Everything we know about Allagans?

[Anonymoose]

I just glazed through that stuff, got to get either Scholar Moose to give you the information or someone on his caliber.

Busted. I was waiting to see who replied and/or if the thread got more narrow, lol.

A list of all the Allagan things was an overwhelming thought, is all. A great many things have been tied to or blamed on Allag, and not all of them are related. From map landmarks to two separate raid foundations to dungeons to a chunk of the 3.0 main scenario to a whole spattering of random world lore: biology backgrounds, dragon history, advanced technology in a medieval world, Calamities, voidsent, Ascians. If it's not based on Allag, it probably has a line or two about how Allag interacted with it.

That said, my strengths are in hunting for missed specifics, proper context, holistic understanding, etc. Puzzles and campfires. Every time I try to curate pretty lists of already-knowns, I find some gap or another, get distracted, and wander off into the wilderness trying to close it. Otherwise I'd have fewer forum posts, prettier notes, and more finished wiki articles. (But also fewer solved puzzles and bridged gaps to write articles about! Freakin' Catch 22, if you ask me.)

But I can try to get the ball rolling at least; maybe we can narrow down which barrels of quotes out resident list-masters can tap for you, lol.

"The Gist" of each requested topic:

LANGUAGE
"The Ancient Allagan Tongue" is the source of the word "Egi", meaning "pure" or "in the essence of". In Mor Dhona, the Allagan ruins seem to be covered in a logographic script that I've never made heads or tails of. Both of these imply a different language than the Eorzean common tongue. Then again, Allag conquered several continents and thrived for a thousand years. I would imagine a variety of languages and ways to express them existed throughout the Empire.

And yet Unei, Doga, and the System Nodes (all from the twilight of Allag's reign) appear to be able to communicate in the common tongue just fine. Considering that the Tonberries of Nym communicate with Lominsans, and a familiar of Mhach communicates with the sky pirates, it might be fair to assume that the core common tongue of Eorzea arose during the reign of Allag. I have a faint memory of such a claim, but I rarely make notes on in-game languages and may very well have neglected to note the proof. But don't accept it as truth without proof.

TECHNOLOGY
Early into Allag's rise, the fields of magic and technology were fused into a single field of study: aetherochemistry. Enchanted machinery not only fueled Imperial weaponry, but made domestic life easier for all its citizens. To power all of these mechanical wonders, they raised the Crystal Tower in Mor Dhona to harness the boundless energies of the sun.

But with all of their needs met, the citizens of Allag lost their drive. The empire stagnated and began to crumble. A brilliant technologist named Amon schemed to bring the first emperor back from the dead so he could restore Allag to its former glory. This pursuit led to a rapid and radical increase in technological progress, advancing chimera and cloning technologies until he finally succeeded.

Under Xande's second reign, he moved to complete his life's ambition to bring the entire world under Allagan rule. These ever-escalating wars, now including primals, led to even more destructive technology being created, creating a feedback loop that caused the war to escalate further and further thanks to Ascian machinations. The most advanced of Allag tech was made during this time, such as the ability to bind and control primals and dragons (technology that eventually received a nudge from the Ascians).

In order to overcome the most powerful of the primals summoned against them, Xande made a pact with a self-proclaimed lord of the void, the Cloud of Darkness. But once the battle was won, Xande found himself hollow without this ambition. He had nothing but his memories of death and turned to nihilism, resolving to let the Cloud of Darkness consume the world. To open the voidgate wide enough that she might come through, Bahamut was bound in an artificial satellite to provide supplemental energy to the Crystal Tower. When Hydaelyn's champions led a revolt and struck the heart of the Empire, Xande tried to throw open the voidgate by discharging all of the energy in Dalamud into the Crystal Tower, but the tower buckled, sending all of the energy into the ground and setting off a massive chain of earthquakes that made up the Fourth Calamity.

CHIMERAS
Aetherochemistry led to chimerobiology, allowing man to encroach on the rights of gods by creating and altering life. Chimera production underwent several "generations", moving from clumsy infusions of a catalyst species into a host species with unpredictable, sterile results to highly customized entities possessing specific sets of desired traits and behaviors. By the fall of the empire, even voidsent were able to be synthesized.

COILS
The satellite containing Bahamut remained in orbit until it was brought down by Nael van Darnus. Pieces of the satellite, and the starships that docked with it, make up the Binding Coil of Bahamut. The facility contained a veritable army of automachina, chimerical bioweaponry, and enslaved dragons as guardians to prevent anyone or anything from ever putting the facility at risk of failing to contain Bahamut (the enslaved dragons, kept in a state if torpor, also ensured the Bahamut's summoning remained permanent).