Education systems in XIV

[Vyrerus]

I think the state of education and society's survival demands are often linked. For example, following the Fourth Umbral Calamity (of Earth), there was a dark age of sorts in which people were generally distrustful of knowledge and technology on account of the fall of Allag. This persisted until the Fifth Umbral Calamity (of Ice) forced society to develop magic again in order to fend off the cold and have a means of growing crops in the harsh environment. After the War of the Magi and the Sixth Umbral Calamity (of Water), there was yet another dark age in which magic was forbidden, libraries were burnt, and spellcasters were hunted down. So this very much seems to have been a cyclical thing simply because people didn't fully who was at the root of these Calamities.

This kind of brings up another good point. Eorzea never started as the first civilization. It already had precursors with certainly higher literacy rates, as well as methods for intercontinental travel and route planning. Better technology and life expectancy. Floating continent and computers and what not. As well as robots and advanced automation. Eorzea got to leapfrog off of that and disseminate the knowledge. It also had shadowy villains wanting it to advance to flourish to make another calamity possible. Hard to really say what age they're in, compared to ours

[Lyth]

It seems more to me that every time society managed to reach a certain level of development and progress, it ended up getting hit by a Calamity which in turn lead people to question their old ways and completely discard them (usually burning libraries in the process). You see this with the early theocratic societies prior to the Third Umbral Calamity, Allag prior to the Fourth Umbral Calamity, and Mhachi/Amdapor/Nym prior to the Sixth Umbral Calamity. It sounds like there's a lot of knowledge being completely lost on each reset and subsequently redeveloped from scratch.

I do find it interesting that every time society becomes sufficiently advanced, it also usually ends up consorting with Voidsent, which rarely ends well. You see this with Allag, Mhachi, and Garlemald. Although that might ultimately be from Ascian influence. Loghrif in particular seems to have a really interesting void connection.

On a tangential point, I'm floored by the amount of little lore pieces locked away behind the sightseeing log and triple triad cards. I wonder if they could do something similar with collectible books to expand out some sort of 'knowledge log'. Perhaps you get a lore entry after you've found the required set of books. FFVIII did something similar with hidden periodicals, if I remember correctly.

[Theox]

Why are we comparing a fantasy game which borrows inspiration from various things to real life human civilization history?

[Vyrerus]

It seems more to me that every time society managed to reach a certain level of development and progress, it ended up getting hit by a Calamity which in turn lead people to question their old ways and completely discard them (usually burning libraries in the process). You see this with the early theocratic societies prior to the Third Umbral Calamity, Allag prior to the Fourth Umbral Calamity, and Mhachi/Amdapor/Nym prior to the Sixth Umbral Calamity. It sounds like there's a lot of knowledge being completely lost on each reset and subsequently redeveloped from scratch.

I do find it interesting that every time society becomes sufficiently advanced, it also usually ends up consorting with Voidsent, which rarely ends well. You see this with Allag, Mhachi, and Garlemald. Although that might ultimately be from Ascian influence. Loghrif in particular seems to have a really interesting void connection.

On a tangential point, I'm floored by the amount of little lore pieces locked away behind the sightseeing log and triple triad cards. I wonder if they could do something similar with collectible books to expand out some sort of 'knowledge log'. Perhaps you get a lore entry after you've found the required set of books. FFVIII did something similar with hidden periodicals, if I remember correctly.

None of that knowledge is completely lost, because most of it made it to modern day. "Ruins" completely intact from those time periods, too. Hell, constructs still around from all those time periods, too! Archaeology in this setting is like a penultimate master class in getting ahead.

Being an expert on ancient Allag, for instance, means that certain catboys know how to operate computers/robotic nodes.

[Lyth]

It's difficult to make any sort of comment on exactly how much knowledge has been permanently lost as opposed to temporarily lost, because that's entirely writer discretion. Allag's computer systems and genetic technology are certainly not part of our mainstream knowledge base, despite G'raha's access to the (non-password protected) sections of their databases. If we really were entirely reliant on Allag to get to where we are now, then we would be making same technology everywhere. There will be plenty of cases of reinventing the wheel in the interim as we learn more about their discoveries.

It's also really difficult to appropriately credit these discoveries and trace the flow of information between civilizations. For example, the Garleans managed to reverse engineer and even improve on Allag's original warmachina with the addition of a synthetic auracite system as part of the Weapons project. But the idea of using auracite to store primal energies is not even an Allagan concept. It dates back to the fall of the Thirteenth, and has ties to Ivalice and the Lucavi as well. Figuring out how exactly the cross-pollination of ideas occurred between all these societies is going to be entirely speculation at this point.

[Cleretic]

Why are we comparing a fantasy game which borrows inspiration from various things to real life human civilization history?

Because one of the main things it pulls from is real life human civilization history. Both on a conscious and unconscious level.

Also, we don't really have a lot of info on the schooling, education systems and literacy rates of any fictional settings that aren't actually set in schools. We do have that information for actual real life, so it's way easier to compare.

[Vyrerus]

It's difficult to make any sort of comment

I don't think it's as difficult as you're making it out to be. The Allagan Empire was a world wide empire. It had a hand in every cookie jar. There's organizations and individuals in every society that pursue technology and trinkets from their civilization.

Every big technological "innovation" in the present of the game's world was brought about by organizations versed in Allag. Most prominently, the wide reaching Garlean Empire which passes on Magitek technology either through conquest or from having it stolen from them. I mean, just where do you think Carvallain got his ship's ceruleum engine? You know, the one that drastically cuts the voyage time to and from the Far East.

Another big piece of truly ancient technology that has survived into the modern day is the aethereyte. Which we've known to be part of Ancient society since Shadowbringers. World wide teleportation networks for any capable of teleportation. If that doesn't give every society afterwards a leg up, then nothing does.

Like, sure, we can't trace a line between every piece of knowledge from then to now, but there's plenty of instances similar to Buckler Stew that we can.

The short of it is that we're actually in a post-post apocalyptic setting where anything new can be old again.

[Lyth]

I was under the impression that Allag's successful conquests were ultimately limited to the land mass we're currently on. When they tried to expand out into Meracydia they were beaten back handily by members of the First Brood and the Warring Triad. When they finally managed to regain the upper hand by defeating Bahamut with their chimeric technology, Tiamat and Meracydians just summoned him back in primal form to beat them back to the beaches, which is what forced their hand to make deals with the Void. In fact, in the flashback Fandaniel has of Emet coming to pick him up, Emet distinctly gives the impression that Xande was on the verge of losing when he tried to force open that fateful hollow to the Thirteenth, which shattered the foundations of the Crystal Tower in the process (Lv.80: 'Tipping the Scale'):

Emet: 'You know as well as I that the emperor stands to lose this war. And so I have come to claim you. For while your methods leave something to be desired, we cannot deny the results of your work. And as fortune would have it, the seat of Fandaniel - your rightful seat - lies vacant and waiting. Take your place among your peers, rather than die a pointless death amidst the ashes of your doomed nation. Send one of your clones to the crystal tower that you might see for yourself.'

That's part of what makes Meracydia fascinating, in that mere practitioners of 'derivative creation magic' alongside the First Brood managed to stand up against the combined might of Allag, the Ascians, and the Voidsent. The more I see of these supposedly 'all powerful' civilizations, the more they just look like big fish in a small pond. I presume that's why Emet encouraged us to expand our horizons. The world is a big place, and we know far, far too little about it to be certain about anything.

I think Allag is a convenient method of writing in futuristic technology into the game, but I wouldn't rush to credit everything to them when there's so much more to see!

[EaraGrace]

None of that knowledge is completely lost, because most of it made it to modern day. "Ruins" completely intact from those time periods, too. Hell, constructs still around from all those time periods, too! Archaeology in this setting is like a penultimate master class in getting ahead.

Being an expert on ancient Allag, for instance, means that certain catboys know how to operate computers/robotic nodes.

For the Sixth Astral Era at least we can say that the vast majority was lost and only recently was what’s left rediscovered. After the Calamity of Water the few wise men and libraries left were destroyed, and the few surviving sources of knowledge (like Azys La or Void Ark) were out of reach.

[Enkidoh]

And further to that, the aftermath of the Sixth Calamity resulted in a backlash towards knowledge and learning in general (due to a confusion between the mages who caused the War of the Magi that precipated the Calamity, and scientists and inventors of technology), with the natural result that eventually even anyone who happened to be literate and numerate was hunted down and lynched, sending Eorzea into ignorance and barbarism that took centuries for it to recover.

Well, recovered enough that reading and writing returned and magic started to be experimented with again anyway (which probably also underlined and vindicated Sharlayan's "non inteference" policy as horders of knowledge).