Aetheryte

Lore wise, do time pass when people use the teleports? Like for example moving from aleport to kugane?

At most a few moments for your aether to physically move from point A to point B, but besides that I don't think so.

Since 1.0 it's been stated that the time it takes to teleport and arrive at the destination aetheryte is virtually instantaneous, the time it takes to travel through the Lifestream is barely perceptible (literally in the blink of an eye).

Of course we see a loading screen which can take ten to twenty, even thirty, seconds or more of real time to load, but as far as it goes in universe, it's instant.

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Originally Posted by Mirch

Lore wise, do time pass when people use the teleports? Like for example moving from aleport to kugane?

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This will sound funny...not meant to be offensive...

1: Take a screenshot of your screen in Eorzea Time format
2: Teleport to Kugane from Aleport or vice versa
3: Screenshot again.

There's your answer :)

In short its however long it takes for your screen to load - but off hand i'd say pretty damn near instantaneous. Prob. not something they wanted to get into too deeply.
Cost however seems to be an interesting aspect of the whole thing...what is it they use the gil for maintenance wise?

Then you got the Marriage Rings (Bond of eternity? I think its called?) how does that work exactly? :)

Etc..etc..etc..

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Originally Posted by NephthysVasudan

Cost however seems to be an interesting aspect of the whole thing...what is it they use the gil for maintenance wise?

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Probably cleaning, it is a public place after all people are bound to litter the place. That and also they were notoriously expensive to repair after the calamity so even today they're likely still paying off the debt Eorzea has been put in.

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Originally Posted by NephthysVasudan

Cost, however, seems to be an interesting aspect of the whole thing...what is it they use the gil for maintenance wise?

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This was addressed in a Duty Commenced episode, it's not a maintenance cost at all. Basically, when the calamity happened, aether travel was crippled and it was a massive problem, so the syndicate of Ul-Dah stepped in to fund the reconstruction of the aethernet. The fee you pay when you teleport is paying off the massive loan that the syndicate gave to the eorzean alliance.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

This was addressed in a Duty Commenced episode, it's not a maintenance cost at all. Basically, when the calamity happened, aether travel was crippled and it was a massive problem, so the syndicate of Ul-Dah stepped in to fund the reconstruction of the aethernet. The fee you pay when you teleport is paying off the massive loan that the syndicate gave to the eorzean alliance.

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Yup. Although that makes you wonder, why are you paying when teleporting from, say, Yanxia to the Azim Steppe?
...Lolorito, what have you been up to?

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Originally Posted by Aosha

Yup. Although that makes you wonder, why are you paying when teleporting from, say, Yanxia to the Azim Steppe?
...Lolorito, what have you been up to?

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This is the plot hole that I found, nevermind those places, what about Ok' Zundu and Azyz lla?

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

This is the plot hole that I found, nevermind those places, what about Ok' Zundu and Azyz lla?

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Not even Ok' Zundu, who are you even paying when you teleport to Zenith? I can't imagine Hraesvelgr (my god I hate spelling their names and I never know if I got them right) would be terribly interested in gil.

For that matter, why do the Moghome moogles collect gil, both for teleport fees, and for repair/merchant services too? They've been up there for a thousand years and haven't had any contact with the spoken races (which, you'd think that an airship or two would've flown across them at some point), let alone their gil.

Well, Ok' Zundu actually does have at least a logical explanation for taking gil fees for teleportation there - they actively trade with the Ishgardian knights at Camp Cloudtop, so a supply of gil would be useful for that. The aetherytes at Mourn, Zenith and Moghome are a little more vague though, although again the dragons and moogles respectively may just take gil payments in a more symbolic way (as a mark of respect, that those using it give gil to them as an offering, not a tax).

The chocoporter in those areas indeed seems to suggest the payment is more symbolic - it's not even an npc but a large chocobo statue that acts as a giant ocarina (the character presumably blows through it to call the chocobo), and the text message mentions that "it's best to leave some gil as payment, just in case..." (paraphrased). So maybe it is just a symbolic payment, a teleportation 'honour-system' if you will?

The moogles at Moghome however do end up making relations during HW's story with both Gridania and the moogles of the Black Shroud, as well as Ishgard, so again maybe they start collecting teleport fees on their behalf after that point (remember there are moogles running stores in both Moghome and Ashah, so they clearly know the value of gil and use it for something.).

Even the aetheryte at Helix in Azys Lla, an area that has been uninhabited by anything other than robots for millennia deducts payment in gil when you teleport there, and again, that sort of has an explanation in that the aetheryte, like the nodes in Helix which act as vendors and repair services, may be programmed to automatically collect whatever currency the person has (unless gil has been a universal currency since the Allag's day).

But I admit that is all a bit of a stretch....

^Gil was an old Allagan currency and the alliance chose it because it didn't belong to any one nation. That said, the coinage is more then likely completely different.

I have another question on aetherytes, no idea if it was ever answered in game.

Can we transport wares while in direct contact with it? I.e. a cart or a barrel? Or is there no way to transport cargo even if we're touching it? Is there a weight limit to what we can teleport? Then how do we keep our clothes? If it's a special material, could we take along a bag of, I don't know, wheat or food?
What side effects are there to using the aetheryte net? Is there radiation? Can the state of my food change if it gets turned into aether and then put together again? Will it be cooler or hotter compared to before I started the teleport?

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Originally Posted by Voross

I have another question on aetherytes, no idea if it was ever answered in game.

Can we transport wares while in direct contact with it? I.e. a cart or a barrel? Or is there no way to transport cargo even if we're touching it? Is there a weight limit to what we can teleport? Then how do we keep our clothes?

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I also don't know if this had ever been addressed, but it's something I've thought about. I figure the whole "spiritbind" thing has something to do with it. Any piece of gear that is bound to you can travel through the aether with you, otherwise you would come out the other side in your nameday suit. If we couldn't keep our clothes, there would be a booming market around every aetheryte crystal of merchants reselling dropped gear to naked adventurers (and if I know adventurers, popping into town naked wouldn't be a dealbreaker for the convenience of teleportation). Ignoring some other logistical and tactical considerations, spirtbinding would also be a reason why nobody moves entire army units through the aethernet; all the materiel that an army needs (heavy guns, camp equipment, et cetra) that don't belong to an individual can't be bound, and therefore can't be teleported.

As for your other questions, I don't know. I assume there are some natural laws governing the conservation of matter, aether, and energy. We really need a school of aetherochemical physics.

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Originally Posted by Kennar

Any piece of gear that is bound to you can travel through the aether with you

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It may also be a question of how much "energy" is needed to accomplish the journey.

According to the lore book, magicks are used to reduce the corporeal body and will to just aether, with the will keeping it together, and passing through the lifestream to another place where the boundary is weaker (on Hydaelyn, that's the location of Aetherytes) at which point they pass back into the corporeal realm and reform.
It's quite possible that the amount of magick needed to break down inanimate objects grows at such a rate that beyond a certain point (say, the weapon, clothing, and a certain amount of carried items - lore wise I don't think we actually carry quite as much as we can gameplay wise) it's simply not feasible to do so - either it would take too much magick, the will of the host can't keep it all together, or both.

Also, in terms of can it change something like food? I think it's possible, though I doubt it would be so drastic as ending up with a different type of food. That being said, it would take spending longer in the lifestream than you normally do when using the aetherytes, as those act as beacons and you spend so little time in the lifestream that everything that goes with you arrives in the same form.

Y'shtola returned without her natural sight and instead has to sense the aether around her to see, and Thancred was spit out without the ability to tap into aether at all, so teleportation can make changes to the aether that is involved in it...but only if that teleportation doesn't involve aetherytes at all, or perhaps if something were to happen to the aetherytes at the same time you entered.

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Originally Posted by Berethos

...snip...

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All good thoughts. Perhaps, technically, anything could be teleported through the lifestream, but the further removed something is from a living being with a spirit (and a will), the more magick it takes to do it; and without a will to hold it together, there is no guarantee the object will come back complete on the other side. Your gear being spiritbound, your spirit "knows" the composition of your clothing, weapons, items, etc., and through strength of will those things can be faithfully recreated on the other side. We know there are various teleportation devices of Allagan and Garlean design, but the power requirements are likely immense for the distances at which they can operate.

I agree with you about not being able to carry unreasonable amounts of stuff, from a lore perspective. Even as a hulking Roegadyn, I would still have to travel relatively lightly. This takes a little hand-waving, but maybe if our packs/pouches/purses are bound to us, then the things inside of them are bound by proxy--the lifestream and magicks involved treat your pouch of stuff as one object. The more stuff in the pouch, the more difficult it would be to recreate, which would provide limits on what could be teleported.

I'm not sure how much of this is spoilerific, so I'll just hide it all...

I see what befell Y'shtola and Thancred as not being changed by teleportation magicks or the lifestream, but a result of what is essentially data loss in the lifestream. Using a proper spell opens a conduit between two aetherytes that provides accurate tranferrance of information with negligible losses, much like a telegraph or fiber optic cable in our world.

Y'shtola's forbidden magicks, in effect, broadcast her and Thancred's information into the lifestream like a radio, in hopes a "reciever" could quickly pick it up. She was, very briefly, one of the most powerful transmitters in the world. Time weakened their signals, and it was probably only shear strength of will that kept their spirits intact enough that they came back as they did. A person of lesser constitution might have come back a vegetable, or been absorbed by the lifestream entirely.

I assume more than one Sharlayan researcher met a gruesome end in the name of science while studying teleportation magicks. Y'shtola was lucky to come back only missing her sight. What if she came back without her face? *shudder*

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Originally Posted by Berethos

Y'shtola returned without her natural sight and instead has to sense the aether around her to see, and Thancred was spit out without the ability to tap into aether at all, so teleportation can make changes to the aether that is involved in it...but only if that teleportation doesn't involve aetherytes at all, or perhaps if something were to happen to the aetherytes at the same time you entered.

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Forgot a key point or two/and some remarks.

Didn't Thancred fall through time or something? or an alternate reality? Hints at extreme risk. That and Y'shtola is basically draining her life force to keep doing what she does.... sad

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Originally Posted by NephthysVasudan

Forgot a key point or two/and some remarks.

Didn't Thancred fall through time or something? or an alternate reality? Hints at extreme risk. That and Y'shtola is basically draining her life force to keep doing what she does.... sad

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Short answer - Nope (or at least a strong probably not).

There is definitely extreme risk (which is why Matoya upbraids her for it later), but Kennar basically has the right of it - the big threat is essentially data loss while in the Lifestream. Without the beacons of the aetherytes to help guide the aether of the body and will back to the corporeal realm (in a place where the boundary is weaker), the wielder of the teleportation magick has less control over where the users end up. In Thancred's case, he gets spit out in the Dravanian Forelands with two key elements of data loss - his clothing and weapons, and his ability to control aether. He's actually somewhat older than he looked when we first met him (32, despite looking more like he's in his early 20s), and I believe that's due to use of magicks to keep himself at least looking youthful. I know that Y'shtola used the arcane arts for something like that, but I don't know for certain if it's mentioned that he has as well, though it would help explain why he starts to look older afterward.

I think the chance of him having spent more time in there before popping back out to not be as high, as that part of the story makes it clear that too much time spent in the Lifestream means you lose your form and eventually dissolve back into the lifestream itself, and there's no indication that he otherwise ended spending more than a short time there before being spit out...and there's definitely no hint at an alternate reality/dimension. While travel to one of those is technically possible, it requires either a rift between words (like the ones the Voidsent use) or for the one making the jump to give up their mortal body to make the jump (as we saw with the Warriors of Darkness).

For Y'shtola, I seem to recall something else that hints at it not necessarily being her draining her life force away every time she does it so that she will eventually die sooner than she would otherwise, but instead that in doing it she could easily overextend herself if she isn't careful and get herself killed that way - like she could end up using too much at once, but if she's careful to not do that then she's fine (though that may just be my interpretation of various character comments from those like Matoya.

Thancred's face from ARR to HW is pretty much identical. He just got a tan and grew out his chin-scruff a little. I've seen a lot of folks saying he "looks older" but he hasn't visibly aged at all. It's all in his demeanour and the way his new hair and outfit frames his face.

It's just like how everyone thinks F'lhaminn is really old, but she's only 37, and she looks exactly the same as she did 15 years ago. Putting on glasses and a frumpy outfit really alters perceptions.

You can pretty much ignore how old characters look verses how old they actually are. Like, Cid is only 34 in ARR and he looks and acts like one of the older characters in the game. For comparison's sake, Nero is the same age as him. Meanwhile, Urianger is only 29 and Papalymo is 42. Lyse's age isn't known.

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Originally Posted by Keever

Thancred's face from ARR to HW is pretty much identical. He just got a tan and grew out his chin-scruff a little. I've seen a lot of folks saying he "looks older" but he hasn't visibly aged at all. It's all in his demeanour and the way his new hair and outfit frames his face.

It's just like how everyone thinks F'lhaminn is really old, but she's only 37, and she looks exactly the same as she did 15 years ago. Putting on glasses and a frumpy outfit really alters perceptions.

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guess i need to re-watch the cut-scenes...been too long lol.

There was a lore panel where Koji stated all the Scions used magiks to appear younger.

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Originally Posted by Grayve

There was a lore panel where Koji stated all the Scions used magiks to appear younger.

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No, there wasn't <_<

There was one brief encounter years ago where he was asked how the Scions stay looking so good and he somewhat off-the-cuff jokingly said "Sharlayan cosmetics!"

That's it.

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Originally Posted by Keever

No, there wasn't <_<

There was one brief encounter years ago where he was asked how the Scions stay looking so good and he somewhat off-the-cuff jokingly said "Sharlayan cosmetics!"

That's it.

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Indeed, also I think there is a bit of confusion here with a reply Ferne actually made during the first Fanfest (at the Lore Panel) where it was asked how Kan-E-Senna looked older than the other padjal, and that was the answer given (she uses magic glamour to appear older as she believed the other citystates would not take her seriously as the head of state of Gridania if she looked like a child) has a similar context to the apparent age-defying properties of the Archons.

So yeah, I don't believe it was ever confirmed the Archons were using glamour magic to keep themselves looking younger than they were, only Kan-E-Senna.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

a reply Ferne actually made during the first Fanfest

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Of Kan-E-Senna, Ferne only says she is "making herself up" (video here) to look older. No explicit mention of magic here either. Could just be cosmetics.

Y'shtola's lore book entry specifically says that "The hand of time ever stopped on twenty and three" in regards to her age and doesn't say how old she actually is. Given how good Y'shtola is with magic, I could see that being the case.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

Y'shtola

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Y'shtola's insistence that she is twenty-three is a joke previously used in the description of her ARR minion:

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Originally Posted by Wind-up Y'shtola

If we are to take her word for it, the Circle of Knowing Archon has seen but twenty-three summers.

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There may or may not be anything to read into there. I tend to assume it's just another case of devs/writers joking around in the absence of stronger evidence. Just like "Sharlayan cosmetics".