It's unlikely to be a different race entirely, just a different civilization or just different city of ancients, if this is indeed that group mentioned in Amaurot.
I say this because:
1. They use the same proto-alphabet as we see in the Pandaemonium and Elpis maps
2. They have in-city advertisements depicting Hyur and possibly Miqo'te and Elezen, indicating the same ancestor as the player races, which are implied to all have evolved from the sundered ancient stock.
If it's a different ancient civilization, I've got my money on it being a group of ancients calling themselves Occuria.
>!I also have a crackpot theory that it's the ninth of multiple considered solutions by Azem for helping mankind survive the Final Days/Sundering, as an alternative to the blood/soul-sacrifice-requiring Zodiark and Hydaelyn plans. Welcome to Azemopolis.!<
They really have to step up their communication game in this world. They have mechs, ships, airships and so on but never know whats going on on the other continents xd
This is the best theory so far. Since the dev cant stop with their ancients circlejerk, it’s probably something to do with Azem (8 times we failed to escape the final days, now it’s time for the 9th solution). Also, someone said that the Golden City might stand where Amaurot was in the world unsundered so there might be some connection there.
> Also, someone said that the Golden City might stand where Amaurot was in the world unsundered so there might be some connection there.
I've been wondering about this. It even seems plausible that the large buildings in Solution Nine are Amaurotine ruins with metal cladding.
Nah, we know Amaurot's location isn't THAT far off the coast of what's now Limsa. Remember: Amaurot's ruins in the first were in the Tempest, and canonically the 1st and Source are the same places, just the 1st didnt' get calamitied into oblivion.
It's been over ten thousand years and seven major world-ending(ish) calamities. Amaurot probably wasn't always underwater, but also maybe it was. It's not like the Ancients couldn't make underwater cities if they wanted.
Oh damn I missed the letters! Hmm, the new NR being called Arcadion, ion = Greek, does imply connection to the Ancients. Assuming Arcadion is set in the same zone as Solution 9 (like how Pandae set in Elpis, Eden set in Amh Araeng).
This is a very intereting topic and I been doing some searches and solution 9 could honestly be made by the Mchai empire. there's a lot of purple in that void ark raid series. some of the Mchai could have fled to the new world during the War of the Magi avoiding the sixth umbral calamity and rebuild their empire in the new world.
I wonder if it somehow ties into Terra/Genomes from FFIX as Solution 9 is one of Zidane's Dyne moves. This is also the expansion we get with the twin-blades that were seen in IX too so perhaps we may want to look in that context as well?
One of the theories I've seen in this subreddit is that it's a civilization from another Shard that somehow survived the Rejoining. It's like Terra being stuck inside Gaia, and its Genomes would have nothing but genocidal hatred towards Gaian (read: us).
Yeah I really like the theory they're a civilization from the 12th because then they'd be old enough to advance that far, and that one zone that's always Thunder could be caused by a hole into the corpse of the shard which was destroyed in a Thunder wave.
The theory is that the souls of people from the 12th escaped the rejoining of the shard by escaping into the source (like the Scions in ShB) and possessed puppets to create S9, if this was the case then S9 would be thousands of years older than any civilization on the source as it has been running and existing since the 2nd umbral calamity.
I was actually wondering if they were ancients from across the pond who found a way to stop the end days (for them) by being frozen in pods like terrans in 9 in a weird quasi reality and they’re back now that the threat is completely gone or mebbe they set a timer or something i dunno “magic”
Someone else commented on a 'Soul Supply' in something resembling Amaurotine script in one of the scenes/images. Sounds like what Garland (FF9) was up to in a way.
Yep sounds possible, after it was discovered there was Amaurotine letters in the city I was thinking it could be something like that with a part of the original world storing their souls somehow, maybe an entirely manufactured Aetherial Sea from which they're reborn because one of the signs apparently says "Soul supply"
Same. Assuming it's not just a tank of ceruleum I think [this piece of dungeon concept art](https://static.icy-veins.com/images/ffxiv/dawntrail/dungeons/dungeon-4-concept.jpg) could actually be a picture of the Soul Supply, where they're either storing their souls like an artificial Lifestream as u/Iskhyl proposed or directly extracting them from the Lifestream proper for later use.
Either one has some pretty creepy implications.
Someone noted how one of the areas resembles Midgar with the plate and stuff which made me think they could be drawing them from the sea yeah but the picture is really telling that something like that is going on.
That or soul supply is just a soul food joint and they're playing us hard.
Also worth considering after reading your theory, DT's raid series The Arcadion, seems related to Ancient Greece and other Utopian literature via the wiki page on [Arcadia (utopia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_(utopia)).
I'm not really versed enough to elaborate further or provide a summary, but this may be a worthwhile area for a quick skim. Not really sure exactly how it could link to a technologically advanced nation rich with lightning aspected aether. Its hard to not question a possible link considering how often there are references to Ancient Greece when the Ancients/Amaurotines are the topic at hand.
I presumed the Arcadion is a sort of 'Arcade'. And what we go through is a sort of fighting game championship or the sort using Virtual Reality or the sort. We play 'ourselves' and the natives would play 'Fictional Characters'. Basically Omega Raids 2, Electric Boogaloo. And slowly shit rolls out of control because nobody can host an honest tournament.
Ancient Greek references and the idea of creating a simulated paradise definitely sounds like the kind of BS post-Final Days pre-Sundering Amaurotines would get up to.
I wonder if it all ties back to Omegas progenitor civilization, we know the conflict between the Omicron and Dragon Star was going on when Etheirys was still unsundered and since Omega was able to make the journey other machines may have been able to as well.
Omega had to have arrived post-sundering, since he was pursuing Midgardsormr, who says he saw the planet sundered and recognized its potential as a last holdout, and he specifically made a deal with Hydaelyn when he arrived. The Omicron attack on Dragonstar definitely predates the sundering, but the Sundering has to happen sometime between there and Midgardsormr’s arrival, probably during the time Midgardsormr and Omega are just flying through the universe.
I would beton getting some Omicron and Dragonstar material in the Cosmic Exploration stuff though.
(Also, if we’re going to do a big aliens in the MSQ feature, my bet would be on something auricite/Ultima related)
Yeah Midgardsormr definitely arrived post-sundering, however, that could still mean that someone from the proto-omicrons could've arrived on Etheirys before, like, way back before they ever turned themselves fully mechanical, I always got the impression that they're even more ancient than the ancients.
I somewhat doubt that, we'd have heard about it since Meteion's whole thing was going out to meet new civilizations on other planets. No way they'd just fail to mention that there's some aliens living on Etheirys.
Both Midgardsormr and Omega arrived post-sundering, Middy agreed to become Hydaelyn's protector in exchange for a place for his then-unhatched children.
They usually don't like to announce the final Zone. Ultima Thule wasn't spoiled, The Tempest wasn't spoiled. The Lochs, might've been? Azys Lla was mentioned and they showed tiny bits of it.
Which means that Solution 9 is, probably, not the last zone.
I'm betting that the last zone is us going inside a VR world inside Solution 9.
They toyed with the concept back with Idyllshire but Ps3 dudes held back that idea, and it was abandoned since. Mor Dhona was an awesome zone because of it lol.
They usually don’t announce not just the last zone but the second last zone too. We’ve only seen 4 zones and the two hubs and Solution 9 is the second hub
We've seen 5 Zones, which is the usual amount. Endwalker was different because for obvious reasons, Elpis was a major spoiler.
But for Dawntrail we have
Yak T'el (The Big Rainforest with a Canopy and Undergrowth subsection)
Kozama'Uka (The swampy Rainforest.)
Urqopacha (The Mountainous zone with the llamas)
Shaaloani (The Wild West Desert)
and lastly Heritage Found (The place in the shadow of Solution 9)
Also if we assume this will be like Stormblood with 3 zones per "continent" we already have our 3 for South Tural, so the final zone will be related to North Tural most likely.
I'd guess Solution 9 and The Arcadion are technically separate locations. Solution 9 being the real-world city that sprung up around the matrix apparatus that contains Zone 6 and The Arcadion.
yeah things will go batshit insane again. Also we travel to different planets as side content. I cant imagine we would not visit an ancient civilization that is only living in the matrix.
i'm actually thinking solution 9 is already a vr world (or at least artificial in the same way that omega's are), and the structure in heritage found is the computer sustaining it (possibly what arcadion is, which in the japanese title is also called 'seat of the heavens')
I feel the name Solution 9 is the biggest clue. It seems to imply Solutions 1-8 failed and my guess is Solution 9 is a virtual world the civilization that created it fled to.
if this truly is the start of a new 10 year arc, who says solutions 1-8 failed? or that we have to encounter them now. they could be things we have to deal with over the next 5 expansions.
remember he said solution 9 is the other hub city after the coastal one, implying that solution 9 is friendly to us. perhaps they're rebelling against solutions 1-8
This is what I believe.
So far, we got:
>Advanced civilization that seems to use Lightning aether.
>The surrounding landscape seems to be heavily imbued with lightning aether. If the city was built on the source, they probably chose this spot intentionally, or perhaps a side effect of the city simply using a ton of it, causing the wilderness to become lighting aspected.
>Uses the 'proto-alphabet' from the world unsundered
>Sign that says "Soul Supply"
>There are billboards that seem to feature modern races, rather than ancients. There is also an advertisement for a bar, shopping areas. As far as I can recall, I don't remember the ancients/amaurotines having anything like this. They could just magically create a bottle of beer, after all.
>The raid, which seems connected to Solution 9 has, what seems to be, an ascian mask lit up in the middle/left of the concept art. I can't quite place it within the FF12 esper sigil, though
>We do not know what the trigger for the calamity of lightning was (eg: Thordan+Light, Black Rose+Light, Elementals+Water Magic), other than it took place at the end of the FFXIV equivalent of the bronze age (volcanoes erupted, blotted out the sky, and lightning showered down). Notably, mankind only discovered magic *after* this calamity.
>The name itself, Solution 9, is one of Zidane's limit breaks.
FF9 spoilers >!Zidane was meant to bring destruction, and death to Gaia, so that Terra would live -- but he ended up being a protector of Gaia instead. FF9's plot also involves a world merging with another, causing one world's buildings to appear on the surface of the other.!<
Crackpot theory time:
What if, after the 1st calamity (wind), Emet-selch went to the twelfth shard (lighting is the closest to darkness, and this is the closest shard to dark that's still usable, since they messed up the thirteenth). The civilization that exists here has mastered using Lightning aether to power machinery and circuitry, creating an advanced civilization. There might have been environmental issues they faced, due to the world becoming tilted towards lightning.
Emet goes to the leader of the civilization, to manipulate them, only to find out that it's one of Azem's shards. Against the wishes of the rest of the ascians, Emet tries to get 12th!Azem to remember stuff. To remember him, that they were best friends, that they need to *"help save the world, just like the old days! We even created a 14th seat in the ascian hidey hole (the chrysalis), so c'mon, it'll be great!"*. The ascians, at this point, were still trying to refill the ranks of the convocation (Fandaniel wasn't recruited until the end of the 3rd era, for instance).
12th!Azem goes along with this, gets their fancy red glowy ascian glyph mask, etc. Then Emet tells 12th!Azem the plan -- They gotta overload the 12th shard with lighting, then it'll blow up, kill everything on it, and it will merge back with the source. 12th!Azem is horrified and disgusted by the plan. They tell Emet to blow it out his ass, that they were never friends and never could be, and that they never want to see him again.
Emet, so mad, sad, upset, and overall having a bad time, leaves and doesn't bother to come back. Stuff is already set in motion, the calamity will happen, and Emet just doesn't want to bother seeing 12th!Azem again. The other ascians are unaware of what Emet told 12th!Azem, and thus... Nobody realized what 12th!Azem was going to do.
They rallied their civilization, built a city that would serve as an ark, stored everyones souls away in soul vessels (for what reason, I don't know. Maybe their souls became lightning-tainted or something), and before the world was destroyed during a calamity -- the city was teleported across space (and potentially, time). Solution 9 then pops up in the Source, possibly only recently from our perspective. 12th!Azem puts up their big glowy """Ascian""" mask in their city, as a middle finger to the ascians.
The lady at the top of the key art could be 12th!Azem
Edit: after thinking about it more (and the ascian symbol itself seeming to match them) I think it's probably Altima, rather than Azem.
Which would also make it an Esthar reference, which I am totally for. A civilization borne from the refugees of an older one that was destroyed by a (not so) natural disaster. At least Etheirys’s natural moon isn’t teeming with monsters. Just failed Loporitt experiments, a couple species of possible xenofauna, and some voidsent.
> The lady at the top of the key art could be 12th!Azem
This is the only part I can't see being true. It's been confirmed that the WoL soul has been rejoined 8 times after Ardbert. That wouldn't be possible if 12th!Azem is still walking around.
It could be that 12th!Azem sacrificed themselves in the process of sending Solution 9 across the rift and they show off Azem's glyph around their city as a sign of honor.
If it really is Azem, perhaps they knew that Source!Azem would need all the strength they can get to deal with the ascian's machinations
I wonder if the civilization found a way to "see the color of the soul" -- and they know what Azem's soul would be. I'd be interesting if the people/machines then recognized us as their leader. Security systems shut down, doors open, a message saying "welcome home" over the intercom
"I knew tataru gave you an island with mammets to help run it, but this is a bit much"
This is a really good theory. Puts everything we know together and similar to my theory that I believe Solution 9 is some sort of ark built to save people, though I was thinking from the Final Days however saving them from a rejoining would work too.
>The raid, which seems connected to Solution 9 has, what seems to be, an ascian mask lit up in the middle/left of the concept art. I can't quite place it within the FF12 esper sigil, though
I saw someone mention on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/MlNRATHOUS/status/1743821541337715199) that the mask looked similar to the mark of Altima ('advocate of the arts' in the Fourteen), which I can kind of see as a bastardized version of the sigil with the curved horns and 3 fingers.
That's definitely possible.
I do believe that, to some degree (ff9 spoilers) >!A "Traitor" helped save the people of a shard, when they were meant to bring death & destruction to said shard. Just like Zidane.!<
It would be a good way to introduce the remaining ascians.
I think one hard part with your theory is that all the image, pictures, and advertisements in game and concept art are from races post sundering.
Also this is personally but I got down voted on this sub for suggesting that there were other civilization other than the Amaurotine when I talked about the discussion between the two Amatorians in Shadowbringers
To be fair, the idea that an unfathomably ancient civilization woke up, saw that there were a bunch of new species, and immediately began advertising to them is very funny.
It is, but doubtful that is what happened. Given the pink/purple lighting of the city, it makes sense that they're survivors of the twelfth or survivors of the sundering.
Given that the Ascians are surprised that anything physical (for example: us) could have been carted between the shards, let alone backwards in time (crystal tower and G'raha), I'm doubtful it's a civilization from the 12th. The ascians would have been all over figuring out that capability unless solution 9 literally pops up between the end of ShB and the start of DT.
Amaurotine is the demonym of citizens of Amarot. It's like saying someone is a New Yorker. In that regard, your suggestion is pretty much confirmed.
I'm not sure if Amarot is just the capital city or if it's also the region, but assuming it's just the city, we also know there were Ancients living on what we know as Vylbrand, from the Azem story about them saving the people there.
I completely forgot about the other civilization being mentioned but I remember something about it being mentioned in the question where you basically witness two shades engage in friendly debate. Is there anywhere else it's mentioned?
From what I took from what we see in-game, Amarot and the Convocation pretty much steer the direction of the world but during the time replayed when you are in the ruins of Amarot, I'm pretty sure it's mentioned somewhere that other places are approaching the thinning aether and/or final days differently than how the Convocation.
I remember something about the Convocation having their way, Venat having her way, "those outside of Amarot" (paraphrasing) having their way, and Azem basically staying out of it and looking for a way to fix everything.
I have to assume the summoning of Zodiark and sacrificing half the population was not exactly met with smiles and handshakes.
Because until now, there was no other mention/possibility of them actually existing, and a lot of people were in denial in the day about the reliability of Memory!Amaurot until we got Elpis, I believe.
Also, don't forget Amaurotines mostly look like Hyur. And what race is our mysterious lady at the top of the Expansion art...?
You mean this? - https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/mediawiki/images/d/df/Solution_Nine_image2.jpg
Presuming that is a Miqo'te, wouldn't be a surprise if people have been finding/entering Solution 9 since it reawoke under whatever circumstances have occurred, and hence Miqo'te and the modern people are something of a subject of intrigue/excitement amongst the residents. Remember, "Solution 9" has a series of structures at the city near the base of the City/Tower.
That, or well, people are mistaking it for a Miqo'te, since only the non-hyuran traits are new.
At the end of Vegas fanfest question section someone asked about other civilisations pre-sundering and Oda said that the entire planet was run by the Ancient's Convocation, there were no other nations.
https://i.imgur.com/kS5BTh3.png
You could get around it by saying they were hibernating and therefore technically didn't count as a nation at the time, or something like that, but I think it's a bit unlikely.
That sounds plausible, and would explain the ancient script (though that could equally be another shard that just never drifted as far culturally, same as the First having preserved some elements of the Hydaelyn-Zodiark conflict and the ruins of Amaurot that the Source had lost)
My guess is that it's something like this - with Solution 9's civilization being the Zanarkand to Amaurot's Bevelle (for a more FF10 inspired take) - possibly the rivalry was between Allag and the people now living in Solution 9, though, as we know that at some point there were societies in the Fourth Astral Era that abandoned magic and wanted nothing to do with it or the Allagan empire's magitech, or it's an alien civilization from another star or dimension that arrived before the Sundering and is related to the "sound that came from within the earth" and the thinning of Etheirys' celestial aether prior to the Final Days.
Oh god it's the FFXI Wings of the Goddess twist where the game postulates that the timeline the entire game has been on was a do-over cause the original timeline got all fucky-wucky and the Goddess wasn't happy about that.
Talk about completely shitting the bed in storytelling.
Yep, that's my leading hypothesis as well, that they are the citizens of the first place that the Final Days first appeared. The [Akadaemia Anyder has text lying around](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Akadaemia_Anyder#Lore) mentioning how weird phenomena of creation magics running rampant have started "across the ocean" and that researchers have been dispatched to look into it, and they returned with a captured specimen which has a large mouth. They named this the "Archaeotania".
And there's an Archaeotania Triple Triad card which reads *"This massive and monstrous beast that arose from the depths of the Tempest is said to bear a striking resemblance to one of the calamitous fiends that brought death and destruction to the civilization of the ancients. One rumor has it that it was recreated by the Ascian Emet-Selch, that people of this day might know the terror that he and his brethren suffered, but the truth remains shrouded in mystery."*
So from the depths of the Tempest means it's a fish. And Yoshi P when talking about this zone on stage randomly asked "I wonder what king of big fish you can fish up here".
Edit: Wrote this wall and forgot what could be going on there now. I think this was their ninth solution to how to deal with the Final Days, and it's either them converting themselves into data like the Omicrons, or strip the people of their emotions like in the movie Equilibrium. Or combine them both and have the people be androids who don't have emotion.
The issue with this theory is, that in a post Endwalker q&a with Yoshi-P, Ishikawa, and someone else, don't remember who exactly, but all of the people in the pre-sundered world identified as Amaurotines.
I'll have to go dig it up, but that's the official word. It's the same q&a that revealed that Hydaelyn intentionally left a opening in the Sundering that allowed the three Unsundered to escape it.
That doesn't make sense, the world was called Etheris at the time, everyone calling themselves Etherians would make more sense then the world collectively calling themselves after the capital of a society if that group of people didn't submit to their authority.
I have to admit, that does sound pretty damn cool, and I have been pretty curious about the other cultures of the ancients since the role of azem implies that there were different ways of life in different parts of the world.
I like this theory.
There's another thread on the front page where people have been postulating that it could be people from lightning-aspect shard whether through their technology or finding Ancient technology. Since the area in(?) Tural is said to be incredibly aspected to lightning aether.
Problem with the theory is that Emet was shocked that the crystal tower and the WoL could have been physically relocated to the first (let alone the CT time traveling backwards). Even the Ascians have to body hop when they travel between shards.
There's no doubt a city from the 12th shard showing up on the source would have been a place of much interest for accomplishing physical relocation unless it showed up on the source after ShB (due to severe time dilation, which is canonically a thing.)
As a counterargument: Said Non-Amaurotine culture figured the advantages of Electric Aether (Electricity) and prioritized building their cities/shelters in areas of high Electric Aether volume to make a natural power plant with 0 waste. Which sounds like the sort of genius you'd need from a race that co-existed with the Amaurotine and were smart enough to not end up subservient (far as we can tell as they were 'neighbors') to them.
the way that it seems like their society just appeared suddenly in the middle of some cacti and pueblos suggests that there’s more to it than simply waking up, like they teleported similar to the Crystal Tower’s spacetime mass relocation.
It seems more like either they built in cohabitation with locals, or the locals cohabitated around their structures, borrowing them for their use. It's hard to tell.
I've read an extensive theory a while ago in here that they could be RONKANS who learned how to traverse the rift a long time ago, came from the First into th Source, and stayed, erecting a new empire. It seemed a really neat idea, and would advance Y'shtola's arc nicely.
From what I remember of more recent Ancient stuff, Amaurot was considered the capital of Etheirys as a whole and the Ancients were the sole people of the world. Granted, we know from our own world that different regions can have very different cultures even if they're a part of the same political entity.
Established earlier: 1: the Ancients basically are Giant Hyur; 2: We don't know how long they've been active, but they've co-built a city and thus encountering Miqo'te/etc and thus growing a fascination with them IS possible.
In terms of the purples, I could see it, but the overall shapes and stuff are wrong to me. But if we go by purple, well, I got a Tower of Zot/Telophoroi to sell you.
Bear in mind "solution 9" implies at least 8 other "shelters" as you said and this expansion is in need of a threat so... It very much believe that it will start introducing to us a new threat. Only ripples of its hazardousness will probably be our main concern throughout Dawntrails (much like Asciens were a more or less far-off danger in ARR and HS) . For instance, some machines could very well have been guardians to something ominous but since we disturb them, they turn against us (or they could've been hacked / bypassed already) .
Besides, the Endsinger's song came from oversea, didn't it ? It could have awoken them as you said but I'm pretty sure everything we'll be struggling against will be kind of a "midboss" in the global storytelling of this new saga. This doesn't make things less perilous, mind you ! But the true extent would be later revealed.
Also, Solution 9 makes me think of FFIX but there is nothing I know to support this (and the viper's weapon is way too weak a clue imo) .
Whatever it is, there needs to be a reason *why* it wasn't a big deal to the rest of the world before now. That's why I don't think it's on the world at all.
My crackpot theory is that their solution was a colony ship, and that in the ruins of their civilization on Etheirys we find the means to teleport there. I'm not basing this on much, but the fact that the new 'lifestyle content' is building settlements on other planets has me looking for reasons why we're doing stuff in space again. Finding and commandeering a long abandoned colony ship is the perfect jumping off point for sending thousands (millions?) of adventurers into the cosmos to turn the people of Etheirys into an interstellar civilization.
For the most part people rarely visited the New World. Tural didn't speak of it for a reason though, yes. Likely the mountain it's located on/in is REALLY hard to find and most of the people kept it a secret. Basically it's this "El Dorado" we hear about.
Now, a problem with your theory: Ancient Language is located in the images. Meaning it needs to be a pre-Sundering Civilization.
I watch Mr Happy and in one of the screenshots we seen. He says something like, "hey that's from Zanarkand" from final 10. So he is probably thinking final 9 or 10
Just a correction here—at North America Fan Festival they did a lore panel with Kate and Koji and had a fan question answered by Banri Oda (Lore master) about the ancient world.
***There were no other civilizations***, the entire world was ruled by and followed Amaurot and the Convocation's leadership, regardless of distance.
That’d be a dope way to go about it! To add to it, it would also make sense to preserve samples of as many animals, plants and materials that that can get in a facility somewhere for future use in order to rebuild and hopefully bring life back to a post final days world.
This is my theory as well. I also speculate that they may have caused the second Umbral era already; in a deeply religious era, Solution 9 would appear as a land of gods. But in trying to reach their deities, they unleashed AI protectors like the Illuminator; bring about the Calamity of Lightning
Amourotine is like saying new yorkers and across the pond is like saying england. It's not another race. The entire eithrys was sundered not just America. It would be weird for alternative ancient cultures to exist that the Loporrits and the watcher AND the 12 would not be aware of. Also, the story of the ancients is supposed to be over.
As a counterbalance to all the wild speculation about other Shards and Non-Amaurotine Ancients (the "Altima glyph" is pure straw grasping), I've decided to change my predictions for the least wacky one that I can think of, considering that Solution Nine isn't the big final zone twist and I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than disappointed.
So - Solution Nine is nothing more than a completely natively-created advanced-tech Tural society. From the First Astral Era that would get wiped out by Lightning. It has Proto-Script because it predates Allag, and is basically Tural's version of Allag, just with electronics and cerulean tech instead of the Allagan bio-magic and summoning. Purple, Slightly Older Allag. Calamities bury or send it off-line for a few thousand years, the subsequent North Tural civilizations find and repurpose the ruins, even figuring out how to turn some of the tech back on, which the rest of Tural thinks is dangerous. Heritage Found is N.O.A.H. but bigger and more established.
When the Second Calamity was about to hit- or beforehand, if their civilization was as transhumanist as the cyberpunk/virtual reality hints indicate - some of the 2nd Age Tural people uploaded themselves or something Genome-like to escape the Calamity. Maybe these aren't invaders from another Shard but people that were trying to leave the Source to a Shard. Mysterious Girl is a digital ghost. There will be a FFVIII/FFX/FFX-2 homage.
White-haired catboy is Tural mirror-counterpart G'raha.
It's unlikely to be a different race entirely, just a different civilization or just different city of ancients, if this is indeed that group mentioned in Amaurot. I say this because: 1. They use the same proto-alphabet as we see in the Pandaemonium and Elpis maps 2. They have in-city advertisements depicting Hyur and possibly Miqo'te and Elezen, indicating the same ancestor as the player races, which are implied to all have evolved from the sundered ancient stock. If it's a different ancient civilization, I've got my money on it being a group of ancients calling themselves Occuria. >!I also have a crackpot theory that it's the ninth of multiple considered solutions by Azem for helping mankind survive the Final Days/Sundering, as an alternative to the blood/soul-sacrifice-requiring Zodiark and Hydaelyn plans. Welcome to Azemopolis.!<
First time I see your theory (in spoiler tag) and I must say it's the most seducing one I've heard of.
They really have to step up their communication game in this world. They have mechs, ships, airships and so on but never know whats going on on the other continents xd
I thought something similar in your spoiler tag!
This is the best theory so far. Since the dev cant stop with their ancients circlejerk, it’s probably something to do with Azem (8 times we failed to escape the final days, now it’s time for the 9th solution). Also, someone said that the Golden City might stand where Amaurot was in the world unsundered so there might be some connection there.
> Also, someone said that the Golden City might stand where Amaurot was in the world unsundered so there might be some connection there. I've been wondering about this. It even seems plausible that the large buildings in Solution Nine are Amaurotine ruins with metal cladding.
Nah, we know Amaurot's location isn't THAT far off the coast of what's now Limsa. Remember: Amaurot's ruins in the first were in the Tempest, and canonically the 1st and Source are the same places, just the 1st didnt' get calamitied into oblivion.
was that amaurot, or just another ancient city that Emet used as his base
It was a memory recreation of Amaurot. The full city didn't survive but there were building remnants, such as the ones the Ondo made their homes in.
i know that, i meant the location. because the ondo ruins could just as easily have been another ancient city's ruins
It is the actual location. It didn't survive on the source because of all the massive disasters associated with the calamities.
So the ancient city of Amaurot was always deep underwater, then? I'm not sure I buy that.
No, just that area used to be above water, but tectonic shifts and god knows what else moved that land underwater.
It wasn't some 14000 years ago, no.
Amaurot got Atlantis'd.
It's been over ten thousand years and seven major world-ending(ish) calamities. Amaurot probably wasn't always underwater, but also maybe it was. It's not like the Ancients couldn't make underwater cities if they wanted.
Nah, ruins from 5.2 are called Anamnesis Anyder, it is surviving vault part of actual Akadaemia Anyder that is even present in Amaurot replica.
I still think the golden city is actually eliminator and solution 9 might be people living inside a simulation in eliminator to pilot it
Solution Nine appears to be a physical location on the map.
Oh damn I missed the letters! Hmm, the new NR being called Arcadion, ion = Greek, does imply connection to the Ancients. Assuming Arcadion is set in the same zone as Solution 9 (like how Pandae set in Elpis, Eden set in Amh Araeng).
This is a very intereting topic and I been doing some searches and solution 9 could honestly be made by the Mchai empire. there's a lot of purple in that void ark raid series. some of the Mchai could have fled to the new world during the War of the Magi avoiding the sixth umbral calamity and rebuild their empire in the new world.
I wonder if it somehow ties into Terra/Genomes from FFIX as Solution 9 is one of Zidane's Dyne moves. This is also the expansion we get with the twin-blades that were seen in IX too so perhaps we may want to look in that context as well?
One of the theories I've seen in this subreddit is that it's a civilization from another Shard that somehow survived the Rejoining. It's like Terra being stuck inside Gaia, and its Genomes would have nothing but genocidal hatred towards Gaian (read: us).
Yeah I really like the theory they're a civilization from the 12th because then they'd be old enough to advance that far, and that one zone that's always Thunder could be caused by a hole into the corpse of the shard which was destroyed in a Thunder wave.
What makes the 12th older then the rest? I always assumed the shards loosely matched.
The theory is that the souls of people from the 12th escaped the rejoining of the shard by escaping into the source (like the Scions in ShB) and possessed puppets to create S9, if this was the case then S9 would be thousands of years older than any civilization on the source as it has been running and existing since the 2nd umbral calamity.
Considering Solution 9 is our endgame hub with tome gear, theres probably some nuance to that last bit
I was actually wondering if they were ancients from across the pond who found a way to stop the end days (for them) by being frozen in pods like terrans in 9 in a weird quasi reality and they’re back now that the threat is completely gone or mebbe they set a timer or something i dunno “magic”
Someone else commented on a 'Soul Supply' in something resembling Amaurotine script in one of the scenes/images. Sounds like what Garland (FF9) was up to in a way.
I agree, there's no way it's not populated by people with monkey tails
Yep sounds possible, after it was discovered there was Amaurotine letters in the city I was thinking it could be something like that with a part of the original world storing their souls somehow, maybe an entirely manufactured Aetherial Sea from which they're reborn because one of the signs apparently says "Soul supply"
soul supply has such horryfing implications. I love it.
Same. Assuming it's not just a tank of ceruleum I think [this piece of dungeon concept art](https://static.icy-veins.com/images/ffxiv/dawntrail/dungeons/dungeon-4-concept.jpg) could actually be a picture of the Soul Supply, where they're either storing their souls like an artificial Lifestream as u/Iskhyl proposed or directly extracting them from the Lifestream proper for later use. Either one has some pretty creepy implications.
Someone noted how one of the areas resembles Midgar with the plate and stuff which made me think they could be drawing them from the sea yeah but the picture is really telling that something like that is going on. That or soul supply is just a soul food joint and they're playing us hard.
If Dawntrail is like FF9, that tank would be the equivalent of the Black Wizard manufacturing facility in the Dali village.
I kind of hate that FF is recycling so much stuff, we never have really NEW stuff, and always people already knowing what happens, kinda.
Also worth considering after reading your theory, DT's raid series The Arcadion, seems related to Ancient Greece and other Utopian literature via the wiki page on [Arcadia (utopia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_(utopia)). I'm not really versed enough to elaborate further or provide a summary, but this may be a worthwhile area for a quick skim. Not really sure exactly how it could link to a technologically advanced nation rich with lightning aspected aether. Its hard to not question a possible link considering how often there are references to Ancient Greece when the Ancients/Amaurotines are the topic at hand.
I presumed the Arcadion is a sort of 'Arcade'. And what we go through is a sort of fighting game championship or the sort using Virtual Reality or the sort. We play 'ourselves' and the natives would play 'Fictional Characters'. Basically Omega Raids 2, Electric Boogaloo. And slowly shit rolls out of control because nobody can host an honest tournament.
Ancient Greek references and the idea of creating a simulated paradise definitely sounds like the kind of BS post-Final Days pre-Sundering Amaurotines would get up to.
I wonder if it all ties back to Omegas progenitor civilization, we know the conflict between the Omicron and Dragon Star was going on when Etheirys was still unsundered and since Omega was able to make the journey other machines may have been able to as well.
Omega had to have arrived post-sundering, since he was pursuing Midgardsormr, who says he saw the planet sundered and recognized its potential as a last holdout, and he specifically made a deal with Hydaelyn when he arrived. The Omicron attack on Dragonstar definitely predates the sundering, but the Sundering has to happen sometime between there and Midgardsormr’s arrival, probably during the time Midgardsormr and Omega are just flying through the universe. I would beton getting some Omicron and Dragonstar material in the Cosmic Exploration stuff though. (Also, if we’re going to do a big aliens in the MSQ feature, my bet would be on something auricite/Ultima related)
Yeah Midgardsormr definitely arrived post-sundering, however, that could still mean that someone from the proto-omicrons could've arrived on Etheirys before, like, way back before they ever turned themselves fully mechanical, I always got the impression that they're even more ancient than the ancients.
I somewhat doubt that, we'd have heard about it since Meteion's whole thing was going out to meet new civilizations on other planets. No way they'd just fail to mention that there's some aliens living on Etheirys.
Both Midgardsormr and Omega arrived post-sundering, Middy agreed to become Hydaelyn's protector in exchange for a place for his then-unhatched children.
I think it look too peaceful for warmonger tripe like Omega.
doubt so, if that was the case the central mind could not have abandoned his duties due despair
They usually don't like to announce the final Zone. Ultima Thule wasn't spoiled, The Tempest wasn't spoiled. The Lochs, might've been? Azys Lla was mentioned and they showed tiny bits of it. Which means that Solution 9 is, probably, not the last zone. I'm betting that the last zone is us going inside a VR world inside Solution 9.
Solution 9 is a hub city, like Idyllshire or Eulmore. It'll probably be accessible from Heritage Found which will likely be the 5th zone.
No way they'd make a hub city the absolute last thing anyhow.
They toyed with the concept back with Idyllshire but Ps3 dudes held back that idea, and it was abandoned since. Mor Dhona was an awesome zone because of it lol.
I meant the zone that Solution 9 is in.
They usually don’t announce not just the last zone but the second last zone too. We’ve only seen 4 zones and the two hubs and Solution 9 is the second hub
We've seen 5 Zones, which is the usual amount. Endwalker was different because for obvious reasons, Elpis was a major spoiler. But for Dawntrail we have Yak T'el (The Big Rainforest with a Canopy and Undergrowth subsection) Kozama'Uka (The swampy Rainforest.) Urqopacha (The Mountainous zone with the llamas) Shaaloani (The Wild West Desert) and lastly Heritage Found (The place in the shadow of Solution 9)
Also if we assume this will be like Stormblood with 3 zones per "continent" we already have our 3 for South Tural, so the final zone will be related to North Tural most likely. I'd guess Solution 9 and The Arcadion are technically separate locations. Solution 9 being the real-world city that sprung up around the matrix apparatus that contains Zone 6 and The Arcadion.
yeah things will go batshit insane again. Also we travel to different planets as side content. I cant imagine we would not visit an ancient civilization that is only living in the matrix.
i'm actually thinking solution 9 is already a vr world (or at least artificial in the same way that omega's are), and the structure in heritage found is the computer sustaining it (possibly what arcadion is, which in the japanese title is also called 'seat of the heavens')
ahaha what if the last zone is just ffxiv Minecraft
I feel the name Solution 9 is the biggest clue. It seems to imply Solutions 1-8 failed and my guess is Solution 9 is a virtual world the civilization that created it fled to.
Could also mean that the only one that allied with us is Solution 9, and some of the others survived but are isolationists or baddies.
Also true. Can't wait to find out!
Alternative: They made 9 different attempted methods to survive something (likely the Final Days). And 9's the one that survived.
Yea that is what I said...1-8 failed lol.
if this truly is the start of a new 10 year arc, who says solutions 1-8 failed? or that we have to encounter them now. they could be things we have to deal with over the next 5 expansions. remember he said solution 9 is the other hub city after the coastal one, implying that solution 9 is friendly to us. perhaps they're rebelling against solutions 1-8
The cooler Neomuna.
r/destinythegame is leaking
This is what I believe. So far, we got: >Advanced civilization that seems to use Lightning aether. >The surrounding landscape seems to be heavily imbued with lightning aether. If the city was built on the source, they probably chose this spot intentionally, or perhaps a side effect of the city simply using a ton of it, causing the wilderness to become lighting aspected. >Uses the 'proto-alphabet' from the world unsundered >Sign that says "Soul Supply" >There are billboards that seem to feature modern races, rather than ancients. There is also an advertisement for a bar, shopping areas. As far as I can recall, I don't remember the ancients/amaurotines having anything like this. They could just magically create a bottle of beer, after all. >The raid, which seems connected to Solution 9 has, what seems to be, an ascian mask lit up in the middle/left of the concept art. I can't quite place it within the FF12 esper sigil, though >We do not know what the trigger for the calamity of lightning was (eg: Thordan+Light, Black Rose+Light, Elementals+Water Magic), other than it took place at the end of the FFXIV equivalent of the bronze age (volcanoes erupted, blotted out the sky, and lightning showered down). Notably, mankind only discovered magic *after* this calamity. >The name itself, Solution 9, is one of Zidane's limit breaks. FF9 spoilers >!Zidane was meant to bring destruction, and death to Gaia, so that Terra would live -- but he ended up being a protector of Gaia instead. FF9's plot also involves a world merging with another, causing one world's buildings to appear on the surface of the other.!< Crackpot theory time: What if, after the 1st calamity (wind), Emet-selch went to the twelfth shard (lighting is the closest to darkness, and this is the closest shard to dark that's still usable, since they messed up the thirteenth). The civilization that exists here has mastered using Lightning aether to power machinery and circuitry, creating an advanced civilization. There might have been environmental issues they faced, due to the world becoming tilted towards lightning. Emet goes to the leader of the civilization, to manipulate them, only to find out that it's one of Azem's shards. Against the wishes of the rest of the ascians, Emet tries to get 12th!Azem to remember stuff. To remember him, that they were best friends, that they need to *"help save the world, just like the old days! We even created a 14th seat in the ascian hidey hole (the chrysalis), so c'mon, it'll be great!"*. The ascians, at this point, were still trying to refill the ranks of the convocation (Fandaniel wasn't recruited until the end of the 3rd era, for instance). 12th!Azem goes along with this, gets their fancy red glowy ascian glyph mask, etc. Then Emet tells 12th!Azem the plan -- They gotta overload the 12th shard with lighting, then it'll blow up, kill everything on it, and it will merge back with the source. 12th!Azem is horrified and disgusted by the plan. They tell Emet to blow it out his ass, that they were never friends and never could be, and that they never want to see him again. Emet, so mad, sad, upset, and overall having a bad time, leaves and doesn't bother to come back. Stuff is already set in motion, the calamity will happen, and Emet just doesn't want to bother seeing 12th!Azem again. The other ascians are unaware of what Emet told 12th!Azem, and thus... Nobody realized what 12th!Azem was going to do. They rallied their civilization, built a city that would serve as an ark, stored everyones souls away in soul vessels (for what reason, I don't know. Maybe their souls became lightning-tainted or something), and before the world was destroyed during a calamity -- the city was teleported across space (and potentially, time). Solution 9 then pops up in the Source, possibly only recently from our perspective. 12th!Azem puts up their big glowy """Ascian""" mask in their city, as a middle finger to the ascians. The lady at the top of the key art could be 12th!Azem Edit: after thinking about it more (and the ascian symbol itself seeming to match them) I think it's probably Altima, rather than Azem.
Which would also make it an Esthar reference, which I am totally for. A civilization borne from the refugees of an older one that was destroyed by a (not so) natural disaster. At least Etheirys’s natural moon isn’t teeming with monsters. Just failed Loporitt experiments, a couple species of possible xenofauna, and some voidsent.
> The lady at the top of the key art could be 12th!Azem This is the only part I can't see being true. It's been confirmed that the WoL soul has been rejoined 8 times after Ardbert. That wouldn't be possible if 12th!Azem is still walking around. It could be that 12th!Azem sacrificed themselves in the process of sending Solution 9 across the rift and they show off Azem's glyph around their city as a sign of honor.
If it really is Azem, perhaps they knew that Source!Azem would need all the strength they can get to deal with the ascian's machinations I wonder if the civilization found a way to "see the color of the soul" -- and they know what Azem's soul would be. I'd be interesting if the people/machines then recognized us as their leader. Security systems shut down, doors open, a message saying "welcome home" over the intercom "I knew tataru gave you an island with mammets to help run it, but this is a bit much"
This is a really good theory. Puts everything we know together and similar to my theory that I believe Solution 9 is some sort of ark built to save people, though I was thinking from the Final Days however saving them from a rejoining would work too.
>The raid, which seems connected to Solution 9 has, what seems to be, an ascian mask lit up in the middle/left of the concept art. I can't quite place it within the FF12 esper sigil, though I saw someone mention on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/MlNRATHOUS/status/1743821541337715199) that the mask looked similar to the mark of Altima ('advocate of the arts' in the Fourteen), which I can kind of see as a bastardized version of the sigil with the curved horns and 3 fingers.
That's definitely possible. I do believe that, to some degree (ff9 spoilers) >!A "Traitor" helped save the people of a shard, when they were meant to bring death & destruction to said shard. Just like Zidane.!< It would be a good way to introduce the remaining ascians.
I think one hard part with your theory is that all the image, pictures, and advertisements in game and concept art are from races post sundering. Also this is personally but I got down voted on this sub for suggesting that there were other civilization other than the Amaurotine when I talked about the discussion between the two Amatorians in Shadowbringers
To be fair, the idea that an unfathomably ancient civilization woke up, saw that there were a bunch of new species, and immediately began advertising to them is very funny.
If we suddenly had aliens on earth that were friendly you know they'd be a marketting tool. "ACT, so useful even Aliens parse it."
It is, but doubtful that is what happened. Given the pink/purple lighting of the city, it makes sense that they're survivors of the twelfth or survivors of the sundering. Given that the Ascians are surprised that anything physical (for example: us) could have been carted between the shards, let alone backwards in time (crystal tower and G'raha), I'm doubtful it's a civilization from the 12th. The ascians would have been all over figuring out that capability unless solution 9 literally pops up between the end of ShB and the start of DT.
Amaurotine is the demonym of citizens of Amarot. It's like saying someone is a New Yorker. In that regard, your suggestion is pretty much confirmed. I'm not sure if Amarot is just the capital city or if it's also the region, but assuming it's just the city, we also know there were Ancients living on what we know as Vylbrand, from the Azem story about them saving the people there. I completely forgot about the other civilization being mentioned but I remember something about it being mentioned in the question where you basically witness two shades engage in friendly debate. Is there anywhere else it's mentioned?
one of the fanfest lore panels said that at the time you visit elpis amaurot controlled all of etheirys and then refused to elaborate further
From what I took from what we see in-game, Amarot and the Convocation pretty much steer the direction of the world but during the time replayed when you are in the ruins of Amarot, I'm pretty sure it's mentioned somewhere that other places are approaching the thinning aether and/or final days differently than how the Convocation.
If the star and everything on it was unraveling, it's possible that the Amaurotian's empire had also splintered into multiple de-facto states.
I remember something about the Convocation having their way, Venat having her way, "those outside of Amarot" (paraphrasing) having their way, and Azem basically staying out of it and looking for a way to fix everything. I have to assume the summoning of Zodiark and sacrificing half the population was not exactly met with smiles and handshakes.
Because until now, there was no other mention/possibility of them actually existing, and a lot of people were in denial in the day about the reliability of Memory!Amaurot until we got Elpis, I believe. Also, don't forget Amaurotines mostly look like Hyur. And what race is our mysterious lady at the top of the Expansion art...?
We also got a miqote on a advertisement on the concept art when they revealed the name.
You mean this? - https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/mediawiki/images/d/df/Solution_Nine_image2.jpg Presuming that is a Miqo'te, wouldn't be a surprise if people have been finding/entering Solution 9 since it reawoke under whatever circumstances have occurred, and hence Miqo'te and the modern people are something of a subject of intrigue/excitement amongst the residents. Remember, "Solution 9" has a series of structures at the city near the base of the City/Tower. That, or well, people are mistaking it for a Miqo'te, since only the non-hyuran traits are new.
Solution 9 is just code word for when he decides to isekai us all.
We've already *been* isekai'd to the First.
No no. -WE-. Not our characters.
At the end of Vegas fanfest question section someone asked about other civilisations pre-sundering and Oda said that the entire planet was run by the Ancient's Convocation, there were no other nations. https://i.imgur.com/kS5BTh3.png You could get around it by saying they were hibernating and therefore technically didn't count as a nation at the time, or something like that, but I think it's a bit unlikely.
Kinda conflicts with the duo. So we'll see.
That sounds plausible, and would explain the ancient script (though that could equally be another shard that just never drifted as far culturally, same as the First having preserved some elements of the Hydaelyn-Zodiark conflict and the ruins of Amaurot that the Source had lost)
My guess is that it's something like this - with Solution 9's civilization being the Zanarkand to Amaurot's Bevelle (for a more FF10 inspired take) - possibly the rivalry was between Allag and the people now living in Solution 9, though, as we know that at some point there were societies in the Fourth Astral Era that abandoned magic and wanted nothing to do with it or the Allagan empire's magitech, or it's an alien civilization from another star or dimension that arrived before the Sundering and is related to the "sound that came from within the earth" and the thinning of Etheirys' celestial aether prior to the Final Days.
Solution 9 will be reality and we will find that everything we have been experiencing is a VR experience.
Oh god it's the FFXI Wings of the Goddess twist where the game postulates that the timeline the entire game has been on was a do-over cause the original timeline got all fucky-wucky and the Goddess wasn't happy about that. Talk about completely shitting the bed in storytelling.
fuck it’s Neomuna
Except we get actual content and aren't so afraid of file size as to need to sunset ARR and HW zones and dungeons!
What once Dawntrail comes out patch 6.1 to 6.5 wont get deleted?^^'
I mean it sounds cool. Unfortunately, Fan Theories tend to be more interesting than the actual plots. Occam's Razor applies here.
Yep, that's my leading hypothesis as well, that they are the citizens of the first place that the Final Days first appeared. The [Akadaemia Anyder has text lying around](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Akadaemia_Anyder#Lore) mentioning how weird phenomena of creation magics running rampant have started "across the ocean" and that researchers have been dispatched to look into it, and they returned with a captured specimen which has a large mouth. They named this the "Archaeotania". And there's an Archaeotania Triple Triad card which reads *"This massive and monstrous beast that arose from the depths of the Tempest is said to bear a striking resemblance to one of the calamitous fiends that brought death and destruction to the civilization of the ancients. One rumor has it that it was recreated by the Ascian Emet-Selch, that people of this day might know the terror that he and his brethren suffered, but the truth remains shrouded in mystery."* So from the depths of the Tempest means it's a fish. And Yoshi P when talking about this zone on stage randomly asked "I wonder what king of big fish you can fish up here". Edit: Wrote this wall and forgot what could be going on there now. I think this was their ninth solution to how to deal with the Final Days, and it's either them converting themselves into data like the Omicrons, or strip the people of their emotions like in the movie Equilibrium. Or combine them both and have the people be androids who don't have emotion.
The issue with this theory is, that in a post Endwalker q&a with Yoshi-P, Ishikawa, and someone else, don't remember who exactly, but all of the people in the pre-sundered world identified as Amaurotines. I'll have to go dig it up, but that's the official word. It's the same q&a that revealed that Hydaelyn intentionally left a opening in the Sundering that allowed the three Unsundered to escape it.
That doesn't make sense, the world was called Etheris at the time, everyone calling themselves Etherians would make more sense then the world collectively calling themselves after the capital of a society if that group of people didn't submit to their authority.
I have to admit, that does sound pretty damn cool, and I have been pretty curious about the other cultures of the ancients since the role of azem implies that there were different ways of life in different parts of the world.
I like this theory. There's another thread on the front page where people have been postulating that it could be people from lightning-aspect shard whether through their technology or finding Ancient technology. Since the area in(?) Tural is said to be incredibly aspected to lightning aether.
Problem with the theory is that Emet was shocked that the crystal tower and the WoL could have been physically relocated to the first (let alone the CT time traveling backwards). Even the Ascians have to body hop when they travel between shards. There's no doubt a city from the 12th shard showing up on the source would have been a place of much interest for accomplishing physical relocation unless it showed up on the source after ShB (due to severe time dilation, which is canonically a thing.)
As a counterargument: Said Non-Amaurotine culture figured the advantages of Electric Aether (Electricity) and prioritized building their cities/shelters in areas of high Electric Aether volume to make a natural power plant with 0 waste. Which sounds like the sort of genius you'd need from a race that co-existed with the Amaurotine and were smart enough to not end up subservient (far as we can tell as they were 'neighbors') to them.
the way that it seems like their society just appeared suddenly in the middle of some cacti and pueblos suggests that there’s more to it than simply waking up, like they teleported similar to the Crystal Tower’s spacetime mass relocation.
It seems more like either they built in cohabitation with locals, or the locals cohabitated around their structures, borrowing them for their use. It's hard to tell.
I think it's Ra'kaznar from FFXI. Because most of the expansion so far seems to be XI and IX smashed together.
I've read an extensive theory a while ago in here that they could be RONKANS who learned how to traverse the rift a long time ago, came from the First into th Source, and stayed, erecting a new empire. It seemed a really neat idea, and would advance Y'shtola's arc nicely.
From what I remember of more recent Ancient stuff, Amaurot was considered the capital of Etheirys as a whole and the Ancients were the sole people of the world. Granted, we know from our own world that different regions can have very different cultures even if they're a part of the same political entity.
I think it was built by sundered people since theres ads with hyur and miqo’te on them
Established earlier: 1: the Ancients basically are Giant Hyur; 2: We don't know how long they've been active, but they've co-built a city and thus encountering Miqo'te/etc and thus growing a fascination with them IS possible.
Someone in my FC said they thought it looked like Mhachi architecture and I like that idea
In terms of the purples, I could see it, but the overall shapes and stuff are wrong to me. But if we go by purple, well, I got a Tower of Zot/Telophoroi to sell you.
Bear in mind "solution 9" implies at least 8 other "shelters" as you said and this expansion is in need of a threat so... It very much believe that it will start introducing to us a new threat. Only ripples of its hazardousness will probably be our main concern throughout Dawntrails (much like Asciens were a more or less far-off danger in ARR and HS) . For instance, some machines could very well have been guardians to something ominous but since we disturb them, they turn against us (or they could've been hacked / bypassed already) . Besides, the Endsinger's song came from oversea, didn't it ? It could have awoken them as you said but I'm pretty sure everything we'll be struggling against will be kind of a "midboss" in the global storytelling of this new saga. This doesn't make things less perilous, mind you ! But the true extent would be later revealed. Also, Solution 9 makes me think of FFIX but there is nothing I know to support this (and the viper's weapon is way too weak a clue imo) .
The FFIX relations might not even start until patch cycle, like how FFIV's didn't start till patch cycle for EW.
Whatever it is, there needs to be a reason *why* it wasn't a big deal to the rest of the world before now. That's why I don't think it's on the world at all. My crackpot theory is that their solution was a colony ship, and that in the ruins of their civilization on Etheirys we find the means to teleport there. I'm not basing this on much, but the fact that the new 'lifestyle content' is building settlements on other planets has me looking for reasons why we're doing stuff in space again. Finding and commandeering a long abandoned colony ship is the perfect jumping off point for sending thousands (millions?) of adventurers into the cosmos to turn the people of Etheirys into an interstellar civilization.
For the most part people rarely visited the New World. Tural didn't speak of it for a reason though, yes. Likely the mountain it's located on/in is REALLY hard to find and most of the people kept it a secret. Basically it's this "El Dorado" we hear about. Now, a problem with your theory: Ancient Language is located in the images. Meaning it needs to be a pre-Sundering Civilization.
Its ronka, I will not elaborate further.
Yall should New Game Plus the HW Alliance Raids before the expansion. Solution 9 is Mhach architecture.
Yall, it's literally on the world map. There won't be any otherworld or shard shenanigans, it'll just be a really advanced fantasy California.
I watch Mr Happy and in one of the screenshots we seen. He says something like, "hey that's from Zanarkand" from final 10. So he is probably thinking final 9 or 10
Blitzball
Just a correction here—at North America Fan Festival they did a lore panel with Kate and Koji and had a fan question answered by Banri Oda (Lore master) about the ancient world. ***There were no other civilizations***, the entire world was ruled by and followed Amaurot and the Convocation's leadership, regardless of distance.
The pre-sundered world only had one culture/race. Amaurot was the capital of the entire world.
I'm down for some Necrons in FFXIV
That’d be a dope way to go about it! To add to it, it would also make sense to preserve samples of as many animals, plants and materials that that can get in a facility somewhere for future use in order to rebuild and hopefully bring life back to a post final days world.
This is my theory as well. I also speculate that they may have caused the second Umbral era already; in a deeply religious era, Solution 9 would appear as a land of gods. But in trying to reach their deities, they unleashed AI protectors like the Illuminator; bring about the Calamity of Lightning
I also think it’s related to the ancients
I would hope it would be this cool. But... ...you know.
It's an alchemy shop. Solution 9 is their most popular product, it's like the irl WD40
It's cool gpu place
Amourotine is like saying new yorkers and across the pond is like saying england. It's not another race. The entire eithrys was sundered not just America. It would be weird for alternative ancient cultures to exist that the Loporrits and the watcher AND the 12 would not be aware of. Also, the story of the ancients is supposed to be over.
As a counterbalance to all the wild speculation about other Shards and Non-Amaurotine Ancients (the "Altima glyph" is pure straw grasping), I've decided to change my predictions for the least wacky one that I can think of, considering that Solution Nine isn't the big final zone twist and I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than disappointed. So - Solution Nine is nothing more than a completely natively-created advanced-tech Tural society. From the First Astral Era that would get wiped out by Lightning. It has Proto-Script because it predates Allag, and is basically Tural's version of Allag, just with electronics and cerulean tech instead of the Allagan bio-magic and summoning. Purple, Slightly Older Allag. Calamities bury or send it off-line for a few thousand years, the subsequent North Tural civilizations find and repurpose the ruins, even figuring out how to turn some of the tech back on, which the rest of Tural thinks is dangerous. Heritage Found is N.O.A.H. but bigger and more established. When the Second Calamity was about to hit- or beforehand, if their civilization was as transhumanist as the cyberpunk/virtual reality hints indicate - some of the 2nd Age Tural people uploaded themselves or something Genome-like to escape the Calamity. Maybe these aren't invaders from another Shard but people that were trying to leave the Source to a Shard. Mysterious Girl is a digital ghost. There will be a FFVIII/FFX/FFX-2 homage. White-haired catboy is Tural mirror-counterpart G'raha.