A question regarding travel as it pertains to the story...

This is something that pops in my mind from time to time, particularly when a character from a distant place (and I know that distances in-world are much, much greater than represented in-game) just... shows up.

Given the ubiquity of the aetheryte system, when exactly (unless explicitly stated) are we meant to assume that a character traveled via rudimentary means and routes? Does Lyse, for example, use an aetheryte to take herself between the frontlines and back to Mor Dhona and vice versa, or does she undertake "journey" every time?

Of course, I realize that there are areas you wouldn't really be porting in and out of, be it due to some disturbance in the force or some other reason.

Sometimes aetherytes are used, sometimes they're not. It seems like most other non-WoL characters basically operate on the 1.0 anima system where they can't just spam teleport everywhere all the time, and intercontinental teleporting is extremely rare if not impossible for the vast majority of people.

As Veloran said, the WoL is stated to have large amounts of Anima, which is what lets them teleport anywhere at any time. "Regular" people are limited into how much and far they can teleport; plus that you need to attune to an Aetheryte before porting to it means that whenever a character needs to go to a new area, they must do so through regular means.

Also, some characters, like Thancred, literally can't teleport because you need a basic ability to manipulate aether, in this case your own.

There's a point which I forget that it's mentioned that the Doman forces who could teleport to Eorzea, did so. As far as speed of transportation (and the subsequent "When can we assume characters teleported or not"), that's always "at the speed of plot": characters and entire armies are as fast as the plot needs them to be.

It is my understanding that the WoL might be the only character who is teleporting around in the story. IIRC the Scions took a boat ride from Kugane back to Limsa.

In the 5.3 MSQ, there is a segment where the characters are trying to quickly return to a place with an aetheryte that they had been to before, but rather than teleporting to the aetheryte, they have to fly/run all the way there. To me that implies that aetherytes for long distance teleportation aren't really a thing, only a game mechanic.

The only time we see NPCs using aetherytes in the story is when they are raiding a beast tribe stronghold and use an aetheryte to port a very short distance into an inner sanctuary to fight a Primal.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

Sometimes aetherytes are used, sometimes they're not. It seems like most other non-WoL characters basically operate on the 1.0 anima system where they can't just spam teleport everywhere all the time, and intercontinental teleporting is extremely rare if not impossible for the vast majority of people.

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Actually the fisher quests mention how the true guild leader was once at Kugane when he was young and can just teleport there - it is a thing, not not too often as not everyone has that unlimited anima we do lol.

Considering how small the fee is the network should be used plenty...

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

Actually the fisher quests mention how the true guild leader was once at Kugane when he was young and can just teleport there - it is a thing, not not too often as not everyone has that unlimited anima we do lol.

Considering how small the fee is the network should be used plenty...

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What quest is that mentioned in? I believe it, but like I said it's very rare and probably requires a lot of built up anima for it.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

What quest is that mentioned in? I believe it, but like I said it's very rare and probably requires a lot of built up anima for it.

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im logged out so i gotta check database....

Edit: there https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/w...awning_Grounds

Edit: hmmm seems to differ in english...? maybe im just tired and confuse some other gatherer or crafter but someone mention that for sure... ill look...

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Originally Posted by Veloran

Sometimes aetherytes are used, sometimes they're not. It seems like most other non-WoL characters basically operate on the 1.0 anima system where they can't just spam teleport everywhere all the time, and intercontinental teleporting is extremely rare if not impossible for the vast majority of people.

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A few unnamed NPCs are said to be able to do it. Specifically, Hien sent over the troops (mostly shinobi, if I recall) that could teleport straight to Eorzea first, to participate in the Ghimlyt Dark battle. Usually armies don't do this because you don't split an army in normal circumstances, but in this case any help is good, especially since Doma is safe from Garlean invasion at the moment post-Seiryuu's Wall.

Having said that, the word used was "few", meaning it is indeed very rare.

The number of shinobi that could teleport for Ghimlyt Dark was limited because not many of them were in Eorzea and attuned to aetherytes there (only refugees that arrived with Yugiri).

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Originally Posted by Erendis

The number of shinobi that could teleport for Ghimlyt Dark was limited because not many of them were in Eorzea and attuned to aetherytes there (only refugees that arrived with Yugiri).

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My understanding is that whenever Hien and his retinue go to Eorzea, they are flying on the Yol. So he can only bring a small number of elites.

That begs the question: how long does it take for them to travel from Yanxia to Ala Mhigo? It appears that the 4.4 and 4.5 MSQ takes place over the course of a few days. Even if Hien had a 1 day headstart, he's still flying across the continent on a bird very quickly. Either the birds can travel at jet speed, or Aldenard isn't really a huge continent and the distance isn't that great. But didn't the boat trip from Limsa to Hingashi take a month? In which case the birds would have to be flying at jet speeds, or Hien had a REALLY LONG headstart, and the MSQ took place over weeks.

Just consider it to be timey-wimey wibbly wobbly stuff.

Case in point: by all rights, we've spent a good 5-8 years in Eorzea, but the Twins are still 16.

(The Simpsons kids are still in school after, what, 30 years?)

"How did they do that?" is to be explained as "they got carried with the plot".

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Originally Posted by MoofiaBossVal

My understanding is that whenever Hien and his retinue go to Eorzea, they are flying on the Yol. So he can only bring a small number of elites.

That begs the question: how long does it take for them to travel from Yanxia to Ala Mhigo? It appears that the 4.4 and 4.5 MSQ takes place over the course of a few days. Even if Hien had a 1 day headstart, he's still flying across the continent on a bird very quickly. Either the birds can travel at jet speed, or Aldenard isn't really a huge continent and the distance isn't that great. But didn't the boat trip from Limsa to Hingashi take a month? In which case the birds would have to be flying at jet speeds, or Hien had a REALLY LONG headstart, and the MSQ took place over weeks.

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Flying from Doma to Eorzea would mean either flying over open ocean, or over Garlean territory. The former is implausible due to the time, distance, and need to let the birds rest; the latter is implausible because it's hostile territory occupied by the world's biggest airship fleet.

Also, remember that Hien was present for the final battle for Ala Mhigo. He and Yugiri could've teleported over. Of course, then we have to question how he got there that time, especially without anybody else knowing he was coming, just in time for a Big Damn Heroes moment, but that's just pure dramatic timing.

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Originally Posted by MoofiaBossVal

But didn't the boat trip from Limsa to Hingashi take a month? In which case the birds would have to be flying at jet speeds, or Hien had a REALLY LONG headstart, and the MSQ took place over weeks.

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Encyclopedia Eorzea Vol. 1 states that the fastest merchant vessels can travel from Limsa to Hingashi in two months assuming the weather is fine (I believe, I recently moved and my copy of EE is sitting in a box somewhere so I'm going off memory of the last time a discussion on Stormblood's boat rides got brought up on Reddit). The 4.0 MSQ "Not Without Incident" mentions that Carvallain's ship has also been retrofitted with a Garlean ceruleum engine so that probably helps him out quite a bit when the weather sucks. Either way, traveling from Limsa to Hingashi takes a while. We travel by boat there and back in the 4.0 MSQ, and I'm assuming Y'shtola was stuck traveling there by boat in the 4.4 MSQ "Emissary of the Dawn" when she goes to catalogue information on Tsukuyomi and deal with Seiryu's Wall. That's a hell of a lot of time spent traveling by boat in Stormblood, at least six months if we assume the weather cooperated on all three trips and that everyone teleported back to Ala Mhigo in the 4.4 MSQ "The Call". I can only assume the Yol are actually Valstrax in disguise and we got a defective one without jet engine wings because otherwise it would've taken a long time for Hien and friends to fly over.

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It appears that the 4.4 and 4.5 MSQ takes place over the course of a few days.

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It's actually quite deceptive, because they send Alphinaud and (presumably) Tataru back to Eorzea by boat, and they seem to both be back by the end of 4.56.

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That's a hell of a lot of time spent traveling by boat in Stormblood,

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That's not even the half of it.

Okay, so we start out traveling to Hingashi aboard the Misery, that's a two month trip right there. But, Carvallain mentions both in the MSQ and in ambient dialog that he actually took a round trip back to Eorzea, then back to Hingashi, to pick the Scions up again. Meaning, they were actually in the Far East for about four months before having another two month trip. Already, this is eight months worth of time.

Next we have the patch content, and it gets even crazier. First, it's implied that Alphinaud and Alisaie travel back to the East by ship, because they say they don't have time to return to Eorzea following the setup of the meeting with the Garleans. That could be two more months, but regardless we need to tack on another two for the return of the Doman refugees from Revenant's Toll, as they explicitly take a ship, and this travel is directly bookended by the MSQ, and it happens before 5.4. Then, of course, we have Y'shtola stating that she's taking a ship to the Far East, so again that's two more months.

For a period of time here, they tend to get very willy-nilly with travel between the two areas, as in multiple cases you have people going back and forth without directly saying how they went about it. Specifically Alisaie, Lyse, and Y'shtola when she goes back. Take that as you will, we have no explanation. However as stated above Alphinaud at least is shipped back to Eorzea by boat, and he arrives before 5.0.

So even if we only account for travel directly related to the MSQ, we have at least fourteen months worth of boatrides in Stormblood. It's really much more extreme when you consider alternative content like all the job questlines which frequently had characters go between the continents, often explicitly by boat, but it's conceivable that many of those trips could be overlapping so it's not that relevant in terms of the counting.

All in all travel time (never mind the overall passage of time) is an absurd rabbit hole. I actually expect this to get more extreme over time, because if Thancred goes anywhere we can pretty much be assured it was a trip rather than a teleportation.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

Flying from Doma to Eorzea would mean either flying over open ocean, or over Garlean territory. The former is implausible due to the time, distance, and need to let the birds rest; the latter is implausible because it's hostile territory occupied by the world's biggest airship fleet.

Also, remember that Hien was present for the final battle for Ala Mhigo. He and Yugiri could've teleported over. Of course, then we have to question how he got there that time, especially without anybody else knowing he was coming, just in time for a Big Damn Heroes moment, but that's just pure dramatic timing.

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I believe that for the battle of Ala Mhigo, they actually mentioned at some point that Hien and his retinue immediately left on their asinine little birds after they went to Kugane to see the Scions off and realised that had already started their return to Eorzea. Granted I haven't been able to find a citation in the quest dialogue, and am not nearly invested enough in my claim at this time to sit through all the cutscenes so take it as you will.

Teleportation isn't actually all that useful for an army. First, it would require every solder to already be attuned to the nearest aetheryte. Second, an army isn't just soldiers. It's also wagons full of food and weapons and supplies, materials for building and maintaining camps, chocobos and stables to house them, and a million other things. Being limited to just yourself and whatever you're carrying means teleportation is only useful on a small, personal scale. Adventurers setting out on their own, a business trip to Limsa, day tripping the city for the Starlight festival, etc. It's mostly worthless in large scale settings like armies because the logistics don't allow it.

Also, there is another far more potentially dangerous reason why aetherytes are not used to send troops quickly to a battlefield, and that's because it's far too easy to use the aetheryte as a deadly trap. I understand the lorebook mentions an incident that occured back during the Ul'dah-Sil'dih War where an army was actually slaughtered instantly by attempting to teleport to an aetheryte that was destroyed by the enemy mid-teleport, thus causing those teleporting to it at the time to literally disappear in the blink of an eye, never to be seen again (essentially those affected were for all intents and purposes killed by the teleport as they're then lost in the Lifestream where their dematerialized bodies and souls would be drawn into the river of aether and diffuse back into it without the aetheryte to guide them to their destination). Apparently this greatly annoyed the Sharalyans who suspended the aetheryte service at that particular location from then on but nothing further really came of it.

Either way, no doubt this incident serves as a cautionary tale to modern armies as to just how deadly easy it is to use an aetheryte against you (this is one of the reasons why aetheryte camps are usually heavily guarded by troops of the revelant citystate, to stop sabotage of the aetheryte and thus keep those teleporting safe - collecting teleportation tolls from those using it is the other reason).

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

Flying from Doma to Eorzea would mean either flying over open ocean, or over Garlean territory. The former is implausible due to the time, distance, and need to let the birds rest; the latter is implausible because it's hostile territory occupied by the world's biggest airship fleet.

Also, remember that Hien was present for the final battle for Ala Mhigo. He and Yugiri could've teleported over. Of course, then we have to question how he got there that time, especially without anybody else knowing he was coming, just in time for a Big Damn Heroes moment, but that's just pure dramatic timing.

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You have to attuned to an aetheryte beforehand to travel to it.

Hien was certainly never in Ala Mhigo before his hero moment at the end of 4.0. Therefore, the only way he could have gotten there would have been flying mount (which is what he rides in on).

As for resting places along the way, he could have landed on islands and along the coasts of Ilsabard along the way. With a force that small and with the speed and agility of the Yol mounts, and the fact that he is bringing ninjas, he could pretty easily dodge the Garleans.

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Originally Posted by Wyssahtyn

I believe that for the battle of Ala Mhigo, they actually mentioned at some point that Hien and his retinue immediately left on their asinine little birds after they went to Kugane to see the Scions off and realised that had already started their return to Eorzea. Granted I haven't been able to find a citation in the quest dialogue, and am not nearly invested enough in my claim at this time to sit through all the cutscenes so take it as you will.

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Those birds travel way faster than any ship. Even if Hien had to stop and rest, he should be outspeeding the Scions. And Hien had a heart start? What was he doing along the way then? What, fighting Garlean outposts and liberating small villages?

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Originally Posted by Veloran

All in all travel time (never mind the overall passage of time) is an absurd rabbit hole. I actually expect this to get more extreme over time, because if Thancred goes anywhere we can pretty much be assured it was a trip rather than a teleportation.

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Huh, that reminds me.

At the beginning of Shadowbringers 5.0, the WoL leaves the Source for the First.

Tataru and Krile track down Estinien (who is in Kugane) and get him to fill in for the WoL while the WoL is away. So that's a two months boat ride from Limsa to Kugane.

Estinien travels from Kugane to Radz-at-Han, a city on the Thavnairan peninsula on the southern coast of Ilsabard. He then travels ALL THE WAY UP to Garlemald. Well actually he was raiding a bunch of Black Rose facilities before he bumped into Gaius and they decided to both visit the Emperor.

There is no indication that Estinien is using a mount to travel, so presumably he is doing this all on foot. Well, Estinien is a dragoon, so he could super jump, but we never see dragoons doing that for long distance travel, and he's traveling with Gaius and Severa and Valdaeulin anyway so he can't super jump ahead and leave them behind. So that's a pretty long walk!

If you draw a straight line from Thavnair to Garlemald, it's about half the distance from Limsa to Kugane. If it took a ship two months to go from Limsa to Kugane (a ship which is travelling far faster than a man on foot, and is travelling 24/7, whereas people on foot have to stop to eat and rest), then who knows how long Estinien and Gaius were travelling. It'd have to be several months at least. And who knows how long it would have taken Estinien to get from Garlemald to Mor Dhona. So if we go by travel time, ShB 5.0 through 5.1 could have taken at least half a year (LOL Zenos sat in a chair doing nothing for 6 months! He should have tried figuring out how to pursue the WoL to the First, or he should have killed time by travelling the world looking for powerful beings like Hraesvelgr and Tiamat and the dragons in Meracydia to fight).

And yet, the Shadowbringers MSQ and cutscenes imply that the whole story of 5.0-5.1 happens over a few weeks. Estinien's journey would only be possible if they were using a flying mount or an airship to zip everywhere super fast.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

I actually expect this to get more extreme over time, because if Thancred goes anywhere we can pretty much be assured it was a trip rather than a teleportation.

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Like the several times he went to Garlemald, its capital, within like one patch lol

I could be misremembering because it's been a long time, but I believe it was explained that people with the echo can teleport and everyone else can't.

So, everyone else is taking the long way, every time. Which is why they "journey with us" they are always asking to meet us at certain locations, because the WOL travels differently and it conveniently fits the quest structure programed to the game.

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Originally Posted by MoofiaBossVal

Tataru and Krile track down Estinien (who is in Kugane) and get him to fill in for the WoL while the WoL is away. So that's a two months boat ride from Limsa to Kugane.

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All three of them went to Kugane during SB and (presumably) had already attuned to the aetheryte.

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Originally Posted by Kesey

I could be misremembering because it's been a long time, but I believe it was explained that people with the echo can teleport and everyone else can't.

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An explanation of aetherytes, the teleport spell and the return spell, straight from the localization team:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...An-aether-what

The limit, lorewise at least, is from the spiritual energy known as anima. The WoL has so much of this energy that they can basically use teleport as much as they like, but most people are not so lucky and cannot use it to travel as far or as often.

It used to be an actual gameplay limit in 1.0, with anima as a naturally regenerating resource that you used to cast teleport. AFAIK you could run out of it entirely and be left unable to teleport, the whole thing sounds pretty annoying and replacing it with using gil was almost certainly for the best, even if the whole 'good guy WoL leaves a small pile of gil at the base of long abandoned aetherytes' "lore" is a bit flimsy.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

even if the whole 'good guy WoL leaves a small pile of gil at the base of long abandoned aetherytes' "lore" is a bit flimsy.

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Ha ha, right?

Gridania charging a tax for using their aetheryte? Sure, makes sense. But who are we paying Azys La, or Anyx Trine, or the House of the Fierce, or whatever?

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Ha ha, right?

Gridania charging a tax for using their aetheryte? Sure, makes sense. But who are we paying Azys La, or Anyx Trine, or the House of the Fierce, or whatever?

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Presumedly Anyx Trine and Zenith it goes to the dragons as a form of tribute, even though dragons have no need for mortal currency, it's the act that's important - giving something valuable to you, to them as an offering for being able to use the services of their settlement. Helix's aetheryte in Azys Lla is probably just an ancient Allagan terminal automatically charging you for using it like it was programmed to thousands of years ago (and given gil, or a form of currency by that name, is apparently Allagan in origin (from what I understand), it makes sense. But yeah some of the more outlying aetherytes are a bit of a stretch.

I think by this stage we can just handwave away the charge as just for gameplay purposes (like being charged in gil for buying items and having gear repaired by the Amaurotine shades within the Bureau of the Administrator at Emet's reconstructed Amaurot in the Tempest - don't think about it too much ;)).

One explanation could be simply that, because all of the Aethercites are interconnected, any activity on any of them can be observed and registered at one location. The observers don't even need to know or care what Aetherite is being activated; they detect the activity, and since you've registered with the Aetherites they're able to tell it's you, and tax you accordingly. You don't pay anyone locally; instead you pay these Aetherite maintainers, who may or may not have representatives from every nation involved in the process.

They assume that the Aetherites you're using are the local ones that they maintain directly, and would actually be surprised to learn that you're actually tooling around in far-flung places like Azys Lla.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

One explanation could be simply that, because all of the Aethercites are interconnected, any activity on any of them can be observed and registered at one location. The observers don't even need to know or care what Aetherite is being activated; they detect the activity, and since you've registered with the Aetherites they're able to tell it's you, and tax you accordingly. You don't pay anyone locally; instead you pay these Aetherite maintainers, who may or may not have representatives from every nation involved in the process.

They assume that the Aetherites you're using are the local ones that they maintain directly, and would actually be surprised to learn that you're actually tooling around in far-flung places like Azys Lla.

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This is actually incorrect. Aetherytes are not nodes on a physical network, they're basically just lighthouses or beacons that guide you through the Lifestream. There may be some aspect of them that assists with rematerialization at your destination but basically they're just a beacon that your soul homes on within the Lifestream. Within the dark void of the Lifestream, an aetheryte appears like a blazing torch, and each aetheryte has it's own subtle aetheric signature so this guides you to the correct one based on your desired desination. This is why Y'shtola's Flow spell was so dangerous - it was a teleport spell that bypassed the aetherytes completely and relied on pretty much just dumb luck to guide you, thus most who cast it got lost within and were basically killed (really Thancred got off lucky).

Monetary costs for teleportation was mentioned by the development team (in the link Jandor mentioned) as being a tax collected by the citystates to cover the enormous cost the Ul'dahan Syndicate (read: Lolorito and Teledji) charged them for funding the reconstruction of the aetheryte network following the Calamity (the assumption was that the new aetherytes were constructed on their behalf by Sharalyan engineers) - the original aetherytes were destroyed in the Calamity due to the massive backwash of aether across Eorzea shattered them (linkshell and their linkpearls were also destroyed for the same reason). Reduced charges can be assumed to be simply carrying identification that authorizes a lower charge (like a FC buff), or, even a free teleport with an aetheryte token. (Incidentally the link to Lolorito is given even more proof as this is the lore reason why an aetheryte was never built in Vesper Bay. It was a snub towards Minfilia as he tried bribing the Scions of the Seventh Dawn for favours but Minfilia wouldn't play ball. So instead of an aetheryte there he thumbed his nose at her by having an ostentatious statue of himself erected in the town square, essentially laying his own ego over the good of the realm).

The collection of these tolls do indeed fund the ongoing maintenence of the aetherytes as well (according to the above developer post), but as is shown repeatedly, they don't seem to need that much, and probably just is more "make sure someone doesn't accidentally damage it" rather than "oh, this aetheryte crystal needs oiling" (after all, an Ancient one on the First is still working perfectly tens of millenia after it was constructed and despite having spent 12000 years under the ocean! And the one in Azys Llla is also equally fully functional despite not having had anyone use it for thousands of years too. Regardless, it's clear the teleportation tolls are not a flat rate and are based on how far away you're teleporting from, rather like public transport charges like a bus or train fare (of course they're probably relying on a lot of honesty from the person teleporting, something the game probably just convinently handwaves for us anyway!) :P

Of course the tax explanation then starts getting stretched a bit thinly with Heavensward with aetherytes in far-flung locations that are unmanned still having the same teleportation charges, although given not one resemble the 'original' aetherytes seen in pre-Calamity Eorzea in 1.0 I'm liable to think Sharalyan had a hand in building those ones as well. But that's just my idle musings so don't take that last point as fact! ;)

Either way, the 'tax to repay the cost of rebuilding the aetheryte network' idea no longer really fits so as I mentioned in my earlier post, current charges for teleporting are just pure gameplay mechanics. Don't think about it really, it's easier that way. ;)

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Originally Posted by Jandor

An explanation of aetherytes, the teleport spell and the return spell, straight from the localization team:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...An-aether-what

The limit, lorewise at least, is from the spiritual energy known as anima. The WoL has so much of this energy that they can basically use teleport as much as they like, but most people are not so lucky and cannot use it to travel as far or as often.

It used to be an actual gameplay limit in 1.0, with anima as a naturally regenerating resource that you used to cast teleport. AFAIK you could run out of it entirely and be left unable to teleport, the whole thing sounds pretty annoying and replacing it with using gil was almost certainly for the best, even if the whole 'good guy WoL leaves a small pile of gil at the base of long abandoned aetherytes' "lore" is a bit flimsy.

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I could also be misremembering this too, but I believe it tells you it costs gil as it teleports you because that's just what happens. And it was said in an ironic way like just accept that it happens because that's how it works--to cover up that it explained a game mechanic.