Quote Originally Posted by KageTokage View Post
The ability to manipulate aether is described as being strongly tied to the soul, so it's not something that can be easily remedied if you lack an innate affinity for it. Sometimes it's simply a case of not being practiced enough, but it's also mentioned some individuals are straight up not able to use aetherytes due to being too aetherically inept to teleport.

There is still a physical component to it, though, as the Garlean inability to manipulate aether is described as being of such nature and eugenics wouldn't be able to improve aetheric capabilities were it tied strictly to the soul.

I think "aetheric capacity" is in reference to how much aether is actually stored in an individual's body, so even a Garlean could potentially have an extremely high aetheric capacity, but simply be incapable of tapping into it due to their deficiency.
Specifically, Garleans apparently have their aetheric manipulation tuned inwards instead of outwards, basically making them an entire race of supersoldiers... which'd be great if every other race on earth wasn't capable of shooting laser beams or augmenting a sword swing so hard that innate strength doesn't matter in the first place.

There is also the possibility of someone of another race just not being physically capable of using aether--this came up in Thamaturge's questline. With him it looks to be more of a problem with aetheric flow, though; the aetheric equivalent of his bloodstream just isn't strong enough, so he just can't manipulate aether.

...and I'm realizing the OP of this thread is the exact same guy who asked basically the same question last thread, and we brought up the exact same things that time, too.