Theory on Hydaelyn and Zodiark’s nature

[StickMan]

Not sure if I missed it at some point but, why didn't Zodiark resurrect the ancients after he stabilized the star? Was Hydaelyn summoned in tandem? At first I thought this was not the case- that the Amaurot who defected did so after experiencing the subjugation that Zodiark enacted. Ascian behavior, however, makes it seem as though they were always the only ones that survived the summoning, and hinting that other council members summoned Hydaelyn. The citizens you encounter along the way also hint that they are pretty ignorant to what the council was planning.

My best guess to the timeline is that Zodiark was summoned by sacrificing all but the council, then made known his conditions for reviving the Amaurot. These were too much for the defectors and they summoned Hydaelyn as the only alternative to combat the disaster. Zodiark's method was to completely surrender control to him, Hydaelyn's was to relinquish the power of creation itself. The clash between the dark (active/control) and light (passive/release) made existence brittle and it split. Probably (maybe) a third consequence that neither side had intended.

[Alleo]

Not sure if I missed it at some point but, why didn't Zodiark resurrect the ancients after he stabilized the star? Was Hydaelyn summoned in tandem? At first I thought this was not the case- that the Amaurot who defected did so after experiencing the subjugation that Zodiark enacted. Ascian behavior, however, makes it seem as though they were always the only ones that survived the summoning, and hinting that other council members summoned Hydaelyn. The citizens you encounter along the way also hint that they are pretty ignorant to what the council was planning.

Because he needed the energy of their souls to save the planet and to restore it afterwards. The Ascians might believe that they can bring their people back by simply giving Zodiark enough aether so that he can free the rest but we do not even know if that is possible. In the lvl 80 side dungeon the endboss turned into a monster by giving up his lifeforce (and I do believe that in German he mentions Lahabreas idea). Unlike Ysayle who turned back after we defeated Shiva, the Ancient one was seemingly gone. Also if Zodiark needed the sacrifice to power up anyway then wouldnt it make more sense that their souls are just gone? Used as fuel for the change? Maybe the Ascians simply cant handle the truth or maybe (if Zodiark has his own free will) he made them believe that to get more power but never wanted to fulfill the promise.

[Sylvain]

I wouldn't be surprised if at some point a lfie catastrophic event is to take place and hydealyn is fine with it because that said event becomes part of the whole '' natural evolution '', therefor she refuses to help us. We then have to get help from Zodiark itself (and that she's not OK with because she's been summoned to counter Zodiark ability to restore the world)
The story ends with both Zodiark and hydylean fighting, both get destroyed in the process (by us perhaps, like we use their ether to mend the Earth) and that's how ff14 story ends. With the' 'death' ' of both zordiark and hydealyn.

Y. P in an interview said that the story will end in a way that makes anything after very hard to implement. Basically they would need a new "reset" like ARR.

[Alleo]

I wouldn't be surprised if at some point a lfie catastrophic event is to take place and hydealyn is fine with it because that said event becomes part of the whole '' natural evolution '', therefor she refuses to help us. We then have to get help from Zodiark itself (and that she's not OK with because she's been summoned to counter Zodiark ability to restore the world)
The story ends with both Zodiark and hydylean fighting, both get destroyed in the process (by us perhaps, like we use their ether to mend the Earth) and that's how ff14 story ends. With the' 'death' ' of both zordiark and hydealyn.

Y. P in an interview said that the story will end in a way that makes anything after very hard to implement. Basically they would need a new "reset" like ARR.

The question is, if we would ever take the help of something like Zodiark, knowing that he needed sacrifice to work. (We should not forget that part) The question is: What catastrophic event? If its a calamity thanks to the Ascians then Hydealyn always helped by sending out WoLs. If its something natural why should she help? Why should we try to stop it by going to him? If people want the reign of the world solely in the hands of men then men should solve their problems alone too. Not go ask for help from a primal and then afterwards destroy it. (And I am not necessarily talking to you, mean it more about the whole NeitherPrimal stuff - if you are for that then solve everything alone, no help from higher beings)

I am curious about that interview. Because I have not heard about such a statement before, so would be nice to have a source. I do remember that he once said that even if we finish the Ascian/Hydealyn/Zodiark plotline, we should not worry because they have still enough stories to tell, maybe even the origin of the WoL.

I mean I even now have a hard time seeing how we would ever see Zodiark awake. Maybe suddenly there is another solution for him to wake up, but not even the Ascians have one..so the only part would be to destroy all the shards. And after that (which means countless of calamities) they would have to resdesign every single zone on the source. I honestly doubt that they would do that.

[Sylvain]

The question is, if we would ever take the help of something like Zodiark, knowing that he needed sacrifice to work. (We should not forget that part) The question is: What catastrophic event? If its a calamity thanks to the Ascians then Hydealyn always helped by sending out WoLs. If its something natural why should she help? Why should we try to stop it by going to him? If people want the reign of the world solely in the hands of men then men should solve their problems alone too. Not go ask for help from a primal and then afterwards destroy it. (And I am not necessarily talking to you, mean it more about the whole NeitherPrimal stuff - if you are for that then solve everything alone, no help from higher beings)

I am curious about that interview. Because I have not heard about such a statement before, so would be nice to have a source. I do remember that he once said that even if we finish the Ascian/Hydealyn/Zodiark plotline, we should not worry because they have still enough stories to tell, maybe even the origin of the WoL.

I mean I even now have a hard time seeing how we would ever see Zodiark awake. Maybe suddenly there is another solution for him to wake up, but not even the Ascians have one..so the only part would be to destroy all the shards. And after that (which means countless of calamities) they would have to resdesign every single zone on the source. I honestly doubt that they would do that.

Well, sometime you go for the lesser evil, the end of all life or some life basically.

Regarding said catastrophic event, I have no clue. To me the world seems balanced enough as long as Asciens Don't meld with it. Even the most unbalanced worlds, the first and the 13th would (presumably) not have Fallen to light/darkness had the ascien not influences people on respective worlds. The catastrophic event also implies it is NOT ascien related (otherwise should would obviously help).
If it's a natural event, I Don't think she should/would help, because that would go against her main mantra which is to leave us alone and do things our own way. But I Don't see why we wouldn't ask for help. I mean, if the world's about to end most people would probably want to get help if possible, even from Hydaelyn.

However I would see Zordiark helping us (assuming we give him the mean to), his role is to mend the earth, and while his first true goal is to recreate the ancient world, not letting the source go totally bonker would probably be a step in the right direction.

When I said we would destroy it, I saw it more as "the end result of the whole us getting help from Zordiark and having Hydealyn pissed", there would be a fight and through some mean, they would both get destroyed after saving the world. (Closing the Hydaelyn/Zordiark story)

I also Don't see how we would get help from him, but at the same time, without saying "Zordiark is the ultimate vilain", I can't see the story ending without us dealing with ascien (so including zordiark) once and for all.

Regarding the interview, I saw it long ago and it was more like a side statement like, Y.P said the end of the story had already been decided, to which the interviewer asked "so what after?" and Y.P replied, laughing a bit like "well we'd probably have to do some ARR 2.0"
However, this might have changed, they might have also changed the way they want to end the story etc. But that's what I remember.


So what could happen?

I dunno, perhaps the CT time traveling would cause issues... but then again, had the asciens not caused the light calamity, there would be no Time Travel issue.

[Quor]

As a former therapist, I'll say this; imagination is a helluva drug.
I used to work with kids and families quite a bit, and often times when a couple or family would come in for therapy, there had been trouble brewing for some time. Many of these parents would say that their kids "don't know" that they are having problems, that they've kept it between mom and dad or something. I always tell them that they're wrong; the kids may not know exactly what's wrong, but they do know that something is wrong, and this is far worse than knowing the truth. The fears and threats conjured by imagination in response to the unknown are almost universally worse than the actual truth is. One of the core points behind therapy is to identify and give a name to the problem or problems a person is having. Going from "I don't know why I feel this way but I hate it and want to stop it" to "I'm depressed because of a series of events in my life and this is a natural response to those high-stress events" takes a huge burden off the shoulders of a person. Being able to point at something and say "this right here is the problem" means you can start to fix the issue. As any engineer or mechanic will tell you, you've got to know what's wrong before you can do anything to fix it.

To that end, I'm a supporter of the "creation magicks gone wild" approach to why Ascian civilization came crumbling down. Once "something" had happened that wasn't immediately identifiable as a problem, it became easier for people to start to wonder what it could be. The Ascian's weren't stupid; they probably knew a canned political "nothing to see here" response when they heard one, and much like the parents above asserting that there was no problem, the regular Ascian folks of the world knew that *something* was up. What's more is that there's a good chance the Ascian leaders probably didn't know exactly was wrong either. Whether or not the catastrophe was spawned from some outside force I cannot say, although I assume it's certainly possible. But I also am a firm believer in the idea that the Ascians spawned their own doom via an errant thought made manifest. Psychology provides a possible explanation for this as well, specifically in what's known as a positive feedback loop.

You see these kinds of positive feedback loops most commonly in individuals with panic attacks. The general pattern that occurs is a person who is susceptible to panic attacks experiences anxiety, that in turn causes an increase in biological activity such as heart and breathing rate. The increased heart and breathing rate prompts an activation of the sympathetic nervous system, as the body begins to prepare to defend itself against a threat, which in turn facilitates greater blood flow to vital areas, further increasing heart and breathing rate. All of a sudden, the person finds themselves breathing fast and shallow with a heart pounding out of their chest and boom, panic attack.

The important thing to note here is the synergy between the two, how the physiological changes of increased heart and breathing rate can have a conscious effect on how the person perceives what is happening to them. It could be something as simple as running up a flight of stairs that triggers the faster breathing/heart beat, but if a person who is prone to anxiety consciously becomes aware of this they may wonder why their heart is beating faster and they're short of breath. This can be all that's needed to trigger the feedback loop for a panic attack. Likewise, a similar situation could have occurred with the Ascian's and served as the root of the "calamity" that resulted in the summoning of Zodiark and Hydaelyn. An errant thought about a "boom" or something from deep beneath the earth manifests as an actual boom via creation magicks. No one knows how or why this boom started, and so the power of imagination takes over, and local Ascians begin to think of what kind of being could cause such a thing to occur. Soon, stories spread about the mysterious sound from beneath the ground and next thing you know you've got a many-mouthed worm-like monstrosity dropping meteors on people and tearing down buildings in the capital city.

I also Don't see how we would get help from him, but at the same time, without saying "Zordiark is the ultimate vilain", I can't see the story ending without us dealing with ascien (so including zordiark) once and for all.

I've wondered about that; so far, the only method of rejoining that has been done was forceful destruction of a shard that then gets absorbed back to the Source, with catastrophic consequences for those living on the Source and complete annihilation for those on the now-destroyed shard. This is told to us as the only way that rejoining can occur, but what if there was a way to bring the shards and the Source back together without destroying a shard or causing massive upheaval on the Source? Did Emet etc. even try to find a method like that? I doubt it; Emet makes it clear that he sees non-complete Ascian's as incomplete abominations, a mockery of something that was once great. A few billion life forms is a small price to pay, so why bother saving them, particularly when Emet talks about living a "thousand thousand" of our lifetimes (which assuming an average age of 50 - quite a lowball number - is at least 50 million years). So I doubt that the Ascians as we know them ever bothered to try a less forceful way of rejoining in lieu of what was likely a quick, dirty and more or less guaranteed method. That doesn't mean it's impossible. Perhaps the end game would be a reunification of the shards and the Source via some means that doesn't involve the complete destruction of entire worlds.

As a side note, I'm also curious as to where Middy falls in all this, specifically with the huge release of aether that came after the first battle over Mor Dhona. It's clear he found and settled on Hydaelyn after the sundering occurred, and we know he made a pact with her, but what was his side of the bargain exactly? It can't have been just to test future WoL's that come across his path.

[EdwinLi]

The nature at the bare bone level so far from my understanding is.....


Similarities....

1) Act as the Will of the Planet to Prevent the Original Calamity from Returning.

2) Preserve life on the Planet.

Differences....

1) Zodiark preserve life on the Planet by sacrificing the newer generation to preserve those of the past while Hydaelyn preserve the newer generation but sacrifice the past to give future generations a chance to prosper.


Both are designed with one goal being the preservation of the planet but who they priorities differs which is the source of there eternal conflict with Zodiark focusing on the Past and Hydaleyn focusing on the Future.

I can only assume the only time Zodiark and Hydaelyn will ever get along is if they have to defeat a common enemy that threatens the entire Planet which looks like will be born very soon...

Look at.....

Zeno and his plan to consume both Zodiark and Hydaelyn so he can become a being so powerful it would create the world most devastating and bloodiest battle in the history of the Planet against the Warrior of Light just for his person thrills that may end up causing the Greatest and most destructive Calamity not even the Ascians would dare create due to ebing of equal or greater destruction of the Original Calamity that almost destroyed the Planet.

[Zorzi]

I've wondered about that; so far, the only method of rejoining that has been done was forceful destruction of a shard that then gets absorbed back to the Source, with catastrophic consequences for those living on the Source and complete annihilation for those on the now-destroyed shard. This is told to us as the only way that rejoining can occur, but what if there was a way to bring the shards and the Source back together without destroying a shard or causing massive upheaval on the Source? Did Emet etc. even try to find a method like that?

I think there's one method of Rejoining that we would have access to that the Ascians did not - Hydaelyn herself. If she can Sunder, can she Unsunder in a less calamitous way? The Ascians would never know, or even think to ask (and I'd question if she'd listen to them even if Zodiark wrote a very sincere apology letter.) But if she can, I think the WoL of all people would be able to make it happen.

[Alleo]

My problem is more: Why would we want to return the world to its state it once was? If we keep the souls split then why change it up anyway and if we dont keep the souls split then all those now individual people will melt into the source one which kinda means that they are killed. With the story pushing that its better to let the past go and just turn to the future I do believe that at the end we will still be those imperfect split souls and are fine with that.

[QT_Melon]

My problem is more: Why would we want to return the world to its state it once was? If we keep the souls split then why change it up anyway and if we dont keep the souls split then all those now individual people will melt into the source one which kinda means that they are killed. With the story pushing that its better to let the past go and just turn to the future I do believe that at the end we will still be those imperfect split souls and are fine with that.

I dunno, I think the current situation is a stop gap, temporary fix. Why do the souls need to be split - wouldn't it just be as well if we were able to move on beyond the Primal's influences and be able to create NEW souls and NEW life? The whole point of the sundering wasn't just to keep Zodiark in check but keep the new life that was created. I think it's time to leave the nest and let ourselves for better or worse create new lives as such.