Allag

[Jonnycbad]

Do we know what they look like? Were they all 15 foot tall humanoids like Xande or was he just enhanced through augmentation? I'm assuming Allag was a civilization (Allagan Empire) and thus not a race unto itself? Therefore were they comprised of the Eorzean races, or were they all Hyur-like? Or were they their own proto-race similar to how the Zilart were to the playable races in FFXI?

[Anonymoose]

The Allagans like Xande, Phlegethon, Scylla, etc. are a result of Amon's tinkering. Unei and Doga were direct clones of Allagan royalty so they're probably a good representation ... i.e. the Allagans probably looked like every other culture, to begin with.

I think it's also a safe assumption that if the thematic breadcrumb that mortal, wandering races are Hydaelyn's children is going to persist, we can assume at least the five races and some beastmen existed prior to Allag. Racial distribution throughout the Empire? Unknown. Miqo'te were pushed east, if I recall, so there's that.

Whether the Garleans did is one I look forward to learning. Aetheral sterility and third-eyes seem like ... deliberate genetic modifications, in a way.

[Lucke]

Didn't the Allagans have red eyes? The Miqo NPC in the Crystal Tower story has red eyes. But I can't remember if he's an Allag who was/is in suspended animation, or like a tale-keeper and not actually an Allagan at all.

[Wyssahtyn]

The red eyes were a sign of Allagan royalty. The Miqo'te had one red eye initially due to being some distant descendant of some surviving Allagan royalty who lived through the earthquake that destroyed their empire. His second red eye was granted by the clones, if I recall correctly, so that he could properly work the Crystal Tower's mechanisms or some such.

[ObsidianFire]

The red eye is a sign of having the Allagan Royal Genes. That NPC has it because one of the survivors of Allag purposely genetically modified his ancestor to have it. And from the sound of it, it was because she trusted him. If how Doga and Unei give him a second Allagan Royal Eye is any indication, Allagan genetic modifications have very little to do with mechanically messing around with genomes and everything to with magic techniques...

We see another Allagan (kinda) in the Lvl 60-70 SMN quests. And he looks like a normal Hyur.

The problem I have with the Garlean traits (aetheral sterility and third-eye) being Allagan in origin is that everything the Allagans did seems to assume everything has aether it can manipulate. I have a very hard time seeing them make a race that can't use aether given that most of their genetic projects produce beings that can use aether. I also think we'd have discovered something about the proto-Garleans in Azyz Lla by now if that was the case. Instead the proto-Garleans are all the way over in Othard...

On the other hand, if you assume the Garleans are really just huyr with some genetic variations thrown in haphazardly, they're in a similar situation to the Ixal. The Ixal's genome is very unstable and things like flight capabilities didn't last long in the genome. Kinda like how the Aetheral sterility and the third-eye don't show up in half-Garleans. If the Garleans weren't so committed to "racial purity", they probably could have lost both the aetheral sterility and the third eye a long time ago.

[Anonymoose]

The problem I have with the Garlean traits <...> being Allagan in origin is that everything the Allagans did seems to assume everything has aether it can manipulate. I have a very hard time seeing them make a race that can't use aether given that most of their genetic projects produce beings that can use aether.

What if the key to controlling a certain population who relied on aetherial manipulation was to deprive them of the resource?

A magically-adept rebellious nation?
A known population of summers?
A slave caste?

I played Final Fantasy XI, so when I see the tropes assigned to the Allagans and Garleans respectively, part of me wonders, "What if there's a little bit of the Zilart / Kuluu thing going on here?" just like certain tropes between Hydaelyn and Zodiark make me wonder if any Promathia mechanics are in play, lol.

[ObsidianFire]

Why not just use neurolinks in that case? or clones? We've seen plenty of each before. Genetic modification on a population-wide scale seems like a really complicated way of dealing with that type of problem compared to how Allag has dealt with it before. IDK... If the Allagans are comfortable leaving dragons access to aether manipulation so long as they scramble their brains, why take it away from a population, give them something to make up for it and then just leave everything else the same. Said genetic manipulation can't even be passed down outside the population either...

If Allag was to be the start of the Garleans, I'd almost expect it to be the result of the Allagan version of Malus. That is, the one scientist who everyone thinks is crazy and yet is experiment works. And then whoever is in charge of cleaning up after it didn't quite get everyone...

[SannaR]

True, but look at what they did to a leader of a rebellion. Phlegethon was captureed made to be that tall, brainwashed and then forced to guard the labrynth. They also seem to be fine with death of test subjects. Xande went as far as make a pact with the Cloud of Darkness. To me even a advanced culture as they were they should have known playing around with a being like that is tricky at best and deadly at worst.

[Iscah]

I have to wonder if Gilgamesh is Allagan. He looks a bit like Xande to me. Modified to be immortal, perhaps?

[LineageRazor]

Why not just use neurolinks in that case? or clones? We've seen plenty of each before.

Allag had a pretty long history - it's more than reasonable to speculate that not all of these technologies existed at the same times. The proto-Garleans may have been engineered before cloning was perfected (or even genetic engineering - it could have simply been breeding for specific traits), for instance. As for neurolinks, have we seen them work on anything but dragons? There could be something about dragons that makes neurolinks viable that does not apply to any other race.

Engineered by the Allag or not, I have to admit that I've long been curious as to whether Garleans qualify as a separate "race", or whether they're a third subset of Hyur.

True, but look at what they did to a leader of a rebellion. Phlegethon was captureed made to be that tall, brainwashed and then forced to guard the labrynth. They also seem to be fine with death of test subjects. Xande went as far as make a pact with the Cloud of Darkness. To me even a advanced culture as they were they should have known playing around with a being like that is tricky at best and deadly at worst.

In the case of Xande and the Cloud, I think it's pretty much implied that Xande (who was a clone of the original at the time he made the pact) was not the most sane of individuals. He was an imperfect copy of the original (not that Amon would ever admit any flaw); he came back wrong, as it were. In short, don't take Xande's poor decisions as an indication of the attitudes of the populace as a whole. Judging by the archives in Azys Lla, it certainly seemed to be the case that Mad Science was the order of the day - but that, too, was likely encouraged by our not-too-sane Xande.