So to start out, this is just a theory based on the evidence presented. There's possibly something I've missed. However, given what we know, I think that it holds up overall. Also, I know there was a plan for more Egis in the gameplay; however, that was removed and the Lore was edited to reflect this, and this is a LORE discussion.
Short Short Version (aka tl;dr): The Allgans only had four shares of their soul since they went through three rejoinings, and thus could only dedicate enough to support three egis; by that math, modern Source residents SHOULD be able to summon seven, but we're using techniques from the Allagan perspective and didn't know our souls were heaver, and thus we spent more on the Egis than we needed to.
Prelude to the Short and Long Versions: In the Summoner Heavensward Quests, we start trying to take the stain on our aether from when we beat Ramuh and shape it into Ramuh-Egi. In the process, however, we fail to manifest this creation despite following the steps outlined for the Austerities of Lightning. It should be noted that the Austerities are elementally based, not ascribed to a given Primal/Eikon, so it's not that Ramuh didn't exist at the time. The real reason, as later given, is that the Allagan method of summoning used up a certain portion of the summoner's aether, and thus limited the summoner to only three egis; the spiritual energies of a person couldn't support more than that. To work around this, they developed the Trance - a way of attuning to an outside source of aether to gain more power. We chose Bahamut for this, both because the Seventh Calamity infused Eorzea, if not all of Hydaelyn, with it enough that anyone could attune to it, and because using his power would be among the strongest options available to us, which would help in beating the Ascians that were behind the "dark summoners."
However, let's rewind to that limitation a moment. The issue was that the soul could only support three egi manifestations. However, I posit that this limitation is due to a method that, while applicable for the Allagans, inefficiently uses our aether in the post-Seventh Calamity world we live in, and in light of the events of Shadowbringers, new variations of those techniques could allow future summoners the potential to summon up to seven egis.
To get to this, consider what we've learned about the Calamities from Heavensward and Shadowbringers. We learn in Heavensward that reality was split into 14 realms, and that the Calamities involve the destruction of one such realm to rejoin it to the Source - the world the PC WoL is from and lives on. Shadowbringers takes this further, showing us that each soul currently alive in a body was part of a whole as well, similarly split into 14 parts. The Rejoining leads to the essences of splintered souls to also rejoin into the "Source" soul, and thus all those alive through a calamity on the Source or born on the Source after a Calamity are more "aetherically dense" than a resident of another shard. By the end of the Seventh Calamity, a native of the Source would have the equivalent of eight souls of a First resident (the native soul, plus one for each of the seven rejoinings).
Short Version Conclusion: I think the Allagan techniques we are using were written using proportions of available aether, but that using those techniques failed to account for the ADDED aether of multiple calamities. If modern researchers realized this flaw, I think it would be possible to create more aethers - up to seven currently, though the WoL could (if not already a Summoner) create eight after rejoining with Ardbert. However, because the discovery of the rejoinings was so recent, it meant that the techniques were not properly updated, keeping us from stretching our aether out more.
Now, this is a moot point for most would-be "modern" summoners, as they aren't facing that many primals in the three City-states - most are in Ul'dah and Thanalan and thus only facing Ifrit, and even Jajasamu, who sailed with the Company of Heroes in La Noscea would have, at most, come into contact with Titan and hypothetically Leviathan. However, it still is possible for new summoners to learn more efficient techniques - some among the Scions have been present for the fall of Primals even if unable to confront them, with Y'shtola and Alphinaud both having been present at the defeats of multiple primals and Krile having encountered no fewer than three herself (plus Eureka) despite being mostly a non-combatant and healer.
Longer Exploration: Now, aetheric density alone does not determine power. We've seen this multiple times - even the Warrior of Light's counterpart from the First, Ardbert, was a threat to us when acting as a Warrior of Darkness, and despite being aetherically lesser overall than the Unsundered Ascian (and far, FAR more inexperienced, by millenia), their various shortcomings plus the specific nature of the WoL's original "self" allowed the WoL to beat them all in the end. And not all souls are equal in this regard - we run into people who naturally cannot channel their aether, and thus are unable to work magic. However, this additional aether does theoretically have some impact on the total potential we can achieve in certain areas of magic. In theory, natives of the Source in the present should be able to achieve greater deeds than those of past eras given the same knowledge and technology. The Allagans were capable of greater feats with their technology than the present, but they also had direct access to Omega and direct Ascian influence, and modern tech has begun to catch up (and even after an Eighth Calamity, one timeline exceeded the Allagan and even Ascian magitechnological limits to travel time and dimensions physically).
Given that, I posit that the use of the Allagan methods to create Egis is flawed in the modern age, and results in a three-egi limit not because our souls can't handle it, but rather because theirs couldn't handle more. The Allagan methods were based on a time when souls were essentially four-fold, to our eight - in the Third Astral Era, they had endured three calamities total, and thus three rejoinings, but in the present we've had four more of each. Their methods likely portioned off a PERCENTAGE of essence to create the Egis, with another portion dedicated to supporting them. However, if we followed those techniques EXACTLY without accounting for our own spiritual density - which we likely did given even the Sharlayan's likely ignorance and the fact that we were using Allagan soulstones to directly impart their techniques - it's possible that the method caused us to use the same proportions of our aether to make our Egis and support their existence - but thus wasted a large amount on oversupporting each one individually.
It's like following a recipe. Imagine you had 12 portions of all the necessary ingredients to make a cake. If the recipe said to use three portions of each ingredient, you could theoretically make four cakes. However, if the recipe said to use "half of what you have," you'd only get two cakes out of the deal - potentially larger or denser cakes, but still only two cakes. However, for someone who was writing the recipe with only six portions, the results of "use three" and "use half" would have been the same; if they were careless in this, future readers may have very different outcomes, but to the writer, this wouldn't be an issue. The soul crystals were inscribed with the techniques of individual summoners; if they had the same viewpoint of using a quarter of their souls instead of measuring the energy expended, they would have passed it on as such without us even considering the alternative.
Now, there is one major issue with this: if aetheric density impacts potential why were the Allagans capable of greater feats of technology three Calamities back with less aetheric density? Well, part of what made the Allagans the greatest magi-technological civilization was not their aether or the lack thereof, but having direct access to an incapacitated Omega to copy the technology from, along with Ascian aid in utilizing, developing, and powering this technology to the fullest. Allagan-based devices in the present are capable of recreating their wonders and even surpassing them, as we see with the Crystal Tower using more Omega-tech and Alexander-tech to traverse time and dimensions, and with the magitek engines developing a theoretical magic to undo tempering, something that the Allagans thought out of reach (though that was also due to internal pressures and conspiracies) - albeit they lacked the power to do so safely for longer than a certain period. Thus, though the Allagans were capable of greater feats on average, people the modern day can surpass them and have started to. We also can see similarly great feats having been lost to time under the Fifth Era, with the Mhachi developing Voidgate technology and Ozma, among other advances - it's not impossible that other technologies were lost in the flood of the Sixth Umbral Calamity that are only now being rediscovered or reinvented.
submitted by /u/EndlessKng
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Short Short Version (aka tl;dr): The Allgans only had four shares of their soul since they went through three rejoinings, and thus could only dedicate enough to support three egis; by that math, modern Source residents SHOULD be able to summon seven, but we're using techniques from the Allagan perspective and didn't know our souls were heaver, and thus we spent more on the Egis than we needed to.
Prelude to the Short and Long Versions: In the Summoner Heavensward Quests, we start trying to take the stain on our aether from when we beat Ramuh and shape it into Ramuh-Egi. In the process, however, we fail to manifest this creation despite following the steps outlined for the Austerities of Lightning. It should be noted that the Austerities are elementally based, not ascribed to a given Primal/Eikon, so it's not that Ramuh didn't exist at the time. The real reason, as later given, is that the Allagan method of summoning used up a certain portion of the summoner's aether, and thus limited the summoner to only three egis; the spiritual energies of a person couldn't support more than that. To work around this, they developed the Trance - a way of attuning to an outside source of aether to gain more power. We chose Bahamut for this, both because the Seventh Calamity infused Eorzea, if not all of Hydaelyn, with it enough that anyone could attune to it, and because using his power would be among the strongest options available to us, which would help in beating the Ascians that were behind the "dark summoners."
However, let's rewind to that limitation a moment. The issue was that the soul could only support three egi manifestations. However, I posit that this limitation is due to a method that, while applicable for the Allagans, inefficiently uses our aether in the post-Seventh Calamity world we live in, and in light of the events of Shadowbringers, new variations of those techniques could allow future summoners the potential to summon up to seven egis.
To get to this, consider what we've learned about the Calamities from Heavensward and Shadowbringers. We learn in Heavensward that reality was split into 14 realms, and that the Calamities involve the destruction of one such realm to rejoin it to the Source - the world the PC WoL is from and lives on. Shadowbringers takes this further, showing us that each soul currently alive in a body was part of a whole as well, similarly split into 14 parts. The Rejoining leads to the essences of splintered souls to also rejoin into the "Source" soul, and thus all those alive through a calamity on the Source or born on the Source after a Calamity are more "aetherically dense" than a resident of another shard. By the end of the Seventh Calamity, a native of the Source would have the equivalent of eight souls of a First resident (the native soul, plus one for each of the seven rejoinings).
Short Version Conclusion: I think the Allagan techniques we are using were written using proportions of available aether, but that using those techniques failed to account for the ADDED aether of multiple calamities. If modern researchers realized this flaw, I think it would be possible to create more aethers - up to seven currently, though the WoL could (if not already a Summoner) create eight after rejoining with Ardbert. However, because the discovery of the rejoinings was so recent, it meant that the techniques were not properly updated, keeping us from stretching our aether out more.
Now, this is a moot point for most would-be "modern" summoners, as they aren't facing that many primals in the three City-states - most are in Ul'dah and Thanalan and thus only facing Ifrit, and even Jajasamu, who sailed with the Company of Heroes in La Noscea would have, at most, come into contact with Titan and hypothetically Leviathan. However, it still is possible for new summoners to learn more efficient techniques - some among the Scions have been present for the fall of Primals even if unable to confront them, with Y'shtola and Alphinaud both having been present at the defeats of multiple primals and Krile having encountered no fewer than three herself (plus Eureka) despite being mostly a non-combatant and healer.
Longer Exploration: Now, aetheric density alone does not determine power. We've seen this multiple times - even the Warrior of Light's counterpart from the First, Ardbert, was a threat to us when acting as a Warrior of Darkness, and despite being aetherically lesser overall than the Unsundered Ascian (and far, FAR more inexperienced, by millenia), their various shortcomings plus the specific nature of the WoL's original "self" allowed the WoL to beat them all in the end. And not all souls are equal in this regard - we run into people who naturally cannot channel their aether, and thus are unable to work magic. However, this additional aether does theoretically have some impact on the total potential we can achieve in certain areas of magic. In theory, natives of the Source in the present should be able to achieve greater deeds than those of past eras given the same knowledge and technology. The Allagans were capable of greater feats with their technology than the present, but they also had direct access to Omega and direct Ascian influence, and modern tech has begun to catch up (and even after an Eighth Calamity, one timeline exceeded the Allagan and even Ascian magitechnological limits to travel time and dimensions physically).
Given that, I posit that the use of the Allagan methods to create Egis is flawed in the modern age, and results in a three-egi limit not because our souls can't handle it, but rather because theirs couldn't handle more. The Allagan methods were based on a time when souls were essentially four-fold, to our eight - in the Third Astral Era, they had endured three calamities total, and thus three rejoinings, but in the present we've had four more of each. Their methods likely portioned off a PERCENTAGE of essence to create the Egis, with another portion dedicated to supporting them. However, if we followed those techniques EXACTLY without accounting for our own spiritual density - which we likely did given even the Sharlayan's likely ignorance and the fact that we were using Allagan soulstones to directly impart their techniques - it's possible that the method caused us to use the same proportions of our aether to make our Egis and support their existence - but thus wasted a large amount on oversupporting each one individually.
It's like following a recipe. Imagine you had 12 portions of all the necessary ingredients to make a cake. If the recipe said to use three portions of each ingredient, you could theoretically make four cakes. However, if the recipe said to use "half of what you have," you'd only get two cakes out of the deal - potentially larger or denser cakes, but still only two cakes. However, for someone who was writing the recipe with only six portions, the results of "use three" and "use half" would have been the same; if they were careless in this, future readers may have very different outcomes, but to the writer, this wouldn't be an issue. The soul crystals were inscribed with the techniques of individual summoners; if they had the same viewpoint of using a quarter of their souls instead of measuring the energy expended, they would have passed it on as such without us even considering the alternative.
Now, there is one major issue with this: if aetheric density impacts potential why were the Allagans capable of greater feats of technology three Calamities back with less aetheric density? Well, part of what made the Allagans the greatest magi-technological civilization was not their aether or the lack thereof, but having direct access to an incapacitated Omega to copy the technology from, along with Ascian aid in utilizing, developing, and powering this technology to the fullest. Allagan-based devices in the present are capable of recreating their wonders and even surpassing them, as we see with the Crystal Tower using more Omega-tech and Alexander-tech to traverse time and dimensions, and with the magitek engines developing a theoretical magic to undo tempering, something that the Allagans thought out of reach (though that was also due to internal pressures and conspiracies) - albeit they lacked the power to do so safely for longer than a certain period. Thus, though the Allagans were capable of greater feats on average, people the modern day can surpass them and have started to. We also can see similarly great feats having been lost to time under the Fifth Era, with the Mhachi developing Voidgate technology and Ozma, among other advances - it's not impossible that other technologies were lost in the flood of the Sixth Umbral Calamity that are only now being rediscovered or reinvented.
submitted by /u/EndlessKng
[link] [comments]
Continue reading...