FFXI Story: Putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

[Kiyone]

Originally posted by CRtwenty
It might be a reference to the Meltdown...

Yve and Grav were apparently the masterminds behind the Kuluu attack on Fei'Yin, but the results of that attack nearly destroyed both the Kuluu and Zilart people. Yve knew this, but apparently decided that destroying both races was preferable to the much worse outcome of opening the Gates of Paradise.

This is what I thought Yve'noile meant when she said she betrays them too.


With regards to Bahamut, he mentions in the cutscene after M6-4, the reason why he is out to kill everything is because he believes the return of Al'Taieu to Vana'diel is a certainty, and the Keeper of the Apocalypse, who resides in Al'Taieu, will be unleased upon the world. Bahamut's method of preventing this is to kill everyone so that there is nothing for the Keeper of the Apocalypse to come to... This is the first point where we learn that Selh'teus is actually trying to prevent the Keeper of the Apocalypse from appearing, by preventing Al'Taieu from coming to Vana'diel.

Prishe goes on to elaborate on what needs to be done to prevent Al'Taieu's rebirth.

The weakened state of this overgrown quartz [Al'Taieu's Mothercrystal] is the reason that the Keeper of the Apocalypse is threatening to descend upon Vana'diel.

to which Tenzen explains the reason why Selh'teus "drained" the other 4 mothercrystals in effort to restore the Al'Taieu crystal.

Selh'teus also explains that because he is now apart of the Empty, he had to find another vessel to carry the Lights of the other mothercrystals. This is why you were supposed to die by being "shattered" open to restore the 5th mothercrystal.

After Nag'molada steals one of your lights and shatters your pendant, it flashes around and a little more history is given. It used to be that there was only one giant crystal, but for some reason, it was split into 5 mothercrystals. The ??? asks the best question, why was it split, and who did it. Yve'noile says something here that is utterly confusing...:

The people of this world have evolved into five unique species, each harboring a distinctive darkness.

Crystal warriors. Thou wert created to destroy these evils. Yet, even thy strength canst not prevail against this darkness.

Emptiness. 'Tis the ever-present shadow of blessed light. If this phenomenon represents complete death, the one could argue its presence was inevitable in a complete world.

Thus thou split the crystal for thy children's sake...

Is this not so, Great Goddess Altana...?


She says that the world is already 5 unique races. Assuming this cutscene in not in present time, and during the Zilart era, it doesn't make sense to say that, nor does it make sense to have Crystal warriors for races that don't yet exist... unless I am mistaken to assume that in the Zilart era, it was only the Zilart and the Kuluu (well and the Dawnmaidens).


With regards to Nag'molada, as I understood it, he is in search for the Chamber of Eventide, to which Mildaurion has used once before, to regain her Whisper of the Soul.

On a completely random tangent, it's still unknown who severed the Al'Taieu crystal from the Crystal Line.

As a side note, from M8-1, for some reason, the taru children know that the Zilartian King used to have two sons and a daughter. Also, as I understood it, Eald'Narche and Kam'lanaut were just high officials in the Zilartian court, but not royalty...



Finally, I think the story is coming soon to a close... Prishe shared a "Lion" moment after M7-1, where you and her exchange "real" feelings. D: but she didn't ask me to explore the world with her afterwards...

[JadeNightshade]

some things of note to add to that great reply

1. Eald and Kam were called "princes" on many occasions in zm, but they don't say any lineage. Anyway, it's explained more than one that they were in charge of overseeing the building of the sites such as feiyin and the power conduits..etc..etc.

2. I don't know who severed the 5th crystal line, but it's brought up in one of the earlier cutscenes with tenzen and then later with nag and selh that this was the first corrupted by the emptiness and Selh used the 5th crystal line to travel from Al'tieu to our world. So I assume that it was cut AFTER he got here..
perhaps by the emptiness itself?

3.lastly about the lion thing..
I want to bring up a question..
there are alot of "you can find lion!" rumors floating about..
especially since there are many cutscenes after the end of ZM and several hint at her...
but anyone found Zeid or any sign of lion besides Verana's pointless ramblings?

[JadeNightshade]

Just a section from my guide I'm redoing..
I wanna clear it with you guys to make sure it makes sense and I'm not missing anything.
Damn CoP forced me to rewrite the whole thing.

Oh, and I'm leaving it general for a reason, I don't want people reading the guide to know EVERYTHING until they get to the CoP part. this section is just a general history.

Chapter 2

The real history is quite different from the story passed down through the
generations. Unknown exactly when, but sometime after the creation of Vana'diel
and before the rise of the 5 races, there existed 2 peoples. The first were
a group of powerful beings of infinite wisdom and might. These people were
called the Zilart. Ruling the land from their city in the far north ocean,
the celestial capital of Al'taieu, the Zilart held the world in the palm of
their hand. Soon they developed supernatural abilities and gained great skill
in magic as well as telepathy. This telepathy, or the "Whisper of Souls" as
it had become known connected all the Zilart with eachother and together they
accomplished amazing things. Those women of most significant skill were trained
to be part of the Dawn Maidens. This group was considered to be directly in
service of the Goddess Altana, whom the Zilart revered above all. Led by the
gatekeeper, the most religious and powerful of all Zilart, legend told that
they held the keys to paradise.

Eventually, some children of the Zilart were born without this power of
telepathy. Seen as freaks they were outcast from the city and forced into
the wilds. Here these people, the Kuluu as they would be known, found their
own form of magic from the Avatars of the world. Befriending and controling
the forces of nature the Kuluu built massive cities on the north lands and
Sarutabaruta to their honor. The Zilart seeing the Kuluu's own nation
growing took it upon themselves to concur the Kuluu and subjigate them.
The Zilart King at the time decided that total control was needed, and the
creation of amulets for the Kuluu was implemented. These amulets were given
to the Kuluu to wear, and sent the mental transmissions of Kuluu to the
"Eye of Altana", which the King could use to read the thoughts of the Kuluu.
Finally to secure his control he closed the gateway to the capital, allowing
it to be opened only once every 100 years. This way only a select few could
enter and exit when they were needed.

The Zilart, like all with power, sought more of it.
Under the rule of the twin Zilart princes Eald'Narche and Kam'lanaut, the
Zilart began a mad crusade to not only achieve paradise but enter it.
The Zilart began construction of a final monument to their greatness, the
floating city of Tu'lia. The palace of Fei'yin, was created for the two
brothers as a control station for their massive project. Then across the
world, massive pillars were constructed, connected by gigantic conduits.
These would later be known to present day people as the 3 crags and Drogaroga's
Spine. Next a power core created on Quifim Island was created. This would power
the city's magical ability to float in the clouds. Finally the gateway to the
gods was created, Ro'Maeve. Using the power of the gatekeeper and the
dawnmaidens as the key to their power source, the Zilart believed paradise was
finally at hand.

But, history is filled with irony and this tale is no different. The power
they sought could not be controlled and the world would pay the price.
When the gateway was opened the Terrestrial Avatars awoke under the
leadership of the Wyrmking Bahamut. A massive battle in the sky took place.
But, unbeknownst to Bahamut or the Zilart, the Kuluu has been secretly working
with the Dawn Maidens. Deep within the Temple of Uggalepih the two groups met
to form a plan to strike back at the Zilart. Apparently over time the Kuluu
had developed modes of communication where the Zilart could not read their
thoughts, and with this could contact the Dawn Maidens and work in private.
Under the leadership of the gatekeeper Yve'noile and the Kuluu leader
Grav'iton, the two forces assualted Fei'yin and overloaded the control center.
The result was a massive explosion in which the planet was almost destroyed.
The backup of the power flow through the conduits send shockwaves the entire
world over. The fallout was terrible. The Northlands, once a lush green forest,
were now a barren wasteland. The battle over, there was still one final problem.
The Wyrmking was still at large and those who survived feared his wrath. It was
at this time that a young boy made a deal with the Avatar, one that would
change the fate of mankind forever. Soon after Bahamut disappeared.

In the aftermath of the destruction the Kuluu who were not killed were slowly
warped over time into the race we now know as the Tonberry. The Dawn Maidens,
all killed in the blast were blessed with a ghost like afterlife to protect
and watch over their gatekeeper and possible future reincarnations. As for
the Zilart, most- like the Kuluu, had died in the disaster. The capital
thought destroyed was soon forgotten, left only to distant memory and song.
The fate of the twin brothers Eald'Narche and Kam'lanaut remained unknown.

[tazirai]

That was an EXTREMELY good write up . Id say for sure that was the best writeup since your last one ^^.

[tazirai]

Originally posted by Kiyone
After Nag'molada steals one of your lights and shatters your pendant, it flashes around and a little more history is given. It used to be that there was only one giant crystal, but for some reason, it was split into 5 mothercrystals. The ??? asks the best question, why was it split, and who did it. Yve'noile says something here that is utterly confusing...:

The people of this world have evolved into five unique species, each harboring a distinctive darkness.

Crystal warriors. Thou wert created to destroy these evils. Yet, even thy strength canst not prevail against this darkness.

Emptiness. 'Tis the ever-present shadow of blessed light. If this phenomenon represents complete death, the one could argue its presence was inevitable in a complete world.

Thus thou split the crystal for thy children's sake...

Is this not so, Great Goddess Altana...?


She says that the world is already 5 unique races. Assuming this cutscene in not in present time, and during the Zilart era, it doesn't make sense to say that, nor does it make sense to have Crystal warriors for races that don't yet exist... unless I am mistaken to assume that in the Zilart era, it was only the Zilart and the Kuluu (well and the Dawnmaidens).

The above is kinda easy to explain Im gonna post 6 pics that will shed some light on the Crystal Warriors and our relation to them.

The coming of the crystal Warriors


The Current State of the world


The Ziraat, the old world, and the 5 Races.



notice the uses of completeness and imcompleteness thru out
the pics. Im thinking we 5 races came into being at the time of the "War" between 3 powerful peoples.
Also notice this picture is of Al'taeiu, this came out in 2003 so im pretty sure SE had more instore with FFXI from the very begginning. This picture is the Celestial capital in temple of Ugalepih.


Our imcopleteness due to the actions of one Ziraato Prince.


The Burden of the 5 races



I cant find the picture but after a ZM when you go to norg Lion and Gilgamesh speak of the evil that will bring pain to vanadiel. And honestly that's us. But its up to us to overcome our burden by defeating those who represent our imcompleteness, The crystal warriors. So technically the crystal warriors are us and we are them. Thats why after a time they mention us as the Crystal Warriors.


Heres my take on Verena
I Also think I know Verenas tale also. I firmly belive tha Verena's powers come from Ziraat ancestry in her blood. Thats why Shes able to communicate sop efficiently with beastmen and can sense things others cannot.

Thats why she wasnt outright Killed after Eld'danarche opened the gateway to Tulia.

Originally posted by Kiyone
The people of this world have evolved into five unique species, each harboring a distinctive darkness.

Crystal warriors. Thou wert created to destroy these evils. Yet, even thy strength canst not prevail against this darkness.

Emptiness. 'Tis the ever-present shadow of blessed light. If this phenomenon represents complete death, the one could argue its presence was inevitable in a complete world.

Thus thou split the crystal for thy children's sake...

Is this not so, Great Goddess Altana...?

Okay now lets examine this train of spoken word again.
After the explosion and the pact made with bahamut. The 2 responsible races were nearly annihilated. Make no mistake though Dawnmaidens and the Kuluu are descended from Ziraato heritage so technically There was only 1 race and the varied tribes of beastmen and our early ancestors.
Altana somewhere before the explosion created the 5 races. The Ziraato trying to keep the crystals for themselves created the crystal warriors from the 5 Arks. Those 5 arks were the physical representation of the 5 crystal tears of Altana, So we did exist during the Ziraat era. However the crystal warriors took the darkest parts of our nature in order to better guard the crystals from danger "namely from us".
Now when the explosion occured we were seprated from the crystal that birthed us, in more ways than one. The energy released forced us to evolve and adapt. In adapting we becmae the living flesh and blood representations of the darkness that was inside us. Hume's became apathetic, instead of just having the trait for it.

Think of the trait like a virus, You may have the trait but not actually be sick, You're just a carrier. So you may or may not become ill.

In essence the 5 races became ill, so the crystal warriors were to now destroy what we became and what they are burdened to represent.


Hope that made sense hehe.

[JadeNightshade]

it makes perfect sense..
but like most of our rambling it's all based on theory...
lord knows SE will come through and kill our ideas again with another update

[CRtwenty]

But isn't your character one of the current Crystal Warriors? Yve'noile says something to that effect during the ending of RoTZ.

[JadeNightshade]

int he cutscene she called you "warriors of the crystal"
not crystal warriors
so maybe there's a difference?!?

[CRtwenty]

Yea, but Kam'lanuat calls them the "Warriors of the Crystal" when he summons them too... so I'm pretty sure they're the same thing.

[tazirai]

Originally posted by JadeNightshade
int he cutscene she called you "warriors of the crystal"
not crystal warriors
so maybe there's a difference?!?

I think theres a difference .. Crystal Warriors are the embodiments of the actual 5 arks. Whereas the statement
"Warrior of the Crystal" Means we've transcended our Limites and have become complete. By defeating that which hindered us we've accepted it and completed the puzzle.

It could also mean that now that the crystal warriors are gone we've taken their places as the new Guardians of the Crystal.

Originally posted by Kiyone

She says that the world is already 5 unique races. Assuming this cutscene in not in present time, and during the Zilart era, it doesn't make sense to say that, nor does it make sense to have Crystal warriors for races that don't yet exist... unless I am mistaken to assume that in the Zilart era, it was only the Zilart and the Kuluu (well and the Dawnmaidens).

Heres your answer with absolutely no speculation as to what it means.
Straight from the mouths of S-E and Grav'iton.


EDIT: stupid imageshack keeps messing up the post of the pic.
Ill post it tomorow hopefully.

Its part of the windurst misison where you and rukkusu go to ugalepih and Gravi'ton says
Star Sybil doust thou not remember. The long distant past when I still breathed. When we kuluu led they people to the land of the moon.

[JadeNightshade]

I was under the impression the first Star Sybil was led to the full moon well by the lat of the Kuluu race before he died.

[Kiyone]

Originally posted by tazirai
I think theres a difference .. Crystal Warriors are the embodiments of the actual 5 arks. Whereas the statement
"Warrior of the Crystal" Means we've transcended our Limites and have become complete. By defeating that which hindered us we've accepted it and completed the puzzle.

It could also mean that now that the crystal warriors are gone we've taken their places as the new Guardians of the Crystal.




Heres your answer with absolutely no speculation as to what it means.
Straight from the mouths of S-E and Grav'iton.


EDIT: stupid imageshack keeps messing up the post of the pic.
Ill post it tomorow hopefully.

Its part of the windurst misison where you and rukkusu go to ugalepih and Gravi'ton says
Star Sybil doust thou not remember. The long distant past when I still breathed. When we kuluu led they people to the land of the moon.

Your post before this, I think, made sense to me, but this one confuses me again... I haven't personally completed the Windurstian storyline, so I'm not sure what is being referenced here... The quote you gave is kind of... ambiguous, or at least it could be in reference to a lot of things. Maybe without the photo, I won't get it, but I can't see the connection from the Grav'iton quote to my quote.


From what I got from your previous post, though. The crystal warriors were "created" sometime after the gods fell asleep, and after the main crystal was broken into 5 mothercrystals.

From the cutscene photos, what I got from it, it seems to say that after the Meltdown, the power of the crystals essentially mutated [transformed] the Zilart into 5 seperate races.

On first impression, the Uggalepih photo reminded me of Tu'Lia more than Al'Taieu, especially with the bottom of the photo looking rather like Ro'Maeve (even though Tu'Lia is supposed to be over Qufim and not Ro'Maeve), but I can't seem to make out any of the god platforms or their teleport areas, and the tower has floating rings around it, more like Al'Taieu and less like Tu'Lia.


What I am still confused on, though, is the timeline. The first photo you posted says the Crystal Warriors appeared after the gods fell into slumber from the one main crystal, without clarifying if the main crystal is broken into 5 yet or not, either case implying pre-civilization.

The third photo, though, says that the Zilart created the Crystal Warriors.


Which is it? If it's both, than the Zilart were around when the main crystal broke, and they were around right after the gods fell into slumber. and I don't know, i'm confused >.>;

[CRtwenty]

I believe the Zilart first appeared on Vana'diel when the Crystal was still complete. Emptiness was around back then, right? Maybe all this weird stuff involving Bahamut, Selh'teus, and everybody happened back then when the Crystal was broken?

Anyway, wouldn't Selh'teus taking the light from the other crystals and giving their power to the Al'taiu one technically be restoring the crystal into one complete object?

[tazirai]

Originally posted by Kiyone
Your post before this, I think, made sense to me, but this one confuses me again... I haven't personally completed the Windurstian storyline, so I'm not sure what is being referenced here... The quote you gave is kind of... ambiguous, or at least it could be in reference to a lot of things. Maybe without the photo, I won't get it, but I can't see the connection from the Grav'iton quote to my quote.


From what I got from your previous post, though. The crystal warriors were "created" sometime after the gods fell asleep, and after the main crystal was broken into 5 mothercrystals.

From the cutscene photos, what I got from it, it seems to say that after the Meltdown, the power of the crystals essentially mutated [transformed] the Zilart into 5 seperate races.

On first impression, the Uggalepih photo reminded me of Tu'Lia more than Al'Taieu, especially with the bottom of the photo looking rather like Ro'Maeve (even though Tu'Lia is supposed to be over Qufim and not Ro'Maeve), but I can't seem to make out any of the god platforms or their teleport areas, and the tower has floating rings around it, more like Al'Taieu and less like Tu'Lia.


What I am still confused on, though, is the timeline. The first photo you posted says the Crystal Warriors appeared after the gods fell into slumber from the one main crystal, without clarifying if the main crystal is broken into 5 yet or not, either case implying pre-civilization.

The third photo, though, says that the Zilart created the Crystal Warriors.


Which is it? If it's both, than the Zilart were around when the main crystal broke, and they were around right after the gods fell into slumber. and I don't know, i'm confused >.>;

Heres pic of graviton's saying



If the meltdown was the cause then thered be 7 total races from all the Info S-E has thus given us so far.
BUT the mutations occured during the Kuluu Pact with Bahamut.
However with most Ziraato dead. Thered be near nothing to mutate.
The Kuluu basically degenrated after losing their status and powerful connection to the crystal and Ziraat people.
But basially with the pic above we were all there during the fall of the Ziraat, But have no racial memory of it. Only the Galka Talekeeper would even be able to pull forth those memories.

[Blood Red Poet]

I am thinking that is after the fall of the Zilart. My belief is Grav was the last Kuluu to die, and leaded the Tarutarus before he did.

EDIT:
About the Crystal Warriors looking like races that did not exist. Well, the image of the Warriors come from the five crystals. When the Zilart fell, the Crystals(forget the method, either evolution or just appearing) gave birth to the five races in the image of the five warriors.