Can someone explain the calamities/shards/source thing?

The main qualm I have is that the Ascians said the rejoining(calamity) occurs when one of the shards (1 of 13 parallel worlds) is destroyed. But I thought a calamity was when some planet-wide elemental disaster struck, (flood, tornado, meteor, etc) caused by previous civilizations. What's the relationship between other shards being destroyed (what Ascians call rejoining/calamity) and the 7 calamities that have happen in our world (e.g. war of the Magi causing a giant flood or Allagan empire causing a calamity, or whatever?

Put simply, a Calamity is any sufficiently disastrous event on our world. When that happens, Hydaelyn desperately needs aether to heal the damage and maintain balance. The only readily available source of sufficient aether are the parallel Shards--Hydaelyn is forced to reabsorb the Shard back into our world. The Ascians plan to force Hydaelyn to reabsorb all the Shards, and so prepare the Source for the reawakening of Zodiark. The seven past Calamities have thus seen Hydaelyn rejoin seven Shards to the Source.

What's the significance of them all being different elements?

There are six different aether elements and the first six calamities were primarily caused by one of the six elements become the dominant aether aspect of all the aether in Eorzea. IE: 4th Umbral Calamity happened when an Earthquake produced/caused there to be too much earth aether; 6th Umbral Calamity happened when floods produced/caused there to be too much water aether. Or maybe the earthquake was caused when a lot of eath eather was created at once... in any case, one element plays a large part in causing each Umbral Calamity to happen.

Back in 1.0, many scholars thought that since there had been one Umbral Calamity for each element, that the cycle of Calamities was over and there wouldn't be anymore. Loisoix and Urianger found a prophecy that said there would be more then six calamities and thought that Dalamud's fall would result in the 7th Umbral Calamity. A large part of the early 1.0 story was spent convincing the Eorzean Alliance that an Umbral Calamity was coming and that the Alliance needed to be ready for it. Sure enough... there was another one.

It should be mentioned that Shards that have gone through a Flood of Darkness (or Light) cannot be rejoined to Hydaelyn. The Void is what happens when there's so much Darkness in a Shard, it swallows up all aether. 3.4 is all about preventing a Flood of of Light from happening to another shard. So there can now only be... 13 Calamities maximum instead of 14...

So the 7th calamity was non-elemental? Meteor/bahamut?

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

So the 7th calamity was non-elemental? Meteor/bahamut?

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Technically Bahamut is aspected towards flare, which is related to fire but is outside the element cycle. In practical terms it is treated as a non-elemental aether, as Bahamut always had been represented in most FF games.

If you want to get really technical, Bahamut is a fire primal. Only, instead of the fire found in a flame, it's the fire found in the sun. The real dragon Bahamut was known as the Dawn Worm and when Tiamat created a primal after him, she kept the solar connection going. So I guess you could say Bahamut is stellar-fire aspected? This is probably what's going one behind all of Bahamut's Flare attacks. They seem to be mini solar flares, only instead of just one going off, it's many going off at once. It's worth noting that in the "A Lesson in Dragonspeak" thread, Koji confirmed that the First Brood knows that the sun is a ball of gas and plasma in space. So it's not that far-fetched that they could make a primal with the sun's power in mind.

It's worth noting that the Allagan's exploited Bahamut's link to the sun's aether. The entire reason Dalamud even exists is because the Allagans used it as a giant solar-aether collector. Bahamut attracted the sun's aether to himself and then Dalamud funneled it into the Crystal Tower which powered the entire Allagan Empire.

So the technical answer is probably that the 7th Umbral Calamity was a Calamity of Fire. Practically, it's like Eorzea got hit by the biggest Solar Flare of all time.

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Originally Posted by RenewalXVII

When [a Calamity] happens, Hydaelyn desperately needs aether to heal the damage and maintain balance. The only readily available source of sufficient aether are the parallel Shards--Hydaelyn is forced to reabsorb the Shard back into our world.

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Beware: This has not been confirmed. While it is often presented as cold, hard fact by redditors and YouTubers, it's several layers of assumptions built on top of one layer of confirmed fact. The extrapolations are (a very popular) theory alone, just rarely presented as such.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

The main qualm I have is that the Ascians said the rejoining (calamity) occurs when one of the shards (1 of 13 parallel worlds) is destroyed. But I thought a calamity was when some planet-wide elemental disaster struck, (flood, tornado, meteor, etc) caused by previous civilizations.

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It's both. Here's all of the information we know for sure (or think we know but have perhaps been lied to (but we probably know)):

When Hydaelyn expelled Zodiark, the fabric of the cosmos buckled. Not unlike the multiplied reflections in a broken mirror, the original "Source" dimension was copied into thirteen newly-born dimensions, scattering the energies of Light and Darkness into those worlds.

These fourteen dimensions are separated by boundaries, while also overlapping, while also sequentially stacked. I'm not sure there's a way to explain or comprehend it in three-dimensional framework. Think about it this way: Arbert claimed that the Source is "closest" to the First and "farthest" from the Thirteenth, but the Source and Thirteenth overlap all the time, causing incidental voidsent intrusion.

The "cracks in the mirror" are the boundaries between worlds - nigh impossible to penetrate without using a crystal of Light or Darkness to slip out of one dimension and into another through a cosmic rift. I speculate that this is because both sides of the rift are rigid and aetherially reinforced by some kind of incidental static cosmic equilibrium that the dimensions just happened to fall into at the division, hence why the void (a dimension that has been hollowed out) is so much "easier" to break through into, and even that takes a prodigious amount of energy.

The Ascians see this cosmic status quo as more than just an insult to Zodiark, but an affront to the natural cosmic order. A broken mirror, compromising the integrity of the universe itself and surely damning it to eventually be overwhelmed by oblivion - a faint spark of "existence" snuffed out forever. But that's just, like, their opinion, man. Nothing suggests that our beautifully broken world is any more or less damned to eventual oblivion than any other. And more important, it's ours now. GTFO.

Anyway, both Hydaelyn and Zodiark are impotent to influence the energies of Light and Darkness on their own. They need agents to enact Their will. The Ascians try to raise such a confluence of aetherial chaos that it messes with aetherophysical law and order and compromises the integrity of the boundaries between worlds.

When the chaos hits a certain crescendo and the barrier finally gives way, the "crack in the mirror" is "healed" - the two pieces become one, the "extra" dimension is essentially deleted from existence, reduced to aether, and rushes back into the Source dimension's Lifestream system as the Source itself experiences a catastrophe resulting from the chaos and aetherial imbalance hitting its peak.

This is where some theorize that Hydaelyn has been leaving out part of the story - that She is deliberately eating the worlds to survive because she's pushed to the brink she has no other choice. It might end up being true, it might not. Something about it doesn't sit right with me - not the least of which that it seems as though Elidibus's narrative about balance would crumble if She's bring pushed over that brink.

So Zodiark's agents try to make this happen, Hydaelyn's agents try to thwart these efforts. However, Hydaelyn and Zodiark also have no control over the efficacy of their agents or the consequences of their actions. We've seen Ascian and Warrior of Light alike beckon a Flood, and nobody wants a flood.

Zodiark has assigned Elidibus to babysit the Ascians and ensure His resurrection takes place by preventing Floods. Zodiark needs that aether intact if He is going to be resurrected. Unlike the red-masked, black-robed overlords who yell things like that Hydaelyn must be "burned out like a parasite," Elidibus just claims he wants to save the planet and make Hydaelyn and Zodiark one again.

Whether you trust he's telling the truth and things are more complicated than they seem, or whether he's a snake deliberately over-complicating already-complicated things is up to you. (I'm unabashedly #TeamHydaelyn / #ElidibusIsASnake.) (What if making Them one again allows Him to Burn Her out anyway, because He was stronger at the division?)

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

What's the significance of them all being different elements?

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Unknown. Everything plays into the elemental themes in some way; why specifically the Calamities do doesn't seem to be known. Maybe it plays into the "Seven Heavens" and "Seven Hells" mythology in some way.

Some have also pointed out that the Calamities might be seen as elemental in nature, but are also kind of a grab bag of hypothetical apocalypses. Large-scale super-storms, the sun growing too hot, volcanic and geologic upheaval, the great ice age, the great flood, a meteor impact. Perhaps they were convenient tropes, and conveniently aligned to the need for elemental-themed plot scaffolding.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

So the 7th calamity was non-elemental? Meteor/bahamut?

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It was all elements at once, but with a high-astral charge. (Confirmed by lore book.)

Even if the sun doesn't turn out to be "astral" energy, Bahamut was essentially being used as a conversion transistor, so perhaps he affected the aspect and charge, as well.

The Ridorina Cataract is described as a portal to the Hell of Water. If that wasn't just fanciful myth, could it have some connection to the Great Flood's rejoining?

Maybe! Though Yasumi Matsuno the Wandering Dramaturge says that it's a gate to the Seventh Hell, while it is Mikoto that says Hell of Water.

What number IS the Hell of Water, anyway? Eorzeans seem like putting ice first and going clockwise for astral elements. We climb that order backwards when going from Hydaelyn into the heavens according to the Astrologians. Maybe Umbral / Hells associations are counter-clockwise inherently and we go "backwards" (the normal way) from the same starting point? Earth, Ice, Water, Wind Lightning, Wind, Fire? Hell of Water = Third Hell?

There was an old reference to Bomb Baron being from "The Sixth Hell" and that was the best I had for a theory as to why, lol.

A theory of mine about the elemental calamities is that it might be due to whichever element is most prevalant in the shard that gets absorbed. While all of the elements would be there in some measure, it's probable that the shattered shards might have been aspected towards the various elements. Thus when they got absorbed, the landscape of the time was filled with a lot of aether of one type, which either outright caused it or at least made it an attractive option.

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Originally Posted by Shadotterdan

A theory of mine about the elemental calamities is that it might be due to whichever element is most prevalant in the shard that gets absorbed. While all of the elements would be there in some measure, it's probable that the shattered shards might have been aspected towards the various elements. Thus when they got absorbed, the landscape of the time was filled with a lot of aether of one type, which either outright caused it or at least made it an attractive option.

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It's such a gut instinct that I hesitated to even mention it beyond "maybe it's related to the heavens/hells" thing, but I agree. If you take into account the Source ("Star Polar") and void ("Nether Polar"), that leaves 6 + 6 dimensions that might be more heavily skewed Light/Dark and elemental. Something about it is so logically satisfying.

Here's my hang-up connecting it to Calamities - maybe you've got an idea. If we're Source (polar astral/sky/light/star whatever), what dimension was lost in the Seventh Umbral Era (all elements tilted astral)? Or was it that 1 "Dark-heavy" dimension had already been lost, so Zodiark needed to poaching the least light-heavy ones? But then why go for the First? Because it was already collapsing and they had to move quick is my guess, either way, but still.

It's so hard to make logically satisfying consistent in FFXIV.

Why do Calamities start with wind? Why did the calendar used to start with fire? Why does the elemental wheel almost line up with the map and primal summons but not quite enough to be confident it was intended?

The void wouldn't necessarily be the all umbral realm, otherwise the first shard would have been the star/polar. Heck, if we gave up aether to create the others then it might be plausible that we were the umbral realm.

I just take it for granted that Eorzean mythology rarely corresponds exactly 1:1 with reality. Think of how often lower-case light and shadow are conflated with upper-case Light and Darkness, and how both Light and Dark are aetherial in nature but lower-case darkness is often associated with the consumption of aether and the void, but the void was also made by an influx of Darkness and retains some thematic associations and aesthetic from that but Eorzeans still call it Umbral and goes cross-eyed

All of this makes me wonder about the final chapters of the story they've set up, not just 5.0 but perhaps beyond that. There's kind of a built in assumption that we're the Warrior of Light and Hero and therefore we're meant to win in the end. But what if, in this case, winning means restoring Hydaelen to power? Is it possible things are building things to a point where all the barriers collapse regardless of what we do and the only options are to channel the energy to Zodiark or Hydaelen? Could we sacrifice the world to restore Hydaelen so she can remake life on the world instead of letting Zodiark win? In effect usurping the Ascians plan to help Hydaelen instead of kill her?

This would, of course, be the final chapter in the game before it closes; which would have a poetic symmetry with the end of 1.0.

eorzea is technically in the middle of the shards, on one end you have the shard that fell due to light (1st) and the void, which fell to dark (13 or 14th, i think theres an odd number), and true rejoining will only happen when perfect balance is achieved (remember all characters in the game are bound to their pov unlike us, but balance between light and dark, yin/yang, good/evil, whatever has long been a hallmark of ff worlds), so this eternal struggle between the forces of hydaelyn and zodiark are actually preventing the rejoining but both sides are simultaneously fighting to win but also to not tip the balance TOO far and cause another 1st shard or void (also i think restoring the 1st shard may ultimately 'fix' the void)
basically both crystals are in essence selfish but must needs rely on champions to actually carry out their will, hydaelyn an aspect of chaos will and life and zodiark an aspect of order control and death

Wait... what?

The 1st Shard has not been Flooded as of 4.3. True, 4.4 may show us otherwise, but until then, everyone (the WoD, Hydaelyn) knew the Flood of Light would be stopped before it happened.

The Rejoining needs to be prevented if all life living on the shards is to continue to exist. Whenever a Rejoining happens, all life on that shard is turned into aether and goes back into the aetherial sea.

All the Ascians (except Elidibus) have been pretty transparent that they do not want a balance between Hydaelyn and Zodiark to happen. What they want is for Zodiark to be restored and Hydaelyn to be destroyed. By default that means all life on the shards will cease to exist. And I'm almost positive that Hydaelyn is the aspect of order and Zodiark is the aspect of chaos...

life by its nature is chaotic, you could argue different methods employed by their followers as serving an orderly or chaotic means, but hydaelyn in being a deity of life and nature and diversity is by definition chaotic, whereas zodiark in its aspects of absolute control, return to nothingness, and death is totally a deity of order

for instance, overthrowing a government through terror tactics and causing civil unrest for the purposes of instituting a dictatorial military regime is using chaos to achieve an orderly end