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

[Lyth]

Hm, I wonder.

Primals require Aether. We've already seen a connection between tempering and the sin eaters. There also seems to be some similiarity between sin eaters and the voidsent as aether-starved creatures looking to feed. If creation magic and primals require aether to fuel them (i.e. from their devotees), then that has to come from somewhere, or someone. Perhaps the void as we know it is a consequence of draining that aether. That might be the link between the flourishing of Amaurot and its subsequent fall during the final days.

[Vyrerus]

Hm, I wonder.

The Void is the 13th shard driven to a Flood of Darkness due to it being the Ascians' first attempt at a calamity. The only details we have on it are that this is what it is, and that one of the triggers was that the Warriors of Light there were quite successful at the slaying of primal like beings.

However, instead of slaying them and letting them return to the aetherial sea to be resummoned at a later date, they imprisoned the primals in auracite. Not knowing that auracite was an imperfect prison, the essences of the primals they slew slowing seeped out of the auracite, corrupting the WoLs of the 13th from within.

Once their strongest individuals became beasts, the 13th was tipped too far towards astral alignment, and a Flood of Darkness kicked off, drowning the aether and inhabitants of the world, transforming them all into what we know as voidsent or killing them outright.

Iirc, Emet-selch attributes this whole course to Igeyorhm's fanatic zeal to align the 13th quickly, so she laid her plan and defeated the WoLs there with gusto. (My question would be though, if it was their first attempt at a Rejoining, why were they operating solo at all? You'd think they'd all want to work in tandem to make sure it worked.)

Jury's still out on why the Terminus Idolizer and other Terminus monsters share appearance with voidsent. If I had to posit something, it would be that the voidsent take on shapes reminiscent of the Terminus monsters, because those were the first monsters in this world, born from the inner demons of those beings possessed of creation magicks.

Also for specifics, the monsters in the trailer that Estinien and Vrtra blow up are Terminus Idolizers, of which there is exactly one at the end of the Amaurot dungeon in the last trash pulls. It is a recolor of Lamashtu from Eureka Anemos, which is a reframing/skeletal reuse of Caliofisteri from Weeping City of Mhach(you can tell because they have the same sexy naked butt but also head tentacle mechanics).

Lamashtu was a demon goddess in Mesopatamian mythos. She ate men, killed pregnant women and their babies, particularly newborns.

"Great is the daughter of Heaven who tortures babies
Her hand is a net, her embrace is death
She is cruel, raging, angry, predatory
A runner, a thief is the daughter of Heaven
She touches the bellies of women in labor
She pulls out the pregnant women's baby
The daughter of Heaven is one of the Gods, her brothers
With no child of her own.
Her head is a lion's head
Her body is a donkey's body
She roars like a lion
She constantly howls like a demon-dog."

[Cleretic]

The best we can reckon, the Thirteenth became the World of Darness not necessarily by any one person's actions, but because the Ascians didn't really know what they were doing. They didn't know a Calamity was needed yet.

Igeyorhm seemed to blame herself regardless, but it probably wasn't her fault, not really.

[kaynide]

Hm, I wonder.

Primals require Aether. We've already seen a connection between tempering and the sin eaters. There also seems to be some similiarity between sin eaters and the voidsent as aether-starved creatures looking to feed. If creation magic and primals require aether to fuel them (i.e. from their devotees), then that has to come from somewhere, or someone. Perhaps the void as we know it is a consequence of draining that aether. That might be the link between the flourishing of Amaurot and its subsequent fall during the final days.

I am still betting on the source being The Sound and it being drawn heavily on Chrono Trigger; The Sound aka Lavos, and the source of their “endless” aether being via their version of the Mammon Machine. Just like Zeal, they took too much and woke up the beast.

I mean, La Voz in Spanish even means “the voice”. (Yeah I know in the actual game the name means something else, but that name still had to be thought up by people on this earth using real world ideas)

Well, at least that’s my thoughts…

[Vyrerus]

I am still betting on the source being The Sound and it being drawn heavily on Chrono Trigger; The Sound aka Lavos, and the source of their “endless” aether being via their version of the Mammon Machine. Just like Zeal, they took too much and woke up the beast.

I mean, La Voz in Spanish even means “the voice”. (Yeah I know in the actual game the name means something else, but that name still had to be thought up by people on this earth using real world ideas)

Well, at least that’s my thoughts…

If they're just like Zeal, they would know exactly what it was. Queen Zeal had her heart stolen by Lavos, and sought more of his power so that she could live on forever at his side. She sought to wake him. The Zeal citizenry were eminently aware of Lavos, where their powers came from, and refer to Lavos as Lavos-sama. You know, the deific honorific.

I mean, I won't discount the possibility of a Lavos like being, being responsible for the Sound, but I think that the ancient's aether source was simply their larger, denser souls.

If anything, they put a strain on the planet, because their talented sorcerers drew on the power of the Underworld to take on their powerful forms, as alluded to in, "Through His Eyes."


I'd like for the Ancients' downfall to still be of their own making. If by misunderstanding the tax their sorcerers placed on the Lifestream or by a crazed Terminus cult... I want their flaws revealed.

[GoldStarz]

I'd like for the Ancients' downfall to still be of their own making. If by misunderstanding the tax their sorcerers placed on the Lifestream or by a crazed Terminus cult... I want their flaws revealed.

I'd like to argue that there flaws have already been revealed (we've talked about them plenty in the last page or two) and that regardless of if they were the direct cause of the Keening/Final Days, they are still responsible for their own downfall.

Really, you only need to look at how Sharlayan is reacting to the situation for parallel: the Ancients knew of the issue long before it reached them, but rather than try and help deal with the problem while it wasn't an issue, they waited until it was directly affecting them and it was too late to do anything about it at that point other than summoning Zodiark and setting off the chain of events that would undo them anway.

[Veloran]

Really, you only need to look at how Sharlayan is reacting to the situation for parallel: the Ancients knew of the issue long before it reached them, but rather than try and help deal with the problem while it wasn't an issue, they waited until it was directly affecting them and it was too late to do anything about it at that point other than summoning Zodiark and setting off the chain of events that would undo them anway.

Where does this idea come from? They were clearly working on the Zodiark plan for quite a while, it seems obvious they weren't just sitting on their hands until the Sound finally struck them. And people rag on Sharlayan and Amaurot's non-interventionism, but realistically it's the best way for them to behave unless they're out to become the keepers of everybody on the planet.

[Anvaire]

Where does this idea come from? They were clearly working on the Zodiark plan for quite a while, it seems obvious they weren't just sitting on their hands until the Sound finally struck them. And people rag on Sharlayan and Amaurot's non-interventionism, but realistically it's the best way for them to behave unless they're out to become the keepers of everybody on the planet.

I Agree, i think it was more that they wanted to get information on it and its cause before going on to solve. not withstanding the dilemma of whether they should intervene at all. I think Zodiark is the product of that research, setting in place the laws that prevented Creation magick from running rampant. I think that the sound was a bit like an illness. It was sparked in a few, and then spread, the fear and the nightmare were then created by amautoreans because they feared it would happen. We know already that a single stray thought could have dire consequences. So what then would hysteria and fear of something that was happening that they could not explain? All it would take would be a thought along those lines while doing ther routine creation magick and you would have a terminous creature manifest. As this happened more and more, it would increase exponentially and once they began to belive the end was neigh... well it suddenly really was. Hence the meteors falling from the sky and the monsters appearing to manifest from the ancients themselves.

[Veloran]

That's not exactly accurate with the story we're told. Yes people were becoming very fearful, but it's said that the Sound was drawing concepts and fears from people's minds, and wresting control of their magicks away from them. Things were being created even when the Ancients had no intention to do so at all.

[GoldStarz]

Where does this idea come from? They were clearly working on the Zodiark plan for quite a while, it seems obvious they weren't just sitting on their hands until the Sound finally struck them. And people rag on Sharlayan and Amaurot's non-interventionism, but realistically it's the best way for them to behave unless they're out to become the keepers of everybody on the planet.

It comes from the context and inference. We know that Amaurot are isolationist and don't involve themselves in other nations' societies and everything about the Zodiark plan comes across as extremely hashed together under extreme time pressure (the core of Zodiark changed at least once; the high cost of summoning; Zodiark purpose in literally just rewriting reality itself rather than addressing the actual issue; etc). It's not hard at all to come to the conclusion the the Zodiark plan was not in fact worked on for a long time but that Amaurot thought they had high enough ground to not get swept away with the rest when flood waters rose.

For your second point, in what way is cooperating and coordinating with other people "being their keepers"? Do you think those who are in the direct path of catastrophe are just lounging around thinking "Well the planet is literally screaming at me to die, but this is fine," and not trying to make a plan of their own to, if not stop the Final Days, at least save the people who are still alive and help them survive this? You're not someone's keeper for showing up and actually contributing, something that Amaurot clearly wasn't interested and what Sharlayan is actively refusing to do.