[SPOILERS] So.. can we talk about that deep groaning?

[LittleArrow]

[Spoilers] Spoilers for the end of Shadowbringers story - if you're reading this and do NOT want to be spoiled.. what are you doing?! Go away now!






Hello Lore people!

This is actually... I think my first post here! Funny, b/c the lore in this game is really what tickles my fancy about the entire playthrough.

So, I'm assuming this has to have been brought up before, but maybe due to spoilers the title of the thread was named something else. Still, I'd really like to talk about the demise of the ancients and what caused the whole creation bubble to burst in the first place.

The facts that we have thus far are:
1. Creation magics were used... a lot by a people with immense aetheric magical reserves

2. There were immense aetheric magical reserves within the living populace of the ancients (not crystals like it is now)

3. There was no tangible will of the star

4. There was possibly a lifestream.. maybe?

5. A deep groaning was heard within the star

6. Creation magics went haywire

Ok, so what was that groaning all about then?

[Quor]

The "sound" (described as a "keening," at least in the English translation) is a hot topic of discussion. We're not really certain what it was. What we do know is that it started deep within the earth and was building up for some time prior to the full-on catastrophe that nearly destroyed the world and resulted in Zodiark being summoned to "re-write the laws of reality." Prevailing theories are that the creation magic of the ancients somehow went awry, or that some unknown balance between creation and destruction had been pushed too far towards creation and so when the pendulum swung back to redress the balance it swung back hard, or that the sound was itself sourced from something "other." Perhaps an extraterrestrial being that had made it's way down to the world and was destroying it from within somehow (think Jenova from FF7, or Lavos from Chrono Trigger). Theories are all we have for now though.

[Alleluia]

We've been discussing it a lot here: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...urots-downfall

Not to discourage you making threads. Just letting you know.

[Kieren-Dohla]

One thing I wonder is there was talk of how their creation magics could be affected by a random thought resulting in something different than intended.

Maybe subconscious energies or some Amarot he like to dabble in creating the distrubing (but harmless). Maybe someone created something so monstrous accidentally that fear started to spread among them. That fear warped their creations more and more as it got stronger and it got out of hand until things started coming into existing without out consciously trying to create them.

This started as a tiny seed that spread and grew fear exponentially to the point they felt compelled to create Zodiark.

I'm not explaining this the best way or with the best example.

And idea maybe flawed.

But I do find Ascian/Amarot lore fascinating

[LittleArrow]

We've been discussing it a lot here: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...urots-downfall

Not to discourage you making threads. Just letting you know.

Shoot, I'm really sorry about that. I'll go post in that thread from now on. Thanks for the link and thanks everyone for the responses

[Jonnycbad]

The keening also jammed their creation magicks they said. Wasn't there some other thing under the Earth amidst a race of magically enhanced beings who lost their powers when they pissed it off?

I seem to recall another SE title

[gilmorej]

From the few NPCs you get to talk to in Amaurot I got the impression they are a very social race.

The "blueprints" of anything an individual created was shared in a "library" of creations for anyone else to "check out" and benefit from. Sharing creations with this library for everyone's use was a social expectation, and we know this because one of the citizens sees the clothes we are wearing and chastises us for flaunting our creativity and not sharing what we've created.

I got the impression that average individuals held debates "for fun" leading to the impression they were intellectual, and that ideas, feelings, and opinions were very freely shared.

Given all of that, it would seem that individual citizens were very closely connected with one another, maybe the "keening" wasn't necessarily something seated in reality, not an actual sound created by anything, but was instead a perception of growing paranoia or degradation of mental health (mass hysteria)?

They talked about the "keening" and how other cities were suffering from it, before they ever suffered it themselves. So there, the seeds of fear and doubt were already planted, and were already creating shadows in the backs of their minds.

Any distraction, be it an external stimulus or an internal wandering of the mind, experienced by the creator during the creation process can alter or be manifest in the end creation. We know this from the "failed clothing experiment" of one of the random citizens (example of an external stimulus), and from the dialog we get from Hythlodaeus (example of Emet-Selch's mind wandering).

We're also given the impression that the process of creation is very easy, and takes very little or no thought, and is almost instinctual (the citizen at counter is confounded that we cannot create the robes, even after capturing that creature to use its energy, stating something along along the lines of "even babies can do it").

All it would take is a few individuals to create something during a period of mental unwellness to accidentally create something hideous and monstrous, the fear and anxiety spreading throughout the populace would quickly snowball out of control until you've got every frightened citizen accidentally creating terrible beasts left and right.