Where's the aether? (Spoilers)

[Jeeqbit]

The Alexandrians are not from the source. Only the Milalla.

Oh. Well I did not feel this was made clear. And it creates a problem because if the people in Solution Nine are 1/7th the Soul density of the people on The Source, and their souls are being swapped around with those from Shaaloani... that seems like it could mess a lot of things up. So I thought this was their explanation for that.

Magic itself shouldn‘t be harder because the principle is the same in any world.

Well yes, but the principle is you use your own aether for it in most cases. The Ascians could summon huge things without consuming their own being, while people on the Source consumed their own being when doing so during the final days or had to rely on Aether crystals like the beast tribes. It would stand to reason there is a similar effect on how useful magic really is for them or that it would at least be really low potency if used on the Warrior of Light.

The first… hmm do we see many people using magic outside of gameplay on the level of the source?

I don't remember any other than Ardbert's gang, but if anyone did they'd be easy to forget after the years that have been since I did the MSQ.

I might remember wrong but I was sure to have read somewhere that, even if the Ascians were successful the end result wouldn’t be the Anscients again but a new fully rejoined race.
Not only from a personal level like culture and memory (none of them would forgive the ancients and many of them would abuse those godlike powers) but also from a race perspective.

Even were all that so, the Ascians plan was to imbue the old memories into them like they did with Fandaniel for example (at least, the memories they had preserved, I don't know if they preserved everyone's).

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Even were all that so, the Ascians plan was to imbue the old memories into them like they did with Fandaniel for example (at least, the memories they had preserved, I don't know if they preserved everyone's).

After the Sundering, mankind was reduced to beasts, incapable of speech or complex thought. For those people who didn't believe Emet-Selch's description of us even though his name is literally truth, it was confirmed once again in DT.

The modern races re-evolved from the malformed creatures the sundered started off as. The rejoinings were never meant to turn Miqo'te into Ancients. Smooshing Miqo'te together only gets you thicker Miqo'te. The plan was after all the shards were put back together again (except for the Void) to sacrifice us to Zodiark and use that living aether to revive the Ancients.

The Ascians weren't putting the worlds back together to make us better. They were putting the worlds back together to free their god and bring back their people. They were gonna sacrifice us.

Some do question if Zodiark could even do that, bring back an extinct species and well shrug, doesn't matter now, does it?

[Voidmage]

snip

On mobile so I can‘t really split the quote.

Shaolani people are rejoined people. The Milala are probably not.
These are not the same as back then when they first appeared but either new souls or reborn people.
I don‘t know how that all works in a rejoining but they are probably just thrown into the lifestream and the aetherial sea. The Ascians are also implied to not be any more special after reborn.
The soul is also not swapped out but used to „patch“ up the holders soul before it completely goes into the lifestream and then the memory overwrites. At least that’s how I understood it.
But you are right it is a good question how denser souls are different in that system.
The raid story outright says that our soul is so dense it could be used to heal Eutrope.
Maybe we will learn more later.

On magic:
Hmm, the ancients used their own aether that was quite large. It’s implied though that Emet was outstanding in that regard. Other Ancients used „concepts“ and Hythlo eid use the aether of the butterflies to convert it.

Magic seems to be a mix of internal and external aether. White and black mages use external aether through the job stones while red mages use internal aether.
It’s implied that outside aether is far more potent.
I would assume shard people can use potent magic that is also dangerous for us but not as long or in the same quantity as we are because their own aether is more limited.
For other things they would have to depend on external aether and as far as the things we saw are concerned that seems to be mostly the case.

On the Ancients:
No they didn‘t have all memories. That was specific for the Asciens.
The goal was to swap the souls inside Zodiark with a large amount of rejoined souls and then create the utopia anew.
They completely relied on Zodiark to fix the thirteens and recreate the old world.
Zodiark probably could have changed the new Ancients to recreate the old ones in appearance but probably not memory. Only death and rebirth could have done that.

The Ascians probably didn‘t even plan so far.
Zodiark would have been full of souls resenting the Ascians and Emet Selch was already almost broken because of all that stuff.
Maybe after a long, long time they would have been back on that track but even then so many souls would be in eternal hell.
All relied on Zodiark.


It’s an interesting discussion.

[Rookie1]

if you think about it as a pool of aether (soul or corporeal or memory) then it has to be spread out amongst all life. If you get a rejoining that doesn't mean the million people on etherys get denser. It means you can now support a population of 2 million people.

[Jeeqbit]

Magic seems to be a mix of internal and external aether. White and black mages use external aether through the job stones while red mages use internal aether.

Yes, I forgot to mention that. Their best option for using magic might be trying to use outside sources and break the rules that we normally stick to in the Source in most teachings.

[TBerry]

This does bother me to a degree. Why aren't people on the First smaller? Why is there not a clarification that using magic is harder for them due to lack of aether?

If you split STEPHENSON 2-18 into 13 evenly massed stars, chances are they are still bigger and more massive than our sun. Probably even enough mass to create 13 black holes.
It's probably enough aether to not make any difference at all.

[Jeeqbit]

if you think about it as a pool of aether (soul or corporeal or memory) then it has to be spread out amongst all life. If you get a rejoining that doesn't mean the million people on etherys get denser. It means you can now support a population of 2 million people.

The problem with that logic is that it's mentioned clearly in the MSQ that the reason we can respond to dynamis is because we are less aetherially dense than the Ascians, that we got denser when merging with Ardbert and Krile expressing curiousity over why she wasn't less aetherially dense.

It's also constantly implied, even in Dawntrail, that souls are meant to be rejoined - with alternative versions of people we've met being found in the First and in Shaaloani and Heritage Found. The implication seems obvious - that if there was a rejoining, those souls would rejoin with the versions we know on the Source. Whether that's meant to be immediate or not I have no idea, but Emet-Selch once said that if there's a full rejoining "you have nothing to lose" because you're "of the Source" implying the Warrior of Light wouldn't have to die.

[Voidmage]

Whether that's meant to be immediate or not I have no idea, but Emet-Selch once said that if there's a full rejoining "you have nothing to lose" because you're "of the Source" implying the Warrior of Light wouldn't have to die.

I always took that as twofold:

The source soul is the one who always comes out on top.

It was less about „us“ and more about our soul.
He mostly saw us as Azem not as the WoL.
If we died and been reborn in his eyes we would still be us. He looked at the color of the soul first and foremost.
Or it was an attempt to Ascianicize us as death doesn’t matter to them.

I wholeheartedly agree on all your other points here.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Whether that's meant to be immediate or not I have no idea, but Emet-Selch once said that if there's a full rejoining "you have nothing to lose" because you're "of the Source" implying the Warrior of Light wouldn't have to die.

He was attempting to sell the WoL on becoming an Ascian. Remember, the Ascians know how to pull souls and memories from bodies effectively making you immortal. Given six more calamities would likely take several thousand more years, when he says "should you survive" he meant as an Ascian, otherwise old age would get the WoL if nothing else did.

[Somnolence]

The problem with that logic is that it's mentioned clearly in the MSQ that the reason we can respond to dynamis is because we are less aetherially dense than the Ascians, that we got denser when merging with Ardbert and Krile expressing curiousity over why she wasn't less aetherially dense.

It's also constantly implied, even in Dawntrail, that souls are meant to be rejoined - with alternative versions of people we've met being found in the First and in Shaaloani and Heritage Found. The implication seems obvious - that if there was a rejoining, those souls would rejoin with the versions we know on the Source. Whether that's meant to be immediate or not I have no idea, but Emet-Selch once said that if there's a full rejoining "you have nothing to lose" because you're "of the Source" implying the Warrior of Light wouldn't have to die.

My theory is that original ancient population was not that big (no need to have lots of children when you are functionally immortal) and majority of all souls in Source or reflections are new.

Only those whose souls are portion of reincarnated ancients would survive full rejoining, all others would be used as energy by Zodiark.

Even on source only us and some characters like Zenos have half of original ancient soul, the rest are 1/14 density scrubs.