How can Venat be the previous Azem?

[TaleraRistain]

I'm guessing Azem knew of the Final Days before it happened as well. Venat probably told them. It would explain how he/she knew that we'd be coming to help Elidibus with Pandaemonium.

Whether told by Venat or not, there does seem to be some evidence Azem knew. Hydaelyn gives you the words of the former crystal bearer and they're awfully on point. And then Azem knows to tell Themis to look for the falling star. I wonder if Azem has some sort of foresight.

[Ryaz]

Whether told by Venat or not, there does seem to be some evidence Azem knew. Hydaelyn gives you the words of the former crystal bearer and they're awfully on point. And then Azem knows to tell Themis to look for the falling star. I wonder if Azem has some sort of foresight.

Possibly. I hope that as we start going on new, smaller adventures that they don't drop the Azem story completely. I'd like to learn more about their past and their reasons for being against both Zodiark and Hydalaen, despite possibly having some knowledge of what's to come. Maybe they tried finding a third option and failed? Or has some other, larger plan that we haven't been privy to?

[KageTokage]

While they said this was the end of the story of Zodiark and Hydaelyn, I doubt that the role the Ancients have to play in the story has ended.

The alliance raids in particular feel like they'll have to touch on them by necessity if we want to learn the truth about the Twelve, given that both Menphina and Azeyma are strongly suggested to have pre-sundering origins.

[Shookbeast]

A bit of a digression - but has it been postulated that the “new life” to be the third Zodiark sacrifice might have been prototypes for the current “non ancient” races?

I have a going theory that the taboo of ancient “shape-changing” was introduced to let the developers use our WOL as the Azem model - and handwave Azem’s non-ancient look as being their chosen form.

Add in the prototypical new races - and we might find out Azem was siding with these newly created races as a third party - rather than with the Venat or Zodiark followers…

[KageTokage]

The side quests in Elpis spell out rather plainly that some of the beastly races of Etheriys like the Matanga were created by the Ancients, so if not the current races of man, it may have at least been some other form of sentient life.

[Cleretic]

A bit of a digression - but has it been postulated that the “new life” to be the third Zodiark sacrifice might have been prototypes for the current “non ancient” races?

That was pretty much the go-to theory back in Shadowbringers. Now that theory's still around, but there's also the notion that since Ancients mistake us for familiars, then the present-day races may have been familiars back then.

[Theozilla]

There's also the fact that we have missing pieces of the puzzle here that may have to do with Azem. We have not dealt with the "roar from within the earth" that caused the transformations into Terminus back in the pre-Sundering days...a sound that was confirmed to be heard at Radz-at-Han when the transformations began. I have a feeling that's going to deal with our next big journey, and possibly with what Azem was doing. Zodiark dealt with the imbalance of aether, Hydaelyn sealed him to prevent more sacrifices and so the imbalance wouldn't return...so what caused the original imbalance, where did it come from?

That has been answered already in Endwalker, the Sound/roar was all but literally stated to be due to Meteion’s Song of Oblivion.

[EdwinLi]

That depends whether the writers intend for it to be a separate phenomenon or a strange effect of Meteion's call.

The primary mystery with Azem right now is how they knew to tell Themis to expect us.

That may get entirely resolved within the raid story, and all plotlines regarding the ancients wrapped up within this patch cycle, but we'll have to wait and see.

I honestly will not be surprised if the Roar is revealed to be caused by the final boss of the 6.0 Raid storyline. This kind of plot will end up resulting in the classic time travel plot of "the roar" was always going to happen even if WoL did not travel back in time to become involved with Pandemonium.

If not then it maybe explained in Season 2 storyline.

Either way, I suspect while Meteion caused the instability in the Ancient's powers that lead to the Final Days, the roar was the cause of their emotional breakdown that lead to them losing control due to paranoia.

However, I suspect there maybe more to the story involving Dynamis to begin with since 6.0 only introduced to us the concept and that there are people researching Dynamis both during Ancient times and current time in the Source but SE did not go into details about what those research involved.

If understanding Dynamis ends up being involved as a key factor for Season 2 then we should expect that there could be a civilization in the unknown regions that have a better understanding of Dynamis as well. After all Emet did warn us in advance the civilizations beyond Eorzea and the regions we have gone to that are located in the Unknown regions may surprise us with how they developed both technology, magic, and theme wise.

There could even more more technology based civilizations in the unknown regions thus we may get a actual modern day civilization or future tech theme civilization that is located in the unknown regions along with the expect more pure magic based civilizations as well.

After all, Season 1 only covered Eorzea and locations that do make contact with Eorzea which is only 25% to 40% of the planet. We still got 75% to 60% of the planet left unexplored and we know Season 2 is about exploring those unknown regions as Emet spoiled to us.

[Cleretic]

That has been answered already in Endwalker, the Sound/roar was all but literally stated to be due to Meteion’s Song of Oblivion.

Yeah, the 'sound beneath the earth' was sort of a symptom of the Ancients not really having means to interact with dynamis. Because they had no real grasp on what was happening, and had something of a geocentric, overly-rational worldview, the first thing to go wrong got misconstrued as the cause. It's a bit like if your car broke down, and you blamed it on the smoke that started coming out of the engine before it stopped.

[DaBigDorf]

We have not dealt with the "roar from within the earth" that caused the transformations into Terminus back in the pre-Sundering days...a sound that was confirmed to be heard at Radz-at-Han when the transformations began.

I thought that sound was Meteion's song?