Where's the aether? (Spoilers)

[Lady_Silvermoon]

The people on the Source aren't more powerful than the people from shards for the same reason that 75% of the Ancient population is now in the aetherial sea to be reborn with their full, complete 14/14 souls and it will make little to no difference. I believe YoshiP described it as "maybe they'll be a little cooler, have a bigger mana pool." Their species has been eradicated. Their big thick souls will be stuffed into catboy and bunnygirl bodies, so it won't matter.

[Galvuu]

The people on the Source aren't more powerful than the people from shards for the same reason that 75% of the Ancient population is now in the aetherial sea to be reborn with their full, complete 14/14 souls and it will make little to no difference. I believe YoshiP described it as "maybe they'll be a little cooler, have a bigger mana pool." Their species has been eradicated. Their big thick souls will be stuffed into catboy and bunnygirl bodies, so it won't matter.

Actually, Emet-Selch states outright in Shadowbringers that (part) of the reason why the WoL "towers above their peers" (in terms of might, in context) was because he was "seven times rejoined".
Ofc we also know the last Azem was very powerful and aetherically dense (I recall Venat using the figure "twice as powerful" as her)- putting both together, Emet seems to be have been stating "you've been rejoined seven times" as "your soul is denser/has more aether" to a being which had a dense soul to begin with.

[Voidmage]

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?
The Void can be explained by the joining of beings merging together. Alexandria can be explained because its people originated from The Source. But Norvrandt can't be explained so much unless they at least struggle with magic and summoning.
I think it's supposed to be going into people on the Source. Krile even questioned at first why her aether wasn't weaker after learning she was from a shard.

You are confusing at few little things.
The Alexandrians are not from the source. Only the Milalla.
Magic itself shouldn‘t be harder because the principle is the same in any world.
It’s more likely that the individual aether reserves would be lower but not by much.
Alexandrians didn‘t use much magic but technology.
Voidsent gorge on aether to get stronger.
The first… hmm do we see many people using magic outside of gameplay on the level of the source?
I only remember the blm from Ardberts group.


I‘m still waiting for my third encyclopedia so I don‘t know if it’s all explained there but this is what I took from the story.

The 8th rejoining seems to be the tipping point for individual strength.
It gave us the power to house the lighwardens aether and it is apparently enough to free Zodiark.
But in Grahas old timeline the people seem to be the same.

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.
We don‘t just loose our cute Miqo‘te ears and creepy Lala look and grow in size. That’s evolution according tobte devs and it would take some time if even possible to become Anscients again.
Edit:
Like Lady_Silvermoon said. The Ancients will never come back.
The whole plan of the Ascients was just a dream from the beginning.

It’s implied that all the aether goes into the livestream first and foremost.
The lifestream goes through the entire world and just „end“ in the aetherial sea (teleportation network)
Albert was an exception.

Also on the OP post.
Not every soul gets denser automatically through a rejoining. Only those with the echo.
All else are new souls created in the aetherial sea denser already but they don‘t have a shard counterpart.

Just my takes on all this.


Mind you we still don‘t know everything about a rejoining.

In an interview recently it was said that people can flee before their shard is rejoined. It looks like that’s what solution 9 is because that was what the question was aimed at and we know there was a lightning catastrophe in that shard.
We also see a Gerold reflection there so wouldn‘t that mean that there are individuals that are not as rejoined as others?


Edit 2:
If I remember correctly we are only Sontheim in aether in Elpis because of how we get there. Elidibus said something like that.
But it has been quite long so I might remember wrong.

[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?

[fulminating]

Edit:
Like Lady_Silvermoon said. The Ancients will never come back.
The whole plan of the Ascients was just a dream from the beginning.

At the end of endwalker, an ancient was actually brought back. Admittedly this was after zodiark let the souls out, but it was demonstrably possible for someone with sufficient aether reserves and magical capability to resurrect 75% of the ancient population. If only the ascians had a sorcerer of eld with explicitly bottomless reserves of mana on their team. The real question is whether or not zodiark had hotswappable batteries.

[Voidmage]

At the end of endwalker, an ancient was actually brought back. Admittedly this was after zodiark let the souls out, but it was demonstrably possible for someone with sufficient aether reserves and magical capability to resurrect 75% of the ancient population. If only the ascians had a sorcerer of eld with explicitly bottomless reserves of mana on their team. The real question is whether or not zodiark had hotswappable batteries.

Help me ot a bit here because my brain has some trouble processing.
Do you mean the scene were Emet and his husband are summoned by us?

But yeah Zodiark seemed to be like a toy you could swap batteries out, only that those batteries wouldn't get used up.
The plan was to swap them out in the end.

I mean... have you tried those Ancient batteries?
They are longlasting, totally green and easy to use. Just sing a sad song and they jump at the opportunity themself.

Runar really got her with that stew back at my place pickup line.

Runar was such a big bro. We went from chad Runar to Wuk Lamat. That's a downgrade if you ask me.

[fulminating]

Help me ot a bit here because my brain has some trouble processing.
Do you mean the scene were Emet and his husband are summoned by us?

But yeah Zodiark seemed to be like a toy you could swap batteries out, only that those batteries wouldn't get used up.
The plan was to swap them out in the end.

I mean... have you tried those Ancient batteries?
They are longlasting, totally green and easy to use. Just sing a sad song and they jump at the opportunity themself.

Yeah - specifically hythlodaeus since we know he was inside zodiark. Given the same or similar trick was pulled on y'shtola once by hades in shb and also by the elementals/pajdal in hw patches, we can be reasonably confident that the plan would mechanically function probably even if it's a bit silly. Elementals might be too ancient adjacent to think the current races would be able to pull it off.

[Voidmage]

Yeah - specifically hythlodaeus since we know he was inside zodiark. Given the same or similar trick was pulled on y'shtola once by hades in shb and also in hw patches, we can be reasonably confident that the plan would mechanically function probably even if it's a bit silly.

As far a I remember they werent brought back to life. Emet said they were hald faded souls but I also could remember wrong.
The only reason we were able to summon those two from the lifestream was because of Venats very last aether imbued into Azems crystal and even then my theory is that, us being in Ultima Thule, Dynamis also playd a factor.
They also didn't do much besides creating a flower field so they probably werent even at full power and Hythlo was still sundered.

But besides that. With my comment I meant more that the ancients would never come back in the form the Asciants envisioned.
There wouldn't be giant robed humans but actually the different races in normal size just denser.
Even if they used creation magic or Zodiark to alter that as well their whole outlook on life would be different I think.

[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.