What aligments would future calamities even have had?

So the first eight calamities would have a nice balance of aetherial aspectations wouldn't they, all six elements plus umbral and astral, I assume because if we just had for example a second fire-aspected calamity it would have shifted the source's balance too far in that direction?

So what would the final four calamities have looked like? Would they just have taken that little imbalance, perhaps do another fire, lightning, wind and darkness calamity cause they are more closely aligned with Zodiark (umbral pole)? Is that even true?

Could they have done dual-aspected calamities like we summoned Ifrit and Garuda as a combo for Eden?

Would an unaspected calamity be possible?

The fact we got one Calamity of all respective elements is probably just coincidence or convenience on the part of the Ascians (and, of course, aesthetic appeal on the part of the writers); there is absolutely nothing resembling a law we know of that said they had to do that.

In fact, we actually don't know if they were being balanced like that; there's no information whatsoever about the First Calamity, it's just theorized by in-universe scholars that it's wind because every single other element is accounted for. If the event that brought Good King Moggle Mog XII to descend was indeed the first Calamity that would be evidence, but moogles aren't exactly the most reliable historians (and I'm pretty sure they never claimed that correlation anyway).

All of this is to say, the other Calamities would have looked like 'whatever superweapon the Ascians could get someone to detonate for them'; hard to put forward contenders there since we've neutralized most of the ones we've found. It's possible that it would be influenced by the elemental alignment of the shard they're melting down, but given we have no information on that either, it's not exactly something we can use to derive conclusions.

Due to how all the other Calamities sounded, they were likely all Astral charged. There's a good chance that they were planning to redo the elemental rejoinings, but with an Umbral charge, starting with the 8th Calamity.

My impression was there wouldn't be further rejoinings after this one. The ascians stated a few times that this was the final calamity to weaken Hydaelyn enough to allow Zodiark to escape his prison and take back control of the world. Given he had already rewritten the rules of the world before to save them from Meteion's influence, once Hydaelyn is gone then he'd just erase the shards and remake the world as the ascians wanted without having to go through the trouble of a rejoining.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alien_Gamer

My impression was there wouldn't be further rejoinings after this one. The ascians stated a few times that this was the final calamity to weaken Hydaelyn enough to allow Zodiark to escape his prison and take back control of the world.

---

Do you have sources for those claims? I don't think it has ever been an in-game statement, just a vague promotional thing the devs said pre-Shadowbringers about it dealing with the "eighth and final calamity", which fans came up with all sorts of theories over – and it was never touched on within the game itself as to why it would have been the last.

Unless you have direct quotes, this sounds like a case of fan theories getting disconnected from their origins and passed around until people think they're true.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cleretic

In fact, we actually don't know if they were being balanced like that; [...] All of this is to say, the other Calamities would have looked like 'whatever superweapon the Ascians could get someone to detonate for them';

---

It's quite possible that their overall plan would be to engineer the full spread of possible elemental imbalances across the shards so that at all times, whichever of their plans comes to fruition in the Source, there will be a shard ready to spill over and rejoin because of it.

If that was the case, then they would have eight aspected shards and a few leftovers, and then once (say) a Calamity of Wind has occurred, they will start building up a new wind imbalance in one of the leftover shards.

There might still be some effort to do "one of each" just to get older ones triggered sooner, before the situation on the shard becomes unstable

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Iscah

Do you have sources for those claims? I don't think it has ever been an in-game statement, just a vague promotional thing the devs said pre-Shadowbringers about it dealing with the "eighth and final calamity", which fans came up with all sorts of theories over – and it was never touched on within the game itself as to why it would have been the last.

Unless you have direct quotes, this sounds like a case of fan theories getting disconnected from their origins and passed around until people think they're true.

---

I honestly have no idea what fan theories are out there, its not something I follow. I get all my info from the game and live letters but I don't keep clips saved on my computer.

I don't believe the balance of aspects for the calamities has anything to do with overall aspect balance on the Source?
It's not like a Flood was required because the Source was too low on water aspected aether, the Flood occurred because one of the shards was overaspected towards water, making it a prime candidate for a rejoining, and so a Flood was orchestrated on the Source to facilitate that rejoining. That Flood was in turn amplified by the rejoining of predominantly water aspected aether so in fact, it could be argued that the calamity tipped the scales too far towards water, for a time. The Flood waters receded, implying that aspect imbalance had righted itself.
Aspects aren't immutable, they change and shift, that's HOW shards end up becoming overly aspected one way or another, their aspect changed towards Water, until it was too much. So the same can be said for the Source, that aspects can rebalance.

The First was already overly aspected towards Umbral aether, prior to the plan to cause an Umbral calamity ti trigger a rejoining. So the shards aspect is what decided the form of calamity.
So any subsequent calamities would be aspected according to the aether imbalance present on their respective rejoined shards. If Shard no. 9 was a world overly aspected towards Earth, we'd get another Quake-related calamity.
The Source would then become overly Earth aspected in turn, which would BE the calamity itself asserting it's effects, until that 'Umbral Era' ended and the balance returned to normal levels.


As for not needing any further calamities. It's an assumption, but it's not an unreasonable one. The Thirteenth was written off, so we already know that it's not required for ALL shards to be rejoined, a partially rejoined Source would be sufficient. It's just a question of how much would be sufficient, and with no other info to go off, >50% seems like a sensible assumption. You go above 50% and you're tipping the scales more one way than the other, so half of the worlds being rejoined +1 would be a decent prediction of what would be sufficient to free Zodiark.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alien_Gamer

I honestly have no idea what fan theories are out there, its not something I follow. I get all my info from the game and live letters but I don't keep clips saved on my computer.

---

Then can you provide where you think you got that?

This has come up a few times recently, and there's only two things we could find that look like anything resembling direct evidence:
1. Shadowbringers pre-release stuff that called the Eighth Calamity 'the final Calamity', but provided no real context or explanation, and never came back, so we really have absolutely no idea whatsoever what they were trying to get at (or even if they were trying to get at anything at all). Maybe related to G'raha's future, possibly?
2. The post-Antitower scene with Minfilia-Hydaelyn, where she explains the reasoning behind the Calamities; she tells us to stop the Eighth, and begins to say 'this is my final--' before being cut off; there's no indication what she would've ended her sentence with, but it's the sort of thing where a lot of people trick themselves into thinking she did finish that sentence.

You might recognize that neither of these sources are Ascians, so either you've got something we don't, or you're misremembering something. Understandable in both cases, it's a big game and there's a lot of stuff in it, sometimes we either forget a scene that happened or misremember a factoid until it becomes a scene that didn't. But when we hit things like that, it's in everyone's best interests to figure out what exactly we're dealing with and dig up whatever evidence there is. So if an Ascian did say it, we'd love to hear it, but if one didn't, then it's just as important to recognize that.

Seraphor's hit the nail on the head for why this theory probably got pretty common and had a few different breeds, though: reasonably speaking, there would have been a point where the Ascian plan changes, either because Zodiark becomes usable or because natural forces shift. If one then agrees this is an inevitability, then... well, why wouldn't the Eighth be that turning point? It's just as arbitrary and justifiable as any other number, but it also makes that 'point of no return' pretty soon, which is nice and dramatic.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seraphor

The Thirteenth was written off, so we already know that it's not required for ALL shards to be rejoined, a partially rejoined Source would be sufficient.

---

We still don't know for certain whether it was not required, or simply put in the "too hard" basket while they work on rejoining the other shards.

For all we know so far, it's possible that they were manipulating Golbez into eating the local Zodiark shard and then breaking through the barrier into the Source, bringing Zodiark's missing piece with him. Or maybe that shattering of the barrier would be enough to hook the Thirteenth back up to the Source's lifestream. Those are certainly the sorts of plot holes I'd be trying to fill as a writer at this point.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Iscah

We still don't know for certain whether it was not required, or simply put in the "too hard" basket while they work on rejoining the other shards.

For all we know so far, it's possible that they were manipulating Golbez into eating the local Zodiark shard and then breaking through the barrier into the Source, bringing Zodiark's missing piece with him. Or maybe that shattering of the barrier would be enough to hook the Thirteenth back up to the Source's lifestream. Those are certainly the sorts of plot holes I'd be trying to fill as a writer at this point.

---

Or that the Ascians were tempered as admitted by Emet himself and their directive was to rejoin and free Zodiark no matter if that was actually possible with the thirteenth "lost". We DO know they tend to act and justify themselves with the sunk cost fallacy...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Iscah

Do you have sources for those claims? I don't think it has ever been an in-game statement, just a vague promotional thing the devs said pre-Shadowbringers about it dealing with the "eighth and final calamity", which fans came up with all sorts of theories over – and it was never touched on within the game itself as to why it would have been the last.

Unless you have direct quotes, this sounds like a case of fan theories getting disconnected from their origins and passed around until people think they're true.

---

IIRC in the cutscene where Exarch explains history of Calamities and how they happen, he mentions that once amount of rejoined shards is more than unrejoined, the balance will tip and all the rest will rapidly devolve into rejoining as well. As there are fourteen shards, 7 is as many as you can go without tipping the scale, hence why 8th would be the final one. Which conviniently fits into elemental alignments - 6 main elements; plus two greater alignments- Astral and Umbral. 8 calamities, all thats needed for restoration of the world and returning Zodiark to his full strength. And that's why averting that is so important beyond just saving First or preventing 8th Umbral Calamity on the Source (which we know our character survives).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Heroman3003

IIRC in the cutscene where Exarch explains history of Calamities and how they happen, he mentions that once amount of rejoined shards is more than unrejoined, the balance will tip and all the rest will rapidly devolve into rejoining as well.

---

I don't recall anything being said to that effect. I suspect you are getting confused with the explanation of an individual Rejoining starting as a trickle of aether to the Source before the triggering event for the associated calamity cracks it fully open.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Iscah

I don't recall anything being said to that effect. I suspect you are getting confused with the explanation of an individual Rejoining starting as a trickle of aether to the Source before the triggering event for the associated calamity cracks it fully open.

---

I will have to rewatch ShB expository cutscenes to find where but I do distinctly remember something by someone being said about the balance of sundered and rejoined shards being tipped in favour of rejoined being enough to finish the process. I definitely did not consume any fan content related to ShB for a long time either, all while still being firmly sure of that, so it couldn't have come from that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Heroman3003

I will have to rewatch ShB expository cutscenes to find where but I do distinctly remember something by someone being said about the balance of sundered and rejoined shards being tipped in favour of rejoined being enough to finish the process. I definitely did not consume any fan content related to ShB for a long time either, all while still being firmly sure of that, so it couldn't have come from that.

---

You don't recall this correctly, you've editorialized in your own mind to the point you misremember it. Normally I'd quote the relevant section (I do have this scene recorded), but in this case I actually can't, because it's very long and literally NONE of it describes anything like this. Gamer Escape's got the whole scene transcribed, though.

You also claimed we survived the Eighth Calamity, but we very explicitly did not. Our death is described very directly, right down to showing our corpse. We died to Black Rose pretty early.

During the Eden questline (Shadows of the Past Lv.80), Mitron explains that calamities have a knock on effect on all shards, not just the Source. In fact, the entire reason why the First became so precariously Light-aspected in the first place was because of the Flood of Darkness. It stands to reason that the more rejoinings that happen, the more heavily aspected the aether of all the remaining worlds become. It's just the opposite of the process we went through to free Mitron's soul from Eden. It also suggests that each rejoining makes subsequent ones more likely.

I don't think that you'd have to manually rejoin every last shard to make the entire system unstable. It's a domino effect. I think this is what Hydaelyn was alluding to during patch 3.4 (Word of the Mother Lv.60). Otherwise, why did we have to worry about Zodiark being freed when we're a bit past the halfway point? Why did both sides commit all their resources to the First in an elaborate chess match? I think we're sitting right at the tipping point.

As for the elemental aspect of future rejoinings, it seems like we've had two darkness-aspected calamities. Everyone remembers the scene with Emet, but that's actually not the most important Crystarium scene. The one to look at is the earlier one from G'raha on returning from Alphinaud and Alisaie's respective questlines (The Lightbringers Lv. 70). The animation shows you what shards were destroyed and what the associated elemental calamity was:

First Umbral Calamity of Wind - Fifth Shard
Second Umbral Calamity of Lightning - Twelfth Shard
Third Umbral Calamity of Fire - Second Shard
Fourth Umbral Calamity of Earth - Third Shard
Fifth Umbral Calamity of Ice - Sixth Shard
Sixth Umbral Calamity of Water - Tenth Shard

All of these correlate with the elements listed in the EE. The interesting one is the Seventh Umbral Calamity (Seventh Shard), which isn't explicitly classified in the EE but from the animation seems to be Darkness aspected. We know that the Eighth Umbral Calamity would have been Light aspected. I wouldn't be surprised if any further calamities would be simply Light/Darkness aspected simply because all the Shards have had their aether aspected to every element by this point.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lyth

During the Eden questline (Shadows of the Past Lv.80), Mitron explains that calamities have a knock on effect on all shards, not just the Source. In fact, the entire reason why the First became so precariously Light-aspected in the first place was because of the Flood of Darkness. It stands to reason that the more rejoinings that happen, the more heavily aspected the aether of all the remaining worlds become. It's just the opposite of the process we went through to free Mitron's soul from Eden. It also suggests that each rejoining makes subsequent ones more likely.

I don't think that you'd have to manually rejoin every last shard to make the entire system unstable. It's a domino effect. I think this is what Hydaelyn was alluding to during patch 3.4 (Word of the Mother Lv.60). Otherwise, why did we have to worry about Zodiark being freed when we're a bit past the halfway point? Why did both sides commit all their resources to the First in an elaborate chess match? I think we're sitting right at the tipping point.

As for the elemental aspect of future rejoinings, it seems like we've had two darkness-aspected calamities. Everyone remembers the scene with Emet, but that's actually not the most important Crystarium scene. The one to look at is the earlier one from G'raha on returning from Alphinaud and Alisaie's respective questlines (The Lightbringers Lv. 70). The animation shows you what shards were destroyed and what the associated elemental calamity was:

First Umbral Calamity of Wind - Fifth Shard
Second Umbral Calamity of Lightning - Twelfth Shard
Third Umbral Calamity of Fire - Second Shard
Fourth Umbral Calamity of Earth - Third Shard
Fifth Umbral Calamity of Ice - Sixth Shard
Sixth Umbral Calamity of Water - Tenth Shard

All of these correlate with the elements listed in the EE. The interesting one is the Seventh Umbral Calamity (Seventh Shard), which isn't explicitly classified in the EE but from the animation seems to be Darkness aspected. We know that the Eighth Umbral Calamity would have been Light aspected. I wouldn't be surprised if any further calamities would be simply Light/Darkness aspected simply because all the Shards have had their aether aspected to every element by this point.

---

Actually, that demonstration animation is rather unreliable source. It shows Ice Calamity (cyan) as last one before the Darkness Calamity, which we know is false, because last calamity was actually Water (blue).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Iscah

I don't recall anything being said to that effect. I suspect you are getting confused with the explanation of an individual Rejoining starting as a trickle of aether to the Source before the triggering event for the associated calamity cracks it fully open.

---

This is correct as the Umbral charge of Light on the First would have trickled into the Source, where everyone and everything would have been affected by Black Rose. That’s also why Darkness was Astral charged on the First, why canceled everything out to make it balanced and healthy once again.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Due to how all the other Calamities sounded, they were likely all Astral charged. There's a good chance that they were planning to redo the elemental rejoinings, but with an Umbral charge, starting with the 8th Calamity.

---

I'm not sure about this; the Third Calamity of Fire sounded like it was Umbrally charged, in that the downfall of civilization was due to drought and famine, rather than unchecked wildfires. That sounds like dry heat, the example given for Umbral Fire.

Also possibly the Fifth Calamity of Ice, which "froze the seas" and sounded more like a sort of Ice Age. The impression I had was Ice aspected Umbrally, ie making passive the waves, but I admit I could be mistaken, because Ice is very Umbral anyway, so it could well be Astral but we can't tell the difference because Ice acts like that. (My impression of Astral Ice is blizzards and snowstorms, but that might veer too far into Wind.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by YianKutku

The impression I had was Ice aspected Umbrally, ie making passive the waves, but I admit I could be mistaken, because Ice is very Umbral anyway, so it could well be Astral but we can't tell the difference because Ice acts like that. (My impression of Astral Ice is blizzards and snowstorms, but that might veer too far into Wind.)

---

Blizzards are possible for astral ice, or maybe snow in general, but glaciers could be another option for "ice in motion". Or would it be more about ice that is forming and growing versus solid ice that has already set hard? Are icicles active or passive if the moving unfrozen part counts as water?

Maybe snow vs solid ice as the simplest division?

I wish they'd properly lay out the divisions instead of giving the one "heat vs flame" example and leaving us to guess the rest of it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Iscah

I wish they'd properly lay out the divisions instead of giving the one "heat vs flame" example and leaving us to guess the rest of it.

---

Agreed, yes. Every time I see the "Umbral Wind" weather in various zones, I always wonder what that actually means. The immediate thought is that it's a still air, but surely that's a lack of wind. In practice, "Umbral Wind" appears to just mean "adds a green filter".

Since Astral Wind would be random gusts and the like, maybe Umbral Wind is just a steady wind that doesn't die down? Like instead of random speeds, it's steady, like a fan.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Since Astral Wind would be random gusts and the like, maybe Umbral Wind is just a steady wind that doesn't die down? Like instead of random speeds, it's steady, like a fan.

---

I'd say Astral Wind would be hurricanes and tornados, while Umbral Wind would probably be like, smog, or straight up suffocation from a lack of oxygen. The smog angle would definitely match up with the 'just adds a green filter' comment above.

My guesses on the astral/umbral divide for each element...

Fire: As stated in the Encyclopedia Eorzea, wildfires vs. basically a heat wave.
Earth: Astral is definitely landslides and earthquakes. For umbral, the best thing that's coming to mind for me is, like... quicksand, bogs, and mud.
Wind: Tornadoes and hurricanes for astral, and umbral... smog fits pretty well, actually, I like that.
Water: Tidal waves, whirlpools and basically everything Leviathan chucked at us for astral. Umbral could be the 'rotted seas' described in Bravely Default (which people guess was something like it turning dangerously acidic and rotting anything in it), or possibly just extreme humidity.
Lightning: Astral is thunderstorms, obviously. Umbral is hard, since electricity is by nature very active; one of the weathers in the Churning Mists says 'umbral static', though, so maybe that's the one to go with. Just a REALLY static-y environmment.
Ice: Also very hard, since ice is by nature very still and passive. I guess astral would be blizzards and umbral would be... well, Ishgard's permament winter?

You guys are a little too fixated with umbral and astral stuff when it's not that relevant for most things. And Shadowbringer already proven Astral is stasis, and umbral is active. You don't have to switch terminologies, nothing has changed in the Source from that expansion. Astral is still light oriented coded with bright colors and umbral is still darkness oriented coded with dark or sinister colors. There's still dark crystal and light crystal enemies and such in roulettes, they're not suddenly each other's existence. The world knowledge had mostly operated on light vs darkness nonsense anyway. The most relevant thing about calamities we know of is that the 7th calamity is intense umbral energies of probably all six elements, and the The First's calamity is intense astral of all six elements

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JepMZ

The most relevant thing about calamities we know of is that the 7th calamity is intense umbral energies of probably all six elements, and the The First's calamity is intense astral of all six elements

---

No it isn't. You have it backwards. That's the whole point of the lectures on elemental aspects we get in Shadowbringers: what the Source calls "umbral" energy is the force that drives the Flood of Light (extreme state of passivity) in the First, while "astral" is Darkness (activity).

Even before this concept flip in Shadowbringers, the Seventh Calamity has always been described as one involving "all elements charged astrally".

The order of the elemental aspect of the calamities is not a coincident.

It goes from Wind to Water clockwise according to the elemental wheel.
The seventh calamity (of the seventh reflection) was only astrally aligned, but I believe this is another way to say that it was aspected with darkness.

It is also possible to derive the astral and umbral alignment of the six first calamities by taking into consideration the circumstances of the calamities themselves.
The circumstamces for each calamity was artificially created by the Ascians, to anger a specific god of the Twelve forcing them to intervene and create a huge imbalance of elemental aspected aether corresponding to the Twelve god that intervened.

For example, the first calamity was of Wind, where there were huge tornadoes and storms. This was according to the moogles a war between the gods (which gods I wonder). This would be astrally aligned, and most likely Llymlaen was responsible for triggering this, as she is the Twelve god that is elementally aspected with astral wind.

The second calamity was of lightning. This calamity was due to mans endless ingenuity and need to build at the cost of nature. Their building of weapons caused a volcano to erupt covering the world in darkness.
To balance nature, Rhalgr intervened and caused a thunderstorm that lasted for a year.
So the second calamity was umbrally aligned with lightning.

The third calamity was of fire, where a bunch of people had learned magic and became corrupt with power, thought of themselves as gods and controlled people with religions. This spurred genocides and sacking of entire kingdoms. Such a violation of men was confronted by Azeyma, where she displayed the true power of a god by enlargening the sun.
The third calamity was astrally aligned with fire.

And this continues.

If we consider the number of reflections, and the seventh reflection (the one exactly opposite to the source) being rejoined with darkness (only astral). It is very likely that the source is the one to be umbrally aligned at the end. And that the First and the Thirteenth should actually not have been rejoined by light or darkness at all.

And luckily they weren't either.

I believe the remaining six reflections are supposed to be rejoined with the remaining six elements and then sealed with umbral aspect.

How the six remaining reflections could/will be rejoined remains to be seen. But we have options here.

The six first ones were rejoined by following the outer ring of the elemental wheel.
The last six could be rejoined three at a time, as it is described in the elemental wheel (the three conquests and the three submissions).

"But that would mean a lot of people would die!"
Luckily Y'shtola is "coincidentally" working on travel between reflections then ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tetsujin13

The order of the elemental aspect of the calamities is not a coincident.

---

You've made this assertion before, both times with nothing but dramatically-stated baseless claims, and it was roundly rejected both here and on Reddit for not making any sense then either. This time it might actually be even less comprehensible.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tetsujin13

The seventh calamity (of the seventh reflection) was only astrally aligned, but I believe this is another way to say that it was aspected with darkness.

---

Not exactly a hard thing to "believe" when the game devotes an entire scene to spelling out that astral alignment and Darkness are two terms for the same phenomenon.

And after you present this fact as your personal theory, you seem to spend the rest of your post presenting your personal theory as fact.