The State of the Ascians (Assume Spoilers as of TODAY)

[Kesey]

You questioned her directly before and she lied to you though.

She lied by omission. Its the things she isn't telling us (are we tempered? that she is a primal. Why was our Ancient self not siding with her or Zodiark? Why pick us as champion instead of Venet?). Everything else she says seems to be verified by the Ascians.

I've also mentioned this in other threads, and I know speculation is pretty dry at this point for how 6.0 will play out, but one thing we can guarantee will happen is another conversation with Hydaelyn before we face Zodiark. Or she reveals her true intentions after Zodiark is dead.

[Lauront]

People seem to have jumped to this conclusion based on Her call "never ceasing" but it wasn't actually stated that way.

Maybe I'm still fixated on Her acting as all-loving and benevolent creator-goddess (even if we now know it to be artificial) I read the idea of Her call never ceasing as that She literally never stops calling to Her "beloved children".

Until we actually get a chance to question Her directly, I'm going to assume She's essentially an AI programmed to act as a benevolent goddess, and may genuinely think She is one - acting on false information perhaps, but that doesn't automatically mean She has malicious intent.

Whatever your thoughts on it, she is just the construct of the ancient world, much like Zodiark. Some people are still fixated on him being some power-hungry blood god, against all the evidence beginning to weigh against this line of thinking. In the end, the protagonist's ancient self decided to side with neither, and although they may not have agreed with the approach the Convocation was taking, they also did not agree with her side at that time, perhaps on the basis that one primal isn't a good solution to another. Whilst they do not agree with the approach the Ascians are taking, it is clear that they sympathise with the plight of the unsundered, e.g. by the melancholic reaction they give when you pick up the ex mode for the Seat of Sacrifice. Were it up to her they'd be cast off as little more than "minions of the dark one", to be destroyed. Convenient. She is no creator goddess - she is a tool, and tools can outlast their purpose and malfunction. If we accept this with Zodiark, so must we accept it with Hydaelyn. Furthermore, she wouldn't be the first Primal fancying herself to be a "mother" figure.

Moreover, there is some reason to speculate that it may well be on auto-record; slide 6 from these is indicative, assuming that the crystals that Zodiark and Hydaelyn "are", are themselves auracites intended to power them or something similar. Mikoto's speculation on their synthetic nature certainly lends itself to such an interpretation.

I mean... what did you want Hydaelyn to say in 3.x? "I'm an AI created by these creators called the Ancients, who existed before this world was split into 14 parts. They made me to keep back this other AI the Ancients created that was killing people by using up their aether to fix the world for them. Unfortunately, I was a lot weaker than he was, so I had to split him up to deal with him, but he was the Will of the Star at the time so splitting him split the world. Some of his summoners managed to avoid the splitting and became what you know as Ascians... who are also Ancients."

We'd have laughed her out of the building for talking about stuff she couldn't prove happened before our world history properly started. Too much has been destroyed on the Source to prove Amarot ever existed. Heck, the only reason we know she wasn't lying about there being a number of other reflections of our word actually exist (because we can't really communicated with the normal ones) was because we tangled with Ardbert and Co. who corroborated that fact!

So yeah... better to use terms we're already familiar with and tell the story about her relationship with Zoidark in such a way that doesn't bring the Ancients into it. What happened with the Ancients really doesn't matter in a lot of ways; they are gone. What matters is what situation the world(s) now are in and making sure more people don't die for nothing. And one of the realities of the situation we are in is that Hydaelyn is the Will of the Star... and she's super nice about not meddling in the affairs of man. Unlike the agents of Zoidark who are always meddling and always with the aim of making the situation worse than it started.

My big thing is... everything Hydaelyn said about her relationship with Zoidark was verified by Emet-Selch as being true. She was weaker than Zodiark. They were fighting in the Lifestream. Zodiark was going to kill a lot of beings (or rather, had already needed a lot of beings to die and needed/wanted more to die). Zoidark needed to be curtailed and that was her job. And she did do it, but the Ascians are weakening her by making Zoidark stronger... And Zodiark getting out of his Moon Prison sounds like a very, very bad thing.

Well no, it's not really true at all. It omits a lot of significant details and is simplified to the point of being false except in the very abstract details. It's not like she did not have an opportunity to say all this beforehand, and all of this coming from her would have been no less "laughable" than it coming from Emet, who up until that point was an even more dubious source. Emet was relying on an aetheric reconstruction of Amaurot, which wasn't really doubted. It's not like Hydaelyn has ever been second-guessed by the WoL, so I find the suggestion that they would not trust her dubious, at best.

The probable answer is that she, as a primal, does not know all this and is simply functioning on the protocol implanted in her by her summoners. Venat, however? That is another story entirely.

There are plenty of elements that are questionable, like how they thought giving her the power to sunder did not risk doing the same to the entire planet/Lifestream, given that Zodiark was embedded in it. There is also the question of why they deemed it a good idea to approach it this way after Elidibus had taken his exit of the Primal to negotiate with them. For all we know, this could be why the fight spiralled out of control.

What happened with the ancients absolutely does matter, as it provides context to the actions of the unsundered Ascians, and is also something that the protagonist has now committed to honouring, with Y'shtola's encouragement after Emet-Selch's request. You can call her "nice", or whatever, but we know little of her true imperative; she only seems "nice" because up until now, the motives and history of the Ascians were unclear and Zodiark seemed to be nothing but the "dark one". To me, she is at best deluded, at worst acting at the direction of a controller who herself is intent on suppressing the history of the world, whose motives we don't fully know and are assuming to understand. She is a primal implanted into the star without the benefit of the people who created it to oversee it and that is all she is. We have yet to understand how she impacts the Aetherial Sea and if that impact is adverse or not - the fact that the 80 AST quest points to it being saturated with light, much like the First, means it probably is not without consequence.

[Veloran]

The question is, what does She know and understand of the situation?

She was summoned in the old world, so she should at least know there was a world and people that existed before her and that she and Zodiark weren't the same being.

If her "program" is that Light and Dark must be kept in 50/50 balance while Zodiark's is to act alone with 100% power, then from Her perspective, Zodiark's actions constitute breaking the necessary balance and needing to be reined in. She doesn't need and may not have a full understanding of the situation to act this way - only as much as the programmer has told Her.

I have to ask, why do people give her so much benefit of the doubt as being a dumb robot that knows nothing and only acts according to extremely simplistic programming?

Even the modern Eorzean Primals, summoned haphazardly by a bunch of tribal cultures with hand-me-down rituals, are all sapient and cognizant beings. Ramuh even knew he was a Primal, actively didn't want to be summoned because he knew the ramifications, and returned to the Lifestream as soon as you prove to him that you're capable of protecting the Sylphs. I don't understand why people accept that she's so much more ignorant than other Primals summoned with quite literally a fraction of the knowledge and power that went into her creation.

[Lauront]

She lied by omission. Its the things she isn't telling us (are we tempered? that she is a primal. Why was our Ancient self not siding with her or Zodiark? Why pick us as champion instead of Venet?). Everything else she says seems to be verified by the Ascians.

I've also mentioned this in other threads, and I know speculation is pretty dry at this point for how 6.0 will play out, but one thing we can guarantee will happen is another conversation with Hydaelyn before we face Zodiark. Or she reveals her true intentions after Zodiark is dead.

IMO, there's omitting details which don't really alter the story, and then there's stripping out details which completely alter the context. Although at the very abstract level, what she said was true (but only in some respects), it stripped away everything that explained the motivation of the unsundered Ascians. Although given how the story is written, the protagonist would still not side with them, it would certainly make matters easier for her by presenting them as little more than wantonly destructive minions of some dark (hence, assumed to be ebul) deity. I believe not presenting the full story is rather patronising on her part - if it was done knowingly - and betrays a lack of trust in her own champion's judgement, to an extent, so it can certainly be construed as a form of manipulation.

The really thorny issues to me are whether the sundering was intentional or accidental and whether, by keeping the present life forms ignorant of their true state, she is seeking to hide a huge mistake. Even if the protagonist would not necessarily side with the Overlords, clearly some sundered life forms do, by taking up the seats of the sundered Overlords , and they might do so when they realise the world is in a broken state and that she isn't all she is cracked up to be. Venat's namesake from XII, her insistence to be the heart and the decision to press on with the power to enervate, even as Zodiark was at the heart of the Underworld/Aetherial Sea, are all questionable elements here. I personally hope they don't just let her off the hook easily and they actually make use of these potential lore elements, including any detrimental effect having a light-aspected (stasis oriented) Primal in the heart of the Aetherial Sea might have. I am expecting/hoping for a division between the Primal, which may act benign, and its "heart"/controller, who may have more nefarious aims, or be in a similarly monomaniacal state to Elidibus, intent on "banishing" darkness and keeping all the events a secret. The latter would mean she is not malevolent, per se, but committed to a path that may no longer make sense, setting her on a route for conflict with her hitherto champion.

She was summoned in the old world, so she should at least know there was a world and people that existed before her and that she and Zodiark weren't the same being.


I have to ask, why do people give her so much benefit of the doubt as being a dumb robot that knows nothing and only acts according to extremely simplistic programming?

Even the modern Eorzean Primals, summoned haphazardly by a bunch of tribal cultures with hand-me-down rituals, are all sapient and cognizant beings. Ramuh even knew he was a Primal, actively didn't want to be summoned because he knew the ramifications, and returned to the Lifestream as soon as you prove to him that you're capable of protecting the Sylphs. I don't understand why people accept that she's so much more ignorant than other Primals summoned with quite literally a fraction of the knowledge and power that went into her creation.

Seconded on all your points. Just look at how sophisticated Primals like Sophia or Sephirot are - the latter of whom evidently tells you more about the truth of the world than she does, only you don't know it. In the end, she and Zodiark are of a kind, and I fail to see why the worst should be assumed of him and yet she gets off scott-free, suffering none of the consequences all the other Primals do. She's just a hunk of crystal on auto-pilot, and even if she is genuinely ignorant, she has a heart whose motives might not even be that great.

I'm giving her some benefit of doubt, because I don't think she's outright malevolent, but to pretend Zodiark is just some ebul blood good (when the bulk of the sacrifices were voluntary and necessary given the state of the world, and the final stage doesn't even lead Venat to question the benign intentions of the Convocation, implying it was parsable in terms of the ancients' moral code(s)), and she is perfection in crystal form, is just rather uncharitable at this point.

[Rannie]

I mean, we don't laugh at her for claiming to be a primordial goddess of goodness and light who banished the evil darkness Zodiark from her own being before creating the world and bringing all mankind into existence. Nobody asked for proof for any of that.


She claimed that before there was life, she and Zodiark dwelled as one being within the aetherial sea, and that she banished him from herself because he coveted power and broke the balance. She also describes splitting him from herself as what the sundering of the star was, and that in doing this the fabric of reality "chanced" to falter and split the world into fourteen.

This is all a pretty egregious load of lies designed to make herself look good, cast Zodiark and the Ascians as rote villains, and paint her sundering of the star as an accident. I don't know how anyone can take it any other way, with what we know now.


Yes. It's not a point of view issue, what she tells us was not accurate to the reality of what happened.

from her point of view it was she just never said she was summoned or the reasoning. She basically told us they fought she split him and then sealed him on the moon and that the Ascians where doing everything they could to bring him back and she failed seven times.

[JeanneOrnitier]

"The good Light god was actually evil" is incredibly cliche and despite what some fans insist on I still don't see a reason to believe this story will fall into that pitfall.

[Theodric]

"The good Light god was actually evil" is incredibly cliche and despite what some fans insist on I still don't see a reason to believe this story will fall into that pitfall.

It's not really cliche in this context since the development team have stated repeatedly that the vast majority of conflicts in the setting are not a matter of 'good vs evil' and more so a matter of different perspectives that cannot find common ground. Even if they were to go that route, it's arguable as to whether or not it's a 'pitfall' in the first place.

Oddly enough, it's also a trope that is well in line with the 'heroic fantasy' narrative that has been thrown around here a lot recently as an excuse as to why consequences for the protagonists should be minimal to non-existent. With that in mind, I would've thought more posters around these parts would be enthusiastic about the idea of Hydaelyn not being entirely trustworthy.

[Lauront]

"The good Light god was actually evil" is incredibly cliche and despite what some fans insist on I still don't see a reason to believe this story will fall into that pitfall.

Equally, if not more cliched, is "dark evil, light good".

Besides, it's not necessarily a case of her being 'evil', but more so that neither fits neatly in the "good/"evil" category. So whatever.

[Erendis]

We have yet to understand how she impacts the Aetherial Sea and if that impact is adverse or not - the fact that the 80 AST quest points to it being saturated with light, much like the First, means it probably is not without consequence.

From Exarch's presentation I concluded that the Source was already flooded with light from the First and rejoining was imminent. Even though we prevented the rejoining as of yet we did nothing to restore the dark/light balance on the Source so it makes perfect sense that Aetherial sea would still be saturated with Light. This also makes Black Rose still very very dangerous.
So far nothing has come of the msq quest where we assisted the scientist while he was measuring aether levels in South Shroud (apart from poor Wilred's fate). My belief is that aether level was not actually low, but instead aether was slowed down by light which had already flooded from the First.

[RenewalXVII]

"The good Light god was actually evil" is incredibly cliche and despite what some fans insist on I still don't see a reason to believe this story will fall into that pitfall.

Like, FFX is a comparable example of God is evil, and it belabors the point throughout the entire game, in demonstrating how Yevon has perpetuated a broken system upon the world that traps all its people in a spiral of death. FFXIV hasn't done anywhere near that groundwork, and Hydaelyn's actions have been infinitely more benevolent. Such a twist would be immensely unsatisfying in FFXIV.