RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes

Berrod Armstrong · **01-16-2015, 02:39 PM**

(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. Â It's simply hanging out in massive formations here and there across the world, and Mor Dhona is pretty much slathered with it. Â

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. Â 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.

I HOPE THAT HELPS

Aether Crystal Direct Conversion Potential?

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes