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

[Iscah]

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.

On the one hand, yeah. The levequest declares them salt crystals and that's super disappointing.

On the other... salt crystals? In a presumably-freshwater lake?

We were also harvesting "driftwood" from ruined buildings at one point if I remember right, so the descriptions are at least slightly dubious. I wonder if the levequest people actually talk to the lore people...

[Kesey]

On the one hand, yeah. The levequest declares them salt crystals and that's super disappointing.

On the other... salt crystals? In a presumably-freshwater lake?

We were also harvesting "driftwood" from ruined buildings at one point if I remember right, so the descriptions are at least slightly dubious. I wonder if the levequest people actually talk to the lore people...

No this is probably a real world thing that made it into the final fantasy game. A great example is the great lakes, which today are fresh water lakes, but underneath them is a large deposit of salt from pre-history when the United States or we should say the earth plates that would house the United States in the future were under the ocean.

[AmemeAmeklin]

On the one hand, yeah. The levequest declares them salt crystals and that's super disappointing.

On the other... salt crystals? In a presumably-freshwater lake?

We were also harvesting "driftwood" from ruined buildings at one point if I remember right, so the descriptions are at least slightly dubious. I wonder if the levequest people actually talk to the lore people...

If the salt isn't floating around in the water actively then it'd still be freshwater, I think. The water in the immediate vicinity might be brackish if the salt dissolves.

I can't comment on the driftwood label being assigned to house ruins, but I'm fairly sure both the names of the items gathered and the lore in the description are the product of the lore/localization team. If it turns into a problem with the MSQ, the locations of that levequest's nodes may find themselves mysteriously relocated in the future...

[RyuDragnier]

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.

I think more that perhaps Igeyorhm was the one who saved them. Consider the final scene with Elidibus after we give him the constellation crystals. Which ones did he hold? Igeyorhm and Lahabrea's. Lahabrea as we know was Unsundered, so it makes sense he'd take his considering they'd been together for millenia. But Igeyorhm's feels a bit out of place. If you come with the conclusion that Igeyorhm saved them from being Sundered, it makes a lot more sense.

[ShadowMeowth]

I think more that perhaps Igeyorhm was the one who saved them. Consider the final scene with Elidibus after we give him the constellation crystals. Which ones did he hold? Igeyorhm and Lahabrea's. Lahabrea as we know was Unsundered, so it makes sense he'd take his considering they'd been together for millenia. But Igeyorhm's feels a bit out of place. If you come with the conclusion that Igeyorhm saved them from being Sundered, it makes a lot more sense.

Iggy was the Convocation member shown alongside Lahabrea in Elidibus' memories, and she was who told him the line of: "the rains have ceased, and we have been graced with another beautiful day". It is common thought that Lahabrea and Igeyorhm were rather close, and apparently within the Convocation Elidibus felt the closest to them. Given that he cannot remember Azem, implied to have been his inspiration, but you get what I mean.

[EirolOcarrol]

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.

[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.

[ShadowMeowth]

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.

That could be a very possible event, and now that you mention Jenova we might be onto something because was it not Jenova who caused the Ancients' demise in FFVII? I would assume that Zodiark weaving anew creation might have ended the threat... for the time being. Emet brings up the possibility of it happening again when illustrating the issue with selfless sacrifice and mortals, so it would seem the Unsundered at least were well aware that it could happen again. And if it almost obliterated the Ancients and was only stopped through mutual cooperation, Emet had every reason to worry about what would become of the star if events repeat.

If the Sound was the result of something threatening and damaging the Lifestream, then I would say this by itself puts three names as the best prepared to identify and fight the threat: Azem because it was their role in the first place to locate threats to the star, Emet because of his natural affinity with the Lifestream (to the point he was considered "a denizen of the Underworld") and Hythlodaeus because of his heightened aetherial sensitivity and if the Sound was making the Ancients' creation magicks go haywire he was the Chief of the Bureau of the Architect and probably had a lot of experience in that area. And this of course brings back to the table the original power friend trio, and it reassures me in my opinion that they will be quite relevant for the story's resolution. Something tells me they hold the key.

[ObsidianFire]

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.

Creation Magic still exists. That is why Primals exist. Primals are created with Creation Magic. You can't say that Creation Magic was gotten rid of while Primal summoning (honestly, all of Arcanism really) is a thing.

As far as we can tell, Hdyaelyn can't really change what a thing is. She can just split it so that the qualities of that thing are fractions of what they used to be. But that doesn't actually stop that thing from being that thing. Zodiark is still Zoidark, he's just 1/14 as powerful as he was originally. Same thing goes for the world and the beings on it. So sure, the races have less aether than the Ancients do... but that doesn't affect their ability to move aether around. Or their ability to decide that an idea they have should be made a reality. It's just that making that thing a reality often require a much greater percentage of their aether than it would if they were Ancients. She never actually stopped them from doing so.

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.

Except we've seen several Primals summoned by accident with no Ascian involvement. Lakshmi and Susano come to mind. And Lakshmi was summoned by one individual not a group of people. As was Shiva and one version of Titan. And Thordan... etc. Get a lot of aether in one place and a very strong idea someone thinks is real and that's really all you need for a Primal to happen.

We also have a form of magic that seem very, very close to Creation Magic in concept if not in scale: Arcanism. Carbuncles, Egis and Faries all involve bringing an idea into being. It's just that the idea is based on the mathematics of aether that are recorded somewhere: in gemstones for Carbuncles, in your own Aether for Egis or in a Soulstone for Fairies. Arcanism is more or less the math of how aether behaves. And if you figure out one math/geometry that has one effect, it will always have that effect. Which is... pretty much what the purpose of the Bureau of Architecture was for: recording the various shapes/set-ups for Creation Magic. So yeah... Arcanism is probably "Creation Magic Lite", but at such scales that worrying about running out of aether isn't a problem. So the constructs are way smaller than the stuff the Ancients worked with on a regular basis.

There's also our Anima Weapon which is both (a) formed from our own aether and (b) based on a concept of what we want that being to be. And the Anima directly draws a parallel between it and all the Primal's we've fought. There's plenty of "Creation Magic Lite" going around in the world that the Ascians seemingly don't have any input in. It's just... limited by our much smaller aether pools.... but we are figuring out ways around that! Like storing excess aether in materials to use for later! What do you think we're doing for our Zeta and Anima weapons? A lot of that is storing up aether in them to use for some purpose later down the line.

[Alleluia]

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.

I just took "our people" to mean Amaurotines, not the entirety of the human(?) species. The Amaurotines all talk like they were the only ancients, but there had to be other cities, other cultures than Amaurot. In fact we know of at least one other city from ambient conversation in Amaurot. Amaurot was just the last city standing.

(Plus, Azem would have basically no job if there weren't other peoples to interact with; no new friends to make and then throw group teleport requests at.)

In that context, to say that Amaurotines, as a people, never experienced a conflict that they couldn't overcome with debate is perfectly feasible. No nation has a civil war until it does, and in theory its possible for them to have always managed to reach a consensus. I dunno how other peoples would have felt about the Amaurotines apparently always "dictating the direction of the star", but maybe they agreed to let them at some point? Maybe that was what Azem's position was made for, to maintain an ear to the other inhabitants of the world from the city that everyone's ancestors had agreed was allowed to decide that stuff.

That could be a very possible event, and now that you mention Jenova we might be onto something because was it not Jenova who caused the Ancients' demise in FFVII? I would assume that Zodiark weaving anew creation might have ended the threat... for the time being. Emet brings up the possibility of it happening again when illustrating the issue with selfless sacrifice and mortals, so it would seem the Unsundered at least were well aware that it could happen again. And if it almost obliterated the Ancients and was only stopped through mutual cooperation, Emet had every reason to worry about what would become of the star if events repeat.

If the Sound was the result of something threatening and damaging the Lifestream, then I would say this by itself puts three names as the best prepared to identify and fight the threat: Azem because it was their role in the first place to locate threats to the star, Emet because of his natural affinity with the Lifestream (to the point he was considered "a denizen of the Underworld") and Hythlodaeus because of his heightened aetherial sensitivity and if the Sound was making the Ancients' creation magicks go haywire he was the Chief of the Bureau of the Architect and probably had a lot of experience in that area. And this of course brings back to the table the original power friend trio, and it reassures me in my opinion that they will be quite relevant for the story's resolution. Something tells me they hold the key.

^That is the theory that I like the best, personally. Its between that and the idea that it was overuse of creation magic, I think. And the story hasn't confirmed one way or another, but given how controlled and seemingly well understood creation magic was, I doubt the Amaurotines screwed up badly enough to get blindsided with the end of the world. Plus, the sound started on the opposite side of the world to the Amaurotines, hence why they talk about losing contact with other cities as the phenomena makes its way towards them.

Also, the sound was causing meteors from space, which is just a weird choice to me. How many people's creation magic going haywire would cause the same identical phenomena like that? And how does creation magic on the ground even do that? I know we've got several instances of meteor spells in-game and meteors being dropped on us by bosses, but they don't come from *actual* space, they manifest within a couple hundred feet above us. These meteor showers were from at least low earth orbit.

When I first played, I thought perhaps the Ancients had reached space, tech-wise, and their satellites and/or stations were falling or something. We have no indication they did or didn't have that, but still, the meteors seem to be originating from beyond the planet, whatever they are composed of. It just feels like an external attack to me.