I want to talk about tempering

[Enkidoh]

In regards to Lyse and the ananta, it was already established way back in the ARR storyline that tempered can infiltrate normal spoken society as long as they keep their zealousness under control long enough to accomplish their task (an ARR main scenario quest involved tracking down suspected tempered infiltrators at Little Ala Mhigo who had managed to fool the guards long enough to enter the compound, and eliminating them once their identities were confirmed - this probably also explains how they're able to keep abducting Ala Mhigan refugees in the FATE 'Taken', at a glance they look like any other person as generally a basic amount of tempering does not physically alter the body.).

Of course, there are exceptions though: the 'touched' sylphs for instanced physically turn purple simply by being tempered, and Sastasha HM showed what happens when someone is over tempered - they physically alter form into something vaguely akin to the Primal who did it (the Serpent Reavers and their captives turn into fish hybrids and the enslaved women become lamia - Captain Madison in his case becoming a Pirates of the Caribbean-Davy Jones-esque squidman).

Also, and this is another fact that is overlooked, is that tempering does not actually even require a Primal to be summoned again to temper new followers: when a Primal is summoned and then destroyed it leaves a lingering trace of it's aetheric energy in that area, which it's followers then gather up and immerse captives in (a twisted reflection of religious baptism?), having much the same effect of tempering as if the Primal themself did it. This is not as perfect as the Primal doing the tempering though: the sahagin beast quests in Western La Noscea showed tempered sahagin immersing captive Maelstrom soldiers in Leviathan's essence at the water's edge, and several you get to are 'drowned' and thus attack you, but several it has not 'stuck' and thus are saved.

This process also has the effect of physically altering the surrounding environment - this is why Zaha'rak is so barren due to the cursed torches lit by Ifrit's flames the amalj'aa have scattered everywhere it is now probably more barren and lifeless than the rest of Thanalan, similarly thanks to the drowned sahagin Halfstone in Western La Noscea now resembles the sea floor with even inland mountains encrusted in brine, coral and all manner of sea life due to Leviathan's essence, and, the Slyphlands in the East Shroud are slowly being corrupted by Ramuh's essence: the tempered sylphs using strange apparatuses to spew forth noxious fumes that contain Ramuh's aether which is poisoning the surrounding forest (and slowly tempering the 'normal' sylphs who are captured by their indigo brethren.

Thus, with all this established, Lyse is off the hook for responsibility as far as the events of the ill-fated conference in Ala Mhigo went: the ananta were simply not taken as one of Lakshmi's 'dreamer' until it was too late: anyone in her position would have acted the same.

[Iscah]

I vaguely recall it being one of the reasons Ramuh didn't want to stick around any longer than he felt he had to, I'm not in a position to check at the moment though. Will trawl the dialogues next time I'm at my PC.

I'm not going from quotes either, but I know the running concern with primals is that their mere prescence drains the land of aether, so it's possible that is Ramuh's concern rather than a direct danger of tempering.


Also I disagree with quite how negatively you're interpreting the Qalyana, specifically how inherently unreasonable they are. We've defeated Lakshmi, and her followers are - not necessarily safe to deal with, but an uncertainty. Perhaps they can be allowed to participate, but we know that we have to watch them carefully the entire time and not actually trust them. They could have been genuine and participated in the meeting, and I think it made more sense that they were let in with precautions than turned away - which could make the hypothetically-genuine Qalyana feel rejected and resentful, and lead them to decide to find a way to sabotage and force-temper us....

[Anonymoose]

Ahhhh rapid fire round aaaaaaahhhhhhhh

I wonder though, do you think that it's possible that Ga Bu actually has the echo and subdued Titan to his will due to sheer despair?

Until we meet one beastman ever with the Echo, it feels like a leap.

Tempering seems to be a deliberate act - it's not just caused by being near a primal

All of the above. We've heard tale of the potential threat of incidental tempering before, but rarely to we see it first-hand with game mechanics. However, they've all been seen at one time or another. Targeted by the primal for deliberate tempering (Ifrit), hanging out too long in their corrupting aura (Zurvan), hanging out too long in an area they've corrupted even after they're gone (Maelstrom soldiers).

Also worth pointing out - the terminology of "tempering" is a curious one, because it's used as a generic term but really should belong to the fire-themed Ifrit - and indeed it is used that way in some contexts. (eg. after the Odin trial at Urth's Fount, O-App-Pesi specifically mentions "Ifrit's tempered", "Leviathan's drowned" and "Odin's sundered", although gives no term to cover all of them.) Perhaps it's simply because that's the first primal we came across, and the concept has stuck.

I think "Ifrit set the tone." is a decent assumption, though the JP client almost exclusively uses tempado, anyway.

These primals consume crystals and aether. Is that what is weakening Hydaelin?

It's what drains life from the land and throws the aetherial balance into chaos and indirectly weakens Her, yes. Though her intervention on behalf of the Warrior(s) of Light and seven straight calamities have done a lot more damage.

I hope the writers have a reason why the summoning ritual isn't really required anymore, and that it's not just because it makes it easier to whip new primals up for cool fights.

I entertain a theory that how imbalanced the aether is (on a global scale) plays into how readily you can manifest mortal desire. When the aether is in balance, perhaps only the will of the Crystal(s) is powerful enough to manifest volition, but as chaos foments, it gets easier. The Ascians had to seek out special aether-gathering "Keys" to get the first wave of primals summoned even with massive crystal stores and elaborate rituals executed to perfection. Now primals just show up by accident.

Unless I remember wrongly, there's a difference between primals and eikons, and it's not just a mistake in etymology by the Garleans.

Unukalhai's journal suggests that primals and eikons are different like Chevy and Ford pickups are different. The same? No. All that different? Also no. They're all what I call "deiforms", essentially over-powered elemental entities (aetherial coalescences) which usually, if not universally, can be traced somehow back to the summoning rituals taught by the Ascians.

Eikon is mainly just another way to say "icon" - false god. The primals are a specific sub-set of deiforms rooted in the elements, going back to the beast tribes' belief that they were the primordial creators of the world. By this very strict definition, even Shiva is more of a "warring god" (toshin), but she's still called a banshin (barbarian god), as are many others. Like "tempering", "primal" seems to have just stuck. Maybe if we met Susano first, we'd call them all "kami", even though Susano is a deiform mockery of belief in kami.

[i.e.] 5,000 years ago, the Allagan Empire called the toshin (warring gods) "eikons". (There were more than three, the Warring Triad were just the most powerful.) 5,000 years later, the beliefs that lead to summoning of deiforms are slightly different. There's a different zeitgeist in how the deiforms are summoned, how they behave and function, how they die, and how they're seen by their summoners. We called them "primals". The Garleans, having dug up an old word, just kept on using "eikon" despite the changes. As far as Unukalhai's journal suggests, that's all that's really different. I mean, he calls Sephirot a primal.

[LineageRazor]

Politeness seems a very poor reason to invite a group that will kill or brainwash anyone who gets in the way of their goal to summon an entity that would eventually kill the land.

Except, that's not the MO of all Primals and their followers, and EVEN AFTER this event, it is unclear it's the MO of the Qalyana and Lakshmi. Not all Primals are like Ifrit. Some act only in defense, like Titan - if it wasn't for the Lominsans constantly trampling over their treaties with the Kobolds, the Kobolds could be perfectly friendly and reasonable neighbors. Some prefer to keep to themselves - the Sylphs are xenophobic and isolationist, but they stay put in their chunk of the woods and rarely bother others, and Ramuh himself prefers not to be summoned due to the harm he causes.

Up until the conference, there was no reason to believe that Lakshmi and the Qalyana might not also be a beast tribe that could be reasoned with, one with which treaties could be established, and who could be convinced to respect boundaries. Even on her initial summoning, Lakshmi made no efforts to encourage her followers to go to war; she was content to stay put and grant her followers blissful fantasies. There was little or no conflict until we barged into their home and slew their Primal. After that show of force, it's not unreasonable to assume that the Qalyana would want to participate in the establishment of boundaries, to hash out when the Warrior of Light would be allowed to trample all over their sovereignty and when he/she would not (and Eorzean terms are generally pretty generous: don't summon your Primal, and we leave you be to do whatever you like).

At the conference, however, the Qalyana leader revealed that she held a grudge due to the loss of her daughter. She wasn't mindlessly summoning Lakshmi because Lakshmi demanded it of her, but because it was a tool of her revenge to do so. Now, that leader is dead, in yet another show of force. Whatever new leadership is chosen, they may be more willing to compromise, so it is STILL in the Alliance's best interests to negotiate with them. Yes, they will invite them in for tea as many times as it takes, because war is something the alliance would like to avoid.

Dealing with the Tempered is WAY more complicated than "they are tempered, therefore they cannot be trusted". Even if you can't trust a nation, you can coexist with them - it happens all the time in real life, as well.

Of course, there are exceptions though: the 'touched' sylphs for instanced physically turn purple simply by being tempered, and Sastasha HM showed what happens when someone is over tempered - they physically alter form into something vaguely akin to the Primal who did it (the Serpent Reavers and their captives turn into fish hybrids and the enslaved women become lamia - Captain Madison in his case becoming a Pirates of the Caribbean-Davy Jones-esque squidman).

Strangely, Koji Fox specifically came out and noted that the Lamia in Sastasha (Hard) are NOT transformed women, but escaped Allagan constructs. It was all discussed in this thread. Lore aficionados, including Anonymoose, found it all a bit hard to swallow, though.

[ObsidianFire]

This process also has the effect of physically altering the surrounding environment - this is why Zaha'rak is so barren due to the cursed torches lit by Ifrit's flames the amalj'aa have scattered everywhere it is now probably more barren and lifeless than the rest of Thanalan, similarly thanks to the drowned sahagin Halfstone in Western La Noscea now resembles the sea floor with even inland mountains encrusted in brine, coral and all manner of sea life due to Leviathan's essence, and, the Slyphlands in the East Shroud are slowly being corrupted by Ramuh's essence: the tempered sylphs using strange apparatuses to spew forth noxious fumes that contain Ramuh's aether which is poisoning the surrounding forest (and slowly tempering the 'normal' sylphs who are captured by their indigo brethren.

This I'm not so sure about. Especially since eikons take aether from the surrounding area, not give it off. I'd almost think it's a "chicken or the egg thing". Primals tend to be summoned by beings who live in areas with large amounts of their preferred elemental aether long before they were ever summoned. Halfstone was created when Leviathan sent a tsunami on a pre-existing Lominsan village. The Sagolii Desert (and presumably Zaha'rak) have been deserts for thousands of years. The Elementals in the Twelveswood are losing strength and who knows what effect that is having on everything.

Also... the idea of a primal giving up aether to something that can't directly worship it seems wrong. I'd almost expect to see Halfstone loose water aether over time or Zaha'rak to become less hot since Ifrit is absorbing all the fire aether.

[Jandor]

Up until the conference, there was no reason to believe that Lakshmi and the Qalyana might not also be a beast tribe that could be reasoned with, one with which treaties could be established, and who could be
convinced to respect boundaries. Even on her initial summoning, Lakshmi made no efforts to encourage her followers to go to war; she was content to stay put and grant her followers blissful fantasies. There was little or no conflict until we barged into their home and slew their Primal.

Lakshmi started tempering everyone present as soon as her rubbish attempt at restoring the broodmothers daughter was questioned, not content with that though she also instructed the Qalyana to demand all other Ananta tribes submit to her.

That's how we got involved in the first place, they weren't just minding their own business at all, they were threatening the other tribes.

We would have intervened anyway eventually mind, because primals cannot be allowed to live regardless of whether they're all round great folk or evil marauding monsters.

At the conference, however, the Qalyana leader revealed that she held a grudge due to the loss of her daughter. She wasn't mindlessly summoning Lakshmi because Lakshmi demanded it of her, but because it was a tool of her revenge to do so. Now, that leader is dead, in yet another show of force. Whatever new leadership is chosen, they may be more willing to compromise, so it is STILL in the Alliance's best interests to negotiate with them. Yes, they will invite them in for tea as many times as it takes, because war is something the alliance would like to avoid.

The broodmother of the Qalyana is angry with us about her daughter as a result of being tempered, before Lakshmi tempered her she realized her daughter hadn't been restored correctly and Lakshmi admitted she doesn't really have the ability to actually do it.
Post-mind control she thinks the resurrection is fine and it's our fault she's dead because we killed her God.

Dealing with the Tempered is WAY more complicated than "they are tempered, therefore they cannot be trusted". Even if you can't trust a nation, you can coexist with them - it happens all the time in real life, as well.

Dealing with the tempered is exactly as simple as "they are tempered, therefore they cannot be trusted."
Even when a lasting deal was successfully brokered, it was with the primal itself (Ramuh) and not the worshipers. Lakshmi has shown twice now that she cannot be reasoned with.

[Jandor]

Until we meet one beastman ever with the Echo, it feels like a leap.

Didn't that Sahagin priest have the echo?

[Anonymoose]

Didn't that Sahagin priest have the echo?

Technically, though "unnaturally" by way of a third party (Elidibus).
We've never seen Hydaelyn choose a beast tribe member is what I mean. (...yet...?)

Would it be impossible for our li'l Kobold buddy to have been granted the Echo and that this is the key to interpreting all of his scenes and how we should color our analysis going forward and they just didn't call any attention to that? "Impossible" is very rarely a safe word to use in this game.

However, concluding based on Titan's behavior that...

• Ga Bu controlled him by sheer force of will
• by way of the Echo
• by a third party for reasons unexplored or Hydaelyn for the first time ever
• with no additional narrative breadcrumbs
• and thus everyone must necessarily be wrong in assuming that Ga Bu is tempered at all

... is a rather tall house of cards with (as far as I know) no further supporting context or foreshadowing. Occam's Razor doesn't always lead directly to the truth, but consider the length of the leash to stray this far without (as far as I've noticed) prodding to do so. Thus, "It feels like a leap."

That said, I do think it's likely that Ga Bu's state of mind (combined with the summoning preparations already in motion and Ga Bu's parents having been prepared as ritual foci) did directly impact the manifestation of Titan, and I don't think it's yet 100% certain that Ga Bu is tempered rather than traumatized.

Strangely, Koji Fox specifically came out and noted that the Lamia in Sastasha (Hard) are NOT transformed women, but escaped Allagan constructs. It was all discussed in this thread. Lore aficionados, including Anonymoose, found it all a bit hard to swallow, though.

No～o～ooo, the Lamia Wars. I'd forgotten. "They're actually over-tempered wenches." pretty much had to be besieged and starved out of its castle.

[Remedi]

Wait isn't the echo different from the blessing of light which is given by hydaelyn?

I mean it seems far fetched to think that Hydaelyn needs to have an entire tribe of au'ri at her disposal

[ChaoticCrimson]

I'm of the opinion that spurning the Qalyana outright rather than attempt to negotiate terms with them would have led to far more dire consequences, especially considering the current state of Ala Mhigo and Gyr Abania as a whole. While the situation was far from ideal, things could have been made far worse by excluding them without any say and simply marking them as another threat may have could have led to more prolonged and detrimental conflict. Furthermore, it was also pretty desperate of the broodmother and her followers to attempt what they did given how everyone was already wary of them to begin with. They did almost succeed in tempering those in attendance, but it was unwise to underestimate the WoL when the incarnation of Lakshmi summoned there was probably weaker than the one they originally summoned in the first encounter, and they also made the mistake of not accounting for other echo-users as well. It was regrettable that a peace could not be reached with the Qalyana, but at the very least the largest part of their threat was contained and eliminated quickly. The remaining Qalyana still have the capability to attempt to summon Lakshmi again, but it's unlikely they'll attempt to do so for some time after the heavy losses they sustained. It was a risky endeavor, but one everyone knew the stakes for.