Crazy yet somewhat plausible theories... Thread

[Cilia]

If I recall correctly, Crystals of Light are simply fragments (or in our case, slivers) of Hydaelyn's divine power. This is why ours are so much smaller and comparatively weaker than the old one Matoya has - Hydaelyn is much weaker now than when that one was made.

[RobinMalvin]

I dunno; I think there's a case to be made for plenty of connections between Azeyma and Sophia.

There's not mention in-game about Sophia being related to the sun, only equilibrium (and cunning, Kidibus said?). Furthermore, as has been stated,

As can be seen from existing Allagan artifacts (runestones (from 1.0) inscribed with the symbols of the Twelve), Twelve worship existed in the 3rd Astral Era (before eventually losing steam amongst the Allagans as their civilization became increasingly scientifically advanced). When the Allagans first visited Meracydia, they were surprised to find a symbol almost identical to that used for Azeyma, the Warden being prominently featured in various types of architecture. Further research, however, revealed that the Meracydians they encountered did not worship Azeyma, but instead a deity named Sephirot, the Fiend, and that the symbol was being used to mean something similar, but ultimately different.

Azeyma worship among the Allagans/Eorzeans may have existed around the same time Meracydians worshipped Sophia/Sephirot/Zurfan, if not earlier. While Azeyma was also considered as sun deity like today, her present aspects as goddess of justice holding a balance might be inspired by the image of Sophia.

'Twould seem the power of our crystals is all but spent. -Magus of Darkness

So yes, even Crystals of Light do not have infinite power. They're just like any crystal, aether given form. Their difference is the amount of aether they posses compared to regular crystals.

[Anonymoose]

There's not mention in-game about Sophia being related to the sun, only equilibrium (and cunning, Kidibus said?).

Nothing spoken, no - just the visual themes (red, gold, Azeyma, possible references to the sun disc). Taken to the extreme, though, would there need to be a single connection between Sophia and the sun for her to share themes with Azeyma?

A parallel: Thomas Edison invented an electric pen that punched holes into a stencil that could be used for making multiple copies of a single document. Modifying a few of the parts, Samuel O'Reilly invented a pen that introduced ink into the skin. There are no mentions of Thomas Edison's invention being related to tattoos, and no mentions of Samuel O'Reilly's invention being related to documents. Had the former invention survived, think of how different the two might be today.

I think we're saying similar things in different ways, as that includes the possibility of the complete loop: Allag had a sun goddess in Azeyma (which had already diffused around the world) which became conflated with imagery of Sophia later on, in the same fashion as the Sephirot temple and Qarn, which is also marked for Azeyma (maybe even using the same source materials).

To use one possible path as an illustration: The Balance could be based on depictions of Azeyma sourced from Belah'dia, who retained source materials on Meracydian nations from records surviving from the days of Allag, who had records of this and the Twelve in the same encyclopaedias (as Koji helpfully pointed out was the connection between the architecture used in both Sephirot's temple and Qarn, which the Belah'dians built upon and used to worship Azeyma).