Garlemald's situation. (Spoilers 6.55)

[SannaR]

Nuclear power plants have gotten a lot cleaner over the years. It's not even nuclear power plants that Japan has a well too familiar knowledge of its effects, but nuclear power in general. Godzilla the famous example of how they saw the devastation of what the adam bombs did. No, for Japan you need to look at post WWII deforestation and well their whaling to see any affects they have on the environment. Though they have been working on afforestation since the mid 70s, but a lot of the old growth and secondary stands are no longer in existence.

[YianKutku]

I'm sure if one of the subplots in Dawntrail is about environmental impacts of cerulean drilling, people will complain about yet another rehash of VII's Shinra.

It's especially ironic given how FFVII Advent Children has Barret, the claimed leader of an ecoterrorist group, become an oil prospector. This is after a career as a coal miner, which is presented as somehow the "good, traditional option" compared to Mako as a fuel source.

In any case, one issue with going deep into the impacts of ceruleum extraction is having to reconcile it with what we've already seen in FFXIV, except in side content: the Whalaqee and Blue Magic questlines has plenty about it in the 1-50 content, along with a further mention in 6.55 with that book likely authored by Martyn.

There, we've already helped convince an industrial magnate to respect the cultural impacts of ceruleum extraction, and the solution was to get a Whalaqee representative to help look for ceruleum deposits that aren't claimed by anyone, rather than not extract ceruleum at all. So I suspect the message here is that ceruleum extraction is, at worst, a necessary evil, and thus must be done with thought and respect towards all potential consequences.

Which might result in an additive (and plausible, in my opinion) retcon about the relative barrenness and odd colouration of Northern Thanalan, stating that the Ul'dah mining interests were extracting ceruleum with a focus on quantity of output and cost-effectiveness, rather than environmental impacts. There may be a hypothetical way to extract ceruleum that isn't so damaging to the environment, but it's more expensive or more troublesome, so it's our job (or rather, the job of the diplomats on our team, like Nanamo or Alphinaud) to convince everyone that it's worth it.

It might even be the case that ceruleum extraction is only detrimental to the surroundings when done in the quantities required now, so a part of it might be weaning societies off ceruleum, reducing demand.

[Denishia]

It's especially ironic given how FFVII Advent Children has Barret, the claimed leader of an ecoterrorist group, become an oil prospector. This is after a career as a coal miner, which is presented as somehow the "good, traditional option" compared to Mako as a fuel source.

In any case, one issue with going deep into the impacts of ceruleum extraction is having to reconcile it with what we've already seen in FFXIV, except in side content: the Whalaqee and Blue Magic questlines has plenty about it in the 1-50 content, along with a further mention in 6.55 with that book likely authored by Martyn.

There, we've already helped convince an industrial magnate to respect the cultural impacts of ceruleum extraction, and the solution was to get a Whalaqee representative to help look for ceruleum deposits that aren't claimed by anyone, rather than not extract ceruleum at all. So I suspect the message here is that ceruleum extraction is, at worst, a necessary evil, and thus must be done with thought and respect towards all potential consequences.

Which might result in an additive (and plausible, in my opinion) retcon about the relative barrenness and odd colouration of Northern Thanalan, stating that the Ul'dah mining interests were extracting ceruleum with a focus on quantity of output and cost-effectiveness, rather than environmental impacts. There may be a hypothetical way to extract ceruleum that isn't so damaging to the environment, but it's more expensive or more troublesome, so it's our job (or rather, the job of the diplomats on our team, like Nanamo or Alphinaud) to convince everyone that it's worth it.

It might even be the case that ceruleum extraction is only detrimental to the surroundings when done in the quantities required now, so a part of it might be weaning societies off ceruleum, reducing demand.

The possible nod to VII’s Mako plants and in particular the storylines involving Correl is why I’m predicting an NPC named Dyne or Myrna and maybe an expy of Marlene. One where the Barret connection is made obliquely.

The conflict of Shaalonai being hinted to be on how fully and expansive one faction wants to embrace technology and mining versus not makes your scenario extremely likely.

And there’s probably a “Balrog” under all the ceruleum that the drilling is going to awaken that we get to fight as a dungeon boss.

[MikkoAkure]

It might even be the case that ceruleum extraction is only detrimental to the surroundings when done in the quantities required now, so a part of it might be weaning societies off ceruleum, reducing demand.

Northern Thanalan looked fine in 1.0 and Garlemald doesn't have the blue haze effect modern Northern Thanalan has despite likely drilling for ceruleum in greater quantities.

Though Northern Thanalan now has 2 factions drilling in the same spot and 1 being an invading force probably doesn't care for any potential repercussions as much as the other.

And there’s probably a “Balrog” under all the ceruleum that the drilling is going to awaken that we get to fight as a dungeon boss.

This feels like it has a lot of crossover with Cutter's Cry, which ended in a cavern full of ceruleum and a giant monster at the end of it.

But at this point I feel like there's not much left that hasn't been done already.

[Lyth]

The issue around ceruleum need not be an 'environmental' issue in the strict sense of the word. Bloodletting the lifestream as an energy source probably has some sort of detrimental impact on the star, even if nobody is aware of the consequences yet.

It will create an issue around Island Sanctuary if this ends up being a plot point, though, because the final upgrade seemingly converts everything to ceruleum power.

[Cleretic]

It's especially ironic given how FFVII Advent Children has Barret, the claimed leader of an ecoterrorist group, become an oil prospector. This is after a career as a coal miner, which is presented as somehow the "good, traditional option" compared to Mako as a fuel source.

While I've never seen actual evidence in any direction on this, I always got the idea that this is a reflection of Japan having a... uniquely different perspective on forms of power to most of the west. Even back in the nineties they had reasons to be a little wary of a pitch like nuclear power (which Mako definitely most resembled in trappings), and things haven't exactly gotten better there.

It's something that struck me while playing Pokemon Sword and Shield. The non-league story in that game is also about trying to tap into a new source of power to solve energy woes, and feels a little confused... until you realize that it's a Fukushima thing and it makes complete sense.

[DrForester]

With the side-quest to get the Cerulium platform working again in 6.0, I thought for sure we were either going to get a tribe questline with Garlemald or a custom delivery NPC quest chain there.

[Vyrerus]

Ehh, even though it reads like it's a stand in for real world oil, I think it wouldn't make much sense to try and make ceruleum into an environmental hazard. I mean, not that it's not hazardous itself, what with being highly combustible and all.

Of course, this is combustion of aether, and since Etheirys is basically mostly aether through and through, it would be a bridge too far imo to try and say that aether in a liquid medium can somehow be bad for its surroundings which are also entirely composed of aether.

They'd have to introduce too many things to the game, and then explain away or ignore why these ills never came up in the past in the highly concentrated ceruleum places.

It's not like Mako either. It's not tied to the Lifestream or to the aetherial realm in the center of the planet. It's not found everything, and we didn't find any on our way down to Hydaelyn. Its literal translation is like, "Blue Phosphorous Water." And it both behaves like water and doesn't. Like in Lapis Manalis dungeon there's a ton of it. Some flowing down in slow steady falls, and a then a vast lake of it that's constantly on fire. It doesn't produce toxic fumes at all, to my knowledge. Which, you know, real oil does. Nobody around Camp Bluefog seems to be hacking up a lung or down sick with, "Ceruleum Fume Sickness" or whatever, either.

Then there's the fact iirc, that Black Rose rendered it entirely inert in the 8UC timeline. So it became like regular water or whatever, and it couldn't combust at all. So in my mind it's more tied in with being a fantastical part of the setting that mainly existed to be a device for the old antagonists to have an aetheric energy source that seemed more grounded and less magical but still wound up more or less being liquid crystals.

[Lyth]

I don't recall seeing anything definitive on ceruleum outside of it being an unstable, volatile, aetheric fuel source that goes into vapor form when in contact with the atmosphere. It does seem like an interesting coincidence that it's the same color as the aetheric sea and the mothercrystal, but it's really at the writers' discretion if they ever decide to draw a link between the two.

The impact of the Black Rose follows logically from Urianger's explanation in Shadowbringers, in that the 'Black Rose slayeth by halting the circulation of aether within living beings,' (Unto the Truth, Lv. 72). This is the natural consequence of a Calamity of Light derived from the flood of aspected light aether from the First, which brings about aetheric stasis. The description in Tales from the Shadows, A World Forsaken, fits with this as well: 'Due to the aftereffects of Black Rose, the ceruleum that once supported daily life in the Empire and powered its magitek armies failed to combust.' Again, a volatile aetheric compound is brought into stasis.

In contrast, you'd expect that a Darkness-aspected calamity might make ceruleum even more volatile, to the point of it being unusable as an aetheric energy source.

[thegreatonemal]

While I've never seen actual evidence in any direction on this, I always got the idea that this is a reflection of Japan having a... uniquely different perspective on forms of power to most of the west. Even back in the nineties they had reasons to be a little wary of a pitch like nuclear power (which Mako definitely most resembled in trappings), and things haven't exactly gotten better there.

It's something that struck me while playing Pokemon Sword and Shield. The non-league story in that game is also about trying to tap into a new source of power to solve energy woes, and feels a little confused... until you realize that it's a Fukushima thing and it makes complete sense.

He straight up says he found oil in the movie.