Quote Originally Posted by Enkidoh View Post
As Annonymoose and I discussed in a past thread which I'm still trying to find a link for, it seems the reason Hydaelyn has 'gone silent' is that She probably feels that we can basically be left now to manage on our own without Her having to hold our hand every few steps, as the 2.0 story was pretty much the [HB]Mothercrystal carefully preparing us to become a Warrior of Light, to face down the Ascians who were the real power behind Gaius's throne and thus foil their plan to rebirth Zodiark - giving us the tools and the knowledge to do so (ala, the Echo).
That's all based on assumption though.

The battle with Ultima Weapon sees Hydaelyn directly intervene in a way that we'd never seen before. First we cannot even scratch Ultima Weapon so she gives us the strength to do so, then she extracts each of the primals from the Weapon in order to weaken it for us, and THEN she shields us from a ground zero Ultima detonation. Immediately following this even Lahabrea notes that she no longer has the power to intervene any further.

Based on all the events we see up to that point it's very possible that the dark crystal we see is Hydaelyn drained of aether, which is possibly what Lahabrea was trying to accomplish all along. Remember that the Echo allows us to see the past AND to see the aetherial realm.

In 2.3 Minfillia even mentions that Hydaelyn has been strangely silent and directly implies that something is seriously wrong. That would not be written into the narrative if it were not the case. It is simply bad story telling to foreshadow events that will never take place. I'm quite sure that Hydaelyn is weakened in some way.

As for the statue in the Ascian 'world', we have no idea at all what that is yet. It might just be a statue.

With regards to the OP: The implication so far is that the Sahagin's 'ascendance' was an advanced form of the Echo which was not at all subtly similar to the Ascians' own incorporeal form. Given Elidibus' teases that we do not fully comprehend what the Echo actually is yet, and that we apparently might see eye to eye if we did understand, I don't think it would be too far fetched to say that the Ascians themselves are Echo users.

Where they got the Echo and how they are able to give it to others remains unexplained though.