The Layman's Physics Discussion

So let's talk about physics, and the magicks we see that allow people to circumvent its laws. Not to mention, the effects it should have on a person's body.

One big question I had throughout HW (and also looking at the designs of airships) is if atmospheric pressure actually exists on Hydaelyn. By all accounts, it should - Hydaelyn is a spherical planet with lifeforms extremely similar to Earth, and follows the basic laws of gravity. That means that the various layers of the atmosphere should also be present. With that in mind, shouldn't the air in Azys Lla, Sea of Clouds, and Churning Mists all be substantially thinner than what we're used to? Forget about us, do Estinien, Ysayle, and Alphinaud not experience any negative effects of this? Alphinaud even mentions that it's actually really cold in the Mists.

But moving on from atmospheric pressure, let's go under the sea. Pressure exists there too. The deeper you dive, the more water is pressing down on you (because there's more water above you). Due to ignorance of the finer details of the effects this has on the human body, I can't go into detail. All I really know is that decompression sickness can very easily kill you, and that when you're deep underwater, it's very easy to get disorientated, especially when there's no light and you cannot easily tell what's up or down.

What I do understand, however, is the fact that after receiving the Kojin's blessing, Alisaie and Lyse suffer none of these ill effects. They're able to go deep-sea diving and, presumably, swim against currents which should be very strong under the Ruby Sea. They can talk in water, and more importantly, they can breathe water. Which sounds like a major biological change in a mammalian species, caused by a magical ritual. A magical ritual that apparently has the power to change a person's body without them suffering any negative side effects from the change. Primals, anyone?

And just for the record, I do understand how and why these issues were glossed over in-game: for the sake of convenient storytelling. But I just want to theorise about how things like these could possibly work, on a lore level.

Like a lot of Japanese media, huge liberties are taken with this kind of thing and a sense of suspension of disbelief is needed.

If you want an actual answer though, Yoshi P says "magic" I guess

Fat chocobo flies. Adamantoise shoots fire and spins. The flying cloud remains a cloud, underwater.

I'm pretty sure we're not in Kansas any more.

Now that you mention atmospheric pressure, deep sea pressure and decompression sickness...
Imagine TELEPORTING (i.e. moving instantly) from the bottom of the Ruby Sea to Moghome.
I'm kinda glad we don't have to deal with that. @_@

If several million tonnes of rock can be suspended indefinitely in midair from an overabundance of air aether why is it difficult to believe that would also supply an abundance of air to breathe?

Breathing underwater can be explained in much the same way. The aether from the ritual is converting the water to air or stripping the hydrogen from it leaving it safe to breathe. Our natural carbon dioxide exhalations wouldn't dissipate immediately in the bubble so we don't need to worry about oxygen poisoning from breathing too pure of an oxygen. If the above is possible then mitigating the pressure exerted by expanding bubbles of gases trapped in our body would be a relatively minor thing to include as part of the ritual. We're repeatedly shown that aetheryte crystals have the ability to create/warp/manipulate energy and elements throughout the game so this is by no means a stretch of the imagination.

TLDR, magic.

As a physic student I cannot say I did not notice all these details. While I try my best to think of a scenario where all these things could make some sense, there are obvious loophole. Considering the size of some structure and the ability to fly of most things which don't seem the most adequate physiology to do so (flying swiiminglike snake from Vanuvanu), what could make some sense is that hydealyn first is a less massive planet resulting in a weaker g force. My guess would be that 80% wouldn't make much of a difference wheen it comes to running or ground battle, but it would allow much taller structure to exist like ishgard. A much thicker atmosphere could also help explain how some animals manage to fly. Lower gravity + denser makes flying akin swimming in a liquid with extremely low viscosity.
A much Thicker atmospher could also help resolve your question regarding pressure underwater.

However, hydealyn being a magical world, the unknown properties of ether must always be taken into consideration as it seems to be an integral part of the world to its very core. In short, we can\\\\\\\\\\'t explain ff14 physic without understanding ether, and unfortunately no one does. (and I doubt SE has hired any physicist to make some pseudo science out of thin air to make a magical world more believable)

So, as Y. P would say, "it\\\\\\\\\\'s Magic"

I forgot where I first heard it or the exact wording, but I recall a saying about SF&F storytelling about how the softer the science, the harder it is to get away with suspension of disbelief. Hence the myriad threads we have about morality and philosophy of in-game characters.

I suspect there is also a corollary to the saying, which is the harder the science, the softer we are on suspension of disbelief. So the vast majority of weird stuff in the game setting is handwaved away with "magic", or specifically "aether". For example, the critters that can fly without wings are said to do so by directly manipulating the wind aether around them. How exactly this works can probably be vaguely dismissed until someone else works it out (by forcing interpretations and coming up with explanations on the fly), at which point the lore pretty much goes "eh, good enough".

Having said that, I could have sworn there's a sidequest or Job quest with a NPC from one of the three starter city-states who has to go up Sohm Al to the Churning Mists, and complains of shortness of breath due to the high altitude. I can't remember where it is, though, or if I imagined the entire thing.

We even have canonical examples of people from Othard coming to Eorzea and getting aether sickness from the sheer amount of aether around, so there's precedent for acclimatization issues.

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Originally Posted by Mysterysword

Hydaelyn is a spherical planet

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As long as we're asking the tough questions: Can you prove this premise you're working off?

If you stand in Kugane and a friend stands in Ul'dah, and you share the positions of your shadows by linkshell at exactly the same time, they'll be the same, despite having a full continent between you in either direction. No matter where you are in the world, the sun is in the same place relative to your position, the clocks are the same, all of it. That shouldn't be the case on a spinning ball-shaped Hydaelyn.

And have you ever seen anything disappear over the horizon? I haven't. There's usually a mountain or a zone border long before you could, to disguise the mind-blowing truth: FLAT HYDAELYN.

the ascian moon cutscene was shot on a garlean soundstage

I've tried to explain magic with science in some of my settings, and while I can get some things to work, there's a lot that just completely conflicts with known sciences so much you have no choice but to say "its magic!".

For example, how can you explain polymorphing/shapechanging spells/abilities with science? (or at least in such a way that allows complete reversal with no physical harm to the object) Like our much-loved Toad spell in PoTD...

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Originally Posted by sciencebot

As long as we're asking the tough questions: Can you prove this premise you're working off?

If you stand in Kugane and a friend stands in Ul'dah, and you share the positions of your shadows by linkshell at exactly the same time, they'll be the same, despite having a full continent between you in either direction. No matter where you are in the world, the sun is in the same place relative to your position, the clocks are the same, all of it. That shouldn't be the case on a spinning ball-shaped Hydaelyn.

And have you ever seen anything disappear over the horizon? I haven't. There's usually a mountain or a zone border long before you could, to disguise the mind-blowing truth: FLAT HYDAELYN.

the ascian moon cutscene was shot on a garlean soundstage

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So the first few moments of ARR's opening movie, plus the 'stinger' scene on the Moon and the model of Hydaelyn on the Astrolabe are a fib, a lie and a bald faced whopper then? ;)

Seriously though, the aforementioned instances clearly show Hydaelyn as a round planet, regardless of what technical limitations the in-game skybox may have in depicting accurate celestial mechanics, which is only to be expected, as the game is not meant to be a virtual simulation of Earth.

Also, there is a handy hint in the game's title, as in, it's fantasy. Science-fantasy to be specific, but fantasy none-the-less, so trying to correlate hard physics in such a setting is never going to end well (lets not forget this is a world where a giant aetheric dragon was encased in an artificial satellite for millennia and the planet itself is not only a living, self-aware entity that takes the form of a giant sentient crystal, it grants psychic abilities to random mortals). So yeah, this is fantasy. Don't think about the 'science' behind it too much.

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Originally Posted by Mysterysword

And just for the record, I do understand how and why these issues were glossed over in-game: for the sake of convenient storytelling. But I just want to theorise about how things like these could possibly work, on a lore level.

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Let me expand on that: I can accept that the writers of the game will handwave all this away with the explanation of "magic". I just think that's a really boring explanation and want to come up with headcanon theories about how this all works. So can people stop pointing out that this is fantasy? Of course I know it is. I'm trying to ignore that, let my disbelief swing, and fill in the blanks.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

So the first few moments of ARR's opening movie, plus the 'stinger' scene on the Moon and the model of Hydaelyn on the Astrolabe are a fib, a lie and a bald faced whopper then? ;)

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Hey, people have made much stranger claims against much stronger evidence about the planet they're living on! The original draft of that post had Hydaelyn as a donut-shape held aloft in the arms of a great celestial Goobue. :p

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Originally Posted by Mysterysword

Let me expand on that: I can accept that the writers of the game will handwave all this away with the explanation of "magic". I just think that's a really boring explanation and want to come up with headcanon theories about how this all works. So can people stop pointing out that this is fantasy? Of course I know it is. I'm trying to ignore that, let my disbelief swing, and fill in the blanks.

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All goofs aside: That's fair! I think the problem some folks are having is that we don't really know all that much about the specifics of how magic functions other than "y'know... aether stuff". So it's hard to say "this is a plausible explanation for the mechanics here" without also saying "but like, there are also 300 other plausible explanations". But I'll do my best to toss you an actual theory about the Sea of Clouds.

The Sea of Clouds seems to be held up by air-aspected crystal deposits. Like, a lot of them, that place is littered with the things. We know water-aspected crystals create springs by just sort of naturally generating water from quests and landmarks in the area. Maybe the reason the air is dense enough to breathe normally, and we aren't hurled from the place immediately by powerful winds, is that they're constantly putting out enough to be stable and survivable? It's an idea, anyway!

We actually know how magic works in Hydaelyn though - magic is the manipulation of aether to produce a desired effect, the source of that aether and how it is manipulated differs depending on the school of magic/discipline involved, from using mathematics and geometry in arcanima to borrowing aether from the environment in conjury, to the most extreme example in the form of Primal summoning where a strong enough will and a huge amount of aether can give form and sentience to a mere wish or idea (unfortunately said wish or idea then becomes an aether-draining monster that brainwashes everyone in earshot to worship them). Of course the subject is far more complex than what is mentioned here, but that is the basic idea behind it.

Aether is the fundamental energy of reality in Hydaelyn, and thus by manipulating that energy, a person can influence said reality. Magic, in other words.

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Originally Posted by Mysterysword

Let me expand on that: I can accept that the writers of the game will handwave all this away with the explanation of "magic". I just think that's a really boring explanation and want to come up with headcanon theories about how this all works. So can people stop pointing out that this is fantasy? Of course I know it is. I'm trying to ignore that, let my disbelief swing, and fill in the blanks.

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Ok, let the technobabble ensue!


Manipulating aether is the act of imbuing an object or area with enough energy to change its state at the atomic level to create a different element. Given the abundance of clouds one can assume there is large percentage of water molecules that can be split to create hydrogen that can be trapped in the rock for lift and oxygen that can be pushed downward for lift. The natural currents in the air would create disturbances in this flow which causes the bobbing effect of the islands. Perhaps aether crystals are quantum bound with other aether crystals that aren't supporting a mountain and using that to transfer the potential energy from one to the other; hence why you have air aether crystals that can be found on the ground.

For diving, perhaps its both earth aspected and air aspected energy. The earth aether could be bound with potassium in the ground to borrow its properties to react with the water and split its molecules. The oxygen you breathe, the hydrogen floats away as bubbles. The air aether that you get imbued with manages the gas pressure in your metabolism to slow the rate of decompression perhaps through siphoning off the kinetic energy in the atoms and sending it elsewhere temporarily then bringing it back a little at a time until everything is equalized?

Part of the problem of trying to figure out the realistic physics of the world is that we have no real in-game approximation of it. The physics engine for FFXIV is relatively basic, if it's even there at all. That combined with the fact that the size and nature of the game world is warped for better gameplay makes it rather difficult to understand the 'real world' physics. That being said, it can be generally assumed that most physical laws of our reality exist to some extent, even if they can be hilariously stretched. To go back to the initial post, it can be safely assumed that the blessing of the Kojin provides some way to survive the pressure in addition to the issues with speaking and breathing, although given the relative scientific illiteracy of the Kojin (and Eorzea as a whole) we would have no idea how.

On the subject of Aether though, I'm not sure that we can totally limit it to the conventions of normal science. It seems to be capable of acts far beyond the capabilities of the real world, from instantaneous creation or teleportation of mass to the production of ethereal and unreal creatures. Trying to figure out how some of that might work on a physical level is both fascinating and headache inducing. Even Garlemald's magitek seems capable of breaking physical laws quite easily, so who really knows?