What exactly do we know as of 5.3 about the sound that was heard before Amaurot fell?

[ShadowMeowth]

All we know of the Ancients is seen through the lens of the last final survivors of that civilization. To say 'the first war in history' has to be taken as the hyperbole it is -- we know nothing about the history of the Ancients.

There may well have been tens of thousands of years of utter chaos, with war after war after war before the Ancients became what they were in Emet-Selch eyes. The highly structured civilization we see in Amaurot is the culmination of what went before. It did not drop into existence fully formed.

It is entirely possible that the 'Sound-heard-round-the-world' was akin to the Warring Triad in the Allagan Empire. Something to be contained. Something forgotten as the world moved on after the Allagan's civilization was no more.

I too believe the Ancients and Amaurot have to had come from something. My wild guess is that, since the Convocation seats have the names of the opposing scions of Light of XII's espers, perhaps they once fought the Lucavi like Ultima and the others we see in the Ivalice raid? At her defeat, Ultima proclaims: "I am your mother! I am your maker!" Which is... intriguing.

However, I should note that it was Hythlodaeus I was quoting, for he is qwho mentioned that at Hydaelyn's summoning, "for the first time in history, our people stood divided". Given the Ancients' lifespan, however, and that they were not immune to the fog of ages, I cannot put past them the possibility of having forgot whatever conflicts they overcame to reach their heights.

[Veloran]

I am of the mind that it may have been a reaction from the planet to the Ancients' hubris. Even in contemporary times the few that remained were extremely arrogant until their defeat; adding to this is that Amaurotine civilization takes many cues from Thomas More's Utopia (its existence as a utopia in Emet-Selch's memory; Amaurot; Hythlodaeus; Anyder) - a place that cannot exist in reality. It also has a smattering of Greek in it (Therion the "Chthonic Riddle;" Hades; several Greek words such as Akademia and Utopia), which lends credence to the idea of hubris being a part of the Ancients' downfall (a recurring theme in Greek myth).

This may be partially true somehow, but again I don't think the Final Days actually makes sense as a response from the planet.

Firstly, because we're told that the Ancients used their own personal aether to fuel their creation magic. As far as we know, they didn't draw from the land or the Lifestream. Secondly, the effects of the Sound was killing everything on the planet. We're told the Lifestream was quite literally suicidal and killing itself, just like all other life touched by the Sound. If the Ancients hadn't stopped it, the planet would almost certainly be a lifeless rock. So to think it was a response from the Lifestream, we'd have to take it as a given that it overreacted to a truly absurd and utterly self-destructive degree. Basically even if the Ancients caused it somehow, which I do believe, I very strongly doubt this was the scenario.

[ObsidianFire]

It's worth keeping in mind that Azem was the Convocation member traveling around the world and solving problems. And he's us. There is no way I can see Azem hearing about the Sound and its effects and not going to check it out to see what the problem is. In fact... I'd go so far to say that Azem being out and about and seeing the impact of the Sound was probably a major factor in why they were opposed to Zodiark's creation in the first place. Azem has more... practical knowledge of what the world (and people) are really like than the rest of the Convocation does. So it makes sense that they'd have a very different perspective of what was going on and how it should be dealt with.

While the Sound does mess with the Creation Magic... nothing we have seen of it indicates Creation Magic is the cause of it. From the sound of it, it comes up out of nowhere and starts wrecking havoc. More interesting, the "solution" to fixing the Sound isn't getting rid of Creation Magic. Whatever Zoidark did to end the Sound (or contain it) he left Creation Magic alone.

It is also worth saying that the races of the current era all use magic too... and way less efficiently than the Ancients did. The entire danger of White and Black Magic is that they use up the ambient aether and too much of that results in an imbalance in the aether... to the point it caused a Calamity. So if the Ancients got whacked by the Planet for using aether wrong... we should have got whacked a very, very long time ago. That we've been fine with our sub-par magic compared to the Ancients makes me think it wasn't that.

[Vyrerus]

What I find interesting about The Sound is that it's mere rumor, in so far as we are aware. They tell us about it, what it did, but not what it really was, what it really "sounded" like. A keening from deep within the earth? Pah.

We know that the Ancients were real people with feelings, desires, aspirations, jealousies, envies, and other similar emotions. Far from perfect, they still attempted to be, at least within the simulacrum of Amaurotine society that we are shown. This attempt at a unified, perfect society came at the cost of extreme suppression of the individual. They were only allowed to express themselves through officially sanctioned creation. Yet, this Azem seat existed that had to go out into the world and solve problems, meaning that there were other societies around the world that did not kowtow to Amaurot or their methods of societal restriction for the greater good.

Personally my thoughts on it are that the Sound is the result of uncontrolled creation magic, whether consciously created or more likely, sub consciously created, say by a dreaming individual. I think that the writers for XIV are likely to reference the old film, Forbidden Planet from 1956. Within that film a human scientist learns that a superior race of Alien, the Krell, once inhabited the planet he has been the lone researcher on, 200,000 years prior. They created a machine powered by 9,200 nuclear fusion reactors that was capable of constructing anything from their mere thoughts alone. The Krell apparently existed for over a billion years, and evolved past the point of war and violence. Yet, they disappeared, and all surface level structures of theirs on the planet were ground into dust in the span of a single night. "The secret devil of the soul of every person on the planet set loose all at once to loot and maim. To kill and take revenge." Within the movie, the professor who studies the Krell is shown to have gained their capacity at a limited scope to create with his mind, and he creates an intangible, invisible beast when he sleeps that seeks to destroy things that plague him in his waking hours. Of course, it differs in that the Krell could only create with their minds because they had a giant machine that ushered in all the energy and actually did the creating. The machine is subterranean, and it could be quite possible that the Ancients had something similar.

The Il Mheg pixie dailies somewhat show us this style of dream creation, wherein the reincarnated old Titania makes manifest the negative feelings of the children he's haunting in their dreams. The porxie sucks them up, and we slay them when the porxie sneezes them out into a tangible form. We've also been shown multiple times in past expansions that machines are created which can create clones, simulated primals, and even life... though that particular machine is alien in origin.

We're then shown Eden, which is, "the first sineater" that has a massive aether reservoir and can be used as a creation platform. We use it to make jank primals. Yet within the context of those fights, Ryne uses it to create solid matter for us to fight said primals upon. Note that the things created are being created both by the envisioner but also by Eden itself.

I think we're being fed foreshadowing with all these side threads to show us what caused that "keening." It's quite possible that something even bigger than Eden was held in a machine in the underground, and that it tapped directly into the Lifestream in order to facilitate the Ancients' lifestyle. We know they used their own extensive life energies to power their personal creations, and we assume that they had these large aether reservoirs because they were unsundered, but I speculate that this is not the whole story. It's quite possible that they augmented their entire race using the technology they had created in order to birth entire generations of gifted people.

Of course, it need not be a machine, but as others have said in the past, they tell us of a, "Sound." And the Ancient's most special power is dubbed, "The Echo." If the Sound really did directly influence their powers, rather than just their psychological state, then what's to say that it was always malevolent or chaotic in nature? Perhaps what was truly so terrifying about it was that it had never before been out of alignment with its intended purpose of gifting and guiding the powers of the Ancients. As for why it's underground, could be where it needs to be intertwined with the Lifestream, as in its first appearance the Lifestream was both physical and spiritual, being a green glowing liquid that runs through the entirety of the planet.

[Veloran]

While the Sound does mess with the Creation Magic... nothing we have seen of it indicates Creation Magic is the cause of it. From the sound of it, it comes up out of nowhere and starts wrecking havoc. More interesting, the "solution" to fixing the Sound isn't getting rid of Creation Magic. Whatever Zoidark did to end the Sound (or contain it) he left Creation Magic alone.

Zodiark fixed the immediate issue, but it was Hydaelyn that actually got rid of creation magic by sundering the world and splitting everyone's souls. Previously it was a natural ability inherent to (at least) all Amaurotines. Some semblance of it exists within current magical systems, but rather than drawing upon concepts, they mostly brute-force effects through the manipulation of aether. If it actually worked the same way, you'd probably see a lot of people trying to cast Fire 1, only to conjure a fit of bubbles or gust of air, as even the slightest idle thoughts or flawed conception ruined the spell they were trying to enact.

I think the primary invocation of creation magic we see in the current world is Primal summoning. It was explicitly taught by the Ascians, and the combination of a great many minds in the process may mitigate the issues of a flawed conception by drawing upon consensus as a whole rather than relying on a single ideal to form the summon.

Personally my thoughts on it are that the Sound is the result of uncontrolled creation magic, whether consciously created or more likely, sub consciously created, say by a dreaming individual. I think that the writers for XIV are likely to reference the old film, Forbidden Planet from 1956. Within that film a human scientist learns that a superior race of Alien, the Krell, once inhabited the planet he has been the lone researcher on, 200,000 years prior. They created a machine powered by 9,200 nuclear fusion reactors that was capable of constructing anything from their mere thoughts alone. The Krell apparently existed for over a billion years, and evolved past the point of war and violence. Yet, they disappeared, and all surface level structures of theirs on the planet were ground into dust in the span of a single night. "The secret devil of the soul of every person on the planet set loose all at once to loot and maim. To kill and take revenge." Within the movie, the professor who studies the Krell is shown to have gained their capacity at a limited scope to create with his mind, and he creates an intangible, invisible beast when he sleeps that seeks to destroy things that plague him in his waking hours.

Exactly my belief, though I kind of doubt any intentional allusions to that film or the presence of an actual machine beneath the earth. Instead I think it was a manifestation of their collective unconscious, inadvertently birthed through long-term use of their creation magics, that took form in the Lifestream.

[LineageRazor]

I doubt it were Venat and her followers who had a better plan. The Convocation was formed of the greatest sages of their kind, and if they did not know, then the dissenters probably did not have more knowledge. Their priority with Hydaelyn was subduing Zodiark, they mention nothing of the Sound. As for the Convocation, I assume they had their hands full on trying to prevent the ongoing catastrophe.

Is it so hard to believe? The Convocation members we know were pretty arrogant. I imagine a situation much like this:

Dissenters: We present to you information about the Sound, and a solution to the problem.
Convocation: We accept your information, and believe you speak true. However, your solution presents a drastic change from our comfortable way of life, and we therefore reject it. Here's our plan.
Dissenters: Your plan is... um... questionable. And doesn't really solve the problem. It'll just pop up again.
Convocation: If it does, then we will solve the problem the same way - and preserve our way of life in the process.
Dissenters: That's a lot of unecessary suffering!
Convocation: It IS necessary. Preservation of the status quo is of the utmost importance.
Dissenters: We disagree, and will enact a plan to counter YOUR plan.

I do like the idea that Azem was the only one to discover the truth about the Sound (and, as you say, it makes sense since she was the one to actually do the legwork rather than just armchair theorize). But it is not difficult at all for me to imagine the Dissenters finding the truth, and the Convocation being just plain unwilling to jeopardize their way of life.

Personally my thoughts on it are that the Sound is the result of uncontrolled creation magic, whether consciously created or more likely, sub consciously created, say by a dreaming individual. I think that the writers for XIV are likely to reference the old film, Forbidden Planet from 1956.

I was wondering if anyone else noticed that! Yeah, I was getting a REAL strong Forbidden Planet vibe from all this.

I don't think the Ancients had a machine or creature powering their creation abilities, however. The storyline mentions that each Ancient had an enormous amount of Aether within them which they used to power their Creation magic. One Ancient we talked to noticed (who had mistaken us for a child) noted that the Aether within us was WAY weaker than it should be (even for a child), and recommended we get a device to assist us in performing Creation magic.

The origin of Amaraut is an interesting topic. It's clear that they're aware that discord can be a thing (which is why they wear masks and suppress individuality), but they've eventually had no conflict more violent than sprited discussion for as long as anyone can remember. While we know only bits and pieces of what life was like outside of Amaraut, but it seems as though relations between the cities was peaceful (though not cooperative enough that Amaraut immediately leapt to the defense of other cities when the Sound began to manifest - instead, they debated whether they should). Amaruat was a Utopia, and had been for a very, very long time, considering that Ancients are very long-lived and apparently have no history of serious conflict beyond a general injunction against individualtiy.

So, what did this Utopia arise FROM? All we have to go on is our personal experience on our own planet, from which civilization arises from barbarism. Is this the only possible way it could have happened? Were the really, really ancient Ancients similarly barbarous, and eventually found common ground? Or were they peaceful from the day they came to exist as a people? For that matter, did they evolve from lesser beings at all? Or did they just spontaneously come into being fully formed as they are, like the gods they resemble?

The Sound was a change, brought to a society that was largely changeless. If the Sound was CAUSED in some way by the Ancients, they must have had some kind of change the prompted it. Either that, or the change that brought about the Sound was EXTRAORDINARILY gradual. If the Ancients' overuse of Creation magic caused the problem, either something happened recently to ramp up the use of Creation magic, or it had been poisoning the well for a very, very long time...

[Yuella]

Forbidden Planet itself was inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest

[ShadowMeowth]

Is it so hard to believe? The Convocation members we know were pretty arrogant.

I do like the idea that Azem was the only one to discover the truth about the Sound (and, as you say, it makes sense since she was the one to actually do the legwork rather than just armchair theorize). But it is not difficult at all for me to imagine the Dissenters finding the truth, and the Convocation being just plain unwilling to jeopardize their way of life.

They were pretty arrogant towards /mortals/. Their attitude is more or less, "you do not know a thing", and to be honest they were rather right. Not the best approach, indeed, but not without reason.

I would say arrogance was on the dissenters' side. They note that they are few in number because most of the people place their faith in the Convocation. And yet, these fewer decide in stead of all their kind and very well aware that their "chosen course may yet doom all of our brethren". Hydaelyn's summoning was not condoned nor approved not just by the Convocation, but a great majority of the Ancients, and that included Azem, the defector. And they did it merely because they feared Zodiark: Hydaelyn's purpose is not "contain the Sound", it is "keep Zodiark in check". This is coherent with FFXII!Zodiark's bio: he was sealed and bound, forever kept an infant, because the gods feared his power.

Now that you mention a machine, however, I doubt it has anything to do with powering up creation magicks (as you mentioned, the Ancients had enough aether by themselves to cast them without resorting to the land, and if they needed a greater incantation, they surrendered their own life force, see Quetzalcoatl and Zodiark) but the very first relevant Amaurotine building we visit are the ruins of the Walls of the Forgotten, a rather peculiar structure of which we only see the top of the tower, and if you recall the mural, it was from that point that the painting depicting Amaurot in flames was portrayed. The architecture of this tower is definitely different from the usual Amaurotine spires, and Y'shtola wonders aloud how much of the building is buried underground. The whole construct does have the appearance of some sort of machine. Hmm. Room for thought.

[AmemeAmeklin]

Actually, if you dive into the Source Lake, there are strange crystalline structures near the string of isles of Sullen.

Sorry to disappoint, but a mining leve from Crystarium tells us these are just giant extra pure salt crystals XD I got excited about those too, but then I got to hack at them later and was deeply disappointed.

One Ancient we talked to noticed (who had mistaken us for a child) noted that the Aether within us was WAY weaker than it should be (even for a child), and recommended we get a device to assist us in performing Creation magic.

As for this, the ancient specifically said our 'capacity for Creation' is nonexistent, so they sent us to beat up a cubus to harness its aetherial energy. Then they gave us an item that apparently was a concept matrix...and it was a lightning cluster. So a crafting catalyst was our reward. I assume this is partially a limitation to Emet-Selch's illusion (the merchant in Amaurot is also extremely limited, for some reason Emet-Selch saw fit to let them sell fishing bait?!) and partially a limitation to our own abilities thanks to sundering.

Concept Clerk: Pardon me for asking, but your creative potential is, um...relatively low, is it not? We are trained to assess these things, and I fear that you do not possess the ability to express this concept in physical form. It's almost as though you completely lack it, though that can't possibly be...

[...]

Here you are: a creation matrix that you may use to generate your own robes.

The concept is inscribed upon the crystal, which has been infused with the aether of the beast you brought me.

...What? Why are you looking at me as though you do not know how to channel the powers of creation? It is as natural as breathing─even a newborn babe has the instinct. Even if your potential is lacking, as one of our people, you must surely know what to do...

- Community Cohesion

I sort of figured based on this that crafting itself is a limited form of creation, since all recipes use elementally aspected crystals as catalysts to make something out of just a few items. The issue for the ancients would be that we sundered souls need materials, experience, and a pattern of sorts as well as the catalyst to actually make anything, and we certainly can't create fantastic beasts out of thin air. Now, with an actual proper concept matrix like what's seen in Anamnesis, it's shown that merely channeling aether into one will bring the concept to life. Bigger or more complex concepts require more aether, and therefore more than one Ondo has to channel into it to activate it. It doesn't necessarily kill the channeler, either. Comparing that process to Emet-Selch, who gave us an entire dungeon of monsters to battle with relatively little effort (I assume - we never actually saw him make it, so who knows how long it actually took him or how he did it), you can see why he would consider us weak and malformed.

Related to the topic, I surmised from the MSQ that there was more than one Sound.

Anxious Amaurotine: Have you not heard? Though yet confined to the lands across the sea, a terrible phenomenon afflicts our star. They are calling it the “Final Days.”

'Tis said it starts suddenly, a cacophonous keening from beneath the earth. The sound distorts all living things within earshot, and wrests from us control of our creation magicks.
Once that happens, all is lost. Fear, pain, despair...every dread impulse is siphoned from our minds and given substance: an eternal fall of fiery rain; an incessant spawning of nightmarish beasts...

None can point to the source of the phenomenon. 'Tis as if the star itself has fallen ill─as if a force inimical to life now festers and spreads.

'Tis only a matter of time until Amaurot, too, resounds to that discordant squall. You should stay with your loved ones, child... Stay with them...

- The End of a World

It seems from this that the sound would travel and cause havoc. Azem would've followed it, most likely, trying to put a stop to it...

This is mostly conjecture but I have had the impression from the Amaurot dungeon that the boss battles were originally fought by the convocation. I don't think it would be wrong to suggest, post 5.3, that Azem would have arrived in Amaurot (despite leaving their seat) and fought Therion with Emet-Selch + others.

The question remains as to how Lahabrea, Emet-Selch, and Elidibus escaped the Sundering when Hydaelyn was summoned, not to mention the exact timeline of summoning...I feel like Emet-Selch would've thrown himself into summoning Zodiark only after Azem ends up falling in battle, considering he chose to make an Azem fruit gummy in secret despite being tempered (I would assume these were made some time after the sundering, to raise the shards of other convocation members to their office), and he made seemingly a dozen contingency plans and even helped us out of the void despite being dead...but that's all baseless speculation for the moment.

Hmm, now I'm all fired up! Time to write some fanfic! XD

[ShadowMeowth]

Sorry to disappoint, but a mining leve from Crystarium tells us these are just giant extra pure salt crystals XD I got excited about those too, but then I got to hack at them later and was deeply disappointed.

Bah! This is what I get for not leveling crafters / gatherers. Disappointment.

It seems from this that the sound would travel and cause havoc. Azem would've followed it, most likely, trying to put a stop to it...

This is mostly conjecture but I have had the impression from the Amaurot dungeon that the boss battles were originally fought by the convocation. I don't think it would be wrong to suggest, post 5.3, that Azem would have arrived in Amaurot (despite leaving their seat) and fought Therion with Emet-Selch + others.

The question remains as to how Lahabrea, Emet-Selch, and Elidibus escaped the Sundering when Hydaelyn was summoned, not to mention the exact timeline of summoning...I feel like Emet-Selch would've thrown himself into summoning Zodiark only after Azem ends up falling in battle, considering he chose to make an Azem fruit gummy in secret despite being tempered (I would assume these were made some time after the sundering, to raise the shards of other convocation members to their office), and he made seemingly a dozen contingency plans and even helped us out of the void despite being dead...but that's all baseless speculation for the moment.

The way Emet narrates, he does it make sound personal, as if he were part of those battles. That Azem would have fought alongside him, that is definitely a possibility, for the whole Amaurot and the dungeon are not exactly aimed at the Scions but at the WoL/D to see if their memories can be given a push.

The whole not-getting-to-craft-a-memory-crystal was Ancient law, but I do not see it being equal to instant-hate-from-the-Convocation. They all were rather close, closer to some than to others as we see with Azem and Emet-Selch, Loghrif and Mitron, and Elidibus, Lahabrea and Igeyorhm, but generally close. In their constellation crystals they mutually comfort each other when the world is heading into ruin. It would not be in Azem's nature to leave Amaurot, her people and their friends Emet and Hythlodaeus and the Convocation deal with the Final Days on their own. As for how Elidibus, Lahabrea and Emet escaped the Great Sundering, my wild guess is that Azem might have had a hand on it. I actually wrote a short thing about that a few months ago... You know, perhaps Azem tried to shield Emet and Lahabrea and Elidibus got into the shield because proximity (?) and that is why they escaped. Emet in particular seems to fiercely resent the notion of heroism because apparently that word essentially means "sacrifice", see Elidibus. It would not surprise me if he actually resented it more because something Azem did. I do agree, all of this is FanFiction fuel at its best. :)