The Summoning of Susano

[Alberel]

I'm hoping this is something explored in the future. We don't see any Ascian influence there now, but we're late to this party. Othard was summoning primals and going to war over twenty-five years ago. The Source's overlord was (presumably) ganked and his minions vaporized or scattered to the wind this year. Did Ascians play a part back then? Are we seeing lingering effects?

There's also the less likely possibility that some remain and are just working unseen. The Ascians have almost always remained hidden and worked in secret; the first thing you hear about them in 2.00 is that the Scions can't fathom why they would be so brazen now. Maybe with Lahabrea missing and Elidibus focusing on major players, there are still a few black-masks wandering around acting as they did in the old days.

Well we do at least know that the Ascians have a presence in Othard as the whole Shisui of the Violet Tides timeline traces back to the appearance of a rather obvious black robed individual. The Ascians work to encourage deliberate summoning, however, and yet these cases were both seemingly unintentional. I suppose it's possible that the Ascians may have still had a hand in the summonings in other ways though.

Much earlier in the game, between Minfilia's assertion that primals cannot exist when the world is stable, Lahabrea's rambling about the natural order coming undone, and the (then unconfirmed) theory that primals were just throughtforms, I considered the possibility of a positive feedback loop - that the first primals would be very difficult to summon (explaining why Travanchet went after the horn), but as more conflict arose, as the aether became more imbalanced, as Hydaelyn grew weaker, and chaos reigned, it would become easier and easier for mortals to tread on the domain of gods and cause will to manifest. It seemed like perhaps that was part of the point - that usually creation via volition is the domain of the Crystal, but that when Her laws were weakened, mankind could trespass on this act. I haven't revisited that possibility in a long, long time but Ga Bu, Susano, and Lakshmi have put it back in my mind.

This is sort of where my thoughts have been wandering as well. The act of summoning alone furthers the goals of the Ascians, that much is clear. They never really care when we strike down a primal. We know that the aether used to summon a primal is corrupted somehow but we've never had an explanation for what that corruption entails. Maybe this is the result? Aether that is more easily shaped by will? I have to wonder then if slaying primals is also part of the Ascians' plan. Summoning a primal corrupts the aether used but only slaying it returns that corruption to the lifestream...