Calyx and Preservation

[Cassar]

I wanted to talk a little bit about Calyx and I wanted to know what you think as well. I know I've made a similar comment about this in the past, but this just has been in my mind ever since! (Also feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about anything I say here)

First thing I want to say is that I believe Calyx to be the most intelligent character in the universe of XIV (at least who's still "alive"). He was born a child genius; he has had access to the highest level of technology ever seen in the universe (arguably more than Allag); he is the founder of Preservation, who was responsible for the creation of Everkeep as well as all its technologies, the army, the vehicles, the regulators, etc.; he has "lived" for over 400 years - plenty of time to do research on multiple different things; and last but not least: he has some of the Ascian knowledge. Now we don't know how much information he got from the Ascians, it might have only been the nature of the reflections and the source, but it could be more.

All of this is to say that Calyx seems to be the most intelligent character introduced in this game, which, in my personal opinion, gives him the potential of being one of the biggest threats we have faced.

Could Calyx, and perhaps Preservation as a whole, be a bigger threat that's going to be sort of in the "background" as we deal with other things, kind of like the Ascians in 2.0?

The original purpose of Calyx, and preservation, was to develop a cure to the sickness affecting the people exposed to too much electric aether. At some point, preservation turned their focus to start developing means to do interdimensional fusion, which was when Oblivion was born and interrupted them. Could this have been the point where the Ascians got involved in Preservation? Or have they been involved from the start?

Another thing that's interesting is: where could Calyx's memories be stored? We shut down Living Memory (assumedly all of it) and he's still around, and there's still room for those 5000 endless he promised. So where? The implication here is that there's another terminal, perhaps multiple, but could they be anywhere in the Ninth? Could they potentially be in satellites? On the moon?

I don't know, I've been trying to think about how they can wrap all of this up by 7.3, and to me 7.3 is shaping up to be pretty huge story wise. How do you think this will wrap up? What will be left for .4 and .5 and eventually 8.0?

[Cleretic]

All of this is to say that Calyx seems to be the most intelligent character introduced in this game, which, in my personal opinion, gives him the potential of being one of the biggest threats we have faced.

Could Calyx, and perhaps Preservation as a whole, be a bigger threat that's going to be sort of in the "background" as we deal with other things, kind of like the Ascians in 2.0?

Oh, I completely assume that's where we're going for this, and I'm really excited about it.

I think the most exciting thing about Calyx is that he's a very different kind of villain to what FFXIV has had before: our villains up until now have all been very emotionally-driven and very light on the intricacies of their plans; we've got the Empire and Thordan's 'we should rule because it's our rite', Zenos' search for emotional meaning, Yotsuyu's revenge, Emet's loneliness-induced hatred, and of course Meteion's despair. Even in side content we don't really see a villain fueled by intellect and reason; Omega sort of purported to be, but even it was emotionally driven and had a poorly-considered plan.

I admit, it's too early to be 100% certain Calyx isn't that; they've got room to reveal that Calyx is actually A Very Sad Little Boy Who Misses His Mom. But I'm optimistic that it'll be different, and that's actually a really interesting stamp to put on this new era of FFXIV, that we've got this fundamentally different villain with a fundamentally different structure to his plans.

[DeathNoodles]

What's really been making me think is whether he's in league w/ Ascians or not, they are the source of his knowledge re: the sundering and clearly allow his designs to be carried out. In that vein it means Endless and dimensional fusion serve a purpose towards the rejoining, but I'm still lost on it. It seems to me Calyx reflects some of the desires of FF9 Garland:

"To live is to give life meaning, yet one must take others' lives to survive... Terra's souls will sleep until they forget such nonsense. They will begin a new life in a new dimension. It's a world in which life and death become one... That is the dimension in which we are meant to live, as beings that transcend life and death!"

The immortality of the Ancients is not gone into much, but I do believe knowing of this immortality (and his own health) is a spur for his actions. I do question what it means to" return to the star" of one's own will to the aetherial sea. What Preservation has developed in terms of the regulators seems like experimentation to move humanity towards that previous immortality, along with experimenting on the memories that should be washed clean from the soul in the aetherial sea. I wouldn't be surprised if the Endless were experiments towards a way of protecting the souls of the Source in worst case scenario, or harvesting souls from shards and using the key or some other method to rejoin those of the Source without causing a calamity. Didn't see Calyx coming tbh so who knows where it's going but I'm interested.

[Cleretic]

they are the source of his knowledge re: the sundering and clearly allow his designs to be carried out.

No, they were our source of this knowledge. We first learned that from Ardbert, who learned it form Elidibus, and later had Emet-Selch confirm it first-hand. All of that in a very short span of time, and exclusively on their terms.

Calyx has had a lot more runway than us. At the most conservative estimate, he's had four hundred years to put together a knowledge base that tells him that his world is the Ninth and ours is the Source. Realistically I'd say his people's history on that subject is a good few thousand years older than that: their knowledge of dimensional travel and theory traces back to the lalafel of Aloalo back in the Endless Frost, and who knows how much they knew, or from where. There's plenty of room for Calyx to learn this fact independent of the Ascians, or at least so far removed that it's effectively independent, and that possibility has a lot more potential in it than I think you're giving it credit for.

Also, the Ascian plan doesn't work or make any sense anymore, because Zodiark is dead. Any surviving Ascians wouldn't benefit from any rejoinings, because the rejoinings were primarily towards the purpose of reforming Zodiark, the only thing that actually had the power to bring back their world. On top of that, the three people actually pushing for that agenda are also dead, and all evidence we have suggests that any red-maskers below them actually cared a whole lot less about that agenda than they were letting on. (I also have my doubts that dimensional fusion like Calyx is aiming for would actually be a capable 'rejoining' for Ascian purposes, but that's kind of a tertiary problem behind the others.)

I think that it's fundamentally a mistake to immediately assume that Calyx is in some way directly in league with the Ascians, or working towards their ends; there's no proper evidence for it, and honestly, it's much less interesting than much more plausible answers at this point. I think it's both much more likely, and much more compelling, that Calyx is entirely off on his own thing, that just happens to include a few notes that make us go 'there's more going on here than just one nerd with a plan'. Him being a puppet for the Ascians would just make him Thordan 2, and we didn't even like the first Thordan!

[Cassar]

While I don't think Calyx is necessarily in league with the Ascians, I am pretty certain that his knowledge came from an Ascian. There was that very specifically placed quote from Y'shtola in 7.0 before we entered Living Memory: "Beyond lies an unknown reflection. Short of asking an Ascian, we unfortunately have no way of identifying which one it is." It makes sense, of course, given that the numbers were given to the reflections by the Ascians, it was a nomenclature entirely invented by them. As far as we know there isn't a universal physical frame of reference that would lead any independent researcher to name them in the same order, so the only other option would be coincidence, which obviously isn't the case.

You are right in that this knowledge may not be first-hand; it may have been from a third party that heard it from the Ascians originally, but I think Calyx is too methodical and science-oriented to take that information at face value and not confirm it with someone who would actually know it.

Either way, while an Ascian may not be involved anymore, there definitely at least was some level of Ascian involvement to Calyx's knowledge. Not to mention of course the heavy implications that it was Ascians who introduced Electrope to the Ninth with the intentions of having it tip towards lightning Aether to later be rejoined, but that's a different topic.

[fulminating]

The ninth had a calamity, the thing that as far as we know ascians alone orchestrated.
Calyx was born prior to the calamity and his electrope, the stated subject of his genius, is of the same aspect as their calamity.
The terminology used ("Ninth") not only is that of the ascians, but there aren't even nine shards left for him to coincidentally assign his world 9th among 7ish remaining as of the milala/aloalan lalafell exodus.
The city of gold was explicity mentioned by Hades, one of the more prominent ascians who have spent 12k years meddling.

Given these points, it's hard to dismiss out of hand that Calyx may have had contact with ascians or ascian knowledge. Does this mean he's likely to put on a mask and start cackling? Probably not, but it would be interesting to see what the remains of the ascians are up to now that zodiark's gone. Would they continue under the belief that recombining the worlds would be beneficial for mankind, take up fishing and while away eternity, garden/foster a shard or something else entirely?

edit: I really have to stop wandering off before pressing send, or at least reload the page when I come back

[Shookbeast]

I agree that Calyx is a real head scratcher. Lots of interesting ways he could go. With the “Azem of it all” also running through the last few patches, I have my suspicions his motivations may be “academic” to him, but “personal” to us.

Imagine a scenario where he is an Azem shard, or, possibly just intrigued by the concept of soul sundering and rejoining. In either scenario, we’re a fascinating case study for him. If Calyx is an Azem shard, then we’re a big “power up” for him, waiting to be harvested. Or, he could simply be fascinated with us and our slightly denser soul. Does a denser soul mean we offer more strength when consumed?

The problem is, it doesn’t seem like he has a soul, being one of the endless? He’d either need to have kept his body on ice, like Sphene, or know the whereabouts of his reincarnated soul shard (cough cough Milos?).

He could also simply want us as a way to unlock the Azem Crystal. He wouldn’t have to be an Azem shard in that case, but perhaps it would be easier if he was - hoping to absorb us and then use the crystal (and key?) for nefarious reflection hopping mad-science business…