*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[Anvaire]

Also I am not so sure about her "killing" by sundering. Every being was sundered...if sundering kills then nothing would be left alive thus no new life could have been reborn. Emet talks about sundering by just making a copy of Ryne. Bascially how I see it: The Ancient person was bascially split into 14 people. Each one of them less powerful than before but still with their memories intact. After all we see on the First that people had knowledge of the Final days and the sundering (cave painting). Or am I missing some ingame information where we got told that sundering kills?

I think there is a question of how the sundering worked, Emets Explanation in Shadowbringers used Ryne as an example, but I wonder if that was just a representation to what she did to the source. There are significant grounds to say the ancient were wiped out bar the unsundered because, no ancient remains alive in the present bar those unsundered. The closest to an ancient would be a midlander Hyur, but I suspect if Hydealyn's sundering did in fact kill everyone, then she used creation magick to recreate life afterwards, or she only spared the new life concepts the Ascians had already built and instead imbued said life with the sundered souls. We Know this is indeed possible and given that in the montage she withdrew her sword prior to sundering, I suspect she did kill all of the ancients then sundered everything and then placed those souls within the new life. Its certainly something that can be read from the montge and modern etherys.

If the ancient had indeed survived, then they should be around somewhere. We know from Elpis that some of the things they created survived until the modern day. There is the option that they were wiped out on the source and the first, but if that was so you would expect that there would be mythos and legends about them. Furthermore i think the Sundering or the final days shattered Etherys in more ways than one as Amaurot is at the bottom of the Ocean (unless of course it was a floaty Elpis like city and we know Elpis itself is still around as i think it is the islands that float above Garlemald / Sea of clouds. So if Amaurot was not a city built in the air then it means the very shape of continents/ seas changed either in the sundering or the final days. The later would make sense given Zodiark took control of the Aether rivers to weave the thick Aether shield that protected the Star. Could also be that he was also mass creating concepts to populate post saved Etherys which ended with his imprisonment and sundering.

[Cleretic]

There are significant grounds to say the ancient were wiped out bar the unsundered because, no ancient remains alive in the present bar those unsundered.

For what it's worth, the actual explanation given for this is that the Ancient ruins on the Source were destroyed over time by the Calamities. All they had to survive on the First was uncountable years of neglect and natural erosion, and even that did a number on Amaurot, although Anamnesis Anyder managed to stay intact.

On the Source? They had to suffer through six different planetwide cataclysms, including a great flood, an unending blizzard, and colossal windstorms. It's not that the Sundering hit the Source any harder; it's that afterwards, the Ascians hit the Source with enough force that they likely wiped the planet clean of any conclusive evidence of their own society. Which is... kinda tragic, actually.

[Anvaire]

For what it's worth, the actual explanation given for this is that the Ancient ruins on the Source were destroyed over time by the Calamities. All they had to survive on the First was uncountable years of neglect and natural erosion, and even that did a number on Amaurot, although Anamnesis Anyder managed to stay intact.

On the Source? They had to suffer through six different planetwide cataclysms, including a great flood, an unending blizzard, and colossal windstorms. It's not that the Sundering hit the Source any harder; it's that afterwards, the Ascians hit the Source with enough force that they likely wiped the planet clean of any conclusive evidence of their own society. Which is... kinda tragic, actually.

True enough, this explains why they were entirely lost, at least, in so far as Eorzea and ilsabard are concerned. But my point is that some should have survived on one of the other shards, we might find this out latr of course, but that doesnt explain away where the Ancients actually went. There should be some evidence that they lived. Some race of giant people walking around. As i said it may be they just died out after the sundering during the many calamities.

But hypothetically speaking, if there are no ancients following the sundering and no writings, nothing on any of the shards, then to me that suggests that they were wiped out before the sundering occured. Or at least the possibility that this happened. Even with the calamities, there should be some evidence of their existence even if it was simply in the stories told by the survivers of a giant like race. Or maybe 12 survived and they are known as the twelve now. Who knows, maybe we'll find out in the future. I just think its an interesting thing to consider. There really isnt any way of knowing whether or not the Sundering was also genocide or not at the moment.

[Alleo]

If the ancient had indeed survived, then they should be around somewhere. We know from Elpis that some of the things they created survived until the modern day. There is the option that they were wiped out on the source and the first, but if that was so you would expect that there would be mythos and legends about them.

The Ancients got sundered thus I guess after they first died of old age after that they just got reborn into smaller bodies because they now could use less aether. So the Hyurs themselves could be the smaller bodies of Ancients while the rest of the races probably were creations of them that later got reborn souls of them too. After all we know that ancient souls too gets reincarnated all the time, we ourself are proof of that.

We do not know how the situation was after Zodiark, after the fight between him and Hydaelyn. Maybe he did indeed only recreate nature and Amaurot was still in ruins after he saved the planet. Or it was rebuilt but because the future generations were much smaller they had no use for it or it got destroyed by the countless of calamites. After all Amaurot was the only city still "standing" after the Final Days. Everything else was already destroyed by it. And since only a small part of the Ancients even survived I doubt that they had rebuilt much outside of their city when the sundering came. The calamites did the rest. This can be seen on the First which had none such things because the Amaurot ruins do still exist under the sea and we even have the cave painting about the Final Days and everything after that. (Which gives a hint that people must have remembered otherwise they could not have painted that)

There are also mysteries because we still dont know much about the 12. Which will be explained in the next raid to us.

@QT_Melon:
Well we only have one source about sundering and that is Emet showing it to us by making a copy of Ryne. If that what happens then for me at least it would be the easiest solution that they bascially made a copy of everything. The whole planet was copied 14 times and because each needed aether it took that from the the original. For me it just means that bascially in a moment of time suddenly there were 14 copies of the planet and all its living beings without the others knowing that they are a copy. I doubt that through sundering the land suddenly changed. That would be something that happened over the centuries.

Of course until we get any confirmation any of our points are pure speculation. But this is also why I dont like saying that it was mass genocide. We simply dont know. Unlike of course rejoining where we know that the shard was bascially destroyed and the people killed. We have a example with the First and thus we can say that rejoinings are planetwide mass genoicde. Because rejoining only happen when the shard gets destroyed.

[QT_Melon]

Of course until we get any confirmation any of our points are pure speculation. But this is also why I dont like saying that it was mass genocide. We simply dont know. Unlike of course rejoining where we know that the shard was bascially destroyed and the people killed. We have a example with the First and thus we can say that rejoinings are planetwide mass genoicde. Because rejoining only happen when the shard gets destroyed.

I get it, because we don't see it. I just find it hard to imagine that someone didn't die as a result.

The other thing I think about that does upset me is that answer we got about why Hydaelyn (now passed off as) embellished the Heavensward story of her and Zodiark. Okay it was to help rile us up. Keep in mind however, how she told the story. She basically asked Minfillia to become her spokesperson. I don't even like Minfillia, but that's messed up.

So basically you asked someone to DIE and become your mouthpiece so you can lie to our WoL....WAT?!?!

[sidurgu-12]

So basically you asked someone to DIE and become your mouthpiece so you can lie to our WoL....WAT?!?!

minfillia was gonna die due to flow and being lost for too long but fusing with hydaelyn let her live while letting hydaelyn continue for a bit longer.

[Rosenstrauch]

minfillia was gonna die due to flow and being lost for too long but fusing with hydaelyn let her live while letting hydaelyn continue for a bit longer.

Correction: Minfilia was going to escape alive alongside the WoL and Alphinaud, but Hydaelyn requested she return to where Y'shtola had cast Flow for the purpose of empowering her to act as the Word of the Mother/Oracle of Light.

It was kind of a dick move, honestly. Especially since it was revealed that Hydaelyn was sitting on not one, but two stashes of unused power—the Mothercrystal and the power she'd set aside to test us in the event that we wished to challenge Meteion. And while it was certainly taxing for her to appear on the surface world (either as herself or through Krile), her situation wasn't so dire that she needed Minfilia to sacrifice her life to act as her mouthpiece. Really, the whole "Word of the Mother" thing is a little screwed up, in hindsight.

[Alleo]

The other thing I think about that does upset me is that answer we got about why Hydaelyn (now passed off as) embellished the Heavensward story of her and Zodiark. Okay it was to help rile us up. Keep in mind however, how she told the story. She basically asked Minfillia to become her spokesperson. I don't even like Minfillia, but that's messed up.

So basically you asked someone to DIE and become your mouthpiece so you can lie to our WoL....WAT?!?!

Honestly I just take this as the devs still not really knowing were to go with both of them (Zodiark and Hydealyn). It is unfortunate but you could (imo) see the same with the WoDs from the First. I wonder if they would have made them so crazy (especially the bard) if they had known what role they will play in the future.

Re: The effects of the sundering on the Ancients

Even Emet's retelling of events in ShB are somewhat contradictory, and perhaps that can be explained by them not wanting to create a new model to act as what Ryne would've been turned into, which we know wouldn't have been an exact copy as depicted. As I recall, both Emet and Elidibus refer to the Ancients post-sundering as being "malformed creatures" and, according to Varis (who obviously would've gotten his info from the unsundered), the sundering is what caused the different races to come into existence.

I mean malformed creatures could very well just be them talking about their souls. After all Emet did not even count us as alive just because we were not whole.

Varis talk could have been after a cycle of reincarnations. That bascially thanks to the sundering (and thus later dieing) the new races came forth.

Its a bit annoying that we dont really know what happened after the sundering but maybe even the devs thought it better to leave that a mystery. Or we will know more about this in the 24 man raid.