Confusing Fact about the Races/Spoken

[Cleretic]

Basically, all of the Sapient races of FFXIV evolved from the Ancients? Honestly, that's pretty fascinating if you ask me.

I mean, that's already mostly true; either they created them as concepts or they evolved into them afterwards. There's some rare exceptions where we have either an extraterrestrial origin point (dragons) or a post-Sundering society creating them (the Ixal, as well as whatever else the Allagans made), but in almost all cases, yeah, if we see a living thing an Ancient did that.

I was going to give voidsent and Sin Eaters as exceptions because they're more consequences of natural phenomena, but... no, Ancients were also responsible for those! Very specific Ancients, in fact!

[Lyth]

I don't think the term 'Ancient' is necessarily a homogenous one. During our trip to Amaurot, you encounter a debate where the Amaurotians discuss another 'Ancient' civilization across the sea that was being affected by Final Days phenomena, and argue for and against getting involved. It's possible that the Meracydians and people of the New World were descended from other 'Ancient' races that had viewpoints, knowledge systems, and governance that were very distinct from the Amaurotians and their Convocation.

Without further clarification on what the term 'Ancient' actually means, it's a bit like stating that most/all the people currently alive on Earth are descended from people who were previously alive on Earth.

[Strongfat900]

I don't think the term 'Ancient' is necessarily a homogenous one. During our trip to Amaurot, you encounter a debate where the Amaurotians discuss another 'Ancient' civilization across the sea that was being affected by Final Days phenomena, and argue for and against getting involved. It's possible that the Meracydians and people of the New World were descended from other 'Ancient' races that had viewpoints, knowledge systems, and governance that were very distinct from the Amaurotians and their Convocation.

Without further clarification on what the term 'Ancient' actually means, it's a bit like stating that most/all the people currently alive on Earth are descended from people who were previously alive on Earth.

Wut? I mean, aren't we all descendants from our ancestors that existed before us?

[Anvaire]

I personally think the sundering killed most people and hydealyn repopulated sundered Etheirys by using pre-existing concepts and sticking the sundered souls into them. This would also explain why in the first Final Days warped the Ancients Creation magics and the second warped the people (beyond being more susceptible to dyamis) and hydealyn refers to the races as "my children"

[Lyth]

...

Exactly. It's a tautology.

Point is, we're operating on a false equivalence that Amaurot was the only 'Ancient' civilization of its time, when there is already quest dialogue to suggest the contrary. It's possible that all of the native (i.e. excluding alien civilizations like the First Brood and Omicrons) sapient life forms arose from Amaurot, which would be pretty boring. But we don't know that for a fact, because the world's a big place and we haven't seen what's 'across the pond', as it were.

[sidurgu-12]

sapient life forms arose from Amaurot, which would be pretty boring

this is why im desperatly hoping for the 12 not to be connected to them.

[KageTokage]

Given that all of the races (Save for the Hyur) are believed to have a homeland that they've dwelled in since antiquity, perhaps they all originated from different Ancient civilizations and the people of Amaurot accounted for only one of them.

[Selvokaz]

No one is drawing any conclusions between how atmospheric ether may have had an influence on what the sundered humanity eventually became? It seems very possible to me. We know Ether has alteration properties on individuals when an overwhelming amount suffuses into a being. These Lesser humans (the sundered humanity), don't have as much either as their original bodies and thus would likely be vulnerable to etheric alteration by their dense ether-infused environments. We don't know where each race originally lived and its ether levels but it very much may have altered their physiology over time. Sun Tribe Miq'ote for example likely came from a hot sunny place, hence their constricted pupils though since they have duller teeth than the Moon Tribe perhaps they didn't hunt with their natural weapons as often and ate mostly grown foods, whereas the Moon Tribe lived in darker, colder environments and thus kept or developed fangs and wider pupils for better hunting at night. We also know people from the past had the ability to transform, perhaps some bastardized version of this trait is what caused all post sundering people to mutate into their current racial equivalents?

[Strongfat900]

No one is drawing any conclusions between how atmospheric ether may have had an influence on what the sundered humanity eventually became? It seems very possible to me. We know Ether has alteration properties on individuals when an overwhelming amount suffuses into a being. These Lesser humans (the sundered humanity), don't have as much either as their original bodies and thus would likely be vulnerable to etheric alteration by their dense ether-infused environments. We don't know where each race originally lived and its ether levels but it very much may have altered their physiology over time. Sun Tribe Miq'ote for example likely came from a hot sunny place, hence their constricted pupils though since they have duller teeth than the Moon Tribe perhaps they didn't hunt with their natural weapons as often and ate mostly grown foods, whereas the Moon Tribe lived in darker, colder environments and thus kept or developed fangs and wider pupils for better hunting at night. We also know people from the past had the ability to transform, perhaps some bastardized version of this trait is what caused all post sundering people to mutate into their current racial equivalents?

By "humanity" do you mean all of the Spoken including the "beastmen" tribes? Cuz even the Eorzea encyclopedia considers the "beastmen" as mere men or "humans" if you will(any race that is sapient really).
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...encyclopaedia/

I'd say that the best term for the most human looking races is demi-humans. Not to forget on the fact that these terms are never used in the First to begin with, and we do know for a fact that these terms were first used in Ul-daah for political reasons. Same for the Garleans who call anyone who isn't them as "savages" and "barbarians". I do agree that the aether did play a big role in shaping the sapient races of the world among other things though.

[Strongfat900]

Exactly. It's a tautology.

Point is, we're operating on a false equivalence that Amaurot was the only 'Ancient' civilization of its time, when there is already quest dialogue to suggest the contrary. It's possible that all of the native (i.e. excluding alien civilizations like the First Brood and Omicrons) sapient life forms arose from Amaurot, which would be pretty boring. But we don't know that for a fact, because the world's a big place and we haven't seen what's 'across the pond', as it were.

Well, yeah. It's likely that that ancients were pretty diverse too but were closely related nonetheless.