(01-16-2015, 02:26 PM)Telluride Wrote: I hope I can express this clearly. If not, I'm babbling, anyway.

Ok, I'm starting with these thoughts:

1) Crystalline Aether is nearly as common as dirt in Eorzea, after the calamity.  It's simply hanging out in massive formations here and there across the world, and Mor Dhona is pretty much slathered with it.  

Yis!

2) Miners can easily recover shards and crystals of aspected Aethers, which Eorzean citizens use as a form of technology/fuel for various endeavors. (which, to be honest, may be why they linger behind Garlemald in technology - depending so much on Aether that they have little motive to turn themselves into a Steampunk civilization)

Also yes! (Pretty much my thoughts as well. Eorzeans are capable of using magic, whilst the aether-inept Garleans had to resort to technological advances in order to make their own lives easier.)

3) Beastmen use Aether crystals to summon primals, which are themselves aether manifested, concentrated, and granted a will, perhaps as the focused and directed consciousness of the summoning species. However, the case of Shiva and the Moogle King call into question some of those assumptions.

Correct! Shiva and King Mog XII (as well as a certain other someone) have led to the belief/revelation that with enough aether and enough conviction, -anything- can be manifested. Shiva after all, is legend/dead, as is King Mog XII.

4) Magic is simply channeled and focused Aetherial energy made into various forms and uses.

Basically!

Ok, that's a lot of preamble, but I kind of needed to focus my thoughts for the big question:

If Crystals are merely concentrated spirit energy - energy that we know can be directly tapped and used for damaging effect - is it possible to skip over the step of forming and directing that energy, and instead, just... set it off?

As in, the same way TNT or Uranium are set off to create massive explosive effects?

The question here becomes how stable the crystals are. For example, the crystals in Mor Dhona (St. Coinach's Find, for example) are ridiculously stable. Crystallized trees, etc. The crystals in Pharos Sirius, or in Dzemael Darkhold however -- those are more volatile and subject to the explodings!

As in, create a device, stick it on a crystal formation, set the timer... and blow up the entire area in a scorched-earth level blast?

Said device would likely have to be tailored to render stable crystals as otherwise unstable, I think. Perhaps with the use of corrupted and unstable crystals themselves? Also damnit, now I want to play scorched-earth. Either way, it seems plausible!

And if so, would it be possible to do this on a smaller scale, and create a weapon that simply primes and fires crystal shards at a target, to explode on impact?

I see no reason why this would be impossible!

(If any of this is addressed in Coil, forgive me - ain't been there yet)

If there's a good reference site for these questions, please direct me! I ask because one of my alts-in-development is meant to be someone obsessed with developing aether-based weaponry that requires no inherent magical gifts or mage-training to use, giving non-adventurers a level playing field with the rest of the dangerous world, and matching or exceeding Garlean weaponry.  The fact that such characters inevitably become the "bad guys" in FF storylines (I'm looking at you, FF: Spirits Within) is EXACTLY why I want to do this.

Basically, this character wants to take Aetherial potential out of the libraries and towers and weaponize it directly.

Man, go for it! I don't know of any reference sites that can help you with this stuff, most of what I know on the subject of crystals and aether comes from the game.

SO. Finally - addressing the subject line.

How much energy IS locked into a crystal (allowing for variations of purity, corruption elemental attunement, etc), and would it be enough to develop a way to use them as bombs or ammunition in the same way as TNT, Firesand, Goblin Grenades, nukes, etc.?

(Yes, I have a vision of Moenbryda loading up a pistol and firing off Fire shards that burst into fireballs on contact. And she's wearing a cowboy hat, because it's Moenbryda, and... well, different topic)

This one I'm unsure of. I believe it varies, and that bigger isn't necessarily more when it comes to them. There are crystals that are charged with a lot of aether, and ones that are near inert. I think you can take the liberty of adjusting the amount of aether present in a crystal to suit your storytelling needs.

Moenbryda in a cowboy hat. Just that. Yes.

(01-16-2015, 02:46 PM)Telluride Wrote: That does give me some food for thought.

I imagine my first step, in developing a plot/character around this, could be to follow the Corrupted Crystal harvest quests from the MSQ (A clay pot as a carrying device... how utterly pedestrian...) and focus on finding/developing a crystal with the perfect properties, which goes into Alchemy. An IC dungeon run or two into DD or Phaeros, some writing here and there, mix in a little Smith and Wesson, Hechler and Koch, and a bit of Lockheed Martin.... hm.

*waits gladly for more thoughts*

(01-16-2015, 02:26 PM)Telluride Wrote: How much energy IS locked into a crystal (allowing for variations of purity, corruption elemental attunement, etc), and would it be enough to develop a way to use them as bombs or ammunition in the same way as TNT, Firesand, Goblin Grenades, nukes, etc.?

(01-16-2015, 02:53 PM)Sounsyy Wrote: ---> Thank you, Sounsyy! Now, let me see what we can do with your wonderful inputs. Have some Ala Mighan whiskey while I work, Oh Infinite Liver Miqo'te...

Kind of. What you're wanting is Ceruleum, which is refined Aether crystals.

--> Camp Bluefog RP in the future, I see...

In its crystalline state, Aether is not combustible/dangerous, as the actual "energy" is trapped within the crystal. The Ceruleum refinement process drains a crystal of its Aether into a crude, highly volatile, liquid state.

----> I had been meaning to ask about Ceruleum a little more, so this is good...

The process off-gasses a blue waste product that would likely cause aether sickness if not used to, and it also leaves behind a "deaspected crystal" which is a dead husk of crystalline aether.

---> ...which might be useful in and of itself. "Depleted Uranium Shells" suddenly float in my thoughts...

Ceruleum can also actually be found naturally in Eorzea deep below the surface in the areas around Northern Thanalan and Mor Dhona. There are Ceruleum deposits in other places of the world, but apparently they are quite rare and there is no other known deposit as large as the one in Northern Thanalan. Natural Ceruleum, like real world Crude Oil, occurs when aether escapes the Lifestream and crystallizes underground. Over the centuries, pressure builds up and reduces the crystalline aether to a liquid, which then can be mined.

-----> So, it is theoretically possible that there is, or was, a direct and stable link between the lifestream itself and ceruleum mines, begging SE-style plotwriting to suggest that a world-ending chain reaction might be conceivable. I hope the port is ray-shielded.

As for a few other of your points:
1. Mor Dhona has actually had all of those Crystalline deposits since the crash of the Agrius 15 years ago into Silvertear Lake. Silvertear Lake is actually the fount of all aether in the planet. It is the Garden of Eden essentially. However, with the death of Midgardsormr and the explosion of the Ceruleum fuel tanks of the Agrius mixing with the Lake, a massive aether death crystallized the surrounding landscape.

------> Did I catch that Midgardsormr is coming into the new patch/expansion in some fashion? I sense another plot hook.

When talking about the Aether crystals left behind by the Calamity, you have to be very careful to note the color of the crystal, as the Calamity (because of Bahamut) actually drained a lot of the planet's aether before the massive Eorzea-wide aether death event. So if you see an orange crystal formation, that is actually dead aether. Completely useless. If you see blue formations, like the ones in Mor Dhona, those will be useful.

----> Thought #1 - anything solid and formed from energy = potential mad scientist plot device. Thought #2 - Who's going to miss large slabs of crystal taken from Mor Dhona? Thought #3 - lots of "stable" things can be made unstable. Hell, with superconductors, you can even make a frog float. Thought #4 - suddenly looking into the X-men's Gambit as a source of ideas for this.

2. While the shards can be easily mined or gathered, the Crystal Market is actually heavily policed and trade of shards, crystals, and clusters is closely monitored by an organization called the Ashcrown Consortium. So while obtaining said crystals may be feasibly easy, distributing them or collecting a massive quantity will be more difficult legally.

----> Need to research them. And you have given me a name for the inevitable conflict-producing agency that I would need for a nemesis. *gives Sounssy more whiskey*

However, you'd need an absolute mass of crystals to create a small amount of Ceruleum, and even more needed to summon a Primal/Twelve, etc.

-----> Sudden inspiration: Fracking and Shale-oil mining. The absolutely perfect antagonist for Hydaelyn herself. I am pleased. Pleased. PLEASED!

There's also something called an Overaspected Crystal, in which a cluster has taken on a massive surge of aether from multiple sources/elements. This Overaspected crystal is extremely powerful. (In 1.0 it increased like all attributes by 25% or something rediculous?) That's like Echo power...

------> GENTLEMEN! BEHOLD!

Anyways, hope this helps! ^^ And lemme know if you have more questions!