What was up with Ascian Prime? (general ShB spoilers)

[Enkidoh]

Wasn't Ascian Prime looking like the 'true' Form of the Ascians back in 1.0? My guess is that 3.0 still had them unsure about what to do with the Ascians, resulting in... something that doesn't fit with the direction they took later.

Not so much 'true' form, but just a wraith like form one showed up briefly as in one 1.0 main story quest, presumedly to terrify the beastmen into summoning their Primals. Lahabrea and Igeyorhm fusing together at the end of the Aetherochemical Research Facility into a similar form was probably just a callback to that, and wasn't really indicative of something much deeper (after all, we've never seen any more Ascians do the same thing since).

[LineageRazor]

(after all, we've never seen any more Ascians do the same thing since).

Well, that's not entirely true. Emet-Selch seemed to do something similar during his final battle. He calls upon the souls of his fallen brethren and uses them to power up into his final form - and there are SOME similarities between Ascian Prime and Emet's final form (elongated limbs, giant claws). So, it might have been a similar kind of merger, just to a much larger degree since there were a lot more Ascians involved (albiet dead ones rather than live ones).