Revelations from Dawntrail (7.0)

[Cleretic]

Thanks, I did miss that line. Though it doesn't sound immediately English like most of the Alexandrian names.

Eutrope is actually a name, you can find real-life, living people with it, albeit not many; it's more a surname these days. There's a Saint Eutrope.

[Bright-Flower]

Question about certain devices in the latter half of the msq and raid story.

Do we know if regulators 'destroy' the souls they use or not? Like, can a soul finally go back to the lifestream afterwards? Or is it just consumed and no longer exists? And if it's the latter why is everyone okay with allowing its continued use to respect Alexandrian culture if it's literally, if slowly, killing off the source of life? I'm generally all four 'respect other cultures' messages but it feels really weird if said other culture is literally doing what Shinra was in FFVII if on a smaller scale.

[Alenore]

Question about certain devices in the latter half of the msq and raid story.

Do we know if regulators 'destroy' the souls they use or not? Like, can a soul finally go back to the lifestream afterwards? Or is it just consumed and no longer exists? And if it's the latter why is everyone okay with allowing its continued use to respect Alexandrian culture if it's literally, if slowly, killing off the source of life? I'm generally all four 'respect other cultures' messages but it feels really weird if said other culture is literally doing what Shinra was in FFVII if on a smaller scale.

morethan10chars

The spare soul is merged with tone one belonging to the person using the regulator, and memories are refreshed on the result so they retain their sense of self. For all purpose and intent, it's destroyed since when a person using those soul die, only one soul cell is created.

Souls used to increase your power seem to not be consumed, at least beast souls, since fighters in the Arcadion use the same one for every fight.

As for why they're "okay" : they're not. Scions consider it to be awful, and WoL express their wish to have them be returned to the Aetherial sea during Arcadion.

We don't know how souls are created and if there's a limit to how many can be generated, or if Alexandria use of souls has any (lasting or not) effect on the lifestream. A NPC mentions some theorize the use of soul is the reason they see less births, but it might be for many reasons, just like birth rate is lower in modern countries because we need to replaces less people dying young.

[17cupsofcoffee]

morethan10chars

The spare soul is merged with tone one belonging to the person using the regulator, and memories are refreshed on the result so they retain their sense of self. For all purpose and intent, it's destroyed since when a person using those soul die, only one soul cell is created.

Souls used to increase your power seem to not be consumed, at least beast souls, since fighters in the Arcadion use the same one for every fight.

As for why they're "okay" : they're not. Scions consider it to be awful, and WoL express their wish to have them be returned to the Aetherial sea during Arcadion.

We don't know how souls are created and if there's a limit to how many can be generated, or if Alexandria use of souls has any (lasting or not) effect on the lifestream. A NPC mentions some theorize the use of soul is the reason they see less births, but it might be for many reasons, just like birth rate is lower in modern countries because we need to replaces less people dying young.

A potential counterpoint to this - after the second trial...

...there's a lot of blue orbs floating out of Zoraal Ja when he's dying. Admittedly, this could just be a variation on the normal "I'm about to go poof" effect they use when someone's about to die without leaving a body behind, but it looked a lot like souls escaping to me.

It was also established in 6.x that when voidsent merge with each other, they seperate upon death - given the paralells the game draws between voidsent and the people using regulators (e.g. the memory rewriting being a way to avoid the loss of sense of self that voidsent suffer from after merging), I do wonder if the same could apply here.

[Alenore]

A potential counterpoint to this - after the second trial...

...there's a lot of blue orbs floating out of Zoraal Ja when he's dying. Admittedly, this could just be a variation on the normal "I'm about to go poof" effect they use when someone's about to die without leaving a body behind, but it looked a lot like souls escaping to me.

It was also established in 6.x that when voidsent merge with each other, they seperate upon death - given the paralells the game draws between voidsent and the people using regulators (e.g. the memory rewriting being a way to avoid the loss of sense of self that voidsent suffer from after merging), I do wonder if the same could apply here.

If I'm not mistaken

Y'shtola mentions he wasn't lying when he said he would consume all the souls to the last mote. As someone who see souls, I'd tend to believe her.

[Lyth]

This is a minor point, but has anyone gone back to older item references to Tural and looked at how they match up to the current lore? The Chocobo fruits and feed are particularly interesting.

The Mamook Pear, for example, describes Mamook as having an arid soil, which doesn't really match up with the dense foliage of Yak T'el. In contrast, Thavnarian Onions describe an alkali soil type, which did actually fit with the clay appearance of the region. I know that not all of these necessarily need to be regions, but it would be interesting to know if Mimett and Pahsana are unencountered locations or if they match up with other regional botany finds.

[Alleo]

Question about certain devices in the latter half of the msq and raid story.

About that point

I asked myself the same thing. But I think the souls remain, otherwise the reaction would probably have been even more extreme.

Also, Alexandria would need a huge amount of growth to remain stable for so many decades/centuries. It is currently a problem that the birth rate is declining (although this is more of a problem for the endless), but nothing is being done to counter the waste of souls. I suppose the distribution of souls would be more limited if every soul was destroyed when consumed.

On the other hand, the explanations always mentioned that when a person dies, their soul is stored in the regulator until they are collected. There was never any mention of other souls...

And then there's Zoraal Ja and his actions...why doesn't he take the Regulators from the living population without slaughtering them if he's after souls...with his actions he only made sure that all the souls that people received as a “salary” were used up...

At the same time, souls really do seem to leak out when he dies...it's really strange.

[Roda]

Arcadion spoilers (not really but still)

Last boss' raidwide is called Wrath of Zeus. So I'm going to need to know who Zeus is. I'll be disappointed if it's just an irrelevant name drop because uuuhhh Zeus, lightning, it fits, durrr.

It's been bothering me too

greek god name drops are hella suspect with the Ancient's naming conventions. My money is on Deudalaphon's awakened shard.

[Lurina]

Was it ever explained why Alexandria uses the Ancient's alphabet?

[Cleretic]

Was it ever explained why Alexandria uses the Ancient's alphabet?

I don't think it's ever said, at least not in any particularly prominent place. You could do the 'talk to every NPC' circuit, maybe.

I feel like my early theory probably still holds: Alexandria advanced beyond writing and into more automated print like typing centuries ago, so their alphabet has just 'frozen' instead of evolving along with how people write it. (for an immediate working example: that hook on a lowercase 'a' in the font these forums use, which nobody uses anymore in writing but has been preserved in some fonts.) The arcanima of the south sea isles might be a factor, too; Alexandria uses the presumably really exacting geometries and mathematics of arcanima more than any society we've ever used, so they might be maintaining something that nobody else is; maybe an uppercase 'M' used to be a lot more powerful.