Now that the Tomestone emote's been implemented in FFXIV...

[AurumWitch]

-how does the 'tomephone' fit into XIV lore? What does this say about tomestones in general? And can we get an answer from the lore team about this?

[Iscah]

I always figured they were something like a floppy disk. They don’t seem to have a screen on them, and must need a separate reader device.

So maybe it’s a portable reader? Something like a GameBoy (with the bulky ‘cartridge’ slot for tomestones) but with a touch screen like a smartphone.

[Fenral]

So maybe it’s a portable reader? Something like a GameBoy (with the bulky ‘cartridge’ slot for tomestones) but with a touch screen like a smartphone.

So... a VMU?

[Sakuraluna]

I always thought it was some sort of memory stick.

[ObsidianFire]

Tomestones have been confirmed to be the Allagan version of USB drives. What Rowena is interested isn't the tomestones themselves, but the data stored on them. The Ironworks transcribes the data onto paper, translates it into modern Eorzean and sumarizes it for Rowena. She then sells the transcrips to collectors.You can find out more about this in the 60-70 SMN quests.

One amusing place you can see tomstones being used is in the Scavaen gear. The SMN/SCH books have Tomestones of Poetics, Creation, and Mendacity embeded in the inner cover. I don't know if they're functional acording to lore, but it makes a lot of sense for both those classes to keep all their math data close at hand.

[Iscah]

One amusing place you can see tomstones being used is in the Scavaen gear. The SMN/SCH books have Tomestones of Poetics, Creation, and Mendacity embeded in the inner cover. I don't know if they're functional acording to lore, but it makes a lot of sense for both those classes to keep all their math data close at hand.

*goes to check*

Ah, that's interesting! So we can see them 'at correct scale' with our characters.

They're smaller than I thought they'd be.

I also actually took a look at the /tomestone emote, and I'm quite sure it's not supposed to be taken as canon. It has the same design as a poetics tomestone but it's the wrong size (if the others are correct), and also is literally a smartphone. It's not a clever in-universe equivalent, it's a smartphone with a screen and a home button and a camera on the back.

[LineageRazor]

They're smaller than I thought they'd be.

I'm glad they're not large, considering we can theoretically hold EIGHT THOUSAND of them at a time...

Then again, we can also carry around more than a hundred Mansion Roofs with no apparent distress, so it may not be for the best to nitpick on that point.

It is a bit irksome that the Tomestones come in different shapes, though, some square, some rectangular. If they were from different generations of hardware, I could understand (5.25 floppy -> 3.5 floppy -> CD -> etc), but they are instead divided by GENRE. Why are poetry and myths kept on rectangular stones, while truth and lies are kept on square? Do they have different readers for different subjects?

[Iscah]

It is a bit irksome that the Tomestones come in different shapes, though, some square, some rectangular. If they were from different generations of hardware, I could understand (5.25 floppy -> 3.5 floppy -> CD -> etc), but they are instead divided by GENRE. Why are poetry and myths kept on rectangular stones, while truth and lies are kept on square? Do they have different readers for different subjects?

Allagan beaurocracy at it's finest! The Library of Poetry and Myths refused to work with the Department of Truth and decided to develop their own version of the technology.

(The real question is, why so many tomestones dedicated purely to lies?)


But yes, glad to see someone else talking about floppy disks here! (That sad realisation that you're old enough to be using horribly outdated technology as a reference point.) Obviously USB sticks are just as good an analogy, storage-wise, but I was picturing the square ones as something like the size and shape of a 3.5" floppy disk. Maybe a bit thicker.

The ones embedded in the Scaevan grimoires make it look more like a computer chip, or maybe a large SIM card.

[Enkidoh]

Allagan beaurocracy at it's finest! The Library of Poetry and Myths refused to work with the Department of Truth and decided to develop their own version of the technology.

(The real question is, why so many tomestones dedicated purely to lies?)

Well it is clear the Allagans had fallen so much into decadence and corruption, so utterly irredemably immoral, that their nation was pretty much little more than an Orwellian dystopia so no wonder their society became incapable of differentiating between government propaganda and 'culture', with everyone believing their own lies. Pride comes before the fall after all.

And what better way to disseminate that propaganda to their masses than by cheap, easy to produce tomestones? 'Truth lies in your pocket' pretty much.

But yes, glad to see someone else talking about floppy disks here! (That sad realisation that you're old enough to be using horribly outdated technology as a reference point.) Obviously USB sticks are just as good an analogy, storage-wise, but I was picturing the square ones as something like the size and shape of a 3.5" floppy disk. Maybe a bit thicker.

The ones embedded in the Scaevan grimoires make it look more like a computer chip, or maybe a large SIM card.

I'm also glad I'm not the only one that saw them more as floppy diskettes than thumb drives! (I don't blame Ferne from using the 'USB thumb drive' analogy though, given those born after 2000 might not know what a floppy disk even is alas - hells I think we're getting to the stage people won't even know what a thumb drive is soon, an eventuality I'm trying not to think about ).

The 'Tron lines' on them do seem to also make them look like a printed circuit board though (something floppy disks generally didn't have, so maybe they're a RAM cart or something? (But then maybe this is overthinking the issue).

[TinyRedLeaf]

(The real question is, why so many tomestones dedicated purely to lies?)

Because the Allagans were justifiably concerned about fake news, and were building records of the lies to teach self-learning bots how to recognise and destroy the falsehoods.