The Twelve, The Calendar, and The Dusty Tomes (I'm Sorry.)

[Anonymoose]

"When it do," lmao. Why, I oughta... [unrestrained laughter and fist shakes]

[Teakwood]

This was bugging me so much and I couldn't quite put my finger on how to articulate why! I have a feeling I could dig up historical precedent for cycles being weird, but- the amount of outside information you brought together (especially to explain the elemental wheels, which I spent a lot of time fiddling with and figuring out as soon as the lore was available, but never made the connections to classical and chinese alchemy!) and analysis you've done here is truly awesome. <3

I'm especially curious about the Twelve's relations to the elements and the astral/umbral cycle; it's awesome to have a background this detailed that we can argue about it and discuss fiddly things like this

[JGwinters]

This post is almost pure opinion and theory, feel free to ignore.

Thanks for the info on Scourge+Banish, I guess I never did go deep enough early on in the game. I'd be inclined to believe that the astral/umbral divide of 3+3 elements would be for spells (and possibly other related things) only - in a way, an earthly mage being able to only partially manifest the polarities of a single element, maybe. After all, there's no indication so far that the elements and polarities for gods/months/etc would be wrong, which means there has to be an explanation somewhere for it.

Also somehow neglected to match up elements of the Twelve against the epochs, a 'bit' of an oversight on my part. :X Seems to me there could be a cultural/historic reason between the epochs+eras having their own starting point and the rest having their own, even though it's not mentioned. It's not like RL is uniform either, and that's due to historic reasons as well (when not restricted by nature itself). You have to remember that while Eorzean culture seems rather unified in the present day, we have no idea when these classifications came to be and who (possibly which group of immigrants) came up with them.

On the matter of Fury(Astral) and Lover(Umbral), while at first glance it can seem backwards, there are other considerations weighing in on this matter I'd say. Halone being the guardian of Ishgard, for example, and everything holy seeming to be so important to them, waiting on judgment day and judging others to be unholy and all. Menphina then, associated with the Moon, makes sense being an Umbral polarity. Consider also the portrayal of Fury, bright rage, purifying rage even? Compared to cloying love and its depths of feeling, not always so very pure in origin and method. If you prefer to go there, there's also the Astral polarity elements (fire-wind-lightning) more easily associated with fury, Umbral polarity elements (ice-earth-water) more with love.

Now watch them decide there's a mistake there and all my carefully crafted reasons blown to naught. But this stuff has been there since the beginning, I'm a bit disinclined to believe they would've made such a fundamental mistake in this particular thing. There has to be reasons for the deviations, even though not mentioned.

Also factual point, RE: 7th Umbral Era bringing us back to Wind. Consider the words of Urianger Augurelt in the 1.21 and forward event. This should ease your doubts about the next Era.

Each era is ruled by an element, and of these the realm hath borne witness to six.

Light and darkness yet remain, one of which the Divine Chronicles foretell shall next hold sway.

Ne’er till land consumes sun can sea bear moons,Heavens spew crimson flame, hells seep black dooms.

Will destruction rain down from the firmament? Or will it seep forth from the bowels of the nether?

[gahoo]

Also factual point, RE: 7th Umbral Era bringing us back to Wind. Consider the words of Urianger Augurelt in the 1.21 and forward event. This should ease your doubts about the next Era.

Each era is ruled by an element, and of these the realm hath borne witness to six.

Light and darkness yet remain, one of which the Divine Chronicles foretell shall next hold sway.

Ne’er till land consumes sun can sea bear moons,Heavens spew crimson flame, hells seep black dooms.

Will destruction rain down from the firmament? Or will it seep forth from the bowels of the nether?

Great find. So if that's the case we know the 1st era was wind and that we're looking at a 7th Umbral Era associated with, well, Umbral (followed by an 7th Astral Era associated with Umbral). Frankly this also seems a bit odd to me.

[Anonymoose]

Seems to me there could be a cultural/historic reason between the epochs+eras having their own starting point and the rest having their own, even though it's not mentioned. It's not like RL is uniform either, and that's due to historic reasons as well (when not restricted by nature itself).

On one hand, you're absolutely right. Real-world calendars are a cluster%^# for exactly the same reason Eorzea's might be; disconnection and reintegration and primitive math. Hell, the real world calendar is known for adding a day here and there, randomly dropping 15 at a clip, etc.

I just... I dunno; I feel like to put all that work into engineering a fantasy calendar would lead to more consistency; especially when it's something you want your fanbase to follow and use.

I could understand it; but I wouldn't want to believe it.

Now watch them decide there's a mistake there and all my carefully crafted reasons blown to naught. But this stuff has been there since the beginning, I'm a bit disinclined to believe they would've made such a fundamental mistake in this particular thing.

Don't worry, I thought something similar; was joking with Gahoo yesterday that maybe Squenix was just being really deep that day and decided that rage is passion and passion leads to achievement, and that love or lackthereof is the root of all insecurity and insecurity is the root of all evil deeds. And then I stopped to smoke a little lalafell pipe and ponder.

Great catch with the Urianger text; I was shuffling through his stuff yesterday trying to find clues about wind. The one you found is very intriguing - as the Dusty Tomes say that there are six elements in rotation always; astral and umbral are just polarities that exert influence at some times when the math doesn't quite line up for six...

But here we see "the realm hath born witness to six [elements, and] light and darkness yet remain, one of which ... shall hold next sway". If the years and epochs belong to gods in sets of 12, why do eras come in sets of eight!? They already have an astral and umbral rotation!

Is Urianger saying we are in the Seventh Umbral Era of Umbral?

That would be absolutely bizarre, especially because the rotation of the element wheel always started with ice on the early levels -- if Astral and Umbral exist in the eras, then it completely contradicts the same series of 8 used for weeks; sure the elemental wheel of six can be rotated from any starting position to astral and umbral coming at the end of a week that starts with ice, and also at the end of a series of eras that started with wind? And going Astral Umbral on weeks and Umbral Astral on eras!?

Either the tomes are /completely/ out of order, or something's totally amiss, methinks.

Oh, man, JG... now I'm even more confused. Thanks for bringing all that to the table; I love a good debate/puzzle.

Still; I call shenanigans! Everyone grab a broom!

[Skies]

Hrm... This, actually, bring something interesting to mind.
It could be that, quite literally, the scheme of the eras is literally about to fall apart, because it doesn't seems like the calendar is all that new and the calendar itself sounds very prophetic in nature (what with each Umbral era starting with a cataclysm).

[Deltara]

My first reflex was to mock earlier, but after thinking it over I think I can actually contribute, strictly from info from various posts in this thread. (not a great understanding of game lore)

It is interesting that the cycle becomes irregular when they begin talking about the years. It's cool that there are twelve gods and twelve years, as here in Asia so many calendars are setup with the twelve animal zodiac.

It gets more interesting when you notice that the order in which the gods are listed under the years of the epochs (seemingly out of order from the "ice-first" method) matches up with the order of the eras. 6th pair of gods being water and the 6th era being linked to water.

And now for the very interesting part~~

You would assume that each god holds more sway over their own era. But there are 7 pairs of eras and only 6 pairs of gods. Are the astral and umbral eras just times of lawlessness, where no god holds sway? Do half of the gods hold sway for each era? Are there two secret gods we don't know about?

Anyway, back to my suggestion. I believe we need to know more about the creation myth to make the final call on the orders being out of sync. Since the system breaks down when man enters the picture, it seems like maybe the first few systems are going off natural law and the later systems are anthrocentric. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the humans were created in the era of wind, and thus started their era-counting on wind.

[Urthdigger]

Is Urianger saying we are in the Seventh Umbral Era of Umbral?

Considering the main threat is Meteor (Coming from the heavens) and is being called down by an empire that believes it is cleansing evil, making the land pure, and doing what's right, I imagine we'll be entering the Seventh Umbral Era of Astral.

[Teakwood]

Also, in reference to a point upthread, I don't think there's an implication of Astral as good and Umbral as bad, or six of the Twelve having negative connotations and six having positive connotations; maybe this is the eternal Thaumaturge in me speaking, but Nald'thal in specific is a god of balance, of life and death, of commerce, but also travel to/from the Underworld, and both twin aspects are considered equally important... I think it's a bit of an overgeneralisation to say that Nald'thal has a negative aspect, because he's the god of filthy lucre.

Or at least, I think you might have to start worrying about being dragged off by some scary Lalafell for reeducation next time you're in the wrong part of Ul'dah... o_o;;

(p.s. can has Lore forum? )

[Anonymoose]

Considering the main threat is Meteor (Coming from the heavens) and is being called down by an empire that believes it is cleansing evil, making the land pure, and doing what's right, I imagine we'll be entering the Seventh Umbral Era of Astral.

Really good point; though now we have Umbral eras coming before Astral eras and the astral umbral era coming before the umbral umbral era... when we already had astral and umbral before the... cycle start-- OH MYYYY.

It could be that, quite literally, the scheme of the eras is literally about to fall apart, because it doesn't seems like the calendar is all that new and the calendar itself sounds very prophetic in nature (what with each Umbral era starting with a cataclysm).

That would be pretty badass. The only thing stopping me from buying into that is the possibility that what Urianger said really does mean there will be an Astral Umbral Era and an Umbral Umbral Era. If we get this one, we'll have to have that era, then an the Seventh Astral Era before we get to the last one. Each era is like 1600 years give or take, so we'd have a bit of time! Maybe you're onto something, though. The fabric of a lot of things are unraveling.

You would assume that each god holds more sway over their own era. But there are 7 pairs of eras and only 6 pairs of gods. Are the astral and umbral eras just times of lawlessness, where no god holds sway? Do half of the gods hold sway for each era? Are there two secret gods we don't know about?

This goes back to Gahoo and I's confusion that there's suddenly the possibilty of the Seventh Umbral Era being an astral umbral era or umbral umbral era. Bizarre as that would be, there really would be no god for that - not unless the 3 on 3 rules still applied, in which case we'd get 6 of the 12! Sounds like the Greek wars in the realm of Gods, lol.

I believe we need to know more about the creation myth to make the final call on the orders being out of sync. Since the system breaks down when man enters the picture, it seems like maybe the first few systems are going off natural law and the later systems are anthrocentric. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the humans were created in the era of wind, and thus started their era-counting on wind.

Agreed; there might be something in the overall scheme that we're missing. If that were the case, I'd begrudgingly accept it. I still think a system engineered for a video game should be consistent, but there'd at least be a REASON for it being messed up.

Also, in reference to a point upthread, I don't think there's an implication of Astral as good and Umbral as bad

Aye; light and dark don't always have to be good and evil. I mean, we do have the heavens and hells - but like you said about the THMs, it doesn't have to be good or evil. Sometimes it's just knowledge vs. faith; procreation vs. profit. Evil is just a point of view.