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

[Cilia]

While we don't exactly know, I think there is reason to hypothesize, and my personal hypothesis is that, Creation Magicks were always dangerous. And an eventual dominoes effect catastrophe was always inevitable.

Ascian society was 'enlightened' because it had to be. Because if they weren't, the keg of gunpowder that was them, themselves, and their dangerous powers, would cause untold desctruction. And even said enlightened society did fall. The sound might not have even been anything important. Or even real. It was their imaginations that were dangerous. They didn't have such an ability to keep the power in check or under safe control, despite their best efforts. It was the fear of the unknown that was their undoing.

Hence why the Sundering of the Source into 13 extra shards was deemed necessary. In order to prevent another Creation Magick's induced calamity.


That's the conclusions a lot of us have come to. And is probably right.

Except...

The Sundering was, to the best of anyone's knowledge, an unintended side-effect of Hydaelyn sundering Zodiark in order to bind him.

It's not as if the Ancients' creation magicks didn't have dangerous potential - see the Terminus beasts - but if we're to take everything Emet-Selch told us at face value the Sound was definitely what brought Amaurot to ruin. What caused the Sound itself, if anything, remains unknown. (Some mysteries don't have answers, no matter how hard we look.)

Anyway. I don't remember anything stating the Sound caused all life to twist and die - just that it drove the Ancients mad and forcefully invoked their creation magicks, bringing their worst nightmares to life against their will. The nightmare beasts summoned thusly would have been more than capable of wreaking the death and destruction we see in the Amaurot dungeon.

If the Sound was damaging the Lifestream itself, that makes things very different... and is more suggestive of malicious intent from something (Jenova?). Regardless, we still know next to nothing about what caused it and haven't learned anything new since Emet-Selch told us about it.