What would happen if the Source were destroyed in the same way as a shard?

[DamianFatale]

Hear me out. What if the source were destroyed instead of a shard? Where would its energy have to go? I'm genuinely curious.

I'm not here for answers that say it would never happen. This is more of a what if kind of thing, than a realistic type of thing that would happen in the narrative of the game. My curiosity is overthinking, and it needs to be sated.

Here are my theories:

- The Moon and the Source world are completely wiped out. Zodiark's energy, and Hydaelyn's energy, along with all the souls of the source get evenly redistributed to all of the worlds. Everything is ALMOST restored to the way that it used to be before the split of the world, but every world that is left is a weaker version of the original world, in the exact image that it is currently in now. Basically everyone gets some of that power, and they are all "sources" if that makes any sense.

- Everything is completely wiped out. There is nothing left for anyone, because the massive influx of energy is way too unstable for anything to live or form off of. MAYBE the ashes of some of the planets reform over time IF laws of planet formation are somehow in this universe.

I have no idea how physics would work in Final Fantasy XIV. Is aether on every planet? Or is it unique to Hydaelyn? Are there Hydaelyn and Zodiark like beings scattered out there in the universe? Midgarsormr is technically an alien if you really think about it. Maybe powerful ascian like beings exist out there in the universe as well?

- One of the left over surviving shards becomes a new source of balance between all the others. Hydaelyn and Zodiark are still gone however.

- Perhaps some of the shards would be restored? With the exception of the loss of the source. They would however take a long time to repopulate and become new again if this were to somehow work.

- The other shards survive, but the "sound" returns to all of them in the absence of Zodiark and Hydaelyn. There are new ends of days that gradually happen in each shards timelines.

Honestly.. I have no idea, and I'm as puzzled as the rest of you. :P A timeline where the source is completely obliterated just sounds like a lot of fun to me.

[Vyrerus]

Since pieces of Zodiark are still in every shard, then Hydaelyn would no longer exist, while Zodiark would remain in part.

If the sudden, violent destruction of the Source didn't trigger a massive multi-Rejoining, that is. For a Rejoining to occur in a stable way, where the Source is largely unaffected, they align the aether polarities, and blow up the shard while wounding the Source. This causes the aetherial link between the two to have a vacuum, from what I understand, and the Source absorbs the shard's life back into itself on the aetherial level.

They never tried to just damage the Source without priming the shards, but it stands to reason that if the Source took a big enough dunk, that it'd still try to draw the shards in to fix itself. Doing it all at once is probably too great a risk, so it would likely end catastrophically, with every shard being absorbed into an unstable aetherial mass that inevitably implodes.

[Alenore]

It's not that the shard destruction is what causes Rejoinings.

From what we know, Ascians first imbalance the aether in a reflection, which cause the "dimensional wall" between Source and Shard to fissure, with some aether from the shard trickling back to the Source. Then, they trigger a calamity on the Source which, in order to stabilize itself, just suck all the available aether from the nearest source : the already weakened Shard, absorbing it altogether and de facto destroying it.
Except if the Source is actually just another shard the Ascians picked at random, I suppose the whole Sundering thing make it that it's the "base" and it only flow that way.

So I guess you can destroy it as much as you want, it'll just be a barren rock in the end, unlike a shard where its dimension just collapses and goes back home.

If you actually manage to destroy the planet and all its aether completely, I suppose the shards would just be there since the planet already took quite big hits through all the calamity without really affecting the other non-imabalanced reflections.

Perhaps it's Hydaelyn triggering the Rejoinings in a last resort to stabilize the Source? In which case, she may choose to just break down a random shard to try to fix it until there's none left.



As for other planets, we have 3 occurrences of aliens using Aether : Ultima (High Seraph, not the fancy metalwork Nero made), Midgardsormr, and Omega. That last one literally is a machine able to manipulate aether, so its creators must have at least known about the stuff.

[Iscah]

I think the point is that you can't destroy the Source in the same way as a shard because it isn't a shard.

Source + shard = slightly denser Source. That's the only way it can end.

[KageTokage]

Somehow, it would not surprise me if Fandaniel was petty enough to be orchestrating the destruction of the Source in such a manner that the shards would also be wiped out somehow...assuming that wouldn't just happen naturally due to the ties they share with it.

[DamianFatale]

Somehow, it would not surprise me if Fandaniel was petty enough to be orchestrating the destruction of the Source in such a manner that the shards would also be wiped out somehow...assuming that wouldn't just happen naturally due to the ties they share with it.

I have a weird theory that the shards and the source might become merged, so that we can visit all of the firsts inhabitants as much as we wish to. I know that would be hard considering the zones are similar to Eorzea, but it is amusing to imagine Lanosea, Gridania, Ishgard, and Uldah suddenly having these extra countries thrown into their lands. Uldah would be the least affected, because Ahm Araeng isn't really a country anymore. It's more of a loose territory of former settlements to it's destroyed city state that we never saw beyond the now slowly sinking fortress that we have left. Ishgard would be in utter hell with all of the fae and their shenanigans. Gridania would probably be okay with the Vii, and the Night people. The vii seem like they were a loose country of tribal people that mostly got killed off by sin eaters. I think that they'd be in a similar boat to Ahm Araeng, though you could argue that they are kinda more or less a province of the Crystarium now. Limsa Lominsa would be in chaos with this new resembling city suddenly perched near it's shores. The Crystarium and Mordohna would now have TWO towers, or maybe they'd simply become part of the location where the current tower stands. I have a feeling that Mordohna and the Crystarium would be one allies, establishing their own country. No idea what would happen to the rest of the empty. Maybe it's restored fauna would simply be added throughout the rest of the continents. Maybe we'd get more continents, and the planet would be bigger.

As for the rest of the shards.. oh no. Not sure how their civilizationss would effect the land. That is.. insane to think about. For all we know one could be far into the future due to the differences in time between the shards. They could also explore this concept in raids, dungeons, and other forms of instanced content. Fandaniel could do this without some way of this ruining the games immediate world. It could be temporary reality alternating shenanigans of the same type of power that Emet-Selch used in Amaurot.