Hydaelyn, The Shards & How They Work

[MrThinker]

Hi, long-time lurker, first-time poster. Ever since patch 3.4, I have been trying to wrap my head around the nature of Hydaelyn and it's shards. I'm gonna write down my understanding of it, and I hope that you fine folks would be able to provide more information, your own thoughts, and corrections of erroneous information (there will probably be alot). Thanks

[DISCLAIMER - My understanding does indeed hinge on a very speculative model of the FFXIV universe, and I am willing to accept that it may be completely and utterly wrong when the Lore team reveal their ‘true’ version]
[DISCLAIMER – I am not in possession of Volume II of the Encyclopaedia Eorzea and remain unaware of any revelations about the nature of the world it may contain]
[DISCLAIMER – Yes there is a fair amount of speculation that maybe considered ‘baseless’ within this post, besides what I specifically state is speculation]

The Beginning
In the beginning, Hydaelyn, an aetheric crystalliform aligned to light, and her equal and opposite, i.e. aligned to darkness, Zodiark, co-existed in harmony. Their combined form in the physical plane was a star, or planet as we know it. According to Hydaelyn, Zodiark grew hungry for power and control over the world. He somehow gained in strength, such that he could overpower Hydaelyn completely.
Hydaelyn sealed Zodiark away, ‘a moon bound’, the most common interpretation of this being that Zodiark IS the white moon (which still has no official name afaik) or is trapped within it. We do not know if this sealing was a defensive action, or a sneak attack, but for the purposes of this thread, it is irrelevant.

What IS relevant was that the sealing placed such a strain on the world, that space-time buckled, creating 13 mirror dimensions of the original ‘Source’ world, with aether ripped away from it. These 13 mirror worlds, or ‘Shards’ were identical to the Source, and without outside influences, would likely evolve down the same path, except they held different balances of Light and Dark. While the Source remained a world of equilibrium, 3 of the shards (1st to 3rd) were aligned more to Light, while the remaining 10 (4th – 13th) leaned more towards Dark.

According to a recent lore interview with Koji Fox (the one co-hosted by Mr Anonymoose), he explained that there is (probably) not 13 whole new universes created by the Sundering, though it is left open enough that it could be interpreted that there are (i.e. until Mr Oda says there is).

LSTA Model (Speculation)
For my understanding, I am going to think of Hydaelyn and the Shards as a Localised Spatial-Temporal Anomaly (LSTA). There is only 1 FFXIV universe, and Hydaelyn and the shards (including the Void) share the same physical space, but are ‘out of sync’ with each other, sort of like different frequencies of radio waves. There are points where the waves overlap and if these ‘points’ could be translated as physical locations, it is there where interdimensional tears, such as the ones used by lesser voidsent, would most likely occur, though with great amounts of aether, a portal between source and shards could be opened anywhere. At the same time, those with the Echo who travel between worlds are “changing their aetheric frequency” to match that of another world so that they can interact with it.

The seal placed on Zodiark apparently stripped him of quite a bit of his power, and he has been left in stasis since then. Enter the Ascians, self-proclaimed servants of Zodiark. Their leaders, the overlords, originate with 1 overlord from each of the shards, while the Source was originally home both Lahabrea and Elidibus. As far as we know, there was no life before the sundering, though the claims of the Ascians of knowledge of the original state of the world, as well as that one run-down, sculpted statue of Zodiark that appears to exist on the moon, lends credence to theories stating otherwise.

Light and Dark
Light and dark are (apparently) opposing forms of energy distinct from elemental energy. We do not really know much about them, aside that too much of either is bad, with a flood of darkness leading a star to crumble into ruin and deforming what inhabitants are left (as what happened with the 13th), and a flood of light causing a world to fade away into blank perfection (which the 1st was in the midst of before Deus Ex Minfillia went over to absorb the excess Light). We do not even know what micro effects they have on the worlds, aside that those who align themselves to the stronger power in a world, will also have an advantage over the users of the other form of energy.

It is possible that it is from this buffing and weakening of wielders of light and dark that the first differences between the worlds comes into play. Conflicts won by a group aligned to light in one world like the 1st, might have been lost by that group in another world like the 10th, or requiring the use of different tactical approaches that change the balance of power from a total absolute victory, leading to alternate histories between the shards and the source. And as time goes on, these histories begin to diverge more and more, with new groups and political entities rising up, different children being born because the parents did not get together or they died, until only the surface similarities remained, i.e. the races, the layout of the world. This would dictate that each world is not an alternate history of each other anymore and thus for most intents and purposes can be considered separate planets.

Outside Influences, Unique Events and Calamities
Of course, the buffs of Light and Dark are not the only influences on the direction a world takes. We still have the Ascians, who work to actively sow chaos in each shard with different ideas, and those unique individuals that come from across time and space (and canon) whose influence on the world cannot be said to be insubstantial [Midgardsormr and the First Brood, Omega, Greg(probably), the various non-canon NPCs, Solas(maybe, since he is an Ascian)]. Going on from my ‘LSTA’ model, there exists only 1 Midgardsormr, 1 Omega, etc… which in turn would imply that certain events, beings and societies associated with them would not exist on the other worlds (I’d also like to insert that interstellar travellers only seem to land on the Source, rather than any of the Shards, as far as we know). This would mean that dragons (as descendants of Midgardsormr), and the Allagan Empire (rising to prominence due to their studies and adaptations of the technologies of Omega), only exist/ed on the Source (another insert, since we know that at least the 1st has lalafells, this would disclude the theory that lalas, and the other 4 original playable races, were created by the Allagans). I would like to highlight the immediate changes between the worlds this would cause (e.g. no Ishgard/dragonsong, no great quakes/crystal towers, no Garlean Empire) but they are too many for me to think of at this point beside examples.

And then come the Calamities, disasters that are so volatile they erase civilisation (usually) and cause a wound on the Source's aetheric essence that it desparately tries to heal. Currently we do not know if this automatic healing causes any random shard to be destroyed and assimilated, however we can deduce that, since Igeyhorm was trying to cause chaos on the 13th (and overshot), a similar in scale catastrophe needs to take place on a shard to render it vulnerable to being Rejoined. Aether from the rejoined shard (which enters the Lifestream) does not seem to empower Hydaelyn, in fact she has been getting weaker, but rather seems to simultaneously empower Zodiark and weaken the seal placed on him[One more insert – the 5.0 keynote from the NA fanfest states the Warrior of Light will need to stop an Eighth and (keyword) FINAL Calamity. As such it appears to me that Zodiark does not need ALL of the shards rejoined to undo the seal, but rather needs enough power to break the seal himself. That or the Calamity in question is an irreversible Flood of Light].

It seems unlikely that all the Ascians would be able to perfectly execute calamities on all the remaining worlds at around the same time, and it seems that only one world is Rejoined at a time anyways, so this serves as a further event that is radically different between all the worlds, i.e. the Calamities occur only on the Source in Eorzea, while the shards experience world-ending apocalypses. As for why a disaster of similar scale to a Calamity would cause a shard to be destroyed, it is because, I believe, the aetheric integrity of the shards are comparatively weak compared to the Source. Using the representation of Mother Hydaelyn as a crystal as an example; Hydaelyn consists of the giant main crystal, with smaller crystals floating around it. A force that might damage the larger crystal, may instead break the smaller ones. This is what I believe is the actual relationship between Source and Shards.

[ObsidianFire]

Interesting write-up.

A few points of clarification.

At the same time, those with the Echo who travel between worlds are “changing their aetheric frequency” to match that of another world so that they can interact with it.

Traveling between Shards, even for someone with the Echo, is much more complicated then this. In all cases we've seen of this happening (Ascians, Warriors of Darkness) the first thing that has to happen is for someone with the Echo to die, but not go to the Aetherial Sea (like they normally would). Instead, they go to Somewhere In-between the Material Ream and the Aetherial Sea which seems to match up to being in-between the Shards. Once they get to the Shard or the Source, they need to find and posses another body (usually already dead, sometimes still living) in order to interact with that Shard. Otherwise, they would just finish dying and be pulled into that Shard's Aetherial Sea.

So inter-Shard travel seems to be something that shouldn't be possible. And is only possible to do by somehow messing with the normal cycle of life and death. It seems to be something tied to the Ascian's desire to combine everything into one thing while Hydaelyn upholds the barriers that let individuals remain indiviuals, only in this case, it's on a dimensional scale.

Light and Dark
Light and dark are (apparently) opposing forms of energy distinct from elemental energy. We do not really know much about them, aside that too much of either is bad, with a flood of darkness leading a star to crumble into ruin and deforming what inhabitants are left (as what happened with the 13th), and a flood of light causing a world to fade away into blank perfection (which the 1st was in the midst of before Deus Ex Minfillia went over to absorb the excess Light).

This is true for the Shards (and probably the Source). What we don't know is how Light and Dark balance on the cosmic scale (scale of Hydaelyn and Zodiark), or if they are even in a state of balance at the moment. Unfortunately, this seems to be the scale the Ascians are really working on and we've really only got their word on how that balance is working out. And Hydaelyn's word. We know very, very little of how what goes on on the Shards and Source effects the larger balance of Light and Dark.

[MrThinker]

Traveling between Shards, even for someone with the Echo, is much more complicated then this. In all cases we've seen of this happening (Ascians, Warriors of Darkness) the first thing that has to happen is for someone with the Echo to die, but not go to the Aetherial Sea (like they normally would). Instead, they go to Somewhere In-between the Material Ream and the Aetherial Sea which seems to match up to being in-between the Shards. Once they get to the Shard or the Source, they need to find and posses another body (usually already dead, sometimes still living) in order to interact with that Shard. Otherwise, they would just finish dying and be pulled into that Shard's Aetherial Sea.

So inter-Shard travel seems to be something that shouldn't be possible. And is only possible to do by somehow messing with the normal cycle of life and death. It seems to be something tied to the Ascian's desire to combine everything into one thing while Hydaelyn upholds the barriers that let individuals remain indiviuals, only in this case, it's on a dimensional scale.

Yes, on second reading, I did make the shard travel process of the Echo seem like a one step thing. What I was thinking in regards to that, was that dying freed the soul from the 'aetheric signature' of it's original world. Now, without the Echo, the soul would lose itself to the 'noise' that is the aetherial sea, but with it, the soul could now 'change the frequency at will' or something along those lines, though in order to anchor itself to a frequency, in needs to possess a vessel of some kind, living or dead, from the world it wishes to visit.

Just an extra point of clarification; Do we know that each Shard has it's own individual aetherial sea? Or is it implied, because the lifestreams of each of the worlds do not intersect until they are rejoined?

This is true for the Shards (and probably the Source). What we don't know is how Light and Dark balance on the cosmic scale (scale of Hydaelyn and Zodiark), or if they are even in a state of balance at the moment. Unfortunately, this seems to be the scale the Ascians are really working on and we've really only got their word on how that balance is working out. And Hydaelyn's word. We know very, very little of how what goes on on the Shards and Source effects the larger balance of Light and Dark.

Very true, though I'd venture to say we know nothing at all.
As an aside, Hydaelyn's emissary, and by proxy (and assumption) the Mothercrystal herself, seem to be able to absorb Light to ensure it does not cause a flood. Another natural assumption would be that Zodiark and HIS emissary (Elidibus) should be able to do the same with Darkness. Except Elidibus didn't with the 13th. So he either: a) let it happen on purpose to emphasize his importance; b) became emissary after the fact or; c) lacked very crucial information

[ObsidianFire]

Just an extra point of clarification; Do we know that each Shard has it's own individual aetherial sea? Or is it implied, because the lifestreams of each of the worlds do not intersect until they are rejoined?

I'm almost positive it is the case that each shard has their own Aetherial Sea that only dumps back into that Shard when something is born.

I say "almost positive" because the source of that information is Elidibus. And the context of him mentioning it is when he told the Warriors of Darkness that the only way they could save the life on their Shard from the Flood was to cause a Calamity so that the aether of their Shard would go on to be in the Aetheral Sea of the Source. It kinda defeats the purpose of a Calamity if all the Aetherial Seas of all the Shards are joined to the Source's Aetherial Sea already.

What that leads me to believe Elidibus was not lying about that is what the Warriors of Darkness ask Hydaelyn to do for them after she says she can absorb the excess light from their Shard. They ask her to take them home knowing that once they get back they'll "finish" dying and return to their Shard's Aetherial Sea so they can be reborn on their Shard again... eventually. And Hydaelyn says she can do that for them.

This seems to go with how the Ascians want to combine everything into one thing (Lahabrea and Igeyhorm using the Echo to combine into an Ascian Prime) while Hydaleyn keeps up barriers between things (different worlds, souls, etc.). Ironically, keeping up barriers is necessary for the sense of individuality to mean something and combining everything into one thing causes the things the make the one thing up to not exist anymore. The Echo's powers can best be summarized as the "Power to Transcend Barriers of Words/Time/Worlds". But the Ascians seem to use the Echo to destroy the barriers they are transcending while the Warrior of Light maintains them. It seems you could probably apply that reasoning to Zodiark and Hydaelyn on a grand scale as well.

As an aside, Hydaelyn's emissary, and by proxy (and assumption) the Mothercrystal herself, seem to be able to absorb Light to ensure it does not cause a flood. Another natural assumption would be that Zodiark and HIS emissary (Elidibus) should be able to do the same with Darkness. Except Elidibus didn't with the 13th. So he either: a) let it happen on purpose to emphasize his importance; b) became emissary after the fact or; c) lacked very crucial information

Well, we know Elidibus was around (probably as Zodiark's Emissary) when the 13th Shard was Flooded. He was the one who got Unukalhai out of there and put him in stasis until the Warring Triad became a problem. And we know Elidibus taught Uukalhai a bunch of stuff somewhere along the line; Unukalhai does call Elidibus his master and confirms Elidibus was obsessed with the idea of Balance even back then. Which does make it very interesting (and rather suspicious now that I think of it) that we never hear of Elidibus trying to absorb the Flood of Darkness, but rather hear of him stashing the too young Warrior of Light in stasis somewhere for a few millennia. And then he tells the Warriors of Darkens that the only thing that could possibly save their Shard is a Calamity... yeah... I think we just got more evidence for Elidibus not really caring about Balance and mainly caring about bringing Zodiark back in the future...

That said, it probably does say something about both the Ascians and their relationship with Zodiark that the 13th Shard's Light counterpart, the 1st Shard, has seemingly never had to deal with the threat of a Flood of Light until after the Ascians weaken Hydaelyn to the point she can't talk anymore. The 13th Shard getting almost Flooded feels a lot more like an unintended fallout of Hydaelyn going silent then someone trying to cause chaos on purpose and accidentally going too far which we know was what Igeyhorm was doing on the 13th. I got the feeling that if Igeyhorm hadn't been meddling with things on the 13th Shard in the first place, it might not have been Flooded at all, or at least would have been Flooded much later.

[MrThinker]

I'm almost positive it is the case that each shard has their own Aetherial Sea that only dumps back into that Shard when something is born.

I say "almost positive" because the source of that information is Elidibus. And the context of him mentioning it is when he told the Warriors of Darkness that the only way they could save the life on their Shard from the Flood was to cause a Calamity so that the aether of their Shard would go on to be in the Aetheral Sea of the Source. It kinda defeats the purpose of a Calamity if all the Aetherial Seas of all the Shards are joined to the Source's Aetherial Sea already.

What that leads me to believe Elidibus was not lying about that is what the Warriors of Darkness ask Hydaelyn to do for them after she says she can absorb the excess light from their Shard. They ask her to take them home knowing that once they get back they'll "finish" dying and return to their Shard's Aetherial Sea so they can be reborn on their Shard again... eventually. And Hydaelyn says she can do that for them.

This seems to go with how the Ascians want to combine everything into one thing (Lahabrea and Igeyhorm using the Echo to combine into an Ascian Prime) while Hydaleyn keeps up barriers between things (different worlds, souls, etc.). Ironically, keeping up barriers is necessary for the sense of individuality to mean something and combining everything into one thing causes the things the make the one thing up to not exist anymore. The Echo's powers can best be summarized as the "Power to Transcend Barriers of Words/Time/Worlds". But the Ascians seem to use the Echo to destroy the barriers they are transcending while the Warrior of Light maintains them. It seems you could probably apply that reasoning to Zodiark and Hydaelyn on a grand scale as well.

That makes sense, though now i'm wondering how freely Hydaelyn (when she wasn't so weak) could move between the aetherial seas of each shard so she was able to choose people and communicate. Is she omnipresent in all of the seas? or does her 'main body' have to move?

Well, we know Elidibus was around (probably as Zodiark's Emissary) when the 13th Shard was Flooded. He was the one who got Unukalhai out of there and put him in stasis until the Warring Triad became a problem. And we know Elidibus taught Uukalhai a bunch of stuff somewhere along the line; Unukalhai does call Elidibus his master and confirms Elidibus was obsessed with the idea of Balance even back then. Which does make it very interesting (and rather suspicious now that I think of it) that we never hear of Elidibus trying to absorb the Flood of Darkness, but rather hear of him stashing the too young Warrior of Light in stasis somewhere for a few millennia. And then he tells the Warriors of Darkens that the only thing that could possibly save their Shard is a Calamity... yeah... I think we just got more evidence for Elidibus not really caring about Balance and mainly caring about bringing Zodiark back in the future...

I completely forgot about Unulkalhai and his master/servant relationship to Elidibus. So yeah, if he was there already, then option b) clearly can't be right, and since I don't trust him, i am leaning more to option a) that he knew exactly what was going to happen but let it happen to enforce the importance of Balance and thus his standing with the Overlords (or Zodiark told him to do nothing, since that is still an option).

That said, it probably does say something about both the Ascians and their relationship with Zodiark that the 13th Shard's Light counterpart, the 1st Shard, has seemingly never had to deal with the threat of a Flood of Light until after the Ascians weaken Hydaelyn to the point she can't talk anymore. The 1st Shard getting almost Flooded feels a lot more like an unintended fallout of Hydaelyn going silent then someone trying to cause chaos on purpose and accidentally going too far which we know was what Igeyhorm was doing on the 13th. I got the feeling that if Igeyhorm hadn't been meddling with things on the 13th Shard in the first place, it might not have been Flooded at all, or at least would have been Flooded much later.

Fixed, what I am assuming to be a typo. And this comes back to the whole 'nature of Light and Dark'. It seems that 'balance' is achieved when you have aetherically powerful beings align themselves on either side of the Light-Dark spectrum. For the 1st Shard it seems the world was still in Balance until Arbert and co. offed their shards last Ascian (I read somewhere on this forum that it was Mitron?). Does this mean that as long as there is ONE aetherically powerful individual aligned to the other side, a world can have an excess of either Light or Dark and still exist normally? Do actions play any role in affecting the balance, i.e. 'a good deed a day keeps the darkness away'? We simply do not know. From what Arbert says before he leaves, I gather that both Light and Dark (not DRK's inner darkness) can be used to perform good deeds, which in turn leads me to think that rather than the action itself being important, it is whether are aligned to Light or Dark when carrying out the action.

[Erudito]

A theory on the origin of the divide:
“Light and Dark were given form when Man was born.” Something akin to those words were spoken by Ramuh in the few moments he was with us.

This, if observed more broadly, leads me to believe that the rise of darkness was because of man (the intelligent races I think they refer to themselves) just caused a mess as we of in real life are wont to do.

Imbalance caused by their rise lead to a rise in darkness (war, tragedy, death in excess) which led to a split. I would very much like to know WHY split the world into reflections and source. I mean, could nothing else be done? Hopefully we learn more of this come Shadowbringers.

[MrThinker]

A theory on the origin of the divide:
“Light and Dark were given form when Man was born.” Something akin to those words were spoken by Ramuh in the few moments he was with us.

This, if observed more broadly, leads me to believe that the rise of darkness was because of man (the intelligent races I think they refer to themselves) just caused a mess as we of in real life are wont to do.

Imbalance caused by their rise lead to a rise in darkness (war, tragedy, death in excess) which led to a split. I would very much like to know WHY split the world into reflections and source. I mean, could nothing else be done? Hopefully we learn more of this come Shadowbringers.

This theory would fall under the 'Life before the Sundering' category. Extrapolating from this, how can we reconcile what we were told by Hydaelyn (Zodiark wanting more power) with this assumption(that men were the cause of the 'divide')? For this line of thought, I believe a good solution would be that Zodiark wanted to rule over men, that is why he wanted power, and the reason he was gaining in strength were because people were worshipping him.
Referencing the statue of Zodiark on the moon, it can be theorized that before the split, there was a so called "Church of Zodiark(TM)". We already know that belief plays a pivotal role in the formation of beings like primals, so who is to say it doesnt affect the powers of Hydaelyn and Zodiark? Zodiark granted the strongest and most devout of his acolytes the gift of the Echo, and after the sundering these people would become the basis of the Ascians.

[Enkidoh]

Referencing the statue of Zodiark on the moon,

What statue? There was... a rock with a very pareidolic effect in the 'stinger' scene upon completing HW's scenario (where Elidibus annoints Evil!Derplander as the WoD), but it's such a blink-and-you'll-miss-it situation I don't regard it as anything other than a rock that shadow effects make it look odd. If you mean instead that odd statue in the Chrysalis... that's not even on the Moon at all, but is a pocket dimension that the Ascians inhabit (the art book stated that it's formed from the thoughts and memories of the Ascians, and appears light and consistant where the mind is strong, but unravelling and in shadow where the mind is weak, paraphrasing the artist's quote on the subject), so that doesn't count.

We do know Zodiark is at least somewhere on the Primary Moon (which, all evidence seems to suggest is named Menphina, at least by Eorzeans anyway), but exactly where He is is anyone's guess. Even the game has been rather inconsistant on the subject - Hydaelyn Herself even briefly suggested at one point Zodiark wasn't even on the Moon at all - She mentioned in ARR's ending that "In the depths of the Abyss, resideth the Dark One, watchful ever" and that the "Darkness remains in forgotten corners of the world" (paraphrased again). So, we take from this what we can?

The fact is, we just know so little about the whole celestial mechanics of Hydaelyn, Zodiark and the paralell universes created by their split to really craft a definite theory on the subject, not helped by even Hydaelyn being very vague on the subject, and most of our primary sources... being sociopathic immortal beings whose very MO is to lie.

[MrThinker]

So I just re-watched that scene, and took multiple screenshots of that blink-or-you-miss-it moment, and it DEFINITELY looks like a statue of Zodiark, half buried in the moon ground. Unfortunately I don't know how to link pictures onto this forum from my PC.

As for Menphina being the Eorzean name for the Moon, it makes sense since she is the moon goddess, but I'd really like an official source to claim it as so.

[Enkidoh]

My main citation for the Primary Moon being known by Eorzeans as 'Menphina' is that Dalamud was known in-universe as Menphina's loyal hound, which makes sense - Dalamud orbited the Primary Moon (as shown by the models of Hydaelyn and it's moons on the Astrolabe), but like real life where Luna is the fancy 'traditional' name for Earth's moon but officially is simply called the 'Moon' by the IAU (and pretty much everyone on Earth), it's never really called that by Hydaelyn's inhabitants, including Eorzeans - instead the smallfolk simply call it the 'moon' or 'the Primary Moon' when Dalamud was still around.

If Zodiark really was the name for the Primary Moon, I think that would have ended up somewhere in Hydaelyn's culture, yet it is the Ascians' who first reveal Zodiark's existence, his name not even being uttered at all until the final stinger of 2.0's initial main scenario and absolutely no sign of his name anywhere in Hydaelyn.

So even if Zodiark literally is the Primary Moon (an idea I don't buy myself), no one on Hydaelyn seems to know about that.