[Spoilers] The Patch 4.5 Lore Discussion Thread!

[Anonymoose]

This is going a tad off the rails in terms of claims without evidence; we don't want to get FFWiki levels of {{citation needed}}.

Here's what I remember:

On one hand, Gaius survived two large explosions from the Ultima weapon (one which threw him out of the cockpit and one right on top of his face) before the camera cut away from a third explosion while he was still standing - and that Gaius, Regula, and Varis have all shown us that a Garlean can be lifted into a passing transport in seconds (1.0 in Mor Dhona, 1.23 at the Halone's stone, 3.0 in the Sea of Clouds).

On the other, Unukalhai lamented that he was chosen to bear the Light - but left without time, company, power, or opportunity to do anything with it against the overwhelming onslaught of Igeyorhm's machinations on a world already imbalanced by the Dark. That's why Elidibus set us up - sad kid who lost his world to a Flood because he had no strong comrades would keep that pesky sucker, the Warrior of Light, from asking questions before the job was done. (Moreover the devs confirmed that Elidibus kept Unukalhai in stasis for millennia before playing him as a wildcard, and that's why he still knows so little and acts so childish comparatively.) Like the Warriors of Darkness, whether they had to possess people/corpses to function here did not ever come up.

Overcome by an immense force against which I could mount no defense, I had resigned myself to death's inexorable embrace...until my master intervened to save me. Mayhap events would have unfolded differently if I had been blessed with comrades to fight at my side, or if there had been a teacher to learn from and emulate... But there was not, and I must accept the futility of wishing it were otherwise.

The champions who fought upon that ruined star were corrupted by the captured essence of the primals─twisted into incarnations of Darkness. Those of the Light who stood to oppose them were but suckling babes in comparison. I am told there were more like me, young and touched by the Echo, but the Darkness consumed all ere we learned of each other's existence. Even the servants of the power which annihilated my world could find naught to salvage in the emptiness which remained.

As Urianger suggested, I possess the gift of the Echo...though it is of a nature different from yours. Regardless, I would use my gift for the selfsame purpose─the salvation of this star. And nothing─nothing─poses a greater threat to the world than the proliferation of primal-harnessing technology. This I know only too well.

...What I am about to divulge concerns the fate of another star entirely. On this other world, a magick was devised that allowed the realm's champions to use a stone known as “auracite” to contain the power of primals. So armed, these heroic souls conquered god after god, oblivious to their weapon's fatal imperfection: its propensity to bleed primal energies. And with each victory, the heroes changed, transforming at last into fiends of endless appetite. Insatiable in their hunger for aether, they ultimately went to war over the star's ever-dwindling life force...

...And fought until there was nothing left. Thus, as Urianger so astutely observed, when I am faced with those who rush to embrace power unchecked, I lose all semblance of rationality. Know that my master, too, cares deeply about the fate of this star. I am his servant─his instrument─sent here to ensure that the same tragedy does not consume another world.

I was born of a different star─a child whose power of the Echo was too feeble to save his dying world... A child, who, unlike you, never became a Warrior of Light. When all I knew stood on the brink of destruction, I was yet half-grown. Had I been born but a handful of years earlier, history may have written a different tale; the seeds of other heroes that had yet to fully sprout may not have withered and perished. The star I failed to save is known to you now as “the void.”

Though [PLAYER] knew not that I spoke of my homeland, I have explained to [GENDERED PRONOUN] before the cause of its ruin. A magick was devised to contain a defeated primal's might within a stone known as “auracite.” And the energies which bled from this imperfect vessel gradually corrupted the champions who wielded it. These heroes became slaves to an insatiable hunger for aether, eventually transforming into hideous fiends. And none who clung to the faint traces of Light were strong enough to oppose them. The demons next turned upon each other in a war which drained the land's aether in ever greater amounts, until one day the star was suddenly swallowed in a flood of Darkness. An entire world unmade in an instant. The voidsent you encounter here in this realm are the twisted remnants of once-mortal beings who gnaw on what motes of life force remain... And as I lay dying, beaten and broken in my failed last stand, 'twas a white-robed Ascian who found my tormented spirit and bore me away to the rift betwixt worlds. Elidibus has been my master ever since.

At my mentor's feet did I learn of the nature of reality: of the existence of mirrored worlds and the eternal struggle between Dark and Light. Sudden and overwhelming superiority for either side will shatter the balance, and the world in question will be returned to the void by a calamity beyond imagining. As the self-appointed custodian of this balance, my master warned me that the Source─the first of all worlds─slips perilously close to oblivion.

I chose to join my master, and act as his instrument on this star. The tragedy that befell my home cannot be repeated─I will see this world saved.

...And yet I hesitated at the most crucial of moments. What right have I to stand alongside a true Warrior of Light?

I know that should I ever falter, [PLAYER] and the others will be there to support me...or steer me back onto the right path if needed.

In the days leading up to my world's destruction, I was entirely alone. I never knew what it was to have such comrades...

Basically, Unukalhai was a sort of trump card for Elidibus. He put him in stasis (stasis is the key here), and held onto him until just the right time to use him. “Oh, a calamity is approaching? Time to play the trump card!” So his origin is very old, but he was in stasis, so he’s very immature.