Gerun Oracles

[Fenral]

What it means to learn from history is not to simply admit things went wrong and assume you can do better. What it means is that understanding the causes and motivations behind a large-scale tragedy is key to prevent it from happening again. The Ascians are not a cause, they're an organization. Organizations have objectives, and we already know theirs is not genocide for genocide's sake. Obviously we can't let them kill everyone, but until we understand why killing everyone furthers their objectives, we can't really move towards conflict resolution. We can't even be sure that simply "defeating them once and for all" will actually change anything. And we're supposed to be better than that.

[Belhi]

What it means to learn from history is not to simply admit things went wrong and assume you can do better. What it means is that understanding the causes and motivations behind a large-scale tragedy is key to prevent it from happening again. The Ascians are not a cause, they're an organization. Organizations have objectives, and we already know theirs is not genocide for genocide's sake. Obviously we can't let them kill everyone, but until we understand why killing everyone furthers their objectives, we can't really move towards conflict resolution. We can't even be sure that simply "defeating them once and for all" will actually change anything. And we're supposed to be better than that.

Even seeing that as the case just cause they have a reason for their actions doesn't mean they are open to considering other options. If anything the Ascians generally seem pretty fanatically devoted to Zodiark.

I'd point to Nidhogg as a similar situation. Nidhogg's reasons for his war are routed in a crime perpetrated against Dragonkind, but regardless of the cause and justification nothing we can do will find common ground with Nidhogg cause he isn't open to looking for common ground. That's why we had to go after him in the Aery anyway. We had to take him down cause finding a middleground wasn't an option.

Again I point to the Ascians that they have never shown any real regret or sadness at what they seem to see as a necessary path to achieving their goals. Instead they seem to hold the mortals of Hydaelyn in little regard at best and at worst, no small amount of contempt. They are devoted to their cause and their 'one true god' Zodiark. That may change in future Ascians we meet but I've seen precious little from the Ascians so far for me to believe they really care about what happens to the people of Hydaelyn or that they are really open to negotiating alternatives.

[myahele]

If you go to talk to Urianger about the state of the realm he says this:

Urianger: “Knowledge dictates expectation, and expectation colors perception.”
Urianger: On occasion, truth may issue from the mouths of fiends and foes. Our knowledge is dwarfed by our ignorance, and what wisdom we possess hath been distorted by the passage of time.
Urianger: But no matter how distorted our wisdom becometh, may it never be forgot that man is the master of his own destiny.
Urianger: The final verse of the Divine Chronicles foretelleth the destruction of the world. But if it is our fate to perish, so too is it our fate to fight.
Urianger: So let us fight on, as ever we have, in the hopes that the dawn's light will shine again and forevermore.

Interesting because that's exactly what Elidibus says to Minfilia in his 1st appearance in 2.1; it was mostly referring to people's perception/belief of Asciens being formless/shadowy. And that those with "eyes unclouded" can "see them for what they are, rather than this crude approximation"

Most likely, mastering the Echo will allow us to see their true forms.

[Cilia]

This is one thing I've come back to over and over since the original GC Midlander thread. Before all the Ivalice references were dragged into this, Eorzea was based on Greece. If you consider the Twelve as the Olympians, they sit atop two fallen orders of gods.

First, the Primordials. In Eorzea, these would be represented as the forces from which all things were generated, and originally it seems that these are the beings that the Beastmen are calling from the aether; it's what they truly believe the primals to be. This is later proven to be wrong, but you have a manifestation of the idea nonetheless.

It's funny you should bring that up, because in Greek myth while there may be primordials that existed before even the Titans, before even them there existed Chaos.

What is the Ascians' goal? To resurrect Zodiark, god of chaos, using a "chaotic confluence of aether." To return everything to its true shape as it ever should have remained. At the very least, this would imply that Zodiark is the root of all creation and Hydaelyn is violating causality by allowing our existence... but then, from where did Hydaelyn come if she is at such odds with him? This is the big question that needs answering, I think...

[Anonymoose]

<...>before even them there existed Chaos.

That's a major place "so vague a lot of things work" kicks in. The Ascians are called the Bringers of Chaos. And Chaos is required to bring Zodiark.

Chaos was personified in what? I, VII, and ish in XII? So there's clearly a precedence for it. And yet in something Greek-inspired it's a bit of a paradox, simultaneously fitting very well and not at all. Taken as a God, all of the sentiments paint him as the God of the very thing he should rightfully have risen from. (Then again, that's not even so much of a paradox as the point depending on which Greek you're reading.) He also works as an Erebus-like figure.

To keep stirring the pot (and nudge the boundaries of contemplation wide enough to include my train of thought's current station), for the Greeks Chaos is the yawning abyssal void from which Darkness and (eventually) Aether rose; where all of the elements were a formless hodgepodge at the time of Creation when Heaven (The Age of the Gods?) and Earth (The Corporeal?) were separated. Most interestingly, the "moving shapeless" Chaos is often understood by comparing it to water (which is both defies shape yet readily accepts any form), and is seen in many religions as a unity undone and sorted out by a cosmological Creator.

In the beginning, before myth and legend, before Light and Dark, there was but the sea.

[Cilia]

That's a major place "so vague a lot of things work" kicks in. The Ascians are called the Bringers of Chaos. And Chaos is required to bring Zodiark.

...

In the beginning, before myth and legend, before Light and Dark, there was but the sea.

It does get difficult when you try and go back to the root of creation, even with science. While the Big Bang is a widely-accepted phenomenon, what the universe was like before then is still a giant question mark there is seemingly no way to answer. But I digress.

Chaos is a major figure in I as the first and last major opponent you fight in a certain sense of the word, and is the origin of the time loop the world is stuck in. His Ivalice incarnation is a shout-out to this version, called "Walker of the Wheel" because he's been killed and resurrected countless times by the gods (Occuria).

In VII, Chaos is originally just Vincent's ultimate Limit Break, but his existence is expanded upon in Dirge of Cerberus: he's essentially a grim reaper whose purposes is to kill everything in the event of a catastrophe, so as to send their spirit energy to Omega Weapon (in that 'verse, a sort of interplanetary ark for the Planet's Lifestream).

However, Chaos also exists in the Fabula Nova Crystallis sub-series, albeit as a primordial force more akin to how it's portrayed in Greek myth than as an independent character. There it just is, and is used by Etro to give humans hearts, but becomes problematic when unleashed on the mortal plane because it breaks down the laws of reality. It's Caius' intentional doing so that leads to the apocalypse, more or less, as witnessed in Lightning Returns. Or so I heard. I only played 1/2 of the original XIII before I got bored.

Back to the point - in Greek myth, Chaos is the primordial force that has always existed, but it was only when other things came out of it that existence properly began. Things are only defined by their opposite, or "And God said: let there be light." Before then there was no such thing as darkness, that's just what there was. There was no disparity. The introduction of the light defines darkness - "shadow is not cast, but born of [light]." Then, if Hydaelyn is the goddess of light and order to Zodiark's darkness and chaos, my current best guess is that she took Zodiark's power, formless aether, and sorted it out to shape the world we know today, and Zodiark created the Ascians as a sort of dying curse to kill Hydaelyn and return his power to him. Zodiark is "dead" because Hydaelyn sorts his essence, raw aether, into the elements we know make up everything in the world.

That makes the Ascians' goal of wreaking as much havoc as possible make sense, kind of - by destroying Hydaelyn, the planet, they're weakening the goddess and her ability to filter aether into the elements that make up the world. Then chaos will return and with it, Zodiark... returning everything to a zero world, where there is no life and no crystal to give life, a la IX's Necron.

... I'm tired and frustrated the servers be down. Incoherent rambling, toss off Darksteel Foil hat.

[Fenral]

While we're on the subject of Goddesses who mean well, the actual true nature of the Sea of Chaos that consumed FFXIII-dom wasn't simply "the dead souls of humanity."

It was the dead souls of all the Yuls who died throughout history. As in, there were that many, and Caius knew all of them. Etro reincarnated the same person so many times their souls combined into a world-devouring horror.

Kind of a shame it got relegated to a sub-episode after all that buildup.

So yeah. If Hydaelyn is pulling anything like that, we need to stop her, even if she means well. Ideally with a non-lethal option. At any rate, I'm guessing that restoring "equilibrium" means finding a way to bring back Zodiark without killing Hydaelyn in return (and not simply trading light for darkness). End goal being that they oppose each other for eternity and leave us out of it.

[Kaiser-Ace]

As some one who has studied Greek Mythology for nearly 2 decades, I'd like to remind everyone that the Primordial, Chaos, Was actually a formless being that was equal parts deity and force. Chaos, The Deity (Often considered a Goddess Ironically) was the personification of Chaos,The Force.

In the mythological since the "Primeval Chaos" was all of the shapeless energy filling the void before Gaia rose (In an Egg no less) from the sea of Chaos and formed the material world with Uranus. And even after which The Chaos still existed outside of Gaia's physical plain.

The Primeval Chaos was also called "The Void" IRL by the classical scholars interestingly enough.

So Zodiark in this world being Chaos Incarnate could actually have some merit if we start to think of Hydaelyn as Gaia. Though I'd personally equate The Primals/Eikons the being To Titans rather than The Primordials (As That would only contain Gaia Earth Mother, Uranus Skyfather, And Chaos the One that is All)

[dragoelete]

While we're on the subject of Goddesses who mean well, the actual true nature of the Sea of Chaos that consumed FFXIII-dom wasn't simply "the dead souls of humanity."

It was the dead souls of all the Yuls who died throughout history. As in, there were that many, and Caius knew all of them. Etro reincarnated the same person so many times their souls combined into a world-devouring horror.

Kind of a shame it got relegated to a sub-episode after all that buildup.

So yeah. If Hydaelyn is pulling anything like that, we need to stop her, even if she means well. Ideally with a non-lethal option. At any rate, I'm guessing that restoring "equilibrium" means finding a way to bring back Zodiark without killing Hydaelyn in return (and not simply trading light for darkness). End goal being that they oppose each other for eternity and leave us out of it.

its not quiet that simple.

the reason for yul being that way is not from being reborn over and over or at least not the only reason. the main reason is the fact she was constantly being reborn while keeping the memories of all her previous and future selves while also seeing her own future death repeatedly each time.

[Anonymoose]

So Zodiark in this world being Chaos Incarnate could actually have some merit if we start to think of Hydaelyn as Gaia.

Before the act of cosmogony got dragged into this, that was my very first impression of Zodiark; an in-cosmos representation of the out-of-cosmos Darkness, a shadow cast by the existence of Light (astral and umbral in all things), and something Hydaelyn had to find some way to keep in check. It still makes sense, but I had a hard time rooting it in the concept of pre-Hydaelyn existence and, in the brainstorm, just kept on jogging past the idea.

Though I'd personally equate The Primals/Eikons the being To Titans rather than The Primordials (As That would only contain Gaia Earth Mother, Uranus Skyfather, And Chaos the One that is All)

I went back and forth on this before posting, too. Calling the primals the Titans made so much sense when it was Twelve versus Primordials, so it's entirely possible that (when we considering that the Ascians themselves might have some connection to something we might consider divine) we jumped a tier too high since ... wow, we really haven't filled out much more of this Eorzean/Greek parallel theory since 2013.

Far from two decades, my proficiency on the matter ends at "Googled key words and got swept up by a Wiki-nado", so I'll defer to you on likelihoods.