(Spoilers): Ultima, The Best Boss

[Ignatyus]

FFXIV needs good antagonists. Not just redeemable ones, we need bad boys and bad girls. We need real villains! Not so much antagonists that make us feel sorry for them (FFXIV is full of them), but antagonists that inspire fear! Challenge! We need an epic of good versus evil that doesn't last just one expansion, but many, many more.

We need Jenova and her idea of ​​pure evil. An evil so visceral and ancient that all peoples must unite to fight against it. An evil that doesn't even need to be on screen to show that everything has its dark influence.

And for that, we have her: Ultima. She's always been there, waiting for her chance to soar to greater heights and not just be in one Alliance Raid. And I think SE is, little by little, making her way BACK.

Saint Ajora
According to the Scriptures of Germonique, Ajora was an Ivalician, propagandist, and anarchist who rebelled against the religious tradition of his time: The Church of Faram. People began to follow him because he was showing them that people could live better without the doctrine of the old church.

At one point in his life, he became so famous that a true cult formed around him. This occurred before or after he merged with Ultima the High Seraph (in a manner similar to what Isayle did with Shiva in FFXIV, possibly). Thus, he founded a new church centered on himself: The Church of Saint Ajora, or Church of Glabados.

He also founded the first “Zodiac Braves”, which was a military group that established reform, but which may also have been a group of Lucavi worshippers (each having a zodiac sign).

Ajora was betrayed by the 13th member of his military group: Germonique. He was then executed for heresy and treason, but the religion surrounding him only grew stronger after his death.

And it was the most corrupt religion in history. That's how Ultima works.

The Representation of Evil
In FF Tactics, humans are in control of the world's problems, although these are significantly "enhanced" versions of themselves. For example—I'm obsessed with Peanut Butter, I get an auracite and become a Lucavi, I'm now hoarding hundreds of pounds of it in my house.

Apparently, auracites (the stones that represent the power of the Lucavi) are not pure evil at all. They are what they are. It is their bearers who give them significance. That is, auracite is capable of doing good in the hands of those who have pure intentions, but just a spark of evil will cause this evil to cease being a spark and become a storm!

[Ignatyus]

Who is Ultima?
Ultima, High Seraph, Angel of Blood (and possibly many other nice titles) is an Esper, also known as the leader of the Lucavi. Esper, Eikon, Eidolon, Primal… all are different names for the same thing. A Lucavi is a faction of Esper, considered demons at some point in Ivalice's culture. I believe Ultima is in the same league as Hydaelyn and Zodiark in terms of power, nature, and importance, for a few reasons (and not just because the fight against her in FFXIV is so magnificent).

1. It is mentioned that Ultima was challenged and defeated by Hydaelyn centuries ago. She was also defeated by Ramza Beoulve (Hydaelyn's chosen one and one of the first WoL).

2. Ultima is also called Altima in FFT. Altima is one of the Ascians and a member of the Convocation of the Fourteen. Gaius claims to have killed her, but I sincerely doubt it (it was probably a fake). This possibly makes Ultima to Altima as Hydaelyn was to Venat and Zodiark to Elibidus.

3. Ultima is older than Hydaelyn and Zodiark (though perhaps not more so than Venat/Elidibus). She influenced Athena's madness, for example (revealed in the Pandemonium stories), this still at the height of Amaurot. So, yes… she is quite an ancient evil.

4. Speaking of Athena. She tried to possess her own son. Ultima tried the same with the WoL, so it's part of her modus operandi.

5. Hydaelyn gathered and empowered the Twelve. The Twelve are considered gods in Eorzea. Ultima gathered the Lucavi and created the zodiac to represent them. To that end, she created thirteen auracites (stones with an immense amount of Aether) and took for herself the auracite of Virgo. This creates an interesting parallel: Hydaelyn favors the gods (The Twelve), Ultima favors the demons (Lucavi).

6. This may help explain why they clashed in the first place. Hydaelyn and The Twelve are divine beings who swore not to interfere in mortal affairs. Ultima and the Lucavi wanted to help fulfill the desires of mortals, giving them power and raising their willpower, even if those desires were evil (and most of them were). Ultima even wanted to dominate the world because it was the desire of the bearer of her soul: Ajora.

7. Ultima reveals that she created the auracites to fulfill the desires of men. The desire of Saint Ajora (who embodied Ultima and held her auracite of Virgo) was to dominate the world, therefore, it was also Ultima's desire. But this still does not change her initial objective, quite the contrary. I believe that Ultima, as a Primal, embodies the very desires of its summoner.

[Ignatyus]

8. She made that clear to our WoL. Whatever our desire was, she would help us fulfill it. For that, the WoL would seize her auracite (presumably Virgin) and we would merge mind and soul. Etheirys would be screwed, because it's clear that the WoL has a dark side, but an antagonist with that dynamic is absurdly interesting.

9. The Heart of Sabik is first mentioned at the end of ARR. Lahabrea cites it as the jewel that energizes the "Ultima Weapon" (creation of the Allagans) and with it uses "Ultima" magic to seriously injure Hydaelyn. The Heart of Sabik influenced the dream of Athena, an ancient wife of Lahabrea. The Heart of Sabik is an auracite. Moenbrida also created a synthetic auracite (white auracite) based on her studies of auracites, and this allowed us to kill an Ascian. Therefore, we have her influence throughout the story.

10. A curiosity. In the lore of FFXII, Mateus the Corrupted (one of the 13 Lucavi, and representing the sign of Pisces) was the lord of the depths, using a dead goddess as a shield. His greatest enemy was a being called Lahabrea. The 13th Lucavi was once a mage named Elidibus and he was able to summon Zodiark. Interesting, isn't it? That would make Zodiark a Lucavi. In FFXIV, Mateus is just a boss in the Ivalice raids (other Lucavis too) and Elidibus/Zodiark, well…

So...
Summarizing what we have "officially":

Ultima was the one who drove two great antagonists mad: Lahabrea and Athena.

Ultima was not only challenged by Hydaelyn herself, but she was capable of destroying Hydaelyn (Heart of Sabik is a fraction of her power and left Hydaelyn bad... very bad).

Ultima is older than the ancients of Amaurot (Athena knew about her).

Ultima was not only defeated by your WoL, but by other WoL throughout history (like Ramza Beoulve). She is a persistent evil.

Ultima was important enough to create a religion that ruined the entire nation of Ivalice: The Church of Glabados.

What is missing to establish Ultima as the great villain for the next 10 years of FFXIV!? Bring her back NOW!

And please, bring back the other Lucavi too. I don't want them as mere bossers, I also want their human wielders. I mean, even their titles are cool. You could make each of them really cool antagonists.

Belias, The Gigas (Aries)
Duma, ???? (Taurus)
Zalera, The Death Seraph (Gemini)
Zebbeb, ???? (Cancer)
Hashmal, The Bringer of Order (Leo)
Ultima, The High Seraph (Virgo)
Sel, ???? (Libra)
Cúchulainn, The Impure (Scorpio)
Rofocale, ???? (Sagittarius)
Adrammelech, The Wroth (Capricorn)
Cheraub, ???? (Aquarius)
Mateus, the Corrupt Emperor (Pisces)
Zodiark, Keeper of Precepts (Serpentarius) --- Elidibus in FFT (Just to leave this reference here...)

[Cleretic]

At a glance I can tell that a significant amount of this is not actually in the game, so I'd like to know your sources, if any. It's not useful to mix up canon and headcanon, we need to know what comes from where.

Final Fantasy Tactics and the other Ivalice games are in a different continuity, so they cannot be admitted in as evidence in and of themselves.

[Ignatyus]

At a glance I can tell that a significant amount of this is not actually in the game, so I'd like to know your sources, if any. It's not useful to mix up canon and headcanon, we need to know what comes from where.

Final Fantasy Tactics and the other Ivalice games are in a different continuity, so they cannot be admitted in as evidence in and of themselves.

Almost everything is theory based on the lore of FFT, FFXII, and FF Revenant Wings. Figures like Ajora and Germonique are present in FFT lore. Some information about Mateus comes from FFXII. Both were heavily used as influence for the Return to Ivalice alliance raid series. The history of the auracites, the nature of Ultima, and her influence on the lore of FFXIV are consistent with her other versions in the aforementioned games.

But much comes from FFXIV itself. Ultima is a boss you can face in Return to Ivalice. Part of her story and motivations are explained there. The same goes for characters like Athena and Lahabrea. The rivalry between her and Hydaelyn in the distant past is also mentioned.

Athena and Ultima are linked through the "Heart of Sabik," a black auracite Athena discovered and used for her research. Athena utilized this artifact, believed to originate from Ultima, to pioneer advanced creation magicks and pursue divinity, ultimately leading to her downfall.

She used it to experiment with soul manipulation, including on her son, Erichthonios, with the goal of ascending to godhood. This is a parallel to Ajora (FFT) as well.

After Athena's death by Lahabrea, he took custody of the Heart of Sabik, eventually leading to its use in the creation of the Ultima Weapon centuries later. Ultima did the exact same thing with the auracites.

The Ultima Weapon in FFXIV is an ancient Allagan biotechnological warmachine unearthed by the Garlean Empire, designed to absorb and replicate the powers of Primals.

Based on this, theories emerge. My theory is that Ultima was always the main villain of FFXIV. It's possible that wasn't always the development team's plan, but in my view, there's clearly an influence that can be traced back to A Realm Reborn.

This theme resurfaces in the Endwalker raid, and I think there's a reason behind it.

[Anonymoose]

"Ultima Prime" is my latest #GaiusLives joke, so I'm for it, though admittedly for me it just goes back to the post-Pandaemonium lore-drop interface dropping, "the High Seraph is ultimately responsible for way more tragedies than anyone knows and might have had brief contact with the Allagans". Combined with the hanging thread of the original Ultima being an unexplained extradimensional force that inspired the "primal-like" version we knew, there's some big potential there for an eventual Endsinger-level capstone boss.

I'm not sure how much they intended to lean into it when Ivalice was more of a thing you made nods to than tried to include in the world-setting*, but now that Matsuno himself spent time helping build up an alternate Ivalice in our setting all bets are off, lol.

* Ultima (Spell) is as old as Final Fantasy, the Weapons have been evolving as a concept forever, but the entity is a whole other bag, no?

[Cleretic]

Almost everything is theory based on the lore of FFT, FFXII, and FF Revenant Wings.

Okay, so not canon to this game.

I get your enthusiasm, and people do broadly agree that Ultima's some kind of plot thread for the future, but the events of the Ivalice games are not canon. In fact, we've got details that explicitly go against their canon; namely, that the events and characters reflecting Ivalice and XII are the wrong way around (in Ivalice canon, XII comes before Tactics; in XIV, Ramza's events and actions come before the present with Fran, Ba'gamnan and an unseen Ashe). Plonking it all down in one mass and declaring it all to be the exact same canon is, honestly, doing more harm than good. I've seen a lot of people get led astray around FFXIV lore, sometimes for years, because someone just said something wrong with confidence and nobody fact-checked it.

Here is everything we know about XIV's Ultima: They were a something from somewhere else--I always assumed space but I don't think that's a given--that most likely but not definitely crashed down before the Sundering; there's still an angle for, like, 'scraped the atmosphere and crashed later'. They are the origin of 'organic' auracite, including but by no means limited to the Heart of Sabik. During the time of the Ivalician Empire, Ultima and some amount of auracite crystals were the core of a conflict that took out entire cities (Ajora is barely mentioned) was eventually put to rest by Ramza's Zodiac Braves, and then later put to the sword by us. For Ultima itself, what little we know says that what we found wasn't what Ultima started as; it was shaped into the form we saw by collective belief in a way similar to a primal, so we have no idea what it was originally. There's a solid case it might not have even been alive.

The Ivalice raids do thrive on uncertainty, though; we know so little that we don't know how many auracite crystals were involved in that conflict, or when all of this even happened. That doesn't mean 'the Ivalice games are going on just off-screen and can be substituted'--again, they literally can't be--but that we deliberately know very little.

The other hard part of bringing in Ultima as a big new 'arc villain' is that we already killed her 30+ levels ago. That's gonna make an Ultima reveal need a real curveball to not just feel like reheated leftovers, and 'Ivalice lore' is not gonna do it, even though they probably will fit in a few nods.

('Ultima is a literal alien causing Magical Crystal Apocalypses' is also just FFXVI, so the devs really painted themselves into a corner trying to find a new angle on this one.)

EDIT: I use parentheses too much.

[Ignatyus]

"Ultima Prime" is my latest #GaiusLives joke, so I'm for it, though admittedly for me it just goes back to the post-Pandaemonium lore-drop interface dropping, "the High Seraph is ultimately responsible for way more tragedies than anyone knows and might have had brief contact with the Allagans". Combined with the hanging thread of the original Ultima being an unexplained extradimensional force that inspired the "primal-like" version we knew, there's some big potential there for an eventual Endsinger-level capstone boss.

I'm not sure how much they intended to lean into it when Ivalice was more of a thing you made nods to than tried to include in the world-setting*, but now that Matsuno himself spent time helping build up an alternate Ivalice in our setting all bets are off, lol.

* Ultima (Spell) is as old as Final Fantasy, the Weapons have been evolving as a concept forever, but the entity is a whole other bag, no?

Endsinger's own music (first phase) includes references like: "Rise, Rise, Ultima!" and "Beat the Heart of Sabik!"

Sometimes I get the impression that the writing team tries to push the multiverse idea further, but Yoshi or someone else pulls the handbrake to prevent it from going too far. So it ends up being just a loose reference.

I had this impression regarding Warrior of Light (Elidibus), for example, as Elidibus actually being the protagonist of FF1. BANG! Plot twist. And I certainly had this impression regarding Meteia/Endsinger as originally being Ultima.

Anyway, every expansion of the game makes strong references to Ultima and FFT. I think that at some point all of this will become increasingly clear.

[MicahZerrshia]

At this point I would love a villain who is just evil.

Not another "I'm evil because I'm crazy!" Kefka clone like Asahi.
Not another "I am evil, oops sorry no I am actually good, I just didn't think my plan through" like 99% of our villains.
Not another big bad with mommy issues and overcompensating for things with a big sword.
No "I'm smol, look like a child and am snuggly, but I am really a 10000 year old evil!" like it looks like we are getting in 8.0
Not another teenager with a vendetta like Stock Anime Scientist #8342 that DT gave us

I want someone who is just evil because that is who they are. They don't need to be the ruler of a kingdom, or one of it's generals. They don't need to be gods or ancients. They just need to be evil. And preferably an adult. So tired of teenagers and kids being the source of all evil

I want the writers to watch a lot of anime and do the complete opposite. So much of Japanese media is becoming boring, esp to those of us who have been consuming it for decades, because its just the same thing over and over ad nauseam. And SE is def a culprit of overindulging in anime cliches, esp with XIV

[Enkidoh]

Endsinger's own music (first phase) includes references like: "Rise, Rise, Ultima!" and "Beat the Heart of Sabik!"

That's grasping at straws if I ever saw it - those lyrics are only included in The Final Day (Endsinger's phase 1 battle theme) because the whole track is a medley of the final boss themes for every expansion that proceeded Endwalker as a reference to how far the player has come to get to that point - specifically, those lyrics are from the orchestral arrangement of Ultima, you know, the ARR final battle theme against Ultima Weapon in the Praetorium - the original ARR version didn't have lyrics but just a gibberish 'vox' effect). It's not meant to state that there is a deeper connection to Ultima in Metieon's 12000 year old cosmic temper tantrum at all.

Cleretic is totally right, you're reading far too much into a raid that is nothing but fanservice and is only representative of the Ivalice games as inspiring it's story without being a direct connection to FFXII, FFT and the like. That theory was officially debunked by SE long ago.