Quote Originally Posted by NoloeTazier View Post
Yeah, I'm still for the The Twelve 'altars' being nothing more than an ancient sealing weapon.
I think that it was the ritual itself that was the weapon. Louisoix admits in 'Living on a Prayer' that it was his Circle of Knowing that recently carved the symbols of The Twelve into the old stones around Eorzea and that they were to be used as conduits to channel the prayers. That's why they didn't glow, at first.

If you pull up the master map of Eorzea and place the symbols on that map, you'll notice that all the Circle of Knowing did was form a circle around Mor Dhona - the place with the highest concentration of aether in our land.

They ritualized a fail-safe to protect our area, and then couldn't muster enough power behind it to overcome Bahamut's influence. Seeing that he'd led personally us all to this destruction on false hope (not that this wasn't a war that could be lost, but that our gods would see us through it), Louisoix re-diverted what energy was left to be called upon into summoning the powers of just Althyk (deity of change, space, and time).


Symbol Seen Here

Knowing that they'd failed in preventing the Umbral Era, he saves those who fought under his leadership, trusting that the work they've done will at least give us another chance at eventually establishing the Seventh Astral, so he smiles as the magic fades around him.