Faith, Dynamis, Aether, Summoning

[MikkoAkure]

The way I understand it, is that Lahabrea went around teaching a limited version of Ancient creation magic with a specific tempering thing built into it to keep the cycle going.

When it comes to summoning "faith" is not being used as emotional fuel, but instead as a clear image of the being to be summoned. All of the summoned beings are gods or at the very least ideals (as in Shiva's case). The people summoning them are Sundered and so have very limited power in creation magic compared to the Ancients and need outside help. But together with a power source (crystals) and a common, strong faith they all have together in a single shared idea of a being, they can perform creation magic. When a clear image is not formed, like with Ga Bu's summoning of Titan, the summoning goes wrong and Titan's personality was warped by Ga Bu's state when he summoned him.

So summoning, at least to me, is purely aetheric and has nothing to do with dynamis at all.

[Eisi]

The way I understand it, is that Lahabrea went around teaching a limited version of Ancient creation magic with a specific tempering thing built into it to keep the cycle going.

When it comes to summoning "faith" is not being used as emotional fuel, but instead as a clear image of the being to be summoned. All of the summoned beings are gods or at the very least ideals (as in Shiva's case). The people summoning them are Sundered and so have very limited power in creation magic compared to the Ancients and need outside help. But together with a power source (crystals) and a common, strong faith they all have together in a single shared idea of a being, they can perform creation magic. When a clear image is not formed, like with Ga Bu's summoning of Titan, the summoning goes wrong and Titan's personality was warped by Ga Bu's state when he summoned him.

So summoning, at least to me, is purely aetheric and has nothing to do with dynamis at all.

That makes a lot of sense to me! Except I wouldn't call Ga Bu's summoning "gone wrong" and I also disagree with the clear image thing. All summons are warped, Bahamut the Eikon is described by Tiamat as a twisted abomination or something (based on the original artwork of the high dragons Bahamut the living being definitely did not even look like the eikon but more like his siblings and those dragons deffo had a very clear mental image of what their king looked like). I assume there's inherently something volatile about the summoning process it's basically a children's first attempt at creation magic.

Phoenix and Anima were summoned entirely unconsciously, with Phoenix it's especially egregious, because the people actually prayed to the twelve, yet what emerged wasn't a twisted version of those gods or whatever, but instead an entirely different entity, one not to protect, but to rebirth, as if the people had actually lost the belief in protecting the realm and instead channeled their faith into the next best thing, you know a chance for those who would walk after.

[MikkoAkure]

That makes a lot of sense to me! Except I wouldn't call Ga Bu's summoning "gone wrong" and I also disagree with the clear image thing. All summons are warped, Bahamut the Eikon is described by Tiamat as a twisted abomination or something (based on the original artwork of the high dragons Bahamut the living being definitely did not even look like the eikon but more like his siblings and those dragons deffo had a very clear mental image of what their king looked like). I assume there's inherently something volatile about the summoning process it's basically a children's first attempt at creation magic.

I'd say Ga Bu's summoning was wrong. While HW and EW showed us that Lahabrea's versions of the primals differed from their source, Ga Bu's version of Titan even attacked Kobolds and spoke like Ga Bu and not Lahabrea's version of Titan.

The primals being warped is probably partly "children's first attempt at creation magic" and partly by Lahabrea's design since they're ultimately there to serve his goals in the long term. Tiamat says that the Ascians took advantage of her grief to make a monster that ended up just being a part of their plans since the Ascians gave the Allagans the method to trap primal Bahamut as well. The Lahabrea-less versions of the primals seemed much more normal and less about conquest and aether, though we didn't get much time with them to talk about it.

Phoenix and Anima were summoned entirely unconsciously, with Phoenix it's especially egregious, because the people actually prayed to the twelve, yet what emerged wasn't a twisted version of those gods or whatever, but instead an entirely different entity, one not to protect, but to rebirth, as if the people had actually lost the belief in protecting the realm and instead channeled their faith into the next best thing, you know a chance for those who would walk after.

Phoenix, Shinryu, and Anima fit in the "ideals" category. They're the manifestation of focused ideas in combination with great amounts of aether. EE says that Phoenix specifically was "the collective subconscious of Eorzea's people and the prayers for our dying star's survival". It also says that idea fits in the current understanding of the "metaphysical logic of primal summoning". Phoenix went wrong because Louisoix got tempered by Bahamut.

But I wonder if all of this has to do with Lahabrea's original creations back before he was an Ascian. We know that there's old patterns for "Ifrita" and "Phoinix" that came from his labs. Since he's the one who goes around teaching the people how to summon, it could be that they're utilizing tweaked versions of his original creation templates that are saved somewhere in the memory of the star. It could be that the unconscious versions too are formed when strong, focused thought matches up with a concept somehow saved. That could also explain the 1.0 intro with the flying primals when Midgardsormr goes boom. He may have sealed summoning for a time but released when he died. I think it was mentioned that summoning didn't kick back up again until after that.


But back to dynamis, while it could have an effect, G'raha Tia says that because the power of dynamis is curbed on our star it took thousands of years for hopes and prayers to influence the images and personalities of the Twelve. While they're not primals, I'd imagine that the same problem of dynamis' power being weakened would mean it barely affects the actual primals too and they've only been around for 10-15 years at most and wouldn't have a chance to be warped by it.