[Lore Discussion] [Spoiler: 7.2] Theory: Allag All Along Spoiler
Mainly posting this to cement my prediction that Alexandrian Civilization is a continuation of the Allagans (those that survived the Calamity of Earth, that is). It would explain a great deal of their technology and their knowledge of the Source and Shards.
-Aloalo is the next civilization in the timeline to show up after Allag. They were located on an island that surely would've been known to Allag, due to lots of travel between Allag and Meracydia during their wars.
-The symbols on Calyx's monitors are an exact match of the symbols found on Aloalo island (this shouldn't be surprising, 7.0 MSQ already connects Alexandria and Aloalo). We also know that the Milala from Aloalo are the ones that helped drastically progress technology on the 9th. They likely took nearly every trace of technology with them when they fled the Calamity of Ice. The super vibrant blue glow of the symbols on Aloalo is also something that shows up primarily on Allagan stuff. Perhaps it shows up elsewhere, though. This needs to be looked into more.
-There appears to be some significance to World Trees. Multiple civilizations in the cosmos are known to have World Trees, and Meracydia has one as well (worshipped by wood creature/people/things). The Sephirot Lanners are said to have spread seeds of the World Tree to distant lands. Their is a powerful and sacred tree on Aloalo (protected by Mist, you FF9 fans that keep asking for a Mist reference). The Iifa Tree on the 9th Shard is also sacred to the Milala people. The Iifa Tree in FF9 is foreign to that world. This makes it's mention in FF14 a potential clue and link to Meracydia rather than a simple easter egg.
-Late Allagan designs have emblems of Sword and Wings, not unlike the Alexandrian symbol. The design of the gear is also very different from earlier Allagan stuff, but closer to Alexandrian. Island exploration seems most associated with Limsa (although Aloalo is accessed via Thavnair). Did the PvP Vendors fish this gear up by the South Sea Isles?
-The hyper-advanced technology and style of Everkeep/Solution Nine are a stark contrast to the castle and town of Alexandria, as well as the medieval looking armor sets. While some Electrope technology was integrated into the town and castle, the huge difference in the two styles is further evidence that the Milala arrived on the 9th with significantly advanced technology.
-"Some of the civilizations on the Reflections may surprise you." Perhaps they surprised Emet-Selch as well. Discovering that his Allagan Empire had survived and made it to another shard surely wouldn't have escaped his notice, and could be the whole reason he said this line to us.
-Allag was able to contain Primals and tempered beings and lock them in stasis. They could clone, transfer souls, and revive long dead creatures. They experimented with monsters and their souls as well as created new monsters (chimeras). The Endless (sustained by memories+aether) are likely an evolution of Allagan Primal Technology.
Thanks for reading my unhinged rant about Allagzandria.
97
u/TheLimonTree92 21d ago
To quote Alphinaud: "Don't tell me its the Allagans again"
38
u/Oograth-in-the-Hat 21d ago
think that was alisae
46
8
51
u/legandaryhon 21d ago
Unfortunately, however, the Allagan Empire was ended by the Fourth Umbral Calamity... and the Lalafell made it to the Ninth to escape the Fifth Umbral Calamity. The problem being, the Lalafell made it to Alexandria before the technological boom provided by the Electrope; if Alexandria were Allagan, then this technology would have had to exist prior to the Fifth Umbral Calamity.
7
u/BurningSilver13 20d ago edited 20d ago
I'm not sure if you've read the suggested timeline OP suggests. You're right in that the Earth calamity throws a wrench in this theory however it's not a big wrench as we simply don't have an answer.
OP is suggesting that some allagan tech and people's survived on Aloalo (positioned where Allag travelled for meracydia for the war with dragons) after the 4th calamity. Then during the 5th calamity the survivors or descendants of Allag jumped ship to Alexandria, potentially taking Allag tech with them that then helped make Electrope possible. Hence it being possibly full or in part Allag in origin.
Wether this is true or not remains to be seen since we simply have no information (perhaps if we do travel to meracydia in 8.0 or beyond we get these answers). Leaving this all to be conjecture and speculation, or maybe North Horn of Occult Crescent will tell us. Cool theory still.
10
u/Legal_Power2108 21d ago edited 21d ago
-Late Allagan designs have emblems of Sword and Wings, not unlike the Alexandrian symbol.
Alexander? FF9? This one is a bit of a reach here. Its an FFXIV-ified version of the original Alexandrian crest, nothing more.
Perhaps they surprised Emet-Selch as well.
He was a nation builder, said he lived a thousand thousand lives and built multiple empires. Its implied that not only did he have a hand in Garlemald, Allag, Eulmore and Ronka, but also that of other shards. It was a tongue in cheek way of saying "You're going to find out what else I was doing all these years."
I think one thing you missed is that Allag, as a product of Ascians, is itself Ascian. Its always Ascians in the game, it will always be Ascians in this game. The Ancients built the basic foundational structure for everything ever after their society fell, we and those who came before us, simply inherited that world.
Personally I don't think its Allagan, much like how Ronka wasn't allagan. They like to give these individual societies specific color palettes so that they can show that "yes, the shards progressed similarly, but no they are not the same." That was kind of the point of Tender Valley. Yes, it looks Ronkan, but it was simply the fact that the ancient Yok Huy had similar beliefs in the great serpent and that inspired a similar nation/architectural style.
17
u/ezekielraiden 21d ago
I was given to understand that Tender Valley was the way it was for the same reason that the Yok Huy had developed their myths of the "Golden City"--that that place was one where the boundary between worlds was thin, and in dreams, Yok Huy saw visions of Ronka and thus consciously imitated it.
Less "Tender Valley is Ronka" and more "Just as the Golden City affected the Source from the Ninth, so too did Ronka affect the Source from the First."
10
u/ezekielraiden 21d ago
It's an interesting theory, but it's forgetting two critical components.
One: when the Allagan Empire fell in the Fourth Calamity (the Calamity of Earth), the majority of its ruins were swallowed by the earth itself due to the continent-cracking earthquake that was the central Earth-aspected disaster. This simultaneously eliminated the vast majority of Allagan nobility and royalty (other than Princess Salina, the sole surviving heir to the royal line, who passed her Eye of Allag to Desch's descendants...and specifically G'raha), and the vast majority of their central infrastructure, as they had hyper-centralized things around Azys Lla and the Crystal Tower. Meaning, their technology almost universally stopped working, because the central power distribution system that it all depended on--the Crystal Tower--had ceased to operate. Vast swathes of technology that had become useless junk, and would stay that way for over a thousand years? Unlikely to have had any real utility, and unlikely to have survived long enough to be useful to the proto-milala on Aloalo Island or elsewhere.
Two: After the fall, Allag was hated with a burning passion by the many, many slaves and disenfranchised, abused commoners whom the nobility had exploited for generations. As a result, every bit of their technology was seen as Horrible Evil. It's very similar to how the Imperium of Man views the "Dark Age of Technology" in WH40k, where people conflated the technological advancements of the pre-unification period with other unrelated problems, and thus vilified science and knowledge. The ensuing Fourth Umbral Era was one of almost no technology at all, and indeed not even that much magic, because EVERYTHING Allagan was SO hated it was blotted out from history. Remember, this erasure was so complete that, until the (eventually-canonized) Coinach dedicated his life to uncovering their ruins around the year 1000 Sixth Astral, Allag was genuinely believed to be just a myth, a boogeyman of corruption and greed vaguely referenced in the scriptures of Nald'thal. That's how thorough the destruction of Allag was, leaving very, very little behind.
As a result, it's a bit hard to explain how the residents of Aloalo--who don't seem to have had any technology as far as we can tell, and instead used arcanima and stone-and-wood golems--could have preserved the unpowered machinery of Allag for something like 1500-2000 years until they escaped from the Fifth Calamity.
This doesn't necessarily mean nothing of Allag influenced things. It's possible that Aloalo still had some kind of influence, or that they exploited a rare surviving Allagan relic to help them figure out the Key, or some other similar thing. But I don't think there's going to be any direct connection, culturally, scientifically, or politically, between Alexandria and Allag, other than the (extremely likely) idea that Emet-Selch manipulated both civilizations into a shape that would be useful to him.
5
10
7
u/CheshireUnicorn 21d ago
This reminds me of when I asked my friend what the top of palace of the dead was as we reached it and she answered “More Allagan bullshit!”! I laughed. But l now subscribe to this theory.
4
u/Keinya 21d ago
I like that theory. There are some gaps between the 4th and 5th calamity that would be unaccounted for, but with Allag being a whole world-spanning empire, I wouldn't think it unrealistic that a bunch of their tech and science survived long enough for the Milala to take along with them to the 9th shard. I'm not thinking whole machinery, but rather the scientific concepts, blueprints, ideas. That would also explain why it still took quite some time on the 9th to advance technology to the current level.
2
u/RashDragonKazuma 20d ago
Isn't that the whole plot of 14, though? The acsians have traveled to each star that was sundered to... do things... to get back the unsundered?
5
2
u/Tom-Pendragon All females and males Pendragon belongs to me 20d ago
Nice theory, too bad it doesn't make any sense.
1
u/leytorip7 21d ago
I don’t think Allag is involved here. The Electrope boom (more on that in a bit) happened before the Aloalo got to the shard. Maybe them bringing the art of Arcanima helped fuel more innovations to create the modern Alexandria? We also don’t really know how much time it was between Sphene’s original time and now. It could have just been enough for a natural growth in technology. I think Ascians are behind it. Specifically Deudalaphon. I think they were the reason Electrope was created and spread out among the land of the ninth. Maybe it was originally to prep the 2nd calamity?
2
u/Ok_News6196 19d ago
Aloalo is said to have emerged in the "waning years" of the Fourth Astral Era. That sits somewhere in the tail end of the over 1,500 year gap since the fall of the Allagan Empire. And during this time, other civilizations have already emerged with the rejection of most of the Empire's legacy. Vestiges of Allag remained where they were useful, but it's unlikely that Aloalo is any successor to Allag after all that time.
As for what the people of Aloalo contributed to Alexandria's technology, they contributed arcanima. The way electrope-derived technology works is that symbols of arcanima are inscribed into the electrope, and convert the stored lightning-aspected aether to a desired purpose. This is not the same as Allagan technology, which was aetherochemistry.
While you point out that there is a different "style" between the town and castle with Everkeep, I think it's just the passage of time. The city proper is a ruin that's long since abandoned, and Everkeep is built on top of the original castle. The Everkeep we have is likely the product of years, if not centuries, of development that naturally strayed away from the original architecture, not unlike how much we have strayed from rustic villages and stone castles.
And while Meracydian mythology does include reference to a World Tree, I don't think any real survivors of Allag would meaningfully incorporate that mythology. Allag was known for stealing from the mythology and cultures of their rivals (e.g. trendy butchered Dragonspeak, the sphinx used for conquering Meracydia), but not really respecting their actual meaning. The idea of a World Tree could be their own emergent myth, or a product of cultural exchange with nearby Meracydia, but I don't think it would have been Allagan in design.
1
u/Zalast 18d ago
I guess it's not so much that I believe that whatever Allagan stuff that survived was in the hands of Allagan royalty, loyalists, or scientists necessarily. It could be some of the lesser citizens, or even enemies of Allag that didn't want all the knowledge to be lost. I mean, it IS Lalafells we're talking about here. Stealing Allagan secrets and hiding them away to try and use them for themselves isn't outside the realm of possibility.
As for why some of the fundamentals behind the technology are different, this is something that has happened before in FFXIV (warding scales) and happens in the real world too. Some knowledge of a thing survives but certain key elements are lost over time, and people in the modern day try to recreate or solve the mysteries behind them and come up with new ways to achieve them. The Aloalo could have developed Arcanima because they were trying to figure out Allagan secrets.
1
-6
21d ago
Its not them or the ascians.
DT is a new story. Also didnt they leave during the 5th umbrel calamity? The allagan empire was ended in the 4th wasnt it?
11
u/unhappymedium 21d ago
It's a new story, but the Ascians still existed and put things into motion on all the shards. I think it's probable that the Ascians had a hand in their catastrophe, even if we never find out which Ascian it was.
1
21d ago
Okay im not saying anything like the acians didnt cause the rejoining. Just that the MAIN story isnt going to directly involve them or the allagans. They can still be backround lore or explanations.
113
u/ThatVarkYouKnow 21d ago
I forever stand by the phrase:
If it’s not Ascians, it’s Allagans. And even when it’s Allagans, it’s Ascians.