Raiding in The Arcadion: Our Heroic Hypocrisy

[Vyrerus]

I think what’s also good to remember:

If we take those flavor texts at face value, it’s Norberto’s experts.

Sharlayan is the leading expert of the theories regarding souls and it took us till EW robhavebone of them explain their theory to us.
That old guy even tells us that it’s HIS theory and that most people think the entire soul process works differently. His theory is proven correct through the aetherial sea, void questline, Alexandria.

Gerolt and the others are not experts on that topic. They might just use it as an overall word for all the components of the aether that makes a soul.

Remember most people in Eorzea still think they will go to an afterlife of the gods. Most of them don‘t even know what a soul is.

TLDR:
The word soul could just be a relic from before they explained the whole thing or it’s on universe from people who don‘t know what a souls is.
None of them studied that object.

Unfortunately, this is far from the case. Thavnarian Alchemists and alchemy quest lines were the first quest lines to delve into the body and soul in detail, and so Thavnarians, who are heavily involved in the relic quests know as much and more than Montonchaigne.

Way back in ARR the Alchemist guild leader in Ul'dah brought his lover's soul back into her body through alchemy, bringing her back to life for a moment.

In HW, a rogue Thavnarian alchemist kidnaps a ton of people. When they are found, they are mute, and then die a little later. As it turns out, he'd figured out a way with the help of an Allagan instrument, to clone their bodies, and then using alchemy he would try and remove their soul and place it in the clone body. Basically running experiments to perform the feat on himself, in order to gain back a youthful body. By the end of the quest, he succeeds, and has to be identified by the color of his aether, which is associated with the color of the soul.

So yeah... sorry, but the NPCs weren't just haphazardly using soul as a stand in for something they didn't understand. It was full blown, real deal souls.

[Voidmage]

Unfortunately, this is far from the case. Thavnarian Alchemists and alchemy quest lines were the first quest lines to delve into the body and soul in detail, and so Thavnarians, who are heavily involved in the relic quests know as much and more than Montonchaigne.

Way back in ARR the Alchemist guild leader in Ul'dah brought his lover's soul back into her body through alchemy, bringing her back to life for a moment.

In HW, a rogue Thavnarian alchemist kidnaps a ton of people. When they are found, they are mute, and then die a little later. As it turns out, he'd figured out a way with the help of an Allagan instrument, to clone their bodies, and then using alchemy he would try and remove their soul and place it in the clone body. Basically running experiments to perform the feat on himself, in order to gain back a youthful body. By the end of the quest, he succeeds, and has to be identified by the color of his aether, which is associated with the color of the soul.

So yeah... sorry, but the NPCs weren't just haphazardly using soul as a stand in for something they didn't understand. It was full blown, real deal souls.

Disagree. None of them obviously where specialists on the topic of the soul.
The alchemy quest mixes stuff together till it works.
You can also happen to repair a machine without knowing in detail how it functions.
The Thavnairan guy used the technology and makes the best of it. He found technolog and learned how to use it and not what it does in detail.

Also that doesn‘t go against my argument that the relic npc’s are not specialists.

[Vyrerus]

Disagree. None of them obviously where specialists on the topic of the soul.
The alchemy quest mixes stuff together till it works.
You can also happen to repair a machine without knowing in detail how it functions.
The Thavnairan guy used the technology and makes the best of it. He found technolog and learned how to use it and not what it does in detail.

Also that doesn‘t go against my argument that the relic npc’s are not specialists.

They're literally specialists. Look up Jalzahn and Ardashir. Sharlayans don't have a monopoly on knowing things.

[Voidmage]

They're literally specialists. Look up Jalzahn and Ardashir. Sharlayans don't have a monopoly on knowing things.

I know but are they specialists in the subject of the soul or in their specific field, for example alchemy?

Might take a while till I can reply today.

[Astrus]

[...]
This was an explicit call to attention that the WoL is further Rejoined than other Source souls, given that these Miqote sisters are Seven times Rejoined souls, being from Tural.
[...]

This is very much besides the topic you're trying to discuss and for that I apologize but I'm curious about that point and you seem to remember certain plot points better than I do.
All three of them seem to have been born in the dome before time synchronized, as none of them are 30+, does the game ever clarify the dimensional status of the area during that time frame?
Once time synchronizes and the dome can be traversed the area is part of the Source, there's old landmarks from the Source there but also old landmarks from the shard Alexandria originally was on (the 12th given the lightning? That should've been rejoined in the 2nd Umbral Calamity, though).
Some merging took place with the ultimate destination being the Source, even if the merge of terrain had been instant like with the Crystal Tower moving to the First we still have 30 years of compressed/diluted time that only synchronized once the dome was breached (at least I think that is what the one off-hand remark we got about time synchronizing said was the cause); during that time-bubble what shard did the area belong to, which pool of souls did newly conceived life pull from?
Was the time difference between the inside of the dome and the outside a technological cause or related to the different flow of time between dimensions?

[Vyrerus]

This is very much besides the topic you're trying to discuss

This is ultimately one of the messier story beats of Dawntrail.

As far as the shard goes, by the lightning it could be the 12th, and I think that it is, personally, because in my personal opinion I don't think the writers were trying to think this one all the way through AND time distortions and travel have become common in the setting. There's a few times it gets called to our attention that the situation is ambiguous, but I don't know why they went that route. When they tell you about how lightning overtook their whole world after Lindblum used a Lightning WMD, the WoL gets a dialogue option. You get to say, "Sounds like a Flood of Darkness." or "Sounds like what happened on The First!" or "Sounds like an Umbral Calamity..." The response to which is Sphene being all, "Wowza I sure would like to pick YOUR brain!" before getting back to fellating(easier to say than cunninglinging?) Wuk Lamat.

When Y'shtola does her cameo she's discussing it with Alphinaud, I think? I'm not referencing the scenes since my LP is dead stopped around 6.1 and I can't really trudge back to the inn room right now. Anyway, everyone's actual favorite catgirl says something like, "Short of asking an Ascian, there's no way to know which shard Alexandria is part of."

But either way, when the dome appeared, everything outside of it moved on at normal time, while everything inside of it dilated to whatever the math is on dome appearing in 1 second and 30 years passing. Or basically, I guess, 1 second for the Source was 946080000 seconds in the dome (or well, whatever the time is supposed to be between when it appears and when we run a train on it). Of course, the people in the dome had to live out that time difference, whether they were Turali or Alexandrian.

Entering the realm of speculation (we were already knee deep in it, I hear you say...), as is my forte, the areas weren't just fusing physically. They were also fusing aetherically, which is why the dome brought all that lightning aether with it, along with the overcharged state of the land and animals. This means it also brought whatever links Alexandria still had to that shard's lifestream, if its lifestream even still existed at all (if they're from the Rejoined 12th, then that means it didn't, hence the importance of Living Memory). But whatever it brought, fused to however this portion of Xak Tural is tied to our own, and we also know from Endwalker that traversal from lifestream to lifestream is doable, because Hydaelyn did it off screen to bring Hades and Minfilia's souls back from The First's. With such a link established, I think that whatever remained of Alexandria's lifestream got brought to The Source, or alternatively, Alexandria got introduced to an actual lifestream for the first time in a long time.

But given that the game hasn't gone over what exactly happens when new life gains a soul, other than it gains a will of its own, there isn't really a way to give a concrete answer. It could also be that there were already Source souls floating around in Heritage Found as it fused, these souls having yet to propagate into a man or beast.

Will also point out some oddities, just because this has me thinking about them:

- Old Alexandria came along with Everkeep, leading some people to surmise that the rest of the shard is OK because of this. However, in the dungeon, Alexandria, there is NPC dialogue indicating that old Alexandria was still cared for, even after Everkeep's construction, as in Sphene's ancient memories show them saying, "Another blissful day under Everkeep's Barrier." This barrier, in my mind, is what let them survive the destruction of the rest of the shard, and I think it let them survive the Rejoining and put them into a state of interdimensional limbo.

- The passage of time being 30 years is nothing more than a convenience for the scriptwriter to explain how we got Turali people interspersed with Alexandrian culture so quickly. They could have achieved similar result, AND showcased that people of Tural did believe and align with Koana's beliefs (embracing superior, technological methods) prior to the rite by doing a smaller time skip where maybe WoL and Co. get incapacitated or comatose for like, one year.

- Living Memory is supposed to be the 12th floor of Everkeep. It's also supposed to be from the same place as Everkeep. However, its ambient colors are golden, rather than purple. Once it's all shut off, the sky and air around it clear to a dull white-gray fog. And it rains there, too. You can see the sun and moon, a very close looking moon, at that. Yet, there is no lightning storm aether above or below it, in any fashion. Since Alexandria is one city, Everkeep its capitol, this should mean that if the rest of the shard exists, Living Memory should still be surrounded by the horrible lightning storms. or if Everkeep was so tall that it stretched outside of them, they should be partially visible below it. In my mind, the reason for this is that Living Memory is like Labyrinthos. It is actually still inside of Everkeep, with the sky showing the sun and moon and weather phenomena, because that makes for a more pleasant life for The Endless. So the sun and moon and rain there are also from the Electrope system that is the place's mainstay.

[-Teria-]

Personally, my issue with this Raid is that my WoL would never agree to fight just for entertainment. She fights to survive, she fights to save people she's come to love, she fights to liberate the oppressed.

But not for some popcorn chomping crowds. WTF.

I don't know about you, but I certainly picked the "That, I can not deny," option. You appear to be speaking for everyone's WoL here, as opposed to your own.
And even for your specific characterization of your Warrior of Light, there are dialogue options for a more noble justification for participating: That of seeking to free the stored souls.

[ClayyLmao]

-snip-

Would you call a man who hunts to feed his family a hypocrite for being against people who hunt for sport and leave the meat to rot?

My WoL isn't being hypocritical. She isn't betraying her own morals. She's used aether in the past to prepare herself to save the world, not to have people soyjak at her in a colosseum for glory.

[Chasingstars]

The reason the warrior of light takes issue with it is its more spelled out in japanese.

A soul is made up of three aspects. The core, the memories, and the life energy.

The core of the soul is what a soul is by default, like if a farmer dies and then gets reincarnated, they will show an affinity towards being a farmer again along with any core personality traits they had in life. Think of it like a soul's natural affinity. Its why the warrior of light is like Azem, because the core of the soul is about adventuring and exploring and meeting new people.

The soul's memories are what you form while you are alive. When you die, such memories naturally fade away while the core is waiting to be reincarnated again while in the aetherial sea.

The life energy is what your soul naturally spends when you go about normal day. It regains this energy by simple activities like eating or sleeping. This energy is also known as aether.

When a person has an abundance of aether, it allows them undergo what is known as spiritbonding with their equipment, as the equipment is inheriting the excess aether that is being generated by the wielder. When we "extract" the materia, we are crystallizing that aether in our gear, creating materia. The reason it is random for what sort of materia we create is because of our fluctuating experiences.

The soul crystals that we use our from preexisting crystals that started off as blank slates. Over time gaining imperfect echoes of our memories from simply having it on our person. You can even see this with the blue mage soul crystal "Unlike other soul crystals, the surface of this multi-aspected stone has yet to be carved with the record of past deeds". Meaning that as the Warrior of Light, we are acting as the blue print for those memories that will one day eventually be passed down to the next bearer of our crystal as a blue mage, much like how we learn a new technique from an old soul crystal.

For a relic weapon, what you are a creating is an aetheric conductor. The more powerful the weapon is, the more easily your aether can channel into that weapon and allow you to use the full might of that weapon. To increase aetheric conductivity requires special materials and crafting methods. Yet more importantly, remember what he just discussed about spiritbonding? About it gaining increasing amounts of aetheric energy from simply being in use by the owner? That happens, except the relic weapon is also actively learning from you, trying to realize your intentions for what kind of weapon it should become. This can have the effect of creating new life, like with Anima from heavensward, where it is your intentions given a life all its own.

What happens with the regulators is that a person is briefly merging their core soul with that of another core soul, resulting in the created burst of life energy for the host. The reason the warrior of light takes issue with this is that core of the soul, not the memories or the energy itself, are not returning to the aetherial sea and thereby preventing reincarnation.

[Dorito_Burrito]

Would you call a man who hunts to feed his family a hypocrite for being against people who hunt for sport and leave the meat to rot?

My WoL isn't being hypocritical. She isn't betraying her own morals. She's used aether in the past to prepare herself to save the world, not to have people soyjak at her in a colosseum for glory.

We can have it both ways, freeing souls from the Arcadion and gaining the adoration of the PS2-era graphics sports game crowd.