Are shards different?

[Jandor]

Given they don't keep getting slapped with civilizational resets due to the rejoinings, you would think that the shards would be more advanced than us on the whole. 12'000 years is a long time.

[Cleretic]

Given they don't keep getting slapped with civilizational resets due to the rejoinings, you would think that the shards would be more advanced than us on the whole. 12'000 years is a long time.

Shards drift in and out of sync with the Source (about a hundred years passed on the First between 3.4 and 5.0), so twelve thousand years may not necessarily have passed in the shards. Also keep in mind that they didn't have nearly as much Ascian meddling and manipulation, which was the usual source of leapfrogging tech on the Source with civilizations like Allag and Garlemald.

Twelve thousand years is a long time, but keeping in mind that civilization was not purely contiguous in the First (Ronka and Nabaath Araeng confirm at least two pre-Flood fallen empires), and that we don't actually know how far the Sundering knocked civilization down the proverbial tech ladder, I can buy twelve thousand years if they were knocked down to 'figuring out agriculture' levels, which is entirely plausible. Especially since Norvrandt isn't even at its peak when we visit (Crystarium aside, the Crystarium is cheating); it's entirely possible that the Flood wiped out most major population centers, and Eulmore just happened to be the biggest thing left standing.

[Kranel_San]

Shards drift in and out of sync with the Source (about a hundred years passed on the First between 3.4 and 5.0), so twelve thousand years may not necessarily have passed in the shards. Also keep in mind that they didn't have nearly as much Ascian meddling and manipulation, which was the usual source of leapfrogging tech on the Source with civilizations like Allag and Garlemald.

Twelve thousand years is a long time, but keeping in mind that civilization was not purely contiguous in the First (Ronka and Nabaath Araeng confirm at least two pre-Flood fallen empires), and that we don't actually know how far the Sundering knocked civilization down the proverbial tech ladder, I can buy twelve thousand years if they were knocked down to 'figuring out agriculture' levels, which is entirely plausible. Especially since Norvrandt isn't even at its peak when we visit (Crystarium aside, the Crystarium is cheating); it's entirely possible that the Flood wiped out most major population centers, and Eulmore just happened to be the biggest thing left standing.

Lets not forget they had airships and trains and a giant elevator. Should speak about them being generally more advanced back during their peak.

[SilverArrow20XX]

I would think that even with no interference from the Ascians, the shards would have still drifted apart.
Subtle differences in their positioning in the Rift would undoubtedly caused slight differences in aetherflow, weather, etc.
Which in turn would have caused minor choice differences early on that would lead to different timing on procreating, which would lead to an entirely different population by the next generation.

[Rulakir]

The other way you could hodgepodge this all together would be if there was a kinda 'tipping point' where once both the body and soul were fully Rejoined, they would go "Oh wait! I remember what I'm supposed to be!" and snap all the way back to Ancient-hood all at once, like finishing assembling a broken machine. So just having an Unsundered soul in the Sundered world wouldn't be enough.

This is implied via dialog from Alisaie in ShB: "The starshower didn't awaken me to Hydaelyn's voice. But that vision of the Final Days, of Amaurot burning... It filled me with sadness to the very pit of my being. Things I once knew, people I once loved, promises I once made... It felt as though long-forgotten memories were dancing at the edges of my mind. But when I try to focus on them, they simply fade away. An effect of having a fractured soul, I shouldn't doubt."

I believe the idea was once the Source was rejoined the Ancients would regain themselves. Not to mention sacrificing rejoined Ancients is counterproductive to their goal as we know their souls would become trapped within Zodiark.

Edit: It's possible the Ancients were deriving their power directly from the star somehow, so even if their souls are whole as long as the star remains sundered they'll be unable to return to their previous Ancient form.

[EdwinLi]

we also have to consider the factor of magical abilities within each Shard. The Shards may also have different level of magical skills to a point one shard may focus more on technology due to no magical abilities or magical abilities are rare while certain shards may fall more into pure magic due to having greater amount of magical abilities in their population or influence from magical abilities despite numbers.

This is only one factor that may contribute to how shards develop differently as well.

[Lyth]

Oh god we go the 12th and we see the area intro text pop up and it just says “New York”

The twelfth was rejoined with the Second Umbral Calamity. But it's a really interesting idea.

The Second, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Tenth, and Twelvth shards have all been rejoined. The Thirteenth was effectively destroyed. Setting aside the First, we still have yet to explore the Fourth, Eighth, Ninth, and Eleventh. If even one or two of these are 'full-sized' worlds on the same scale as Etheirys, you'd have more than enough landmass to write future expansions for years and years to come. It would be fun if, on the eventual final resolution of the story down the line, they revealed that one of those shards was just Earth, with its' playerbase being long lost Azem reflections. You could hand over a PS5 controller. 'Take it, we fight as one!'

[Listrella]

Given they don't keep getting slapped with civilizational resets due to the rejoinings, you would think that the shards would be more advanced than us on the whole. 12'000 years is a long time.

i'm hoping we visit a shard at some point that is really futurstic, something like esther from ff8.

[EaraGrace]

The twelfth was rejoined with the Second Umbral Calamity. But it's a really interesting idea.

The Second, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Tenth, and Twelvth shards have all been rejoined. The Thirteenth was effectively destroyed. Setting aside the First, we still have yet to explore the Fourth, Eighth, Ninth, and Eleventh. If even one or two of these are 'full-sized' worlds on the same scale as Etheirys, you'd have more than enough landmass to write future expansions for years and years to come. It would be fun if, on the eventual final resolution of the story down the line, they revealed that one of those shards was just Earth, with its' playerbase being long lost Azem reflections. You could hand over a PS5 controller. 'Take it, we fight as one!'

Ha figured someone would know better, honestly just took a random shard and guessed lol.

[Cleretic]

Ha figured someone would know better, honestly just took a random shard and guessed lol.

Honestly, which shards went down is basically a perfect lore trap. Because as long as you remember that the First and Thirteenth are accounted for it doesn't really matter, but because it was stated at some point it's something you can theoretically be wrong about.