Aether, Echo and the Resonant

[Xenik]

Hi! This is my first post so I hope this is the right place - I've been working on my WoL X'enik for just over 4 years now but have somehow only now decided to tackle his potential aether defficiancy(?). 

 

For context:

He grew up with his family in the X Tribe (situated in the Ala Gannha area in my canon), but his tribe was razed to the ground by imperials. Any survivors were taken where they were experimented on for aether modification purposes (not sure if early resonant development could be feasible here?). The result of experiments corrupted a lot of the aether in his body and he's also been left blind in his right eye. 

 

I've tried looking around as much as I can but if possible I'd like some help and input on the following:

- if there's any Canon aether issues in characters (aside from thancred and yshtola) and how it affects their health and abilities 

- how X'eniks aether could affect him

- whether it would make sense if X'enik receiving the echo/hydaelyns blessing would give him some kind of "aethervision" like yshtola 

- potential types of echo that he could have to combat this

- how the imperials, aether modification and the resonant could come into play? (my resonant knowledge is practically non existent) 

 

On the aether front, one of my ideas was that any aether in his body that's more astral aligned could be corrupt, allowing him only to manipulate or use umbral aether/magic and limiting his magical abilities. Also that he has teleportation limitations. I'm willing to bend the rules a bit when it comes to lore and canon but I'd like to stick to the fine print for the most part! 

[Faye]

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- if there's any Canon aether issues in characters (aside from thancred and yshtola) and how it affects their health and abilities 

"Aether" is a really broad concept in FFXIV, so I guess it's kinda hard to answer when almost anything unusual about any being goes back to aether? Black mages without a soulstone will burn themselves up from the inside with the aether of their own magic. Conjurers drawing from their own aether to use healing magicks rather than drawing from the elements use their own lifeforce and shorten their own life span. Tempering and Voidsent and Sineaters and Primals all stem from aether fuckery. Generally speaking, having your aether out of balance in anyway seems to be largely a bad thing (though it does often give the tradeoff of making them more powerful in the meantime).

 

Quote

- whether it would make sense if X'enik receiving the echo/hydaelyns blessing would give him some kind of "aethervision" like yshtola 

It's my understanding that Y'shtola can only do this because 1) she was inside of the lifestream for a time and 2) she uses her own aether to do this and therefore is slowly killing herself. I don't really know if the Echo or Hydaelyn's blessing play any part in it, but that alone does not seem to grant any character this same ability, at least not without the same drawback, presumably.

[arcanum.zero]

The game doesn't use the phrase "corrupted aether" very often (as opposed to "corrupted crystal," which pops up all the time), but when it does, it is generally synonymous with over-aspected aether, which is broadly defined as unstable aether in a state of out-of-control elemental change.  Its effects vary based on the circumstances, but it is always more powerful and dangerous than regular aether.

 

So if part of X'enik's aether was "corrupted," it would not prevent him from using abilities associated with that type of aether, but make those abilities more powerful and risky.  It might prevent him from using abilities associated with other types of aether, though.

 

From there, I agree with what Faye has said about X'enik being in a bad spot.  An aetheric imbalance is something to be immediately treated, for fear of injury or death, but in the short term he would be more powerful, in the way that a crashing airship is powerful.  Take from that what you will.

 

I do really like the idea that he is an early casualty of resonance research.  I think the timing lines up, and I'm not sure we know very much about resonance in general, yet, so feel free to play with it so long as you don't mind getting jossed later.  I have a feeling we'll learn a lot about resonance in Endwalker.

 

Regarding aethervision, I am not sure what the causality is around Y'shtola's ability.  She enters the lifestream, becomes blind, and begins to see aether currents, but I'm not sure the how or the why are well explained.  It was not clear to me from the in-game dialogue that her aethervision is a direct result of her experience with the lifestream and not just because she is a badass conjurer making up for her own blindness.  I agree with Faye that there's nothing in the game that suggests it is related to the Echo or the Blessing of Light, neither of which Y'shtola have, to my knowledge.

 

As an aside, one of the very first things we see Y'shtola doing in ARR is examining the aetheric currents around her -- using her Sharlayan goggles.  I find myself wondering if her blindness and aethervision were an excuse to be able to remove those goofy goggles from the Scions' design.

 

Take this with a grain of salt, but I have seen second-hand statements that the reference to Y'shtola consuming her own life force to see aether currents is only present in the English translation of the game.

 

[Xenik]

On 11/18/2021 at 2:49 AM, Faye said:

"Aether" is a really broad concept in FFXIV, so I guess it's kinda hard to answer when almost anything unusual about any being goes back to aether? Black mages without a soulstone will burn themselves up from the inside with the aether of their own magic. Conjurers drawing from their own aether to use healing magicks rather than drawing from the elements use their own lifeforce and shorten their own life span. Tempering and Voidsent and Sineaters and Primals all stem from aether fuckery. Generally speaking, having your aether out of balance in anyway seems to be largely a bad thing (though it does often give the tradeoff of making them more powerful in the meantime).

Thank you for the note! I'm wondering, if aetherial imbalance or corruption is such a hazard to the body, would you know of any other conditions that could work in a similar way (affecting ability to manipulate aether and tapping into certain elemental magicks, causing blindness etc)? I could potentially make him unable to use certain elements due to the sheer potency too...

[Xenik]

On 11/19/2021 at 5:36 AM, arcanum.zero said:

The game doesn't use the phrase "corrupted aether" very often (as opposed to "corrupted crystal," which pops up all the time), but when it does, it is generally synonymous with over-aspected aether, which is broadly defined as unstable aether in a state of out-of-control elemental change.  Its effects vary based on the circumstances, but it is always more powerful and dangerous than regular aether.

 

So if part of X'enik's aether was "corrupted," it would not prevent him from using abilities associated with that type of aether, but make those abilities more powerful and risky.  It might prevent him from using abilities associated with other types of aether, though.

 

From there, I agree with what Faye has said about X'enik being in a bad spot.  An aetheric imbalance is something to be immediately treated, for fear of injury or death, but in the short term he would be more powerful, in the way that a crashing airship is powerful.  Take from that what you will.

 

I do really like the idea that he is an early casualty of resonance research.  I think the timing lines up, and I'm not sure we know very much about resonance in general, yet, so feel free to play with it so long as you don't mind getting jossed later.  I have a feeling we'll learn a lot about resonance in Endwalker.

 

Regarding aethervision, I am not sure what the causality is around Y'shtola's ability.  She enters the lifestream, becomes blind, and begins to see aether currents, but I'm not sure the how or the why are well explained.  It was not clear to me from the in-game dialogue that her aethervision is a direct result of her experience with the lifestream and not just because she is a badass conjurer making up for her own blindness.  I agree with Faye that there's nothing in the game that suggests it is related to the Echo or the Blessing of Light, neither of which Y'shtola have, to my knowledge.

 

As an aside, one of the very first things we see Y'shtola doing in ARR is examining the aetheric currents around her -- using her Sharlayan goggles.  I find myself wondering if her blindness and aethervision were an excuse to be able to remove those goofy goggles from the Scions' design.

 

Take this with a grain of salt, but I have seen second-hand statements that the reference to Y'shtola consuming her own life force to see aether currents is only present in the English translation of the game.

 

This is super insightful, thank you! It does suck that there's still much to be learnt about resonance... That is the main reason I initially considered X'enik's aether to be corrupted. I'm not sure how realistic it would be to have an alternative where the experiments done on him were for imperial gain to see if they could research and find a way to manipulate their own aether? That was more or less my original idea, since it's also what I thought would cause him to go blind but that can easily be worked around.

 

I like the idea that he may be unable to use fire aspected aether/magic if it's too potent etc as well.

 

With Y'shtola, I can see what you mean. It would be beneficial for X'enik as a hunter and a marksman to have an ability like that as well, but implementing something like that as realistically as possible with so little info to go off is difficult.