With what we know now, how is the Void bereft of aether?

[JeanneOrnitier]

Looking at how the Flood of Light caused aether to go dormant until life stopped working, then it stands to reason a Flood of Darkness would cause all the aether on the world to become incredibly active. How does this then lead to the Thirteenth's aether disappearing? Did it grow so active that it burnt itself out and died?

[RyuDragnier]

I don't believe that the 13th is bereft of aether. It's just overcharged and can't slow down enough to maintain a proper form without something forcing it to slow down. As shown in the World of Darkness 24-man, the 13th DOES still exist (albeit in a gaseous form), and the Voidsent (the darkness Sin Eaters) still have control over it and can be summoned to and from it. The majority of the aether on the 1st is suffering from the opposite effect, it's essentially frozen and can't move without something forcing it to speed up.

[ObsidianFire]

The Voidsent are the former inhabitants of the 13th Shard. They've been corrupted (apparently by the Auracite they were using to contain primals somehow) and can no longer produce aether even though they can still make use of the aether they already have. To get aether, they steal it. Usually from the Source, but we do see Voidsent eating each other to absorb the aether they have (like how Diabolos ate Scatch). They can't actually die either as there is no ambient aether for their souls to go back to in the Void.

Part of the problem with "fixing" the Void is that more aether would have to be introduced to it that would somehow have to go uneaten by the Voidsent...

[Wyssahtyn]

As far as I can recall, the Thirteenth's fall was due to the usage of auracite to contain their primals, only for the auracite to leak the primals' energies and eventually turn its bearers into aether-starved creatures that then went to war over what aether remained. This, coupled with Igeyorhm's crushing victories over the Shard's Warrior(s) of Light presumably tipped the Thirteenth over the knife's edge that is required for a successful Rejoining towards Darkness, which also turned the remaining inhabitants into the same aether-starved creatures as the auracite bearers.

Therefore, the answer, afaik, is something along the lines of too many summonings and voidsent ate it all.

[YianKutku]

Part of the problem with "fixing" the Void is that more aether would have to be introduced to it that would somehow have to go uneaten by the Voidsent...

I've always wondered what the implications were that the skybox in the World of Darkness had plenty of stars, given what we know of how AST works.

[AriaEnia]

The void was used to be the world where zodiac braves were?

[LineageRazor]

Part of the problem with "fixing" the Void is that more aether would have to be introduced to it that would somehow have to go uneaten by the Voidsent...

Ah, but that's the whole point of the original post - is it really true that more aether needs to be introduced?

With what we've learned on the First, I don't think so. The Aether is THERE on the First, it's just in an unusable state. The same may be true of the Thirteenth: the Aether is still there, but it's tilted so far towards the Astral that it can no longer be used by living beings (or anything else, for that matter). The Voidsent still need to steal Aether from the Source, because the Aether that is in the Void is unusable.

It's why the possibility of fixing the Void is back on the table. If the unusable Aether on the First can be rendered usable again, perhaps the same is true for the Void. There's no need to channel Aether there from elsewhere, but to FIX the Aether that's already there.

Whether the writers actually go that route remains to be seen.

The void was used to be the world where zodiac braves were?

The Zodiac Braves were on the Source, not the Void. The Void had its own set of Hydaelyn-blessed champions, but they were overwhelmed by Igeyorhm's forces before their resistance really had a chance to get off the ground. They turned to questionable methods to try to fight back (the Auracite, as noted by Wyssahtyn above) and wound up corrupted into monsters for their efforts. Most of them, anyway.

This was a long, LONG time ago, more than ten thousand years ago. It happened prior to the First Calamity, when the Ascians were still trying to figure out how to Rejoin the worlds that had been split apart from the Source by Hydaelyn.

[MrThinker]

For some reason I recall Koji stating that that the Void truly was void of aether? Maybe someone else can confirm.

[Sylvain]

For some reason I recall Koji stating that that the Void truly was void of aether? Maybe someone else can confirm.

Well if it's during ARR then they might change their stance on that since they planned ShB story at the end of HW and the raid probably early SB

That would also make the universe consistent.
Too much light the aether solidifie into some sort of white unusable rock, too much darkness and it becomes the opposite, so volative that it's unusable.

[YianKutku]

For some reason I recall Koji stating that that the Void truly was void of aether? Maybe someone else can confirm.

Well if it's during ARR then they might change their stance on that since they planned ShB story at the end of HW and the raid probably early SB

That would also make the universe consistent.
Too much light the aether solidifie into some sort of white unusable rock, too much darkness and it becomes the opposite, so volative that it's unusable.

It's from the Gamer Escape interview Lorecast number nine:

Gamer Escape: Would a “Light-born” void differ from the “Dark-born” void we know?

Koji Fox: Actually, yes. There’s that that “blank, white perfection” line in the game. That’s accurate. The Dark void that we know is void of aether, but you still have the people and animals that were there and they’re aether-starved and trying to break through into our world and suck that aether back into their own. Whereas in a light void there’s NOTHING. It’s empty. Beyond that I can’t say anything.

Dated 2017, post-Stormblood.

Which doesn't actually disprove the idea that it was retconned, because in the same interview we have this tidbit:

Koji Fox: So, you have the elements—and it’s still six elements, there are no newly-discovered ones. Those elements have charges—umbral and astral. If something has “umbral energy”, it is one or more of those elements, individual or combined. So if elements have an umbral charge, it can be said that they are “umbral energies”. That’s where those terms come from, “astral energies” and “umbral energies” are not individual things, it’s a blanket term. Light and Dark are not elements, but they are energies…in a different sense. They are not elements, they are not of the elements, and they are not astral or umbral. It’s a different type of energy. You might see a Light and Dark sprite and think, oh, they must be elemetals, but those are made of an entirely different form of energy.

Which we now know has changed entirely.