Ultima the High Seraph.

[Lunair]

just as a bit of an important detail, the lore books heavily imply that Ultima isn't some kinda alien, even with what we learned about Athena's interaction with them. Rather, it suggested that Ultima was originally just a chunk of rock that was the focus of worship and myth for ages till it gained sapience and became the high seraph we eventually fought.

In other words, Ultima is just yet another naturally occuring Primal resulting from collective faith in something.

[Pimsan20]

just as a bit of an important detail, the lore books heavily imply that Ultima isn't some kinda alien, even with what we learned about Athena's interaction with them. Rather, it suggested that Ultima was originally just a chunk of rock that was the focus of worship and myth for ages till it gained sapience and became the high seraph we eventually fought.

In other words, Ultima is just yet another naturally occuring Primal resulting from collective faith in something.

It is possible, but so far we have no evidence that Ultima was just a chunk of rock. We don't know if it came from other space or came from an higher plane of existence. But i do feel like we might see beings like Ultima in this new saga.

[Cleretic]

just as a bit of an important detail, the lore books heavily imply that Ultima isn't some kinda alien, even with what we learned about Athena's interaction with them. Rather, it suggested that Ultima was originally just a chunk of rock that was the focus of worship and myth for ages till it gained sapience and became the high seraph we eventually fought.

In other words, Ultima is just yet another naturally occuring Primal resulting from collective faith in something.

Could I ask for a citation on this one? The only descriptions I could find (surprisingly the Encyclopedia and Triple Triad cards have identical descriptions, which isn't common) just describes it as 'an embodiment of pure ruination'. That's more evocative than it is descriptive; that could be a perfectly valid description for a dragon, a bomb, or a meteor.

And while it's not a particularly strong piece of evidence, I did happen to check it, and Ultima's Triple Triad card doesn't mark it as a primal, despite the description saying it became what it is 'by a process not unlike the prayer-fueled creation of a primal'. It's hard to tell how much weight to give that, but the list of primals does almost entirely scan (except Bahamut for some reason), so my read is that 'not unlike a primal' does not actually mean 'a primal'.

[Lunair]

Could I ask for a citation on this one? The only descriptions I could find (surprisingly the Encyclopedia and Triple Triad cards have identical descriptions, which isn't common) just describes it as 'an embodiment of pure ruination'. That's more evocative than it is descriptive; that could be a perfectly valid description for a dragon, a bomb, or a meteor.

And while it's not a particularly strong piece of evidence, I did happen to check it, and Ultima's Triple Triad card doesn't mark it as a primal, despite the description saying it became what it is 'by a process not unlike the prayer-fueled creation of a primal'. It's hard to tell how much weight to give that, but the list of primals does almost entirely scan (except Bahamut for some reason), so my read is that 'not unlike a primal' does not actually mean 'a primal'.

There's a reason I said "naturally-occuring primal." The deeper we look into the lore about Primals and aether, the more apparent it becomes that more than a few things are created as part of the same process of collective faith, something supported by dev statements. Auspices are probably the most substantial example of a "naturally occuring primal" where the collective faith of the far east is focused on animals because of the local religious beliefs and mythologies, but there's plenty of others, with Susanoo being the most blatant case where we actually SEE an example of a Primal-like being being created due to collective faith reaching a certain threshold, but plenty of others like Tural vidraal, tsukimogami, and even the archbishop of Ishgard all being examples of beings that were previously normal becoming abnormally powerful (the Archbishop was explicitely able to temper the Heaven's Ward even before he got the eye out for transformation.) due to the collective faith of a region. They're not all considered Primals due to particular details differing, but the underlying principles which result in their creation are all consistent.

[Cleretic]

There's a reason I said "naturally-occuring primal." The deeper we look into the lore about Primals and aether, the more apparent it becomes that more than a few things are created as part of the same process of collective faith, something supported by dev statements. Auspices are probably the most substantial example of a "naturally occuring primal" where the collective faith of the far east is focused on animals because of the local religious beliefs and mythologies, but there's plenty of others, with Susanoo being the most blatant case where we actually SEE an example of a Primal-like being being created due to collective faith reaching a certain threshold, but plenty of others like Tural vidraal, tsukimogami, and even the archbishop of Ishgard all being examples of beings that were previously normal becoming abnormally powerful (the Archbishop was explicitely able to temper the Heaven's Ward even before he got the eye out for transformation.) due to the collective faith of a region. They're not all considered Primals due to particular details differing, but the underlying principles which result in their creation are all consistent.

Well you're not describing a helpful distinction, then, because you're mixing actual primals (Susano and King Thordan) with things that aren't primals (the Auspices and Tural Vidraal). And in fact the Auspices aren't really comparable, because it seemed to be that they actually don't get power from worship, they just get power from living for so damn long that they collate enough aether to become comparable in power anyway. Some of them are worshipped, but that seemed to come afterwards; you see a big flaming bird and build a religion around it, rather than building a religion that involves a flaming bird that then gets summoned. It's entirely possible that worship is the source of the difference in behavior between Auspices and Tural Vidraal who definitely aren't worshipped, but at that point we're dipping into vibes-based speculation.

Now, the actual comparison point that's valid to bring up is the Twelve. Their process of deification was also explicitly compared to primals, but they also aren't primals (again, Triple Triad cards don't mark them as such, but also the story makes it pretty clear itself); they were extant figures of great power, that then got shaped by a lot of collective belief over a lot of time. That does sound roughly like Ultima, especially if we add in the evidence that Ultima was on some level of 'around' since before the Sundering as evidenced by Pandaemonium. We don't know when Ivalice was, but it's safe to say that thousands of years passed, which would give Ultima a similar series of conditions to the Twelve: it was something that had so much belief that it was 'the High Seraph' that it became that, regardless of what it was before.

You still haven't shared the evidence that 'suggested that Ultima was originally a chunk of rock', but this approach would at least hold for that theory: this is a setting where faith has an effect over a long enough period of time, so it's not impossible that Ultima was just a big, radioactive rock that got deified over time.

I would argue that a big, radioactive rock doesn't make for an especially compelling 'arc villain' to build up to, though. If they're gonna do an amped-up version of Ultima, that's probably not gonna be the reveal.

[Lunair]

Trimmed.

Oh wait. I went back just to check, and she WASN'T noted to be a rock, rather "an embodiment of pure ruination". The exact line is on page 200 of Encyclopaedia Eorzea Vol 3, and reads;

"Ultima, the High Seraph"
"So named for her ability to wield the ultimate form of destructive magic, the High Seraph was once nothing more than an embodiment of pure ruination. Yet, over time, the terror in which people held her shifted to reverence, and by a process not unlike the prayer-fueled creation of a primal, this worship quickened within Ultima a sense of self-awareness."

This directly suggests that she's only achieved the level of self awareness we see due to the collective beliefs of those aware of her. That said, what "an embodiment of pure ruination" actually translates to is vague as hell.

As for the thing about auspices and tural vidraal, I mention those cases because during a particular interview, it was asked why there're so many primals, auspices, kami, and so on in the far east when they were basically unknown in Eorzea, and it was stated that it was due to the regional beliefs in that area. they believe in these things, and so these things exist. it begs the question of how the original inspiration for the beliefs came to be, but does seem to indicate rather heavily that the auspices and similar existences fall into the same category, and the parallels between Tural Vidraal and Auspices gets mentioned in Dawntrail. (I'm looking for the interview to cite it, but trying to find a particular dev interview is always a pain in the ass, so it may take a minute so to speak.)

Also, while I WAS referencing the archbishop earlier, it was specifically prior to his transformation into Thordan that he tempered the Heaven's Ward, during the first time all of the Heaven's Ward were granted audience with him at one time. https://www.4gamer.net/games/199/G019924/20210810055/

[Cleretic]

Oh wait. I went back just to check, and she WASN'T noted to be a rock, rather "an embodiment of pure ruination". The exact line is on page 200 of Encyclopaedia Eorzea Vol 3, and reads;

"Ultima, the High Seraph"
"So named for her ability to wield the ultimate form of destructive magic, the High Seraph was once nothing more than an embodiment of pure ruination. Yet, over time, the terror in which people held her shifted to reverence, and by a process not unlike the prayer-fueled creation of a primal, this worship quickened within Ultima a sense of self-awareness."

This directly suggests that she's only achieved the level of self awareness we see due to the collective beliefs of those aware of her. That said, what "an embodiment of pure ruination" actually translates to is vague as hell.

Yeah, that's all the exact same stuff I said before, and the description's also present on the Triple Triad card. But I would point out that 'self-awareness' is a very abstract concept itself, and is hard to both quantify and to apply to things that we aren't; not only is it hard to define what self-awareness is, it's hard to define what does or doesn't have it. Yeah, a rock definitely wouldn't have self-awareness, but what about, say, a beetle? A wild tiger? A crow? How aware are they of their own selves in relation to the greater world? Hell, what about a hive insect like a bee? They're abundantly aware of their own presence and role in relation to the rest of their hive, is that self-awareness? If Ultima didn't have self-awareness before but did later, where did it start? (And a side-question given that all these sources are in-universe and therefore fallible, who figured this out and wrote it down?) If we look at Ultima's form, how much of that was made by that process of communal belief shaping its form, and how much was what it was originally?

My gut feel based on both what we've got and what could be interesting if they did 'Major Arc Villain Ultima' is the Jenova comparison that Raikai brought up. Perhaps Ultima was something akin to an insect or a virus, and was merely acting instinctually, and perhaps in service to a role in something greater (a society? A hive? An entire organism?) until eventually it gained enough self-awareness to make more conscious decisions. Then you've got that leading question of exactly where it came from, that inevitably has an answer of 'something bigger, scarier and capable of being a cool boss fight'.

Actually, it doesn't have to be that different from XVI Ultima.

I'm gonna be brutally honest here, I would balk and walk out at the reveal that we're literally and explicitly getting FFXVI leftovers.

FFXIV is in a funky position with basically every FF game after XIII (debatably including XII), that it already borrows so much from them in terms of aesthetic and literal assets and resources that it can't reference them in the same way as older games, because it would actually look lazy. Doing their own Necron, or more directly even their own version of FFT Ultima, looks and feels like the tribute it is because they self-evidently had to do significant effort to recreate it; you couldn't do that with any of the HD-era games, because it would look easy.

That problem is even worse for FFXVI, because at least someone else made the other games! Literally and explicitly going 'we're doing XVI Ultima but in XIV' would look like reheating their own work, and that'd just feel exceptionally lazy and desperate, especially for a major villain.

(I also hate FFXVI, which doesn't help but is largely an unrelated extra problem.)

[Raikai]

just as a bit of an important detail, the lore books heavily imply that Ultima isn't some kinda alien, even with what we learned about Athena's interaction with them. Rather, it suggested that Ultima was originally just a chunk of rock that was the focus of worship and myth for ages till it gained sapience and became the high seraph we eventually fought.

In other words, Ultima is just yet another naturally occuring Primal resulting from collective faith in something.

That reminds me a bit of Jenova.

I'd love Ultima for a major arch villain... Something we spend the whole 8.0 figuring out what it is. But the story certainly need more sub-villains, unless they mean to exhaust her in just one expansion worth of storytelling.