For the last video until Dawntrail, weβre going over the lore of the Ancients: every single fact worth knowing about them, by their own definition. And it turns out that even when you do that, you donβt just learn weird facts; you learn weird gaps.
Section timestamps:
0:00 β Intro
1:22 β Creation Magic
13:09 β Known society
22:18 β Knowledge and outlook
27:20 β Notable absences
33:08 β ZODIARK
35:03 β Outro
Questions, suggestions, other weird stuff I missed? Drop a comment here! You can find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Cleretic/, at Cohost at https://cohost.org/Cleretic/ for stuff thatβs too long for a tweet but too short/fleeting for a video, or on Bluesky (thereβs less chance of using this) at https://bsky.app/profile/cleretic.bsky.social!
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30:30 So what you're saying is that Ancient society would very much approve of the Archon Loaf.
No wonder they fell.
I really loved your last two videos, when I reached Amourtoh I was amazed, but the more I learned form the ancients the more I (for lack of a better term) hated their soceity, but I have been not able to found soemone who shares that criticism, the way you expose and explain everything wrong with them is amazing, that soceity was deppresing almost in every aspect and this last videos were catartic
I'm glad you covered this. I have a feeling we're not done with the convocation and we may be seeing another member quite soon.
I do wonder if what we know as the ancients were the only sentient naturally occurring species on the unsundered world or if the place across the sea that encountered the final days first were another species that ended up being wiped out during the final days or being decimated to the point that they died out over time.
Edit: I wanted to add a bit of a theory I have. During the Hades fight, we see a full face mask of the ancient variety prominently (and repetitively) displayed on his model, particularly on the wings in phase 2.
It is the same color and has similar concentric rings displayed on it as Hades' own mask. It is also front and center in the mask scene before the level 83 trial. I believe this belonged to Hythlodaeus. This would explain why it was the largest and most repeated mask on Hades' wings (representing his burdens/lost people). Also, right after that mask disappeared in the 83 cutscene… "Believe and walk in faith…"
This indicates that the ancients had more than one type of mask. Likely a casual and professional variety (like we have loungewear and work clothes). None of the masks on Hades or in the cutscene were white masks and none of the convocation went into the Zodiark soup.
What all of that was leading up to: My theory is that the concentric rings on the masks of Hades' and what I believe to be Hythlodaeus may be related to their ability to see aether/souls as we don't see that sort of adornment elsewhere.
Happy dawntrailing!
The Unknown joke made me actually laugh out loud. Good one
I have to wonder if part of the reason the whole "tempering on summoning" thing happens with primals is that by their very nature primals are warping and converting the aether around them into something they can use to do primal stuff, and they don't really care if the aether they're converting is ambient aether or aether that makes up the people around them. Especially in the case of the ancients who are sacrificing bits of their own aether in the creation process, maybe this caused some unintentional aetheric backwash during the summoning that tempered the remaining ascians (a thing that they would go on to weaponize with primals). The magnitude of the effects with tempering seems to inversely correlates with the amount of personal aether someone has at their disposal, if you have a shit ton of aether like the ancients or first brood dragons while you're definitely tempered, you seem to be able to retain a lot of your original personality and sense of self, whereas if you have little (like most sundered people on the source) you're much more likely to get overtaken. Of course modern primals seem to be designed to actively want to warp and convert as much aether around them as they possibly can which would make them especially dangerous towards sundered life.
It's interesting to think about the process ascians must have went through to break down exactly how it works, like were the first primals just relying on tempering as a side effec until the acsians really nailed down how to encourage that process to happen. Did they ever even realize that they were being tempered by zodiark or did they just think that was a thing that happened to non-ancients. Considering the events that led to the void clearly they figured out the whole primal thing relatively early but I wonder if the primals back then were much less refined as weapons. Did they settle on the primal idea due to the whole "we need to cause aetheric instability" thing or was that just a thing they figured out along the way? We may never fully know but it's fun to speculate.
To further ad to FFXIV's nuanced approach to religion we have the ancients. "If the gods intended the natural world to look this way, they must have had a very cruel sense of humor." The Allagans show us people playing god metaphorically, and literally using religion as a weapon(what else do you call summoner). The ancients show that even if you approach the concept literally, it doesn't get better.
This is of course wonderfully juxtaposed in EW by Thavnair, where their faith literally allowed them to do what the ancients could not, and survive the final days. It doesn't need to be literally real to matter, and if we're honest, it's probably for the better that it isn't.
Good video!
I haven't commented under any of ur videos since very first one but ive been following since then and that was before i really came understand my identity but it is and still super cool and motivating to see how comfortable you are being trans in your content so i really thank you alot for that and also of course always having great content
"The reason bad things happen to good people is because the world was designed by UTTER WEIRDOS!" So true. Also relevant IRL, honestly.
Got it don't fight you with creation magic. How souls work in the lore is one of my fav little details. Nah the point of the Roman empire was to make the best Saber in Fate.
Themis notes in the Pandemonium quest line that what Hephestos and Athena were doing, merging Hemi-theos and themselves in order to augment and transcend seemingly biological limitations (what little the ancients must've had) was the realm of the gods.
I don't think I have ever seen the face to match the voice… so I am going through the same uncanny valley phase as when I first saw Larryzaur in a video instead of his character xD same here same here, idk why I expect to see an ingame character irl but tell that to my brain
On the ability to see and distinguish souls, I seem to recall from one of the short stories that this by itself is not uncommon, but it is the extent and distance over which Emet and Hyth are able to do so which sets them apart. I would liken it to most people being able to hear sounds, but only a very rare number having synesthesia.
On an unrelated note about the ancients seemingly never getting sick or deteriorating, I've always wondered what's the deal with vampire guy's spectacles.
And on Altima, the ancients seemed to highly value the aesthetic presentation of their creations, and I would assume that they maybe have something to do with curating the prevailing sensibilities related to that.
Love your videos. Canβt wait to hear your takes from Dawntrail when you get there π
Hesperos also call himself a hemitheos, a semi-god. So I suppose they did have some concept of what a god is
Days without thinking about the Roman Empire: 0
Missed the chance to say "Say GODNIGHT…" when he said."I made a bird that scream"
Damn. Jumpscare holymoly, dude
New viewer here. Came for the Ancient lore, stayed for the Jacob horse.
RE the apex predator… it's a huge thing in occultism to understand the 'levels' of reality and logic. Your own ego has 1 job: Make sure the host body doesn't die. Your ego is the ONLY thing in the universe that cares that much about you. Even your soul, true self, etc cares less since it's immortal, your ego is your body though, but in that, it's pretty generic and one dimensional. It just cares at 1000% for pure existence and nothing else. Therefor, you can't trust a soul in partnership with an ego to make decisions that are healthy for the ecosystem, the collective, the long term plan for the system. So of course, you need predators to cull overpopulation since the #1 rule of life is that nothing willingly offs itself due to the presence of the ego, required for higher ordered life.
So who culls the predators??? Well, there's only 2 options: The king of the current tier, and the higher tier up. Higher tiers up don't like this job because it's literally punching down, can get tedious, emotionally draining, a big responsibility, etc. So an apex predator performs a critical role of culling the otherwise uncullable. Remember, in nature (and therefor Elpis') philosophy… a cremated or buried away from nature body is a wasted body. Everything that exists should be used somehow. So having an apex around to delegate the big culls to (ideally with some kind of limiting 'flaw' like poor breeding stock, crazy long lifespans and therefor often failing to come to adulthood, etc) means you, as the 'higher' being, only have to check in every once in awhile to make sure the apexes aren't just running around OP and ruining the system.
So in summary… yea no shit that the people stuck in the tier with that apex wouldn't like that, lol. It's like having your boss working at the same desk as you. But in order for the larger being to keep on churning, it's necessary. The thing I love about FFXIV is that they (Yoshi-p?) absolutely NAIL the theological and occult logic PERFECTLY in a way I have legit never, ever seen fiction do outside of the Final Fantasy series. (7 was the kick-off there. Well, tbh 6 was the real start point. 4 had little glimmers. 5 is more of a good adventure at it's core like older ones.) So ofc the Elpis storyline with the apex boils down to "Ok, so, uhh I made this thing and it's WAY too good at it's job. Can you kill it off so I can try again?". That is PRECISLY how nature self-assembles! I love the Elpis section more than anything else in all of video games I've ever seen in my 35 years on this earth. I absolutely LOVE seeing the East interpret the West's esoteric history that we, in the West, are only vaguely aware of on a day to day basis. Revenge for Orientalism π
Great video! I gotta get that encyclopedia book.