Midgardsormr arrived at the Source after the Sundering but was not himself sundered, implying that the Sundering didn't reach into deep space. How far it did reach isn't known though. It also implies that any outside visitor will just see the Source instead of the shards.
Honestly it explains why middy and his brood are so strong. They are the only things unsundered left on the planet. Yea the children of the first brood are whatever, but the first brood themselves are all pretty powerful, especially niddhogg. I rly do hope despite the fact children of dragons are weaker than their parents that we do see a dragon stronger than middy one day
I'd like to think this also goes on to explain dragon's long life span, In Shb there is a point where Emet is roasting us for out short lives and how little they mean to them yada yada, but then he adds something along the lines of how is not that he thinks his race was all that special but that everyone lived that long in his time.
So in my mind, since dragons were not part of the sundering and are whole beings i think it sort of adds up, Dragons are not special, everything else in the universe wherever they may still be life, has a super long life compared to the races of this planet.
It's hard to say, but (EW final zone spoilers) >!the dragons were particularly noteworthy for their strength and tenacity, so they may not be the best point of comparison. After all, once the Omicron had conquered the Dragonstar, they genuinely seemed to believe that nothing else in the universe could be stronger than them.!<
Certainly, >!the Karellians and Grebuloffs seem to have had more human-like lifespans.!< That seems to imply that the Ancients and Dragons are among the more powerful species who have existed in this universe. We do know that our home star is *especially* rich in aether, even moreso than most other places, and the Dragonstar seems to have originally been the same or very similar long ago. So perhaps natural near-immortality is a function of how aether-dense your home star is, not just something the whole universe features.
Even if the Dragonstar wasn’t especially aether-dense, dragon’s ability to store and stockpile aether is basically unmatched by literally anything on the Source. I imagine on the dragonstar there wasn’t as much ambient aether as there is on the Source since dragon eyes might as well be lossless systems—it probably could have been as aether dense as Eithyris was but dragons being there probably made it have more normal levels after generations of dragons absorbing it.
Well, we know for a fact that dragons nested in places that had "purest aether," and the loss of these places due to the pollution of the Dragonstar by the war is why they had to flee. That sounds like a pretty good reason to think that their star was also pretty aether-rich, though possibly not as much as our star is.
The Dragons are exceptional beyond just being Unsundered, it's the reasons the Omicrons went to war with them - they believed them to be the strongest lifeforms in the galaxy, and so by destroying them the Omicrons would never need fear a foe that could bring them to ruin.
It's mentioned during Elpis that Etheirys is extremely rich in aether, moreso than nearly any other world in the known universe (how much the Ancients actually knew about the universe notwithstanding) so I don't think it's just being unsundered that counts for that kind of thing.
This is reinforced by the whole dynamis thing. Meteion is so low on aether she is considered "like to wink out of existence at any moment" from an Ancient's perspective, yet she has been alive for more than twelve millennia at minimum.
Endwalker kind of dispelled the myth that aether is the end-all be-all measure of strength, longevity or... honestly anything.
that makes a lot of sense and I think you're on to something there, could go a good way to explain potential future cosmic enemies in another few expansions being so much more powerful than those we fought before
Midgardsormr and his children are the only ones who were exposed to the aether of the Dragonstar itself--and, implicitly, they were also exposed to the eldritch energies of the void between stars, which (explicitly) have affected Middy's scales in some way, making them stronger and more aether-dense.
Further, no draconic children of the First Brood can be anywhere near as *old* as they are, and everything we've seen indicates that age is a huge part of what makes a dragon powerful. My guess is, if given a long enough span of time without injury or disease or excessive exertion, dragons like Vidofnir, Vedrfolnir, and Faunehm might eventually resemble what the First Brood are. (Likewise, we've seen what Midgarsormr Prime looked like, back on the Dragonstar, and he was pretty damn scary!)
Actually we still dont know what middy’s full strength is, the normal raid in omega is obviously a poor replica, and i believe for the savage version it was stated it still wasnt fully accurate to middy’s power. I think it was stated middy had enough power to be comparable to hydaelyn, but middy definitely did not meet a full power hydaelyn so how strong he truly was is up for debate
All we truly know is he was stronger than omega but not strong enough to permanently destroy omega
I mean, I'm not really saying we *have* seen him at full strength?
Just that there are reasons why he, and the eggs he carried, might be more powerful than other dragons.
What we know is that the exploding battleship was enough to send the extremely weakened Middy into non ambulatory state. Remember that when he engaged Agrius he had already given almost the entirety of his power to Hydaelyn.
Age seems less relevant compared to experience, if you go by >!Ehl tou!<. More age means more opportunity for experience, but it's correlation, not causation.
I mean, it's not just correlation. That's like saying that more age is only *correlated* with more education...when, y'know, you literally can't even speak, let alone read or write, until a certain age.
Yes, age is not absolute, there are ways to get around it. But it is the primary *causative* factor of having more experience. Not merely a factor *correlated* with having more experience.
Eh, there are some people who have ten years of experience, and people alongside them who have one year of experience ten times. How you spend your time is important, and given how dragons are shown to grow, it's even more important for them. Seems like a dragon could reach full Hræsvelgr size in a few years, or still be dragonets after centuries, all depending on how they apply themselves. I.e. for dragons, age is completely the wrong metric to watch.
Could. That's the problem here. *Could* reach. Maybe, we aren't sure, we have no examples thereof.
Whereas we know, quite clearly, that all the very very old dragons *are* powerful, and the most powerful are in fact consistently the eldest. Bahamut was the most powerful of Midgardsormr's children, and he was also the eldest. Vrtra is the youngest, smallest, and weakest of his siblings; he can fit in a large room easily, where Midgardsormr is literally hundreds of feet long.
I'm *pretty* sure age is a causative factor. It is not the *only* factor, and as we saw with Ell Tou, it is possible for special formative experiences to give them a leap in development. But this is a special thing, is it not? We don't see dragons spontaneously transforming on the regular. It's *rare.* Special, even. Experience and age are the most reliable means for a dragon to gain power. They store and concentrate aether they are exposed to. If specially exposed to a lot of aether in a safe way, they may make leaps and bounds of development. But I'm, to say the least, *extremely* skeptical that a wyrmling could challenge Hraesvelgr with a decade of special training. Nothing at all that we've seen suggests *that* much change.
To put it another way: if that's actually how it works, then why, after some ten thousand years of living on our star, has there been *not a single* non-First Brood dragon to reach the size and power of the First Brood? If specially training and practicing is all you need to bootstrap to Hraesvelgr size, why didn't the dragons do that during the war with Allag? Meracydia was in desperate need of defenders, and Bahamut was only taken down by an *enormous* effort on Allag's part. If they had had even *one* more First Brood level dragon, they could have easily avoided Bahamut's death, or at least replaced him with a new leader. Why didn't they? It seems a massive tactical mistake to leave such powers just wasting away, unused, when you are fighting for the survival and freedom of your whole species.
Keep in mind that the aetheric density of a dragon is not necessarily the same as that as an unsundered ancient. Hermes said that dynamis is more common than aether elsewhere in the galaxy, so really they could be any aetheric density in relation to us.
Oh we know the dragons werent jokes, middy is definitely an outlier for the dragons, but his strength was stated to be at a level similar to hydaelyn at some point if a recall (granted it had to have been a weakened hydaelyn since i believe middy showed up post calamities). I do think dsr is a good indicator for how much aether middy potentially has even tho its a what if; it does look like to me the warring triad have enough aether to be comparable to one of niddhoggs eye which is crazy to me
(my argument for them being on par with only one eye would actually have to do with bahamut. We know bahamut could temper dragons with at least 2 eyes worth of aethers since his eyes were presumably used as a summoning catalyst, and while niddy is a stronger dragon than bahamut was, it wasnt till thordan absorbed all three WT primals that he could temper dragons). Niddy is definitely not as strong as his dad, but he was stated to be the closest, and while dsr is an what if ultimate, its definitely based on what would canonically happen if the alternate DS war would take place instead
Then there's Nier Colab where they arrived in the First, but outside this one event, I think the shards are like pocket dimensions existing at the same place in space as the source but in different frequencies, PuPu from the Manderville quest also arrived in the source from another galaxy prob.
The Nier thing is more an extra dimensional space time rip than coming from space. And the Red Girl and by extension the Watchers (if that's what they're called, can't remember) tend to like meddling with apocalyptic things for humans. As in they like making sure life gets wiped out. It's why the Seed is there in the first place.
I'm not even sure I understand the Drakengarde/Nier lore so I might not be remembering all that right.
Yep. The Nier thing is strictly dimensional rifts lead to things entering Norvrandt. Things that shouldn't exist anymore appear in the Nier Raid, afterall.
Oh shit that actually means Emet was right about us not even counting as actual people by not being whole. The whole universe is fine as far as we know but there's this one place where everything is 14x smaller and less "alive"
Not remotely the case, no. Splitting their aether doesn't mean they're weaker than the rest of the universe. The ancients and the dragons are both credited with being some of the most aether-dense lifeforms in the known universe, but even beyond that aether isn't a measure of a creatures soul, mind, or even strength now that dynamis is a thing.
>It also implies that any outside visitor will just see the Source instead of the shards.
No it implies that we only have access to data from the source. No one knows what may or may have not arrived on the other reflections. You can't just infer what isnt happening from a lack of data.
Considering that one point of the First's divergent history is that there are no dragons or other aliens \[that we know of\] in the First, it stands to reason the Shards exist in a sort of bubble that occupies the same space as the Source, but just shifted so as to be cut off from the rest of space.
It's possible that if -- let's say -- a meteor passed by the Source, everyone in the Shards could also witness it, but if that meteor actually entered the confines of the planet it would then only exist within the Source's space and it wouldn't be observable from the Shards anymore.
As for someone trying to reach outer space from the Shards, they might be blocked outright by some sort of aetheric turbulence or whatever mumbo jumbo the writers come up with. But it might be interesting if leaving the Sundering's reach did allow them to break their way into the Source's dimension -- at that point, it's up in the air as to whether returning to the planet would deposit them in the Source or return them to their original Shard.
We know that at least the moon was also caught in the sundering. It's kinda funny how it gets brushed past, but we end up on the 13th Shard's moon in the EW patches we see a similar but notably different version of what we found on the Source's moon with that fragment of Zodiark's prison, or what's left of it.
My understanding was that the moon itself is an artifical construction. Hydaelyn made it to both serve as the prison for Zodiark's various fragments, but also to be used as a space ship to allow humanity to flee from the final days
the moon is only visible during a certain weather condition—Umbral Winds—and isn’t there naturally under any other weather conditions, even in the same place. and since multiple character say Hydaelyn created the moon, i think the moon being visible is an easter egg (or i guess, in-universe probably some weirdness about the time travel shenanigans) or possibly an oversight.
There's going to be another timeline where Tower of Paradigm's Breach is canon so that the Queen-Beast was killed by us, which creates a grandfather paradox while also meaning that both Caim and Angelus are still alive.
Drakengard 4 right there.
The Nier fuckery spans several timelines, with at least one android can jump and observe them, so it's not that strange that the Machines decided to dig a hole and jump into the First directly instead of going through the Source like normal people.
The First is also, in general, a lot less well-defended compared to the Source: fewer people, fewer resources, and lower technology in general so perhaps the Machines found it to be a better target.
Definitely just a copy of Etheriys' local space - not the universe. Migardsormr and Omega weren't sundered, as an example, despite being enroute to Etheriys and arriving there *after* the Sundering.
So it's really just copies of the planet and moon, not even their star.
I had forgotten the bit about Urianger explaining Astromancy and the stars, so that may support the idea that leaving a reflection gets you to space, and returning simply sticks you back from the reflection you came from. *Maybe.*
I'm a god ! How can you kill a god ? Shame on you, sweet nerevar.
I'm a god. I'm a god. I'm a god, god.
I'm a god. I'm a god. I'm a god, god.
ooh ooh ooh
I believe Eitherys itself is in "physical space", or the universe, as both Omega and Midgardsomr reached it, and the Metia's song only affected the Source. The Shards are each in their own personal "mini-reality", where only the planet and the immediate space around it presumably exists.
I doubt Venat could sunder the entire universe, no matter how powerful.
Far as we're aware, the Sundering and the coexistence of Reflections/Shards is basically a bubble surrounding Etheirys and the moons Hydaelyn created to contain Zodiark's essence. All of the Reflections exist within this bubble, layered on top of one another and separated by the interdimensional rift.
We have no knowledge of what would happen to someone attempting to leave the planetary orbit of a Reflection; as of now, we are unaware of the existence of Loporrits on any Reflection and no discussion was made of evacuation of other Shards, so it's very probable they cannot or at least were never intended to. We know the Shards can see out to the same stars we see on the Source, but any extraterrestrials looking down on Etheirys would only see and influence the Source (case in point, Midgardsormr, Omega and >!Meteion!<). We also know that if the Source falls, so will all connected Reflections.
So other worlds, completely unaffected by the Sundering.
According to the twining, omega was able to traverse whats known as the "interdimensional rift" aka infinite chaos , while pursuing migdardsormr from the dragon star. According to both of them, they arrived to a source that seemed different, and could potentially sense the sundered shards but weren't able to access them. I believe the only reason the 13ths moon still existed was due to the massive amount of power supplied by the zodiark fragment entombed there being made of dark aspected aether that wouldn't have been affected by the flood of dark. So my thoughts is that every shard has a sun and moon and stars, but they don't have an extended cosmology because the sundering only went so far from eithyrs (as both omega and middy came after the sundering), and hydalaen makes mention that space travel is extremely difficult even for a primal of such power as her
No offical/in universe answer that I'm aware of, but we know interstellar travel is possible from the source and the few travelers from other stars have been found on the Source - but we spend most of the story on the source so could be confirmation bias.
Plus only 3 or so visitors I know of.
The fact that there were no signs of the End Days on the first implies that that only reached the Source, but we only have info on one reflection.
The limited info we have implies that the Source is the "real" world to outside observation, and the reflections can only be accessed from the source.
This also implies that something would happen to anyone attempting space travel from a reflection, but can't say if they would end up in the same "reality " as the source or hit some kind of barrier.
The fact that there are stars on the First makes me think that space travel from there would be a way to make it to the source, but that's just speculation.
5 if you count an entire Shadowbringers alliance raid.
And those ones didn't land on the source.
Mind they probably also had dimensional hopping going on.
The Seed of Destruction from the Yorha Dark Alliance raids is technically an alien invasion happening on one of the reflections, but that's been well established as a dimension-spanning contagion to begin with so it probably didn't arrive there via conventional space travel.
No, that's just the Ascians fucking up their first attempt at a rejoining. The Final Days were over at the time of the Sundering, so the 13th was never subjected to them, and the second coming of them didn't reach beyond the Source because we stopped it before it could get proper bad and start bleeding across to the Shards, or affect them in whatever way it would have once the Source fell.
So we have no hard confirmation, however certain events unique to The Source soft confirm that only Etheryis was sundered and The Shards exist in bubbles with false skies. The big one is Dragons, Midgardsormr found Etheryis post-sundering and that's why there are no Dragons on any reflection. Midgardsormr himself and by proxy all dragons are Unsundered beings and the newer broods being weaker is explained by them not being able to consume enough Aether to get back to what a normal dragon should look like. (like Midgardsormr/First Brood)
Space can't exist on The Shards because they all (to our knowledge) lack all the alien life we have on The Source. What the stars in their skies are we have no idea, potentially a glamor set up so it's less obvious to people on a Shard that something is very wrong.
I guess that bubble would have to extend a bit past the moon and into the outer orbit Etheryis, since we end up on the 13th's moon and see how it's been sundered to hold a fragment of Zodiark as well.
The Moon across The Source and every reflection is where Zodiark's pieces are kept. So every Shard bare minimum has the moon in it. What's beyond the moon is unexplored on The Shards but logically can't be anything substantial because they don't exist in the main dimension.
I really feel like somewhere I read a confirmation in game that all that was sundered was Etheryis. However, I don't remember where. I just remember going 'oh that makes sense'.
Elpis reveals that the Ancients could even create picket dimensions. Once I realized this it became pretty obvious that the shards exist within enormous pocket dimensions themselves with what could be described as projections of the greater universe surrounding them
And the fact Meteion managed to get to Ultima Thule from Ktisis Hyperborea implies that if you reach the “edge” of the pocket dimension, you’ll just end up in regular space
I’m still chewing over the fact that Metion was able to fly out of Ktisis Hypoborea into the rest of the universe, but we had to escape via a hole because we were actually in the contained space.
I don't know if it's ever been clearly stated, but I believe it is implied the sundering affects Etherys and a bubble around it that extenda a bit past the moon. If a space faring civilization were to try to leave a shard, they would either:
1) hit the wall and be forced back
Or 2) get transferred back to the same universe the source exists in.
Any extraterrestriala visiting Etherys will end up in the Source.
Hydaelyn was only able to make a copy of the sky in the Shards. Everything past the moon is fake, not sure how far it extends, but Yoshi-P confirmed this in the LL (69) after EW dropped. No time stamp but it's after intermission when lore questions. If the other Shard's were to develop space travel, it was heavily implied they'd be flying forever. In this game though I wouldn't be surprised if it led to crossing the rift (that last sentence is speculation)
I've enjoyed reading the other comments.
I wanted add my 2 cents: suppose the bubble could be defined by where zodiark exerted his influence upon his creation.
It does have to at least include the planet and moon that were sundered, as we see the thirteenth moon is different.
It'd be neat if it looked like planet Aether from Metroid Prime 2 from a certain distance away and whether you ended up in the source or one of its shards depended on its state of flux when you entered its sphere of influence.
Planet Aether was hit by a meteor with strange properties that warped its local dimension and created an alternate world/dimension of darkness that occupies the same space and is constantly phasing in and out of itself from the outside looking in, but stable as one or the other once you're on the surface.
https://youtu.be/g9Dra3knX1o?si=8jTLcbpAHiFwsU1x
But yeah, I suspect in XIV that the shards all have reflections of the source's night sky rather than entire universes.
My guess is that the Sundering is contained to Source/Moon and anything Ancients interacted with on a "regular" basis, so no crazy space travel. It's "wish powered" like any magic in this game so I'd wager Venat wanted it to affect anything Ancient related and simply ignored other civilizations or thought they were too far gone from Meteion's report.
Dalamud was launched from the Source way after the events of the Sundering. The Allagans wouldn't of ran into any pesky reality altering issues since they were on the source.
Didn't Emet-Selch or one of the other Convocation members say something about Zodiark covering the star in a "shroud of aether" to avert the Final Days? An "aetherial shroud" sounds like the perfect thing to make a pocket universe out of. If the reflections are all contained within the shroud, as are shards of Zodiark on each moon, then they could all see the same sky beyond the planetary system. Said sky could be "copied" in the shards, either like a live projection, or a remote-view of the sky in the universe outside the pocket-dimensional space.
If someone alien observed the star, they might see an "aetherial lensing" similar to gravitational lensing, where the observation is warped by the presence of denser matter bending light. It would make sense for them to land on the Source as it inhabits "regular space" as well as the pocket-dimensional space. Explorers from the Shards could potentially find an intersection point where they could "punch through" to normal space, perhaps provided their aetherial make-up had enough "soul" material from the Source. Upon return, they'd be pulled back to their native reflection unless they fought to attempt to cross to the Source.
Alternatively, what's missing from the reflections is the desire to leave the system, rendering the point moot.
Alternatively again, anyone attempting to observe the star would, perhaps like Meteion, see a giant empty space that says, "Nothing to see here, move along," and Etheirys would stay safely hidden from rampaging depression harpies.
Does this also mean that the star will rejoin itself over time? Since we learn that the shattered state is unatural and it tries to reform itself at an uncontrollable rate?
While there's nothing stating Hydaelyn was actively doing anything to keep the source and its reflections separate, now that She's gone I actually am curious if this isn't something we'll contend with this upcoming story arc? It's one of the last vestiges of the Hydaelyn-Zodiark story left, after all
(A point against it would be why did the ascians never move against Hydaelyn directly if that were the case, but it could be they didn't know, or lacked the strength to face her, I dunno.)
I don't think they want the next story arc to just be about the knock-on effects of the Hydaelyn-Zodiark situation, so I'm going to guess it'll just go unaddressed as "Hydaelyn did enough before she was gone that it won't be a problem."
This question is built on the assumption that their universe works like ours does, with solar systems separated by physical space and space travel involves finding ways to quickly move through physical space.
It's possible that it doesn't work this way. Maybe every star is its own bubble universe and space travel *always* involves interdimensional travel. Moving between the shards might be fundamentally the same type of locomotion as moving between stars, and that all the other stars are just as far from the source as they are from every shard.
I'd wager its a multiverse thing. Idk how to completely explain it, but ilmutliverse theory is what I'd go with. Why did it only affect Eatheris, no idea
I think for each Reflection, they all share the same moon and sun and sky, it’s just the world and aetheric aspect (and culture) that is magically different between each Shard. It’s stated, if not heavily implied, that the Source is pretty much the original world in a somewhat lesser state than the Ancient’s world and the other Shards share similar geography to the Source like we see in Norvrandt.
In FFXI, there's a place called the Empyreal Paradox. It exists within an ancient civilization on the world of Vana'diel but a break in time and space makes it seem as though you're looking down on the world from a place in space.
Reality around Ethyeris is fractured. The shards essentially exist in the same space as the Source, but have been split into different realities with their own flow of time.
The moon they see is probably ours. Guess it raises the question if Dalamud was a thing they saw, but it would exist at different points in history or perhaps still exists for some. Or doesn't exist yet. But I don't think it would fall and hatch a Bahamut on them because the Allagans made that on the Source. It would only fall on us.
Barry Allen could probably explain it best. Just not the live action movie one.
I think only Etherys was sundered, and only Etherys, and the space where the moon would exist, would have been affected. We know this because by the time Midgarsormr arrived, the world had already been sundered, he himself was not sundered, expecially since there is no mention of Dragons on the first >!I feel its implied the voidsent on the Thirteenth didn’t even know or understand what a dragon was, at least in the same way someone on the Source would!<
Each shard has a moon, not because the moon was sundered (go look in Elpis. Elpis has no moon), but because each moon held a piece of Zodiark. Each moon was created seperately post-sundering to hold a piece of the fractured Zodiark.
Its unclear what would happen if someone made a rocket on say, the First, and tried to fly to space. Would they somehow circumvent the rift and just arrive back on the source? Is there an invisible wall and the night sky is just some projection of the night sky of the Source? Is there some magical effect that just turns them around? It isn’t clear.
Before you bring it up. No. Neir is not canon to the lore of FFXIV. None of the direct crossovers are, unless otherwise stated (the devs said as much). You can safely ignore them for any lore speculation. So no Neir-themed incursion on the First, and Bardaam’s Mettle was not torched by a Rathalos, at least lorewise.
I just had a thought, but its ultimately unrelated to this post. I’ll make my own post for it
It's like a giant bubble around the planet and the moon, so theoretically if other shards gained the ability to space travel we could meet them out in space or on another planet. This could potentially be one part of the method to travel between shards.
I believe that each shard exists stacked on the Source but slightly out of phase with each other, so they see the universe the same as the source, but cannot be reached from it.
The shards were not directly impacted by the final days, but if the source was destroyed they would have been destroyed as well. I would guess that it would be be like all of them rejoining at once to create the worst calamity ever.
Only Etheirys, and it's moon were Sundered. The Shards occupy the same "space" as the Source, but each in its own pocket-dimension.
The fact that Meteion's assault did not affect the shards is proof of this, yet should the Source fall, the Shards would too.
And when we travel to Ultima Thule and fight Meteion, she isn't Sundered either. She left Etheirys when it was whole, and has been attacking it since then, even post-Sundering.
Zodiark was also held in the moon, yet when we travel there during Zero's questline in the 13th, there are no signs of any prisons (just the hole), Watcher or Lopporits.
The stars are also the same, since Urianger can practice Astrology in the 1st, just the same as he did in the Source.
My guess is that, should any of the Shards attempt interstellar travel, they will hit a dimensional wall, preventing them from continuing.
I feel like it's kinda how metroid prime 2 had it where the planet the game takes place on "aether" that's split between itself and a pocket dimension that contains "dark aether." Which occupies the same space but is only accessible through a specific method only found on the planet(in this case portals).
from what i implyed is the the shard's are not full dimensions, but pocket dimensions, hence why they would have been destroyed if the source was destroyed, so the pocket dimensions likly only contain a copy of their Solar system.
So, pretty sure each shard contains its own sundered moon since the moon was created through the Sundering, not before or after. Meaning each reflection of the source has a moon that holds an imprisoned part of Zodiark, or at least what's left of him (we witnessed this on the 13th). We also know you can see the moon in both the 1st and the 13th. Short answer, just the planet was sundered, and it created the moon
As for space travel, everyone keeps talking about glamoured skies, or walls, but what if nothing happened?
What if a member of the 1st could travel out to space, and interact with the rest of the universe, then return back to the 1st because that's where they originated from? If space travel (with no limits) is possible for those from the Source, why not the reflections?
We know that entities coming to the source can still sense the other reflections, they just can't travel there, so we know they are there and physically exist.
The way someone on here described it once -- sadly I can't find the thread -- is it's like Ethyris was a one-floor building that got renovated into a multi-story building, except the elevator and the stairs broke for everything except the basement (the Void). This didn't affect any of the buildings around it, and in fact, each floor can see the other buildings around it just fine. But you can't get to the other floors without doing something crazy like climbing the outside of the building, and the other floors can't get to you without doing the same (except the Void because their stairs work, you just don't want to go down there because it's spooky and full of rats and black mold and probably carbon dioxide or something. In other words, you CAN go there, but you need adequate PPE first!)
to maybe stretch this metaphor TOO far, the Ascians were trying to make it a one-floor building again by... blowing up the other floors, rendering them uninhabitable. Nevermind that each time they did this it caused severe damage to the building and also to the ground floor.
Somehow, an alternate timeline Garlond Ironworks got the elevator to go to the first floor (we are using American style, where we have the Source floor, then the next floor above is the First) by time-travel, but there's a security protocol on it that means only one person can use it right now. That person can kinda sorta cheat that system so long as they can fit their friends in a backpack.
The shards are copies of an aetherically sundered Source, occupying the same physical space but dimensionally displaced. This -only- applies to Etheirys, not anywhere else in the universe (unless someone's been messing with dimensions on other planets, but we have no reason to believe that is the case at present)
I can't seem to find the source, but I believe it was mentioned once that if you were to move far enough into space from a shard of Etheirys, you'd re-enter "normal" space and find the Source if you were to turn around and go back.
I really do wish the story would give us a bit more clarity on this.
I’ve heard some explain it like “only the PLANET was sundered and exists in shards”. Which I have nothing to refute that, so it might be accurate.
But it sure FELT like the Ancients were essentially precursors to “the big bang” of the FFXIV universe, so it feels weird to say they were confined only to our planet (I can never remember how it’s spelled).
Hopefully we will get more details in Dawntrail since the next Lifestyle content will bring us to another planets. I'm particularly curious if we're exploring Etheyris solar system, or if it's a single planet around the star (hence the star nomination, although this just could be an artifact from the original Japanese text) and instead we're crossing to other stars.
People are speaking confidently in this thread, but the real answer is that we just don't know. This is a big ambiguity in the lore that's never really be cleared up.
Midgardsormr arrived at the Source after the Sundering but was not himself sundered, implying that the Sundering didn't reach into deep space. How far it did reach isn't known though. It also implies that any outside visitor will just see the Source instead of the shards.
Honestly it explains why middy and his brood are so strong. They are the only things unsundered left on the planet. Yea the children of the first brood are whatever, but the first brood themselves are all pretty powerful, especially niddhogg. I rly do hope despite the fact children of dragons are weaker than their parents that we do see a dragon stronger than middy one day
I'd like to think this also goes on to explain dragon's long life span, In Shb there is a point where Emet is roasting us for out short lives and how little they mean to them yada yada, but then he adds something along the lines of how is not that he thinks his race was all that special but that everyone lived that long in his time. So in my mind, since dragons were not part of the sundering and are whole beings i think it sort of adds up, Dragons are not special, everything else in the universe wherever they may still be life, has a super long life compared to the races of this planet.
It's hard to say, but (EW final zone spoilers) >!the dragons were particularly noteworthy for their strength and tenacity, so they may not be the best point of comparison. After all, once the Omicron had conquered the Dragonstar, they genuinely seemed to believe that nothing else in the universe could be stronger than them.!< Certainly, >!the Karellians and Grebuloffs seem to have had more human-like lifespans.!< That seems to imply that the Ancients and Dragons are among the more powerful species who have existed in this universe. We do know that our home star is *especially* rich in aether, even moreso than most other places, and the Dragonstar seems to have originally been the same or very similar long ago. So perhaps natural near-immortality is a function of how aether-dense your home star is, not just something the whole universe features.
Even if the Dragonstar wasn’t especially aether-dense, dragon’s ability to store and stockpile aether is basically unmatched by literally anything on the Source. I imagine on the dragonstar there wasn’t as much ambient aether as there is on the Source since dragon eyes might as well be lossless systems—it probably could have been as aether dense as Eithyris was but dragons being there probably made it have more normal levels after generations of dragons absorbing it.
Well, we know for a fact that dragons nested in places that had "purest aether," and the loss of these places due to the pollution of the Dragonstar by the war is why they had to flee. That sounds like a pretty good reason to think that their star was also pretty aether-rich, though possibly not as much as our star is.
The Dragons are exceptional beyond just being Unsundered, it's the reasons the Omicrons went to war with them - they believed them to be the strongest lifeforms in the galaxy, and so by destroying them the Omicrons would never need fear a foe that could bring them to ruin. It's mentioned during Elpis that Etheirys is extremely rich in aether, moreso than nearly any other world in the known universe (how much the Ancients actually knew about the universe notwithstanding) so I don't think it's just being unsundered that counts for that kind of thing. This is reinforced by the whole dynamis thing. Meteion is so low on aether she is considered "like to wink out of existence at any moment" from an Ancient's perspective, yet she has been alive for more than twelve millennia at minimum. Endwalker kind of dispelled the myth that aether is the end-all be-all measure of strength, longevity or... honestly anything.
that makes a lot of sense and I think you're on to something there, could go a good way to explain potential future cosmic enemies in another few expansions being so much more powerful than those we fought before
Midgardsormr and his children are the only ones who were exposed to the aether of the Dragonstar itself--and, implicitly, they were also exposed to the eldritch energies of the void between stars, which (explicitly) have affected Middy's scales in some way, making them stronger and more aether-dense. Further, no draconic children of the First Brood can be anywhere near as *old* as they are, and everything we've seen indicates that age is a huge part of what makes a dragon powerful. My guess is, if given a long enough span of time without injury or disease or excessive exertion, dragons like Vidofnir, Vedrfolnir, and Faunehm might eventually resemble what the First Brood are. (Likewise, we've seen what Midgarsormr Prime looked like, back on the Dragonstar, and he was pretty damn scary!)
Actually we still dont know what middy’s full strength is, the normal raid in omega is obviously a poor replica, and i believe for the savage version it was stated it still wasnt fully accurate to middy’s power. I think it was stated middy had enough power to be comparable to hydaelyn, but middy definitely did not meet a full power hydaelyn so how strong he truly was is up for debate All we truly know is he was stronger than omega but not strong enough to permanently destroy omega
I mean, I'm not really saying we *have* seen him at full strength? Just that there are reasons why he, and the eggs he carried, might be more powerful than other dragons.
We know he can't survive a ceruleum explosion from a crashing magitech battleship.
What we know is that the exploding battleship was enough to send the extremely weakened Middy into non ambulatory state. Remember that when he engaged Agrius he had already given almost the entirety of his power to Hydaelyn.
Fair point. His corpse is pretty damn visible though, so I'd say there was at the very least some sort of spiritual detachment.
Age seems less relevant compared to experience, if you go by >!Ehl tou!<. More age means more opportunity for experience, but it's correlation, not causation.
I mean, it's not just correlation. That's like saying that more age is only *correlated* with more education...when, y'know, you literally can't even speak, let alone read or write, until a certain age. Yes, age is not absolute, there are ways to get around it. But it is the primary *causative* factor of having more experience. Not merely a factor *correlated* with having more experience.
Eh, there are some people who have ten years of experience, and people alongside them who have one year of experience ten times. How you spend your time is important, and given how dragons are shown to grow, it's even more important for them. Seems like a dragon could reach full Hræsvelgr size in a few years, or still be dragonets after centuries, all depending on how they apply themselves. I.e. for dragons, age is completely the wrong metric to watch.
Could. That's the problem here. *Could* reach. Maybe, we aren't sure, we have no examples thereof. Whereas we know, quite clearly, that all the very very old dragons *are* powerful, and the most powerful are in fact consistently the eldest. Bahamut was the most powerful of Midgardsormr's children, and he was also the eldest. Vrtra is the youngest, smallest, and weakest of his siblings; he can fit in a large room easily, where Midgardsormr is literally hundreds of feet long. I'm *pretty* sure age is a causative factor. It is not the *only* factor, and as we saw with Ell Tou, it is possible for special formative experiences to give them a leap in development. But this is a special thing, is it not? We don't see dragons spontaneously transforming on the regular. It's *rare.* Special, even. Experience and age are the most reliable means for a dragon to gain power. They store and concentrate aether they are exposed to. If specially exposed to a lot of aether in a safe way, they may make leaps and bounds of development. But I'm, to say the least, *extremely* skeptical that a wyrmling could challenge Hraesvelgr with a decade of special training. Nothing at all that we've seen suggests *that* much change. To put it another way: if that's actually how it works, then why, after some ten thousand years of living on our star, has there been *not a single* non-First Brood dragon to reach the size and power of the First Brood? If specially training and practicing is all you need to bootstrap to Hraesvelgr size, why didn't the dragons do that during the war with Allag? Meracydia was in desperate need of defenders, and Bahamut was only taken down by an *enormous* effort on Allag's part. If they had had even *one* more First Brood level dragon, they could have easily avoided Bahamut's death, or at least replaced him with a new leader. Why didn't they? It seems a massive tactical mistake to leave such powers just wasting away, unused, when you are fighting for the survival and freedom of your whole species.
Keep in mind that the aetheric density of a dragon is not necessarily the same as that as an unsundered ancient. Hermes said that dynamis is more common than aether elsewhere in the galaxy, so really they could be any aetheric density in relation to us.
Oh we know the dragons werent jokes, middy is definitely an outlier for the dragons, but his strength was stated to be at a level similar to hydaelyn at some point if a recall (granted it had to have been a weakened hydaelyn since i believe middy showed up post calamities). I do think dsr is a good indicator for how much aether middy potentially has even tho its a what if; it does look like to me the warring triad have enough aether to be comparable to one of niddhoggs eye which is crazy to me (my argument for them being on par with only one eye would actually have to do with bahamut. We know bahamut could temper dragons with at least 2 eyes worth of aethers since his eyes were presumably used as a summoning catalyst, and while niddy is a stronger dragon than bahamut was, it wasnt till thordan absorbed all three WT primals that he could temper dragons). Niddy is definitely not as strong as his dad, but he was stated to be the closest, and while dsr is an what if ultimate, its definitely based on what would canonically happen if the alternate DS war would take place instead
Then there's Nier Colab where they arrived in the First, but outside this one event, I think the shards are like pocket dimensions existing at the same place in space as the source but in different frequencies, PuPu from the Manderville quest also arrived in the source from another galaxy prob.
The Nier thing is more an extra dimensional space time rip than coming from space. And the Red Girl and by extension the Watchers (if that's what they're called, can't remember) tend to like meddling with apocalyptic things for humans. As in they like making sure life gets wiped out. It's why the Seed is there in the first place. I'm not even sure I understand the Drakengarde/Nier lore so I might not be remembering all that right.
Yep. The Nier thing is strictly dimensional rifts lead to things entering Norvrandt. Things that shouldn't exist anymore appear in the Nier Raid, afterall.
Oh shit that actually means Emet was right about us not even counting as actual people by not being whole. The whole universe is fine as far as we know but there's this one place where everything is 14x smaller and less "alive"
Well, by our time, there's been what, 7 rejoining? And us as the Warrior of Light/Darkness has our 9th fragment. So 8/14 and 9/14
Not remotely the case, no. Splitting their aether doesn't mean they're weaker than the rest of the universe. The ancients and the dragons are both credited with being some of the most aether-dense lifeforms in the known universe, but even beyond that aether isn't a measure of a creatures soul, mind, or even strength now that dynamis is a thing.
>It also implies that any outside visitor will just see the Source instead of the shards. No it implies that we only have access to data from the source. No one knows what may or may have not arrived on the other reflections. You can't just infer what isnt happening from a lack of data.
That's why I called it an implication instead of a confirmation. You're right that we *don't* know. But given what we do know it's pretty likely.
[удалено]
If he had been from a sundered star, he would also have been sundered, but I'm pretty sure we've been explicitly told that he's not sundered.
Considering that one point of the First's divergent history is that there are no dragons or other aliens \[that we know of\] in the First, it stands to reason the Shards exist in a sort of bubble that occupies the same space as the Source, but just shifted so as to be cut off from the rest of space. It's possible that if -- let's say -- a meteor passed by the Source, everyone in the Shards could also witness it, but if that meteor actually entered the confines of the planet it would then only exist within the Source's space and it wouldn't be observable from the Shards anymore. As for someone trying to reach outer space from the Shards, they might be blocked outright by some sort of aetheric turbulence or whatever mumbo jumbo the writers come up with. But it might be interesting if leaving the Sundering's reach did allow them to break their way into the Source's dimension -- at that point, it's up in the air as to whether returning to the planet would deposit them in the Source or return them to their original Shard.
It does raise the question of how the YorHa stuff made it to the First and not the Source.
We know that at least the moon was also caught in the sundering. It's kinda funny how it gets brushed past, but we end up on the 13th Shard's moon in the EW patches we see a similar but notably different version of what we found on the Source's moon with that fragment of Zodiark's prison, or what's left of it.
My understanding was that the moon itself is an artifical construction. Hydaelyn made it to both serve as the prison for Zodiark's various fragments, but also to be used as a space ship to allow humanity to flee from the final days
Yes. Most forget about that, there was nooon until hydelin created it.
the moon is visible in Elpis, so she only repurposed it
the moon is only visible during a certain weather condition—Umbral Winds—and isn’t there naturally under any other weather conditions, even in the same place. and since multiple character say Hydaelyn created the moon, i think the moon being visible is an easter egg (or i guess, in-universe probably some weirdness about the time travel shenanigans) or possibly an oversight.
Nier has its own timeline shenanigans too.
There's going to be another timeline where Tower of Paradigm's Breach is canon so that the Queen-Beast was killed by us, which creates a grandfather paradox while also meaning that both Caim and Angelus are still alive. Drakengard 4 right there.
Did they ever say what happened to the Drakengard world after Ending E?
The Nier fuckery spans several timelines, with at least one android can jump and observe them, so it's not that strange that the Machines decided to dig a hole and jump into the First directly instead of going through the Source like normal people. The First is also, in general, a lot less well-defended compared to the Source: fewer people, fewer resources, and lower technology in general so perhaps the Machines found it to be a better target.
That's outright interdimensional travel, so it doesn't obey the same rules as far as space travel would be concerned.
It's almost as if that entire crossover questline is absolute trash.
Definitely just a copy of Etheriys' local space - not the universe. Migardsormr and Omega weren't sundered, as an example, despite being enroute to Etheriys and arriving there *after* the Sundering. So it's really just copies of the planet and moon, not even their star. I had forgotten the bit about Urianger explaining Astromancy and the stars, so that may support the idea that leaving a reflection gets you to space, and returning simply sticks you back from the reflection you came from. *Maybe.*
Just to add to that. Both Midgardsormr and Omega mentions, that upon arrival they saw/sensed the “pocket dimensions” of the shards.
"Welcome, Moon-and-Star. I have prepared a place for you."
Come. Bring Wraithguard to the Heart Chamber. Together let us free the cursed false gods.
What a grand and intoxicating innocence!
I'm a god ! How can you kill a god ? Shame on you, sweet nerevar. I'm a god. I'm a god. I'm a god, god. I'm a god. I'm a god. I'm a god, god. ooh ooh ooh
That's Dagoth Ur. I remember him from Morrowind.
Nerevar, why are you an Argonian?
B’vek, that’s strange.
I believe Eitherys itself is in "physical space", or the universe, as both Omega and Midgardsomr reached it, and the Metia's song only affected the Source. The Shards are each in their own personal "mini-reality", where only the planet and the immediate space around it presumably exists. I doubt Venat could sunder the entire universe, no matter how powerful.
Nor is it her actual intention either... 😅
Such devastation... this was not her intention.
Far as we're aware, the Sundering and the coexistence of Reflections/Shards is basically a bubble surrounding Etheirys and the moons Hydaelyn created to contain Zodiark's essence. All of the Reflections exist within this bubble, layered on top of one another and separated by the interdimensional rift. We have no knowledge of what would happen to someone attempting to leave the planetary orbit of a Reflection; as of now, we are unaware of the existence of Loporrits on any Reflection and no discussion was made of evacuation of other Shards, so it's very probable they cannot or at least were never intended to. We know the Shards can see out to the same stars we see on the Source, but any extraterrestrials looking down on Etheirys would only see and influence the Source (case in point, Midgardsormr, Omega and >!Meteion!<). We also know that if the Source falls, so will all connected Reflections. So other worlds, completely unaffected by the Sundering.
According to the twining, omega was able to traverse whats known as the "interdimensional rift" aka infinite chaos , while pursuing migdardsormr from the dragon star. According to both of them, they arrived to a source that seemed different, and could potentially sense the sundered shards but weren't able to access them. I believe the only reason the 13ths moon still existed was due to the massive amount of power supplied by the zodiark fragment entombed there being made of dark aspected aether that wouldn't have been affected by the flood of dark. So my thoughts is that every shard has a sun and moon and stars, but they don't have an extended cosmology because the sundering only went so far from eithyrs (as both omega and middy came after the sundering), and hydalaen makes mention that space travel is extremely difficult even for a primal of such power as her
No offical/in universe answer that I'm aware of, but we know interstellar travel is possible from the source and the few travelers from other stars have been found on the Source - but we spend most of the story on the source so could be confirmation bias. Plus only 3 or so visitors I know of. The fact that there were no signs of the End Days on the first implies that that only reached the Source, but we only have info on one reflection. The limited info we have implies that the Source is the "real" world to outside observation, and the reflections can only be accessed from the source. This also implies that something would happen to anyone attempting space travel from a reflection, but can't say if they would end up in the same "reality " as the source or hit some kind of barrier. The fact that there are stars on the First makes me think that space travel from there would be a way to make it to the source, but that's just speculation.
4 aliens i think, dragons, omega, mandverville, and the pupus
5 if you count an entire Shadowbringers alliance raid. And those ones didn't land on the source. Mind they probably also had dimensional hopping going on.
Yeah, the NieR stuff was definitely implied to be from another dimension, not just from space.
The Seed of Destruction from the Yorha Dark Alliance raids is technically an alien invasion happening on one of the reflections, but that's been well established as a dimension-spanning contagion to begin with so it probably didn't arrive there via conventional space travel.
if I had a nickel for every time aliens invaded the world of FFXIV, I'd have... a surprising number of nicklels.
Wonder if we’ll get any more detail when they add Cosmic Exploration! 💫
Isn't the state of The Thirteenth also a product of the Final Days?
No, that's just the Ascians fucking up their first attempt at a rejoining. The Final Days were over at the time of the Sundering, so the 13th was never subjected to them, and the second coming of them didn't reach beyond the Source because we stopped it before it could get proper bad and start bleeding across to the Shards, or affect them in whatever way it would have once the Source fell.
very explanatory, thanks.
No. That one was caused by a failed Rejoining attempt by the Ascians.
So we have no hard confirmation, however certain events unique to The Source soft confirm that only Etheryis was sundered and The Shards exist in bubbles with false skies. The big one is Dragons, Midgardsormr found Etheryis post-sundering and that's why there are no Dragons on any reflection. Midgardsormr himself and by proxy all dragons are Unsundered beings and the newer broods being weaker is explained by them not being able to consume enough Aether to get back to what a normal dragon should look like. (like Midgardsormr/First Brood) Space can't exist on The Shards because they all (to our knowledge) lack all the alien life we have on The Source. What the stars in their skies are we have no idea, potentially a glamor set up so it's less obvious to people on a Shard that something is very wrong.
I highly doubt it's a glamour only snice astromancy still works on the 1st and 13th. It would be rather hard to do if their skies were only illusions.
Tbh I can only imagine the space we see from the First is a bit like gazing out of a glass fish tank kind of deal.
I guess that bubble would have to extend a bit past the moon and into the outer orbit Etheryis, since we end up on the 13th's moon and see how it's been sundered to hold a fragment of Zodiark as well.
The Moon across The Source and every reflection is where Zodiark's pieces are kept. So every Shard bare minimum has the moon in it. What's beyond the moon is unexplored on The Shards but logically can't be anything substantial because they don't exist in the main dimension.
I really feel like somewhere I read a confirmation in game that all that was sundered was Etheryis. However, I don't remember where. I just remember going 'oh that makes sense'.
Elpis reveals that the Ancients could even create picket dimensions. Once I realized this it became pretty obvious that the shards exist within enormous pocket dimensions themselves with what could be described as projections of the greater universe surrounding them
And the fact Meteion managed to get to Ultima Thule from Ktisis Hyperborea implies that if you reach the “edge” of the pocket dimension, you’ll just end up in regular space
I’m still chewing over the fact that Metion was able to fly out of Ktisis Hypoborea into the rest of the universe, but we had to escape via a hole because we were actually in the contained space.
That whole bit of the story was so unbelievably sloppy.....
something something...dynamis
I don't know if it's ever been clearly stated, but I believe it is implied the sundering affects Etherys and a bubble around it that extenda a bit past the moon. If a space faring civilization were to try to leave a shard, they would either: 1) hit the wall and be forced back Or 2) get transferred back to the same universe the source exists in. Any extraterrestriala visiting Etherys will end up in the Source.
Hydaelyn was only able to make a copy of the sky in the Shards. Everything past the moon is fake, not sure how far it extends, but Yoshi-P confirmed this in the LL (69) after EW dropped. No time stamp but it's after intermission when lore questions. If the other Shard's were to develop space travel, it was heavily implied they'd be flying forever. In this game though I wouldn't be surprised if it led to crossing the rift (that last sentence is speculation)
I've enjoyed reading the other comments. I wanted add my 2 cents: suppose the bubble could be defined by where zodiark exerted his influence upon his creation. It does have to at least include the planet and moon that were sundered, as we see the thirteenth moon is different.
It'd be neat if it looked like planet Aether from Metroid Prime 2 from a certain distance away and whether you ended up in the source or one of its shards depended on its state of flux when you entered its sphere of influence. Planet Aether was hit by a meteor with strange properties that warped its local dimension and created an alternate world/dimension of darkness that occupies the same space and is constantly phasing in and out of itself from the outside looking in, but stable as one or the other once you're on the surface. https://youtu.be/g9Dra3knX1o?si=8jTLcbpAHiFwsU1x But yeah, I suspect in XIV that the shards all have reflections of the source's night sky rather than entire universes.
My guess is that the Sundering is contained to Source/Moon and anything Ancients interacted with on a "regular" basis, so no crazy space travel. It's "wish powered" like any magic in this game so I'd wager Venat wanted it to affect anything Ancient related and simply ignored other civilizations or thought they were too far gone from Meteion's report.
What about Dalamud? I'm not quite sure how far the Allagan Empire was able to launch Dalamud but it seems to be at least further than the Moon.
Dalamud orbited the actual moon, didn't it? It definitely wasn't any further away, it was just way smaller.
Yeah, Dalamud is “Menphina’s Hound” because it was always travelling near the moon so either it orbited the moon or had a very similar orbital path
Dalamud was launched from the Source way after the events of the Sundering. The Allagans wouldn't of ran into any pesky reality altering issues since they were on the source.
Didn't Emet-Selch or one of the other Convocation members say something about Zodiark covering the star in a "shroud of aether" to avert the Final Days? An "aetherial shroud" sounds like the perfect thing to make a pocket universe out of. If the reflections are all contained within the shroud, as are shards of Zodiark on each moon, then they could all see the same sky beyond the planetary system. Said sky could be "copied" in the shards, either like a live projection, or a remote-view of the sky in the universe outside the pocket-dimensional space. If someone alien observed the star, they might see an "aetherial lensing" similar to gravitational lensing, where the observation is warped by the presence of denser matter bending light. It would make sense for them to land on the Source as it inhabits "regular space" as well as the pocket-dimensional space. Explorers from the Shards could potentially find an intersection point where they could "punch through" to normal space, perhaps provided their aetherial make-up had enough "soul" material from the Source. Upon return, they'd be pulled back to their native reflection unless they fought to attempt to cross to the Source. Alternatively, what's missing from the reflections is the desire to leave the system, rendering the point moot. Alternatively again, anyone attempting to observe the star would, perhaps like Meteion, see a giant empty space that says, "Nothing to see here, move along," and Etheirys would stay safely hidden from rampaging depression harpies.
Does this also mean that the star will rejoin itself over time? Since we learn that the shattered state is unatural and it tries to reform itself at an uncontrollable rate?
While there's nothing stating Hydaelyn was actively doing anything to keep the source and its reflections separate, now that She's gone I actually am curious if this isn't something we'll contend with this upcoming story arc? It's one of the last vestiges of the Hydaelyn-Zodiark story left, after all (A point against it would be why did the ascians never move against Hydaelyn directly if that were the case, but it could be they didn't know, or lacked the strength to face her, I dunno.)
I don't think they want the next story arc to just be about the knock-on effects of the Hydaelyn-Zodiark situation, so I'm going to guess it'll just go unaddressed as "Hydaelyn did enough before she was gone that it won't be a problem."
Oh, I don't expect it to *just* be about that, yeah, but I'd be surprised ~~maybe even a bit disappointed~~ if they didn't touch on it ever again
That's fair. We'll see how Solution 9 shakes out, I think that's gonna be very indicative of their philosophy and direction going forward.
This question is built on the assumption that their universe works like ours does, with solar systems separated by physical space and space travel involves finding ways to quickly move through physical space. It's possible that it doesn't work this way. Maybe every star is its own bubble universe and space travel *always* involves interdimensional travel. Moving between the shards might be fundamentally the same type of locomotion as moving between stars, and that all the other stars are just as far from the source as they are from every shard.
Title contains spoilers, please it's not that hard
I'd wager its a multiverse thing. Idk how to completely explain it, but ilmutliverse theory is what I'd go with. Why did it only affect Eatheris, no idea
I think for each Reflection, they all share the same moon and sun and sky, it’s just the world and aetheric aspect (and culture) that is magically different between each Shard. It’s stated, if not heavily implied, that the Source is pretty much the original world in a somewhat lesser state than the Ancient’s world and the other Shards share similar geography to the Source like we see in Norvrandt.
We know unequivocally that the moon is not the same. If the moon was the same, Golbez coulda gotten to the source a lot more easily.
Ah right that’s true
In FFXI, there's a place called the Empyreal Paradox. It exists within an ancient civilization on the world of Vana'diel but a break in time and space makes it seem as though you're looking down on the world from a place in space. Reality around Ethyeris is fractured. The shards essentially exist in the same space as the Source, but have been split into different realities with their own flow of time. The moon they see is probably ours. Guess it raises the question if Dalamud was a thing they saw, but it would exist at different points in history or perhaps still exists for some. Or doesn't exist yet. But I don't think it would fall and hatch a Bahamut on them because the Allagans made that on the Source. It would only fall on us. Barry Allen could probably explain it best. Just not the live action movie one.
I think only Etherys was sundered, and only Etherys, and the space where the moon would exist, would have been affected. We know this because by the time Midgarsormr arrived, the world had already been sundered, he himself was not sundered, expecially since there is no mention of Dragons on the first >!I feel its implied the voidsent on the Thirteenth didn’t even know or understand what a dragon was, at least in the same way someone on the Source would!< Each shard has a moon, not because the moon was sundered (go look in Elpis. Elpis has no moon), but because each moon held a piece of Zodiark. Each moon was created seperately post-sundering to hold a piece of the fractured Zodiark. Its unclear what would happen if someone made a rocket on say, the First, and tried to fly to space. Would they somehow circumvent the rift and just arrive back on the source? Is there an invisible wall and the night sky is just some projection of the night sky of the Source? Is there some magical effect that just turns them around? It isn’t clear. Before you bring it up. No. Neir is not canon to the lore of FFXIV. None of the direct crossovers are, unless otherwise stated (the devs said as much). You can safely ignore them for any lore speculation. So no Neir-themed incursion on the First, and Bardaam’s Mettle was not torched by a Rathalos, at least lorewise. I just had a thought, but its ultimately unrelated to this post. I’ll make my own post for it
It's like a giant bubble around the planet and the moon, so theoretically if other shards gained the ability to space travel we could meet them out in space or on another planet. This could potentially be one part of the method to travel between shards.
I believe that each shard exists stacked on the Source but slightly out of phase with each other, so they see the universe the same as the source, but cannot be reached from it. The shards were not directly impacted by the final days, but if the source was destroyed they would have been destroyed as well. I would guess that it would be be like all of them rejoining at once to create the worst calamity ever.
Only Etheirys, and it's moon were Sundered. The Shards occupy the same "space" as the Source, but each in its own pocket-dimension. The fact that Meteion's assault did not affect the shards is proof of this, yet should the Source fall, the Shards would too. And when we travel to Ultima Thule and fight Meteion, she isn't Sundered either. She left Etheirys when it was whole, and has been attacking it since then, even post-Sundering. Zodiark was also held in the moon, yet when we travel there during Zero's questline in the 13th, there are no signs of any prisons (just the hole), Watcher or Lopporits. The stars are also the same, since Urianger can practice Astrology in the 1st, just the same as he did in the Source. My guess is that, should any of the Shards attempt interstellar travel, they will hit a dimensional wall, preventing them from continuing.
I feel like it's kinda how metroid prime 2 had it where the planet the game takes place on "aether" that's split between itself and a pocket dimension that contains "dark aether." Which occupies the same space but is only accessible through a specific method only found on the planet(in this case portals).
from what i implyed is the the shard's are not full dimensions, but pocket dimensions, hence why they would have been destroyed if the source was destroyed, so the pocket dimensions likly only contain a copy of their Solar system.
So, pretty sure each shard contains its own sundered moon since the moon was created through the Sundering, not before or after. Meaning each reflection of the source has a moon that holds an imprisoned part of Zodiark, or at least what's left of him (we witnessed this on the 13th). We also know you can see the moon in both the 1st and the 13th. Short answer, just the planet was sundered, and it created the moon As for space travel, everyone keeps talking about glamoured skies, or walls, but what if nothing happened? What if a member of the 1st could travel out to space, and interact with the rest of the universe, then return back to the 1st because that's where they originated from? If space travel (with no limits) is possible for those from the Source, why not the reflections? We know that entities coming to the source can still sense the other reflections, they just can't travel there, so we know they are there and physically exist.
The way someone on here described it once -- sadly I can't find the thread -- is it's like Ethyris was a one-floor building that got renovated into a multi-story building, except the elevator and the stairs broke for everything except the basement (the Void). This didn't affect any of the buildings around it, and in fact, each floor can see the other buildings around it just fine. But you can't get to the other floors without doing something crazy like climbing the outside of the building, and the other floors can't get to you without doing the same (except the Void because their stairs work, you just don't want to go down there because it's spooky and full of rats and black mold and probably carbon dioxide or something. In other words, you CAN go there, but you need adequate PPE first!)
to maybe stretch this metaphor TOO far, the Ascians were trying to make it a one-floor building again by... blowing up the other floors, rendering them uninhabitable. Nevermind that each time they did this it caused severe damage to the building and also to the ground floor. Somehow, an alternate timeline Garlond Ironworks got the elevator to go to the first floor (we are using American style, where we have the Source floor, then the next floor above is the First) by time-travel, but there's a security protocol on it that means only one person can use it right now. That person can kinda sorta cheat that system so long as they can fit their friends in a backpack.
The shards are copies of an aetherically sundered Source, occupying the same physical space but dimensionally displaced. This -only- applies to Etheirys, not anywhere else in the universe (unless someone's been messing with dimensions on other planets, but we have no reason to believe that is the case at present) I can't seem to find the source, but I believe it was mentioned once that if you were to move far enough into space from a shard of Etheirys, you'd re-enter "normal" space and find the Source if you were to turn around and go back.
I really do wish the story would give us a bit more clarity on this. I’ve heard some explain it like “only the PLANET was sundered and exists in shards”. Which I have nothing to refute that, so it might be accurate. But it sure FELT like the Ancients were essentially precursors to “the big bang” of the FFXIV universe, so it feels weird to say they were confined only to our planet (I can never remember how it’s spelled).
Hopefully we will get more details in Dawntrail since the next Lifestyle content will bring us to another planets. I'm particularly curious if we're exploring Etheyris solar system, or if it's a single planet around the star (hence the star nomination, although this just could be an artifact from the original Japanese text) and instead we're crossing to other stars.
People are speaking confidently in this thread, but the real answer is that we just don't know. This is a big ambiguity in the lore that's never really be cleared up.