Quote Originally Posted by Ceridwenae View Post
Also, has it been noted anywhere if a soul can potentially manifest itself in a new corporeal form if the original form is unavailable?
Uhh... Maybe Y'shtola? After going into the lifestream, when we (Well... The Elementals) brought her back there was no corporeal form there to house her soul. Which suggests one was created as she was pulled from the lifestream, albeit imperfectly (Due to the blindness and what not)

Quote Originally Posted by Ceridwenae View Post
do we have anything to confirm either way that the other shards are similar to each other, or even copies of each other?
I'm not sure about any hard evidence to this. But there are some implied similarities. Such as the fact that they're all Shards from the same Source which would suggest that they're be similar. Much as if you break apart a biscuit, all the crumbs will be similar because they have the same origin.

There's also some other aspects, such as how Arbert and the Ascians seem to speak the same language as Eorzeans, with the same accent (Or at least, no-one really seems to notice that they're from anywhere other than Eorzea). Which, given how etymology works, suggests similar origins in terms of development of life because different climates and different ways of life impact vocabulary (I.e. Eskimo's IRL have many different words for "Snow" because they need to distinguish beyond just "Snow" due to where they live)