What aligments would future calamities even have had?

[WhiteArchmage]

We still don't know for certain whether it was not required, or simply put in the "too hard" basket while they work on rejoining the other shards.

For all we know so far, it's possible that they were manipulating Golbez into eating the local Zodiark shard and then breaking through the barrier into the Source, bringing Zodiark's missing piece with him. Or maybe that shattering of the barrier would be enough to hook the Thirteenth back up to the Source's lifestream. Those are certainly the sorts of plot holes I'd be trying to fill as a writer at this point.

Or that the Ascians were tempered as admitted by Emet himself and their directive was to rejoin and free Zodiark no matter if that was actually possible with the thirteenth "lost". We DO know they tend to act and justify themselves with the sunk cost fallacy...

[Heroman3003]

Do you have sources for those claims? I don't think it has ever been an in-game statement, just a vague promotional thing the devs said pre-Shadowbringers about it dealing with the "eighth and final calamity", which fans came up with all sorts of theories over – and it was never touched on within the game itself as to why it would have been the last.

Unless you have direct quotes, this sounds like a case of fan theories getting disconnected from their origins and passed around until people think they're true.

IIRC in the cutscene where Exarch explains history of Calamities and how they happen, he mentions that once amount of rejoined shards is more than unrejoined, the balance will tip and all the rest will rapidly devolve into rejoining as well. As there are fourteen shards, 7 is as many as you can go without tipping the scale, hence why 8th would be the final one. Which conviniently fits into elemental alignments - 6 main elements; plus two greater alignments- Astral and Umbral. 8 calamities, all thats needed for restoration of the world and returning Zodiark to his full strength. And that's why averting that is so important beyond just saving First or preventing 8th Umbral Calamity on the Source (which we know our character survives).

[Iscah]

IIRC in the cutscene where Exarch explains history of Calamities and how they happen, he mentions that once amount of rejoined shards is more than unrejoined, the balance will tip and all the rest will rapidly devolve into rejoining as well.

I don't recall anything being said to that effect. I suspect you are getting confused with the explanation of an individual Rejoining starting as a trickle of aether to the Source before the triggering event for the associated calamity cracks it fully open.

[Heroman3003]

I don't recall anything being said to that effect. I suspect you are getting confused with the explanation of an individual Rejoining starting as a trickle of aether to the Source before the triggering event for the associated calamity cracks it fully open.

I will have to rewatch ShB expository cutscenes to find where but I do distinctly remember something by someone being said about the balance of sundered and rejoined shards being tipped in favour of rejoined being enough to finish the process. I definitely did not consume any fan content related to ShB for a long time either, all while still being firmly sure of that, so it couldn't have come from that.

[Cleretic]

I will have to rewatch ShB expository cutscenes to find where but I do distinctly remember something by someone being said about the balance of sundered and rejoined shards being tipped in favour of rejoined being enough to finish the process. I definitely did not consume any fan content related to ShB for a long time either, all while still being firmly sure of that, so it couldn't have come from that.

You don't recall this correctly, you've editorialized in your own mind to the point you misremember it. Normally I'd quote the relevant section (I do have this scene recorded), but in this case I actually can't, because it's very long and literally NONE of it describes anything like this. Gamer Escape's got the whole scene transcribed, though.

You also claimed we survived the Eighth Calamity, but we very explicitly did not. Our death is described very directly, right down to showing our corpse. We died to Black Rose pretty early.

[Lyth]

During the Eden questline (Shadows of the Past Lv.80), Mitron explains that calamities have a knock on effect on all shards, not just the Source. In fact, the entire reason why the First became so precariously Light-aspected in the first place was because of the Flood of Darkness. It stands to reason that the more rejoinings that happen, the more heavily aspected the aether of all the remaining worlds become. It's just the opposite of the process we went through to free Mitron's soul from Eden. It also suggests that each rejoining makes subsequent ones more likely.

I don't think that you'd have to manually rejoin every last shard to make the entire system unstable. It's a domino effect. I think this is what Hydaelyn was alluding to during patch 3.4 (Word of the Mother Lv.60). Otherwise, why did we have to worry about Zodiark being freed when we're a bit past the halfway point? Why did both sides commit all their resources to the First in an elaborate chess match? I think we're sitting right at the tipping point.

As for the elemental aspect of future rejoinings, it seems like we've had two darkness-aspected calamities. Everyone remembers the scene with Emet, but that's actually not the most important Crystarium scene. The one to look at is the earlier one from G'raha on returning from Alphinaud and Alisaie's respective questlines (The Lightbringers Lv. 70). The animation shows you what shards were destroyed and what the associated elemental calamity was:

First Umbral Calamity of Wind - Fifth Shard
Second Umbral Calamity of Lightning - Twelfth Shard
Third Umbral Calamity of Fire - Second Shard
Fourth Umbral Calamity of Earth - Third Shard
Fifth Umbral Calamity of Ice - Sixth Shard
Sixth Umbral Calamity of Water - Tenth Shard

All of these correlate with the elements listed in the EE. The interesting one is the Seventh Umbral Calamity (Seventh Shard), which isn't explicitly classified in the EE but from the animation seems to be Darkness aspected. We know that the Eighth Umbral Calamity would have been Light aspected. I wouldn't be surprised if any further calamities would be simply Light/Darkness aspected simply because all the Shards have had their aether aspected to every element by this point.

[Heroman3003]

During the Eden questline (Shadows of the Past Lv.80), Mitron explains that calamities have a knock on effect on all shards, not just the Source. In fact, the entire reason why the First became so precariously Light-aspected in the first place was because of the Flood of Darkness. It stands to reason that the more rejoinings that happen, the more heavily aspected the aether of all the remaining worlds become. It's just the opposite of the process we went through to free Mitron's soul from Eden. It also suggests that each rejoining makes subsequent ones more likely.

I don't think that you'd have to manually rejoin every last shard to make the entire system unstable. It's a domino effect. I think this is what Hydaelyn was alluding to during patch 3.4 (Word of the Mother Lv.60). Otherwise, why did we have to worry about Zodiark being freed when we're a bit past the halfway point? Why did both sides commit all their resources to the First in an elaborate chess match? I think we're sitting right at the tipping point.

As for the elemental aspect of future rejoinings, it seems like we've had two darkness-aspected calamities. Everyone remembers the scene with Emet, but that's actually not the most important Crystarium scene. The one to look at is the earlier one from G'raha on returning from Alphinaud and Alisaie's respective questlines (The Lightbringers Lv. 70). The animation shows you what shards were destroyed and what the associated elemental calamity was:

First Umbral Calamity of Wind - Fifth Shard
Second Umbral Calamity of Lightning - Twelfth Shard
Third Umbral Calamity of Fire - Second Shard
Fourth Umbral Calamity of Earth - Third Shard
Fifth Umbral Calamity of Ice - Sixth Shard
Sixth Umbral Calamity of Water - Tenth Shard

All of these correlate with the elements listed in the EE. The interesting one is the Seventh Umbral Calamity (Seventh Shard), which isn't explicitly classified in the EE but from the animation seems to be Darkness aspected. We know that the Eighth Umbral Calamity would have been Light aspected. I wouldn't be surprised if any further calamities would be simply Light/Darkness aspected simply because all the Shards have had their aether aspected to every element by this point.

Actually, that demonstration animation is rather unreliable source. It shows Ice Calamity (cyan) as last one before the Darkness Calamity, which we know is false, because last calamity was actually Water (blue).

[Naraku_Diabolos]

I don't recall anything being said to that effect. I suspect you are getting confused with the explanation of an individual Rejoining starting as a trickle of aether to the Source before the triggering event for the associated calamity cracks it fully open.

This is correct as the Umbral charge of Light on the First would have trickled into the Source, where everyone and everything would have been affected by Black Rose. That’s also why Darkness was Astral charged on the First, why canceled everything out to make it balanced and healthy once again.

[YianKutku]

Due to how all the other Calamities sounded, they were likely all Astral charged. There's a good chance that they were planning to redo the elemental rejoinings, but with an Umbral charge, starting with the 8th Calamity.

I'm not sure about this; the Third Calamity of Fire sounded like it was Umbrally charged, in that the downfall of civilization was due to drought and famine, rather than unchecked wildfires. That sounds like dry heat, the example given for Umbral Fire.

Also possibly the Fifth Calamity of Ice, which "froze the seas" and sounded more like a sort of Ice Age. The impression I had was Ice aspected Umbrally, ie making passive the waves, but I admit I could be mistaken, because Ice is very Umbral anyway, so it could well be Astral but we can't tell the difference because Ice acts like that. (My impression of Astral Ice is blizzards and snowstorms, but that might veer too far into Wind.)

[Iscah]

The impression I had was Ice aspected Umbrally, ie making passive the waves, but I admit I could be mistaken, because Ice is very Umbral anyway, so it could well be Astral but we can't tell the difference because Ice acts like that. (My impression of Astral Ice is blizzards and snowstorms, but that might veer too far into Wind.)

Blizzards are possible for astral ice, or maybe snow in general, but glaciers could be another option for "ice in motion". Or would it be more about ice that is forming and growing versus solid ice that has already set hard? Are icicles active or passive if the moving unfrozen part counts as water?

Maybe snow vs solid ice as the simplest division?

I wish they'd properly lay out the divisions instead of giving the one "heat vs flame" example and leaving us to guess the rest of it.