern land which would put it across the southern seas (aka Rhotano or Ash) and Thavnair squarely across the Jade Sea to the east.

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Originally Posted by Ahldskyf

We're in the process of resupplying in preparation for the long journey east across the Sea of Jade to the small island nation of Thavnair, and its capital city Radz-at-Han.

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Originally Posted by Kple Kple

This staff is said to have been created by a powerful conjurer who took the taproot of an ancient rosewood tree burned to the ground by a levinbolt, and fixed to it a ceremonial sun mask used by the primitive tribes on the distant southern continent of Meracydia. The magicked weapon is said to grant its wielder the ability to hear the whispers of the elementals.

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But even the geography section of the new lore book puts Thavnair directly south of Ilsabard, not Aldenard.

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Originally Posted by Encyclopedia Eorzea pg13

To the south of Ilsabard lies a great sea known as the Bounty... The most prominent of those civilizations would have to be that of Radz-at-Han, located on Thavnair - the Bounty's largest landmass.

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Words like "distant" and "faraway" are often used to describe the southern continent, which is why its proximity surprises me. There's a passage in the lore book that mentions a voyage between Vylbrand and Doma, which lies on Othard's eastern coastline region of Yanxia takes approximately two months at peak sailing conditions.

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Originally Posted by Encyclopedia Eorzea pg12

So great is the distance, that even the fastest of trader vessels carried by favorable winds require at least a fortnight to make the journey from Old Sharlayan to Vylbrand, and another two moons to travel from there to Doma.

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Now looking at Meracydia's travel time...

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Originally Posted by Mahi-mahi

Its name meaning “stalwart” in the Lalafellin tongue, this deep-sea predator is not only massive, but deceptively fast. Some sailors swear that a mahi-mahi can make the journey from Meracydia to the Cieldales in less than a fortnight, though knowing most sailors, that claim may be slightly exaggerated.

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Real world Mahi-mahi are known to travel at speeds of up to 50 knots (that's about 57 mph), however most vessels from the Age of Sail only reached speeds of 10-15 knots (also I could've sworn there's npc dialogue talking about Lominsan ship speed being about that as well?). So while a Mahi-mahi may be able to swim from the Cieldalaes to Meracydia in a fortnight, mathematically, it'd take a Lominsan galleon about 3x as long to cover the same distance. Putting a journey to Meracydia at about a month and a half or so at best.

So obviously, travel times around Hydaelyn are pretty off. But unfortunately that southern landmass marked as Meracydia cannot (or should not) be Thavnair because it sits squarely in the Sea of Ash, not east of the Sea of Jade.