Other dangers in the Ancient's time

[Necrotica]

I'll have to rewatch some cutscenes, but I do remember that her crystal battery was slowly being built up over time. I thought that was the whole reason she was by the aetherial sea. If not to tap into a source of aether why bother being down there?

To get back to threats in Ancient times it would be cool to find out there were other 'pantheons' there. The Ancients we met were all about creating life. But maybe there were other groups all about creating weather patterns, shaping the landscape, etc.

Not impossible to think these groups would fight occasionally. And then the Traveler's ward makes more sense since other Ancients could totally mess with your aether so having protections against that would be necessary.

[MikkoAkure]

That said, a tiny bit of devil's advocate: it's entirely possible that the Ancient world had war, but doesn't anymore for whatever reason; that'd explain why they'd have a word for something like 'mercenary' even if they don't really exist anymore.

Yeah I feel like they did have war at one point because it's insinuated that all of the world is under unified rule in Amaurot, and that one Ancient we can talk to in ShB treats Amaurot as the highest place of society in the world. While war could be LOOOOOONG ago in their history, I don't think the Amaurotines debated the other cities into submission.

The Ancients weren't morally superior to the sundered. We meet haughty ancients, altruistic ancients, dutiful ancients, and psychotic ancients. They're just as human as we are for better or worse, but granted insane amounts of power that is constrained by their societal norms. Unless they popped up on Etheirys with the fully formed society they had at the Final Days, they had to evolve from somewhere.

Two major causes of strife are limited resources and differences in thought and appearance. The culture we found had by this time remedied both and covered individuality in a literal cloak of sameness. At least to me, it would imply this was not always the case and they have either since overcome trials that caused them to take these measures, or they have foreseen the consequences of not adopting such measures which would mean they're not as perfect as they think they are.

[Alleo]

If that is true, and this does tarnish the image of the Ancient world as 'perfect' a lot, then the idea of Venat's "traveller's ward" spell starts to make better sense (and once again makes Emet look like a liar, or at the very least wanting to sweep the more nasty aspects of his supposed "perfect society" under the rug simply to take the moral high ground). And thus things like war, battle and combat would also go hand in glove with that.

I think Emet just simply saw the past through very rose colored glasses. He did say that his world would have no need for heroes yet he himself only got the job as Emet-Selch because he had helped so many people around the world that they spoke up for him. Sounds like a hero to me. I think that perfect world was probably mostly contained to Amaurot.

About the topic: I have no idea what could have existed out there to need such a spell but as other said, if Behemoth is fine to release than who knows whats out there...heck even just one evil ancient could be a huge problem.

Why did the Calamities hurt Hydaelyn though? She seems to be feeding on aether in the aetherial sea so a bunch of death and new souls getting flooded down there should empower her more.

With each rejoining Zodiark got one part of himself back. I would take a guess and say that if she needed to sunder him to be able to defeat him than a Zodiark that gets more rejoined would surely make it harder to hold him in his prison. Also I could imagine that each calamity took a huge hit on the source world.

I would be curious though were you saw that she fed on aether? She told us that aether was drawn towards her and thus over time the mother crystal was created. But that was not energy she ate. I also doubt that she would be willing to just snack on some souls. If she did after all she would not have grown weaker.

Two major causes of strife are limited resources and differences in thought and appearance. The culture we found had by this time remedied both and covered individuality in a literal cloak of sameness. At least to me, it would imply this was not always the case and they have either since overcome trials that caused them to take these measures, or they have foreseen the consequences of not adopting such measures which would mean they're not as perfect as they think they are.

Now that I think about it, one of the NPCs in Amaurot is admonishing us for not wearing a robe. Going as far as stating that even children should wear them. Seemingly they are afraid of individuality and all the bad emotions that come with that. (Envy and such things) That sounds like they know that this could happen.

[Necrotica]

My assumption that she fed on aether was based on how few people were used in her summoning and how long she has been around, awake, speaking to and empowering heroes, etc.

I did not thing she was straight eating souls but it is the aetherial sea, not the sea of souls. Sometime aether is just aether. Leftovers from above that cling to souls on the way down but are not the actual souls.

I am probably mixing up some FF7 stuff in all this.

[Hurlstone]

I am really curious about what the would outside Elpis and Amaurot are like during that time. We know so little about what exists outside their walls and viewpoint. It would not surprise me if outside the Ancients comfort zones there are much bigger and exotic threats, and that the seat of Azem would be the one most skilled in preparing defences given their purpose. The Blessing of Light may protect us from Primal influence now, but its original origin could have been a more general ward that had other protective uses. If indeed we get a weaker form, then it makes one wonder just what threats she had to protect against that may have been worse then Aether corruption.

It brings to mind one of my favorite quotes from Star Trek, "it's easy to be a saint in paradise". What about the sentiant life outside the Ancient controle? What do they have to face and fear (Outside of volcanos...) everyday? I know people would like to move on from the Ancients/Hydalyn, but there is still so much we do not know about the Ancients/Final Days/that era I hope we do get to continue exploring it in some shape or form, be it even short stories or perhaps a novel?

[Kranel_San]

Considering how dense the aether of Ancients are, and how powerful they were, I am actually curious as to what Venat would face often enough that could corrupt her aether that made her invent the Blessing of Light aka Travelers' Ward.

Also would that ward have been enough to prevent the tempering done by Zodiark?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the density of aether in the ancient world is not exclusive to the ancients. Other lifeforms and wildlife were also dense in their aether, and only the creations of the ancients were not.
Based on this, it stands to reason that some wildlife and even other intelligent lifeforms could pose a direct or indirect threat to the innocents, and some could be challenging to face. Besides, let's not forget about other dimensions and worlds that exist in the universe that could spit out some threats, just like how Ultima is.
You also need to keep in mind that not all ancients behaved in the same manner as we have seen in the Pandaemonium raid series, and I won't be surprised if there are a good number of rogue, greedy, or plainly villainous ancients somewhere around whether as a researchers, commonfolk, or even in high positions.

[Ascended_Demon]

I mean even Pandaemonium really does showcase to us that the ancients are very much capable of instability but they will take measures that appear to be very extreme to "correct" these instabilities (almost immediate execution, literally tearing off a piece of oneself and locking it away). It would not be unreasonable to assume that many of the ancients outside of the governing body of Amaurot would be unwilling to go to such measures. I know we got the half population sacrifices but I wouldn't put too much stock in that entirely because those were desperate times and people can do things they would never even dream of doing in a mostly sound state of mind when they are pushed to the extreme.

And let's not forget the whole volcano situation actually. Think about how the convocation was content to allow an island be destroyed because it was the natural order of things. The people living there might become bitter that those who are supposed to protect them were willing to let their home burn, even if in the end the island was saved. How commonplace might this have been? It couldn't have been an isolated incident, and so people who might have been in similar situations might be less inclined to be civil. But after the passing of millennia these threats were ultimately forgotten. You have to remember, Venat was old. She's probably been around far longer than most people who had held seats on the Convocation by the time of the Final Days and even after giving up the seat of Azem she chose to remain outside the Aetherial Sea. She would be intimately familiar with all manner of threats on the star and thus she developed a magick that was suited for her line of work and also passed it on to those who might benefit from it.

[Cleretic]

With each rejoining Zodiark got one part of himself back. I would take a guess and say that if she needed to sunder him to be able to defeat him than a Zodiark that gets more rejoined would surely make it harder to hold him in his prison. Also I could imagine that each calamity took a huge hit on the source world.

I would be curious though were you saw that she fed on aether? She told us that aether was drawn towards her and thus over time the mother crystal was created. But that was not energy she ate. I also doubt that she would be willing to just snack on some souls. If she did after all she would not have grown weaker.

Necrotica's just doing their usual thing where they ignore the actual focus of the thread (that they made, yes) to make constantly shifting, flimsy and easily countered arguments; yes, it is directly stated that Hydaelyn didn't consume any aether after her summoning, which is why she was weak, Necrotica probably didn't just magically not read that part, they're just pretending they didn't to try to get people to argue with them for missing it. They can be safely ignored.

[Necrotica]

Necrotica's just doing their usual thing where they ignore the actual focus of the thread (that they made, yes) to make constantly shifting, flimsy and easily countered arguments; yes, it is directly stated that Hydaelyn didn't consume any aether after her summoning, which is why she was weak, Necrotica probably didn't just magically not read that part, they're just pretending they didn't to try to get people to argue with them for missing it. They can be safely ignored.

Doing okay there Cleretic? How is ignoring all my threads going for you?

[KageTokage]

I can't help but wonder how much "natural" life that was not created by the Ancients existed...assuming there was any at all.

Given how absurdly powerful the Ancients themselves ended up being, you'd think maybe there were other lifeforms of similar nature present.

I don't recall any suggestion that she was feeding on aether in the sea. On the contrary, she was becoming increasingly weakened because she was unwilling to do so, instead burning through the original aether from her creators (along with the boost from the Crystals of Light in 3.4, which was apparently her aether to begin with) until only Venat's soul was left as the final piece to be spent.

Unless I'm misremembering something, I thought she also mentions in Labyrinthos that the light she harvested in the process of saving the First from the flood was why she was suddenly strong enough to commune with us directly again.