How exactly do Calamities and Rejoinings relate to each other?

So every Calamity is paired with the rejoining of one of the shards. But all of the Calamities we know about were motivated by very specific events in the history of Eorzea - the Crystal Tower being overloaded and causing an earthquake, the War of the Magi causing a huge flood*, Dalamud being brought down.

So, is another shard just randomly ****ed whenever something really bad happens on Eorzea? There one moment, gone the next, without any warning beforehand, because everything important is happening on the Source? Makes sense I guess, but then I hear talk about the trouble on the First potentially leading up to a Calamity, which would flip the usual chain of causation...

*I've heard conflicting stories about this; either the Elementals got really triggered and caused the flood themselves, or it was a natural result an elemental imbalance caused by Black and White Mages using every type of elemental magic but water. Which is it?

My theory, FF7 Spoilers, is that when a calamity happens on the Source, Hydalyn must convert one of the other shards into a massive amount of Aether in order to "heal" herself the same way Gaia was doing in FF7, gathering lots of the lifestream to heal a wound from the impact made by Jenova.

I feel like this would happen instantly for the Shard being absorbed, however the healing process might take centuries on the Source.

Just a theory anyway.

The simple answer is that we simply don't have the facts. It is implied that the Ascians actually have some sort of hand in directing events to unfold as they do in all the calamities, so there is method to the chaos (maybe). As for the shards just being there one moment and gone the next, again we do not know. Ascians also try to stir trouble on the shards, the 13th being turned into the void is a result of the meddling of the Ascian Igehyorm. But we do not know why they do that. The most convincing answer is that the shard that needs to be rejoined ALSO needs to be undergoing some sort of catastrophic disaster to rend it susceptible to being Rejoined, but that is just speculation and has never been substantiated, to my knowledge at least.

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Originally Posted by ShinShimon

So, is another shard just randomly ****ed whenever something really bad happens on Eorzea?

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Evidence thus far points to something a little more deliberate - that each shard shares a dimensional membrane of some kind with the Source, and that the Ascians deliberately and specifically try to break down the membrane between the Source and a shard from both sides to blow that barrier out. With the distinction between the two worlds lost, the "copy" is deleted and all the aether rushes back into the sea, while the Source experiences the effects of that catastrophe.

The Calamity is the crescendo - the moment the Ascian plan has wrought enough chaos that the barrier gives way. The Rejoining is a simultaneous event whereby the shard vanishes and its aether is rejoined to the Sea. The Ascians call this event the Ardor.

Koji has also specified that the reasoning behind all the rising chaos and aetherial instability is that it creates a state where things are possible. (Please look forward to it.)

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Originally Posted by ShinShimon

I've heard conflicting stories about this; either the Elementals got really triggered and caused the flood themselves, or it was a natural result an elemental imbalance caused by Black and White Mages using every type of elemental magic but water. Which is it?

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In 1.0, there was an elemental named Oka-sok who took credit for the Sixth Umbral Calamity, the great flood. She says that she "keened" (a cry of sorrow), and all the other elementals joined in, and the Calamity came.

But keep in mind that the elementals are just pure aether experiencing itself subjectively as an independent entity. The elementals feel aetherial instability like we might feel emotional instability.

Oha-sok also said that the War of the Magi caused the elementals to become "enslaved," but there is zero evidence of any literal elemental-enslaving. However, why wouldn't such a being experience the War of the Magi as being and shackled and made to do the bidding of great mages? That's what a magic war is.

It's possible that Oha-sok just experienced the elemental instability leading to the Calamity from a first-person point of view.

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Originally Posted by ShinShimon

So, is another shard just randomly ****ed whenever something really bad happens on Eorzea? There one moment, gone the next, without any warning beforehand, because everything important is happening on the Source? Makes sense I guess, but then I hear talk about the trouble on the First potentially leading up to a Calamity, which would flip the usual chain of causation...

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In theory, I suppose a Rejoining could occur due to some overblown natural disaster - but the implication in this game is that EVERY Calamity up to this point has not been natural in any way, but the culmination of Ascian plans. They supply technology and skills in key places, whisper into the right ears, set up empires, and set them against one another, all for the purpose of eventually unleashing enough chaos to bring on a Calamity. The Garlean Empire is only the latest - but might well be seen as the most successful, as well, in that they'll be getting two Calamities for the price of one! (Or maybe, three for the price of two - the Allagan Empire certainly deserves a share of the credit for Bahamut and the Seventh Calamity.)

In addition to what Anonymoose said above, one of the great remaining mysteries is just what needs to happen on the Shard to enable a Rejoining. We know that Ascians are out there messing around on other Shards, and their goal is almost certainly to enable a Rejoining, but what, exactly, do they do there? Do they trigger a Calamity on the Shard, as well? Or perhaps their goal is simply to preserve the balance of Light and Dark, so the Shard doesn't slip into a Flood before it can be Rejoined.

My understanding (which very well could be mixed with my headcanon, fair warning) is that a calamity triggers such an immense disturbance in the aether that it breaks down part of the dimensional fracture that Hydaelyn inflicted on the source. When that happens the anchor that kept the shard separate is lost so it "rejoins" with the source and becomes one with it again.

So each calamity is gradually undoing what Hydaelyn did originally. Once 13 calamities happen the source will be back to how it originally was and the seal on Zodiark will be broken.

^ This is similar to a theory that originated the forums back in 3.4 (as far as I know, it may have had several genesis points) and while it is plausible, it is still not confirmed.

Here is a link to the original discussion: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3880551 I'd continue reading on to the posts of the next page as well.

Somehow this seems to have mutated into "Hydaelyn is eating other Shards to save herself on purpose" on youtube and the like. I'm really not sure when that happened. Also, not confirmed.

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Originally Posted by Lacan

So each calamity is gradually undoing what Hydaelyn did originally. Once 13 calamities happen the source will be back to how it originally was and the seal on Zodiark will be broken.

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Alternatively, because Hydaelyn and Zodiark shared the Sea originally, Rejoining enough to aggregate Zodiark's (majority) share may be enough to resurrect Him, let Him overpower Hydaelyn, and Rejoin the rest of the worlds with full control of the process. Recall that the Keynote referred to it as the "8th and Final Umbral Calamity."

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Alternatively, because Hydaelyn and Zodiark shared the Sea originally, Rejoining enough to aggregate Zodiark's (majority) share may be enough to resurrect Him, let Him overpower Hydaelyn, and Rejoin the rest of the worlds with full control of the process. Recall that the Keynote referred to it as the "8th and Final Umbral Calamity."

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That makes a lot of sense too. 8 out of 13 calamities would mean that the source is more than halfway "rejoined," which might be all the tipping point that Zodiark needs to resurrect.

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Originally Posted by Lacan

That makes a lot of sense too. 8 out of 13 calamities would mean that the source is more than halfway "rejoined," which might be all the tipping point that Zodiark needs to resurrect.

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7/13 is already more than half way. Much of the damage from the seventh was averted, but it was still a calamity and probably triggered a rejoining.

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

7/13 is already more than half way. Much of the damage from the seventh was averted, but it was still a calamity and probably triggered a rejoining.

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Do we have any evidence of that though? If it only really affects one continent, and leaves every nation there intact, does it really count? It's really only a Calamity to Eorzeans, and a pretty wimpy one at that.

On another note, do we know why Floods are bad for the Ascians? Does rejoining a Flooded shard pose the threat of permanently screwing up the Source? If anything, it seems like it'd be easier to rejoin the 13th than any other shard, because the barrier between it and the Source is pierced regularly without any Calamity.

I wonder if Solus isn't interested in the First and light-aspected Black Rose because he wants the First to be as flooded with light as the 13th is with dark, so that the First can be rejoined at the same time as the 13th and counteract the imbalance.

If the Ascians consider it a Calamity, it's probably enough. They have canonized the Seventh Umbral Era and its preceding Calamity as a victory and an Ardor, so it seems have been a Rejoining, yes. Elidibus muses if Minfilia surviving the Ardor was by Hydaelyn's direct intervention as early as 2.1--we can safely assume he's referring to the most recent Calamity before anything else here. (And in the very next quest Elidibus mentions "they survived the Seventh Ardor;" so yeah, that Calamity, no matter how wimpy or mitigated, Rejoined a Shard.)

The Floods seem to be bad because when a Shard experiences a Flood, it can no longer be Rejoined. This leaves a lot of questions, like, "how many Shards is enough to revive Zodiark?" because the answer can't be "All of them" if one is permanently incapable of being Rejoined.

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Originally Posted by Encyclopedia Eorzea, p 213

Void of its aether, the Thirteenth could no longer be rejoined with Hydaleyn, ultimately losing its value to the Ascians.

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Now that my cursory research is done, let's try to put this more succinctly:
A Void of any flavour is bad. The shattering of reality and expulsion of Zodiark carved up the Aetherial Sea into 14 pools. To undo this, the pools, and all of their aether, must be added back to the Source. A void is devoid of aether, so it's worthless. How a Flood of Darkness and a Flood of Light differ in their creation of a void seems ultimately meaningless, because there's no aether left. Whether Rejoining a Flooded Shard with the Source would screw it up... probably? But it's just not worth doing--there's no benefit for the Ascians to do this.

The Seventh Umbral Calamity signaled a Rejoining. No matter how localized it was due to Louisoix's intervention (and let's not forget it did disrupt the Source's aether enough to render linkpearl communication useless for a few days, iirc) it still ultimately resulted in a Shard's aether being folded back into the Source. Both our allies and enemies agree on this matter--the Ascians refer to seven Ardors even when we're not around, and the Encyclopedia Eorzea refers to the Scions and Students both having come to the same conclusion. Each Calamity ushers in a sort of Dark Age, and we're left with few records of what happened earlier. While the Seventh Umbral Era was short, and it was localized, it's important to note we don't know how ANY Calamity affected the rest of the Hydaelyn... outside of, like, the Fourth Umbral? Everything pre-Allag is pretty much unknown, we have legends and lores about Calamities of Wind, Lightning and Fire and descriptions of such... but we know nothing of those Eras, their peoples, their stories. It's impossible for us to know how far-reaching those Calamities were. The Fourth Umbral might've had global implications simply because it ended the Allagan Empire which had conquered the Three Great Continents & Meracydia (and probably much more); we don't know how far the earthquakes actually went--the power vacuum alone would be destabilizing enough. The Fifth and Sixth are the same--we know the seas probably turned to ice in some places for the Fifth, and we know Eorzea was flooded in the Sixth but... those could still be localized events! Especially the Sixth Umbral Era.

I think it's telling that throughout our time in Othard, we very rarely, if ever, hear about any of the Calamities in their histories.

Again pointing to the NA fanfest, they said we are trying to prevent an 8th and Final Umbral Calamity. So 8/13 seems good as far as we know.

Wait if a rejoining causes Hyd to absorb a shard wouldn't she be destroying all life on that shard? And is each shard a reflection of the universe or a separate planet altogether cos the game has been very unclear about that. Not understanding how multiple realities can be localized to one planet.

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Originally Posted by waifugenerator

And is each shard a reflection of the universe or a separate planet altogether cos the game has been very unclear about that. Not understanding how multiple realities can be localized to one planet.

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The dev team actually hasn't decided yet.

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Originally Posted by Rocl

A void is devoid of aether, so it's worthless. How a Flood of Darkness and a Flood of Light differ in their creation of a void seems ultimately meaningless, because there's no aether left.

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I have a problem with the "void of light" concept simply because you can't have multi-aspected variants of a void; there aren't different flavors of nothing. My pet theory is that the flood of light is also a flood of aether, and so instead of Hydaelyn being drained by aether rushing in to fill the void on the First, it could instead be the sheer force of light on the First actively drawing aether away from Hydaelyn. If Ascians ever use the word void to describe the First (do they ever do this explicitly?) then it's as a result of the practical similarities to the situation on the 13th - the world would become useless to them because of the aetheric imbalance.

But what if the imbalance renders a world useless not because a rejoining is physically impossible, but because a rejoining would cause a devastating imbalance on the Source that would make it practically impossible to cause future Ardors? The weak membrane between the 13th and the Source seems to indicate that, if anything, a full breakdown of the barrier would actually be easier with a flooded world, even if its not desirable.

And what if the more radical school of Ascians, represented now by Solus, are getting impatient with the pace of rejoinings... and likely also a bit paranoid about the odds of long-term success, given the recent and unprecedented number of Ascian extinctions? And what if in response, they (or at least Solus) hatch the idea of finishing off the Flood of Light on the First, so that they can do a quick rejoining of both the Light and Dark-flooded shards at the same time? It would probably be easier than normal rejoinings because of the stressed membranes between these shards and the Source, and it wouldn't cause undue harm to the Source because the aetheric imbalances would cancel out.

...in theory. Since there's never been a double rejoining, or any rejoining involving a Flooded shard, more cautious Ascians like Elidibus might be opposed to this idea - explaining why Elidibus was on board with Hydaelyn trying to save the First. From his point of view, any scenario involving the rejoining of a Flooded world is an unacceptable risk, and so a Flooded First is as useless to him as the void on the 13th. He's patient (or as Solus views it, a bore), so he's alright with waiting to do another normal rejoining with one of the normal remaining shards, no matter how long it takes.

That Elidibus is unaware of Solus's current plans or whereabouts is telling... just what is an Ascian going to do on the First with Light-aspected poison gas? If this is such a great plan, why didn't Solus tell Elidibus anything about it?

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Originally Posted by waifugenerator

Wait if a rejoining causes Hyd to absorb a shard wouldn't she be destroying all life on that shard?

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As far as we know, She has zero capacity to control it from the Aetherial Sea; they're blowing out two sides of a dimensional membrane in the corporeal realm.

8.0 The merged world. Please wait for it /Kappa

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

As far as we know, She has zero capacity to control it from the Aetherial Sea; they're blowing out of two sides of a dimensional membrane in the corporeal realm.

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Inch resting inch resting...I should rly invest in the lore books so I can get more familiarized with the general lore I'm soooo lost

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Originally Posted by waifugenerator

Wait if a rejoining causes Hyd to absorb a shard wouldn't she be destroying all life on that shard?

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Yep. This is why she empowers Warriors of Light - to PREVENT the murder of countless millions of people when their Shards are reabsorbed. It's not something that Hydaelyn wants to happen - but as Anonymoose pointed out, she has no choice in the matter once it happens.

In spite of the efforts of Warriors of Light across history, the Ascians have managed to cause seven Calamities so far, and caused seven Shards to be Rejoined. And yes, the global populations of those worlds were all killed as a result. To lay further crimes at the Ascians' feet, it was through their manipulations that the Thirteenth Shard was flooded with Darkness, and the survivors (if you can really call them that) all became Voidsent. The same thing is happening on the First, except with Light, and again said to be due to Ascian interference - and even if we manage to stop the Flood, it's implied that most of the world was consumed by Light before we were able to step in, so there likely aren't many survivors.

So, just in case you were holding on to sympathies for the Ascians, you might want to reconsider. They are not a nice bunch. XD

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Originally Posted by Lacan

8 out of 13 calamities would mean that the source is more than halfway "rejoined," which might be all the tipping point that Zodiark needs to resurrect.

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I don't see 6 more calamities happening any time soon. So this being a possibility is actually very possible as well as us having lore reasons as to why we are still able to go to and from the First even after Zodiark is resurrected.

Really sorry if someone already posted my reply. Technically, only 6 shards have rejoined because the 13th was lost and became the void. So even if this will be the 8th calamity, it would be the 7th to rejoin. This will be the first majority.

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Originally Posted by gorezilla1

Really sorry if someone already posted my reply. Technically, only 6 shards have rejoined because the 13th was lost and became the void. So even if this will be the 8th calamity, it would be the 7th to rejoin. This will be the first majority.

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Just so we are clear, the 13th being lost to to darkness and becoming the Void is not (as far as we know) associated with any of the umbral calamities. The calamities themselves were all (according to the Ascians) successful in causing the Ardor, with the 7th Calamity being referred to as the '7th Ardor' by them. As such, it is indeed more likely that 7 shards have been rejoined, while 1 is the Void, another is being flooded by Light and 4 more are currently 'fine'.

My understanding was that rendering a Shard voidal, be it Light or Dark-flooded in nature, renders it un-Rejoinable.

I hope it's ok if I ask a couple of questions about things I don't understand; if Hydaelyn is reabsorbing the aether from the rejoined shards why is she getting weaker? Doesn't Matoya say that the crystals of light given to prior WoL were stronger because Hydaelyn herself was more powerful in the past? Unless the aether is going to the aetherial sea and not to Hydaelyn directly? Or does Zodiark get all of it somehow? Do we know how Hydaelyn and Zodiark get their power? If they absorb aether from the aetherial sea and the aether from a rejoined world goes to the aetherial sea wouldn't a rejoining increase the available "pool" of energy for both of them?

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Originally Posted by athisvolume

I hope it's ok if I ask a couple of questions about things I don't understand; if Hydaelyn is reabsorbing the aether from the rejoined shards why is she getting weaker? Doesn't Matoya say that the crystals of light given to prior WoL were stronger because Hydaelyn herself was more powerful in the past? Unless the aether is going to the aetherial sea and not to Hydaelyn directly? Or does Zodiark get all of it somehow? Do we know how Hydaelyn and Zodiark get their power? If they absorb aether from the aetherial sea and the aether from a rejoined world goes to the aetherial sea wouldn't a rejoining increase the available "pool" of energy for both of them?

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I'm pretty sure that a Rejoining doesn't cause Hydaelyn to grow weaker. Rather, the energy she expends trying to STOP the Rejoinings is what's taxing her resources. Empowering WoLs is a big one, but also PROTECTING her champions seems to take a lot out of her. Shielding the WoL from Ultima Weapon's casting of the Ultima spell pretty much spent what little she had left.

It's also not obviously clear that returning Aether to the source directly strengthens Hydaelyn OR Zodiark. We know it's necessary for Zodiark's release, but it could well be more complex than Rejoining = Zodiark gets stronger.

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Originally Posted by Jyera

My understanding was that rendering a Shard voidal, be it Light or Dark-flooded in nature, renders it un-Rejoinable.

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Yes, that is correct. I think it's specifically mentioned in the Encyclopaedia Eorzea Vol1 when talking about the 13th/the Void, but I could be wrong.

Hey guys, sorry for crossing the streams, but I'm not sure that everyone is following the other topic about Il Mheg and mirrored worlds, and I need lore backup...

Does someone have a direct quote from the game saying that the other shards are destroyed without a remnant when Rejoined? Apparently "reduced to ruin" is too ambiguous and quoting the lorebook on dimensional compression is not sufficient proof, and I'm sure better quotes exist but I don't know where they are (and Moose can probably recite them from memory). Or do we only understand a lot of this from supporting information?