Void Ark: Confirmed to be a relic from the War of Magi?

[myahele]

Speaking of Pandemonium, I never realized that Void Ark's architecture looks very similar to FF9's Pandemonium:

[Cilia]

Speaking of Pandemonium, I never realized that Void Ark's architecture looks very similar to FF9's Pandemonium[.]

I noticed that almost right away... having explored the interior now, the color pallet is more diluted, but it does bear a strong resemblance to IX's Pandemonium, aesthetically speaking.

[MarotSatil]

I could actually see Belias being a Voidsent at this point... SE was probably just being lazy when they gave Ifrit-Egi a coat of purple paint, but I'm certainly smelling something up with that now... There's nothing particularly wrong with either being Voidsent of course, it's just Voidsent have (so far) been handled in a fairly lackluster manner, IMO.

Why not both? It stands to reason based on what we know, that with enough aether and prayer you can summon a primal version of just about anything. So let's say a culture that worshiped the voidsent Belias as a god, savior (by means of a void mage summoning it, for example), or otherwise; imagine that one day Belias is banished or sealed and they've not the means or knowledge to summon it from the void/break the seal in the event of a catastrophe.

Perhaps the summoning ritual goes terribly wrong if they did attempt it. Either way, instant primal, and lots of room to work with lore-wise. The only problem (which isn't really much a problem in this example) is the designation of Belias as an Elder Primal, which seems to imply that worship has been ongoing in some form or another for a very long time.

[myahele]

Isn't Elder Primal simply mean that it was summoned a very long time ago? Typically during Allagan's rule?

I take it that Belias was just a (powerful) Primal that was summoned and was defeated by Summoners at that time; hence, why the soul crystals' memories conjured up Belias-egi.

[MarotSatil]

Isn't Elder Primal simply mean that it was summoned a very long time ago? Typically during Allagan's rule?

I take it that Belias was just a (powerful) Primal that was summoned and was defeated by Summoners at that time; hence, why the soul crystals' memories conjured up Belias-egi.

You're correct about the Elder Primal designation bit. What I was getting at, was that many of the primals we have seen have been created based off of other entities or concepts. While it's in the realm of speculation at this point, it stands to reason that there could be a voidsent Belias that Belias the Elder Primal was based off of.

[Cilia]

"Elder Primal" is simply a catch-all term for a primal that was summoned and worshiped before the 6th Astral Era (when 1.x took place). Bahamut, for instance, is an Elder Primal since he was summoned and worshiped during the 3rd Astral Era. The Warring Triad we know to be from the same time period since they were also bound by the Allagans. Odin is in a similar boat, having been a rebel fighting against the Empire, only to succumb to Zantetsuken's influence and become possessed by it.

That leaves Belias as the outlier; we don't know anything about him. Well, we can infer one thing from the fact our summoning arts are based exclusively on Allagan techniques: he was probably around during the 3rd Astral Era, and based on his Egi being a scaled-up purple Ifrit-Egi was probably aspected to fire. That's it. Anything else is speculation, and if Belias being an Elder Primal while Cuchulainn is a Voidsent in XIV isn't enough to get people off the Ivalice train, I don't know what is...

[vientown]

snip~

It's good that you're raising the significance of these names in the Ulster Cycle, but reading too far into them for the game in general is a bit problematic. Cait Sith is actually much more heavily attributed to Scottish mythology (it does appear in Welsh and Irish mythology too) - in fact referenced within series by the accent given in the compilation of FF7 etc. This may have confused you as Scathach is a Scottish woman within Irish mythology, but this isn't the case for Cait Sith (or perhaps you were confused by bean si?). Regardless, you can look at the naming conventions in general as Celtic if you must simplify them into a mythology that crosses nationalities (contrary to American perspective, Scotland and Ireland are not interchangeable, despite shared culture etc :P). You may want to expand your research in that way, rather than further relying on the Ulster Cycle. What would you do if Ceridwen appeared somewhere in there as a boss name?

In addition to Echidna from Greek, Diabolos is from Latin. Maybe we should start looking at these names for their in-franchise resonance? Cait Sith in FFXI for example, or as you say, Cu Chulainn separated almost entirely from his legend.

[Fenral]

It's good that you're raising the significance of these names in the Ulster Cycle

I was just pointing out the commonality of the names, and I highly doubt there's any more significance than that, since there very rarely is in Eastern RPGs. Also, the entire second paragraph was just a Gae joke.

[Belhi]

So I didn't want to start an entirely new post about this so since this seemed the closest to relevant I thought I'd brush the dust off it instead.

I may have been mentioned before but finishing my SCH relic today I noticed when talking about the original Zodiak weapon it said it belonged to a Nymian SCH called Golbas Rombas who saved the people of Nym from the Calamity at the start of the Sixth Umbral Era.

Now this has a few interesting implications.

Firstly it meant that Nym was still a functioning state at the end of the Fifth Umbral Era suggesting that the Mhachi hadn't conquered Nym.

Secondly it means the people of Nym were saved from the disaster though what happened to them after is unclear.

I also find it interesting the name of the Zodiak relic is The Last Resort. Plus Nym was destroyed in some kind of disaster involving Aetheric Wind.

Maybe the Nymians attempted to escape the Calamity in a similar fashion to the Mhachi but rather than trying to build a vessel they tried to levitate their entire city?

Floating ruins of Nym for the 3.3 raid?

[myahele]

Yeah, it would make sense that Nym would try to make their Floating Island levitate even further up the atmosphere in order to escape the flood assuming the flood could reach them. As seen with the ruins, that failed