Ronka/Toral Theory

[MikkoAkure]

Is there a source for this? Because I got the impression (maybe reading between the lines) that the world unsundered was also a widely diverse world, with the ancients/Amaurotians simply being the dominant civilisation.
Venat's whole shtick about travelling the world and visiting different people and gaining new experiences, falls a little flat if we presume the whole world is just the same monolithic culture.

The new lore book describes the Ancients as the singular people who lived upon the star pre-Sundering. It also says that most citizens wore the same simple robe and mask, which implies a universal culture.

Even if there were other cultures, all of the worlds were effectively reset at the Sundering. People were reduced to producing cave paintings and we also know that none of the existing races existed prior to the Sundering.

I find it highly unlikely that any sort of culture survived and that everyone had to restart from zero.

[Alenore]

Is there a source for this? Because I got the impression (maybe reading between the lines) that the world unsundered was also a widely diverse world, with the ancients/Amaurotians simply being the dominant civilisation.
Venat's whole shtick about travelling the world and visiting different people and gaining new experiences, falls a little flat if we presume the whole world is just the same monolithic culture.

A question during the lore / localization panel was specifically about if there were other civilizations during the time of Amaurot, and no, the Convocation led the entirety of the star and mankind. The Ancients had complete control.

[Seraphor]

Well that... really makes Venat out to be a highly eccentric individual.

[Alenore]

Well that... really makes Venat out to be a highly eccentric individual.

I mean, even a small coutnry has plenty of different people and views and ways to approach life and the world. Even in Elpis, there's the few who enjoy the agriculture, or even on the island Azem wanted to save from the volcano, who were cultivating grapes.
When Venat mentions she loves everybody, it's these people. Hermes was mightily interested by stars, some others by plants, another by creaton magick, the list is long. Just because it was just one big civilization doesn't mean people were copy pastes of each others, thy all had their own special ways to see the world.

[Cleretic]

I think it reads that Venat is one of the few people in this one-world government that actually tries to care about the whole world beyond just lip service.

I mean, chances are pretty good that you don't even care about all of the country you live in, especially if said country is pretty big: it's just psychologically really hard to care about that large a group of people.

[Alleluia]

I think it reads that Venat is one of the few people in this one-world government that actually tries to care about the whole world beyond just lip service.

I mean, chances are pretty good that you don't even care about all of the country you live in, especially if said country is pretty big: it's just psychologically really hard to care about that large a group of people.

Agree with the first part, not with the last part. lol It definitely took a special person to properly fill Azem's seat, regardless.

Also, does one world government have to equal one nation state? I was thinking its more "all nation/city states agree to this governing body, but are still their own thing". That would explain to me why people talking in Glamaurot about "that city across the ocean" so detachedly makes sense. Cus its their people, but not their people. Of course, that kinda ties back in to my disagreement with your second statement, I guess. I'm in Florida and would very much feel like an attack on Hawaii was personal, or feel personal concern about the people in East Palestine, Ohio. I recognize that that can vary person to person of course, but the bond of common national citizenship is felt very strongly by a lot of people in my experience.

[Alenore]

Agree with the first part, not with the last part. lol It definitely took a special person to properly fill Azem's seat, regardless.

Also, does one world government have to equal one nation state? I was thinking its more "all nation/city states agree to this governing body, but are still their own thing". That would explain to me why people talking in Glamaurot about "that city across the ocean" so detachedly makes sense. Cus its their people, but not their people. Of course, that kinda ties back in to my disagreement with your second statement, I guess. I'm in Florida and would very much feel like an attack on Hawaii was personal, or feel personal concern about the people in East Palestine, Ohio. I recognize that that can vary person to person of course, but the bond of common national citizenship is felt very strongly by a lot of people in my experience.

If there was a earthquakes taking place in a mid-sized city you've never heard of before and didn't have TV / Internet / the radio to tell you its name, you'd probably just follow hearsays and name it "that city over the sea".
I'm in Europe, I know there has been huge fires in the US / Canada recently, I couldn't tell you near what city it was. I couldn't tell you what cities were flooded in my own country, really, despite having a bunch of storms being covered on the news recently.

[Lyth]

The answer states that the World Unsundered was unified under Amaurotine rule at the time of the Warrior of Light's arrival on Elpis. That could mean many different things. Perhaps Amaurot was the capitol of the world from the very origin of the star, and people just fell under the Convocation's leadership by consensus without any infighting. Perhaps Amaurot took a more imperial route and unified various peoples under the banner of their city state.

The original question referenced the Debate and Discourse quest and the possibility of other cultures (like the 'metropolis across the pond'), but seeing as that was left out in the response my guess is that they want to keep their story options as open-ended as possible for now. Perhaps the scenario was hypothetical, perhaps it wasn't. I'm sure that they'll find other ways to explore the topic more in the future, eventually.

[kaynide]

Note: Ronka was a floating city (in FF5, and probably 14 but not sure) a la Secret of Mana’s Mana Fortress. Meaning it could supposedly move locations. Add the population of Viera nearby possibly protecting the ruins in Tural and there is a solid maaaaybe. I still doubt it, but it’s not entirely out.

[DamianFatale]

I think we're introducing in a lot of assumptions into how this works. The point being made is that there may potentially be a connection between these two cultures (and to FFV's Ronka). We can't really draw any direct conclusions from that, only speculation.

As was pointed out, the shards themselves diverged 12000 years ago. We know that Calamity of Ice and the Calamity of Water had significant impacts on the geography of the Source. There previously was a land bridge to Meracydia. That's gone now, and a large proportion of the world map is presently water. If we were to see a shard that is relatively distant from us, like say the Fifth Shard, is it not possible that it may be geographically much closer to the World Unsundered than it is to modern day Etheirys?

We know, for example, that the Tempest is the place where Emet chose to reconstruct Amaurot. When he dies and the illusion wavers, we can see the ruins of old buildings. The analogue to the Tempest on the Source is the Indigo Deep. While it's possible that the Amaurotines were originally aquatic, it's also possible that this region was once above water, so perhaps geographically this was the original site of Amaurot on all shards. Is it not possible that Toral and Eorzea were once part of the same landmass in antediluvian times? And that's excluding the possibility that the Ronkans lived in a flying city in the first place, in which case it could have been based anywhere.

The other assumption here is that Ronka itself was originally a civilization of the First, as opposed to the Source or any other shard for that matter. What makes them interesting is that this is potentially an advanced ancient civilization that could have spread across the shards, which would make them more advanced than the Allagans. It could be that the people of Toral have secrets in their heritage that are technologically miles ahead of anything we've seen in Eorzea, without needing to be tied down to Amaurot or some such. It also means that there could be other things at stake in the separation of the shards as well, if the Ronkans had interest in exploring them. The possibility itself is interesting.

Opening a new civilization up to tie new tomes to after ten years would make sense. What if we switched to ancient Torals version of tomes instead of Allagan ones.