Quote Originally Posted by Kith_Whulfth View Post
I believe that Emet Selch imbuned the shades with just enough "self" to function as the actual Amaurotine citizens without actually being "alive." Therefore, the shade tried to summon a "guardian" using the same techniques that an actual scholar from the Akadaemia might. That being said, the Quetzalcoatl we fought was a far cry from the Primals that we've seen before in recent expansions, and this might be due to the shade lacking the aether of an actual living being, let alone that of a true Ancient. In other words, Emet Selch's enchantment is technically an act of creation magic (if incomplete or even half-hearted) and therefore the shade would technically have enough free will and aether to perform a somewhat lesser summoning.

I'll even go so far as to point out that Quetzalcoatl as we faced in the dungeon is far more potent than Ifrit when faced unsync'd on hard mode, meaning it's actually quite a potent creation when compared to the summoned Primals we face in ARR. After all, the shade we meet in the story (whose name eludes me right now) tells us that Emet Selch created them to give the illusion of the city as he remembered it. Emet Selch even went so far as to give these shades personalities and the ability to argue with each other without Emet Selch being there to see it. The shades are not truly alive, but they may as well be, and therefore have the force of will necessary to create or summon just as the beast tribes of the Source.
Then again, the only reason that shade of an Amaurotine tried to summon Quetzalcoatl was because they were trying to contain the chaos from all the experimental subjects being freed by Archaeotania. Which, if we follow this logic, was also created by Emet-Selch.

So Emet-Selch created the Akademia Anyder, populated it with Amaurotine researchers, populated it with dangerous experimental subjects, included a phantomological monster from "over the seas" that was smart enough to escape and cause a mass breakout, and allowed the simulacra of Amaurotines to panic and run away and die, while the simulacrum of Archaeotania could escape into the greater Tempest and terrorize the local Ondo.

It's an alarmingly long way to go for verisimilitude, I think.