Revelations from Patch 6.4: The Dark Throne

[Cleretic]

Interesting you refer to Seat of Sacrifice, as I've always wondered if our summoning is an improved version of the "Champions from Beyond the Rift" that Elidibus pulled during that trial, particularly considering how surprised he was that we could do that.

Elidibus (twice over), the crystal and the Exarch basically all seem to reach the same result by different routes. I wouldn't be surprised if one of Elidibus' is basically a half-baked version of the crystal's, though.

[Thighland]

So I have two theories about Pandaemonium:
1.

Could it be that Auracite is literally crystalized Dynamis, or something similar? The connection seems obvious to me, since Auracite turns people with negative emotions into monsters, while giving people with heroic resolve, like the Zodiac Twelve of Ivalician Legend, power to succeed against all odds.

2.

The answer to how the Twelve reached godhood, or how Hydaelyn gained enough power to face Zodiark at his full strength is still a muddy at best. Is there really good reason to believe that Venat's sacrifice to become Hydaelyn was truly enough to even the scales against power gained through the sacrifice of billions of people, considering Venat had to keep her knowledge about Dynamis mostly secret? I don't believe it.

But: Pandaemonium has taught us that the Heart of Sabik has existed on Etheirys even during the times of the ancients.
What if the Heart of Sabik was not the only piece of Auracite on Etheirys during the time of the ancients? It seems likely there could have been more, because in the current setting, Auracite is not only found on the Source, but on other shards as well, like the Thirteenth.
What if Hydaelyn and her followers found Auracite of their own, and used it to gain power, like the Zodiac Twelve of Ivalician legend?
If Dynamis and Auracite share a connection like I suggested, then Venat would recognize this and and be able to use it to her advantage.
I think this would be a perfectly clear explanation for how Venat and her followers gained enough power to change the world as they did.

Final thoughts:

Nevertheless, I believe Auracite will still have a big part to play in the future. It would make sense, because the lore implications of Pandaemonium are quite a big deal

[Alleluia]

So I have two theories about Pandaemonium:
1.

Could it be that Auracite is literally crystalized Dynamis, or something similar? The connection seems obvious to me, since Auracite turns people with negative emotions into monsters, while giving people with heroic resolve, like the Zodiac Twelve of Ivalician Legend, power to succeed against all odds.

2.

The answer to how the Twelve reached godhood, or how Hydaelyn gained enough power to face Zodiark at his full strength is still a muddy at best. Is there really good reason to believe that Venat's sacrifice to become Hydaelyn was truly enough to even the scales against power gained through the sacrifice of billions of people, considering Venat had to keep her knowledge about Dynamis mostly secret? I don't believe it.

But: Pandaemonium has taught us that the Heart of Sabik has existed on Etheirys even during the times of the ancients.
What if the Heart of Sabik was not the only piece of Auracite on Etheirys during the time of the ancients? It seems likely, because in the current setting, Auracite is not only found on the Source, but on other shards as well, like the Thirteenth.
What if Hydaelyn and her followers found Auracite of their own, and used it to gain power, like the Zodiac Twelve of Ivalician legend?
If Dynamis and Auracite share a connection like I suggested, then Venat would recognize this and and be able to use it to her advantage.
I think this would be a perfectly clear explanation for how Venat and her followers gained enough power to change the world as they did.

Final thoughts:

Nevertheless, I believe Auracite will still have a big part to play in the future. It would make sense, because the lore implications of Pandaemonium are quite a big deal

This is rather good and I'm hoping for it now.

[Carin-Eri]

So I have two theories about Pandaemonium:
1.

Could it be that Auracite is literally crystalized Dynamis, or something similar? The connection seems obvious to me, since Auracite turns people with negative emotions into monsters, while giving people with heroic resolve, like the Zodiac Twelve of Ivalician Legend, power to succeed against all odds.

2.

The answer to how the Twelve reached godhood, or how Hydaelyn gained enough power to face Zodiark at his full strength is still a muddy at best. Is there really good reason to believe that Venat's sacrifice to become Hydaelyn was truly enough to even the scales against power gained through the sacrifice of billions of people, considering Venat had to keep her knowledge about Dynamis mostly secret? I don't believe it.

But: Pandaemonium has taught us that the Heart of Sabik has existed on Etheirys even during the times of the ancients.
What if the Heart of Sabik was not the only piece of Auracite on Etheirys during the time of the ancients? It seems likely there could have been more, because in the current setting, Auracite is not only found on the Source, but on other shards as well, like the Thirteenth.
What if Hydaelyn and her followers found Auracite of their own, and used it to gain power, like the Zodiac Twelve of Ivalician legend?
If Dynamis and Auracite share a connection like I suggested, then Venat would recognize this and and be able to use it to her advantage.
I think this would be a perfectly clear explanation for how Venat and her followers gained enough power to change the world as they did.

Final thoughts:

Nevertheless, I believe Auracite will still have a big part to play in the future. It would make sense, because the lore implications of Pandaemonium are quite a big deal

Nice theories! And in terms of the one pertaining to

Auracite, I have to say the first thing that sprang to mind was Venat's sword. Could it have been comprised of it, or had it in it's 'core'? I mean, regardless of the authenticity of the cutscene in which Venat initiates the sundering, she channeled/directed her power through that sword. And there seemed to be some unspoken relevance to the fact that she dropped it during the 'answers' walk (cut)scene.

[Cleretic]

I don't think they'd be setting up for 'auracite is crystallized dynamis' in the same expansion where they introduced an entirely separate, unrelated and benign form of crystallized dynamis. That's just leaving themselves open to really easy gotchas.

I also feel like if that's what they were going for, they would've floated the idea in Anabeisos; I'll grant that Lahabrea and Themis weren't up to speed on what dynamis was, but over in Labyrinthos it's a pretty recently popular subject, everyone there would at least be familiar enough to consider it. The devs had a perfectly good hook to bait there, and they didn't.

[Thighland]

I don't think they'd be setting up for 'auracite is crystallized dynamis' in the same expansion where they introduced an entirely separate, unrelated and benign form of crystallized dynamis. That's just leaving themselves open to really easy gotchas.

The item description says it is rich in dynamis, not that it is "literal" crystalized dynamis.
Being "rich in dynamis" can mean several things.
For example: the creatures of the Final Days were given form through dynamis, but when destroyed they immediately return to an incorporeal form, as if they were never corporeal to begin with. What does that say about things that are "rich in dynamis"?

I also feel like if that's what they were going for, they would've floated the idea in Anabeisos; I'll grant that Lahabrea and Themis weren't up to speed on what dynamis was, but over in Labyrinthos it's a pretty recently popular subject, everyone there would at least be familiar enough to consider it. The devs had a perfectly good hook to bait there, and they didn't.

That might be due to the students of Sharlean having preconceived notions about what Auracite is.
It is impossible to measure dynamis even as of now, so all the data Sharlayan might have about Auracite might be releated to aetheric phenomenons brought into motion by the auracite.
Auracite has never been studied with the concept of dynamis in mind, and that might actually be what is going to happen, now that the Heart of Sabik is in the hands of the scholars of Labyrinthos.
I think if you're a scholar of Sharlayan, you wouldn't jump to conclusions, but investigate first with measuring equipment, experiments and so on.

Nice theories! And in terms of the one pertaining to

Auracite, I have to say the first thing that sprang to mind was Venat's sword. Could it have been comprised of it, or had it in it's 'core'? I mean, regardless of the authenticity of the cutscene in which Venat initiates the sundering, she channeled/directed her power through that sword. And there seemed to be some unspoken relevance to the fact that she dropped it during the 'answers' walk (cut)scene.

I had that idea as well, that Venat's sword might literally be made of Auracite. But then again, she had that sword even before she knew what Dynamis is, so who knows.

[Cleretic]

I think if you're a scholar of Sharlayan, you wouldn't jump to conclusions, but investigate first with measuring equipment, experiments and so on.

Actually, 'jumping to conclusions' is literally something they do in Anabeisos' wrapups, and with even more tenuous subjects.

Frankly, most of what they say about Ultima the High Seraph, and a bunch of what they suppose in relation to Athena in the epilogue that opens if you've done Ivalice, are extremely tenuous given what little evidence they actually have... but are obviously the stuff being put forward to us as true, or at least true enough to chew on. 'Auracite is crystallized dynamis' would actually be less of a leap than the ones they actually make. So the fact that they don't make that leap for us tells me that they don't want us to make that leap.

Overtime I've learned that a big part of how the game doles out lore can be discerned by emphasis. This is not a game that trades in subtlety; if they want you to notice something, they'll spotlight it center-stage, not far from the things you're meant to associate it with, because they want the game to still be understood perfectly well no matter how little someone's paying attention (it's the same reason the game reminds you of someone you've met before if it's been a while or if they're not easily distinguished from their group). If they don't, then they're not doing anything with that, at least not yet.

So with this... no, as much as your idea makes a lot more sense than the average dynamis theory, I'm disinclined to think that we have all the pieces to reach such a conclusion, and they just didn't say anything. If auracite and dynamis are related but the relationship just wasn't mentioned, then it requires an extra third element of that relationship that's so buck-wild that it'd be more important than the dynamis. (And probably hasn't even been thought of yet by the writers, or again, they'd have hinted.)

[Thighland]

Actually, 'jumping to conclusions' is literally something they do in Anabeisos' wrapups, and with even more tenuous subjects.

Frankly, most of what they say about Ultima the High Seraph, and a bunch of what they suppose in relation to Athena in the epilogue that opens if you've done Ivalice, are extremely tenuous given what little evidence they actually have... but are obviously the stuff being put forward to us as true, or at least true enough to chew on. 'Auracite is crystallized dynamis' would actually be less of a leap than the ones they actually make. So the fact that they don't make that leap for us tells me that they don't want us to make that leap.

Overtime I've learned that a big part of how the game doles out lore can be discerned by emphasis. This is not a game that trades in subtlety; if they want you to notice something, they'll spotlight it center-stage, not far from the things you're meant to associate it with, because they want the game to still be understood perfectly well no matter how little someone's paying attention (it's the same reason the game reminds you of someone you've met before if it's been a while or if they're not easily distinguished from their group). If they don't, then they're not doing anything with that, at least not yet.

So with this... no, as much as your idea makes a lot more sense than the average dynamis theory, I'm disinclined to think that we have all the pieces to reach such a conclusion, and they just didn't say anything. If auracite and dynamis are related but the relationship just wasn't mentioned, then it requires an extra third element of that relationship that's so buck-wild that it'd be more important than the dynamis. (And probably hasn't even been thought of yet by the writers, or again, they'd have hinted.)

Sure, you could say that the devs did not put enough emphasis on it for it to be a thing.
But the same could be said about the existence of dynamis itself, which could have been theorized in Stormblood already, but nobody did, because people just accepted that it was "the power of friendship" or whatever.
Also, if every solution to a mystery has to be in your face to be taken seriously, then there's no point in coming up with theories in the first place.

[Cleretic]

Sure, you could say that the devs did not put enough emphasis on it for it to be a thing.
But the same could be said about the existence of dynamis itself, which could have been theorized in Stormblood already, but nobody did, because people just accepted that it was "the power of friendship" or whatever.
Also, if every solution to a mystery has to be in your face to be taken seriously, then there's no point in coming up with theories in the first place.

This is sort of straying from the subject (and maybe worth a thread of its own but I don't really know what the central 'point' of it would be), but I think that 'dynamis circa Stormblood' is very different to 'auracite circa right now'.

At the time of Stormblood, dynamis (or what would be known as that) is very much an abstract that you're not really supposed to be thinking much about, nor really putting that much stock in at that point; in fact, I'm fairly sure the devs hadn't even come up with dynamis at that point, so it wasn't a thing beyond the general storytelling conceit of 'someone really emotionally invested is gonna fight harder'. So technically there were pieces of this puzzle, but they weren't really being put forward as something to put together rather than just 'ideas that permeate the world'. There's not a lot of equivalents to that right now, since we're very much in a 'wrap up the loose ends before starting a new thing' part of the story, I'd cite examples if they were coming to mind.

Auracite right now is instead similar to Omega in that storyline, and I was going to write up that comparison, but I think the closer comparison point is the Warriors of Darkness in 3.x; they're a concrete thing, we have facts on them, there's a backstory, there's connections to both tangible stuff we're very familiar with (for the WoDs, Hydaelyn and the Ascians; for auracite, the Ancients and particularly Lahabrea) and more abstract stuff that their very story pins down into being more 'real' (for the WoDs, the shards; for Auracite, Ultima, who's now suddenly more than just a random raid boss). We know what we're looking at, we know there are 'real' connections to discuss, and it's definitely planned for the future.

So yeah, I look at auracite now in the same way I looked at the WoDs then. And when I look back at their story in full, I do realize that nothing that went on to be important in their story in Shadowbringers was already independently around in 3.x; everything that was important to them was either newly introduced in Shadowbringers, or already a part of their story back in 3.x. So similarly, I'm very disinclined to believe that the auracite story, whenever we get it and whatever it becomes, is going to suddenly bring in other things that are already independently important right now; I'd scrutinize everything we find after now that looks related, not the stuff before it that they happened to not bring in at the time.


EDIT: And for the record, my read on 'how did Hydaelyn beat Zodiark' was literally just that she was better at fighting. Combat doesn't come down to bashing two power levels together and the higher one wins; hell, the WoL themselves is a testament to that. Some level of subterfuge and sneak attacks like Mikko mentioned might've been relevant and very useful, I'd also point at their actual fights: while there's extra factors going on in both fights that'd mean we weren't seeing how they fought when they fought each other, I do think it's worth noting that Hydaelyn uses a variety of actual complex combat techniques, while Zodiark's combat style is pretty untrained punches and lasers. Which makes sense; Zodiark wasn't created to fight anything, while Hydaelyn was explicitly created to fight Zodiark first and foremost (with a few other jobs in there too).

I don't need an extra reason for why Hydaelyn won that fight: I look at those two and absolutely buy that she'd come out on top.

(I made another point here but it was REALLY tangential so I deleted it)

[MikkoAkure]

So I have two theories about Pandaemonium

I felt like Pandaemonium was an attempt by the writers to just wrap up any remaining loose ends before moving onto new things. Hydaelyn, Zodiark, and Ultima are all dead so I think it’s unlikely their stories are going to be explored much further.

As far as the “billions of sacrificed” comment, I’m not sure that’s true either.

Extremely long/lived species tend to be fewer in number in fantasy fiction and they just got over a literal apocalypse. In many of the scenes of the Final Days we see many more dead than living and nothing at all in Amaurot is untouched, leaving the entire city a smoldering ruin.

I would be very surprised if half or even a quarter of the original pre-Final Days population of Ancients survived to the end and my impression was that it was part of the reason why Venat and her followers seemed more keen on letting their civilization return to the Star and new life take over. It would only really make sense for that to be an option if your civilization was on the very brink with grim prospects and bringing everything back to how it was. They had to summon a literal god to restore the Star’s health and repopulate it with life, there couldn’t have been many Ancients and all their cities must’ve been completely destroyed if Amaurot is anything to go off of.

Even with that, Hydaelyn wasn’t close to Zodiark’s power at all and had to resort to shattering reality and separating Him into pieces in order to imprison him. I don’t think She stood a chance in a fair fight so there’s no reason for me to believe she had a hidden edge or even a connection to auracite. Dynamis is a weaker force in the presence of heavy amounts of aether as well, so I don’t think that would have helped.