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moonlight-at-dawn · 7 years

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An oral essay written by myself and read by @mistress-light. It details the history of the Astral War and the Starscourge, how it all developed and how it came to be set right.

Titan, the Archaean, steadfast as stone Ramuh, the Fulgurian, sharp as lightning Shiva, the Glacian, gentle as snow Leviathan, the Hydraean, relentless as tides Bahamut, the Draconian, unbending as iron Ifrit, the Infernian, fickle as fire Since time immemorial, they have watched over Eos.

Though the Astrals are seemingly immortal and were revered as Gods in the days of the Cosmogony, they are hardly omnipotent or omniscient. The means available to them are limited, and though they were able to bestow great power to some chosen people, that does not mean they had endless power for themselves. In truth, through the course of the game, we find at minimum four of the Hexatheon to have sacrificed all for the King of Light.

Titan, the Archaean, steadfast as stone.

When Ifrit the Usurper called forth the meteor in an attempt to destroy Eos, it was Titan who saved the planet. In doing so, he became trapped under the meteor, and there he remained for over 2000 years. Though viewed as a God, he was unable to break free, and not even the other Astrals had any means to help him.

In the time of the game, Lunafreya awakens the slumbering Titan first. Once she forges the covenant, Titan calls to Noctis the Chosen King, to receive his power. This is a power that must be earned by proving to be as steadfast as the Archaean himself.

When Noctis withstands the onslaught and defeats Titan, there is an explosion of energy caused by the Archaean’s death. The large mass of the meteor that Titan bore for 2000 years is destroyed, Titan falls, and his astral energy, his very soul, falls to the Chosen King to aid him in ridding the world of the Starscourge.

Ramuh, the Fulgurian, sharp as lightning.

Unfortunately, we know nothing of Ramuh’s role in the Astral War, nor of his sacrifices. He represents wisdom, and his Revelation involves seeking knowledge, no matter the dangers.

Because his physical body does not need to be destroyed in his trials, it is most likely that he died during the Astral War 2000 years ago, along with Ifrit. However, his role is sadly undeveloped in both game and text, and thus unknown.

Shiva, the Glacian, gentle as snow.

She is the opposite of Ifrit in nearly every way. She loves mankind and is the only one of the Astrals to ever live among the people.

Aboard the train from Cartanica, we begin to learn much of the Glacian’s fate.

The year after Niflheim invaded Tenebrae, Shiva forges a Covenant with the young and not-yet-ordained Lunafreya, and launches an attack on the Empire. With weapons in development to seal the power of the Crystal, the Empire is able to kill her, and her physical body remains where she fell, turning scorching deserts into a frozen wasteland.

But as with the others of her kind, the death of her physical body does not spell the end of her. Onboard the train to the capital of the Empire, the Divine Messenger Gentiana reveals herself to be the Astral Shiva. She tells Noctis of the covenant she forged with Lunafreya and gifts him with the Trident of the Oracle and with her power.

Leviathan, the Hydraean, relentless as tides

Goddess of the Seas, Leviathan has a personality befitting of the ocean. She can be seen as cruel, but she will lend her aid, so long as it is earned. Though she says harsh things to Lunafreya, though she threatens the end of humanity, so long as someone is willing to risk their life for her aid, she is willing to give hers to them.

And that is what happens in Altissia.

Lunafreya stands strong in her faith, and so Leviathan puts Noctis to the test. Ast a two-front battle against the Hydraean and the Empire is fought, it takes the magic of the Oracle and the full strength of the Lucii to defeat her. When she falls, Lunafreya summons the Archaean now slumbering within Noctis to form a breakwater to protect the city at their back from the tidal wave released by her death.

Bahamut, the Draconian, unbending as iron. Ifrit, the Infernian, fickle as fire.

2000 years past, Ifrit the Usurper turned on the Astrals, and it was with the Dragon King Bahamut that he clashed the most. Because of this, it is difficult to talk about one without speaking of the other. Their fates are intertwined and have directly shaped Eos as we know it.

While Leviathan held humanity in contempt, she still sacrificed her life to aid them. Ifrit, however, sought to destroy humanity. And though Titan saved the planet from being obliterated by the meteor he called down, the Astrals were unable to do anything about what happened next.

Brought to Eos by the meteor was a parasitic organism which became known as the Starscourge.

And still the war raged on, the mighty nation of Solheim in ruins; people and animals becoming infected by this parasite and transforming into cruel monsters - ‘daemons’ - which fear the light and kill indiscriminately.

It is atop the volcano Ravatogh that Bahamut kills Ifrit, at last putting an end to the war which ravaged the planet and left a dwindling population struggling to survive. Without divine intervention, humanity would surely become extinct. But the Astrals are not all-powerful, and they are unable to easily fix the problems their war caused. However, difficult does not mean impossible, and with the aid of some of humanity’s most powerful, they forge a plan.

In Tenebrae was a family line gifted with the ability to commune with the Astrals. From that family, Bahamut chose a pious maiden and gifted her with his own Trident and gave her great magics. Thus is born the line of the Oracle, whose women can heal the Starscourge with their light.

From the planet came the Crystal, which Bahamut gifted to a royal and warrior family, along with a ring to control the powerful energies.

With it seen to that humanity would be able to survive until enough power had been gathered to erase the Starscourge, Bahamut sacrifices himself to slumber within the Crystal itself, adding to and monitoring its power.

There are two in line to inherit the Ring of the Lucii in its earliest days, though the specifics of relations are yet unclear. Of these two, it is Izunia who ascends as King, and it is his kin that form the Lucis Caelum lineage which ends with Noctis.

The other is Ardyn Lucis Caelum, erased from the history books by Izunia. Ardyn was in possession of a magic no one else had. His allowed him to absorb the Starscourge, taking it within himself in the process of healing others. He was revered much as the Oracle was, but the nature of his magic tainted him. Mad with jealousy that the Crystal would not recognize his achievements and call him the King of Light, he turned against humanity. For 2000 years, he cultivated the Starscourge and his own magics, fashioning himself into a god with the sole intent to destroy the Crystal’s Chosen King as revenge.

Against the Starscourge and the Accursed, the Oracle and the Lucii stand as humanity’s sole hope for survival. The Oracle fights against the spreading of the Starscourge, forming safe havens and cleansing with her magic. The Lucii have a much more complicated role to play.

The Ring of the Lucii does more than simply allow its bearer to wield the magics of the Crystal. The path runs both ways, draining those who use it of their life. With each life that wore the ring, the Crystal gained magic, building up its energy until reaching a point where the Starscourge and the Immortal Accursed could be cleansed entirely.

To King Regis Lucis Caelum, the Crystal reveals that his then-5-year-old son, Prince Noctis, would be the final life it needed to cleanse the world. It is not a pleasant fate which awaits him, but it is not much different from what he already had to do. Giving his life force to the Crystal was always in his destiny. To be the final one was chance, and that he suffered so much on the path was due to the machinations of the jealous Ardyn.

In defiance of all of his suffering, Noctis never strays from his path, no matter how painful it gets. Upon reaching the Crystal, he is absorbed within and meets with the Draconian. It is in the heart of the Crystal that we learn how much more there is to the Ring of the Lucii. Over ten years’ time, the Crystal feeds its energy into the Ring, and thusly into Noctis, and he emerges as the true King of Light.

With the power of five of the Six Astrals, the Crystal, and all of the past Kings of Lucis, Noctis is able to kill Ardyn. Then, seated upon the throne and beneath the Crystal, Noctis calls forth the past Kings and takes all of their souls and glaives within him before dying, bringing all of these magics into the Crystal. It is there that he guarantees the death of the Immortal, who was never allowed to ascend within the Crystal, never allowed to dwell among the soul of the star. And it is there that all of the power accumulated over 2000 years is released, cleansing Eos of the Starscourge and bringing the return of the Dawn.

Information can be confirmed both within the game itself and through the Ultimania guide.

In-game information was gathered through radio clips, newspapers, loading screens, and Cosmogony entries.

Some translations of the Ultimania are available to read on Tumblr with thanks and credits to users @superespresso and thetwilightmexican.

[Timeline of Lucis/Niflheim Conflict] [Oracle/Ring/Crystal/Wall/Old Wall/Messengers] [Director Commentary on Ardyn’s motivations] [Armiger and Cosmogony] [History of Eos Timeline]

#final fantasy xv #final fantasy 15 #ffxv #ff15 #ffxv lore #noctis lucis caelum #ardyn izunia #ardyn lucis caelum #starscourge #bahamut (ffxv)#ifrit (ffxv)#shiva (ffxv)#titan (ffxv)#ramuh (ffxv)#leviathan (ffxv)

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eosofspades · 1 year

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so i'm seeing some ideas going around that this (horrifying) scene from the trailer -

- isn't our Ghost, but a Ghost, and i wanna talk about it.

i do think this is our (the player's) Ghost, for a couple of reasons! for starters, there's the obvious - the classic shell they use for The Guardian's Ghost in trailers, the Guardian being a Titan (also what Bungie tends to depict The Guardian as in trailers), the fact that in a trailer of this significance, it seems really unlikely that they'd be showing us something as intense as this with an unknown/unnamed character, etc.

but more importantly, a lot of people seem to be thinking that this Ghost and Guardian are... actually getting sliced up, which i don't think they are.

bear with me for a bit! while that's absolutely what looks like what is happening, i'm at least 80% certain this scene is going to be the Witness giving the Guardian a terrible vision/hallucination (similar to what happened in Shadowkeep where we encountered the Dark Guardian in the Black Garden.) and there are another couple of reasons for this!

(the rest under a read more - this one really got away from me.)

for one thing - purely from a technical standpoint - the Young Wolf and their Ghost just... straight-up can't die; at least not permanently, at least not yet. they're the player character; you're going to need them to actually continue playing the game.

(i've also seen people suggesting this can't be our Ghost from a technical standpoint because that would mean Bungie having to do the slicing animation for every single Ghost shell in the game, which, to be fair, is a completely valid assumption to make - but in my opinion, based on the sheer volume of detail within this game's scenery and animation, and the unbelievable attention to the smallest possible details that most players won't even notice - i would absolutely not put it past Bungie to put in that effort, and, moreover, i have another idea that goes hand-in-hand with the "this is a vision" thing; that they didn't have to animate every single shell - but i'll get to that in a bit.)

now, from an in-game perspective, it doesn't make sense to me to have this not be our Ghost, or to have it not be a vision. for one thing - if what the Witness is doing is actually slicing up all of these Ghosts and Guardians and ships, that's just… a little bit nonsense. yes, the Witness is unbelievably powerful and terrifyingly dangerous, but if it is actually capable of unmaking living, paracausal things with a single flick of its finger, that seems… unlikely in terms of power, at most, because if that’s the case there truly is no fight to be had. the Witness could obliterate the Guardian before we even had a chance to draw our gun. it just seems unrealistic that if the Witness was that overtly powerful, there could even be a compelling battle against it.

(it’s also worth mentioning that the Witness’ entire thing is visuals and appearances over actual physical confrontation. it doesn’t even appear in the flesh to Calus at all times - in fact, the trailer makes a point of showing that it speaks to him through a cracked mirror, and in the final Seraph cutscene that it appears to Eramis via a screen; there’s the fact that the Darkness is constantly waving around this motif of visuals and appearances (the Dark Guardian vision during Shadowkeep; Deepsight; the Nightmares on the Moon, etc.) and even that it’s name is the Witness - you get it.)

there’s also the matter of emotional impact. like, don’t get me wrong, this is fucking horrifying. actual, full-body dread and fear at this scene when i first saw it. but you cannot tell me you would be just as distressed and unsettled if it were a random Ghost paired with a random Guardian we’ve never seen before - our Ghost has been getting so much character insight and development in the last two DLCs (his fear -> reluctance -> hesitant acception of the Guardian using Stasis, his complicated feelings regarding his faith in the Traveler explored during Witch Queen or his hostility -> understanding towards Fynch, etc.), i can’t imagine Bungie is going to give us this close-up, visceral, nightmarish scene with a Ghost we don’t know and have no attachment to.

(also, i made a post about this already, but in this trailer alone i am seeing SO MANY parallels to The Red War campaign - the fact that the Ghost and Guardian are in the exact same position as we were during the Red War intro is not lost on me. this also ties back into my “only animating one Ghost shell” thing - if it is a vision, i think it’s possible that the reason the Titan in the trailer is in “older”-looking armor is because you’re seeing yourself and Ghost in what could be a potential callback to the Red War - hence having Ghost be in the Last City shell, and the Guardian in “older” armor; because what’s happening here is not what is real; it’s supposed to be the Witness getting into your head. (or, again, maybe the Titan is just in that armor for the trailer and Bungie did animate the Ghost shells! at the very least, i doubt that having a non-player’s Ghost be in the Last City shell is probably not going to happen, since that’s the shell we tend to associate with our Ghost.))

what i think is actually happening here is one of two things: either the Witness giving the Guardian a horrifying “vision” in order to scare us/make us understand why it believes the Traveler heralds death and needs to be eliminated (i’m going to shamelessly plug in my obsession with Unveiling once again, but the Winnower explicitly explains to us at least couple of times that it believes existence is full of suffering and many things would be better off not existing at all to spare ourselves the torment. i can absolutely see the Witness trying to intimidate/terrorize us with a vision like this in order to get across its point that the Traveler will allow us to suffer and writhe and never be able to escape it.)

the other guess i have, which is unlikely but still something i think would be very very neat, is that - with the Witness’ whole shattered glass motif and the way its hands move, like it’s altering reality as it exists - it would be incredibly interesting if the Witness were actually “dismantling” us, so to speak - even if just for a moment, maybe before summoning us to the final confrontation of the campaign, just as a sheer power move. so when the Guardian gets there, they’re afraid and disoriented and unable to focus (this is, again, incredibly unlikely, probably, but i really really want to see some threats from enemies on an incredibly personal level. i have been dying for an enemy to get to us in an uncomfortably up-close and personal manner, or at least for the Guardian to have actual reactions to things. i would love to see another callback to the Red War, maybe, with the Guardian and Ghost collapsed and the Witness towering over them.)

obligatory disclaimer that i could always be wrong, of course, and if it turns out to be a random Ghost and Guardian getting ACTUALLY sliced up i’ll admit it and eat my words, but with what we’ve seen at this point in time, it really doesn’t make sense to me that it would be anything other than a vision being experienced by the player Guardian and our Ghost.

#HELLO THIS GOT AWAY FROM ME #this is over 1k words and 2 pages long and its three in the goddamn morning #im so normal. i am sososo normal about this game and i have proportionate reactions to stuff #destiny 2 #mine #lightfall #lightfall spoilers #eos destiny essays

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eosofspades · 1 year

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Eos Destiny Essay Masterlist

this post is mostly for me to keep track but if anyone wants to see one of these in particular shoot me an ask and i will GLADLY DELIVER. will be edited/updated and rbed with a link every time i write one

The Inherent New Light-Hostile Design of Destiny 2 Post-Beyond Light

Fandom Treatment of Cayde-6 In The Aftermath Of His Death

Stop Saying Cayde is Going to Come Back

Forsaken Themes: Sacrifice

Ghost Deserved So Much Fucking Better in Beyond Light, or, Give The Guardian A Personality For The Love of The Traveler

The Winnower Should Blow Up The Witness

The Winnower Doesn't Hate The Gardener, They Miss Them

The Traveler Did Not Try To Leave Us in Sot.Seraph

The Inherent Unsustainability of The Sword Logic, or, Get Ferngully'd Idiot

Ghost Slicing Speculation (trailer analysis) (debunked - more discussion, though!)

Lightfall & Red War parallels*

Either Stop Complaining About How Much You Hate Destiny Or Leave The Damn Game, or, If It Sucks, Hit Da Bricks

Nimbus: Characters as Vehicles for Narrative Themes and Motifs

#mine #destiny 2 #eos destiny essays

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eosofspades · 2 years

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alright. hot take time

as someone who both loves Cayde-6, loves Forsaken, loves the ongoing Destiny plotline(s) and the themes therein, and absolutely Does Not Expect Nor Want Cayde to come back to life, i think the way a lot of this fandom treats Cayde-6 is. uh. incredibly fucking unfair.

as a disclaimer, again: i do not want Cayde to come back to life. i know it is not going to happen. i know the ongoing story of Destiny 2 is MUCH more impactful without him here, and i plan on making an in-depth post about it later.

now. that said. please for the love of god stop dragging his character through the mud to prove your point.

"Cayde had no reason to be in TTK" "Cayde was a weak character" "Cayde is a Nathan Fillion stand in" just say you have no grasp on this character and go!! Cayde was an INCREDIBLY well-written character, with an insane amount of depth and lore and emotion hidden behind a careless, aloof mask and it's so obvious if you look at him for longer than two goddamn seconds??

Cayde wasn't a bothersome idiot, and he wasn't incompetent, and "disruptive" wasn't his main quality. he was the optimist. that was literally his role in the story. the comic relief and the optimism. the entire reason that he had to die before we got into the darker storylines like Shadowkeep/Beyond Light/Witch Queen etc. is because, by the nature of being the optimist, he wouldn't fit into the darker narrative that Destiny 2 was about to steer into.

just. say that you don't like him and go. you don't have to like him. stop SAYING that you like him and then dragging his character through the dirt. he has an incredibly interesting story (and backstory) and boiling him down to nothing more than a disruptive asshole is a huge disservice to his character and to Bungie, who made a point of giving him a well-developed backstory, motivation, goals, lore, and a spectacular DLC that they clearly put a lot of time and care into!

(not to mention that whenever anyone tries to point out flaws in Zavala or Ikora to talk about Cayde, at least 2 dozen people will go up in arms about how disrespectful it is to put down another character to talk about the one you like, then will turn around and say Cayde had no narrative purpose or impact when they're trying to garner sympathy for Eris or defend Uldren.)

#i am so angry about this actually. stop dragging a well written character just because you dont like some of their fans #also i can guarantee you if i said ANYTHING about how much i hate mara sov without even MENTIONING her writing #(which is really good!! she's really well developed!! she's also an abusive and manipulative nightmare!!!)#i would have at least six people LEAP at my throat with claws outstretched to tell me i'm being sexist and she's got good WRITING #i don't know how to tell you this but hating a character's personality does not make you bigoted toward that character #also liking a character more than others does not make you bigoted towards the others #<- this is specifically targeted toward people who say that cayde is only popular because he's white-coded (which isn't even true????)#clovis bray is white-coded. cayde is literally just the optimistic comic relief he's not supposed to be societal commentary #at most he is PERHAPS commentary on masculinity/grief/unhealthy coping mechanisms #race has nothing to do with it. i say this as a poc please stop please let us enjoy things i'm begging #destiny 2 #cayde 6 #discourse #mine #analysis #i am going to have so many people at my throat for this post lets go #eos destiny essays

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