Under the Ocean of the Source (spoilers)

[Heliantheae]

Could there still be Amaurot ruins on the Source? After Ravel they said most of the ruins and morals from back then have been destroyed by the calamities. But what about under the ocean. Could some of it have survived on the Source?

[AnimaAnimus]

Well there was something under silvertear lake that released a whole bunch of primals, so there is something down there

[Enkidoh]

Well there was something under silvertear lake that released a whole bunch of primals, so there is something down there

The general belief for that was that was considerably more recent though - specifically it was an Allagan seal under the lake that kept the Primals in check (remember also the Crystal Tower was still buried there too at that time). Whether that is indeed true though was never confirmed to the best of my knowledge, but is a good a fit as any.

I had a theory when I first finished the initial ARR storyline that maybe the Ascians had manipulated Gaius into deliberately attacking Silvertear for that reason, knowing Midgardsormr would rise up and defend the place, and hoping that the resulting violence between Midgardsormr and the XIVth Legion would be enough to destroy the seal (as to do so required an enormous amount of aether, satisified by the detonation of the cereleum in the Agrius's engines when it crashed into the lake), to allow the Primals to escape (and thus having to avoid needing to create new Primals from scratch when they did their Paragon false-flag operation with the beast tribes).

It all seemed a little too convinent to have all occured by chance (especially in ARR the revelation that Gaius was all chummy with Lahabrea and was clearly being strung along by him), but I admit, as interesting an idea it was, I never really took the theory too seriously.

Now however....

[AnimaAnimus]

The general belief....

That doesn't make it factual, esp if they wanna retcon something that isn't fleshed out lore. And who is to say the allagans didn't find something downthere that was of ascian design they used to not only capture the primals but also base their tech off of.

If the allagans found the ruins of the ascians they could have easily used something to base their tech off of, which is why nothing of that scale has been seen before or since really

[Anonymoose]

The general belief for that was that was considerably more recent though - specifically it was an Allagan seal under the lake that kept the Primals in check (remember also the Crystal Tower was still buried there too at that time).

Was there ever any material (in or out of world) that drew a connection between the seal and the Allagans, or was it more a player assumption? I'm not recalling any off the top of my head at the moment.

maybe the Ascians had manipulated Gaius into deliberately attacking Silvertear for that reason

Considering we now know Gaius's attack on Silvertear had the blessing of "Solus zos Galvus"...?
Yeah, sounds even more like a Calamity set-up malm-marker than it already did to me, too.

The problem is that all of those things were part of a story that was not used. The seal might be known today as a mere confluence and seal of aether which helped keep the primals in check somehow, but back then there was something there. We don't even know of, canon-wise, The Presence of Silvertear Lake still exists, so it's hard to comment on the nature of the seal.

(Maybe we can blame The Presence for the fall of the world of the Ancients, the "sound from below", and have a post-Hydaelyn/Zodark boss for 6.0! It's BeEn ThErE eVeR SiNcE!)

[Iscah]

Wasn't the "released primals" visual just symbolic and actually more about releasing the potential to summon primals?

[Anonymoose]

Wasn't the "released primals" visual just symbolic and actually more about releasing the potential to summon primals?

That's one of the things on my possibility list (that it was just a visual metaphor for primal summoning being much easier), especially since it's very clearly just Ifrit and Titan copy-pasted over and over.

[AnimaAnimus]

When did the dragons come to Eorzea too? Could that be a link between the fall and also why midgardsomr would really want to keep the empire away from silvertear. If they new the ascians were trying to get their hand on some of their old tech, tech that could, as we found, hold even a greater dragon hostage (Tiamat) and enslave lesser dragons that would definitely be a reason to sacrifice your current form.

I'm tired and fuzzy on the lore atm so I may just be in need-sleep confusion. But that sounds like an intriguing idea. And if Midy was at fault anything the dragons say is suspect so they could really use that as a twist

[JeanneOrnitier]

Y'shtola says in the Tempest that she believes that the calamities would probably have wiped out many Amaurot ruins on the Source, but neither she nor us have actually been there to check so it's certainly possible some still exist south of La Noscea.

The lore book says the Agelyss Wise, the ruined road in eastern La Noscea, is hypothesized to have been ancient even when Allag was around. Now there's a lot of history before Allag so it could still be anything, but given the proximity to where Amaurot would be on the Source it could be Amaurotine.

I've also seen suggestions that the horn on Tupsimati and the one used to summon Alexander were Amaurotine. The Alexander one was also discovered in La Noscea (not sure if Tupsimati's was or not) and it would certainly explain their ability to provide aether for extremely potent summonings, tied to the Ancients' powers of creation.

[Eyvind]

My own theory is that Seal Rock is a much more damaged version of a suburb of Amaurot (though it's further northeast of the Amaurot site). I base this primarily on the horn recovered from it, one of the "keys" mentioned by the lorebook that the Ascians sought, which control the flow of aether and are ideal for summoning primals...or killing Ascians (one is in Tupismati).

What are the keys and how do the Ascians know about them and want them? I am guessing that they were devices used in the original Zodiark summoning, and that's why one was at Seal Rock. It might explain why there are Allagan ruins out there, since the Allagans happily studied their own precursors and advanced tech that was beyond them (such as Omega). They might have found pieces of Amaurot and set up an underwater base to study it.