A theory about Ascians

[Ayasaki128]

Note:
- This post have spoilers about FFIV/FFXIV
- Sorry for the bad english
- if I'm wrong with some fact, please, let me know
- all quotes was from the FF wikipedia http://finalfantasy.wikia.com

I have a theory about Ascians come from moon and they are a race named Lunarians.
There are some things about Ascians that call my attention:

- "Lunarians are natural mages, and most seen know the ultimate magic, Meteor, along with a variety of other high-level spells."
All Ascians we fought have high-level magic powers (for example, that fight in ARF)

- "Long ago in the aetherial sea, Light and Darkness once existed as a single entity. But the Darkness, Zodiark, coveted power. The Light, Hyadelyn, was forced to banish Zodiark into the heavens as a moon bound, forever separated. This sundering also shattered the barriers between planes, and the world became split into thirteen pieces: each reflections of the Source."
So... my theory is Zodiark was banned to the moon and then influenciate some lunarians to helping him with the rejoining. I have a theory all ascians are lunarians, but not all lunarians are ascians. (maybe Fusoya could be a npc in FFXIV)

- because Lunar Whale and the Devil road in FFIV, Lunarian can create advanced tecnologies, what if the Allagan empire used lunarian tecnology? According with FF WIKI, they could even craft spaceships.

- The Chrysalis have symbols of a moon and a rod (could be meaningless, but why a moon and a rod?)

That was the only things I can remember now, but what people think about the Ascians and their origin?

[Anonymoose]

Anything is up for grabs and the clues are vague, so there's not much we can try to confirm or deny in a debate ... but I'd be happy to lay out some pros and cons and what ideas I have.

There are only two things that stand between myself and the Lunarian theories:

First, my readings of the phrasing (which of course might not even be accurate or literal) make it sound to me like the moon wasn't there before Zodiark was expelled. It's as if there was one planet whose aetherial sea was shared by a single essence that drifted into two wills and then one forced out the other and locked it inside of a smaller, dead celestial body.

Second, if Lahabrea and Elidibus are the only two Ascians raised from the Source (our dimension), then it seems to me that the others must have been raised from other worlds - which did not exist until after the division of Hydaelyn and Zodiark.

My current theory is that one Ascian overlord (black outfit, red mask, shoulderpads)* was raised in each of the worlds that resulted from the shattering of the cosmos. From what, I'm not sure. It seems that life as we know it was created by Hydaelyn after the division, to protect Herself. Zodiark would hate and want to corrupt that life, so mortals seem like one possibility for the Ascian source. But if Zodiark is as powerless to act without the Ascians as Hydaelyn was until recently ... what was She so afraid of? That's one hole in my interpretation.

Each Ascian overlord seems to be the responsible for raising other Ascians within their dimension, since Lahabrea is given credit for raising just about every underling (black outfit, black mask, shoulderpads). These underlings are weaker than the overlords, but it's not clear why. It could be that with time comes power and the Ascian overlords are simply mortals that are the "first brood" of Zodiark's disciples. It could also be that the Ascians are some other kind of life that predated mortals as we know them. A fun fringe theory would be that the Ascians were raised from the same kind of god figures that gave rise to the mythology of the Twelve, who allegedly vanished from this realm after the First Umbral Era.

That leaves Elidibus, who, like Lahabrea, was raised from our dimension. I believe this was simply because this is where Zodiark was from in the first place - this is His dimension, too. Why would He raise His emissary from any other?

This in part would explain why the Ascians behave the way they do: Those that are touched by Zodiark (freed from their mortal prisons and given excessive power) are corrupted by it wholly. Possessed of the Darkness, but not Zodiark's will, they are powerful, greedy, and arrogant. They undermine one another to curry favor for themselves, if possible, and will accidentally destroy the world they're meant to prepare for Rejoining if Elidibus (actually, truly possessed of Zodiark's will) isn't there to babysit them.

But my theories are only as sound as most others, so I don't meant to dissuade anyone from the Lunarian path.
Who knows if and/or where I went off the rails...

* In the cutscene after the fall of Ramuh, where they discuss leading humans to create a new primal (Shiva) and give the first hints of the New God, all of the Ascian overlords are in underling outfits for some odd reason - perhaps because the designs for their overlord looks (especially their masks) have not yet been decided upon.

EDIT: STILL MUSING
If I have mistaken anything above, Lunarians are more likely, but if I've interpreted correctly, their place would be rather awkward. Can we find a way for it to not be? The Moon would come into being with the division. Life would have had to have been on a new and uninhabitable sphere for a relatively short time before (through the Crystals of Darkness, I suppose?) scattering to the other dimensions.

It would explain who built the shattered statue of Zodiark on the moon, however, lol. And Lunarians do have a time-honored tradition that might be upheld at some point. Out only other hope that we know of would be like, the Allagans and their starships, right? /headscratch

[Spiroglyph]

Liked Anonymoose's post before he wrote anything O:

[JGwinters]

There's also another type of Lunarian to consider when drawing parallels to past FFs. The Japanese name for the two is the same, but these one were translated as Lunites. They gain their powers from the moon, which grows blood red when the Lunites' power is at its peak, and they tend to have red glowing eyes when they use their powers. One even wears a reddish mask. Opposing them are Starsingers, who wield the power of the Crystal that created the world. At their strongest, the Starsingers can manipulate reflections within the crystal (that is, different dimensions of the same world) and even travel between them. When taken over by the power of the Crystal, they also tend to lose the pupils in their eyes, leaving only a bright golden behind, and their bodies become unresponsive and mute.

For sure, it's an interesting thing to look at FF14 lore through the lens of various other FFs, although I'm with Moose here. I don't think they're actually Lunarians, and although they may share a few more similarities with Lunites (of FF Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates), these kinds of things aren't really copied over perfectly without modification within the series.