Demi-Summoner Idea

[Grimoire-M]

I guess you missed literally the first 2 points in the original post...

I didn't. The Carbuncles, while nice, are intended to be replaced by the Egi as part of the SMN questline. Their abilities see potency upgrades to reflect their enhanced power baseline. We literally gain the Aether to summon Ifrit, and then replace Topaz and Emerald Carbuncle's vessels with Titan and Garuda respectively. Your cutscene retcon is not a good solution to this when players undergoing these quests are going to expect to actually see the Egi all the time, and you imply that you want to update the Demi-primal models to better represent the primals during DWT anyways in points 2 and 3, so there's no real reason to change the Egi as they currently are.

Beyond that I'm fine with this. I've discussed my other problems with your thoughts on SMN and Arcanist in the other thread too, if you're interested in that. I think it might be a good idea to bring some of that information into a separate thread, but the relevant beats on why SMN has to keep what it has now would be useful here.

[Kalise]

I didn't. The Carbuncles, while nice, are intended to be replaced by the Egi as part of the SMN questline. Their abilities see potency upgrades to reflect their enhanced power baseline. We literally gain the Aether to summon Ifrit, and then replace Topaz and Emerald Carbuncle's vessels with Titan and Garuda respectively.

Please, if you're going to write fanfiction, keep it out of actual discussions.

Nowhere in the lore are Egi's relevant to Carbuncles and our ability to summon them.

The only "Upgrade" is a mechanical one to just simply remove the ability to summon Carbuncles and "Replace" the Summon I and Summon II skills with Garuda-Egi and Titan-Egi.

[Grimoire-M]

Please, if you're going to write fanfiction, keep it out of actual discussions.

Nowhere in the lore are Egi's relevant to Carbuncles and our ability to summon them.

The only "Upgrade" is a mechanical one to just simply remove the ability to summon Carbuncles and "Replace" the Summon I and Summon II skills with Garuda-Egi and Titan-Egi.

It's not fanfiction, that's actually what happened. Ludonarrative is still narrative.

[Kalise]

It's not fanfiction, that's actually what happened. Ludonarrative is still narrative.

It is fanfiction.

Unless you can show me where in the quests, at any point, from level 30+ when you're doing Summoner job quests, your ability to summon Carbuncles is referenced.

Like I posted in the other thread, even the level 30 job quest, when you are first directed to Y'mhitra, she does not recognize you as anything other than someone whom has fought Ifrit.

Just like the Summoners you go on to train, also have no background in being Arcanists.

Throughout the job quests, there is no reference to your ability to summon anything other than the Egi summons and in fact, the "Summoner" summonings are considered unique (Thus, require a Soul Crystal) and not at all based around merely upgrading your Carbuncles.

Literally the only thing that references the ability to summon Egi and Carbuncles, is the (Non-canon) side quest for Egi-Glamours, where it's noted that since Egi are literally just summons made out of Primal aether, that you can thus mould them into any particular form you wish (With the only other form player character know, being Carbuncles). But again, as a side-quest, this is considered non-canon in addition, it's merely making a note that you can change the shape of Egi summons, not that you're "Upgrading" or "Empowering" your regular Carbuncle summons.

Unless you're next going to tell me that SCH's Fairies are "Upgrades" to Carbuncles, because "Ludonarrative is still narrative".

No, like you mentioned previously, Fairies are independent of Carbuncles, anyone with the right predication can summon a Fairy from a soul crystal.

The same is true with Egi. Egi's do not require the ability to summon Carbuncles. They just need someone with the right predication and location to initially summon it and then bind it to their will, with help of a soul crystal.

"Upgrading" of the Carbuncles is merely just gameplay because, at the time these jobs were created, classes "Evolving" into jobs was a thing. It's also why Arcanist itself is completely unlike literally any of its previous iterations in any Final Fantasy game whatsoever. Since, it was relegated to being a build up class for SCH and SMN jobs.

So, until you can provide proof, within the actual lore of the game (Which does not include "Ludonarrative" because there are PLENTY of things that are done purely for gameplay reasons which are non-canon) that Summoner requires knowledge of Arcanist's ability to summon Carbuncles in order to summon Egi, then this idea you have is pure fanfiction and thus has no bearing on actual discussions regarding lore.

[Grimoire-M]

It is fanfiction.

Unless you can show me where in the quests, at any point, from level 30+ when you're doing Summoner job quests, your ability to summon Carbuncles is referenced.

How about I do you one better and show you that Summoners are Arcanists and Scholars are (for all intents and purposes according to Canon lore as you've decreed it) their own kind of mage?

From your own quote of Y'mhitra in that level 30 job quest (which i've verified for myself already):

We salvaged from the ruins a set of ancient texts describing the existence of a sect of Allagan mages known as “summoners.” These were arcane practitioners said to have the ability to siphon the essences of the primals and manifest this stolen energy as a biddable ally known as an “egi.”

Note that phrase "arcane practitioners". What does that refer to? Well, the most obvious option is Arcanists. They wield Arcanima, after all. "Arcane" is the root word Arcanima and Arcanist are both derived from too, which has linguistic significance here, and continues to be repeated elsewhere in the Summoner Questline (Such as by Principia when we first attain him during the level 60 Stormblood Quest, I'm combing further through for examples of this). There would be no reason to use the word "arcane" to describe them if they weren't supposed to be Arcanists. It's not any other kind of magic that they're using. We even have the Allagans linked to aetherochemical processes later on in the Summoner Quest line, implying that they're magical scientists, something that does fit under Arcanists in the lore, given they're primarily magical researchers and many are also tacticians. Hell even the Egi themselves are referred to as "Arcane" entities by Y'mhitra (specifically during the Level 58 Quest, where she also explains why we can't summon the other primal Egi and has us undergo "Trance" instead).

Scholars, by contrast, are specifically referred to as Nymian Mages and are considered to be doctors off the battlefield and are given the role of field tacticians on it. Unlike that one 'arcane practitioner' line (where in the SMN job quests from that point onward they refer to those Allagan mages as Summoners, and only bring up the arcane when talking about the details of the actual magic they use), it's stated multiple times in the Scholar quests that they are mages of Nym. It's intentionally more broad. However, we know that they're definitively not Conjurers (This is explicitly called out in the level 65 quest), or Thaumaturges thanks to those classes and Scholar's respective historical roles in the War of the Magi, which in turn rules out White, Black, and Red Mages. What does that leave? Probably Arcanima, as there's clearly no connection from them to Astrologian either, but for all intents and purposes, we could treat them as their own kind of mage if SE wanted to.

Want proof? Watch this video of the initial parts of the scholar quest line (i'm avoiding his commentary here as it's not in the text). You'll note repeatedly there are references to Nymian Mages, not Arcanists. They do mention Arcanima, but only on the context of the player's skills. In the level 30 quest that Alka Zolka specifically calls upon an "exceptional Arcanist" so that we, the player, can lend our insight into magical research regarding Nym, something he lacks any understanding of as a marauder. Which again makes sense, as Arcanima is basically programming magic, and in the general scope of Arcanist's lore, they're treated broadly as researchers, tacticians, and scientists that all have expertise in various fields of magical theory, so Alka Zolka of course calls upon one for research and we can even assume that is likely what the Scholars were using. However, it's not explicitly stated here that Scholars did use Arcanima. Alka Zolka only brings it up in the context of noting our own expertise relative to his.

However it's also noted that the Fairy is a familiar bound to the Scholar Soulcrystal in order to preserve Nym's magical knowledge. In the level 35 quest Alka Zolka concludes that the reason you haven't learned anything (beyond Adloquium) from her is because she's forgotten almost all of it due to being inactive for roughly 1500 years since the era where the War of the Magi took place. The fact you've only recently attuned to one another (which happens basically just by you handling the soul crystal in the level 30 cutscene, as she's drawing out the remnant aether from the battle you had before to appear temporarily) means she can't pull out those memories out in order to help you learn anything. Alka Zolka assigns the player tasks to begin conducting experiments in an attempt to help her remember that knowledge, and thus pass it on to you, while he tries to decipher his texts to find anything. The result? He often finds general knowledge of their history, but he doesn't uncover any new spells. The reason we're using Arcanist abilities at all on Scholar at that point is because the Fairy literally can't teach us anything else. It's a case of them being the best fit for the scenario, and SE intentionally left the option to split them off later if they so chose to.

But yes, I don't have a basis for my carbuncle theory, beyond that literally Egi and Fairies occupy the same space as them mechanically and in terms of their respective job's lore they serve a similar purpose as a Carbuncle does to an Arcanist which they are given a direct link to, so I'll drop that. It seems obvious to me that the same base mechanic of creating an independent artificial entity for all three would be required or at least useful as a bridge to learning to evoke their respective pets but that isn't confirmed in lore. And they're all alike in that once brought out they have independent wills.

The only one that's directly shown to be different however is the Fairy, in that she's bound to the soulcrystal, something we definitively can say is not true of the carbuncles or the Egi. Fairies are stated to be familiars, who notably have long-term memories, which presumably is helped by the soulcrystal containing and preserving those memories. We do know that she at least requires a portion of our aether in order to summon her (this is specifically noted in the level 68 scholar quest), or at least a source to draw from, which is true of the Carbuncles and Egi. It is implied but not stated that in the first Scholar cutscene she appears in that she may have been using the remnant aether of that battle to show herself, but regardless of whether that was the source or not, she was only able to do so temporarily until we accepted her soul crystal from Alka Zolka afterword. She does have her own will too, otherwise that scene and many others don't work. We don't control her like we do the Egi. She serves us, but can act against our wishes without breaking our bond with her, which happens a few times in the Scholar questline.

While the Summoner Soulcrystal similarly contains memories of their art and thus has its use in their processes, you definitively require primal essence in order actually to summon an Egi using their methods. I assume not having a soulcrystal would similarly end in disaster for them because I think that was part of the plot point for that rogue ARR Summoner we had to put down to begin with, but we know for a fact you cannot summon any sort of Egi without first defeating a primal, then you must defeat the Egi you create from their essence in the appropriate conditions in order to 'tame' them. It's akin to domesticating a wild animal, which does also appear to be true of the carbuncles, though they're more akin to pets (otherwise the running joke about Tataru being unable to control hers doesn't work).

For Demi-Bahamut we know we needed to master Dreadwyrm Trance and Akh Morn in order to summon him, as that represented us learning to control and use his aether before we could even attempt summon him properly. I believe this had something to do with him being a far stronger primal than the usual Beast tribes but I don't recall the exact details, as Sari and Prin basically handed him to us as a reward for passing their tests. Apart from that, the minimum requirements appear to be the same as Egi (Know how to Summon, defeated the relevant primal), and it seems we have full control of him from the get go as well, and that along with being temporary we can say are likely features of Demi-summoning in particular.

Once thing I did note while looking at the scholar quest more closely (to ensure there's no more mentions of Arcanima beyond that video I linked), is that while the Fairy's memories bring out the core Scholar spells and Sacred Soil, that only lasts up until 50, from which the tonberries take over as your teachers from there onward. Which I forgot, admittedly. Notably though Surito Carito does explicitly teach you Lustrate, Indomitability and Dissipation in the level 50, 52, and 60 job quests you attain them respectively, both of the core healing Aetherflow abilities of Scholar and one of the tools that interacts with it. Everything else you learn in that period isn't explicitly from anyone. This doesn't override the idea that the Fairy and the Scholar soulcrystal are the ultimate source of the Scholarly arts, but it does lend credence to the idea that those abilities in particular are likely arcanima if we go by the same logic I was using for Carbuncles earlier, though again it isn't stated that they or any other abilities are when I looked at those quests. Excog is learned via level up and isn't referenced in Stormblood's questline as the quests are intentionally staggered differently to your ability progression there so that they're no longer locked to one another, aside from the capstone quest, where Lilac (the fairy in the Soulcrystal we wind up finding in the stormblood quests) is the one who teaches us Fey Union/Aetherpact. This is only stated during the text for unlocking Fey Union however, and to me that's even less 'Canon' than the Egi Glamours would be.

I do still think that Shadowbringers will confirm it one way or the other whether there's ever going to be a split off between both jobs however, with the default assumption being both stay tied to Arcanist, of course. Any lore they add to Scholar and Summoner on the First has the benefit of being from a separate world with different history, so it would be strange if they didn't confirm or even explore how Arcanima developed differently along the way in their respective job quests. I'd like it if they did more direct call outs to Arcanima too, to put things to rest, as it were.

[Jandor]

Apart from that, the minimum requirements appear to be the same as Egi (Know how to Summon, defeated the relevant primal), and it seems we have full control of him from the get go as well, and that along with being temporary we can say are likely features of Demi-summoning in particular.

You don't have to have defeated Bahamut in order to channel or summon him. If I recall correctly the excuse used is that basically everyone in Eorzea got a good soaking of Bahamut tainted aether during the Calamity. He also left his mark on aether streams all across the continent, which can be used as fuel for Bahamut related shenanigans.

Which does raise questions regarding the far east now that I think about it.

[Kalise]

You don't have to have defeated Bahamut in order to channel or summon him. If I recall correctly the excuse used is that basically everyone in Eorzea got a good soaking of Bahamut tainted aether during the Calamity. He also left his mark on aether streams all across the continent, which can be used as fuel for Bahamut related shenanigans.

Which does raise questions regarding the far east now that I think about it.

I thought it was due to the fact that we literally bathed in Bahamuts concentrated aether as the reasoning as to how we were able to unlock Dreadwyrm Trance that meant it was simple enough to acquire the ability to summon Demi-Bahamut.

Though, it does leave some unanswered questions... Such as the whole thing around when Y'mhitra mentions:

And as I struggled to unravel the ancient knowledge of the tomestones, I unlocked a good many mysteries...including the reason why you were unable to call forth Ramuh-Egi.

When you summon an avatar, you draw upon your body's reservoir of aether to grant life and form to what is known as an arcane entity─that much we already knew.

I had, however, overlooked the simple fact that our aetheric reserves are finite─thus the magnitude of egi that you are able to summon is limited by the extent of your own life force. Simply put, if the egi is too powerful, then the summoning fails...

Thus... The whole matter of, if Ramuh-Egi was too powerful for us to summon because of the limitations of our on aether... Then why can we summon Demi-Bahamut with no problems at all (Which is both a Demi and thus more powerful than an Egi AND also BAHAMUT the 10,000 yalm tall planet destroying, Calamity-inducing King of Dragons...)?

Unless it's meant to imply that our mastery over the Dreadwyrm Trance, where we infuse ourselves with Bahamuts aether, is bolstering our aetheric reserves to allow for such massive increases in power of our summons (Thus, we should be able to go back to Mor Dhona and summon Ramuh-Egi and tame him)

How about I do you one better and show you that Summoners are Arcanists and Scholars are (for all intents and purposes according to Canon lore as you've decreed it) their own kind of mage?

Oh this will be fun...

Note that phrase "arcane practitioners". What does that refer to?

Math.

It refers to Math.

Arcane = Math.

It is the in-game way that ARC, SMN and SCH utilize their books to cast spells. Their books contain mathematical formulae that they direct aether through in order to do things like cast spells or summon entities.

It matters not the type of summon, or the name of the civilization devised/wrote the original formula, the end result is put aether through formula = spell happens.

For Arcanist, this is limited. Apparently, Eorzea doesn't have much in the way of mathematicians. Thus only simple Carbuncles can be summoned and the basic spells can be used (Ruin, Bio, Miasma, Physick etc.)

For Scholar, the Nymian Scholars of old spent a lot of time researching formulae as well as devising strategies. This lead to developing arcanima known as Fairies, which were useful for aiding the Marauders that made up the footsoldiers of the Nymian military, allowing the Scholars themselves to devote their attention to tactics and strategy.

For Summoner, the Allag Summoners of old devised a way to use the power of Eikons to create arcanima known as Egi and later Demi. However, given the more technological nature of the civilization, it ended up being essentially a primitive form of Computer Science, with later Summoning practices (After the whole "Lets murder all the Summoners" thing) being directed more at Aetherochemical research, utilizing machines to perform the complex formulae necessary to do incredibly advanced magicks at an inhuman speed, including (As noted with the SB job quests) cloning as well as being able to be incredibly efficient with aether (Allowing multiple summons simultaneously). Though, as noted by Prin, Sari initially didn't like Aetherochemical summoning, as it was prone to errors (In addition to at the time, wanting the teachings of Summoning to be passed down to future generations more easily than could be done via Tomestones - Hence why Prin is a book) but he kind of flipped out when his students were all murdered...

As such, Arcanist, Scholar and Summoner all use math to cast their spells. None of them rely on each other to function. With Scholar and Summoner taking different paths, where one is more focused on tactics and strategies and thus likely more physics based in its mathematics while the other is more akin to computer science and utilizing outside sources of aether (From Eikons (Or Primals as it happens))

They are similar in the same way that Arcanist, and Red Mage are similar, as they use their own aether to power their spells and thus are limited by their own capacity (With whatchamacallit from the RDM job quests looking to bypass that, much like Allags did when they devised Summoning. Where RDM dude used aether from other people and Allags used aether from Primals) but different in that their spells are wholly different.

Interestingly enough, Bard could also be considered math based too. Given that songs and music are literally just complex mathematical formulae and archery is merely simple geometry (Stupid Hanzo) physics (Draw weight x Draw length = Velocity). Though they don't create any arcanima... Yet...

While on the flip side, Machinist approaches the same things as Scholars. Being mindful of tactics and strategy and the like (It's heavily noted in the job quests for MCH that because everyone keeps going on strike every 2 minutes that they need to use strategy to beat their opponents, be they Dragons or Knights). Thus, it's likely that if Ishgard ever becomes highly advanced in knowledge, the Machinist job will likely end up becoming some sort of Scholar/Summoner hybrid. Using technology to employ tactics and stratagem with extreme precision and power. Whether or not they will devise their own arcanima or just rely on physical automatons is up in the air though...

[Jandor]

Unless it's meant to imply that our mastery over the Dreadwyrm Trance, where we infuse ourselves with Bahamuts aether, is bolstering our aetheric reserves to allow for such massive increases in power of our summons (Thus, we should be able to go back to Mor Dhona and summon Ramuh-Egi and tame him)

I can't really remember, it's been a while. I was basically under the impression that all the Bahamut related stuff is using external sources of aether, specifically aether that Bahamut left a mark on, which in Eorzea at least is pretty much all of it to some degree or another.

I got the impression that because egi are manifested primarily from our internal aether stores they essentially cap out based on your reserves. We get three because we're the WoL, other people might cap out at two, or even one.

The egi aether cap feels more like more 'excuse lore' than anything else though, it barely makes any sense, you only ever summon one at a time anyway.
How does having the option of one, two, three, etc in reserve make any difference? Are the currently unsummoned ones always draining our aether to a small degree? Titan-egi just forever sat in our soul like a big orange aether capping dead weight?

[Kalise]

How does having the option of one, two, three, etc in reserve make any difference? Are the currently unsummoned ones always draining our aether to a small degree? Titan-egi just forever sat in our soul like a big orange aether capping dead weight?

I don't believe the option does, more so than the strength of the Egi itself.

Like, we couldn't get Ramuh-Egi, not because we already learned how to summon Ifrit/Titan/Garuda, but because Ramuh-Egi is simply more powerful than either of those 3 and thus needs a larger amount of aether to summon and us, even being the WoL, don't have enough (Or at least, didn't at the time)

I can't really remember, it's been a while. I was basically under the impression that all the Bahamut related stuff is using external sources of aether, specifically aether that Bahamut left a mark on, which in Eorzea at least is pretty much all of it to some degree or another.

Well, Dreadwyrm Trance is merely changing how the aether is used. Basically, instead of directing it into created entity, such as an Egi, it is instead turned inwardly to enhance yourself. (I assume this is how Ysayle was able to become Shiva without the need of a bunch of crystals like typical Primal summons, directing the aether inwards being vastly more efficient)

As noted by Y'mhitra:

"Rather than attempt to summon a separate, physical manifestation of certain egi, the most accomplished mages discovered that far less aether was required to infuse themselves with the essence of a primal's power."

Why Bahamut's aether? Because apparently Y'mhitra believes in "Go big or go home" (That and we had to face down an Ascian...). It also is somewhat convenient due to how much of Eorzea was splashed with his Aether during the Calamity so we didn't have to battle him to be able to use it (We just needed to go to the Cartineau Flats where it was "Steeped in Bahamut's energies" to initiate the Trance)

But yeah... Apparently, making a summon is not particularly efficient use of aether.

Though, with Demi-Bahamut, we literally get no lore about how we can summon it.

Literally all that is stated is:

PRINCIPIA
An unexpected development which you handled with exceptional grace, Mistress. And now, at long last, I can finally bequeath to you the highest secrets of summoning! Pray step forward!

YMHITRA
What a momentous occasion! The wisdom of the last of Allag's master summoners is yours!

Like... Great. But how?

How do I now randomly have the ability to summon Demi-Bahamut when previously I couldn't even manage a simple Ramuh-Egi?

[Dyvid]

K, so I think you need to take lore with a grain of salt. The gameplay is always developed first, always. After that they write the lore to fill in the gaps. In HW they wanted to focus more on the Summoner, not pet and didn't know how to add a fourth pet. They added Dreadwing Trace at the gameplay then wrote the reasoning after the fact.