Confusing Fact about the Races/Spoken

[symbiote129]

I read somewhere here in the Lore Forum that the races from each shard have independently evolved.

Should I understand it that the races that we can play (Hyur, Lalafell, Elezen etc.) didn't exist yet pre-Sundering or that they only existed after the Sundering? Wouldn't that mean that Dwarves, Galdjent etc. from the First coincidentally emerged to parallel the likes of the Lalafell, Roegadyn etc. from the Source?

Or did I happen to have a misunderstanding and all the races already existed pre-Sundering and then the split (Source + 13 Shards) happened?

[Alleluia]

Yoshida has said in an interview or q&a that the speciation we’ve seen has evolved since the sundering. I assume Oda agrees? It makes little sense to me precisely bc the idea of humanity on each shard branching into the same subspecies due to random evolution beggars belief, but it seems to be the answer. At least for the moment. I mean it’s not actually specified in the game yet, so I think it’s up for changes till it is.

[MistakeNot]

I read somewhere here in the Lore Forum that the races from each shard have independently evolved.

Should I understand it that the races that we can play (Hyur, Lalafell, Elezen etc.) didn't exist yet pre-Sundering or that they only existed after the Sundering? Wouldn't that mean that Dwarves, Galdjent etc. from the First coincidentally emerged to parallel the likes of the Lalafell, Roegadyn etc. from the Source?

Or did I happen to have a misunderstanding and all the races already existed pre-Sundering and then the split (Source + 13 Shards) happened?

There was quite a bit of time between the original Final Days and the Sundering.
New life had started to appear after the sacrifices used to summon Zodiark.
Some wanted to sacrifice much of both this new life and remaining Ancients to have Zodiark restore the world as it was. Others disagreed and summoned Hydaelyn, after which the Sundering happened.

So either the various races we know of were part of this new life that had started to grow, or the races were created as part of the Sundering.

That they would have evolved post-Sundering and ended up so similar between different shards is too implausible to be taken seriously.

[symbiote129]

That they would have evolved post-Sundering and ended up so similar between different shards is too implausible to be taken seriously.

This is what I somehow got from the interview too as well, hence this thread question.
I thought it was quite logical in my head that the playable races/some beast tribes happened to exist before the split (Sundering) because of the First's races' similarity with the Source's races. Until the story devs come out of the left field with this info, totally blindsided me. That the First's races similar appearance to the Source's races is because of evolution/coincidence was like giving me metaphorical brain concussion.

[Luizgazen]

I always tought that rather than "evolved" the ancients were deformed into the player races by the sundering, so since they were splint into equal parts, they took the same forms in each shards.

[Cleretic]

My reading, based on the dev answer of essentially intelligently-directed evolution, is basically that after the Sundering, the species we call 'Ancients' existed but were no longer biologically feasible; in a land of thinner aether, a body of that size and ability couldn't sustain. So using those last remaining magics perhaps semi-consciously, they developed themselves into the races we're familiar with. Perhaps including some extras that didn't survive, or gradually bred together.

The sahagin are definitely the descendants of the guys from Elpis who were really into sharks.

[Luizgazen]

The sahagin are definitely the descendants of the guys from Elpis who were really into sharks.

I'm more inclined to believe the sahagin ARE the "sharks" as in anthropomorphic fish creations, since we hear in Elpis some ancients discussing how some other ancient created the Lupin, implying that the beast races are ancient creations rather than sundered

[Cleretic]

I'm more inclined to believe the sahagin ARE the "sharks" as in anthropomorphic fish creations, since we hear in Elpis some ancients discussing how some other ancient created the Lupin, implying that the beast races are ancient creations rather than sundered

Well, remember that there aren't actual distinctions between the 'spoken' races and 'beast' races, it's 100% arbitrary and fueled by social desire to designate a 'lesser' class of people. In fact, remember that in the First the Amal'jaa equivalents were treated equally and it was the lalafel equivalents that were treated as 'the beast tribe'.

But I do think that it's entirely possible that there were people who, when trying to define this new form for themselves, landed on one that they had some memory of rather than completely out of whole cloth. I mean, if you decide you wanna be a wolfman, and you remember seeing a wolfman before, your resulting image is probably gonna resemble that wolfman you saw.

[MistakeNot]

I'm more inclined to believe the sahagin ARE the "sharks" as in anthropomorphic fish creations, since we hear in Elpis some ancients discussing how some other ancient created the Lupin, implying that the beast races are ancient creations rather than sundered

Very possible. We know that one of the beast races - the Ixal - were created later as a result of Allagan genetic engineering.

[Strongfat900]

Well, remember that there aren't actual distinctions between the 'spoken' races and 'beast' races, it's 100% arbitrary and fueled by social desire to designate a 'lesser' class of people. In fact, remember that in the First the Amal'jaa equivalents were treated equally and it was the lalafel equivalents that were treated as 'the beast tribe'.

But I do think that it's entirely possible that there were people who, when trying to define this new form for themselves, landed on one that they had some memory of rather than completely out of whole cloth. I mean, if you decide you wanna be a wolfman, and you remember seeing a wolfman before, your resulting image is probably gonna resemble that wolfman you saw.

Basically, all of the Sapient races of FFXIV evolved from the Ancients? Honestly, that's pretty fascinating if you ask me.