The Aetherophysics of Soul Shenanigans (4.4 SPOILERS)

[SynthielLyrin]

I think it's worth noting that we've never seen a case where someone has "become" an Ascian naturally. The closest example would probably be Wuur (Sahagan Priest) and maybe Zenos. But both of those were arguably "gifted" Ascian-like powers by pre-existing Ascians. Maybe it's just me, but it feels like we're overdue an explanation for how someone becomes an Ascian in the first place.

... can someone become an Ascian -naturally- ? And if so, what's the cutoff point? Is it at the "can resurrect themselves" ? Is it at "enacts the will of Zodiark" ? Is it at "wields dark magic for the most part" ? And because I am a gremlin: for the 2 other groups Elidibus has had a hand in bringing over to the Source, what do they count as? Are they no longer Warriors of Light if they willingly pacted with the darkness, no matter how kind their goal? Do they not count as Ascian either, seeing as they lack the loyalty to Zodiark? Or is it just walking up to the dark father and asking for the crystal, there and done?

We definitely are overdue an explanation. Becoming a Warrior of Light at least is a known process, receive your blessing and go, act in the name of good and the Mothercrystal. Our foes tend to be the more mysterious ones.

He might also be a good candidate to learn why people decide to become Ascians. Is it because Zodiark told them something? Is it because Elidbus did? It is just because they want to create chaos and don't really care who they're working for? None of the other Ascians we've run into have told us why they think Zodiark is who they should be siding with (even Elidibus hasn't done this; if he's only pursuing balance, why did he decide to work for Zodiark and not Hydaelyn?). That's another thing I think we're overdue to learn too...

Mm, I don't know if Solus will indulge us. Maybe he will, maybe it will be whoever is Calling. Elidibus decidedly won't, if 2 expacs in he hasn't done it, and he absolutely is deceitful to his pawns. I mostly doubt Solus because his goal seems to be more having the Calamity and getting the Empire back in line; converting Varis to his cause is something they both seem to consider worthless. He pities Varis for knowing, but says he now knows and therefore must act as scripted. ... and then whoever is Calling also insists on 'only you'. Roles that must be played. BUT I COULD BE WRONG, so honestly so long as we get an explanation eventually I would be happy...

... okay an explanation and the chance to drop some choice meteors but. Explanations before setting fire to various things.

[Iscah]

This is true; I thought I'd accounted for this possibility in the OP but it assumes he was dead before possession. This need not be true. It's equally possible he was just dark crystalled by an Ascian that is now (for some godsforsaken reason) still self-presenting as him.

There are a couple of reasons why he might still be using the name. Maybe he was "Solus" for so long that he started identifying with that persona. Maybe he's doing it just to mess with Varis, or as a shorthand reminder that he is, in essence, the person that Varis knew as Solus.

He definitely seems to be using it to remind Varis of his place. A tone of "why aren't you co-operating with us, grandson?"


I also noticed that he says the founding father of the empire was an Ascian, not that he became one. Which could still allow for him becoming an Ascian prior to creating the empire, but it does leave the possibilities open. (And he does seem the sort to throw in some kind of dramatic talk about "transcending his mortal form" or some such thing - but perhaps I speculate too much. Or he gave that speech to Varis yesterday and the WoL will hear it in time.)

[ObsidianFire]

... can someone become an Ascian -naturally- ? And if so, what's the cutoff point? Is it at the "can resurrect themselves" ? Is it at "enacts the will of Zodiark" ? Is it at "wields dark magic for the most part" ? And because I am a gremlin: for the 2 other groups Elidibus has had a hand in bringing over to the Source, what do they count as? Are they no longer Warriors of Light if they willingly pacted with the darkness, no matter how kind their goal? Do they not count as Ascian either, seeing as they lack the loyalty to Zodiark? Or is it just walking up to the dark father and asking for the crystal, there and done?

We definitely are overdue an explanation. Becoming a Warrior of Light at least is a known process, receive your blessing and go, act in the name of good and the Mothercrystal. Our foes tend to be the more mysterious ones.

Well, we know all Ascians have the Echo. Just like all Warriors of Light have the Echo. Yet having the Echo does not make you a Warrior of Light. Or an Ascian. It merely seems to be a prerequisite for becoming one. If somewhere along the line someone with the Echo can be picked by Hydaelyn to become her champion, there's got to be some way Zodiark can do the same.

It also seems that both Warriors of Light and Ascians are reincarnated into the material realm, but in different ways. Ascians escape the Lifestream to the Rift where they stay until they next inhabit a body. Warriors of Light go back to the Lifestrem and are reborn like everyone else is. Only since they have the Echo, their soul can survive the Lifestream intact instead of dissipating. As it is, the WoD are specifically trying to stay in the Lifestream when they die. In fact, their initial goal was trying to get all the life on their Shard into the Lifestream so that it could eventually be reborn on another Shard after their Shard was Flooded with Light. Granted, they never had to go that far in the end, but their goal to end up in the Lifestream is something the Ascians try their best to avoid.

So at the very least, I'd say one big difference between the Ascians and the WoL (or maybe it would be more accurate to say Hydaelyn's Chosen?) is how they are reborn. Which seems to have very little to do with light or darkness.. Hydaelyn's Chosen seem to trust the part the Lifestream plays in cycling aether between life and death (which is something Hydaelyn herself seems to power/oversee). The Ascian's don't trust it. Instead they decide for themselves when they are going to interact with the mortal realm again and it seems they always have to possess a host to do so long term.

[Anonymoose]

Doesn't Elidibus have a line about perception being affected by expectation/foreknowledge?

Yes! At the time, it was meant as a lampshade (between 1.0 and ARR's shifting game engine and lore, the Ascian presentation just didn't mesh without assumptions like this), but now that it exists, it could conceivably be used to handwave a number of concerns. (Cheaply, but effectively.)

I think of sickness, so that also raises several questions

Assuming he didn't merely feign the illness and death on Elidibus's orders so that he could withdraw for a nap and set up the war of succession, having allowed dissent to fester and not having named a successor. It would display just how deeply he trusts, even if he dislikes, Elidibus's machinations.

So just what does Zenos have?

Just Resonance as far as I know, which led me to suspect possession of a Resistance member who died during the battle (no change in appearance of host anatomy) or, if the game is being deceptive, transmigration into and transfiguration of a living host a la Wuur.

I do not think Kahedin was possessed. Raised, yes, and there's the catch: he had far less intellect, and no personality, than any of the other cases of an Ascian pulling necromancy out of their sleeve.

You actually might be right about this, but I'd chalked it up as the second-most-likely interpretation. In the LV56 quest, Y'mhitra and Dancing Wolf theorize that Kahedin was necromantically raised as an "undead puppet". Later, in the LV60 quest, Y'mhitra gleans that the black-masks seem to fear death in certain scenarios, prompting the theory that they must possess corpses to continue existing, and must flee from one to another when their host corpse is destroyed. Depending on your game's client language, Dancing Wolf's reply is a little different, and can be closer to, "What, you mean not only can he control the dead, like Kahedin, but he can possess them!?" or a little closer to, "Aha! So he used Kahedin because he needed a body that was already dead!" I merely went with the most efficient interpretation, lol.

As pretains to your other observations:

Yes, extending the concept of the Word of the Mother before she was released as an independent entity by Hydaelyn to any other entity, in any other context would change a lot of probabilities. So far, we've only seen such an entity (a soul enmeshed with the Crystal, briefly, in close proximity, manifested as Her voice) in very specific contexts.

And, yes, the revelation that Ascians bearing Crystals of Darkness (or by extension the Warriors of Darkness, who had Crystals of Light, or Unukalhai, who might have a crystal we've never seen) could somehow use those aetherial wellsprings as a way to spontaneously generate biological host anatomy in consistency with their metal projection of themselves would change many of these probabilities, lol.

Again - logical efficiency. Sorting out what we know into what might be without assuming other, unknown mechanics are in play.

now that soul extraction is not just a boss mechanic but a very threatening msq plot point, any thoughts on where that might fit in or work with the other kinds of 'soul shenanigans'?

If only I knew where to put it or what the implications were! The Resonance mechanic seems to be draining formless spiritual aether and hyperfocusing it on a target while enforcing the "form" of the person in the copy-tank, wheres the boss mechanic seems to have been a forced full displacement of living body and living soul without compromising either. They may be slightly different processes for all I know.

That said, the more creative and conspiracy minded might begin to suspect that the later could perhaps be connected to The Voice... Ohohoho... /darksteelfoilhat

Maybe it's just me, but it feels like we're overdue an explanation for how someone becomes an Ascian in the first place.

Agreed. In the meantime, I've been suspecting that Tristan was being groomed for an eventual shift. Perhaps one starts by being granted Dark gifts and information just to see what conflict they rile up and how hungry they get for more and whether they can be pressed into directed service - and whether they don't just get ganked ten minutes later, of course. As they grow more capable, greedy for more power, more in line with the Dark, perhaps that is when they are granted more transcendent gifts. Or I'm just extrapolating baselessly in the wrong direction.

Or it could simply be that the personalities they display are wholly their own. In which case, that suggests a significant degree of free will - and one has to wonder if we could, at some point, reason with an Ascian.

If I were going to point at anything as a suggestion that the Ascians have free will, it would be their sheer audacity. Between arrogantly overlooking possibilities to recklessly endangering big-picture, long-term goals for the sake of personal advancement and prestige, it borders on outright asininity. Why would Zodiark want the dark acolytes to, if they were a rigidly controlled organization, act like Team Rocket?

Maybe he was "Solus" for so long that he started identifying with that persona. Maybe he's doing it just to mess with Varis, or as a shorthand reminder that he is, in essence, the person that Varis knew as Solus.

To be fair, if the council of fourteen is taking names from the Ivalician scions, and the Ivalician scions number only twelve, and they didn't avoid this by having Shadowhunters kills go unnamed (they look to perhaps be Loghrif and Fandaniel), then just not addressing his "true name" and just letting him pose as Solus in name and visage for now is as good as anything...though quite a tall house of cards in terms of assumptions until we get more information. It assumes everything from Overlord status to transmigrated Ascian to ... [goes crosseyed] It's not yet Occan's favorite, at any rate, imho.

Warriors of Light go back to the Lifestrem and are reborn like everyone else is. Only since they have the Echo, their soul can survive the Lifestream intact instead of dissipating. As it is, the WoD are specifically trying to stay in the Lifestream when they die. In fact, their initial goal was trying to get all the life on their Shard into the Lifestream so that it could eventually be reborn on another Shard after their Shard was Flooded with Light. Granted, they never had to go that far in the end, but their goal to end up in the Lifestream is something the Ascians try their best to avoid

The Warriors of Darkness were definitely out to Rejoin their world out of sentiment that, in some form, the souls of all those who died would live on. Obviously, most if not all would of course be shorn apart by the great blender that is the Lifestream and their "aetherial atoms" would end up all over the place.

But is there any cause to suspect this is not also true for those with the Echo? I'm not sure. It's always been a concern, of course. Mythology paints Echo-gifted souls as "reborn on the cusp of each Calamity", but are they mis-interpreating Hydaeyn choosing new people each cycle? Or does She keep their souls intact, wipe their memories, birth them back into the world, and activate them with the grand starshower gesture as necessary? So far there's been very little cause to suspect so. Even Bahamut - all the pieces of his old soul remanifested - wasn't Bahamut. Then again, the Warrior of Light is absolutely something else, something special; they have a "true nature" we don't yet understand, we just don't know what it is. What if we are someone special reincarnated, reactivated?

And if one could ride out the Lifestream until rebirth, would merely being eaten by Leviathan be enough to destroy Wuur? Would merely being hit by Ascalon be enough to kill Lahabrea? We're meant to assume this "brought the chaos of the Lifestream" to them in another form, much like shearing an Ascian soul apart with pure aether while bound in white auracite, but is any of this true? Is any of it not? (And does this blender have different settings? How turbulent is a river compared to the sea?)

[SynthielLyrin]

In order!

one has to wonder if we could, at some point, reason with an Ascian.

Would they want to? To reason with them should imply some degree of them being less cryptic and more truthful, as well as being willing to accept that maybe Hydaelyn is right. To the Warrior of Light, She certainly is. Of course, we’d have to be able to accept the flip side too, so… would –we- want to? Would we take the word and reasoning of world-enders and deceivers, with the blood of our allies and many others on their hands? Even without taking into account that then working together would be a crapshoot and a half, considering we got the various leaders on board with ‘they are a threat and should go’.
You can fire back with us actually doing it the one time with Unukalhai (not counting the Warriors of Darkness since that was double agents all the way down), but even then… that was burning up the ‘best shot’ they had at convincing us, in a way. We wouldn’t draw the weapons immediately on the kid based on presumed innocence, and the WoL is a sentimental sucker. Considering that ‘Solus’ has a hard time getting Varis to act in a manner that benefits him, even after giving him the information off our screen, and Solus was both a familiar figure and a celebrated figure in the Empire, it’s a long shot to see another ascian try that again, but with us.

and they didn't avoid this by having Shadowhunters kills go unnamed

Are we certain they are kills? The time we actually see a red masked ascian leave a corpse, he stands up anyways; ‘Solus’ gets shot, and then he reappears none the worse for wear at another location with his corpse within line of sight, sighing. So taking the mask as trophy guarantees absolutely nothing unless it was a black mask.
That, and if Shadowhunter is who we all are certain he is… that still leaves the matter of how he managed to inflict the Aetherial Sea on his kills. He is no primal that can drain the aether of a stricken foe (Leviathan, Thordan) that has to regroup, reform and then act; neither is he capable of manipulating the ruinous amounts of aether that a Blade of Light takes, unless this whole time garleans being unable to magic was a lie. So there is something missing there, I think. Or more than one something: manipulators likely do not visit a barren wasteland, and if it is who we’re certain he is, then he scored all those kills en route from Eorzea to the Burn, and found Alphinaud there. I do not trust him, and I am flagrantly biased here, but things don’t add up. How did he get there, and how did he score those kills?
Not that managing to force a retreat from those fiends is nothing. It’s a p cool feat, and it is a good way to force even the Emissary’s hands or the Voice’s, if now the mortals are 1) more on to their bullshit (and hell, even the Blessing of Light won’t help with that, unless Ysayle didn’t get her summoning techniques way back when not from an ascian) and 2) more capable of thrashing them enough to flee.

But is there any cause to suspect this is not also true for those with the Echo? I'm not sure. It's always been a concern, of course. Mythology paints Echo-gifted souls as "reborn on the cusp of each Calamity", but are they mis-interpreating Hydaeyn choosing new people each cycle? Or does She keep their souls intact, wipe their memories, birth them back into the world, and activate them with the grand starshower gesture as necessary? So far there's been very little cause to suspect so. Even Bahamut - all the pieces of his old soul remanifested - wasn't Bahamut. Then again, the Warrior of Light is absolutely something else, something special; they have a "true nature" we don't yet understand, we just don't know what it is. What if we are someone special reincarnated, reactivated?
And if one could ride out the Lifestream until rebirth, would merely being eaten by Leviathan be enough to destroy Wuur? Would merely being hit by Ascalon be enough to kill Lahabrea? We're meant to assume this "brought the chaos of the Lifestream" to them in another form, much like shearing an Ascian soul apart with pure aether while bound in white auracite, but is any of this true? Is any of it not? (And does this blender have different settings? How turbulent is a river compared to the sea?)

Man oh man.
If the dotharli beliefs have a high truth value, then hell you don’t even need the Echo or the Blessing of Light so long as your soul burns impossibly bright in death. … by being a complete hellion in battle. But that does not mean you get reborn, as much as maybe your soul finds its way reasonably well back to the tribe and you get to grow up to your glory again. Even if they do not, then Zenos somehow found himself a body, also short a Blessing, so it might be more on strengthening the soul so it can actually pull off those tricks and the Echo is a flag that means it is possible.
We do not know how Hydaelyn works. We know She chooses souls to be Her champions and grants them power but no directives beyond ‘do good’, maybe. And that She can yoink a soul back to her and name it Her Voice, once, and that as far as we saw with one group of stray children, even working with Zodiark once does not mean She cannot take them back. But at that point, neither can She guarantee that they will live, or be reborn ‘as themselves’ in any manner.
(I want them back dammit!)
The WoL is something absolutely special though, being as we have 6 damn crystals on us, and Hydaelyn herself has come to bat for us once or twice. Us being locked into life until further notice could well be part of being a divine champion. The big trick is that we have managed to deny that same privilege to others in the same category.

[Theodric]

I'm thinking something more along the lines of it turning out that both Hydaelyn and Zodiark are correct, yet their servants are misinterpreting their orders. Note how Ysayle is given a vision of the truth surrounding the Dragonsong War. It lacks context, so she ends up going on a crusade that leads to innocents being killed. The Ascians have done far worse things in their time, but if they do turn out to be misinterpreting Zodiark's will due to him being sealed away then it's possible that at least one of them will agree to listen to reason. Especially given what we know about the Warrior of Darkness' home. Killing the Ascians doesn't appear to be the correct route. Thus it'll likely all tie in with the theme of 'Balance'. When the fate of the world is at stake, even sworn enemies can fast become allies. This has been a theme explored quite often in previous Final Fantasy games. It might be a temporary arrangement. It might be a permanent affair. Either way, it's not something that is impossible.

[ObsidianFire]

Ysayle is probably yet another case of "Hydaelyn not being able to talk because Ultima sapped her strength". Which was a predicament she found herself in because the Ascians were the ones who meddled in the first place.

Hypothetical: Rather amusingly, one of the ways to balance out the agents of darkness to the agents of light isn't killing the Ascians until there's the same amount of Ascians as WoL. It would be making the WoL immortal so that they could match the length of the Ascians' influence. While it seems Ascians are constantly moving things behind the scenes regardless of whether there's a Calamity in the works or not, the WoL only show up for a Calamity. Maybe they would have had more luck in stopping Calamities if they were constantly around to prevent the build-up of one and not just help mitigate its effects?

In all seriousness though, I'd like to know why being an Ascian is a full-time job while being a WoL is (seems to be) a part-time job. We're pretty free to do what we want all things considered; Hydaelyn doesn't have a track record of intervening with what we do unless it's really important. The Ascian's though, all they think about is creating more chaos (for themselves or Zodiark). The only one who might be doing something different is Elidibus. However, we never see any of the Ascians (even Elidibus) taking a break from their jobs to do anything else.

[Anonymoose]

Are we certain they are kills?

We are not.

I'm operating under the assumption (that sentence was rife with ifs and buts and assumptions) that the developers probably know that we the players know how awkward it would be for Gaius be walking around like, "This is my trophy. I killed this." when all he really did was beat up a meat puppet until its Ascian abandoned it for the rift. They wanted to re-introduce him as the Shadowhunter, right? If those aren't kills ... is he? Is he fluffing up his resume? Is he really just Shadowannoyer? Please Look Forward to It!

I'm thinking something more along the lines of it turning out that both Hydaelyn and Zodiark are correct, yet their servants are misinterpreting their orders. Note how Ysayle is given a vision of the truth surrounding the Dragonsong War. It lacks context, so she ends up going on a crusade that leads to innocents being killed. The Ascians have done far worse things in their time, but if they do turn out to be misinterpreting Zodiark's will due to him being sealed away then it's possible that at least one of them will agree to listen to reason.

The source and nature of the orders is a tough bridge to cross with assumptions alone. Ysayle was given no specific orders and interpreted that she received the Echo to see the vision she saw, and interpreted Hydaelyn's silence as consent that she was on the right path. According to Elidibus, the overlords are following orders from Zodiark Himself, and helping them work to satisfy the letter of those orders (while also fulfilling his own, different, but not mutually incompatible orders). If they are misled, does it not follow that Elidibus is misleading them?

By the by, what do you imagine the consequences of restoring the world and mankind to its original form entails? Your path assumes mortals may benefit, if we should just accept it.

[Theodric]

The source and nature of the orders is a tough bridge to cross with assumptions alone. Ysayle was given no specific orders and interpreted that she received the Echo to see the vision she saw, and interpreted Hydaelyn's silence as consent that she was on the right path. According to Elidibus, the overlords are following orders from Zodiark Himself, and helping them work to satisfy the letter of those orders (while also fulfilling his own, different, but not mutually incompatible orders). If they are misled, does it not follow that Elidibus is misleading them?

By the by, what do you imagine the consequences of restoring the world and mankind to its original form entails? Your path assumes mortals may benefit, if we should just accept it.

I'm operating under the assumption that because we don't know all the details, things may not be so simple as they appear. Thus far, I have not been wrong to embrace such a path - because most of the antagonists we have dealt with so far, in true 'Final Fantasy' style, have been much more complicated than many credited. Thus I am led to believe that neither Hydaelyn or Zodiark are worth following blindly. Mortals seem to be set to be condemned no matter which succeeds at reigning supreme.

I don't know how familiar other posters are with other Final Fantasy titles and I don't exactly want to spoil things too much...but it isn't unusual for the protagonists to align themselves with major antagonists for the sake of the 'greater good'. That could be the case with at least one Ascian. It remains to be seen. It might not be the case, though I don't think the possibility should be written off.

[Anonymoose]

I'm operating under the assumption that because we don't know all the details, things may not be so simple as they appear.

I agree with all of this, which I think highlights my point: can this sentiment be used as a retort whilst it makes no commitments beyond Light and Darkness "reigning supreme" is a bad idea, and "not all antagonists are evil and we might work with some." There are a hundred directions the story could take whereby this could be roughly interpreted as true, yes?

This includes my own suspicions (which are at times under the umbrella of the retorts): it's possible for the "Good versus Evil" aspect of the story to be an illusion based on incidentals without changing anything much practical consequence.