Elemental Calamities

[subteraneanbird]

So we know that so far our calamities have been elementally aspected (or told as such anyways), and we also know that each element can be astral or umbral. Going off the lore book's explanation of astral as more active and umbral as more passive, we can see what an astral vs umbral Calamity looks like. The Great Flood and Great Freeze are very much umbral, given they took months or even years to happen and marked slow declines. The fire and lightning calamites, by contrast, happened relatively quickly and resulted in widespread rapid destruction. Wind is a mystery and earth is likely astral given that it was entirely manufactured by mortal hand, instead of just instigated by it. Bahamut's "astral calamity" also fits this framework since it greatly upset the entire known world's aetherial balance in the course of 1 night. So an umbral calamity would be the opposite: a slow change in all elements (a la FFV). Maybe you wake up one day and notice the wind hasn't been blowing for awhile, or your morning fire is colder, or the plants seem to be dying, or all of those and more.

[UAnchovy]

The fire and lightning calamites, by contrast, happened relatively quickly and resulted in widespread rapid destruction.

Nitpick: the Calamity of Fire was a drought. It was slow, painful destruction, not a sudden onslaught.

Anyway, my take on this topic is basically "not enough data". Do we even have a solid reason to think that the succession of elementally-aligned calamities is systematised in this way, rather than a pattern seen in retrospect? The people of Eorzea believe there are six basic elements, and this appears to be true in their world... but it doesn't follow that there is an inherent pattern of elementally-aligned calamities. Do we need to posit an elemental mechanism for the fact that there have been disasters every fifteen hundred years or so?

After all, the calamities that we know of are all very different in nature. Five of them are natural disasters, and two are man-made. Is it inherently implausible that Eorzea might suffer the occasional drought, flood, or ice age, even without a broader framework?

Moreover, we already know a mechanism for the calamities. When the Ascians succeed in destroying or rejoining one of the thirteen planes, it causes some great disaster on Hydaelyn, the central plane. I don't know the exact details - perhaps the rejoining of one plane causes a surge in aether, and if that aether is strongly elementally aspected, disasters linked to that element occur until the world is able to rebalance itself? - but it seems plausible enough on the face of it. It may be that the other worlds are themselves strongly elementally-aspected. It may be that the Ascians themselves are following some pattern, intending to subject Hydaelyn to elemental stresses in order to revive Zodiark. Without knowing the precise mechanics of Zodiark's return or the nature of those other worlds, I can't say much more.