What's up with the other members of the Convocation? (Spoilers)

[Draginhikari]

Someone else jogged my memory - sundered Ascians aren't necessarily created using the soul fragments of their former station holders, though they are preferable to using random people. While Azem's seems to have lacked the feature, the implication is that the memory crystals more or less force the identity of the Convocation seat holder onto people.

Logically speaking there may be sundered Ascian fragments on the various worlds, but the cycle of souls may still be in play as it is for Azem and lead to them being reincarnated. Either way, their deaths (body and soul) wouldn't stop the unsundered from raising up pliant mortals.

(I suspect this has something to do with Fandaniel's... eccentric personality.)

Hydaelyn is present on all worlds, and is the same being across them. (Kinda. She's not actually summoned, just kinda floating around the aetherial sea.)

I thought my understanding was that the shards of the other Convocation members reincarnate through the life cycle similar to our Character and it is those shards the Ascians seek out and use the crystals to awaken their memories to restore them to their station.

Though given that Hythlodaeus said about the crystals not being concepts, being too incomplete to completely restore someone, I image exposing an Shard to these incomplete memories have unintended consequences of resulting in warping the personality of the target which would be why the Unsundered were necessary to keep in line if Fandaniel's reaction is anything to go off of. Unless Fandaniel himself was already warped during the gathering of the crystals his message is slightly more.... incomplete from the others messages we saw.

[Veloran]

Each Lifestream is attached to the Aetherial Sea. This much is apparent due to Minfilia getting sucked into the Flow teleportation magic that spirits her through the Lifestream to the Aetherial Sea. And it is where Hydaelyn resides and keeps watch on all shards, so yes, it is.

The aetherial sea is the Lifestream, and the Lifestreams of each Shard are not connected for very obvious reasons. We have no reason to think Hydaelyn residing in the aetherial sea on the Source means that said sea is linked to the Shards.

Tenzen's soul was apparently bound up in Koryu's seal, so he can't have been an incarnation either.

In regards to both Tenzen and Ramza, we have some reasons to believe that apparitions of certain souls may be due to things like residual aether, or the manifestation of ambient aether through will similar to summonings. I think this was stated to be the case in a few instances of when we see certain spirits. Haurchefant and Ysayle on the Final Steps of Faith come to mind here, but I may be misremembering.

[Kesey]

Whatever is going on, it's more complicated than that. Azem isn't one of those twelve, but got a goddess named after them regardless.

I think this has been explained as the names like Emet-Selch, Lahabrea, and Azem are the title held by the seat and isn't the real name. Furthermore, if our original Ancient self decided to defect because of Zodiark but then also refused to join Hydaelyn (as told in the cutscenes with Venat) it stands to reason that their copycat convocation (Venat's Hydaelyn convocation) would still use the titles of office for the seats, every easily giving the Azem title to someone new.

[Vyrerus]

The aetherial sea is the Lifestream, and the Lifestreams of each Shard are not connected for very obvious reasons. We have no reason to think Hydaelyn residing in the aetherial sea on the Source means that said sea is linked to the Shards.


In regards to both Tenzen and Ramza, we have some reasons to believe that apparitions of certain souls may be due to things like residual aether, or the manifestation of ambient aether through will similar to summonings. I think this was stated to be the case in a few instances of when we see certain spirits. Haurchefant and Ysayle on the Final Steps of Faith come to mind here, but I may be misremembering.

No, it's something different. Basically, Lifestreams are roils of souls that are essentially copies of the original(Ye Olde Pre-Sundered Lifestream), as the shards themselves are, whereas the Aetherial Sea is the gulf of the whole. Think about it like continents or islands, with rivers that lead out to the ocean. A river has its own current, its own water type, unique tributaries, life, and size. If a river leads out to sea, the only thing they have in common is the water, but even that changes once you get out to sea, from fresh to salt. Only in this case aether is the water. This is why we can teleport from The Source to The First using aetherytes.

[Iscah]

This is why we can teleport from The Source to The First using aetherytes.

I'm not sure about that. I thought we were following our aetherial trail back across the rift?

Of course, the whole rift vs aetherial sea thing is sort of vague and we probably need to ask for a new map of the system. The first lorebook talks about there being a physical realm and an aetherial realm (aka the Lifestream, they state) and the deeper into the planet you go, the more blurred the boundary gets until you reach the aetherial sea at the centre.

[Vyrerus]

I'm not sure about that. I thought we were following our aetherial trail back across the rift?

Of course, the whole rift vs aetherial sea thing is sort of vague and we probably need to ask for a new map of the system. The first lorebook talks about there being a physical realm and an aetherial realm (aka the Lifestream, they state) and the deeper into the planet you go, the more blurred the boundary gets until you reach the aetherial sea at the centre.

Honestly, it's all pretty grey. They pick and choose so readily, because the explanation of how or why isn't super important to the story being told. Like back when they give us that first aetherology lesson that leads up to the white auracite and how we're gonna kill the Ascians, they speak of Ascian's rift as a place at the shore of the aetherial realm, and they use realm and sea interchangeably.

In my mind's eye the way I picture it, since we know that the 13 shards are bound aetherically to the Source, hence why Rejoinings work, it's kind of like a web of trees that all share the same root system. In the Omega quest line I'd taken Rift to mean physical space, since that's what Midgardsormr and Omega seemed to have traversed. Yet when we are pulled through the Rift by G'raha Tia, it seems like the Rift exists outside of time and space, since we see those crystal fragments with like, events we'd already experienced pass by us.

All in all, it's a wibbly wobbly timey wimey mess. To make matters worse, I don't think they use the term Aetherial Sea after 3.2. And I don't think they ever equate the Rift to the Lifestream... so I'm kinda just scratching my head here. I guess if it is what the lorebook says that it is, then it makes sense that Omega would have had to burrow deep into the ground in order to congeal his interdimensional rift, something about proximity to the Aetherial Sea being important to create a pocket dimension? But then the Ascians are shown to be able to make Rifts to their pocket dimension above sea level... and the idea that you need to go deep into the planet to be closer to it would seem to be supported by the Antitower being underground and going down, but like... it's underground a mountain plateau? and the tower's not taller than the plateau so... Though the entrance to the Antitower does seem to go into a sort of aetherial pocket itself where all that furniture is floating about and what not.

But I mean, then there's voidgates and all that they imply... they definitely need to give us an update one what all this is, even if it's in another lore book.

[Iscah]

The "interdimensional rift" that Omega taps into seems to be the space between the shards, which don't seem to share physical space but exist on different planes of reality. It's not clear whether it's quite the same rift as the Ascians' retreat - it doesn't look the same but maybe they choose how to decorate their pocket dimensions or something.

Voidgates and such are, I suspect, a leftover from an earlier concept of the cosmology that they haven't really tried to integrate into the current setup. The stuff with Ascians and the void in ARR just seems off compared to what we have now.

[RenewalXVII]

The "interdimensional rift" that Omega taps into seems to be the space between the shards, which don't seem to share physical space but exist on different planes of reality. It's not clear whether it's quite the same rift as the Ascians' retreat - it doesn't look the same but maybe they choose how to decorate their pocket dimensions or something.

Voidgates and such are, I suspect, a leftover from an earlier concept of the cosmology that they haven't really tried to integrate into the current setup. The stuff with Ascians and the void in ARR just seems off compared to what we have now.

Yeah, we really need an Encylcopedia Eorzea 3 to really expound on all the new stuff we know now.