The questions I want EW to answer the most: WHY and HOW was the world sundered?

[dreamfisher]

It makes them lose all credibility of "all-powerful caretakers of the planet" when they're not willing to intervene for others unless Amaurot is caught up in it too, but they're willing to break everything and everyone for themselves.

I'd say this is probably true for the Convocation. While HiraishinNoJutsu mentioned the Amaurotine Firebrand's dialogue, which gives insight into why the non-interventionists are specifically against the idea of being the star's caretakers, we know from Akadaemia Anyder that Lahabrea was actually involved in trying to solve the issue of The Sound when it was still an overseas phenomenon. The way I see it:
a. The way the convocation approaches intervention is inconsistent (perhaps with good reason, such as The Sound being a much more likely threat than a volcano)
b. The intervention re: The Sound is less altruistic than the Loquacious Amaurotine makes it out to be (I'm leaning toward this one a bit)

I'm actually really interested in the precise details of soul-splitting. Does Zodiark have a stable way to take a soul and distribute it as several weaker souls across several life forms? How thinly can a soul be cut before it no longer suffices as a soul, or am I completely misunderstanding how life works? I know we work out a sort of ... Crude approximation (with the precision of grinding something to dust and scattering it to the wind) when dealing with Ascians.

[Yuella]

It is kinda funny though. Amaurot has an apathetic attitude toward a bunch of grape farmers whose volcano is about to blow them up basically saying "it can't be helped" and they refuse to intervene.

But when a sound makes them all anxious and their creation magic goes out of control, their reaction is to kill half of their entire surviving population to create a god to stop it, and half again to bring life back to the planet. That itself is pretty noble since the fabric of reality was falling apart and everyone was affected.

The part that gets me is the decision "OK, time to cull the life of the planet we brought back so that we can bring back our whole society that was wiped out by disaster when we're not going to help anyone else unless it directly affects us". It makes them lose all credibility of "all-powerful caretakers of the planet" when they're not willing to intervene for others unless Amaurot is caught up in it too, but they're willing to break everything and everyone for themselves.

Exactly. This is why I have no sympathy towards Emet-Selch and his genocidal gang. He wants me to remember them? I'll remember them alright. I'll remember them as genocidal murderers who want to kill sentient lives to bring back the lives and lifestyle that caused the problem in the first place.

[Cleretic]

Exactly. This is why I have no sympathy towards Emet-Selch and his genocidal gang. He wants me to remember them? I'll remember them alright. I'll remember them as genocidal murderers who want to kill sentient lives to bring back the lives and lifestyle that caused the problem in the first place.

"What makes you lot worth that request over innocent victims like Skalla?"

[GoldStarz]

It is kinda funny though. Amaurot has an apathetic attitude toward a bunch of grape farmers whose volcano is about to blow them up basically saying "it can't be helped" and they refuse to intervene.

But when a sound makes them all anxious and their creation magic goes out of control, their reaction is to kill half of their entire surviving population to create a god to stop it, and half again to bring life back to the planet. That itself is pretty noble since the fabric of reality was falling apart and everyone was affected.

The part that gets me is the decision "OK, time to cull the life of the planet we brought back so that we can bring back our whole society that was wiped out by disaster when we're not going to help anyone else unless it directly affects us". It makes them lose all credibility of "all-powerful caretakers of the planet" when they're not willing to intervene for others unless Amaurot is caught up in it too, but they're willing to break everything and everyone for themselves.

Maybe it's just me not giving the Amaurotines enough credit but the way I figure it by the time the Final Days reached Amaurot most other known civilizations were probably presumed if not confirmed to be destroyed, meaning Emet's speechifying of everyone in the world joining hands together to stop the Final Days was a much less inspiring equivalent of "What if you got everyone in Limsa to stop dancing in front of the Aetheryte for five minutes?"

[Vyrerus]

I'm still quite curious about Amaurot's supposed sister city. Did Amaurot have colonies or cities other than the capital? We really do only get such a small slice of the time, and while it is still a lot to digest, there's still so much left to wonder. Which is part of why it's great, but I get the feeling we'll always have unanswered questions (which isn't really saying much of anything, given all of the still unanswered questions about stuff from earlier in the game).

Also I see it as a big Humpty Dumpty kind of thing. Hydaelyn was the great fall. Ascians just trying to make everyone whole. All their horses and men couldn't hack it, but they found out about calamities. Sometimes I like to think about them actually succeeding, only to never be the same for those they brought back, their paradise still forever unreachable due to having to become monsters for multiple millennia.

At that point I'd be asking Zodiark for a neuralizer or two. Here come the Men in Black~

I suppose that's also something that does make them somewhat compelling. Having witnessed their broken friends, knowing they've all but completely lost the memory of the elder times... they could have chosen to die and lose their memory too. Give up on the pain in their bosom, at least mostly. They didn't. I doubt very many people could ever match that kind of resolve, if they were honest with themselves.

[Iscah]

Zodiark is the original will of the planet. Hydaelyn basically booted him from his chair and broke him into 14 pieces, 1 for every shard and then the Source, and imprisoned him in the Moon. She then sat down on his chair atop the lifestream and became the new will of the plant.

You may have misunderstood the order that things happened. Hydaelyn didn't break Zodiark into "one piece for each shard" because there were no shards at the time.

By our current understanding at least, it was the act of sundering Zodiark that (intentionally or not) shattered the world in the first place.

[MikkoAkure]

You may have misunderstood the order that things happened. Hydaelyn didn't break Zodiark into "one piece for each shard" because there were no shards at the time.

By our current understanding at least, it was the act of sundering Zodiark that (intentionally or not) shattered the world in the first place.

I know there were no shards at the time. Each of his pieces became a shard. I thought that was obvious by the way I worded it for anyone who already knows the story and that sentence wasn't important enough to the point I was making to go into further detail.

[Lyth]

I want to know what role the voidsent from the trailer play in all this. It seems like a pair of creation-magic themed primals would be the exact opposite of the void, unless there's some kind of law of conservation of aether. And the 'void' doesn't seem to be necessarily aligned with a specific element, as evidenced by this expansion's sin eaters.

[EaraGrace]

I want to know what role the voidsent from the trailer play in all this. It seems like a pair of creation-magic themed primals would be the exact opposite of the void, unless there's some kind of law of conservation of aether. And the 'void' doesn't seem to be necessarily aligned with a specific element, as evidenced by this expansion's sin eaters.

I don’t think those were void sent, but creatures from the Final Days.

[GoldStarz]

I want to know what role the voidsent from the trailer play in all this. It seems like a pair of creation-magic themed primals would be the exact opposite of the void, unless there's some kind of law of conservation of aether. And the 'void' doesn't seem to be necessarily aligned with a specific element, as evidenced by this expansion's sin eaters.

Those models are commonly used as voidsent, but in this case those were all mobs found in the Amaurot dungeon depicting The Final Days. If there's a further connection there between voidsent or not, I don't think so but there's also nothing directly disproving it AFAIK.