"Key" to Azys Lla?

What was the actual "key" that Bismarck swallowed? Why do we need a key to get into Azys Lla in the first place?

Also kind of related, but how did the Allagans bind the Warring Triad in the Flagship? How do the Containment Bays work? Why did fighting Thordan stir the Warring Triad's slumber? Thank you!

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/rg1EUk9buYQ/maxresdefault.jpg

Basically

Edit: Couldn't resist, as for the actual key, theres not much explanation other than Azys lla is intentionally sealed away because it is a high-tech research facility that the allagan doesn't want falling into the wrong hands, and the "key" was given to the vanu vanu to guard.

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Originally Posted by Alynn

What was the actual "key" that Bismarck swallowed? Why do we need a key to get into Azys Lla in the first place?

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Azys Lla was surrounded by an aetheric barrier and had cloaking technology; the key pointed the way to its location and disabled the cloaking. The Vanu Vanu didn't seem to, as a culture, fully understand what it did or where it led, but knew that it was bad news and to hide it away (on an island that Bismarck eventually swallowed).

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Originally Posted by Alynn

[H]ow did the Allagans bind the Warring Triad in the Flagship?
How do the Containment Bays work?

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As far as I can tell, it was a lot of "pretty much Dalamud, but not in space". The essences of these primals (or eikons) were captured by anti-primal weaponry (Ultima; Omega) and then bound to devices which kept them healed, drained their power, and connected them to a group of their torpid followers ("in suspended animation") in case more faith was needed to sustain their summoning.

The centrifugal crystal engine then drained that nigh-infinite power. (A primal is as powerful as the prayer that summoned it; an entire society praying for the power to throw back an Empire and win an unwinnable war is a lot of primal fuel).

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Originally Posted by Alynn

Why did fighting Thordan stir the Warring Triad's slumber? Thank you!

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He was going to consume them.

The Ascians don't like it when wars end; the seeds of chaos must be sown and spread and grow and thrive. (This one is one reason the Warrior of Light is such a threat; they strike at the heart of conflict and destroy its root causes.) Because Thordan was about to lose the Dragonsong War, they gave him enough power to turn the tide because he was desperate and willing to escalate bloodshed.

But Lahabrea didn't fully understand Thordan's ambitions; the Archbishop was going to consume the Warring Triad and start systematically wiping out everyone who didn't accept him as God King - you know, because that's the best way to ensure peace. The irony is that he probably would have provoked another Calamity before he succeeded, he just slipped the Ascian's leash.

But if you look closely, during the fight, he slams his sword down into the containment bays and tells it to drink deep of the slumbering eikons. This is what woke the triad and so severely compromised the prisons.

Now one question i have is why would the Alllagans give the key to their best technology to a primitive race of fat lumpy birdmen?

Perhaps they knew bismarck would eventually eat it, which would be a pretty safe place inside a primal and all.


Interestingly the Lorebook implies not that Bismarck was summoned like an ordinary primal but that he was created by the gods when the white calf died. Could Bismarck be an artificial primal created by the allagans intened to protect the key to azys lla?

Allagans could have made the Vanu Vanu from rejected ixals being to fat for work and made a primal for them to worship all in secret making to ultimate safeguard for their technology. The Vanu Vanu does sell Allagan sunglasses, an item i thought odd for them to have when they seem so primitive.

They also call Bismarck by another name, at least attach him to a thing called Manukmanai. An odd name with no real life parallels i have found.

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Originally Posted by Enur

Now one question i have is why would the Alllagans give the key to their best technology to a primitive race of fat lumpy birdmen?

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It's subtly implied that the Vanu Vanu, like the Ixal, are descendant from a slave race made by the Allagans.

I suspect the Vanu Vanu were a slave race. Its worth pointing out, the Vanu Vanu have quite sensitive to Aether. Their healers can diagnose illness based on a persons Aether. That is something I can easily imagine the Allagans being interested in.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

It's subtly implied that the Vanu Vanu, like the Ixal, are descendant from a slave race made by the Allagans.

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That is indeed what i am saying. But unlike every other allagan creation there is no evidence of vanu vanu in azys lla save for the key they were
holding.

Additionally the lorebook mentions the vanu as exeptionally clever when compared to other beast tribes noting they learned the common tongue from ishgardians with remarkable speed.


My idea i tried to propose was that the vanu were created with one purpose, keeping bismarck sustained.

I am more incline to suspect that the original Bismarck was some form of Allag construct, perhaps a chimera or even some form of Allagan vessel. After all the Vanu Vanu claim that he carried them to the Sea of Clouds from where they were persecuted. The thing with Bismarck is we have two separate people with legends related to him and clearly they must have some shared origin. I am not particularly convinced the Allag would create a primal that wasn't locked up. They knew the inherent problems with primals.

One theory I had was that Bismarck was literally an Allagan warship with submersible capabilities that travelled between underwater Allagan instillations and places like Azys Lla. A white sub traveling under the water and destroying any vessels that wondered too close to important Allag installations could easily be mistaken for some kind of Whale by seafarers, particularly if they were less technologically savvy and living outside Allagan society.

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Originally Posted by Enur

My idea i tried to propose was that the vanu were created with one purpose, keeping bismarck sustained.

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If I recall correctly, the Vanu Vanu were quite upset that Bismarck had recently eaten the key to Azys Lla. They treated its protection as a sacred duty, and were more than willing to let us bring down the beast to retrieve it.

Combined with Vanu Vanu creation myth, this suggested to me that Bismarck was based on a special transport vessel that brought the race to the Sea of Clouds, where they were to keep the Key safeguarded until the end of the world / until the Allagans had need of it again. I don't think the Allagans ever counted on their slave races developing the ability to summon primals, much less encouraged it.

Remember all the theories about the (what we now know is the) Void Ark floating around the Sea of Clouds and Churning Mists before 3.1? Lot of people thought it was an Allagan ship that Bismark was based upon (well, one of his black kin who killed him in the myth)

And then we found out it was Mhachi in origin.

Thanks for the replies!