That is something I'm definetly wondering about. It doesn't help either that the same word in Japanese can refer to both a "star" and a "planet". So every time those words get thrown around, I can't help but think the situation is fuzzier then it's made out to be in English.

The Astrologin quests further muddy the waters. In them, we learn that stars give off aether, and the power of the constellations is based in the aether that comes from them. So it seems different stars have different aether qualities. This can be seen in Ishgardian Astrology which is mainly focused on charting the changes in the Dragonstar. Doing so lets them roughly predict the state of the Dravainian Horde. Given what we've learned from the Omega raid, it seems this could be the star/planet the Midgardsormr originally came from. And it could still linked to its former inhabitants' aether in some way even after all that time and distance.

So yeah, I'm wondering how "local" Hydaelyn and Zodiark's conflict is. Are they just confined to a planet? Did they do something that is causing problems throughout the universe if left unchecked? Do all other planets have Hydaelyn/Zodiark counterparts and ours are more dysfunctional then most? What makes me think the Hydaelyn/Zodiark conflict isn't a "local" conflict is how the separated Shards seem to work. If we were in a sci-fi 'verse, it almost sounds like Hydaelyn broke space/time. But is that 14 other versions of the universe? or 14 other versions of one planet?

The Omega raid was a little weak I felt if just looking at the self-contained plot. How the revelations it gives fits into the greater cosmology is a lot more interesting.