Dynamis, FFXIV's Least Understood Lore
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- I've held back for so long, waiting to see if there was something I was missing or if the MSQ would pick it back up. But we must face the facts. Dynamis is extremely misunderstood and it's high time we address its role in Endwalker like the lore nerds we are!
~
Follow me at: / scribesynodic
Channel Art by Catti: ko-fi.com/catt...
Join the Channel's Discord: / discord
Support the Channel on Patreon: www.patreon.co...
Disclaimer: The MMORPG known as FinalFantasy XIV Online as well as all its related publications and merchandise are owned by Square Enix. I have no claims to it.
Primary Sources:
Video Games-
FinalFantasy XIV Online
Publications-
Encyclopedia Eorzea Volume I
Encyclopedia Eorzea Volume II
Alternative Sources:
FinalFantasyXIV, The Lodestone/Sidestory
FFXIV, Letter from the Producer
Published FFXIV Brand Art Books
I'm fine with Dynamis being a mysterious and mostly unknown power because no one has been able to properly research it, however, I do think that the writers will eventually have to flesh it out at some point. Mysteries can be fun for a time, but you can only keep people in suspense for so long until some of them get bored of the topic and drop it altogether. Personally, as a Dancer main, I am really disappointed that the Totentanz and Dynamis are somehow completely unrelated to each other, despite the fact that it could easily have been a great storytelling opportunity for the writers.
Honestly, I find that very hard to believe. The Totentanz is extremely similar to the Endsinger's dynamis based powers.
I do like how the writers try to retroactively drop some hints, like with the redone Rhitahyn fight.
True, the quest keeps the two entirely disconnected. Heck, 'purging' the Totentanz created aetherial sprites, further disconnecting Dynamis from emotion. But it's like you said! It would be a shame for the writers to not take advantage of this. Otherwise Dynamis will remain this weird world changing thing that was randomly introduced in Endwalker then forgotten.
Honestly, the Totentanz/Dynamis relationship is too similar to *not* be fleshed out eventually. I can imagine Thavnarian researchers finding that missing link and blowing the case wide open sooner than later. Maybe it'll be a point in Dawntrail? A girl can hope, at least.
Wasn’t the Elpis flower and Meteia the only creations that could interact with Dynamis? Was there not some dialogue that suggested they would never create another Entelechy?
I was pretty surprised dancer wasn't seen as a way to combat the effects of dynamis I'm some way. Even accounting for the fact that it isn't a class that manipulates dynamis, it's power to effect emotions could have still made it something that worked at managing the fearful population. Even if the WoL isn't a dancer because you might not have dancer leveled up... Thavnair is right there! It's full of dancers that could have been story-centric in saving the city.
My personal theory is that classes like DRK and Dancer use emotion to stir dynamis into patterns creating guides that the Aether then follows. This creates VERY efficient and powerful spells. Because dynamis isn't used to create the effect it self, it's assumed the aether is just reacting directly to the emotion, but it's actually your intense emotions acting on dynamis which in turn helps you guide the Aether.
Those sprites in the dancer quest? Your manipulating the peoples emotions with dance, their emotions push dynamis into place, and their Aether flows through that pattern and expels the sprite.
Essentally, These classes are what happens when the purposes of Aether and Dynamis are aligned. They are synergized.
Love this take!
Casual lore enjoyers: "It's okay dear, at least we learned that Limit Breaks are actually Dynamis driven!"
Synodic Scribe bursting through brick wall after predicting Viper's weapon:
To be fair, I doubt I'll ever have a better W than predicting Viper. Had to get my laughs in while I could. xD
@@SynodicScribe I want to find your viper prediction was it in a video or on social ?
@@eikthyrnir7062 It was a video I made back in like March at the start of the year.
@@SynodicScribe thanks a lot for your answer
I mean, Limit Breaks were already described as ambient battlefield dispersed aether since the beginning. People just forget or don't pay attention.
Dynamis or dunamis comes from the Ancient Greek word dúnamis (δύναμις) which means "potentiality", a principle in philosophy. It was also used in XI by the Terrestrial Avatar Diabolos and was a parallel universe to Vana'diel, it was essentially dream/memory magic and my theory is that XIV's version of Dynamis functions the same way in that memories is what causes reactive energy to then create copies of dead or living worlds and places. I know the two games are different but with the Echoes of Vana'diel raid being announced, I wondered if they tried to pull from XI considering Azaadal was an important name in XI as well in Treasures of Aht Urghan. I hope I helped a tiny bit.
Love that! Great info.
That is interesting. I didn’t play FFXI unfortunately, so this information is new to me. I think you’re on to something though. 🤔
It's nice to think that it was always intended for Dynamis to be a mysterious force that no one, not even those who were wielding it understood; but I can't help but feel that it's become a macguffin. We won't see it again and all references to it will cease in the MSQ.
Dynamis is the Dark Energy of the FFXIV cosmos. It's fine that we don't really know much about it at this point. It's still a new concept and will take time for the writers to flesh out.
Dark matter, actually. Dark energy is something entirely different.
I'll place a bet that Dynamis is never reused to any pivotal extent in the story
In universe and out
@@rhael42 It's dark energy, not dark matter. It was stated as making up 68% of the universe in the game which is the figure we have for dark energy IRL. Dark matter is 27% or so of the universe.
That's what I thought when they compared it to Aether
Definitely agree on dynamis being a mirror. Fits nicely even with what was "revealed" in endwalker in regards to limit breaks. You are still channeling aether, but your desire to push past your limits causes the dynamis to amplify the potency of the aether. Thus allowing the limit break. I've always felt that it was dynamis that worked as a trigger for limit breaks, but that we weren't necessarily channeling it.
The conversation becomes more interesting if you consider the Ultimates are events that are entirely possible within the lore of the game, even if they do not actually occur.
Based on Scribe's explanation, it could explain why only we can use limits only in party (not taking in account unsync cuz well isnt really a grounded thing), and why the single meter is shared among all the party members, could be that the tiny amount that exist resonates when we are in party, allowing us to channel aether in a single powerful spell
The reason for limit breaks is that exactly but because of battle the amount of eyther given off can then be collected to cast the limit break. It would be interesting to know that the potency of limit breaks is not just pure ayther but also dynims working to amp the efficiency of the limit break or camping the out put.
I like the idea that Dynamis could be a trigger for DRK abilities or limit breaks. Just a tiny spark that triggers their use. Not noticeable to anyone studying them but enough to be that bridge between the emotion and the aether.
There is also the question about the Heart of Sabik. It was said that it amplifies the desires or feelings of those who possess it. Could Dynamis be somehow involved there, as if only in some small way?
Considering the immense amount of aether contained within it, I doubt it.
I've been waiting for this one but I'm so glad you did take the time to properly address it with everything given
Indeed! I needed to be sure the MSQ had dropped Dynamis entirely before illuminating it.
If I'm not wrong, back in Shadowbringers the Dancer quests hinted at Dynamis being used by the class without mentioning it directly. Something about pain and suffering and trauma making people more jaded and uncaring, and that dancers use their powers to draw good emotions and revitalize people's mood to prevent a descent into darkness.
But thats what would make it even more hilarious. The Dancers came from Thavnair and no one there had an idea what to do during Endwalker.
The whole Dynamis theory I believe was just a theory that the alchemist matanga had. So it wasn't widespread knowledge. The dancers might have known of Dynamis effects and how to wield it, but they wouldn't know it is Dynamis as we define it during MSQ.
I am hoping they might expand more on Dynamis in the next expansion.
So far the best I can believe is that Dynamis some how amplifies Aether, even allowing to shape it in some way.
Now that this video is out, I bet that the Tribal Alliance quest will expand on Dynamis in some way.
I wonder if we will get an "Akashic Records" Side Story. Where we dive into the study of Dynamis (Akasha). Akasha, in the real world is defined as - a supposed universal etheric field in which a record of past events is imprinted. Perhaps this is why Dynamis has remained a limited subject at best; it is a cosmic theory with no proven method to study it. And maybe through the efforts of trying to "read" the aforementioned etheric fields somehow (maybe with the help of Metion and her sisters), would reveal more information about Dynamis. And this info would result in FFXIV's own "Akashic Records".
Sometimes I wish we got more written lore or in game speculation on this kind of thing. Would be nice to read about Sharlayan scholars theorizing on its existence for example.
I think the reason we haven't heard about dynamis much post-Ultima-Thule is simply that it has been irrelevant (or at least marginal) to the situation at hand. The WoL in particular has a habit of jumping from crisis to crisis and only dealing with what's right in front of them, and the situation with the Thirteenth is SO steeped in aether for good or bad that what is there to say about it? I gotta think there's whole thinktanks dedicated to it in Labyrinthos, the Great Work, et al., that we just aren't seeing because it's mostly people trying to "power of friendship" at each other over and over again.
I think I've got as close to solid evidence that Dynamis as a concept in the lore didn't exist until Endwalker. In the Amaurot dungeon, you can run into a lot of the same enemies as in Vanaspati, and their behavior (except for boss monsters) remains consistent right down to their names. Except for ONE. The Terminus Sprinter (the horselike one) in Amaurot has a big beam attack called Aether Spike, and like most of the unique looking Terminus monsters, they returned in Vanaspati. And Aether Spike was renamed to Hollow Spike, to fit with the new lore.
(Edit because I got more to say)
That said, I feel like this is a good compromise between the people saying "it was dynamis all along!" which doesn't make much sense and reconciling the clear effects it CAN have with the fact it's still much weaker than aether. The idea of emotion affecting dynamis, and in turn dynamis being able to affect aether since they're in relative equilibrium is honestly as good as we'll get in terms of theories until we get more information.
Thank you for mentioning Myths of the Realm!!!!! I got what the writers were trying to do with that story but seeing you go over it makes me so so happy that it wasn't just my writer brain over-analyzing TTwTT
Prefacing this that this is a take from someone that did not care for Endwalker's story and that influences my opinions heavily.
Dynamis feels entirely like something they came up only for the expansion story to wrap it up and it just conveniently filled in the gaps from past story points/fan theories as an afterthought, there would have been more hints to dynamis if they were writing with it in mind in past expansions IMO. I kind of hope that it is mentioned more and expanded upon but I pessimistically think it's going to be something that will just be a convenient cover for story beats to just go "well I guess it was dynamis." It does feel extremely weird that it was such a central force to the MSQ of Endwalker and then kind of swept under the rug and not mentioned after, but there are a lot of things tossed into the story and left for years until the find a way to explain it... who knows.
For me, yes its a retcon, but i feel that the cape west wind and Lahabrea reworks were them trying to introduce dynamis as a concept into ARR for people to loog back on, not 100% sure but I will go and rewatch those fights.
This is close to what I'd assumed in Endwalker, honestly--it always read to me that dynamis *responds* to emotion, rather than being *made of* it. I like the idea that dynamis is a force that can affect aether, much like aether can affect dynamis (by suppressing its effect). Limit breaks aren't *made of* dynamis, but use dynamis as a catalyst to affect aether, or something along those lines.
I also like what you pointed out about dynamis only being truly powerful in a collective--the collective belief of Eorzeans shaping the Twelve is a great example. It's not that one person's strong emotions can create something out of nothing, but that a *lot* of strong emotion can subtly shape even the aether-based world via the medium of dynamis.
I see a lot of parallels between what little we've seen of Dynamis and how Willpower is displayed in Dissidia Opera Omnia.
The way you explained Dynamis being the reaction to Aether’s action makes me think of the philosophy behind the Buddhist belief of karma. The word karma is from Sandscrit, meaning ‘to react’, which describes some of the philosophy behind it. Buddhists believe that our actions cast out an energy and it will be positive or negative depending on the action.
For example, despite Emet Selch’s belief that he isn’t committing murder by rejoining the reflections with the source, karma would still consider that a negative action, regardless of intentions. Karma judges the action itself, not the intention behind it.
I like the concept of Dynamis being an amplifier to aether and emotion. Something that causes the reaction to amplify. I would worry that even then it would be a measurable effect that someone would have noticed over time. Scholars even the sanest and by the books would look into why some abilities being stronger or more potent by multiple people, and wouldn't just leave it at "Well he was angrier."
I feel Endwalker introduced a new system but didn't use it fully or explain it fully. It does feel sort of an ass pull of a whole new system that we are just hearing about. I can only hope that they can add some more lore to it as time goes on, so it doesn't feel like a Deus Ex Machina sort of ability.
Frankly, if they never bring up dynamis or metion ever again it will be nothing but a positive to the story.
dynamis is basically the power of friendship but make it canon
IMO the biggest counter argument about limit breaks is Elidibus LB4's us when it is stated clearly that the ancients were so aether rich they couldn't use dynamis AT ALL.
I think LB's can come from many sources of internal strength, some can by dynamis based and others can be aether based.
He also had clad himself in the spirits of warriors of light. With that many of them, perhaps their dynamis and all his aether made an LB4 possible.
@@carlmoore6466 It is possible but since he wasn't directly controlling them I am not sure how he would be able to manipulate the dynamis like that.
The past 10 years was not only the Zodiark arc, but also the aether arc. In a way, endwalker wasn't just the end of Zodiark, but aether being less depended upon. [Mothercrystal going away, the Twelve going away, etc]. Maybe Dynamis is the beginning of the new arc about to be told.
that does seem to be hinted in the bar at the end of the world. where aether is impeded by its limits and those limits drove some of the races to despair, dynamis seems to be the key to breaking the limitations of potential. basically it breaks the law of conservation of matter, with aether being sci-fi physics. in a way its like the actual magic, while aether is the physics that looks like magic.
My argument for Dark Knight though is that Dark Knight attacks and whatnot are surely Aether. But "The Path"? "Fray"? Having manifestations of ghosts of your past isn't so different with the ghosts that appear to you in the Aitiascope or "The Walk". Sid hasn't ever mentioned of experiencing a similar thing to you with Fray in being a Dark Knight. So I think /*your particular experience*/ with being a Dark Knight may still be tied to Dynamis.
I do have two thoughts about dynamis that crossed my mind
-Dynamis as an equalizer:
This is based on taking Emet-Selch at his word about the effects of sundering. With the inhabitants of the Source being 8 times rejoined (us at 9), people of the Source should have 8 times the strength of any of the people of the remaining shards. Yet they were able to keep up, and even overpower them at times. I suspect this is due to their reduced aetheric density allowing for better manipulation of dynamis. Ardbert and the other Warriors of Darkness fueled from desperation about saving the First from the Flood of Light, and Ran'jit over a lifetime of despair and seeking to save the First by essentially mercy killing it. If/When we visit another shard, this should allow the residents to still pose a challenge to us, despite supposedly being weaker.
-Dynamis as a shaper
This is expanding on an idea introduced in Myths of the Realm. The Twelve were subject to the effects of dynamis over thousands of years, changing their appearance to the forms that we meet them in. I believe we can further explain a previous concept we are familiar with, that being of primal summoning. We know that it takes both fervent prayer and a large quantity of aether to bring about a primal, and it may be safe to say that fervent prayer is likely an instance of manipulating dynamis. Through prayer, you create a mold utilizing dynamis for the aether to take shape of. This could be an avenue to explore in future content as Etheirys expands their research into dynamis.
You might be able to find more info on this if you look into FFXI. There is a nightmare zone that is all current zones twisted by dynamis.
Isn't the place *called* Dynamis?
A lot of what you say here is said under the assumption that one is using EITHER Dynamis or Aether for any given spell, ability, or feat. I've always assumed that Dynamis was instead used to augment aether, being channeled alongside it to grant it greater power.
I'm trying to go through most lore now but I wouldn't be surprised if Garlean will learn to use magic based through Dynamis because they can't use Aether. Making it more difficult but still possible
I figure dynamis is a power SE will keep in their back pocket to use later. If anything, it might be used by the Garleans, since they can't manipulate aether.
Probably explore a history dating back to survivors of the sundering hastily locking their aether away behind the third eye so as not to accidentally create horrific monsters that would devour them. Enough time and generations later and Garlemalds Amaurotian ancestry would have been completely forgotten.
I think your theory make sense about emplify the aether. As for the limit break, it could be seen as hopes of other into a specific person, empowering this one being, it's "low" aether allowing a more tangible, imediate effect of the Dynamis, in contrast of the twelve where it took thousand of years to have effect on them, probably because they were already so full of Aether, who negate Dynamis.
Kind of crazy to see it quantifed just how little we know about Dynamis, even now. Great video as always! I will be interested to see whether Encyclopedia Eorzea III will give us some big answers to these questions.
Same! The third book can't get into my hands soon enough! XD
There seem to be a lot of strong similarities between how dynamis/akasa works, and how anima works.
Usually when a new major concept is introduced in XIV, it takes at least an expansion's worth of content to be fully explained.
I'm reasonably sure that Dynamis will be explained in more detail near the end of Dawntrail and into 8.0.
First? Love the lore!
I'm afraid I have to disagree with a few points throughout the video. Below I've described my own thoughts on the nature of Dynamis.
First: What is dynamis? Dynamis has been with us all through the story, and in fact is a fundamental attribute of many fantasy settings. It's simply a scientific explanation for "the power of emotion." FFXIV is a fantasy setting that uses rules to explain and bound its power systems (as opposed to hand-wavy sorts of magic systems). In order for a phenomenon to occur, there must be a mechanism that explains it. There was no need to explicitly name this force before it became a focal point in the story, but the idea that emotion influences aether has always been with us, and was especially highlighted in the Omega raids. Now we have a name for the phenomenon or "carrier wave" by which that occurs.
Secondly: How does Dynamis work? Dynamis in-and-of itself does nothing observable. It is only indirectly, through its influence on aether, that we aether-based lifeforms are able to observe it. Every instance of Dynamis accomplishing something is, in fact, an instance of Dynamis exerting its influence on aether.
You see, mere sundered mortals have very limited aether control compared to the Ancients. When it comes to large quantities of aether, or particularly dense aether (Darkness), it is difficult, if not impossible, for mortals to control directly. But indirectly? We have the power of Dynamis to act as an intermediary which amplifies and reflects our intention, allowing large-scale control of aether. Let's see several examples of this:
Warrior: Dynamis influences their body's internal aether, agitating it to the point that it becomes especially powerful.
Dark Knight: Through the amplifying power of Dynamis, potently dense Darkness aether can be harnessed.
Limit Break: The scattered aether of the battlefield, combined with the hightened emotions of a protracted battle, create the perfect conditions for a mortal's dynamis to shape a large-scale effect.
The Twelve: The prayers of mortals create currents of dynamis which, over an extremely long period of time, carry the star's ambient aether to the gods in a form that reflects our wishes.
When the Endsinger says that Dynamis is influencing our Limit Break, she is of course correct. Her statement is essentially the word of the developers on this matter. Limit Breaks are not made out of Dynamis-- Dynamis is the intermediary force that allows us mere mortals to harness such a large amount of dense aether into our intended effect.
Finally: Why does emotion influence dynamis? Emotion is not a reified force in the universe of FF14 (which is why dynamis needs to exist at all). Is is merely a subjective experience within the consciousness of a sapient being. Therefore, there should be no reason that emotion can directly influence dynamis unless the two are connected on a fundamental level.
There is no real evidence of this ingame, so my speculation is a mere guess. However, I would posit that a soul is in fact a combined matrix of both aether and dynamis. The complex interplay between aether, dynamis, conciousness and memory within this matrix creates reverberations of dynamis that are able to influence nearby dynamis into an amplified pattern which extends beyond the soul. This amplified pattern of dynamis can then influence aether in a way that directly corresponds to the emotions in question. Therefore, during periods of extremely hightened emotion, and with ample amounts of diffuse aether within reach, powerful effects (Limit Breaks and other phenomena) can be manifested.
This would also explain why a soul less replete with aether is able to better harness dynamis. An aether-dense soul would act as a dampener that snuffs out these dynamis reverberations. It could also be speculated that an aether-dense soul corresponds to a lowered subjective experience of emotion. This would explain some differences between Ancient and modern society, such as the rarity of conditions like depression, and their penchant for civilized discourse.
Note: I realize that my points are phrased in such a way that I've stated them as fact, however, the game has not offered us sufficient explanation of the underlying mechanisms. Perhaps it never will. There is something to be said for retaining an element of mystery and some wiggle-room to change things later on. However, I believe my above explanations are the best fit for how Dynamis functions, given current evidence.
Prefacing: This was supposed to be a short reply, my main point is that I am glad you stuck to just what the game told us and not what history tells us, because you may as well just become a teacher in real life... are you a teacher? You'd be a good one. ANYWAY love your vid. ignore the philosophical rambling below.
I will be honest, I completely disagree with the way the XIV team is treating Dynamis. Only because it is a pretty neat term, and the fact they abandoned Akasha for something less... cryptic. I think because Endwalker came out during the pandemic, they swapped terms around to land heavily into Dynamis, which is just the will or the ability to do something _through given strength_.
I respect your decision to not use outside influences just because you would be sitting here reading us a glossary of every single connected terminology in that philosophy. Like Energeia is just Strength or power, lost when exerting potentiality; and it is the actuality that you are describing when discussing 'Meteion was not alone', while she had her sisters, dynamis is completely irrelevant to their existence as it is entirely tied to ONE's ability to do something--or as you defined correctly--potentiality.
--
Post edit here: I want to just be a little honest and true, I was wrong on Energeia because of its nuanced definition by Aristotle and Sachs. But you can take it to mean, it is the actuality or aether being generated when potentiality is being met. But that is not to say the XIV Devs are wrong, because I believe Meteion is at her happiness when she is pleasing Hermes (aka doing the work assigned to her or NEEDING TO ALWAYS BE DOING SOMETHING). She needed to reach her potential at all times, or else her existence (entelecheia meaning, my definition here: someone who finds inner peace achieving their potential) hits a point of non-existence. (I have a thing about why Ultima Thule is relevant but... this comment is essaying at this point, I AM SO SORRY)
--
And potentiality has its own meaning through dunamancy as well. I think they use it REALLY well in The Omega Protocol, since we end up in the pleroma (which lmao, good luck future dev team if you are wanting to talk about Archons as a NON STATUS FIGURE). The fact that Omega uses the collective unconscious and we join him in his dive into full and utter knowledge and meaning (dynamis at max stacks), he is able to use ALL of the abilities that we have? because in the collective unconscious--a term coined by Carl Jungian(dude's a hack), that is a place of non consciousness that every being is connected to and is where personalities are developed via archetypes and ideas are taken from them--you are able to use anything that will come to pass or has already passed. I know I repeated myself ther,e but ehhhhh I had to define it and yeah. THIS IS WHY I AM GLAD YOU STUCK TO THE GAME LORE.
I'm not. I always imagined I'd be a horrible teach in real life, but I appreciate your compliment all the same. ^^
during endwalker's main story Dynamis immediately made me think of Philip Pullman's "his dark materials" and the concept of dust. I think like dust, dynamis is the FFXIV's writers fantasy take on dark energy, where Aether is their fantasy take matter. Aether is what makes up "stuff" like you said, stars, planets, people, creation magics, primals etc. but unlike aether dynamis is intrinsically tied to conscious beings. Aether can be used to like a resource shaped by the wielder, where dynamis changes the nature of reality itself influenced only by emotions.
I would even go as far to say dynamis is like the concept of a collective unconscious in the universe, as endwalker harped on and on about how all across the universe civilizations were gripped by despair and with dynamis they shaped reality to be bleak and caused their own doom. Meteion was a special type of being created to interface with dynamis, hell when she talked with her sisters she even said "connecting with collective consciousness".
Meteion is a bad example of what you’re trying to explain because they were explicitly created to be a hive mind, so her use of the phrase “collective consciousness” doesn’t really prove anything.
Otherwise I think you might be onto something
I am curious about the state of beings immediately post sundering, when the beings populating Etheriys were a meager 1/14th of the unsundered's aether.
Depending on how much dynamis a single person possess, could the balance between aether & dynamis be equal or even in favor of dynamis? Or would the sundering have split our dynamis as well?
Travanchet is the savior of the ffxiv universe. Do not tell him!!
I do wonder if a practical example of dynamis would be a scholar fairy because of how early quest described the creation of the fairy as something like the 12 being a concept filled by belief/ emotions. I would wonder if they could use the same concept for the viper class because we see some kind of entity appear with some of there attacks and I think it been stated that this entity is closer to the scholar fairy then the voidling a reaper uses. I think the dancer comments that have been made are iffy because in one of the cut Sean for a main story dungeon it is stated that the warrior of light was taught the ways of the reaper, so the warrior could potentially have learned to be a dancer.
"Emotion is the bridge by which aether and dynamis interact" yep, I thought exactly the same.
It is emotions and desires that put dynamis (intangible energy) into motion, and that dynamis then exacts its influence on aether (tangible energy).
Since we can not perceive dynamis, we believed that our influence on aether is a direct one, when in fact it is an indirect one.
Which begs the question: How does white auracite fit into this? (Heart of Sabik *wink* *wink*)
But our influence on aether is direct. That is how we perform magic, is it not?
@@acgearsandarms1343 It is hard to say.
No scholar has ever been able to analyze Dynamis on a fundamental level.
Just like how the Source has misunderstood darkness and light, I believe it is possible that the people of Eitheirys have misunderstood the intricacies of spellcasting as well, because the role that dynamis plays within the world has not been quantified.
@@Lyn685 I still believe it holds true Dynamis is indeed the weaker but more plentiful energy. The Ancients and other similarly aether predominant beings can’t control Dynamis directly. Only indirectly.
Dynamis was handled poorly for sure, because Dancer exists, even if its an Aether based class like the rest, the fact that it actively seeks to counter the negative emotions which Dynamis preyed upon, much like the Totentanz does. I get that they want to make the Final Days a spectacle, but they could have used the Dancers there. Raising spirits is their entire forte and the fact they weren't used at all is actively a waste of potential, especially considering how they could have used a WoL Dancer so often to lift spirits
I think that's why dancers come from Thavnair to begin with. I could be wrong, but didn't they say that the area above Thavnair was more thin aetherically than other places? Kind of like a hole in the ozone layer, the bad vibes from the Endsinger were seeping through and a means to fight back against that vastly diminished effect was developed in the dancer.
I do wonder if the necessarily weak, subtle effects of Dynamis could be functioning as a bridge for Aether manipulation as well. Take some of the most emotionally "charged" jobs, Dark Knight and Dancer (also possible, Warrior and Bard). While they are still using aether-based abilities, could (part of) the direction and use of that aether be from emotion via dynamis? Just to an extent subtle enough (and perhaps subconscious/automatic enough) that it gets overlooked or glossed over. "Harness anger/vengeance/hope to use ability" might be an elided (taught) form of what would more discretely be "Feel emotion" > "Emotion moves Dynamis to shape/amplify/direct aether" > "Release ability". Just subtle or subconscious enough that the middle step is not acknowledged.
Similarly with limit breaks, Elidibus has amply demonstrated using them with aether. But particularly for the fragmented beings of Source and Shards, it still has an air of desperation to its use, that the party is gathering up all the scattered aether from combat, maybe slap-dashing it into a form appropriate to role and job, and releasing it to function. Could Dynamis be helping to hold Aether together in this case long enough to function? Probably weakest in the case of MCH, wherein it's fed to your bloody portable satellite, but I think it plausible in most other cases. Also something of a reconciliation for the Endsinger's "Dynamis?!" exclamation (yes, the environment is entirely atypical, but as a counterpoint, consider how Ultima Thule was "formed" at the Ragnarok's arrival - imposed from a Scion's understanding, even if subconscious, of the conditions needed to survive).
The way Dynamis is set up, written, and then discarded after 6.0, really makes me feel like it was concieved purely to be convenient, its not really brought up before endwalker, and its not really brought up after either, its kind of disappointing, and I wonder if its ever going to show up again
We don't have an "after Endwalker" yet
I consider 6.x to be after endwalker since its not all that related to the 6.0 MSQ@@mattp994
I seemed to exist to make the big bad super dangerous and to give us a 2deep4u entropy plot in the final hour. Endwalker was really sloppy.
I believe it is best that we hope there's more about it down the line. Maybe Tural will possess some secrets that were completely beyond the imagination of Eorzean academia.
I've always thought of Dynamis as the fantasy representation of "potential". The Ancients didn't have potential because they were already "perfect" as compared to the sundered imperfect beings like the WoL. Heightened emotions also makes us bring out more of our potential like in life or death scenarios.
I honestly think they could have unlocked potential for a future Shapeshifting Job using the "concept" of Dynamis if only someone could find a way to manipulate it. Akasa would even be a good name for this XIV unique class. With Dynamis one could twist and tort their form into an Abomination, and theorize if could balance one's Aether one could turn back. I only come to this conclusion looking at Ancient transforming themselves. Though they are highly aetherical beings, the transformations we witness happen at a moment of emotion. I do agree that they probably use a great amount of aether in this transformation, but can't help but think dynamis at least has a small undetected play in it. These thoughts also occur to me when thinking of transformations of Sineaters and Voidsent, different yet similar.
The Ancients can transform whenever they want. They just don’t because it’s a social taboo, which is why we only see it during moments of heightened emotions. Not because it’s the only time they can do it, but because in those moments they’ve got bigger concerns than putting on airs
@@Gloomdrake I agree
I'm gona be honest what htey did with dynamis had potential as a sortof interesting anti-matter or dark energy, or even a special plot device npc only god-gun type energy like Fel or something, but instead it seems like it was just lazy writing, like most of endwalker, and that any connections to existing thigns like omega is copium trying to read into what isn't there, coincidences etc (like wow players trying to rationalize shadowlands with WOTLK)
In a lore sense: I would like it if Dynamis remains a largely misunderstood phenomenon. With how Endwalker is ending giving a pseudoscientific explanation for literally everything and tying them all to the Ancients has been sort of de-mystifying with the vastness of the universe. From gods, to empires, its been feeling really tiring to hear that "oh, its the Ancients again".
In a spectacle sense: I wish they pushed the boundaries of how Dynamis worked since its already this mysterious "emotion-tied energy". Like when you hold Meteion's hands at the end of 6.0, I really wish they had everyone you met, deceased or not, who helped you grow as a WoL in your journey appear around the both of you as like... Aether ghosts. Like how frickin Haurchefant and Ysayle appeared in Heavensward. From the heroes, villains, Ancients, job masters. I think that would've really sealed a kick in the heart.
And I wish Ultima Thule completely changed in the end like Norvrandt? Where the sky-space around it began to look like a harmony of Dark and Light? Cus even after The Song of Hope, Ultima Thule continues to look like a depression hole. Maybe have the environs around keep the same structure, but better reflect the civilizations that live there. Give the dragons some happiness!!
In an ongoing use sense: I hope its mystery doesn't continue to be their way out in explaining things concretely like all the time. Cus 6.5 surely felt that way. But I understand since it was used comparatively sparingly in 6.0.
Let Dynamis be a mysterious mystifying force going foward. That heck, maybe disprove some things about the Ancients in the future. And idk, when it manifests greatly I hope they make it apparent and not like have it be the literal reason for everything?
An interesting thing about the way Dynamis is defined in FF14 is that it is a paralell of dark energy in real life. Dark energy is not directly observable (hence the name "dark"), so we don't notice it exists. The reason why scientists propose that dark energy exists, is that without it it's not possible to explain the current rate of expansion of the universe. Of all the mass and energy in the universe, only 5% should be the ordinary matter we can see and interact with, about 27% is the also elusive dark matter, and the remaining 68%-ish would be the dark energy. Only in this way the universe expands at the expected rate. In the EW MSQ, they specifically mention that Dynamis makes up 68.3% of the energy in the universe, so that's a clear reference to dark energy.
As an FFXI stan, I can assure you that mentions of Dynamis will almost certainly explode in number upon the release of _Echoes of Vana'diel_ .
I have nothing to completely back this up, but the impression I had while going through the MSQ was that aether and dynamis were akin to matter and anti-matter in physics. Not much is definitively known about anti-matter, and so that vagueness jived for me.
Just writing out some thoughts as I watch the video.
“All but dropped” in what way? Is a subject to be considered ‘dropped’ just because it’s no longer relevant? Like at what point in the current story would it even be relevant?
“Not even the researchers in Sharlayan seem interested.”
How do you even know this? For all you know people could be studying it right now. Or at the very least, try to even figure out how to even begin to study an unobservable force.
Regarding Omega, just because the writers hadn’t considered the concept yet, doesn’t mean that story doesn’t apply. It just means that the pieces fit. Good long form writing leaves ‘hooks’ for the future to insert lore that hasn’t really been defined yet. It’s obvious from the very beginning that the WoL has a special ability beyond being chosen by Hydaelyn (after all there are many more who have been similarly chosen who cannot defeat impossible foes). This “indomitable mortal spirit” _is_ dynamis.
I do agree that dynamis and emotions aren’t the same. But the game never claimed this. It is an energy that is governed by emotion. Also the reason people think that limit breaks use dynamis is because the game keeps bringing up limit breaks whenever dynamis is discussed. It is an output of energy that goes beyond what you should have, because in terms of aether, you don’t.
In the end of it all, it is a different subject. There are no known instruments to measure it. The closest thing is the Elpis flower. And since the one threat posed using dynamis has passed, it’s no wonder that it hasn’t been brought up further.
You pretty much summed up what I've known dynimas to be since I finished EW. XD
But I've also watched a lot of different series and read a lot of different stories, so the concept of something that is reactive to emotion was one easy for me to grasp. We control aether by force of will, molding to what we wish is to be, but it has hard limits and rules depending on it's nature, but dynimas reacts to emotion and force of will in a far more readily malleable way when there is enough of it present. The stronger the will, the stronger the reaction.
So, when we fought the Endsinger, it was our force of will against her's, and our desire to win and survive was stronger than her wish to bring destruction to the universe.
Square Enix actually said that we were likely at the strongest we would ever be in that particular instance, because of the unprecedented set of circumstances that were present, allowing us to literally turn our will into our reality.
That is not so say we will never grow stronger, and that we will not outgrow our current limitations, but that they do not wish to jump any sharks and we got to have a once in a lifetime experience. There will be other challenges to face, and other dangers that are a real threat to us, but nothing quite of that purely epic scale. Which, to be honest, I'm fine with. That moment should get to live unsullied and unique. There will be others of their own flavors of grand. XD
It's obvious that Dynamis is something that wasn't conceptualized until it came time to write Endwalker, since it's such a huge piece of the setting (a universal energy besides aether) but has no foreshadowing and seemingly little relevance outside Endwalker's plot. It came out of nowhere and doesn't play nicely with existing lore.
Limit breaks use dynamis somehow, but most existing lore says they use aether. In fact, EMOTIONS THEMSELVES are directly said to be an aetherial phenomenon in Return to Ivalice (also implied by the Dark Knight lore)! Now I agree that Dynamis is not emotion or a product of emotion. Rather, emotion puts Dynamis in motion. Like how an object remains at rest until acted upon by an external force, Dynamis is inert until acted upon by emotion.
But stuff like the Endsinger and Ultima Thule as they are presented feel sort of wonky if we acknowledge that old lore, that emotions are aether. That implies that aether itself is what manipulates Dynamis, unless emotions also have some kind of non-aetherial component. It raises a bunch of questions which I don't think the writers ever actually thought about. Dynamis was something they needed to tell the story of Endwalker, and Endwalker itself prioritizes its message above all other considerations like plot or lore.
It's not clear to me exactly how the writers intend for all this to be taken. Since Dynamis is something that was clearly only conceptualized very recently, does it fit into that existing lore somehow, or are we now retconning that old lore with a "well, that's what we THOUGHT we knew"? Nidhana DOES say that "foreign scholars often confuse the two (types of energy)". I half suspect that Encyclopedia Eorzea 3 might be "updating" a lot of what we "know" to accommodate Dynamis.
I took it as Dynamis being the mechanism that's used to bridge emotion to aetherial manipulation. It's how our thoughts can be given form. But aether used to be everything in the setting so it didn't need a conduit since our own aether would be overpowering ambient or crystal aether and coding it how we wanted. That was always how Primals worked. So Dynamis exists to tell a half baked story about dark matter as a way to get our big edge of the universe JRPG end boss and is used to fill gaps that didn't exist. It's an asspull.
Consider, we used to "know" that astral aspected aether was active and umbral aspected aether was passive. That was turned on its head in Shadowbringers. Like any science, what is "known" is merely a theory and can be prone to changing when new facts and proper experimentation come out with a better explanation of phenomena.
@@Nenacu Astral IS active and Umbral IS passive. The thing that was "backwards" is their association with light and darkness. We discover that Astral = Darkness and Umbral = Light.
But that was just an issue of nomenclature. There's not really anything to suggest that Eorzean scholars associated astral/umbral with the forces of light and darkness, they are just terms for aetheric activity/passivity.
@@geek593 Yeah this kind of bugs me as well. Before Dynamis, Aether was EVERYTHING. Thoughts, emotions, memories, ideas, all of that is aether or is at least stated to be aether by in-universe characters. Prayer and hopes and strong emotion has always been one of the main components of primal summoning, and that's easy to understand if you think of prayer as being aetherial in nature. But if that "prayer power" is actually dynamis (which is kind of implied by the Twelve raid) it feels impossible that it could go almost entirely unnoticed for 12,000 years.
It really feels like a half baked system that they invented to tell one specific story without really thinking about how it interacts with existing lore and the implications it has on the setting going forward. Maybe Dawntrail will expand on it but idk.
My personal theory is that the ability to weild Dynamis is inherent to all beings, but the ability to weild it on Ethyris takes something special. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the theory about limit breaks may not be what is being referred to by "the ability to push past one's limits." After all, when defeated, you see the following message:
"The Echo grants you strength beyond your limits!"
I think The Echo may well be the ability to use Dynamis for different purposes, even on an aether-rich world.
Not everything needs proper explanation. Dynamis reflects our real world abilty to stand against all odds. To never lose hope in most dire of times.
Real world is full of miracles and of people being able to live on / survive / live through / connect and reach to each other. It is a reflection of our unique human nature. To some, it reaches as far as religion.
In game, this translates as Venat's gift to humanity. Understanding that being able to feel and hope, because of knowing what is despair, makes us stronger.
I dont need any explanation beyond that. Thats the beauty of this concept. There is no "behind the curtain" super lore about it. Because just as in reality, explaining Dynamis would mean being able to explain God (in general).
Very often, less is more and FF14 writers wonderfully weaved that notion into story. Explaining it further would take all the philosophical notions and beauty out of it. Think about what happened with the Force and Midichlorians.
I don’t think we will hear about it anytime soon, if ever,it’s one of the things they came up with in Endwalker like Hermes to quickly finish the story.
I see dynamis as how science sees dark energy in real life. There's absolutely *something* in the void between stars with an energy to it, but we don't know what it actually is, only that it's NOT gravity or related to the strong/weak forces at the subatomic level. Likewise, a few scholar's on etheris know dynamis is a thing in the void, but compared to the known forces of aether, the only thing they're sure of is that it ISN'T aether.
FFXI's Weaponskills were once described as a form of "Dynamism that you Adventurers employ in thre midst of battle" by a NPC that is more knowledgeable about those things than The Adventurer is. Not that this NPC is infallible but it caught my eye when unlocking the Empyrean Weaponskills (you normally need the Legendary weapon itself to perform their signature Weaponskills but two classes of Legendary weapons in XI allow you to jump through easier hoops for WS access w/o having to build the genuine weapon) within the Walk of Echoes.
If nothing else it certainly got some wheels turning for me, though regardless of what if anything pans out from this curious word choice in XI, I personally can't wait to see what answers if any, await in Dawntrail regarding some of the lesser expounded upon stuff, and what similarities overlap with similar stuff from XI. Even if there is ultimately no connection there.
Omega raids having a lot of things alluding to dynamis is not a "happy coincidence", it's the writers seeing the omega raids and retroactively used its story elements for the current story (well, 6.0 and myths). It's a very common writing technique to leave some loose plot points when writing long story arcs that lasts multiple years that is not unique to videogames. Among others, the same technique was applied to the crystal tower that reasonably turned into time & shard travel device using alexander and omega raids as precedents in ShB. They did not plan for that when crystal tower first released. Dynamis also explains the bullshit ran'jit pulled on us and how the warriors of darkness can stand toe to toe with us. If they truly only have aether to rely on, won't having 1/8th of yours mean they would be BTFO'd without contest? One of us against someone from the shards (1/14 vs 8/14) would've been far more terrifying than us against an unsundered (8/14ths vs 14/14)
Still, I think not tying dynamis to dancer job quests or bard 51-60 (at least give us some additional dialogues or somethin') is a missed opportunity i feel.
I've just attributed the power of Dynamis akin to spiral energy from Gurren Lagann
Thank you so frickin' much for calling out the Omega fight as noncanon. So many people lean on the "Limit Breaks are Dynamis" based on the Dynamis stacks in that fight, and Ultimates are a completely fake story made up by someone who knows everything you do, and then puts the coolest parts together to tell a tale. Limit Breaks are very clearly defined as Aether-based, and continue to be so in every EE. An argument could be made that an influx of Dynamis could fill a LB bar, but the attack is not Dynamic.
When the Endsinger says "Dynamis?", she's doing so with the tone used in anime that she asking why her power failed her. Without clarity, it's much more likely that she's thinking the WoL overrode her power of Dynamis with something of his own, not that he's using Dynamis.
And no, Zenos did not use Dynamis to summon the transporter to you. Zenos sucks. Stop trying to make him a hero. Meteion offered you a path home. The delay between her saying that and the end of the fight is narrative.
Did Dynamis do anything "positive" in the story so far?
It only rampaged on dispaired people and turned them into crazy monsters during that apocalypse we had, and The Final Days for the Ancients... or did I miss anything?
There is so much unexplained stuff here still. I wish they would at least label it some sort of mystery we won't get any information on, so the speculations can calm down a bit (although they are super fun to read!)
Who knows, maybe they just wanted to create their XIV version of real life "Dark Matter". (which funnily enough are items in the game? lol)
I’m pretty sure Dynamis is ffxiv’s magicky version of dark energy, while Aether is their magicky version of baryonic matter/energy. My justifications for this go as follows.
1) All “things” are stated to be made of aether. In the same way, all things we can actively detect and interact with in our universe are made of baryonic matter.
2) Dynamis makes up 68.3% of the FFXIV universe. This is obviously intentionally the same exact amount as the amount of Dark Energy that makes up our universe.
3) The Ea discovered that all the galaxies were slowly drifting away from one-another and the universe would eventually fizzle out. Meteion said she would use dynamis to quicken this process. I would speculate that this is a natural effect of dynamis. Similarly, in our universe, Dark Energy drives the runaway expansion of the universe, and will eventually lead to its “heat death” as defined by astrophysicists.
4) Aether has a natural tendency to flow and seek equilibrium. It also has a tendency to coalesce and transform itself into more useful states as it sits for long periods of time. (Crystals, the mother crystal, ceruleum, etc.) This is similar to how baryonic matter/energy behaves in our universe due to the fundamental forces and the laws of physics. However as dynamis is able to beat this out in the end, so Dark energy beats out matter in the end.
5) in the presence of abundant Aether, Dynamis is noted to be rather weak in its ability to affect phenomena. In the same way, Dark Energy’s natural effect is less pronounced in galactic clusters, and pretty much a negligible inside the galaxies themselves due to the fundamental forces having much more sway there. Meanwhile, its affects are much more prominent in voids, where the lack of matter leaves Dark Energy as the only acting force on space-time. In the same way, dynamis has comparatively limited power and application in Aether-rich sections of the universe, but ultimate power in Ultima Thule, in the almost complete absence of aether. Further, Ultima Thule is described as residing in a completely empty pocket of space.
Hope this helps out a bit for people who are interested in Dynamis and its possible applications (or lack thereof).
"...use the power of dynamis to convert emotion into tangible phenomena." My own interpretation of the limited information we get was a bit simpler. While it is important to distinguish between 'dynamis' and 'emotion,' I'd compare the two as distinguishing between 'gasoline' and 'combustion.'
While in an aether-based system (so the DRK and limit-break examples, to be clear), dynamis has no singular presence, but it effectively stretches/amplifies/warps aether's effect if the emotional trigger is strong enough, with enough willpower behind it. Not everyone can do it, and the heavy implication with 'limit breaks' is that only people with exceptionally strong minds/hearts can attempt them. So whenever someone in an aether-based system does something 'against the rules', something that shouldn't be possible by all normal understanding, but it happened during a moment of intense emotion or even just intense willpower, I interpret that as emotion/willpower 'igniting' the dynamis, which then ripples out through the aetheric system, warping the normal laws of aether.
So yeah, everything we could study/detect would be aether-based for limit-breaks and DRKs, but that's because the unknown element causing the sudden, explosive spike in power from individuals that shouldn't normally be able to do so is because of dynamis affecting the aether, which is caused by extreme emotion/willpower. A DRK's shield spell has all the rules of a proper aether-based shield spell... but the DRK's spell is oddly potent and formidable for the amount of mana it consumes. This odd boost of power/effeciency is what I would put forward as dynamis reacting to emotion. DRKs are essentially stumbling into use of dynamis without realizing it.
But also, as a writer? It's just a plot mcguffin they created for EW to let emotion be the source of strength so that love, friendship, and comaraderie can literally be the way we save the world. Everything else is just retroactive legitimacy that happens to mesh nicely. It's just 'plus ultra' from MHA, or the hero standing up when he should be dead because the badguy has to lose anyway. I sincerely don't expect them to mention it again, unless they need to create an environment with no aether for some other plot contrivance.
Because dynamis is a last minute deus ex machina to implement Endsinger, and that’s why I say that EW can never top ShB. EW is just bad. Even story which FFXIV is famous for was bad.
I can loop watch ShB many times, but it just pains me to watch any playthrough of EW.
And don’t bother dismissing my thoughts as new player nostalgia because I started playing late ARR.
I'm convinced that Limit Breaks do use dynamis. But it isn't just Dynamis.
The Primary ingredient is aether, but being sundered, we are only capable of so much. With dynamis and a strong surge of emotion, we can cast/use far, far stronger abilities and spells than we could otherwise.
And because emotion is the key to Limit Breaks in this context, it would make sense why researchers never found the existence of dynamis. Because Limit Breaks are already more contextualized under extreme stress and hard to replicate for research purposes (outside of inhumane experimentation). So they would unknowingly misuse Occam's Razor to just say that a strong surge of emotion and pushing one's own body to the limit is the cause of Limit Breaks in general.
However, we know the FFXIV Team isn't perfect. Dynamis being used in Limit Breaks could be a plot hole they either need to world build around or find an explanation on whether it is or isn't used in them. Because Dynamis was written far after Limit Breaks were first brought into the game it could be something they didn't think about.
I think that you're wrong about it being necessary that things like Dark Knight and Limit Breaks would have necessitated scholars learning about dynamis, were it a large part of their function, as within the context of the universe, Dark Knights are an EXTREMELY new thing, and limit breaks just, uh, don't happen very often in-universe for scholars to draw information from.
My opinion? *They're either saving it for later, OR they deadass forgot it even existed, there is no in between,* that's a "thing" I noticed modern writers like doing a lot, not exclusively ofc, but more often than not from what I've seen, they either flat out forget they wrote that thing or character, than when brought up they're like "oh f**k, that did exist didn't it?" OR, they don't say shite, than it gets brought back in a "surprised to see me?" Moment, so yeah, my guess is: They're either playing 4d chess with Dynamis... Or they legit forgor it even was a thing, of course they could just, NOT know what to do with it atm, buuut, those are my two specific guesses on whats happening with Dynamis
My own theory is that Dynamis is not quantized like Aether. It's not an energy you can gather, and things are not composed of it like they are Aether. Instead, it is more like space-time itself, the fabric of reality. Dynamis is always there as the stage on which constructs of Aether are formed and act. It can influence those things to a certain extent, and its influence can be drowned out.
Part of the reason I believe this is the fact that our time period exists at all. If Dynamis is an energy, there is as much or more of it than Aether in the universe (and therefore vastly more available in the universe than there is Aether on just Etheirys), Meteion can gather that energy without practical limit, and Meteion has had millennia to do so... then there is no reason she couldn't just overwhelm Zodiark and kill us all ages ago. She had every possible advantage... if Dynamis was an energy.
Things make a lot more sense if Dynamis is simply the fabric of reality. That's not to say it doesn't affect things. Just like the stretching of space-time curvature, Dynamis can be "raised" and "lowered" in an area, and this impacts Aether and Aether-based matter/creatures. In raised Dynamis, the flow and circulation of Aether is quickened, granting unusual strength and vitality. In lowered Dynamis, the reverse happens, potentially leading to a creature's Aether becoming entirely stilled. I'll get back to that in a moment.
First, while Dynamis can have great impact on Aether and Aether-based creatures, Dynamis is in turn affected by Aether in two ways. The first is simple stabilization. The "mass" of Aether dampens how much influence fluctuations in Dynamis has. This is why the Aether-dense Ancients were less susceptible to Meteion's Dynamis manipulation than Aether-thin sundered beings were. It's also likely how Zodiark reinforced the star to defend against Meteion (though EW made a bit of a mess of how much the Conclave actually understood the threat and acted meaningfully against it vs just trying something and getting lucky), manipulating Aether-density throughout the world to stifle the effects of Meteion's Dynamis attack.
The second way Aether affects Dynamis is the emotion and will (in my opinion, the latter far more than the former) of living creatures. Intense will and drive raise Dynamis, while surrender, fatalism, and feelings of futility lower Dynamis. This appears to be a localized effect strongest at the source but some of the effect does radiate out and can affect other people. Further, the effect stacks to some extent, with multiple people able to create overlapping and mutually-reinforcing effects. This adds an interesting spin to the idea of "infectious" cheerfulness or panic and the calming effect a single powerful personality can have on a group.
Now back to creatures with "stilled" Aether. Y'Shtola comments that the transformed creatures we encounter seem to have no Aether, but that makes no sense. If Dynamis is an energy, how do creatures of Aether suddenly become creatures of Dynamis with zero Aether? Does Aether become Dynamis? Is there some replacement mechanism? Does Dynamis require an Aether pattern/template to start from before dispersing all the Aether and then somehow no longer needs it? And why is there no release of Aether in the transformation? None of it makes sense. Because that's not what is happening.
If you remove all the matter that makes up a creature, the creature doesn't transform, it ceases to exist. In fact, we've watched plenty of beings' Aether disperse, and 1) they definitely weren't replaced with anything, while 2) their minds, memories, and even emotions explicitly go with their Aether (as observed in Amon retaining individuality for a time even after death and returning to the Aetherial Sea). Even Meteion is explicitly a construct of Aether, as noted when Mr. Depresso mentions you and she both have thin Aether.
So what are the creatures we encounter? They are still Aether, but they have been stilled. We constantly see Aether described as flowing and circulating, and it's always a dynamic force. Even crystals, the most static form I can think of for Aether, are like pent up children after too much sugar, practically vibrating with the need to _do_ something. My theory here is that Y'Shtola and various Aether sensors don't observe Aether itself; instead they observe the flow of Aether. This is also why she mistook us for a Light creature in the First: she just saw the flow of Aether in and around us, not our physical form (she clearly doesn't just "see Aether" because our physical form _is_ Aether).
When Dynamis is lowered too much, a creature experiencing hopelessness, despair, and (most importantly) surrender may fall into a negative feedback loop of its surrender lowering Dynamis in its space, which just strengthens the feeling of hopelessness. Its local Dynamis plunges into something like a singularity, eventually stilling its flow of Aether entirely. The Aether is still there giving it form, but all of the vital energy that made the creature what it was has vanished. In its place is a monster that acts solely on the instinct, seeking perhaps to claw back some of what it's lost or maybe just to drag everything else down. It no longer has any flowing Aether, so, to people like Y'Shtola, it looks like a creature-shaped black hole. This also explains why such creatures can still be damaged and destroyed exactly like normal. They're still composed of the same stuff as everyone else.
Next... I'm going to stop here because holy crap why did this get so long? I'll just leave one last thought: We still don't have a good explanation of what the reflections actually are or how they interact with the rest of the universe. Like how do Meteion's manipulations of Dynamis affect the reflections? Does their Aether "mass" affect the Source and lend some or all of its stabilizing influence? Does the rest of the universe exist outside the worlds in the reflections? What would happen if Meteion got sundered?
Crazy theory here: What if Dynamis is how one is able to channel and muster the Aether required to pull off the limit breaks. Mechanically we know in certain fights we will be guaranteed LB3 for tanks to use in order to push the party to survive a mechanical party wipe. What if the accelerated LB gain is due to Dynamis? That would explain Meteon's statement without contradicting the known understanding that LBs are aether based.
When I went through 6.x, I take aether is more solid and logic, as we had all methods to use the spells and abilities, and the asciens use the magic of creation. It's more like fundental rules, just as physics and alchemistry in our realm. In the other hand, dynamis is more subtle, pure form of energy without color, filling up where aether blank out, and reactive to our subconsciousness, or directly to emotions. It is not evident to a regular active star where souls, life or strong natural flows and neglected in the background. Also, the emotions are fluctuating from time to time, diverse from individuals, so they rarely conjure a solid trends. Our thoughts could drop some color into this massive ocean, and bring the reflection to our aethic reality, only if it is consistent enough to bind with anything.
As to limit break, it still cost our aether (but surely stronger in WoLs), but also could be filled up extra-ordinary by the united power of willings. That's why they only appeal after we exerted our mind, body and souls, then fuel our extra-ordinary acts. (usually last 3% of boss HP or 10% of map wise AOE)
I hope dynamis shows itself a bit more, especially as we cross the gaps of the Fragments, while keeping it mostly mysterious. Remember all we learned in Endwalker, that has been huge buildup for YEARS now, tidbits all across, sometimes not even more than kinda-mentions? Yeah, that makes these HUGE mysterious about how the world is so fun.
I thought it was made pretty clear how Dynamis and Aether are related in 6.0 and you understand it pretty well in this video. It is a complicated and relatively philosophical one so I'll try to outline it a bit.
The simple part is Aether. Aether is a tangible thing. It's the equivalent of energy and matter. It's all of the research that anyone has ever made because it affects things physically and is one of the fundamental building blocks of the physical world. It is subject to the scientific method as it's just a thing, so in a magical context, all analysis finds it to be aether based. It's the fuel and form for magic and most people can direct how it flows at a basic level. Gunblades work by harnessing stored Aether to create explosions. GNBs just need to channel Aether into the weapon and it's why Thancred can use one despite being unable to channel it. He can just take a preloaded cartridge and make the weapon do the rest. It's purely scientific.
Dynamis on the other hand is much more complicated. It's an intagible element that takes ideas and emotions and gives them form via Aether. This is most commonly seen in XIV via willpower. DRKs and DNCs directly channel emotions through poses and dances to give the surrounding Aether tangibility in the form of their spells. BLMs and SCHs follow stringent processes and rituals learned through centuries of Aetheric study to form aether into their spells. WHMs use prayer. All of these methods serve the same purpose. They are rituals that solidify and strengthen the will and belief of the caster into a clear form. Whether that form is one unique to them (Living shadow being Fray) or an idea passed down through the ages (most spells,) Dynamis concentrates around clear ideas and converts them into Aether based concepts. The concentrating around strong emotion part is explained by the flower and high amounts of inert Dynamis in the universe. The flower acts as a litmus test for high concentrations of Dynamis, and it only concentrates around beings with strong emotions, whether they are positive, negative or nihilistic.
This leads into how Zodiark, Endsinger, Primals and The Twelve work. The way it works is the same but the difference is that there is an idea in the collective consciousness or an overwhelming societal emotion. Dynamis is able to gather in extremely high concentrations and convert the prevailing idea with huge amounts of Aether. For example, Zodiark is given form via the sacrifice of half the population after the Dynamis research due to the final days. They knew that if they channelled hope and used sacrifices to provide the Aether, since ancient Etheryians were so Aether dense, Dynamis would give it form. Zodiark is the embodiment of hope, which is why his theme uses the "theme of hope" leitmotif.
I seem to be of a differing opinion on the matter but need more time to really ponder it. Two things I will say is that of Dark Knights and the question you asked. You posed the question that someone would have noticed. This is a flawed argument. Someone dose not have to notice. The more time dose make it more likely, but it dose not guarantee it.
Dark Knights have existed snice 960 of the Sixth Astral Era, about 600 years prior to the current time. They existed outside high society, they worked for the betterment of the common people. At least in the current time they only existed in small numbers. 2-3 at most. Considering their small numbers and years active I'll pose a question to you. At what point do you think an Aetherologist would take notice of the rogue vigilante knights? Most of the story of Ishgard and it's fields of science have been totally devoted to the Dragonsong War for the last thousand years. Do you think Knights fighting for justice would gain the attention of the scientist of Ishgard?
Hmm.... I admit this is fully headcanon, but one possible way to resolve things is if Dynamis is capable of influencing the shape of Aether. Sure, if you want to do something out of pure dynamis then you need a ridiculous amount of it; basically what we see in Ultima Thule. It's basically trying to build a house out of wind instead of stone, but wind can erode stone over the centuries. That neatly fits with the Twelve. It could be the same with limit breaks, dark knights and the totentanz. The form is aether based, but the flavor and form could be influenced by dynamis.
As far as I know, aether and dynamis are non miscible, hence how the astral flux shielded dynamis.
Though Zodiarch shroud of aether protected against the endsing, a bit of dynamis was still present.
We also know that dynamis is moved by emotions, and near to un-masterable. So I think that aether is a form of energy that can only be moved by a "will" or nature's law.
While dynamis react to emotions, conscient or not.
We also saw, with omicron tribe quest, that dynamis can create new stars. I think aether originate from dynamis, as dynamis could create and eradicateaether (wich is confirmed by y'shtola)
One thing I was able to fairly securely derive from the way the dynamics of Dynamis and Aether interact is that Dynamis is fluid, always moreso than Aether. Even though we may describe aether as streaming or flowing, because of how it moves in its unbound state, it is equally true that Dynamis flows around aether. Or to put it another way, if Aether is solid, then Dynamis is liquid, or if Aether is liquid, then Dynamis is gaseous.
And this is a helpful analogy, because it reflects the way we see Dynamis in action, on a macro level, during both cases of the Final Days. Allow me to extend the analogy to make it clearer.
Picture a still pool of water, viewed from within the pool itself. We are surrounded on all sides by the water. There may be small eddies or slight motion due to forces beyond our perception, but for the most part, the water is still. This is, from what we understand, the natural state of Dynamis.
Now picture a ball suspended in the pool. For the purposes of our analogy, it is fixed in place and doesn't shift or move. The water surrounds it and soaks into it, but cannot actually affect it. In fact, if the orb *were* to move, it is the water that would make way for it. This is Hydaelyn/Etheirys, as it was before the first Final Days. Dynamis was always present, and perhaps even turbulent near the surface of the planet, where the wills and emotions of the inhabitants is strongest, but turbulence on such a small scale, compared to the density of the Aether of which the planet is made, is completely insignificant.
Now imagine someone turns on a waterjet, aimed directly at the ball that represents Hydaelyn. Suddenly, there is now a high-pressure, high-velocity flow of dynamis washing over the planet. And not just any dynamis, but dynamis driven by overwhelming feelings of despair and hopelessness. Under such a radically unnatural and violent flow, Aether would begin to peel away from the planet, eroded away and/or forcibly twisted by the invisible jetstream of Dynamis. This is Meteion's Song and the Final Days, the terrifying cascade of dynamis that she wields as a 'gift' to the planet.
Now, we take our ball and we enclose it within a clear shell. There's still water inside the shell, but the ball is now isolated from the water *outside* the shell, and more importantly, from the eroding jetflow that was bombarding it before. This is Zodiark's protection. It doesn't eliminate Dynamis, as there is still water inside the shell, but it prevents the water inside the shell from being agitated by the flow outside. And so powerful is this shell, so resistant to erosion, that even when enervated to 1/14th of its original density, it is still sufficient to deflect the violent flow of Dynamis around the planet, and keep the Dynamis inside the shell from being affected.
So for 12000+ years, even though Meteion's violent current of Dynamis is still washing over Hydaelyn and its reflections, a doom unsolved and still ongoing, none of them experience the effects. Not until Zodiark is killed, and the shell is peeled back. Then we are right back to the Final Days scenario again.
It is only by shutting off the waterjet that the threat ends.
To me its quite simple: dynamis is 'soul energy' while aether is 'soul matter'. Matter, at the end of the day, is just energy concentrate, so by dispersing all matter, we expose the energy within it. Aether is much like the release of heat from burning things - we can see, feel, even hear when something is burning, but we can't exactly perceive the flow of energy and its subsequent discharge unless we apply some very, very keen scientific machinery to track its progress. And even then, we can only speculate for the most part, with our theories built primarily from observation, just like the alchemists of Radz at Han.
However, things go a little deeper when you realize they connected dynamis to the Akashic Records. If the connection is more than just a funny way to use words, that would mean dynamis has the ability to 'remember' things, all things - memories, events, emotions and all universal thought. Or perhaps it would be better to say that dynamis has the ability to re-take any form that it once took during its existence. Wasn't there several quests in the "past" which take this exact concept?
In any case, emotions are not a connection to dynamis in the sense that you think. As matter moves forward, energy is forced to follow, even more so when a ton of it is forced through at high speeds, such as in the case of aether flowing in response to intense emotional outbursts. Usually, when these emotional outbursts happen, we are low on aether from a lot of fighting and so when dynamis flows in, it temporarily overpowers the aether therefore allowing itself to manifest. Meteion is specified multiple times to have very little aether, to the point that she 'barely exists', so any heavy emotion from her would cause an overflow.
Anyways, that's all I got, sorry for the wall of text, lol.
It's kinda like how the static electricity effect is more prevalent than we think, but isn't noticeable because gravity is more noticeable on earth. Then that astronaut video taped the odd way salt in a blown up ziplock bag behaved, which accidentally discovered the middle stage of planet development, where dust first accretes into the first larger clumps that eventually become planets. Without gravity taking effect, the static electricity acts like a weak gravity drawing the dust together.
For all we know, Dynamis might play a crucial role in the lifespan of stars, the secret middle step as to how stars are formed. Stars form from Aether, but then all that Aether is locked up in the physical matter of that planet. With the Aether being locked up, Dynamis has sway, and eventually spawns the first beings with emotion. Those emotion feeling beings have experiences, and those faint primitive memories, which are established as being made of Aether, sink into the planet on death. As more Aether accretes, more complex life with more complex minds capable of more complex thoughts and emotions grow. Which accretes even more Aether on death.
Perhaps that's the fate of the tribal planet. All that dynamis life will have their inner selves sink into the planet on death, slowly replacing the Dynamis with trace Aether memories, Eventually that Aether will reach a critical mass and the morphology will switch to being Aether dominant, making the life there 'real', if you didn't count them as that before. I assume then that the Star, pressing on the Dynamis, will drift from Ultima Thule and toward the universe.
If us traveling the universe find the youngest stars toward the edge, instead of toward the center, that would even lead credence to all stars starting off dynamis based and then drifting toward the center as they become Aether dominant.
Just as life in real life plays a crucial step in geology over time, life might play a key step in FF14 geology converting Dynamis into Aether via emotional experience. Stars don't start with all the Aether they'll ever have, they instead grow more over time via life living full lives.
Personally I'm fine with Dynamis being something similar to say dark matter in scientific terms. Not even the greatest minds in our reality are able to understand how dark matter affects stars and planets. Only thing known is that its like an Elder Scroll in a way. Even Paarthunax from Skyrim says it best, "They are...fragments of creation. It does not exist, but it has always been here."🤔
I basically can attribute the amount of influence Dynamis has on the average person's life to the same as something as nebulous as luck. We don't have anything as nebulous as job that manipulates luck, at least not yet (inb4 gambler is announced next fanfest just to spite me) but it has a minor notable effect on day to day life. A crafter that has JUST enough skill to do a crafting project gets a moment if inspiration, ie an Excellent proc in the crafting ui, or a dapper rogue stalking a mark in limsa gets just enough cloud cover to remain hidden. Clearly these people aren't actively influencing their environment, but in the moment they most needed just the smallest hand, the universe shifts slightly in their favor. This is about how much I can see Dynamis really influencing anything outside of the weird isolated incident that is Ultima Thule
I feel that dismissing the Omega raids themes as having nothing to do with Dynamis is a bit of a disservice to the point of Dynamis as a whole.
The themes that Dynamis materializes weren't pulled out of nowhere for Endwalker. They've been a core part of FFXIV, and really Final Fantasy in general, for YEARS now. The themes of hope, the power of emotion, and the bonds we share as humans being stronger than the most dangerous baddies out there is the entire point of this story, and always has been. Just because the name "Dynamis" and the in universe powerbase hadn't been designed yet doesn't diminish the point of the Omega stories. I would even postulate that they may have decided to use the robotic Omega in order to better serve the themes, rather than the other way around, as you suggested in the video.
Dynamis isn't some ass-pull power, its a materialzation of the themes that have run through this game for years, and the game (in my humble opinion) does a good job of giving those themes a tangible name and lore while also making clear that the concept of Dynamis does not override the reality of aether (aka matter) or mean that everything needs to be labelled as being born of Dynamis. Dynamis, I feel, will remain largely as it always has been in the game: an ongoing theme of hope and the power of humanity that they will continue to play with throughout the game's lifetime. I don't feel that they need to name that theme as Dynamis every time it comes up in order for it to be meaningful, and that in fact might diminish the point of the story. Would the climax of a story feel as powerful if the emotional scenes were constantly interrupted by a scion going "Wow! That must be Dynamis!" Personally, I'm happy to let Dynamis be what it was meant to be all along: the diagetic materalization of the most prominent theme of our journey, created to give in universe purpose to the core themes of the game in the climactic expansion of its story.
honestly wouldn't completely discount TOP given that it came from the idea generally of "what if omega was able to tap into Dynamis" basically taking that unexplainable power that was beyond omega's predictions of its preconceived power scaling thoughout the stormblood raid series and bringing them in line with endwalkers understanding (this is from the general idea given by the wondering ministral) given how not only it is understood, but also weaved into the gameplay of the encounter.
gameplay wise during the fight itself, the last 2 phases of that fight is not only the 8 players tapping into dynamis but rather omega itself tapping into dynamis (which also explains the trio mechanics in phase 5)
phase 6 involves omega understanding dynamis fully as a way to push beyond its own expectations and that is also conveyed with the repeated usauge of limit breaks used by all 8 party members and alpha omega.
Personally, I think dynamis is a bad tool narrative-wise. It serves the same purpose as magic does: even though magic in this game is very well explained and has paragraphs of text dedicated to its functions, the fact that you started the video claiming it can pretty much do anything is telling of how lenient it is as a tool for the writers. As a result, the game is peppered with little stories and excerpts explaining supernatural things happening as "aether did it". If you just add another, and the explanation is just "your emotions/will did it", it adds nothing interesting to the world.
If dynamis is truly never mentioned again, it might be for the best. In the same way that Tom Bombadil in the Lord of the Rings metaphorically represents the last time Frodo experiences the idyllic, fairylike ambience of the Shire, dynamis might serve more of an emotional tool for the conclusion to a decade-spanning storyline. Both it and Tom don't really need explanation, because what they bring to the story is purely emotional, not intellectual.
I've always thought Aether and Dynamis were the equivalent to Matter and Dark Matter. We know next to nothing on Dark Matter. We know it's there. We know it makes up a vast majority of the universe's matter, but we can't interrect with it. There are theories, but ultimately, we don't know.
Though on Limit breaks... the is a good argument that they are using both Ether and Dynamis. Eather and Dynamis are not mutually exclusive forces, and there is something in the limit breaks that gose "beyond" normal ether usage. And with how hard it is to detect Dynamis, and the difficulty of replicating a limit break in a controlled setting where you could study it properly, its effect during the limit break could have easily been attributed to an unknown property of ether rather than a not yet discovered form of energy.
EDIT: and paused the video to soon to write this comment.
Aether and Dynamis reminds me a lot of the relationship between Matter and Anti-Matter IRL
Dynamis and Anti-Matter are:
- Unknown and only theorised to exist
- benign on its own
- vastly out quantities its more tangible opposite
- probably some far of space in the universe where it exists in vast quantities
Regardless of whether Dynamis is emotional energy, or simply reacts to it, I feel like there are some things that will almost certainly turn out to be a mix of aether and dynamis, and I suspect the effects of dynamis aren’t as heavily suppressed by aether as EW leads us to think. Limit breaks have an explicitly aether-based lore explanation, and yet the Endsinger views them as using dynamis to a notable extent, and the WoL can claim to surpass their limits through sheer determination; I don’t think these are necessarily contradictory. A lot of jobs rely on emotions to work, but are clearly using aether for their abilities. Dancer’s questline is *heavy* foreshadowing for EW, they fight off despair monsters, they come from what seems to be the first place hit by the final days, and yet most of the phenomena in the questline appears to be aether-based. I don’t think they’re going to entirely retcon some of the mechanics of aether, but I do think dynamis will add an extra layer to a decent chunk of it.
I feel like it's pretty simple, it's just the ffxiv analogue of Dark Energy. Along with Dark Matter, in the real world it's a theoretical force that is present in greater quantities than regular matter and energy in the universe yet weakly interacts with regular matter, much like Dynamis. In the real world it came into being as a concept because our math says there should be more mass or energy in the universe than we can detect to account for how we see the universe changing and forming. It just so happens that in the ffxiv universe that the only way we can interact with it is emotional/spiritual energy. It was always present in the universe, our characters being able to manipulate the local ambient Dynamis, the big effects was only visible after the defeat of Zodiark because he was acting like a sort of barrier most likely. Kind of like how the Earth's magnetic field protects us from the sun's radiation, but instead think of it like a beam of directed Dynamis being redirected by the Zodiark-shield. At the end of the day Aether and Dynamis are both just forms of energy, you can do the same or similar things with both. The Ancients used aether for creation magic and we see not only Meteion but also the patrons of the last The Last Dregs using Dynamis to create tangible things. The only difference is how they're manipulated, Aether is channeled however it is (idk the specifics, but it's done easily enough and conscientiously) and Dynamis is channeled via emotions. It may just seem more chaotic because honestly a big part of the human condition is the fact that it's hard to control our emotions and at times it can control us in turn. It's probably something like the stronger you feel emotions the more Dynamis you can manipulate. Kind of like in Dragonball, half-saiyans can turn super saiyan easier because their human part lets them experience emotion easier compared to full-blood saiyans. In ffxiv you can argue the Ancients are less emotional than sundered beings, they did after all create and undo sentient beings with as much thought as we would a tool, so therefore sundered beings can manipulate Dynamis easier. Either that or being less aetherically dense makes it easier to manipulate Dynamis. If that is true, then Hydaelyn inadvertently solved the Endsinger problem with the sundering, if the only way to have a champion be able to go toe-to-toe with the dynamis manipulation of the Endsinger was if they were less aetherically dense to begin with compared to the Ancients.
It is my belief that dynamis is the energy equivalent of the soul while aether the equivalent to the body. Dynamis seems less powerful than aether much like this: you can't use your soul to wield an axe to chop wood yet, if you're stout of heart you can keep going even if you feel physically tired. In the same way, if you feel depressed your body suffers for it. XIV basically makes more magickal extremes to explain story elements and why things are or aren't. That's my two cents anyway.
I had a weird theory for a dark knight, where using both dynamis AND ether at the same time, and that is the main reason why the dark arts are so dangerous because you mixing power powers together
Hear me out here Scribe.
It's my theory that dynamis has been playing a part in our actions ever since Ultima Weapon. In that moment where Ultima was about to be cast again, there was an emotional desperation that allowed us to harness the ambient aether in the air from the combat by "wrapping" it up in Dynamis. Essentially bullying it into a shape we otherwise wouldn't be able to handle. I found the conversation with Midgardsormer after The Keeper of the Lake takes on new meaning after the events of Endwalker. 'Sormer talks about an agreement he is following with somebody. It's my thinking that this was a promise between himself and Hydaelyn to strip or temporarily block us off from the blessing of light and the aether boost it gives us in order for us to naturally learn to use dynamis. Through our conversation with Venat, she knew what trials and tribulations shaped us and knew we had to suffer, to "walk", as it were in order to be what we were when we met her. A sort of, "it must happen because it already has happened" recursive loop. Whatever happened to block us off from the blessing of light, through the course of the plot of Heavensward, we are consistently brought to an emotional need to reach out for it and unseal it bit by bit until we can tap into it stronger than before.
Dynamis has been the underpinning of a lot of our most desperate feats. Not the bulk of the power, but the catalyst that allows us to manifest it.