So aether, how does it work exactly?

[Cilia]

Let's take it one step further...

The various elements have different energy charges, depending on where they are on the elemental wheel. Astral elements will naturally have a higher energy level, while Umbral elements will have less; more accurately, Astral elements generate energy, while Umbral elements absorb energy. Lightning, or plasma, is the most powerful state of matter in existence - so great atoms are being ripped apart. (The Sun itself is a giant ball of plasma.) Ice, or more accurately cold, is the state in which matter has the least energy in it - it will consume any energy it can to change its state to a more energetic one.

All of the Astral elements (Wind, Lightning, Fire) are ephemeral and cannot exist in a solid state; they must lose energy and turn into an Umbral element (Earth, Ice, Water) to do so.

... with the exception of elemental crystals, of course.

As for immaterial concepts (thoughts, memories, etc.) - yes, they exist, but only as aetherial fluctuations, not aether itself. Auracite works by attuning itself to an aetherial wavelength (say, B'gamnan's desires or the original Ramza's personality) and then does something with it; the Duma makes the user's desires manifest on the physical plane, while the Otius is a sort of aetherial floppy disk containing the original Ramza's personality. (Someone correct me if the Auracite Ramza picked up during the Ridorana closing scenes was actually the Duma.) This is how Fordola's Resonant Echo allows her to fight Ultra Instinct style - it picks up on the aetherial fluctuations of her opponent(s), allowing her to react before their attacks are launched. Aside from Urianger's Aetheric Burst tool, theoretically it could be overcome by simply quieting one's soul so there are no aetherial fluctuations... or simply by fighting so recklessly your attacks couldn't even be predicted by yourself... but I digress.

Æ=MC²

Problem solved!

Amendment:

Æ=(MC²)*e

... where e changes depending on the element, with Astral elements having the highest value and Umbral elements having the lowest (possibly even negative).

[ObsidianFire]

Except that's not how Astral and Umbral aspects work. When the Lore Book gives an example of what the difference between Astral and Umbral are, it uses the same element, fire.

In addition to the six elements, there also exist two poles -- astral and umbral -- which greatly influence the nature of the elements -- an astral charge bringing more activity, while an umbral charge resulting in more passiveness. For example, when in an astral state, fire exhibits high volatility, whereas its umbral state is characterized by dryness.

All six elements can be astral or umbral. You can have Astral Ice just as you can have Umbral Fire. In fact, two of the weather patterns in Heavensward are Umbral Static (in the Churning Mists) and Umbral Wind (in the Sea of Clouds).

As far as I can tell, Astral and Umbral have nothing to do with how the elements relate to each other. That relation seems to be something intrinsic to the elements themselves and no mention is made of the aspect the elements have.

[Enkidoh]

Right, in fact, the Twelve actually demonstrate this: each member of the pantheon has an elemental affinity, but because there are only six elements and... well... twelve gods/goddesses, it's obvious that each element is shared. Accordingly, of each divine elemental 'pair', one is umbral aligned, the other astral. An example is the two fire aligned members of the Twelve: Azeyma and Nald'thal. Azeyma is astral fire, while Nald'thal is umbral fire, which makes sense, given Azeyma is the goddess of the sun and thus is in the 'heavens' (thus, sunlight), whereas Nald'thal is (among other things), the god of the underworld, and thus, darkness or at least a more earthly 'light' (like the fire from lava). Both are fire signs, but very different aspects of fire/heat.

Thus in the elemental wheel astral and umbral are rather like extremes on a pendulum, each element can shift to either polarity and are not necessarily restricted to being solely aspected to one or the other.

Yes I know there are technically thirteen members of the 'Twelve', given that Nald'thal is technically two separate gods counted as one, but for simplicity's sake there are twelve in the... um.. 'Twelve'.

[Cilia]

Well I don't have the encyclopedia, so I'm running on real-world knowledge.

Anyway - even if you want to take the Astral / Umbral bit out, it still works... mostly. You'd just need to amend the formula a bit more:

Æ=(MC²)*(e/A)

Let e be the element (Lightning will naturally be highest, Ice will naturally be lowest) and A be the aspect (Astral is lower, Umbral is higher). Astral Lightning would be, say, 6/1, while Umbral Ice would be 1/6?

Fantasy physics is hard.

[Eisenhower]

I'm writing this in the absence of the lore book, so some assumptions may be incorrect.

I labor under the impression that the aether/energy-matter relation and conversion is a thing - indicated perhaps the strongest by the fact that aether can coalesce into physical form as well as dissipate from crystal to back to "free" aether. Although in-game lore defines aether as being able to assume elemental attributes, I suspect that the six elements mentioned are simply peaks and that aether can exist in intermediary states. Adding to that, there are probably other peaks that don't conform to the elemental theory (and/or are not practically observable) and are thus disregarded by mainline Eorzean/Sharlayan scholars.

When it comes to the astral and umbral alignments, I first thought it was something akin to energy states in the sense that astral aether seeks to emit energy to reach a neutral state, and that umbral aether seeks to absorb energy to reach said neutral state. But the example of astral and umbral fire, where the latter is a dry heat, it may be better to think of alignment as something along the lines of nuclear spin albeit more readily observable on a macro scale.

Thus aether type could possibly be described as one or several matrices containing the values of possible aspects and alignments. Though I am uncertain as how to merge that with the wave-description of aether. But it feels like you’d be digging yourself a bit into linear algebra for that, for limited practical applications.

On the topic of the Twelve, I honestly believe that the easily observable peaks and alignments served as a building block in the belief that via culture through time manifested as “the Twelve”. But since the nature of aether and the soul allows for belief/mental exertion to result in physical change such as the actualization of primals/gods it may very well be the case that the belief in the Twelve self-reinforces the attributes and abilities of the members of the pantheon, furthering it’s establishment in the world.

[Jonnycbad]

Aether cannot run out. When they say Primals are draining Aether, what they mean is that their presence is siphoning Aether, preventing it from returning back to the lifestream (which is how new life is formed). Thus, in an area or region where there is a local Primal, plants and animals die and stop reproducing. Even a short stint of this can have huge repercussions for foodchains and the ecology of the ecosystems. If you played FF7, it's similar to how Mako plants were draining energy from the lifestream, slowly killing the planet, gradually delaying rebirth of new life

[ObsidianFire]

Yeah... the game really should go more into aether-theory somewhere (Sidequests in the expansion that has Sharlayan anyone?). The entire first section of the Lore Book is all about Aether science, the structure of Hydalyen the star/planet, Hydalyen and Zodiark's relationship, the Twelve and the Heavens and Hells. The book treats them like they're all part of the same system, or at the very least have something important to do with each other. Said system goes back at least to the Allagans (for all their science, they did worship the Twelve; this is the civilization that gave Eorzea the deck the Astrologins still use, etc.). It actually goes back further as magic stemmed from religion, not the other way around, in the 2nd Astral Era. However, we haven't really seen anything in all this time (fives Astral/Umbra eras since) to disprove that those ideas are incorrect.

I highly doubt any of the fundamental rules are going to change any time soon. Or revealed to have been false this entire time. Too much of the game assumes the characters and players are familiar with how the system roughly works to pull the rug out from under us three expansions in. It's one thing to put information we've gleaned from various places in it's proper place, it's another to say it was wrong.

[Shadotterdan]

I kinda skimmed over this thread, but something I wanted to make sure was clear is that all matter in the game is also made of aether, much like the link between matter and energy, albeit with a far more equal conversion ratio. Which is part of how you are able to turn equipment into materia, as well as teleport.

[Cilia]

I kinda skimmed over this thread, but something I wanted to make sure was clear is that all matter in the game is also made of aether, much like the link between matter and energy, albeit with a far more equal conversion ratio. Which is part of how you are able to turn equipment into materia, as well as teleport.

As far as we know, that is correct.