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

[Rannie]

Venat and her companions were just as large and they were actual hologram recordings, not creations of Emet.

Not to mention that the dungeon where Venat's Hologram is shown has chairs and tables in there. Those chairs are bigger than my character who is the tallest Hyur Midlander and if he tried to sit in it he would need a booster seat just to see a little above the table. Its also needs to be pointed out that that Dungeon is not a recreation but one of the actual surviving Amarout buildings within the Tempest.

Quoted above poster due to adding on ^_^

[ShadowMeowth]

While Venat isn't referred to with gendered pronouns in EN, most other languages lack English's unusual gender neutrality as a language. Every other language uses gendered pronouns, and those refer to Venat as a woman.

Reincarnation is quite a different thing to using magicks to alter one's sex.

Aye, I can confirm. I mean, I play in English, but I am from Spain and we lack the neutral gender pronoun; we have masculine and femenine words and articles for abstract concept, items, you name it. I remember getting used to the forms of neutral gender in English being one of the hardest parts.

Right now I do not recall if in FFXII's Spanish localization Venat was addressed as female... I would have to check. I do know that in French, our Venat is openly referred to as a woman. But at the time of the previous post I did not remember that, what I had in mind was the English cutscene.

[Vyrerus]

tallest Hyur

Sorry to nitpick, but Rannie appears to be a midlander. The tallest Hyur are Highlanders. :P

But yeah, even Roes look like kids in that furniture.

[Hank_Hotspur]

From what I gather, in-game lore-wise, we all know about as much as the sound as we did when first made privy to it: not much at all. However, looking at it from the meta level of how FFXIV likes to incorporate elements from other FF games and remixes them, I wouldn't be surprised if "the sound" was caused by a being similar to Jenova or Lavos, a something from a distant star that embedded itself within the star (which I guess we should call Zodiark, since Zodiark the primal was "the will of the star") and then awoke.

[Zohar_Lahar]

But I digress. What I consider interesting is something that is generally overlooked and it could be a clue about the nature of the Sound and the Terminus: the DNC quest, specifically the Kriegstanz and the Totentanz. The "dance of the damned" is negative feelings taking hold of people and controlling their bodies, and the Kriegstanz forces those energies out, and curiously, the forms they take are eerily similar to the Terminus monstrosities. Now, the narration of Amaurot mentions a passage of the Book of Revelations that goes more or less like: "But it was neither fang or claw, but our very sins, stacked to the heavens where they took root." The Ancients' society tried actively to get rid of any negative feeling, to foment peace and cooperation, but going by Azem's role, they were not strangers to issues and threats. Perhaps, subconsciously, they "stacked to the heavens" their fears until they burst and caused the Terminus and the Sound, which could be the collective suffering and fear of the Ancients throughout the ages that they cast aside. We would need further insight into the Ancient society, true, but to me that sounds (no pun intended) rather similar to the Totentanz phenomena.

If there was a build-up of negative thoughts that went unexpressed, it might have accumulated in the Lifestream/Underworld until the entire star had a spiritual breakdown. It reminds me of how auspices may sometimes succumb to their aramitama and become feral beings of chaos. Just as how the Mad Auspice Koryu was so utterly consumed by his aramitama to become an apocalyptic beast, the Star was consumed by....something and began the Final Days.

[Veloran]

If there was a build-up of negative thoughts that went unexpressed, it might have accumulated in the Lifestream/Underworld until the entire star had a spiritual breakdown. It reminds me of how auspices may sometimes succumb to their aramitama and become feral beings of chaos. Just as how the Mad Auspice Koryu was so utterly consumed by his aramitama to become an apocalyptic beast, the Star was consumed by....something and began the Final Days.

During one of the quests in Amaurot, an Ancient says this:

Disparity engenders feelings of want and resentment, which degrade the bonds of fellowship. Thus do we encourage creators to share and share alike, else we risk kindling the embers of covetousness and violence that ever smolder in the hearts of all.

Initially it's easy to overlook this, but I think it has new significance given several lines in Elidibus' theme.

Oh we can dive in, fighting death's ember embrace...

dragged through the flame,
to rise from the ashes!

[Kesey]

Venat and her companions were just as large and they were actual hologram recordings, not creations of Emet.

You're probably right. But it is possible, because its a projection, that they are our size and the projection throws it out of proportion.

[Rannie]

Sorry to nitpick, but Rannie appears to be a midlander. The tallest Hyur are Highlanders. :P

But yeah, even Roes look like kids in that furniture.

Well duh hes a midlander =P its like seeing them like you would see the actress in the kids show Big Comfy Couch? I think the name od that program was

[Iscah]

I thought we'd asked at some point in a lore Q&A if the Ancients were really that size and they said no...? Maybe I'm misremembering entirely or maybe that intent just got forgotten and drifted off-track as they had more reasons to use the character models that don't fit with the "Emet's illusion for dramatic effect" origin.

(Kinda like they forgot that Thancred's real body shouldn't match his appearance in the First.)

[Kesey]

Also, to continue to support my theory, the short story "Through His Eyes" from Tales from the Shadows tells how Emet and Hythlodaeus deal with the phoenix. It seems a soul is merged with the phoenix when it is created, which doesn't seem to fit with their creation magic laws. So Emet summons all his power and deals with the problem. Here it doesn't say what he does. I assume we are to speculate, so I believe he made a new Amaroutian because it had a soul.

But the story continues well into the future during Emet's reign in the Garlean Empire, where he finds disdain for the bodies of all the creatures in existence. So this juxtaposition is meant to show the reverence for the phoenix but the disgust of mankind. Where the phoenix was considered a thing to be respected, mankind is not. In this context mankind is the lesser because it is a fragment of a complete soul instead a whole being.