About these "calamities" and "Astral/Umbral" eras...

[Anonymoose]

I find the entire declaration of 7th Umbral era suspect. What exactly was so different in those 5 years? Why did stopping a single Garlemald invasion usher in a new ERA?

Do you mean 7th Astral? Declaring the 7th Umbral is easy to understand - moon falls, empire invades, big primal destroys massive chunks of the realm and sends the aetherial balance in a downward spiral, the Ascians return... defeating the Invasion and ushering in the 7th Astral is more suspicious than that, but Fernehalwes did give some insight.

So, officially, it’s the Seventh Astral Era… but there’s still… a lot of stuff going on. Who are the Grand Company Leaders that they can just be like, “Okay, it’s over, we’re done!”

This is a very political thing. Basically, five years ago, you had half of your world destroyed because Louisoix stepped in and tried to stop things and only half stopped things. A lot of people did pass away during the Calamity and their livelihood as been destroyed. They have to rebuild and go into the shroud to move felled trees and rebuild their farms and it got a lot of people down. If you look at some of the NPC dialogue, one thing we did in 2.0 was, we thought, you know if my life had been destroyed I’d be all depressed; I’m just trying to rebuild things and get back on my feet. So we’ve tried to put that kind of text into these regular NPCs. You have all these people in these nations that are very down.

They had this big war with the Garleans, they won all these great battles, it was the first time in thousands of years the Grand Companies were formed and then, “Hey we ma-… DIDN’T make i,t” so basically the GC leaders were waiting for something good to happen and they grasped onto that and said “OK! Umbral era is over, mission accomplished, we’re done!” to hopefully bring peoples spirits up. It’s a morale thing, you can’t have your people depressed all the time, they won’t be productive thinking, “Why should I farm? Another Bahamut is gonna just destroy my fields.”

So we have that quest line, Chronicles of a New Era.. so we ARE in a new era then?

Yep. When they announce it, that’s it. But it’s weird because if a new player picks up the game and starts today they’re still in the Umbral Era, it’s in that time bubble.

Each Umbral Eras represents an element and all elements have already be exhausted. the 7th umbral era could be non-elemental

Correct - some didn't even believe that the Seventh could exist because the elements were exhausted. Either the last two are the polarities themselves (light and darkness), such as with the cycle of days, or, as I like to put it, the Seventh cycle is that of oblivion or the chance to stop it.

[Fenral]

I find the entire declaration of 7th Umbral era suspect. What exactly was so different in those 5 years? Why did stopping a single Garlemald invasion usher in a new ERA?

I think there's actually a more-or-less official statement to the effect if "it's a PR stunt by the three leaders." My current belief is that the Umbral Era won't really end until the current Main Scenario (going into 3.0 and beyond) ends, since defeating Ultima Weapon had pretty much nothing to do with Eorzea's aetherial balance.

(Moose is speaking in the post above. Bracing for impact.)

[FJerome]

Astral and Umbral Eras may just be an Eorzean cultural construct to try and impose some meaning and understanding on a string of human-caused (spoken-caused?) calamities and the recovery periods between them, rather like we attach huge significance to the turning-point between centuries and millenniums even though they're entirely human creations. The other continents may also be affected by the disasters but maybe don't mythologise them as part of an inescapable cycle the way Eorzea does.

[Belhi]

Its worth noting that the damage done by Bahamut was heavily mitigated by the events that are shown in turn 12 of the Final Coil. The damage could have been far more widespread if not countered.

[Gwaeron]

The 7th Umbral era, so far, has only started climate change: Coerthas is in a perpetual winter, dry bone is constantly raining, camp tranquil was formally a great lake, but reduced to a swamp. Most importantly, the seal has been broken and now everyone one can summon primals.

Actually, Primals were released during the Battle of Silvertear Skies in 6AE 1562, ten years before the calamity, as seen in the opening movie, here!

[treuhavik]

Actually, Primals were released during the Battle of Silvertear Skies in 6AE 1562, ten years before the calamity, as seen in the opening movie, here!

Now, it's unclear but believed that there was a Primal present in Eorzea some time between when the Garlean Empire conquered Ala Mhigo in 1557 and the Battle of Silvertear Skies in 1562. This was the Primal to halt their advance into Eorzea and the assumed reason for their attack on Silvertear. Garlean forces also encountered Primals on Othard, sometime between 1552 and 1557.

At any rate, it was in the 6th Astral Era that Beast Tribes were taught summoning rituals by the Paragons and probably shouldn't be linked to events of the 7th Umbral.

[Gwaeron]

Now, it's unclear but believed that there was a Primal present in Eorzea some time between when the Garlean Empire conquered Ala Mhigo in 1557 and the Battle of Silvertear Skies in 1562.

Yep, and there have been summonings much, much earlier than that as well (Bahamut, Odin). However the primals were released as seen in that cutscene... whatever that actually means.

This made me think of a question. In the cutscene we can see that the primals released clearly already had form. We see Ifrit and Titan very clearly. This is before the beastmen even starts trying to summon them. Do they already have form because there is already a belief in them? Or is there a belief in them because they already existed?

Recent events would have one believe that one could summon anything in the form of a primal, given enough crystals and believers... Then said anything would already have had form at least 15 years ago? What if a new religion appears?

[treuhavik]

Do they already have form because there is already a belief in them? Or is there a belief in them because they already existed?

I'm leaning toward the belief that the column of aether from Silvertear was just that, and only that. The depiction of the Primals within this pillar is merely metaphorical, signifying that from that point onward the aetherial balance was such that Primals, previously existing or not, could be summoned far more easily than before. It's also foreshadowing the events to come(beast tribe summoning). This doesn't fully answer your question though. I think it plausible that certain Primals already had an established "form", but in order to know this for sure we first need answers to certain other questions...

Recent events would have one believe that one could summon anything in the form of a primal, given enough crystals and believers...

I think it's more important to look at it as aether required for a primal to manifest, rather than crystals specifically, whether that aether has an element attached to it or not. Though, elementally aspected aether just might have an influence on the final product...

What if a new religion appears?

Well, we've seen first-hand that Primals can be created where there wasn't one before, therefore not all existed before the "seal" on Silvertear was broken.

[Frederick22]

I'm starting to think that maybe the "Lambs of Dalamund" will try to do the same some day

[Enkidoh]

Except Ferne actually confirmed the column of light at the Battle of Silvertear Skies (i.e. in 1.0's original opening FMV), really was the Primals being released from confinement, and that until that time they had been sealed within the lake. This confirmation is in the 1.0 forum archive so it will take me a bit of time to dig up. But the important this is, the Primals were sealed until that point (which coincided with the first appearance of the Ascians to the beast tribes masquerading as the 'Paragons' and teaching each in turn to summon, Ifrit being the first.