Revelations from SHADOWBRINGERS

[dragoelete]

i was never much a fan of smt since they made the alignments wierd... law was on par but chaos in smt... they just made chaos essentially evil... which its not chaos is free spirited they will follow laws if they feel like it (usually depending on the state of there chaos(so chaotic good would mostly follow "good" laws but completely ignore "evil" laws with chaotic evil being the opposite)) but smt made no real distinction in the different forms of chaos.

[Jandor]

Are they the same? Hydaelyn's summoning is kind of an enigma, since a primal summoned with such a small fraction of the population(~12% if we're being generous and assuming it was an even divide) should be no match for one summoned with 50% and then fed half of the remaining population, but she was strong enough to overpower Zodiark, imprison him, shatter reality, and supplant him.

Hydaelyn was summoned with the purpose of stopping Zodiark. Focusing less power but into one specific goal might have been enough.

Should also be noted that after the initial surprise win she appears to have spent the rest of time up until now constantly losing ground to Zodiark and his minions.

[Alleo]

Just some funny thoughts I had yesterday: You know I always wondered why Elidibus called himself the emissary and yet never really tried to be one. (I mean he never even told us much about the war itself) And at the end of the last expansion was fully ready to kill us. Now we know that he just calls himself that because that was his job at the old time. For me at least this is another point to show how they stick to the past.

And isnt it kinda telling that all the 13th are still alive and that it was only others that sacrificed themselves?

[Jandor]

And isnt it kinda telling that all the 13th are still alive and that it was only others that sacrificed themselves?

To be fair, if Emet is anything to go by, they are pretty gung-ho about undoing that bit and bringing them all back.

10chars...

[QT_Melon]

just cause hyd is a light aspected primal doesnt mean she is everything that is aspected to light... just look at the way they are zod was summoned to keep life as it is (which is stasis) while hyd was summoned to allow new life to live(which is activity)[/hb]

Again...please show me the spot where it was specifically said that was the case?

Citation needed.

Zodiark was summoned to prevent a calamity. After being tempered by the summon it was those Ancients that wanted to keep bringing back others, at the cost of new life. Zodiark did what was asked and created NEW LIFE.

Hydaelyn was created to shackle and bind She was passive and ironically meant to create a stalemate

To go into this further Neither concept of Light and Dark came into existence from what is told UNTIL the Calamity and summons. Saying that Hydaelyn is not the very concept of Light and Zodiark is also not doesn't make sense since they were basically brought into concept as just that. Still need info on verfying that.

One other thing, aren't we getting Ascians mixed up with Amaurotine? The immortality issue has to do with the sundering. It sounds like the first people had lives and children. So death and birth were obviously there? If anything a rejoining (and again don't exactly favor this as it does lead to loss of life) would render the currently immortal Ascians mortal again.

I don't think it should be looked at which primal is good or bad. Both or Neither of their existence is needed as balance. That is important to note. Both at the purest spectrum have shown to be damaging to the environment.

Hydaelyn never gave creation to new life, only found a way to preserve the souls that were already there through reincarnation. STASIS. Zodiark was the one that gave new life. ACTIVE but wants summons to keep changing life. Hydaelyn was there to prevent of said new life from being destroyed over and over.

[ExKage]

Could someone give me a refresher on Flood of Darkness/Light, The 13th, and what that means for the First?

What caused the 13th to be considered a lost cause? What happened? What's difference of the Flood of Light? Wouldn't the flood of light have been just as bad so that it too could not be rejoined and the stoppage of the flood was actually a good thing to knock it back into a better way to rejoin the First?

[Vayanne]

The 13th was completely flooded with Darkness. A completely flooded shard cannot be joined with the source, so a Flood of Light is just as bad as a Flood of Darkness. It is in the Ascians' (and everybody's) interest to prevent a Flood from happening.

[Dualblade]

Could someone give me a refresher on Flood of Darkness/Light, The 13th, and what that means for the First?

What caused the 13th to be considered a lost cause? What happened? What's difference of the Flood of Light? Wouldn't the flood of light have been just as bad so that it too could not be rejoined and the stoppage of the flood was actually a good thing to knock it back into a better way to rejoin the First?

The 13th was the Ascians first attempt at trying to rejoin a shard to the Source before they really knew what they were doing. We don't know all the details and if anything might know less now, but based on what we know:

Igeyorhm was in put in charge of the 13th. She began doing her part, and ended up using Darkness to overwhelm the 13th.

People on the 13th including Warriors of Light began using Auracite to trap and use Primal powers but this turned them into the first Voidsent (tipping things even further to Darkness.)

A Flood of Darkness probably started which would turned even more people into Voidsent, HOWEVER unlike the Flood of Light the Ascians didn't have a Calamity ready on the Source to cause a "crack" for the aether from the 13th to be drawn into, and by the time they realized they needed to do this it was too late and the Flood of Darkness completely overtook the Shard.

Whatever aether was left after the complete fall to Darkness was then eaten up by all the various Voidsent and their voracious appetite meaning it is now completely useless.

Meanwhile in the present the Ascians know what they are doing and have even done a successful Darkness-aspected Rejoining going by the explanations we have. In G'raha Exarch's timeline they succeed in the Light-aspected Rejoining resulting in the 8th Rejoining, but due to his time travel we have (for now) managed to stop it from the Shard side and thus Elidibus needs to hold off with the Calamity on the Source so he doesn't have to rebuild things over hundreds of years before trying again.

As an aside while the 13th is no longer usuable for them our understanding is that the Ascians don't need to rejoin every shard to bring back Zodiark, they just need to bring back enough of his power to break from his prison, at which point they believe he could destroy Hydaelyn and make everything as it once was.

[CaesarCV]

Sure I can give a quick refresher.

Basically, different shards have different aetherial balance. An aetherial balance can be pushed to greater heights, which causes aether to flow back towards the source. Ascians attempt to manipulate events to cause this imbalance. In the case of the 13th, they sowed chaos and destruction through the faulty Auracite. On the first they had their mysterious plan with Ardbert and pals. When imbalanced, the shard can be Rejoined with the source by causing a calamity on the source.

However, if the aetherial balance tips too far, it can cause a Flood. A flood royally messes up a shard, usually leaving it an aether deprived wasteland and causing all kinds of other issues. When this happens, there's basically nothing left to rejoin. Causing a flood is never really the Ascian's plan. It can make a Shard useless. Still, they're far from perfect, and they basically messed up twice. If the 1st's Flood had completed, there wouldn't be a shard left to rejoin. That's probably why they rushed to have Ardbert cause a calamity, so they could rejoin the 1st before it was destroyed. However, Minfilia stopped the Flood, which left them an opening. They just had to tip the Aetheiral balance just right and then cause a calamity on the first. Something they would have been successful in if not for our heroes intervention.

[QT_Melon]

The 13th was the Ascians first attempt at trying to rejoin a shard to the Source before they really knew what they were doing. We don't know all the details and if anything might know less now, but based on what we know:

A Flood of Darkness probably started which would turned even more people into Voidsent, HOWEVER unlike the Flood of Light the Ascians didn't have a Calamity ready on the Source to cause a "crack" for the aether from the 13th to be drawn into, and by the time they realized they needed to do this it was too late and the Flood of Darkness completely overtook the Shard.

Whatever aether was left after the complete fall to Darkness was then eaten up by all the various Voidsent and their voracious appetite meaning it is now completely useless.

As an aside while the 13th is no longer usuable for them our understanding is that the Ascians don't need to rejoin every shard to bring back Zodiark, they just need to bring back enough of his power to break from his prison, at which point they believe he could destroy Hydaelyn and make everything as it once was.

Just wanted to stress your point since this is what is missed in a lot of recaps. It's not the aspected flood that is bad and not needed. Its a flood with no outlet on the source to successfully rejoin that is bad for the Ascians. This is why disasters of the same element(s) happen - it's rejoining and releasing the same energy that flooded in.

The name BLACK ROSE is actually misleading, as people are apt to assume its dark aspected and attributed to Dark Qualities what we on the source would think as Umbral/Dark. However, research in the elements is that we got this flipped. Black Rose is actually LIGHT aspected. Umbral/Light.

Black rose was intended for the rejoining of light from the first. It's light aspected properties would cause stillness in bodies, death.

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