On Primals

[Viridiana]

So, it's time again to launch a bunch of related questions into the Lore forum and see what comes back. This time, the topic is on Primals.

So, the Primals are supposed to be a manifestation of an entity that exists within the aether. We also know that the Primals we've seen thus far require quite a bit of crystals to summon. Rather, attempts to summon them can be linked to shipments of crystals being stolen, so we know that it takes a *lot* of crystals just to do the initial summoning. And that was for Ifrit SM, which is by far the easiest of the Primals.

While the Primals are alive and summoned, they consume aether. Presumably, since there's always talk of aetheric imbalance, they primarily consume their own element. That is, Ifrit prefers fire, Garuda wind, and so on.

When the Primals are defeated, this aether is released back into the world, and the being returns to the aether (if they even started there. Silly moogles).

But here's where it starts to get fuzzy. My initial question was going to be "If a primal absorbs all of their element in the world, wouldn't they starve and return to the aether anyway?" Then I realized that the question had way too many assumptions and unknowns involved.

First: If the Primals are truly bent on consuming as much of their own element as they can, why do the arenas we fight them in still bear so much aetheric energy in those selfsame elements? Why is Ifrit surrounded by unabsorbed fire? Why is Garuda surrounded by a whirlwind? Why does Leviathan's mere presence not suck the aether from the seas?

Are they truly absorbing their own element, or are they converting the other elements into their own? This almost sounds silly, but remember, Garuda tried to steal the strength of Ifrit and Titan by defeating them, and there's nothing saying that if the Ultima Weapon hadn't intervened it wouldn't have worked. Clearly Garuda and the NPCs have reason to believe that she could have absorbed fire and earth and powered up her own wind.

And then, of course, you have Moggle Mog, who has no element. We know that he creates an aetheric disturbance like the others, but is it only in how concentrated aether in general becomes when he's summoned? After all, there seems to be no reason to believe that he's strengthening one element over the others. Same goes for Odin and probably Bahamut.

I'm assuming there's a limit to how quickly a Primal can absorb aether. In the amount of time it takes us to travel the world and find an item that will allow us passage into Garuda's domain, she doesn't really get very powerful, and she still inhabits a whirlwind. Instead, her big power upgrade comes from the Ixali summoning her again with even more crystals. Is the summoninig itself really that big a determinant of how powerful a Primal can become?

When the Primals attack with their elements, are they weakening themselves? Does that aether return to the environment? Can it then be re-absorbed by the Primal? Could a Primal --in theory-- exist in balance with the environment? Does the amount of aether required by a Primal depend on how powerful they are? Could they then weaken themselves to make supporting them easier?

When the Primals were sealed beneath Silvertear Lake (and Urth's Font and Dalamud and in Ultima Weapon), was that in itself the cause of an aether imbalance? They are, after all, at least allegedly beings of the aether. To have them cut off from the aether like that seems damaging. What about all the aether required to bind Bahamut and being absorbed even now within the coils (also, I've barely touched second coil, but am not averse to any spoilers)?

Would the summoning of Primals at places of over-aspected crystals differ signifiacantly from normal summoning? Would it be a way of rebalancing the crystals? Does the actual aspect of crystal matter at all when summoning Primals, or does it simply make it easier?

Speaking of Ultima Weapon, does he literally summon the Primals back out to use their attacks, or is that just a visual used for the convenience of the player? If it's literal, he must have caused aspect whiplash during the fight, not to mention how he could summon Garuda back out without her trying to destroy everything (or, heck, flee). Also (something of an opinion question, maybe), could Ultima Weapon have defeated the Ex Primals? How much worse would his fight have been then?

It's a lot of questions, and my research ability is limited at the moment (can't log in because SE sites hate Korean IP addresses, or something). At any rate, I hope this stirs some discussion. . .

[Viridiana]

Shameless bump. >_>

[TinyRedLeaf]

Given the many spanners thrown into existing theories about primals, I don't think many of us can confidently claim to know everything about them any more.

First, Ferne has dropped a major hint at the Las Vegas Fan Fest that primals are not necessarily elemental.

And I don't recall anyone ever saying a primal drains or strengthens an element. The only thing we know for sure is that they are sustained by aether and strengthened by worship.

I still need to check whether it was the primals or a vast store of aether (or both) that was sealed away in Silvertear Lake. We don't know who created the seal, although my guess has always been the Allagans. And if it were indeed the Allagans, then for them to have sealed away modern primals like Ifrit, Titan and Garuda would suggest that these primals are some 5,000 years old. How much older would that make Bahamut and Odin? I don't know.

In any case, whoever created the seal clearly believed it was a way to stop the primals from reappearing in Eorzea, so if the inadvertent effect is to cause an "imbalance" in the aether, the rest of the realm does not seem not to have felt it for a good long time. Either the peoples of the world adapted to the new balance, or there wasn't an imbalance at all. Moreover, it has been repeatedly said that the primals are the ones who disrupt the balance, rather than their absence, so I don't think the seal is to blame.

As for the effect of summoning primals in areas filled with over-aspected crystals, I also don't know. I know only that a summoner has to go to a place strong in a certain element when he attempts to bend an egi to his will for the first time. I would think it particularly suicidal for a summoner to go to an area that is too strong in that element for such an attempt.

From what I recall about the Ultima Weapon, it was actually the mechanised version of an Allagan summoner. It was designed to absorb and weaponise the essences of primals, not unlike the way a summoner would siphon a part of a primal's essence in order to create an egi, except on a much grander scale.

And since it's a question of scale, I'm not surprised to see the Ultima Weapon summoning the primals themselves when it attacks. No mortal can hope to have sufficient strength of will to command a full-scale primal. But a mega-machine, on the other hand, probably has no such limitation.

[Baithin]

Speaking of Silvertear, the end of the Monk questline describes it as "the aetherial center of the world." Erik, the MNK quest guy, even theorizes that magic BEGAN there. If magic and aether originally came from Silvertear, it is not too much of a stretch to think that it is the birthplace of the Primals as well, thousands of years ago.

Also, I know this is off topic, but it does have to do with Primals and this is as good a place as any to bring it up. Sastasha HM spoilers:

Upon completion of that dungeon, we learn that it is possible for a person to be tempered by a Primal twice. The second time turns them into abominations of aether, monstrous creatures that resemble the element of the Primal who tempered them. So, for Captain Madison and his crew, they were turned into tentacle-faced monsters like Davy Jones in PotC, since they were tempered twice by Leviathan.

I wonder what impact this could have on future plot developments.

[Darkstride]

I don't think Good King Moggle Mog is even considered a Primal. He is more of a copycat manifestation of the Moogles' king that they have summoned with their desire to protect the Twelveswood.

[TinyRedLeaf]

I don't think Good King Moggle Mog is even considered a Primal.

I'll just paraphrase a line from my new favourite femroe:

I will say that what she summoned was a primal. The readings were the same, or near as damn it.

Admittedly, she was referring to Shiva rather than King Moogle Mog, but the key point is in bold above. The readings were the same.

By all traditional definitions, King Moogle Mog is not a primal, but the way he was summoned and the nature of his existence essentially made him one.

But it does make me wonder why the Scions aren't making a fuss about Odin running loose in the Black Shroud. If that is indeed an elder primal, then their aether goggles should have picked up the disturbance by now. I'm therefore of the opinion that the current Odin is no more than an apparition of the Dark Divinity, and not the actual primal himself.

[Evane]

Sorry for hijacking your thread. But here is something I wrote on a different forum that I'd like to share with the lore enthusiasts here and would love to hear from you all.

So I was thinking. The world has 12 deities and 2 supreme deities.
The 2 are light and dark, known to us as Hydaelyn and Zodiark. For the other twelve, each element has 2 deities associated with it. We know them as the Twelve. The Twelve, according to the Acsians, are as summonable as the primals. Ala Mhigo tried to summon Rhalgar and failed or stopped by the Garleans. But what if the beastmen races succeeded in summoning the Twelve? The beastmen have their own lore and history so whichever deity from the twelve they summoned, had a different appearance, gender and name than the one in the lore of man. I tried to match each primal with one of the twelve and here is what I came up with:

Ifrit/Azeyma: during the opening cutscene of Ifrit's fight, it appears as if he is blocking the sun and then it appears as if he comes out of the sun itself. Azeyma is the keeper of the sun.

Titan/Nophica: the kobolds are miners and have plenty of ores and resources, so worshiping Nophica, the deity of soil and abundance, would be a solid choice.

Garuda/Oschon: Oschon is the ruler of mountains and god of vagrants. Ixali are trying to get back to their homeland so perhaps they consider themselves vagrants and chose their deity accordingly.

Leviathan/Thaliak: Thaliak is the god of wisdom and Leviathan taught his Sahagin minion how to obtain the echo. A scholar old enough to be worshiped would surely know how to do this.

Ramuh/Byregot: Ramuh is a well mannered primal and the slyphs have the prettiest housing items from their tribe quests. They have their own silk. Art. Byregot is the god of art.

Bismarck/Llymlaen: Llymlaen is the goddess of navigation and watcher of seas. But she commands the element of wind and not water. Sea of clouds, flying whale.

Shiva/Menphina: She slept with a dragon knowing that it's the ultimate sin. Menphina is the lover. Keeper of the moon. Fenrir, a wolf with moon-related abilities guards her crystal.

Ravana/Althyk: Althyk's sign is an hourglass and he's the surveyor of change. Maybe a nomad tribe would like to not be nomads? Also process of elimination since Nophica is taken.

Iceheart's words seemed genuine. Being biased to my own theory, here is where I went with her comment. The Garleans wanted to invade Mor Dhona, a land rich with Aether. Maybe due to their hate of Primals, or as they call them Eikons (eikon in Greek means image), they wanted to take control and reinforce the seal on the lake to prevent anyone from summoning anything. Someone (Hydaelyn? Zodiark?) didn't want that and awoken Midgardsormr to war against the Garleans. Shit hit the fan and the seal was broken. The Garleans equated those the echo and beastmen. And Iceheart, an echo user herself, showed us that she is able to summon. Just like Lou summoned the power of the twelve.

What I'm getting at here is, Eikons are different images of the same power/entity. When people are in distress, they'll summon their god of old. Their prayers would reach the appropriate member of the Twelve and it will appear in whatever image the people who prayed imagined. The Twelve are neither good nor evil. They'll be whatever the summoner wants them to be. For example, Garuda is crazy because the Ixal are crazy.

I might be on to something or I might skipped a cutscene where this is completely debunked in the game already.

[Alenore]

- You have the Leviathan part wrong. The Ascians gave the Sahagin priest the Echo, not Leviathan.
- Byregot is the god of craftsmanship, in fact. "The Builder". Every beast tribe has some pretty good skills at crafting things, from the Sahagin with their ballistas to the Ixalis and their hot air baloons :3
- Llymlaen being the goddess of navigation and sea explains itself easily => You need wind to sail.
- Louisoix didn't have the Echo, or at least he never used it. The kids in Ala Mhigo who wanted to summon Rhalgr didn't have it either, from all we know. Not only beastmen can summon, but anyone.
- I've never seen Kobolds having crop or growing anything :P

Finally, Shiva was an actual person, it seems, dating from the beginning of the Dragon war. At least, her myth started back then. The Twelve "exist" for much longer than that.

[Viridiana]

Given the many spanners thrown into existing theories about primals, I don't think many of us can confidently claim to know everything about them any more.

Granted, but I like to speculate with what info we do have.

First, Ferne has dropped a major hint at the Las Vegas Fan Fest that primals are not necessarily elemental.

And I don't recall anyone ever saying a primal drains or strengthens an element. The only thing we know for sure is that they are sustained by aether and strengthened by worship.

I've never considered Odin or Mog to be elemental, so no big surprise there, to me. As for whether they must consume an element, the Scions claim that they require crystals to summon. Barring any deaspected crystals, we know that elemental crystals are being consumed. The question, then, is whether it's one particular element or if any will do.

I still need to check whether it was the primals or a vast store of aether (or both) that was sealed away in Silvertear Lake. We don't know who created the seal, although my guess has always been the Allagans. And if it were indeed the Allagans, then for them to have sealed away modern primals like Ifrit, Titan and Garuda would suggest that these primals are some 5,000 years old. How much older would that make Bahamut and Odin? I don't know.

Well, the modern primals were seen escaping from the seal...

But it does make me wonder why the Scions aren't making a fuss about Odin running loose in the Black Shroud. If that is indeed an elder primal, then their aether goggles should have picked up the disturbance by now. I'm therefore of the opinion that the current Odin is no more than an apparition of the Dark Divinity, and not the actual primal himself.

Kinda curious about that, myself. I mean, based on how primals work thus far in the game, Odin is very much an outlier. The closest he has to worshipers would probably be either adventurers (delighting in combat) or lay persons (wishing for a strong warrior to protect them). Even then, a summoning is supposed to require crystals, so that seems to be missing. Unless he can somehow get enough aether from the environment, or something. . .

[treuhavik]

It seems to me that a primal can only consume aether, not material elements found in our world (wind, ocean water, etc.). Aether is only really found in our realm in the form of crystals and that's why they're stockpiled and "fed" to the modern primals. Also, I believe that any crystal will do, so long as it contains aether (not deaspected [drained of aether]).

Also;

Ferne has dropped a major hint at the Las Vegas Fan Fest that primals are not necessarily elemental.

I'm also inclined to agree with Lyland on Odin; He must not quite be a 'primal' yet, just some poor spirit sealed away by the Allagan (before the Garleans accidentally released him), much like the known primals. We should be seeing a trial battle for him soon though, hinting that we may see him become a primal.

And, finally, yes, Silvertear is from where the modern primals came. The Allagan used the lake to trap the weaker primals (trapping primals was kind of their thing). What's interesting here is that Midgarsormr was/is the "Keeper of the Lake", it's protector. This means it's likely that the Allagan assigned him this task using some variation of their dragon mind-controll devices.


**Post #69! /maturity off ... awwwwhh yeeeeaah /maturity on