(Spoiler) About amaurots downfall

[Daralii]

While it doesn't necessarily change your point, I feel like making clear that Mor Dhona was not ruined by the Seventh Umbral Calamity, but instead by the Battle of Silvertear Skies some years prior. It featured "breathtaking scenery" and a bunch of inns before Midgardsormr slammed the Agrius into the Lake.

Unspoiled Mor Dhona actually features in the opening CGI for 1.0, where the Warrior of Light fights along companions in an Echo vision against a morbol moments before the Empire invades and does battle with the wyrm.

To be fair, it had also been hit by the 4th Umbral Calamity in the past, and it did suffer some damage in the 7th. Camp Revenant's Toll, for example.

[YianKutku]

To be fair, it had also been hit by the 4th Umbral Calamity in the past, and it did suffer some damage in the 7th. Camp Revenant's Toll, for example.

Yeah, the Crystal Tower being ground zero (pun intended) for the Fourth Calamity makes me surprised that Mor Dhona is as intact as it is. I'd have expected it to be completely jagged wasteland, if not all underwater.

(Maybe Midgardsormr was cheating a bit and protecting the area around Silvertear?)

[Crushnight]

I wonder if the 'sound' was perhaps the original echo one given by the original planet, we(the players) do get given both a visual clue and an audible one whenever we receive a vision this directly affects our head and is not isolated to Hydelyn or Zodiark so it has to have an original source somewhere. If the original planet sent out echo it could start off small, anywhere at any time, and depending on what was shown could start spreading fear induced nightmares fast but all this is very tinfoil hat with no real grounds but was just a thought i had as i was reading through the thread.

[LittleArrow]

I had posted another thread without checking this one out first, so sorry for that.

So, I just wanted to throw my 2c into this. I think the keening / groaning / noise from deep within the planet is definitely a solid thing - it is an entity of some kind. My prediction is we'll have to fight this thing after it possibly sunders our world much like amarout (another cataclysm b/c Yoshi keeps going on about redoing all of ARR so he can put in flying there). The Ascians will most likely be there to say "told you so" or something, and we'll either have to combine our forces (Zodiark AND Hydaelyn) or we'll have defeated Zodiark before that and Hydaelyn will either sacrifice herself since she'll have no more purpose OR dissipate since I really don't think her jam was to rule the planet in the first place - this will release that thing in the planet to wake up.

Either way I definitely think this leads to another couple expansions. The Garleans will be redeemed, the Ascians will join the fight to defeat their real foe OR they will be defeated before all of this happens.

I could be wrong about all of this, but kinda seems like this is a direction we're headed towards.

(I totally agree with Lavos from Chrono Trigger / Cross and Jenova from 7)

[Riastrad]

It sounds oddly enough like the villain of another Square title. Lavos from the Chrono series. With time being a central plot point of the story, I can see the story team using old references to past titles as needed. Time compression is for sure going to have some effect on the story coming up. Heck, we even see past expansion CGI in the opening to this expansion. Why show any of that if certain events are not going to be brought up and possibly changed, time is not as rigid as it seems.

I use the song lyrics for Shadowbringers for a fair amount of my theories (and because it is so freaking cool). But, I think they have a lot of relevance to the story.

Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge
A reflection in the glass
Recollections of our past
Swift as darkness, cold as ash
Far beyond this dream of paradise lost

To me that last bit means that after we dealt with the shades of Amaurot, old failures are going to be brought up again. If we can change our fate, why can't we change others?

Want for nothing, nothing denied
Wand'ring ended, futures aligned

*pulls a certain knight to safety and stops a betrayal before it even happens* One can dream.

Unspoiled Mor Dhona actually features in the opening CGI for 1.0, where the Warrior of Light fights along companions in an Echo vision against a morbol moments before the Empire invades and does battle with the wyrm.

Unsupported theory here for a second, but what if that CGI took place in the First? We are led to believe that the Source of the First and Silvertear Lake of the Source (confusing I know) are linked. During the trailer for 1.0 when the derplander (really Ardbert, we just didn't know at the time) gathers guildleves for his group and sees that vision, it didn't really happen to them, but to the WoL on the Source. So Ardbert accidentally sees what was going on in the Source during the Battle of Silvertear.

I understand the story was not planned that far ahead, but they did reuse the Crystarium, Cylva, and many other project "Rapture" ideas. It can not be understated as having some affect on the current story as Yoshida has always been active in using the original dev teams work as a basis for the story he wants to tell. Dalamud being a prime example.

[Daralii]

It sounds oddly enough like the villain of another Square title. Lavos from the Chrono series. With time being a central plot point of the story, I can see the story team using old references to past titles as needed. Time compression is for sure going to have some effect on the story coming up. Heck, we even see past expansion CGI in the opening to this expansion. Why show any of that if certain events are not going to be brought up and possibly changed, time is not as rigid as it seems.

I use the song lyrics for Shadowbringers for a fair amount of my theories (and because it is so freaking cool). But, I think they have a lot of relevance to the story.

Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge
A reflection in the glass
Recollections of our past
Swift as darkness, cold as ash
Far beyond this dream of paradise lost

To me that last bit means that after we dealt with the shades of Amaurot, old failures are going to be brought up again. If we can change our fate, why can't we change others?

Want for nothing, nothing denied
Wand'ring ended, futures aligned

*pulls a certain knight to safety and stops a betrayal before it even happens* One can dream.

Parts of it seem like references to the Terminus, but those are few and far between on top of also applying to the WoL, Exarch, and fated ends of the Source and First. As far as changing the fates of others goes, we'll have to see if the dark future was actually prevented or not.

[Ardox]

Unsupported theory here for a second, but what if that CGI took place in the First? We are led to believe that the Source of the First and Silvertear Lake of the Source (confusing I know) are linked. During the trailer for 1.0 when the derplander (really Ardbert, we just didn't know at the time) gathers guildleves for his group and sees that vision, it didn't really happen to them, but to the WoL on the Source. So Ardbert accidentally sees what was going on in the Source during the Battle of Silvertear.

I understand the story was not planned that far ahead, but they did reuse the Crystarium, Cylva, and many other project "Rapture" ideas. It can not be understated as having some affect on the current story as Yoshida has always been active in using the original dev teams work as a basis for the story he wants to tell. Dalamud being a prime example.

This would be some extreme recycling.. I do like the idea, but there's some problems with it:
- Nielbert unfurl Eorzea's map (you can read Aldenard on the map around this moment)(Better CS, you can read "sea of Jade", Sea of Ash", "Aldenard")
- The levequest plates have "Limsa Lominsa" written in Eorzean on them (Look at the bottom of the plate around this moment)
- The Crystarium didn't exist when Ardbert was alive (The venue is the prototype Drowning Wench from project Rapture and it seems they took those assets for the Crystarium: that appeared after/during the flood).
- Aren't the idea of levequests brought by the Exarch to the First?

[Iscah]

- Aren't the idea of levequests brought by the Exarch to the First?

Sounds right - it's certainly the excuse for most gameplay beaureocracy that gets carried over.

Interestingly, from the Allagan ruins in Mor Dhona and concept art used in the lore book as "Allag at its peak"*, in-universe I think you could say the Crystarium architecture is Allag-inspired... and with an Allagan historian in charge, that's quite possibly deliberate!


* I've never actually got around to looking at the Rapture concept art. I assume it's from there. Lots of domes, but no crystal.

[Riastrad]

This would be some extreme recycling.. I do like the idea, but there's some problems with it:
- Nielbert unfurl Eorzea's map (you can read Aldenard on the map around this moment)(Better CS, you can read "sea of Jade", Sea of Ash", "Aldenard")
- The levequest plates have "Limsa Lominsa" written in Eorzean on them (Look at the bottom of the plate around this moment)
- The Crystarium didn't exist when Ardbert was alive (The venue is the prototype Drowning Wench from project Rapture and it seems they took those assets for the Crystarium: that appeared after/during the flood).
- Aren't the idea of levequests brought by the Exarch to the First?

You are completely correct in your points. Many things have changed since 1.0 and even 2.0 and scrapped ideas being folded into new narratives is common for the studio. But, your reasoning is sound. I do feel however that the element of time compression (again with all the FF8 vibes) could wave away some of those roadblocks. I mean, when asked about housing on the First, Yoshi gave that response about how it (the First) would be affected by the story. That screams time bubble to me. Unless of course, when we go back to the Source, time moves at a faster rate and everyone we left behind dies of old age in the span of a few days to us.


You probably guessed it by now. I'm just spit balling here.

[geekgirl101]

During one of the Side Quests in Amaurot to make the robes, we get sent out to capture a Cubus to use as fuel for Creating the robes. A device is then produced that converts the captured creature into aether to fuel the robe concept. Only reason we don't make the robes is because we don't know how to use the concept.
Additionally, when the clerk mentions how we don't seem to have any aether whatsoever, he goes to on to give this line {We have special tools that may be used to address this very eventuality.}
That statement implies that the inability to inherently provide Aether for a Creation is something that happens often enough that warranted specialty tools to be developed to get around the limitation.

Which throws doubt onto Emets statements about the aetherial capacity of every Ancient being limitless. If it was limitless, why then would they have a special tool for the "eventuality" of an Ancient incapable of providing their own fuel for a Creation?

This kind of reminds me of the situation between the Zilart and Khulu in FFXI as well as the Eorzeans and Garleans. Sorry if this was already brought up btw, a tonne of reading material to wade through here. My hypothesis on this is that some of the Ancients may have started becoming incapable of producing creation magic or noticed a weakening of aether in themselves and were possibly cast out as imperfect beings. They may well be the people who traveled to the Far East and needed to rely on other ways to create things, possibly harming the planet as they did so as they were drawing the aether from the planet itself rather than from themselves. This would explain why the tools were being produced because some were realising that they weren't as limitless as they thought they were or it was happening too often that whilst others like Emet turned a blind eye to the fact that so many were being exiled they still believed themselves to be perfect and not see the greater picture that eventually they would drain themselves if they continued to wrecklessly spend their own aether on creation magic.

This could then explain a certain number of things. The Amauritines refused to help the people of the Far East, possibly as a way of purging the impure. A position opened up in the seat for the council, that may have been because one of them was found to have been becoming weaker and was cast out of the council and exiled. Lahabrea might've been noticing deterioration of his own aether and could be why he regularly hopped body to body to conserve his own aether and his reasons for being more angrier could've been that he was also angry with himself.

I'm just speculating here so...