So how exactly are soul stones made?

[Iscah]

(other jobs with multiple soul stones are PLD and NIN)

Also DRG (Alberic gives you his soulstone; Estinien presumably has one) and AST (likewise with Mace and Leveva), although that thought sets me wondering... do you *need* to have a soulstone to learn the disciplines, or does it just help? There might be limited numbers of those other disciplines, but one of the big plot points of the AST storyline is trying to introduce Sharlayan astromancy to Ishgard, and teach it to as many people as possible - and presumably they're not handing out soulstones to everyone, so what would that actually mean? Could the average person still learn all the techniques, or are they only going to be able to master the equivalent of conjury-instead-of-white-magic?

Related thought: it seems that when there are multiple soulstones available, each one 'belongs' to a particular person, but could they be shared around? It seems that would be how to get everyone's knowledge recorded onto every soulstone, instead of your mastery depending on how good your soulstone's previous owners individually were at their job!

[ObsidianFire]

Well, presumably someone had to figure out the techniques first in order to make the Soul Stone in the first place... Also, some Soul Stones function as "limiters" (BLM and WHM at least) and doing the those Job techniques without the Soul Stone is definetly possible, but it uses up too much ambient aether (BLM and WHM).

I see Soul Stones as a massive short-cut. While it would be possible to teach people to harness their Inner Beast, create Egi, form Fairies, channel Black Magic correctly, etc. from scratch, using a Soul Stone cuts out a lot of time and steps needed to learn how to do that. For people who have the luxury of not being in a hurry like the WoL is, they probably could figure out some of the Jobs just fine.

This might also lead to people forgetting how those techniques (some of which are very dangerous if done incorrectly) were initially done in the first place. And after enough repeated attempts at doing a Job without the Soul Stone ended in disaster (thinking of BLM and WHM in particular here) that Job would get banned all together.

[Brightamethyst]

that thought sets me wondering... do you *need* to have a soulstone to learn the disciplines, or does it just help?

It's probably not required. After all, someone had to invent the job and create the first soul stones. Like others have said, soul stones probably act as short cuts by letting you access stored knowledge. Presumably there's nothing stopping someone from going out and learning all the skills on their own. It would just take way longer.

There's one big question mark with that theory though, and that's scholar faeries. The faeries are part of, and specific to individual soul stones. How did the first scholars summon (create?) them and link them to the soul stones in the first place? With that knowledge being lost, is there an actual limit to the number of potential scholars in the modern world? (Do the tonberries know how to do it, or was it already lost knowledge by the time Nym fell?)

[Yuriane]

Soulstones probably function essentially like brain USBs.

You have downloaded like the launcher for a game but everything else is on a USB your friend gave you. So while the USB is in you don't have to do the rest of the download. Just replace download with train, launcher with weapon, game with job, and soulstone with USB.

[Iscah]

The USB is a decent analogy, but the question then is, what happens when you remove it? Are you learning those skills permanently as you make use of them, or would you be suddenly at a disadvantage in battle if someone stole it from you? The game-mechanics answer says yes, since you can unequip it and lose all those skills entirely, but I assume it would work somewhat differently 'in reality'? If you're learning and gaining understanding from performing those actions rather than simply tapping into the stored skill without really knowing how it works.

(Could work like equipment in FF9 I guess, where you gain skills by equipping certain items and gradually 'earn' them until you've fully mastered it and can keep the skill without that gear equipped.)

[Yuriane]

It's probably pre-installed practice, like the difference between knowing it in theory and knowing it in practice.

If you didn't have a soul stone you'd like still know the how it's just you wouldn't be drawing upon the experience of your predecessors.

We've essentially got our bodies on Autopilot when using the Job Stones and using associated abilities.

That being said there are abilities that are expressly only possible with the stones.

[Rosa_Frandlia]

I see this thread talking about combat soul stones, but nothing about the crafting ones that you have to buy and then get infused and may give insight. That you get a blank soulstone, then have to have it infused for your specialty gives an idea onto the USB analogy having merit as those blank soul stones are useless until you have them imprinted for your specialist crafting.

[Iscah]

Was checking back over the machinist quest script, and when Stephanivien gives you the soulstone he explains, "I based the design on the more traditional soul crystals, and it will act as a focal point for the energy conversions performed by the aetherotransformer."

So... somehow aether channels through the crystal as you use it? (and etches your actions into the crystal as it does so?)


I do have to wonder how we are physically 'equipping' the soulstones though. Is it attached to something, or do we just have it in our bag/pocket? It seems to just be a loose crystal when we're shown holding it.

[Random0]

I do have to wonder how we are physically 'equipping' the soulstones though. Is it attached to something, or do we just have it in our bag/pocket? It seems to just be a loose crystal when we're shown holding it.

The Encyclopedia Eorzea entry on Soul Crystals state that they’re ‘worn close to the skin’, so I take that to mean that they’re worn as a pendant under our shirts or kept in an inner shirt or pants pocket. Perhaps the closer the contact to ourselves the more readily it absorbs/transmits impressions.

[Okamimaru]

I figured the soul stones were crystals that use aether to imprint a sort of genetic (aetheric?) memory into them.... they mix with the holders aether picking up their skills (which use aether on some form or another) and then passing that "aetheric muscle memory" onto the next holder and the cycle repeats...