It's the opposite, actually. We're moving away from a more well defined entity that follows fixed 'rules' to a more nebulous one based off of emotions and spiritualism.

Aether is the 'hard science' of Etheirys. The word itself is rooted in western Greco-Roman tradition, the word meaning 'sky'. They've quite deliberately chosen the Vedic word 'Akasha', which also means 'sky', to represent Aether's mystical and spiritual counterpart. It's really refreshing that every scholarly type we've run into in game so far has managed to handle the concept's introduction in a non-dogmatic and non-ethnocentric way.

'Hannish mystical theories that directly contradict my Archon's thesis? I never liked the old paperweight anyway. Please, teach me more!'