Ronka/Toral Theory

[DamianFatale]

I think in some way the first is going to connect to Toral/The New World. The first trailer for Dawntrail makes an emphasis on Y'shtola visiting a Toral ruin that resembles Ronka from the first, which we know she studied very intensely in the story.

This I think will be the link, but how? There are so many implications if this is true.

Was Ronka first, or was Toral first? Most likely, it would probably be Toral if we are thinking based on how the first was formed. The first evolved out of a split of history. Everything in the first resembles the source, but only because of that one point of shared history before the split that was the sundering.

If Ronka was first, then that means the FIRST went to Toral, and influenced it in some way. Which might make sense, because Toral is very far away from the source. Why would the Great Ronkan Ruins be on the same landmass as Eorzea on the first, if they split off of Toral..

Perhaps Toral went to the first.. well.. first. (Bad pun) That could just as easily explain Ronka.. but who knows. It could go any way.

[Heroman3003]

Considering physical location and parallels of Ronka in the First with the Source, I believe its meant to be parallel of Ampador, not anything on New World, considering entirety of New World equivalent in the First got kinda, you know annihilated.

[Lyth]

The first trailer for Dawntrail makes an emphasis on Y'shtola visiting a Toral ruin that resembles Ronka from the first, which we know she studied very intensely in the story.

The trailer did remind me of the Ronkan Empire when I first watched it. Ronka is a reference to an ancient advanced civilization in FFV, which itself is built off of a split world premise. It's possible that, in FFXIV, they had independently managed to find a way to traverse the shards, which could help Y'shtola's quest along if she is able to follow in their footsteps. What would be really interesting is if the legacy of their civilization could be found on the other remaining shards as well.

[MikkoAkure]

The First had multiple European-style cultures and ones but no one is saying that they are somehow influenced by Sixth Era civilizations.

The world split happened before ANY civilization that wasn’t the same monolithic Ancient race and culture was created. The fact that there’s people building European castles on two worlds and two civilizations resembling Meso-America as well is most likely a coincidence more than anything. I know European culture is considered “default” for fantasy but that doesn’t mean that anything that isn’t “default” means it has to be from the same, unique source because of how “different” it is from our euro-centric view.

Besides, Limsa and Eulmore look nearly identical and are in the same spot but Limsa is only 700 years old and we already know exactly how it came about.

It would be much more confusing if someone world-hopped and decided to bring their culture not to the same location in the other world, but to one that’s on the completely opposite side of the planet.

[Cleretic]

It would be much more confusing if someone world-hopped and decided to bring their culture not to the same location in the other world, but to one that’s on the completely opposite side of the planet.

Especially because, as 6.4 showed us and was implicitly suggested by the start of Shadowbringers, a gate between shards opens up at more or less the same geographical location in both. There's a bit of shuffling (The WoL was in the Syrcus Trench but wound up above ground in Shadowbringers, the moon voidgate is situated in the Zodiark Hole on the Source but opens up at the crater's edge on the Thirteenth), but generally you end up at the right location. Tural being inspired by Ronka--or vice versa, as it happens--would require significant overseas travel on one side or the other, because to get straight to Ronka you'd have to open the gate in the Shroud, and a gate in Tural would open up to the now-destroyed First equivalent.

Also, more on a direction side of things than an in-story logic side... maybe let's not have the native inhabitants of a continent that's specifically being painted as independent and uncolonized, and with the developers explicitly saying they're trying to do them proper justice, be basing their entire aesthetic on a place from another dimension's psuedo-Europe? Like, I think the entire point of Tural is that they've developed on their own and have entirely their own thing going on, why don't we let them be a nation of their own power and identity instead?

[Iscah]

The simpler solution, if there is a link at all, would be parallel development of similar cultures in the early days of different shards that then diverged as things went differently over time.

Maybe the Ronkan culture started in First-Tural and then a group of them for some reason transferred to Norvrandt and established their own branch of the empire there.

[Lyth]

I think we're introducing in a lot of assumptions into how this works. The point being made is that there may potentially be a connection between these two cultures (and to FFV's Ronka). We can't really draw any direct conclusions from that, only speculation.

As was pointed out, the shards themselves diverged 12000 years ago. We know that Calamity of Ice and the Calamity of Water had significant impacts on the geography of the Source. There previously was a land bridge to Meracydia. That's gone now, and a large proportion of the world map is presently water. If we were to see a shard that is relatively distant from us, like say the Fifth Shard, is it not possible that it may be geographically much closer to the World Unsundered than it is to modern day Etheirys?

We know, for example, that the Tempest is the place where Emet chose to reconstruct Amaurot. When he dies and the illusion wavers, we can see the ruins of old buildings. The analogue to the Tempest on the Source is the Indigo Deep. While it's possible that the Amaurotines were originally aquatic, it's also possible that this region was once above water, so perhaps geographically this was the original site of Amaurot on all shards. Is it not possible that Toral and Eorzea were once part of the same landmass in antediluvian times? And that's excluding the possibility that the Ronkans lived in a flying city in the first place, in which case it could have been based anywhere.

The other assumption here is that Ronka itself was originally a civilization of the First, as opposed to the Source or any other shard for that matter. What makes them interesting is that this is potentially an advanced ancient civilization that could have spread across the shards, which would make them more advanced than the Allagans. It could be that the people of Toral have secrets in their heritage that are technologically miles ahead of anything we've seen in Eorzea, without needing to be tied down to Amaurot or some such. It also means that there could be other things at stake in the separation of the shards as well, if the Ronkans had interest in exploring them. The possibility itself is interesting.

[Iscah]

There previously was a land bridge to Meracydia.

The analogue to the Tempest on the Source is the Indigo Deep. While it's possible that the Amaurotines were originally aquatic, it's also possible that this region was once above water, so perhaps geographically this was the original site of Amaurot on all shards. Is it not possible that Toral and Eorzea were once part of the same landmass in antediluvian times?

I don't believe there was ever a land bridge. There was an ice bridge in the Age of Endless Frost.

And entire continents, an ocean apart, would not have simply once had land connecting them except on the timescale of continental drift, which – using Earth as a stand-in – would have likely already been in their current positions 12,000 years ago. (Compare Earth's Holocene epoch.)

Amaurot is more equatable to Atlantis, which I recall from some previous lore panel was an early name for the FFXIV city.

Also, what are you using "antediluvian" to mean? Pre-Sundering? Use that term instead of one referencing a different world's different catastrophe – literally, before the biblical flood of Noah's Ark. Doubly confusing when Etheirys has its own world-drowning flood event unrelated to the Sundering.

[Lyth]

...

I know what you mean, but Koji specifically referred to it as a 'land bridge' in a 2018 Fan Fest interview (likely in reference to the analogous real world theory), which is why I tried to keep the terminology consistent. Don't worry, I can be a bit pedantic myself, but I do try not to go out of my way to trouble others with it.

The word antediluvian means 'before the flood', as you can tell from its etymological roots in 'before' and 'deluge'. The mythological concept of a 'great flood' is so culturally ubiquitous around the world that you'd find it extraordinarily difficult to credit it to just one, and that biblical association that you're drawing on is just a reflection of a historically ethnocentric worldview. The meaning is much broader than that.

Context should have told you that I was referencing the Calamity of Water, which subsequently altered the geographical landscape yet again after the Calamity of Ice. We know that not every shard experiences the effects of the Calamities the same way (as an example, the First was more influenced by the Flood of Darkness on the Thirteenth than any other shard, bringing it to the brink). It stands to follow that some shards may have been less affected by the Calamities of Ice and Water than others, which in turn may be reflected in their geography.

Either way, while I'm happy to field questions on the meanings of words if you were genuinely seeking a clarification on what I'm writing, but unfortunately I don't have time to dwell on all my language choices with you.

[Seraphor]

The world split happened before ANY civilization that wasn’t the same monolithic Ancient race and culture was created.

Is there a source for this? Because I got the impression (maybe reading between the lines) that the world unsundered was also a widely diverse world, with the ancients/Amaurotians simply being the dominant civilisation.
Venat's whole shtick about travelling the world and visiting different people and gaining new experiences, falls a little flat if we presume the whole world is just the same monolithic culture.