How do calamities work, again?

[Big-Isaac]

Another thing I don't quite understand yet is... weren't the Ascians in the process of ruining their own plan?
The way the Exarch describes his future, what happened when black rose was used wasn't a calamity, but a world ender. It seems like life on the Source was on its last legs with no hope in sight. This means that, had the Exarch not changed the future, life on the Source would have ended, which would have torpedoed the Ascians' plan. With no people around, there would have been no way to trigger the rest of the needed calamities. And even had they somehow managed to cause the rejoining anyways, there would have been no more life left on the Source to feed to Zodiark.

And on that note, is it even possible for the Ascians to succeed any more? Even if they manage to rejoin 12 of the shards, that still leaves the void shard. Emet himself admits that they screwed that world up something fierce, so doesn't that mean that, even in if everything else went smoothly for them, they'd be forever stuck at 13 out of 14?

[CaesarCV]

I don't think that the Black Rose Catastrophe was necessarily a World Ender worse than any of the other calamities. The Calamity of Water wiped out whole landmasses and set humanity basically back to the Stone Age. The 7th Umbral Calamity (Bahamut) was basically exceptionally tame by Calamity standards since most of the civilizations survived it. This is called an Umbral Cycle, where civilization has to rebuild, and much much knowledge is lost. Normally recovering takes hundreds or even thousands of years, at which point a new Astral Cycle begins. What Graha'Tia saw was a world amidst an Umbral Cycle, the state of incredible loss. Society would probably eventually recover (the Garlond Ironworks was apparently even still active in some capacity) but millions of lives would be lost and it may not recover in any shape recognizable to what it was.

To the Ascians it would be business as usual. They'd wait for civilization to rebuild enough, start up the process of unbalancing another shard, and then trigger the next calamity.

[QT_Melon]

Flood being poorly synched would be correct due to the time fluctuations

Black Rose is light aspected weapon. What we know now of the elements says Light is a passive, restrictive entity.

[Ilenya]

Another thing I don't quite understand yet is... weren't the Ascians in the process of ruining their own plan?
The way the Exarch describes his future, what happened when black rose was used wasn't a calamity, but a world ender. It seems like life on the Source was on its last legs with no hope in sight. This means that, had the Exarch not changed the future, life on the Source would have ended, which would have torpedoed the Ascians' plan. With no people around, there would have been no way to trigger the rest of the needed calamities. And even had they somehow managed to cause the rejoining anyways, there would have been no more life left on the Source to feed to Zodiark.

Eh. There would have been a point where the Black Rose stopped affecting people (clearly some were immune anyways) and few enough people fighting that things would have balanced out eventually. I'm wondering what sort of world would have arisen from that? An almost religiously Pacifistic singular nation?

[Hezzlocks]

The Flood of Darkness on the Thirteenth was too much. The other shards rejoined before they were too flooded all the way.
The Flood of Light on the First would also have been too much if Minfilia hadn't interfered back during HW, so Elidibus was probably counting on Urianger getting involved and asking Minfilia for help.

Actually, I don't think he was. The Warriors of Darkness arrived in the Source *while the flood was happening*, but were quite content with toying around with the WoL and taking the long way around to causing a Calamity via aggravating all the Beast tribes into summoning stronger Primals. That is, at least, until the WoL stopped the Garuda summoning, foiling their plans, and Urianger convinced them that killing the WoL would speed up the process in causing a calamity.

Their initial casual approach, alongside our new understanding of time between the stars, suggests to me that at that moment, time was moving very slowly on the First in comparison to the Source. While the flow of time was in this state, the WoDs had plenty of time to cause a calamity before the flood could overtake the First completely. In fact this could very well have been going on ever since Lahabrea attempted to cause a calamity with Ultima weapon.

If you consider this possibility, then Minfilia's involvement would have been unexpected, but not entirely unwelcome, as until she halted the flood they would have been working on a strict time limit. Minfilia's actions therefore would have foiled Elidibus' plot, *but* also given him all the time he needs to create a calamity to usher the rejoining.

That is, of course, until we arrive on the First, kill Emet-Selch, and remove a great deal of corrupted Light from the shard. Now, I personally don't think the shard is out of the woods yet. The Eden raid will very likely, imo, go deeper into the Sin Eater lore and reveal the source of the Sin Eaters, which means the First wouldn't be truly safe until the Eden raid is dealt with. But things have gotten so messed up that Elidibus clearly has no idea what will happen next. He's winging it now.

[QT_Melon]

Eh. There would have been a point where the Black Rose stopped affecting people (clearly some were immune anyways) and few enough people fighting that things would have balanced out eventually. I'm wondering what sort of world would have arisen from that? An almost religiously Pacifistic singular nation?

Question: do all civilizations that do arise from a calamity become that element, complete opposite or random?

[CaesarCV]

Question: do all civilizations that do arise from a calamity become that element, complete opposite or random?

There's always influence from the calamity itself, but it's not like the civilizations are directly attuned to any particular element. For example, after the calamity of Ice people hid in ice caves during the Umbral Era and eventually mastered Fire Magic, but it's not like they were the 'ice civilization' or anything like that.

[Ilenya]

Question: do all civilizations that do arise from a calamity become that element, complete opposite or random?

Generally speaking the new civilizations that arise tend to be against whatever the old Civilizations did to 'cause' the Calamity. There's probably going to be a massive anti-war anti-WoMD bias in the end in the 'normal' timeline.

[QT_Melon]

Generally speaking the new civilizations that arise tend to be against whatever the old Civilizations did to 'cause' the Calamity. There's probably going to be a massive anti-war anti-WoMD bias in the end in the 'normal' timeline.

Why would it be anti war though? Black Rose is light aspected? That element is passive and peaceful. Wouldn't it just raise more ruckus?

Ahh to cause it, I see what you mean.

[Ilenya]

Why would it be anti war though? Black Rose is light aspected? That element is passive and peaceful. Wouldn't it just raise more ruckus?

Ahh to cause it, I see what you mean.

Yeah, the lore book has more information on it than I recall offhand. I know they were pretty anti-Empire after the Earthquake, and anti-Black/White Magic after the Flood. I recall one with anti-religion, but I couldn't tell which offhand.