Gerun Oracles

[Nalien]

Given how damned pissed I'm going to be if we don't get Primal summoning... I like to think we might get a victory for the Light side, resulting in a flood of Light, which we then combat by summoning Primals for shits and giggles... Hydealyn becomes an unstoppable force that would destroy everything without Zodiarks opposition, but we can just pop an Ifrit and drain Her now limitless source of aether to delay the inevitable. A flood of Light from a being we know has a serious leech problem isn't all that threatening, come to think of it...

[Enkidoh]

Given how damned pissed I'm going to be if we don't get Primal summoning... I like to think we might get a victory for the Light side, resulting in a flood of Light, which we then combat by summoning Primals for shits and giggles... Hydealyn becomes an unstoppable force that would destroy everything without Zodiarks opposition, but we can just pop an Ifrit and drain Her now limitless source of aether to delay the inevitable. A flood of Light from a being we know has a serious leech problem isn't all that threatening, come to think of it...

No offense Nalien, but I think that ship has long sailed - the game has been stating from pretty much the beginning that 'Primals=BAD!' and the fact that as the Warrior of Light we're known with a terrified respect by the Garleans as the 'eikon slayer' (amongst other things), I really don't think that idea about FC's summoning a full-size Primal will ever actually be implemented, and has instead since been discarded by the development team as another concept which isn't really workable. But hey, I've been proven wrong before!

The thing that stands out to me is really there is nothing I've seen anywhere in or out of the game that hints at Hydaelyn being anything but benevolent to the people that live on her. Even the actions of her agents are often tempered with a desired to help those who dwell on the planet. The Ascians on the other hand seem to generally act in a manner where the lives of others have little value, focused only on returning their one true god. If I judge just out of the actions of the players, for the people of Hydaelyn at least, the servants of Hydaelyn seem far more interested in protecting its people.

Likewise, Elidibus is very manipulative. He has had several chances to talk to us and if he really thought he could convince us we were in the wrong why hasn't he actually told us 'the truth'. Instead the Ascians have chosen to manipulate us and when we became to powerful and difficult to control have attempted to remove us. Elidibus doesn't strike me as someone trustworthy.

This is what I feel too - that Hydaelyn has never been shown as anything other than benevolent and concerned towards the various lifeforms that dwell on Her, where as the Ascians have always been depicted as malevolant, untrustworthy, dangerous, and downright evil, concerned with nothing other than the revival of their ambiguous dark god. Hells, they don't even really care for each other's well being - remember Lahabrea's dismissive attitude at the very end of 2.55 when talking with Elidibus about Nabrieles's complete destruction? They're a group of sociopathic monsters utterly convinced of their own smug superiority.

One thing these lines have had me thinking is perhaps the gripe between Hydaelyn and Zodiark was actually born from the mortal races. Perhaps the current set up is outside the natural order but perhaps mortals very existence is an aberration of the natural order. Perhaps for Zodiark, killing us all is returning things to their natural state. The whole, sundered into 14, makes we think that perhaps the Rejoining is about returning the seas back to a single existence. Back to it's natural state. Of course again, there is a very real possibility that mortals wouldn't survive that.

We currently don't know enough about the 'universe' of FF14 to really draw anything conclusive I think. I don't however think Zodiark's victory will be in our best interests. Let's remember that Hydaelyn has been growing progressively weaker for thousands of years. Everything is pointing to the war being currently in Zodiark's favour.

Ironically, when 1.0 was released and the first trickles of FFXIV's lore came out, there was a mention in the 1.0's manual about how various wars throughout Eorzea's history have been regarded as 'wars of the Heavens', and that the citystates were actually fighting on behalf of their respective Guardian of the Twelve. Of course even the manual shrugged about whether this was indeed true or not (and at that stage, Hydaelyn as a 'goddess' and for that matter, Zodiark too, were completely unknown and never mentioned in the game).

I disagree that the Ascian's endgame of the 'Rejoining' is 'returning things to a single existence', in that they've consistently said it's to bring about the rebirth of Zodiark at Hydaelyn's expense. In fact, Elidibus is the only Ascian so far who seems more interest in the idea of 'balance', although again, that might just be another means to an end to try and arrest our growing potency and prevent Hydaelyn from regaining Her strength - if hypothetically 'balance' was attained whose to say he wouldn't then say "Okay, now to make the pendulum swing in the opposite way to darkness and Lord Zodiark's rebirth! Mwhahahahaa!" Because time and again, the rebirth of Zodiark is stated as being the Ascian's goal, a change towards darkness instead of Light.