[MAJOR SPOILERS] On Souls and the Lifestream

[Alleo]

I honestly wonder if something like the lifestream even existed before the sundering. Seemingly the Ancient ones are of long life and in the face of death and destruction they simply paniced. So if nobody is dieing do they even have a lifestream? What about the creatures they created? Did they die? How was it possible to live forever, yet still give birth to new life? Where did those souls come from? And how did they not manage to overgrow the planet? Or was this the reason the calamity even happened?

I do find your questions interesting OP. In the end Emet hated us for our imperfect souls and also for the cycle of death it created. Yet death was possible with the Ancient ones too..Emet also believes that Zodiark can give back those that sacrificed themselves to him..so does that mean that he kinda has all the souls of these people in him? I wonder if in the end we will free those souls from Zodiark and release them to the livestream so that they too can be reborn again..

Anyway I hope we will get more answers to that.

The question about Souls and the lifestream is an interesting one. I mean I had been thinking about FF7's ending at least direction from one of the devs is that life was better without humanity. I mean would it be that in the end if new souls can't be created the eventual extinction of mankind is in store but the planet lives?

Hm that would only be the case if the old souls are all destroyed but seemingly it does hint that souls continue to exist and become people again just without the memories of their past.

[Seraphor]

I honestly wonder if something like the lifestream even existed before the sundering. Seemingly the Ancient ones are of long life and in the face of death and destruction they simply paniced. So if nobody is dieing do they even have a lifestream? What about the creatures they created? Did they die? How was it possible to live forever, yet still give birth to new life? Where did those souls come from? And how did they not manage to overgrow the planet? Or was this the reason the calamity even happened?

I do find your questions interesting OP. In the end Emet hated us for our imperfect souls and also for the cycle of death it created. Yet death was possible with the Ancient ones too..Emet also believes that Zodiark can give back those that sacrificed themselves to him..so does that mean that he kinda has all the souls of these people in him? I wonder if in the end we will free those souls from Zodiark and release them to the livestream so that they too can be reborn again..

Anyway I hope we will get more answers to that.



Hm that would only be the case if the old souls are all destroyed but seemingly it does hint that souls continue to exist and become people again just without the memories of their past.

Hydaelyn does seem to have some connection to the Lifestream, it could be that the sundering and 'creation' of 14 worlds, granter her a sort of dominion over the life she 'created' in the loosest sense (recycled from the original world)
In which case, all non Echo'd life really are Hydaelyn's children, and those with the Echo are her stewards/Ascians.

It could be that a sundered Amaurotian, aka like us, are unable to create new souls, being only 1/14th of themselves, and so Hydaelyn fulfils that role via the lifestream.

For one wild theory at least.

[Aver]

Hydaelyn does seem to have some connection to the Lifestream, it could be that the sundering and 'creation' of 14 worlds, granter her a sort of dominion over the life she 'created' in the loosest sense (recycled from the original world)
In which case, all non Echo'd life really are Hydaelyn's children, and those with the Echo are her stewards/Ascians.

It could be that a sundered Amaurotian, aka like us, are unable to create new souls, being only 1/14th of themselves, and so Hydaelyn fulfils that role via the lifestream.

For one wild theory at least.

1/7th, now! We are joined with Ardbert - I wonder if more rejoinings are on the way.

[enthauptet]

1/7th, now! We are joined with Ardbert - I wonder if more rejoinings are on the way.

Wouldn't we be 9/14 now? Soul split 14 ways across 13 shards and 1 source. We had 7 calamities and ardbert joined us so that would make 8, plus us so 9 ?

[Aver]

Wouldn't we be 9/14 now? Soul split 14 ways across 13 shards and 1 source. We had 7 calamities and ardbert joined us so that would make 8, plus us so 9 ?

You're right, I was only going off the confirmed rejoining with Ardbert, completely overlooking the fact we've already had 7 other rejoinings.

[Yshnal]

My guess is that the player character can't be counted like a normal individual, and thus our soul(s) are unique. I have the theory that it was our original Amaurotine self the one which summoned Hydaelyn (with a different method probably involving linking her to us, with no tempering like Zodiark did with the Ascians after being summoned) to counter Zodiark. We most probably abandoned the Convocation because we weren't okay with summoning Zodiark, and after the other 13 members kept sacrificing half the population to make him stronger, it makes sense that we tried to do something about it.

In other words, I think that being directly connected to Hydaelyn is what allows us to get out of the lifestream and reincarnate forever with our soul "intact", as long as she exists (which also happens with the 10 Ascians that were split, but in this case due to Zodiark's influence). As for the rest of the people, I guess that once they get to the lifestream they get actually "recycled" and used to create a new one.

However, my other theory revolves around the fact that the goal of the Ascians was to sacrifice the new life to bring their people back *from* Zodiark (in other words, to swap them). As I understand it, that means that most of the souls are actually independent, and only the few that got split during the Sundering (original ancients, AKA current Echo users) can come back from the lifestream. Perhaps due to their unique original god-like capabilities.

[Tharne]

My guess is that the player character can't be counted like a normal individual, and thus our soul(s) are unique. I have the theory that it was our original Amaurotine self the one which summoned Hydaelyn (with a different method probably involving linking her to us, with no tempering like Zodiark did with the Ascians after being summoned) to counter Zodiark. We most probably abandoned the Convocation because we weren't okay with summoning Zodiark, and after the other 13 members kept sacrificing half the population to make him stronger, it makes sense that we tried to do something about it.

They didn't sacrifice half the population to make him stronger. The second sacrifice was to revive the Planet's life, yes the aether goes to Zodiark but it goes back to the land after that, he gained nothing in terms of power.
And might I also add that those sacrifices were volunteers, they didn't just kill people.

[Gula]

They didn't sacrifice half the population to make him stronger. The second sacrifice was to revive the Planet's life, yes the aether goes to Zodiark but it goes back to the land after that, he gained nothing in terms of power.
And might I also add that those sacrifices were volunteers, they didn't just kill people.

Which also adds on to Emet's point when asking us if half our own people would sacrifice themselves as the Ascians did. It really hits hard because everyone knows the answer is no.