Thread: Revelations from Patch 5.1

Originally Posted by Alleo

Hm must have been long ago because I honestly dont remember them talking about tempering that way. I only remember that people with strong will can resist tempering a bit longer but will also succumb to it over time (yet at the same time other primals need to actively use an ability to temper..) and that people with echo may not only resist it but can overpower them. Yet when we meet the Lightwardens its not our echo that protects us from their Light when we consume it but our blessing which are two different things.

Another difference is that tempered people often still keep their own look but are just mindcontrolled while the ones with light will always lose theirselves and turn into monsters. You just needed one attack from one higher sin eater and you are done for. While tempering seemingly needs to be overdone to truly turn someone into a monster. Why such differences between these? And then we have the void sent which are also turned into monsters while those tempered by Zodiark are keeping their normal form and some sense of self.

About Angelo and Alisaies plan:

If it truly just needs to balance out the aether then can Alisaie even do something with Angelo? Because as far as we know right now that familiar was there to start the flow of aether again but seemingly that should only function with people that have too much light because its just their aether (and mind) that is stagnating. But if you have someone tempered by Titan this should not work since its not too much Light in that case. So what would they need to manage it there?

I am in the end not sure if this is truly a solution for tempering and I am not sure if I would like it to be that way either. On one side it would be great to have something to save people on the other side it will make primals even less dangerous and takes one dramatic part of the story out of it.

As I said the cure method is to focus on the Aether itself rather than one Element of the Aether. You are focusing too much on the belief that it will only work on Light Element of the Aether but that same cutscene already stated the method of restoring the flow of Aether required stabilizing the Elemental Alignment of the person's Aether into equalibrium for it to start flowing normally again which also then lead to Alisaie realizing temper people tend to have the same issue when they become temper as their Element Alignment is shifted from Equalibrium into a specific Element such as Titan's Temper shifting towards Earth Element which then lead to Alisaie mentioning this same method may work as well on her Kobold friend since when he summoned Titan, he became Temper by titan as a side-effect of the summon thus leading to his constant struggle to recover from the death of his parents as the Titan Temper is keeping him in a state of despair.

Primal effect of temper can be stopped at a certain point because the Primal controls the extent of the effect thus why only those chosen may be turned into a Monster focused on a Specific Element such as Leviathan's minions being Temper people who turned into Water Element creatures due to having their Aether greatly shifted towards Water.

Sin Eaters are basically Temper without a Master thus they are basically Wild Tempers. Without a Master to control the extent of the effect, they will continue to change into Sin Eaters. However, with a Master their transformation can be stopped at a certain point such as it was with Arbert's Companions in the Job Role Quest where they were made into Sin Eaters by Vauthry thus Vauthry made certain their transformation stopped at a point where they still at least kept their original appearance with a bit of Sin Eater skin on.

Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

More Tempering thoughts...

While the Convocation of Thirteen members were Tempered, that is not true for the majority of Ancients. Especially those Ancients that gave up their lives to summon Hydaelyn. I have a very hard time seeing the Ancients trying not to untemper the Convocation of Thirteen if they found out they were Tempered. I have a very hard time seeing our Ancient self not trying to fix the Tempering problem, given that from the sound of it, we worked with the Convocation of Thirteen for some time. Which begs the question as to why the unsundered Ascians are all still Tempered I think.

There's two more things I find concerning about how Tempering is likened to the people who are turning into Sin Eaters. The first is that the description of both people turning into Sin Eaters and how Tempering works only takee the question of aether elemental imbalance into account. But we know of several primals who have Tempered people who have no known elemental quality (Lakshimi for example). What are we supposed to do with the Eikons who really are primarily concepts and have no links to aspected aether? Even Zodiark and Hydaelyn are described more in terms of what they do then what kind of aether they are made up of.

The second is that the people turning into Sin Eaters actually want to be fixed, while people who are already Tempered do not. It sounds more like the people turning into Sin Eaters are more like people who are close to being Tempered, but aren't yet. My gut feeling is that actual Sin Eaters are more like people who are Tempered. Which begs the question if there is a way to fix beings who have already turned into Sin Eaters... My gut feeling says no... but we'll see... The flip-side of this argument is that Voidsent should by all rights have overly aspected aether as well... but for all that Voidsent gobble up the unaspected aether of the Source, they never seem to become any less Voidsent. But Eden seems to be tackling this side of the idea too.

Also... Ga Bu has always been a weird case. Since there's no evidence he is even Tempered by Titan. Him being mute after seeing his parents be all but killed in front of him makes as much sense as him being mute because he got Tempered. So I can see Alisae's hope of him becoming "untempered" turning out not to be needed at all.

Honestly, I see at least three routes that could be used to explain why the Ancients never dealt with the Convocation:

- They didn't know: Any particular reason why the Convocation would tell folks that they were enslaved to Zodiark? ESPECIALLY if those people had the ability to untemper them? No, the Convocation just went about their business, getting Zo to fix the world, with no one aware that they were fanatical Zo groupies in the first place. I'm sure they had all kinds of honeyed arguments explaining why each sacrifice to Zodiark was necessary...

- They knew, but accepted it: The Convocation was getting the job done. The world was being saved. Things were so horrible that the average Joe was willing to accept pretty much ANYTHING if it would save their skins. It's even possible that mass Tempering was PART of the plan to save the world - direct mental control to stop the uncontrolled Creation. The Convocation were only the first, and most Ancients lined up voluntarily afterwards WANTING to be Tempered as well, if doing so would save the world - and those that didn't line up? They were the Dissenters, who eventually summoned Hydaelyn.

- They knew, and didn't accept it, but were unable to implement a solution: There's lots of possible reasons they might not have been able to unTemper the Convocation. The Convocation could have been under Zodiark's direct protection; he was active and present, after all, and human wave tactics (necessary to even REACH the folks they're trying to unTemper) might not work as well against a Primal of his magnitude as they do against a Primal like Titan (basically, anyone who got close enough to attempt a deTempering would be Tempered themselves long before getting the chance, and thereby lose the desire to do so). Another possibility is that they were not able to work out a solution. It's not as far-fetched as you might think. Souls are a very poorly understood phenomenon to the Ancients, as we learned from the Emet-Selch Tale from the Shadows. Mortals, for all Emet-Selch regards them with disdain, have done AMAZING things with souls, including cobbling intelligent, living souls together from pure Aether (see the Anima quests). Plus, mortals have had many thousand years to study Tempering and its effects; it's unclear how long a period of time there was between Zodiark's summoning and Hydaelyn's, but it could well be much shorter than that. It's not outrageous to think that mortals have the advantage, here, in solving the Tempering problem. Another possibility is that they had the means and the desire, but there were simply too few non-Tempered left to stand a prayer of making any headway in curing the rest (possibly due to mass-Tempering being part of the plan to bring Creation under control). Their best bet was to remain under the radar, banding together in secrecy to hatch Project Hydaelyn.

Bottom line, I have no issues whatsoever with the idea that a couple of mortals were able to solve this particular problem, whether the Ancients knew it was a problem or not, whether the Ancients came up with a solution themselves or not.

As for elemental alignment being a necessary part of curing the Tempered, and some Primals being non-Elemental - perhaps they are ALL elemental, even the ones where the element is not obvious. You used Lakshmi as an example - I'd peg her as Light aspected, given her apparent desire for folks to be calm, rest, and stay content with things the way they are - in short, stasis. Given that this cure is being modified from one used to treat the Light-touched, her thralls could be among the easiest to cure. Bahamut, of course, is Darkness, given that was the aspect of his Calamity. It's possible that being completely opposite from Light, Darkness-tempered simply cannot be cured by the same means, but the point is pretty much moot given that all Bahamut's thralls are dead, as is Bahamut himself.

Basically, if it every actually becomes a story element, the writers can easily spin a storyline-consistent way to handle the thralls of these indeterminate Primals, as well. As I mentioned in my post a few pages back, though, I'm guessing the story is not going to go that way. I have the nagging fear that Ga Bu will prove to be an exception, and that most Tempered will be uncurable. I was really hoping to see an actual cure on the table, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Status quo is much easier to work with, and while the writers have done a few impressively bold moves, I don't think this is going to be one of them.

Originally Posted by Hainiryun

While it's not exactly the biggest deal out of everything that's come up this patch I did come across a little something that doesn't seem to have brought up here just yet; So I was wandering around Lyhe Mheg after the first rank up and I found an interesting pair of dolls off towards the edge of the area.

Feo Ul has been making trips to the Source for a while, now, and it's quite likely that stories of the Tonberries came back with her. They are kind of adorable, in addition to being horrifying - which is pretty much right up the Pixies' alley. XD

Its just so strange to me because tempered and people afflicted by Light behave so different.

In what stage of tempering are those that have not turned into sin eaters yet and can still think but get sicker and sicker over time? In Eorzea you are either tempered or you are not. Sometimes you get too much and turn into a monster but anyone that is tempered normally will lose their sense of self. Right now we dont know about any kind of stage before that which would fit the stage of people not turning into sin eaters.

If you are tempered you will follow the one that tempered you but at the same time can act and move just like you once did. Sometimes they break your mind too much (like the woman in the Amalja quests) and sometimes you are turned into a monster. But every one that just got tempered will lose their free will. There are no stages between that.

Yet with sin eaters there are. We have those that got only a bit hurt and under the Light would have still turned after time but that now will only need some medicine to get better. The light itself at the same time only turned those that got directly infused with it. People living under it the normal way have no problems as long as there are other elements in the air too. (Since the empy is dangerous) While if you are near the source of tempering you will turn with enough time too. So if you stick someone under Light they wont change until they get hit by a higher sin eater (since the low ones arent enough), but if you stick someone near the aether of Leviathan he will turn over time even without an injury and even with normal aether still in the air.

Then you have those that have a much higher amount of Light in them that stops them from moving and later will even stop them from communicating or reacting at all. This is the last stage before they turn and its the only stage were they seemingly can react to the calls of higher sin eaters. (Halric went out to met that one) But even that stage is nowhere near the same as tempered ones. They are barely able to even move their body, their minds have shut down. This is nothing like the tempered soldiers that fit into society and that managed to smuggle in enough crystals to summong a primal.

And then when they turn into sin eaters they turn into even more mindless slaves. Only these seem similar to those that turned into monster by too much tempering. But overall for me they dont share much similiarities in their behavior at all. Tempering does not slow down their aether. They can move like they always did, they can still plan and execude actions as before but this time in the name of their "god/master". Look at the Ascians and then compare them to those that got afflicted with Light.

The only one that acts similiar to Halric is Ga Bu. And there we dont even know for sure if he was even tempered. Many of the others are not in a catatonic state at all and even those who got their mind broken still can talk, they are just a bit crazy.

Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

To be honest, I have a hard time believing we're only finding this out about people who are slowly transforming into Sin Eaters now. The 1st Shard has been Flooded With Light for an entire century and people have presumably been transforming into Sin Eaters for just as long. And you're telling me that in all that time, mages didn't notice that hey... all these people transforming into Sin Eaters have really stagnant aether and maybe we should experiment with making their aether less stagnant?

I agree with most of your post but I believe they would not be able to find a solution in the long time since the flood because the light was always there and I believe they said that it now can only be changed because they are not under that constant Light anymore. Heck the Nu Mo even said that they would be able to heal themselves with enough time too but again doesnt this kinda show that tempering and light affliction is something different?

Yes a lot of tempered are killed but we have one group of people that got tempered a long time ago and are not (as far as we know) under constant primal influence either. (As in constant rain of that aether like with the Light on the first) The ascians are all still tempered even after that long time. Emet Selch himself was living many lives among the mortals in which he probably was even more out of the influence from Zodiark who is not even active right now. Yet he does not seem to be less tempered at all. Heck just one live as a mortal should have cured him from most of it because they did talk that it would probably happen in normal lifetime. Also they are the perfect group to show that they are vastly different to sin eaters and those afflicted by Light.