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Unnecessary Speculation Thread on the Origins of Eorzean Races - Printable Version

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Unnecessary Speculation Thread on the Origins of Eorzean Races - Mia Moui - 11-06-2015

I was reading this article.

It's about a moratorium being placed on the development of partly human animals or chimera.  It occurred to me that perhaps something like this, the deliberate altering of genes might be what gave rise to the different races of Hydaelyn.  

The game makes it fairly clear that all of the player character races are genetically compatible, meaning they are essentially the same species.  It's hard to imagine how all of Hydaelyn's people came to be so different through a natural process and still remain genetically compatible.

Surely the technology existed at one point.  Some Hydaelyns were in space, on the moon and beyond in the past.  I've just been presuming that the various races came about because of magic or some other supernatural intervention.  It hadn't occurred to me that it might be something done deliberately long ago for reasons that have been lost to time.

The development of Chimeras would have to be a painstaking process and one strictly controlled.  But what it were not?  Wouldn't it be easier to create monsters? Carnivorous plants, semi-intelligent dust balls, violent gopher people, kangaroo people, giant crabs, and so forth.

It's not a knowable thing, so that's why it's unnecessary speculation.  That aside, what does your character think - if anything - about the origins of the races? And in addition, what does your character think of the semi-intelligent or semi-sentient creatures of Eorzea?

RE: Unnecessary Speculation Thread on the Origins of Eorzean Races - FreelanceWizard - 11-06-2015

So, there's some lore bits of interest here.

Primals and dravanians often refer to the PC races as the "Sons of Man." This is a common construction across all of them and other "antiquated language" NPCs.

We know the Allagans were capable of genetic engineering (according to Fernehalwes, that's how Xande, Amon, and others got to be so huge), cloning, and hybridization. Azys Lla, the Aetherochemical Research Facility, and the Fractal Continuum all have Allagan experiments in them, and the Continuum actually talks about how Allag created artificial voidsent, the predecessor race that degenerated into the Ixal, and so on.

So with that in mind... my totally speculative idea is that the other races are the result of genetic experimentation and augmentation by Allag.

As for L'yhta? She doesn't think much of it. It's one of the blind spots in her perception of the world; much like how she takes tides as a given and doesn't look into the why or how, she does the same with the different races of Eorzea.

RE: Unnecessary Speculation Thread on the Origins of Eorzean Races - Unnamed Mercenary - 11-06-2015

Going on Freelance's ideas (because I'd be pretty interested in seeing if that's the case), I just have one issue.

The Miqo'te lore states that some Keepers of the Moon can trace their names back to the First Astral Era. But that predates the Allagans by a few calamities.

RE: Unnecessary Speculation Thread on the Origins of Eorzean Races - McBeefâ„¢ - 11-06-2015

Good thread.

One thing that I think interesting about FFXIV is that it's not as much a Fantasy World, as a science fiction one. 

It's the successors to a great and powerful interstellar race growing up in the ashes of that world, and viewing technology as magic.

Having the races be engineered would seem pretty logical to me.

RE: Unnecessary Speculation Thread on the Origins of Eorzean Races - FreelanceWizard - 11-06-2015

(11-06-2015, 03:51 PM)Unnamed Mercenary Wrote: The Miqo'te lore states that some Keepers of the Moon can trace their names back to the First Astral Era. But that predates the Allagans by a few calamities.

Drat, I forgot about that. Well, that blows a hole in the side of the idea, unless we're willing to accept that that's a commonly believed fact or developed prior to the recent Allagan revelations. On the one hand, the devs have done this before (the naming conventions were something of a retcon themselves, as 1.0 players will tell you, and some of the "unreliable narration" smells of retcons), but the on the other, I don't want to second-guess the lore as written. Smile

XIV: It's Not Fantasy, It's Post-Apocalyptic Superhero Sci-Fi. I'm surely not the only person who's noticed genre similarities between XIV and Numenera, for instance?

EDIT: Ah, I reread the post on naming conventions, and it says: "It is said that some of these surnames have survived since the First Astral Era."

Curious.

RE: Unnecessary Speculation Thread on the Origins of Eorzean Races - McBeefâ„¢ - 11-06-2015

(11-06-2015, 04:00 PM)FreelanceWizard Wrote:
(11-06-2015, 03:51 PM)Unnamed Mercenary Wrote: The Miqo'te lore states that some Keepers of the Moon can trace their names back to the First Astral Era. But that predates the Allagans by a few calamities.

Drat, I forgot about that. Well, that blows a hole in the side of the idea, unless we're willing to accept that that's a commonly believed fact or developed prior to the recent Allagan revelations. On the one hand, the devs have done this before (the naming conventions were something of a retcon themselves, as 1.0 players will tell you, and some of the "unreliable narration" smells of retcons), but the on the other, I don't want to second-guess the lore as written. Smile

XIV: It's Not Fantasy, It's Post-Apocalyptic Superhero Sci-Fi. I'm surely not the only person who's noticed genre similarities between XIV and Numenera, for instance?
I mean "Earth Lore" can trace names back to the "Start of the World" if you're a christian.

That doesn't mean it's true. 

Perhaps the moonkeeper lore is the same way? Just because they believe it's that old doesn't mean it's true.

RE: Unnecessary Speculation Thread on the Origins of Eorzean Races - Mia Moui - 11-06-2015

(11-06-2015, 04:02 PM)McBeefâ„¢ Wrote:
(11-06-2015, 04:00 PM)FreelanceWizard Wrote:
(11-06-2015, 03:51 PM)Unnamed Mercenary Wrote: The Miqo'te lore states that some Keepers of the Moon can trace their names back to the First Astral Era. But that predates the Allagans by a few calamities.

Drat, I forgot about that. Well, that blows a hole in the side of the idea, unless we're willing to accept that that's a commonly believed fact or developed prior to the recent Allagan revelations. On the one hand, the devs have done this before (the naming conventions were something of a retcon themselves, as 1.0 players will tell you, and some of the "unreliable narration" smells of retcons), but the on the other, I don't want to second-guess the lore as written. Smile

XIV: It's Not Fantasy, It's Post-Apocalyptic Superhero Sci-Fi. I'm surely not the only person who's noticed genre similarities between XIV and Numenera, for instance?
I mean "Earth Lore" can trace names back to the "Start of the World" if you're a christian.

That doesn't mean it's true. 

Perhaps the moonkeeper lore is the same way? Just because they believe it's that old doesn't mean it's true.

I agree.

And there may be a history that no one remembers or that there's little evidence for. If there was a civilization hundreds of thousands or millions of years before, there'd be next to no sign of it.

RE: Unnecessary Speculation Thread on the Origins of Eorzean Races - FreelanceWizard - 11-06-2015

(11-06-2015, 04:02 PM)McBeefâ„¢ Wrote: I mean "Earth Lore" can trace names back to the "Start of the World" if you're a christian.

That doesn't mean it's true. 

Perhaps the moonkeeper lore is the same way? Just because they believe it's that old doesn't mean it's true.

Particularly given the exact phrasing I added in my edit while you were posting, that seems plausible. Sure, "it is said" that they go back that far, but do they really? We've seen huge historical events from prior eras be lost, misconstrued, or actively covered up -- even relatively recent ones -- and we also know the average level of knowledge of Eorzeans is pretty low.

RE: Unnecessary Speculation Thread on the Origins of Eorzean Races - Kage - 11-06-2015

(11-06-2015, 04:00 PM)FreelanceWizard Wrote:
(11-06-2015, 03:51 PM)Unnamed Mercenary Wrote: The Miqo'te lore states that some Keepers of the Moon can trace their names back to the First Astral Era. But that predates the Allagans by a few calamities.

Drat, I forgot about that. Well, that blows a hole in the side of the idea, unless we're willing to accept that that's a commonly believed fact or developed prior to the recent Allagan revelations. On the one hand, the devs have done this before (the naming conventions were something of a retcon themselves, as 1.0 players will tell you, and some of the "unreliable narration" smells of retcons), but the on the other, I don't want to second-guess the lore as written. Smile

XIV: It's Not Fantasy, It's Post-Apocalyptic Superhero Sci-Fi. I'm surely not the only person who's noticed genre similarities between XIV and Numenera, for instance?

EDIT: Ah, I reread the post on naming conventions, and it says: "It is said that some of these surnames have survived since the First Astral Era."

Curious.

It's the speculation of some heavy lore types *cough*Anonymoose*cough* that if it says stuff like "It is said" that you have to treat it as word of mouth in the game, which means that it can be faulty. His words "It's canon misinformation - an SE-sanctioned lie told to you from the point of view of as far as Eorzeans know and the Elezen claim. The lore team for FFXIV saw that many games contain books, NPCs, and system interactions that imply this impossible omniscience about the game's world, and they didn't want Eorzea to be like that. Sometimes a revelation is meant to clear up an unknown and help you understand, sometimes you're getting a false prophet telling you what's apparent to them at the time."

Some stuff similar to that train of thought here.

Sometimes I wish I was on Excalibur to pick Anonymoose's brains. Or hyperion *whispers*Sounsyy*

RE: Unnecessary Speculation Thread on the Origins of Eorzean Races - allgivenover - 11-06-2015

Picking apart the wording further...

It states the NAMES can be traced back that far, not Keepers specifically.

The five races being Allagan created has been my favorite pet theory since I first set foot in Second Coil and saw all the chimera and lamia they'd obviously been tinkering with.

I didn't really give it any weight until the Iksalion blurb though.

Actually there are six races now (artificial voidsent == Au Ra?)

RE: Unnecessary Speculation Thread on the Origins of Eorzean Races - Sounsyy - 11-06-2015

(11-06-2015, 02:58 PM)Mia Moui Wrote: It occurred to me that perhaps something like this, the deliberate altering of genes might be what gave rise to the different races of Hydaelyn.  

I mean...

Aetherochemical Compound #123 Wrote:Unlike anything else on Erozea, compound #123 is thought to be another of the Allagan Empire's failed chimeric creations. The creature seems to be harmless enough, feeding only on the tiny water lice which inhabit Azys Lla's aetherochemical pools. Its outer hide, however, has given many a naturalist pause as it bears a texture almost identical to that of a Lalafell's skin.

Exhibit VI: The Naga Wrote:Among the first successful efforts in synthesizing a voidsent. Void Research remains an emerging field, with future developments holding great promise.

Exhibit VII: The Iksalion Wrote:A highly intelligent construct employed by allagan engineers to perform maintenance tasks. Notable flaws include a weakness against the elements and certain genetic instabilities.

Sightseeing Vista #041 Wrote:Quarantine Block
This floating islet in a lonely corner of Azys Lla served as an isolation area for chimerical creations which failed to meet established safety parameters. Historical records indicate that the facility began its life as a research center for advanced agricultural crossbreeding.

The list goes on, so its certainly possible.

As far as the Miqo'te discussion goes, while its possible that Allag mutated and altered the species into a cat crossbreed, Miqo'te were once populous upon the southern continent of Meracydia, which defended against Allag for almost its entire 1,000 year history. While POWs, like Phlegethon, were very likely used for experimentation purposes (as well as hunting and target practice) we're talking a small portion of a population being altered and then subsequently being hunted for sport or obliterated during the Earthquake.

Wouldn't the larger population of native Miqo'te on Meracydia, who survived the atrocities of Allag be the ones who carried on the species? Especially considering we have lore now stating the Miqo'te left Meracydia during the 5th Umbral Era, 2000 years later and that's how the tribes we know today came to be in Eorzea. So, while an interesting theory, it doesn't quite add up. It's not like the Iksalions who were created by the Allagans and then introduced to the wild. Miqo'te pre-dated the Allagans and only a small fraction of them at best could've been mutated.


Tracking Node Wrote:Remember to come back again to... <buzzzzzz> ...next week's target... <buzzzzzz> ...and three Miqo'te... <buzzzzzz>

Loading Screen Wrote:It is believed the Miqo'te first came to Eorzea during the Fifth Umbral Era, fleeing their ravaged homeland on the southern continent of Meracydia.

Fat Cat Wrote:Despite convincing research by top academics from around the realm and beyond, most Miqo'te scholars refuse to believe that there may be some ancestral connection between their race and cats (fat or not).

NOAH Report Wrote:Adored though he was, the revolutionary leader was eventually captured by agents of the empire. Scholarly records give a chilling account of how his body was forcibly altered through sorcery and science, his mind broken and conditioned to obey. An example was made of Phlegethon, a hideous warning of the fate that awaited those who refused to kneel.


RE: Unnecessary Speculation Thread on the Origins of Eorzean Races - FreelanceWizard - 11-06-2015

(11-06-2015, 11:27 PM)Sounsyy Wrote: As far as the Miqo'te discussion goes, while its possible that Allag mutated and altered the species into a cat crossbreed, Miqo'te were once populous upon the southern continent of Meracydia, which defended against Allag for almost its entire 1,000 year history. While POWs, like Phlegethon, were very likely used for experimentation purposes (as well as hunting and target practice) we're talking a small portion of a population being altered and then subsequently being hunted for sport or obliterated during the Earthquake.

Wouldn't the larger population of native Miqo'te on Meracydia, who survived the atrocities of Allag be the ones who carried on the species? Especially considering we have lore now stating the Miqo'te left Meracydia during the 5th Umbral Era, 2000 years later and that's how the tribes we know today came to be in Eorzea. So, while an interesting theory, it doesn't quite add up. It's not like the Iksalions who were created by the Allagans and then introduced to the wild. Miqo'te pre-dated the Allagans and only a small fraction of them at best could've been mutated.

Do you know of any lore suggesting the miqo'te were in Meracydia during the time of Allag? We know that it was largely a dravanian country/continent during the time of Allag, based on what Tiamat talks to us about in Azys Lla. They came over in the 5th Umbral Era, yes, but they could have been there between the 3rd Astral and then, as opposed to being natives of Meracydia. I'm thinking of a situation where Allag constructed the miqo'te during the height of their power -- perhaps as something Allagan people did to themselves for augmentation, or perhaps to build a race of slaves -- and some of them were in Meracydia after it was conquered. When the Empire fell, they were the race that survived there (I'm thinking of the ground dwellers in Chrono Trigger, by analogue). Absent the Empire and other influences, they formed a culture and ultimately lost their history to the ravages of time.

Of course, that all falls apart if we have evidence that miqo'te were on Meracydia during the time of Allag. The implication I read in Azys Lla is that the continent was populated by dravanians only, but I may have missed something!

RE: Unnecessary Speculation Thread on the Origins of Eorzean Races - Kage - 11-06-2015

(11-06-2015, 11:27 PM)Sounsyy Wrote:
Tracking Node Wrote:Remember to come back again to... <buzzzzzz> ...next week's target... <buzzzzzz> ...and three Miqo'te... <buzzzzzz>
I'm not sure what point this is used this for, for miqo'te presence or race over all. The node uses whatever the player's race is. So for me, It said three Lalafell.

RE: Unnecessary Speculation Thread on the Origins of Eorzean Races - LiadansWhisper - 11-06-2015

(11-06-2015, 11:44 PM)FreelanceWizard Wrote: Do you know of any lore suggesting the miqo'te were in Meracydia during the time of Allag? We know that it was largely a dravanian country/continent during the time of Allag, based on what Tiamat talks to us about in Azys Lla. They came over in the 5th Umbral Era, yes, but they could have been there between the 3rd Astral and then, as opposed to being natives of Meracydia. I'm thinking of a situation where Allag constructed the miqo'te during the height of their power -- perhaps as something Allagan people did to themselves for augmentation, or perhaps to build a race of slaves -- and some of them were in Meracydia after it was conquered. When the Empire fell, they were the race that survived there (I'm thinking of the ground dwellers in Chrono Trigger, by analogue). Absent the Empire and other influences, they formed a culture and ultimately lost their history to the ravages of time.

Of course, that all falls apart if we have evidence that miqo'te were on Meracydia during the time of Allag. The implication I read in Azys Lla is that the continent was populated by dravanians only, but I may have missed something!

I've heard this theory before.

RE: Unnecessary Speculation Thread on the Origins of Eorzean Races - Edgar - 11-07-2015

(11-06-2015, 11:55 PM)LiadansWhisper Wrote:
(11-06-2015, 11:44 PM)FreelanceWizard Wrote: Do you know of any lore suggesting the miqo'te were in Meracydia during the time of Allag? We know that it was largely a dravanian country/continent during the time of Allag, based on what Tiamat talks to us about in Azys Lla. They came over in the 5th Umbral Era, yes, but they could have been there between the 3rd Astral and then, as opposed to being natives of Meracydia. I'm thinking of a situation where Allag constructed the miqo'te during the height of their power -- perhaps as something Allagan people did to themselves for augmentation, or perhaps to build a race of slaves -- and some of them were in Meracydia after it was conquered. When the Empire fell, they were the race that survived there (I'm thinking of the ground dwellers in Chrono Trigger, by analogue). Absent the Empire and other influences, they formed a culture and ultimately lost their history to the ravages of time.

Of course, that all falls apart if we have evidence that miqo'te were on Meracydia during the time of Allag. The implication I read in Azys Lla is that the continent was populated by dravanians only, but I may have missed something!

I've heard this theory before.

It wouldn't surprise me, but at the same time, I'm sure at some point we would have seen the progenitors of modern day Miqo'te somewhere on Azys Lla if this theory were true. Allag didn't really use its genetic alterations for much more than warfare and extending lives, and the Miqo'te are mortal and highly advanced considering.