The Ascian Theory

[HeroLogarin]

This is a theory that I came up with to better understand the Ascians. I'm only about 60% of the way through Realm and I have done some research, so I could be missing some points, but I will continue to edit this when I come across more information from reading more and from gameplay. If you happen to see something that catches your eye, good or bad, please comment so that I can get the correct information and if there is much more that I will need to add.

This is a work in progress

https://herologarin.com/2016/11/02/t...e_preview=true

[treuhavik]

You aren't alone in your curiosity, Logarin, but you make quite a few jumps in your hypothesis. It's always great to see more players taking an interest in lore, though. My advice would be to continue with the story---avoid spoiling it for yourself---and never stop digging.

[HeroLogarin]

Thanks I noticed that there's a lot of ideas about what the Ascians will do or who they are, but not much on the origin of them. I can't wait to explore more into the lore

[HeroLogarin]

Where did you notice some jumps? Would like to make this better

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

Where did you notice some jumps? Would like to make this better

I can't speak for treuhavik, obviously, but this was what stood out to me as being something of a jump:

Here’s an idea for, what if the Ascians are the souls of the population on Hydaelyn that were filled with darkness. The first one being Elidibus. With Zodiark creating him first, he poured his darkness into him and made his soul immortal and his servant.

What evidence are you using to support this, and how does it answer the question of why Elidibus is the one in the white robe? What do you mean by "filled with darkness"? How would Zodiark have gone about doing this, given that he's a dormant god? There seems to be little connecting your question in the sentence before with the idea in the quote above, so it seems like a bit of a leap.

[Belhi]

I don't want to risk spoiling anything but from a purely conceptual stand point I think the answer to who the Ascians are lies in the nature and source of the Echo. In many ways I have come to suspect that in reality the difference between the Ascians and the WoL is experience and loyalty. The Ascians have suggested several times that much of their abilities come from their own use of the echo. Comparatively the WoL barely has any mastery over their echo. Theoretically speaking though I suspect that the WoL has much of the same potential to do what he Ascians do, however wether they would be willing to go that far is another question. Whatever the origin of their souls, they seem to have transcended their mortality now.

There loyalty to Zodiark is another question we lack an answer to so far. It could be they were just viable candidates that were 'scouted'. We learn the lesser Ascians seem to have been originally. As for Elidibus being different, I suspect that is as much in the role they play in the conflict. Think chess pieces. You want different pieces for different uses. The role Elidibus plays is in serving Zodiark is substantially different.

[HeroLogarin]

Thank you Hinoto-no-Ryuji and Belhi for commenting. this helps a lot.

The idea of the darkness in souls got lost in writing since I didn't add a section into it about how this is used. Let us say there's someone that hates the world and wants it destroyed without faltering on that desire. Zodiark is darkness and has found a way to create his own servants to do his bidding, and I'm talking way back before the 1st era and before he was sealed as the moon since the era's are the key to bringing Zodiark back. He takes this soul and creates what we know as Ascians from that, with conditions of forgetting your past, come join me, that kind of thing. With this first soul he would create Elidibus who would have this same power to create more Ascians.

[HeroLogarin]

Continuing from that, he is also the only Ascian that has been revealed to be wearing a white robe, usually something a Prophet of a religion would do, while the other Ascians where the black robes. From what I've read there is a hierarchy within the Ascians, from Ascian Overlords to lesser Ascians. I haven't played through the rest of realm yet, but from what I noticed, there are about 10 Ascians that appear in a cut scene when they reveal the statue of Zodiark. What if there are more than we realize, but they stay in the void because they are not needed, like soldiers in a garrison preparing for commands. They can live forever, can move between bodies but the lesser have to return to the void before taking another host, and they have immense power. If I was Zodiark, I'd have an army in my back pocket if I would need it on the day that I was reborn.

[HeroLogarin]

Part of this theory rose from the question of how many Ascians are there really? I've noticed some refer to FF12 with Ivalice and I'm trying to avoid connecting it to other games. Was wondering if the Ascian hierarchy could be similar to the style of hierarchy like KH with the Nobodies, but I could be up the wrong tree on that one.

If you guys have seen or heard anything about this back in 1.0 would be awesome to know. Is Travanchet still in the Limsa Lominsa story line?

I'm going to add these parts that I mentioned into the theory to make it easier to read :P

[LineageRazor]

Without going too deeply into spoiler territory, while there's still a lot of questions left to answer, the latest MSQs do quite a bit to explore the motivations of the Ascians. Suffice it to say, destroying the world is NOT on their agenda. In fact, doing so is considered to be an embarrassing faux pass among their kind. So, it doesn't make a lot of sense that individuals who want to destroy the world be recruited by Zodiark.