Final Fantasy XIV - Ultima Thule / Characters

Due to its being the final zone of Endwalker, and the myriad revelations that precedes players' arrival in this zone, all spoilers from this point forward will be unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Located at the farthest reaches of the universe, Ultima Thule is the nest of Meteion and her sisters, from whence she can bestow her "gift" of oblivion on all worlds and push all of creation towards a final, permanent end. As a region composed entirely of Dynamis, a form of energy affected by the emotions of those around it, it is presented as a bleak and desolate region patched together from the shades and memories of other worlds and peoples Meteion observed in their final days, all situated beneath a dead sun that serves as Meteion's main nest.

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The Dragons

One race had renounced war and devoted itself to the enrichment of its people. They were conquered. Though they destroyed the enemy in reprisal, they could not regain their former glory.

—Meteion

Inhabitants of a distant star designated "Ostrakon Deka-okto", the Dragonstar, and the brothers and sisters of Midgardsormr. Once a proud and wise race blessed with long lifespans, life as they knew it ended when a mysterious machine army invaded their world and defeated them. By the time the machines finally took their leave, the star had been so devastated and polluted that no new life — not even dragonets — could thrive. A few had enough will to take some eggs and fly into space, looking for another star that would accept them; Midgardsormr was among these, though it's implied he's the only one that succeeded. The remaining dragons languished in despair, cursing their longevity as they silently await the sweet embrace of death.

Death Seeker: Many of the dragons long for the release of death, having been so weakened by the ages and the loss of their world that many of them lack even the strength to sing. The dragons that remain often off their young as a form of Mercy Kill, while several sidequests have you put grieving dragons out of their misery. Subverted by the few uncorrupted dragonets, who beg the Warrior for protection from their sires who want to spare their young the suffering of living even though the dragonets desire to live.
Death World: Their war with the Alphatron Star led their planet to be incredibly hostile to life. What little water remains is heavily contaminated, and the very few dragonets that managed to hatch are horrifically mutated and suicidally aggressive. They only manage to hatch normal dragonets in a section of Elysion made from their dreams of their original homeworld.
Despair Event Horizon: Having their homeworld ravaged such that any attempt to sire anymore children ends in mutated abominations, at best, has left the dragons so despondent that they can't muster the strength to do anything but await the end. When they recover their hope in the Omicron tribe quests, they manage to reshape part of Elysion to be like their original home and we see normal hatchlings (an Omicron says they'll grow up "large and robust").
Easily Forgiven: Although the Omicrons are the reason Dragonstar is now uninhabitable, the dragons in Ultima Thule are quick to accept reconciliatory overtures from N-7000. The stretch of time between the loss of Dragonstar and now is so vast that, even for an immortal dragon, assigning blame doesn't even matter anymore.
Gaia's Lament: Speaking with the dragons reveals that the dragon's star was once teeming with life. The dragons fondly reminisce about soaring over vast forests, mountaintops decorated by fields of flowers, clouds of greens, and night skies aglow with stars that sparkled like gems. In the present, the dragons' home more closely resembles an irradiated wasteland. Crystal-clear springs are now polluted puddles. The forests have vitrified and a sickly green miasma rises into the air. N-7000 also mentions that it's standard Omicron procedure to vaporize any potential water sources to prevent their enemies from using them, implying that this happened to all of the Dragonstar's oceans and lakes.
Honor Before Reason: According to Sehth Toskh, Midgardsormr begged his kin to flee with him to find a new star to live on after Omega's forces wrecked the Dragonstar beyond salvation. Most of the dragons rejected his proposed plan on account of their pride and misplaced belief that they could save their home. They called him a coward for ditching his home world instead of staying behind and defending it, even though their star was beyond saving. Some of the dragons even cheered when they saw Omega chasing Midgardsormr as he fled.
How the Mighty Have Fallen: The dragons were once the most powerful race in the known universe, blessed with incredible lifespans, mastery over claw and magicks, and the ability to soar the distance between stars. But their war with the Alphatron Star left their home a poisoned, smoldering ruin. The recreations made of dynamis that the Scions meet are almost universally despondent and resigned to an eternity of suffering before they finally die.
Invisible to Normals: When the Scions first arrive to Ultima Thule, only the Warrior of Light and Estinien are able to see the dragons, which Estinien attributes to them possessing the power of dragons.
I Shall Taunt You: In the sidequest "Loud and Proud", the Warrior goads a bloodthirsty wyvern into attempting to purify a spring with their song by insulting the wyvern's pride, either by calling the wyvern a mere dragonet or dismissing its roar as pathetic.
Rewatch Bonus: The battle against Omega's memories of Midgardsormr in Alphascape v.2, which the former describes as a recreation of the ancient dragon in his prime takes place in a digital recreation of the war-torn Dragonstar that fits the above description to a T.
Shell-Shocked Veteran: In one sidequest, a dragon continues to hear the engines and clanking of the Omicrons day and night, even in their dreams. The dragon tells the Warrior to look for the oncoming Omicrons and to despair at their approach. But the Warrior fails to catch even a glimpse of them after looking high and low, implying that the dragon has been suffering from auditory hallucinations brought on by the fear and the despair they experienced during the Omicrons' rampage.
Unwilling Roboticisation: The Stigma Dreamscape shows that many dragons were captured by the Omicrons and subjected to this.
Vengeance Feels Empty: When Dragons are brought into the Last Dregs, N-7000 agrees to submit itself to any punishment they desire for the Omicron committing genocide on their race and ravaging their Star. The Dragons, however, refuse, as they've become so emotionally deadened that nothing they could do to N-7000 would bring them any satisfaction or closure.
Who Wants to Live Forever?: Not the dragons, that's for certain. Their longevity means that they have to wait for countless years before they finally pass on.

The Ea

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ffxiv_ea.png

Tria: Evidence of large population centers akin to cities recovered. No extant life-forms found — only their lingering essence.

One race had concluded that finite time was the root of all woes. Aspiring to shatter its shackles, they went in search of infinity. They discovered nothing is infinite, and that neither time or death can be cheated. Disillusioned, they gave up on the future — and themselves.

—Meteion

A race of scholars from "Ostrakon Tria" with an all-consuming desire for knowledge in the hopes of divining the future, the Ea abandoned their bodies, existing as aether. This new form of existence freed them from the limitations of the flesh, giving them time aplenty to pursue the answers they so sought. Unfortunately, at the end of their search for knowledge came the agonizing discovery of the eventual and unavoidable heat death of the universe. With no way to prevent this from coming to pass, and cursed with knowing that it would mean no future civilization could make further use of their discoveries, the Ea lost all hope and reason to live. Their shades in Ultima Thule — those who had not fallen silent after untold eons of dormancy — now pursue a means to regain their physical bodies so that they might be released from the burden of their knowledge by death.

Constantly Curious: As a race of scholars, the promise of new knowledge for their "transcendent minds" is the one thing that can consistently entice the Ea. It's customary to start debates and intellectual discussion between them with a battery of more than 350,000 questions. N-7000 is on the verge of snapping from impatience after two Ea ask it 81,120 questions in succession.
Cuteness Proximity: For all their condescension and aloofness, the Ea are completely unable to resist the charms of the newborn Miw Miisv; in fact, when they are ultimately won over and join the Last Dregs, their contribution to Elysion is a sanctuary dedicated to the creatures. It's implied it's less the cuteness and moreso the concept of a completely new form of life piquing their boundless curiosity.
Death Seeker: After learning that the Natural End of Time was inescapable, the entire race decided there was no point left in living. By the time you arrive, most of them are already gone, with the only remaining ones being those who insist on dying "properly", in a physical body.
Energy Being: The Ea are made up entirely of aether, having transcended their physical form long ago. The ones left have come to view it as a curse since it means that they can't die "properly" — of course, there's a selection bias here, as all those who were okay with dying otherwise have already done so, using aetheric exsanguinators to drain themselves away to nothing.
The Fog of Ages: Their ethereal bodies do not age, but their memories and sense of self can slip away with the passing of eons. They can stave the forgetfulness off by interacting with each other or other intelligent life.
A Good Way to Die: The surviving Ea admit to this mindset. Whereas most of them have exsanguinated their pure aetheric forms as-is, the ones left are "traditionalists" who desire to acquire physical bodies before they die, believing it to be the "proper" way to end their lives.
Grand Theft Me: While all the remaining Ea want physical bodies to die in, a handful are so desperate that they're willing to fight you for yours.
Hypocrite: They claim to be "transcendent minds" who have garnered nearly all knowledge in the universe and thus above "irrational" ploys and rhetorical devices. And yet, the Warrior of Light is able to entice them into trying the food at the Last Dregs (albeit secondhand via telepathy since the Ea are Energy Beings) purely by promising a potentially new sensation without physical evidence to back up their claims. N-7000 lampshades this, calling their reasoning as "primitive" as what they accuse the Warrior and Jammingway of being.
Ignorance Is Bliss: All of their scientific research has lead them to conclude that this is the ultimate truth.
Immortal Genius: The Ea discovered the means of immortality by becoming living aether, giving them all the time in creation to continue to learn the secrets of the universe.
Insufferable Genius: Their pride in uncovering seemingly all knowledge in the universe makes them preen about their "transcendent minds" and grow tired of "vacuous discourse" with anyone but themselves. They're so confident that they've grasped the true nature of existence that they're convinced that anything they've forgotten is simply not important enough to remember.
Jammingway: Ugh, must they all be so condescending?
Know-Nothing Know-It-All: The Ea believe that if they've forgotten something completely, it simply wasn't worth remembering in the first place. And yet, when given the chance to experience the joy of eating food for the first time in millenia, they quickly find themselves obsessed with reclaiming that sensation they'd tossed to the wayside.
Meaningful Name:
- The Ea are named after the Akkadian version of the Babylonian god of knowledge, suitable for a Proud Scholar Race that has completely devoted itself to the pursuit and discussion of knowledge. In addition, Ea was associated with water, matching their jellyfish-like offspring in the Miw Miisv.
- Inverted with the Miw Miisv, as the meaning of Ea names have been lost to time. "Miw Miisv" is essentially a random set of phonemes that the Ea intend to imbue with meaning as time goes on.
Proud Scholar Race: The Ea lived for knowledge and learning the secrets of the universe. They went as far as to discover immortality to continue to learn forever. Their idea of an ideological warmup is to ask 350,173 questions as part of a debate.
Sense Loss Sadness: The Ea are implied to be incapable of receiving physical sensations like touch or taste on their own. Downloading gustatory sensations from an Omicron or being zapped by a Miw Miisv are two of the only ways they can feel anything, and they find the experience positively euphoric.
Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: The Ea constantly use four and five syllable words in conversation when shorter ones would suffice because of how smart they believe themselves to be. It's customary for them to ask more than 350,000 questions to start a debate. The idea of trimming their conversation down to a "paltry" three questions is a sign of "base intellects".
Sophistic Ea: The preparation of historically accurate sustenance will be no simple task, yet the hirstute being insists on accomplishing it. Is this compulsion intrinsically or extrinsically motivated?
Shadow Archetype: Like the Omicrons are to the Garleans, the Ea are this to the Sharlayans. The Ea represent the drive for knowledge at the expense of all else, eventually coming to the conclusion that there are some things in the universe they never should have known.
These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: Their attempts to understand the future only led them to realize that the heat death of the universe was inevitable, and naught could stop it. Such a harsh truth drowned them in despair.
We Will Have Euthanasia in the Future: While some Ea sought to regain physical forms to die a "proper" death, other Ea used aetheric exsanguinators to, well, exsanguinate their aether. In either case, they all sought to euthanise themselves.
Who Wants to Live Forever?: The Ea discovered a means of existing as Energy Beings to escape the ravages of time and continue their studies forever. But once they found out that "forever" simply means until the inescapable heat death of the universe, they grew despondent and began to curse their immortal forms. Some exanguinated themselves while others looked for a way to regain their physical forms so they could "die properly". Either way, the Ea as a civilization ceased to exist by the time Meteion arrived on their star.

The Omicrons

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ffxiv_omicrons.png

A race of machines from Alphatron, or "Ostrakon Deka-hexi"; the selfsame ones that invaded Midgardsormr's homeworld and created the superweapon Omega. Long ago, out of concern that they may be invaded and conquered, the predecessors to the Omicrons exchanged bodies of flesh and blood for vessels of steel and lightning, transforming themselves into killing machines with one directive: invade and conquer other stars, and learn what they can from their conquered prey to improve and upgrade themselves to combat even greater threats. For a time, they followed this directive unerringly. However, upon defeating the dragons, they came to realize that they had never planned for what to do with all the power they had amassed once they became the dominant species in the universe; having evolved for no other purpose than to become unconquerable, they looked back on their path to "security" as a trail of meaningless destruction. This purposelessness leads the Omicrons to be forever locked into a standby state, as the entities that provide them direction shut down out of an inability to develop new reasons to remain active.

All There in the Manual: The Level Checkers at first appeared to be the only Omicron units that didn't conform to the Theme Naming of Greek letters, until Encyclopaedia Eorzea III revealed that they're officially Gamma units.
And Then What?: They overspecialized themselves towards the sole purpose of becoming the strongest race in the universe in their eyes but upon achieving this goal, the Omicrons realized they now had nothing else to work toward and had given up everything else about themselves to define a different path.
The Atoner: Once you attain Sworn status with the Omicrons, N-7000 vows to use the limitless potential of Dynamis and the technology of the Omicrons to restore life to the cosmos.
Being Evil Sucks: Having become a race of Galactic Conquerers, the Omicrons have slowly realized it was not worth it, and are emotionally barren and empty.
Creative Sterility: They suffer from this big time due to overspecializing into the goal of being the strongest race, erasing any aspect of themselves that wasn't relevant to this goal. They're unable to come up with new ideas themselves, and many experiments they conduct are based on seeing other races perform certain actions, or having ideas given to them. G'raha Tia believes their command units are actually invoking this out of fear of finding a new purpose. When the Omicrons finally find new purpose in Endwalker's postgame, they still need inspiration from Jammingway and the Warrior of Light, but they show more signs of being able to find their own path again.
Character Development: Just like Omega before them, the Omicrons Meteion made to fuel her song start to realize through interacting with Jammingway that they might be able to do something else besides searching for pure strength and devote their lives to a purpose of their own making.
Cyber Cyclops: Many Omicrons have a singular light orb for an eye. Some, like the Stigma units, are essentially giant robot eyes.
Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: The Omicrons are physically unable to dream, which compounded on their lack of ideas or aspirations for what to do after achieving their initial goal. Eventually, it's revealed through the story that it's more of them just focusing so hard on self-defense that they ran out of things to do and that some of them can still feel things like having an emotional attachment to a tree they captured, and their AI leaders fell into depression while endlessly pondering life's great question.
Dance Battler: Discussed in the sidequest "Work Woes". When the Warrior of Light suggests dancing to alleviate an Omicron guard's boredom with its patrols, the Omicrons give dancing a try and believe the complicated movements could be made into effective combat maneuvers.
Defeat Equals Friendship: Invoked in the Stigma Dreamscape bonus dungeon by having the Warrior of Light go into their command unit's mind and beat them so badly that they reconsider their plan to invade Etheirys by convincing them the battle would be unwinnable and instead try for diplomacy and co-existence. It works.
From Nobody to Nightmare: The Omicrons were once weak, meek, and fearful, but after taking a stand and defeating their oppressors, their initial jubilation turned to fear as they considered that they might be invaded by stronger oppressors from beyond their world. So they decided to become the invaders instead, incorporating the strengths of their defeated enemies into themselves and discarding anything about themselves that did not contribute to conquest and combat improvement. Omega alone demonstrates how successful they were in that pursuit.
Grew Beyond Their Programming: N-7000 goes above and beyond the other Omicrons in this regard, overclocking itself and risking irreparable damage to its hardware to find a purpose beyond its directives. And after you rouse it from its emergency shutdown, it comes to embrace the infinite possibilities of the universe.
Higher-Tech Species: Omicrons are by far the most technologically advanced race in the setting. They casually develop Faster-Than-Light Travel in a largely fantasy setting, have an array of laser weapons, possess The Power of Creation on par with the ancient mankind's creation magicks, can telepathically beam information between themselves and to Energy Beings, and can detect dynamis when no other race in the setting can. Their crowning achievement is the superweapon Omega, who is a planetary threat and can create virtually anything it learns about as well as battle the likes of Midgardsormr to a near draw. The Allagans's access to Omega made them the most technologically advanced civilization in the Source's history from what little they could reverse engineer from it. N-7000 even declares the Loporrits technology to be "primitive" compared to that of the Omicrons.
Hope Is Scary: Jammingway comes to this conclusion about the command units; it's not that they're incapable of discovering a new purpose for themselves, it's that they're so used to being a Proud Warrior Race that being anything else is alien and confusing for them, even if they've become utterly miserable.
Odd Friendship: With the Loporitt Jammingway, who convinces the ghost Omicrons to try starting a café like the one in Sharlqyan as a new mission in life since they can't find anything else to do. Despite having no idea what they're doing, they set one up in the abandoned world at the apex of Ultima Thule after completing their optional postgame dungeon, even going so far as to reconstruct a sentient machine from a race they obliterated to help them. According to Jammingway and N-7000, they plan to scour the remains of the dead star for Meteion's memories of the dead races she encountered and use the Omicron technology to recreate those races so their cultures can live on. This way they can turn the Last Dregs into a bustling attraction to travelers at the edge of creation home to species from all walks of life and inspire hope to the entire universe.
The Power of Creation: At some point, the Omicrons developed the ability to create any entity, real or imaginary, so long as they have sufficient data and description to work off of. Omega uses this as part of its experiments to determine the source of the Warrior of Light's power by generating foes from across space, time, reality, and fiction for them to face. The Omicrons on Ultima Thule are convinced by Jammingway to use this ability to recreate the civilizations stored in Meteion's Dead Ends to create patrons for the Last Dregs to both rescue these civilizations from extinction and promote hope, joy, and cultural exchange.
Pyrrhic Victory:
- On multiple levels. The Sigma Dreamscape dungeon, some sidequests and MSQ state that the war against the Dragons ended as this. The Omicron were dependent on the resources from conquered worlds to keep their own alive, but the Dragonstar was so despoiled by the war that not even the near-immortal and impossibly hearty dragons could sustainably live on it, which meant they had a war with nothing pragmatic to gain. They had overspecialized into the path of constant improvement which was now their sole defining trait after discarding all else long ago with nothing left to rise to anymore. Additionally, while the Omicron's victory over the strongest known species in the universe undeniably proved them the strongest, the war had caused such severe attrition and consumed such vast resources from the fight the Dragons put up that their civilization was no longer actively sustainable.
- The absolute culmination of all their civilization's work and collected data, their greatest hyper-adaptive warrior/superweapon, Omega, was still chasing Midgardsormr in the far reaches of space and with its communications knocked out by a solar flare it couldn't receive any return-to-home orders. At that point, if any other starfaring race decided to come knocking, or any previous societies that weren't totally obliterated came for revenge after becoming starfaring, they would have been utterly crushed if they themselves hadn't collapsed on their own due to losing their purpose (as indicated by the Dreamscape dungeon when you encounter the memory of the Dragonstar war's end and mop the Omicrons up, forcing them to surrender to Etheirys's inhabitants).
Rewatch Bonus: One of the gear sets available from Stormblood's Omega raids is called the Omicron set, a name that is completely meaningless without the knowledge that it's the race Omega belongs to.
Scenery Porn: Their contribution to Elysion is an alien yet beautiful forest of crystal-bearing trees.
Sense Freak: After N-7000 records the gustatory sensations of the Warrior eating food produced with materials found on Ultima Thule, a number of Omicrons become fascinated with "taste" and begin wondering what else they can do with food. One particular Omicron becomes so fixated on it that it tries to create satisfying and delicious food out of inherently inedible ingredients.
Shadow Archetype: To the Garlean Empire. The Omicrons were once a meek, organic race that augmented themselves with cybernetics to become the leading superpower of their Star, like how the Garleans overcame their inability to use magic by using Magitek and became a continents-spanning Empire. Their fate is also the logical conclusion of what the Empire would have become had it not collapsed: after completely destroying their humanity, conquering the stars and leaving Death World after Death World in their path of conquest, their existence lost all meaning, with some even questioning what was it all for.
Theme Naming: All of their combat-focused units are named after Greek letters in order of power. Alpha being the "weakest" units by virtue of holding more administrative purposes, and Omega being the strongest. Incidentally Omega notes that in almost all cases Omicrons are assigned a designation, which he equates to a given name, based on the numbers they assign to stars and constellations. By happy coincidence, the constellation which Omega's name designated also happened to be named Omega by other races, meaning its name was technically unchanged when its chassis was upgraded to the Omega model.
Took a Level in Kindness: Getting the directive to "live" and repeatedly interacting with Jammingway gradually softens the Omicrons' militaristic and purely logical mindset. When an Omicron becomes a complete Sense Freak after downloading what it's like to taste food, Stigma-4 states that ordinary protocol would suggest the immediate termination of this aberrant unit. Instead, Jammingway argues that this is yet another expression of Sir's orders, with Stigma-4 agreeing that compromise is preferable to retaliatory annihilation.
Uniformity Exception: N-7000 is given a pair of glowing rabbit-like ears by Jammingway to distinguish it from the other Omicrons.
What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: One of the sidequests in Base Omicron involves an Omicron noting that their organic enemies tended to get a strange surge in combat prowess after their loved ones, such as consorts or family, are threatened or killed. It attempts to replicate this by creating a test Omicron, named 'my beloved', and then makes it self-destruct. The Omicron is predictably disappointed in the lack of results.

The Grebuloff

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ffxiv_grebuloff.png

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful blue star... that fell to pestilence, and rotted inside and out. The more its people clung to life, the more they suffered.

—Meteion

The denizens of "Ostrakon Hexi", the 6th world where Meteion witnessed an apocalypse. A race of amphibious fish people who were driven to extinction through overpopulation and pollution from wars of conquest over land dwellers turning their home into a caustic, disease-filled hellscape.

Badass Adorable: The Grebuloffs are a cute, cuddly-looking race of seal-like creatures in silly diving suits that make squeaking noises like a rubber toy as they run around. They also single-handedly conquered their entire world with weapons so destructive that their planet was reduced to a polluted Death World.
Bold Explorer: During the Omictron Tribe Quests, a number of Grebuloffs will use the Omicron teleporters to explore the dragons's and Ea's domains, requiring the Warrior to gently remind them to come back to Elysion and the Last Dregs, or in more drastic cases, carry the dehydrated ones back in sacks. According to Stigma-4, the stories they brought back are inspiring other Grebuloffs to do the same.
Comfort Food: When the first two restored Grebuloffs are brought to the Last Dregs, they're overwhelmed with homesickness and regret after reflecting on the destruction they wrought on their home world. Jammingway and N-7000 realize that the best way to help the Grebuloffs recover would be to serve them something that brings up good memories to counteract the bad. So they serve the Grebuloffs a soup infused with ingredients that would remind the Grebuloffs of the scent of the oceans they loved so much.
Death World: Pollution and disease from endless war has rendered their entire world lethally toxic.
Despair Event Horizon: As the plague wreaked havoc on their world, the last of their people left cursed life and embraced oblivion.
Fish People: Despite their seal-like appearances, the Grebuloffs were originally an entirely aquatic race who evolved to walk on land for the purpose of conquering it. Although they can breathe air, they still require regular amounts of water to remain hydrated, lest they collapse from desiccation.
Gaia's Lament: Among the intergalactic races, the Grebuloff's home world was renowned for its vast, blue seas and abundance of aquatic life. But the Grebuloffs destroyed it all in their quest to expand their civilization and advance their metallurgy in pursuit of a better life for their descendants, resulting in a Death World where oily seas run black and red, toxic spores fill the air, and all life is mutated into cancerous monstrosities.
Higher-Tech Species: The Grebuloffs are noted to have extremely advanced metallurgical and technological skills that they used in the conquest of their world. They have no issues with operating Omicron machinery and flee the Last Dregs while using the Omicron's teleporters in their pursuit of water to dive into.
Jammingway: Curse their advanced technological comprehension born of generations of metalworking innovation!
Monstrous Seal: While technically Fish People with the appearance of a Sweet Seal, the Grebuloff were a warlike civilization dedicated to conquering their world and developing the technology to do it, nevermind the immense pollution it caused.
My God, What Have I Done?: The Grebuloff race restored by the Omicrons from dynamis retain their memories of what happened just prior to their star's demise. The first two Grebuloffs to be restored are in intense anguish and longing for the world they lost and their friends killed as a result of their actions. Even the mere sight of a salad reduces one Grebuloff to inconsolable tears as they reflect on the ruins of their world. This longing to return to and protect the seas they cherished so much transforms part of Elysion into a miniature version of the Grebuloff's precious oceans that the newly reborn Grebuloffs swear to preserve this time.
The Plague: The Grebuloffs' conquest and reckless advancement of their metallurgic techniques polluted the environment. This, combined with overpopulation from a lack of rivals, led to horrific diseases that mutated the victims and inflicted constant, excruciating pain that left them begging for death.
Pyrrhic Victory: The Grebuloffs wanted to conquer the land and seas of their world to secure a better life for their children. Although they succeeded, their metallurgic processes polluted the oceans beyond repair in the process. The Grebuloffs' expansion also led to overpopulation with no one to keep them in check. The resulting squalid living conditions and the polluted environment gave birth to rampant epidemics that wiped them all out.
Scenery Gorn: Between the ugly red sky with its dripping black orbs, the oily oceans full of rotting animal carcasses, the buboes growing from the seashell buildings, and the many dead or dying people littering the beach, their world is not a pretty place.
Scenery Porn: Although it's only in miniature, the Grebuloff's corner of Elysion shows that their world really was beautiful.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: They have a passing resemblance to Namazu seeing that they share the same 3-D modeling skeleton and animations. The Wind-up Grebuloff minion even mentions that it was made by a Namazu craftsman because it had a vision of seeing one.
Trademark Favorite Food:
- As an amphibious seal-like race, the Grebuloffs are omnivorous but have a strong preference for fish. According to Stigma-4, they could go on eating nothing but fish much like how the Karellians would be happy to eat vegetables all day.
- One Grebuloff has a particular hankering for soup and can always be found around the Last Dregs chanting for more. In the quest, "And Another Question...", Jammingway remarks that they made need to watch this customer's soup intake after the Grebuloff goes through three servings in one sitting and asks for more.
Tortured Monster: The mutated plague victims that attack you in the Dead Ends appear to be in horrible pain. They beg you to help them or kill them even as they attack you, and the boss of their section outright tells you that it doesn't want to die alone.
The Virus: A plague that turned the victims into monsters was one half of what did them in.

The Karellians

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ffxiv_02222024_115237_256.png

The Freedom Fighters (Left) and a Global Citizen (Right)

Okto: Star found in state of violent conflict. Contact successfully made with inhabitants, but deployment of weapons of mass destruction resulted in total annihilation of local population shortly thereafter.

—Meteion

The denizens of Karellen, or "Ostrakon Okto", the 8th world where Meteion witnessed an apocalypse. A humanoid race whose ruling government, the Global Community, attempted to achieve peace by forcing a standard of unity upon all of its civilizations. The ensuing war between them and the Freedom Fighters, who opposed this tyranny and strove for absolute freedom — enforced by military means if need be - led to the extinction of all life on the planet.

24-Hour Armor: The Karellians never seem to take off their space suits and helmets, even when they're eating, leaving it a mystery as to how they do it.
Apocalypse Wow: Unlike the other two slower-paced ends, the 8th end is a frantic warzone where everyone is blasting each other to smithereens. And unlike the other two visions, you witness the final moment that brings its people to extinction: a missile barrage that reduces the last remaining cities standing to smoldering ruins.
Ascended Extra: They initially only appear on one third of the Dead Ends as the Scions rush through their world's apocalypse. Later, in the Omicron quests, you properly meet a pair of Karellians and you start leaning more about who they are and how they differ from the Garleans. Their technology and Dynamis-fueled desires are instrumental to creating a farm that can supply the Last Dregs.
Call to Agriculture: The restored Karellians, realizing that protecting the peace rather than fighting for it would make for a happier lifestyle, put their war aside to live a more peaceful life as farmers of Elysion, utilizing their technology for agriculture instead of war.
Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The Global Citizens have helmets that all glow a bright red, whereas members of the Freedom Fighters have blue helmets.
The Faceless: The Karellians never remove their helmets. Even when they're eating they seem to stay on. They're otherwise organic and demand salads made of natural plants to eat during the Omicron tribal quests, which makes this fact even stranger.
Foil: They are similar yet distinct from two other technologically advanced superpowers.
- Much like the Garlean Empire, they ostensibly sought to unite the world under one banner by any means necessary. They also developed weapons that annihilates any life without prejudice (Black Rose and the Peacekeepers). But while the Empire is a collective Unwitting Pawn for the Ascians' machinations, the Global Community was more straightforwardly seeking world peace at any cost.
- They also share similarities with the Omicrons, but they didn't stop for a second to ponder the meaning of life when Meteion visited them. (They hastily used her arrival as proof they were the "chosen ones" in their justification for global conquest.) Instead, they died in the midst of pursuing their goals.
The Fundamentalist: Both sides in the conflict suffered from this trope, with The Global Community considering peace good and everything that threatened it something that needed to be destroyed, and the Freedom Fighters considering freedom good and everything that threatened it something that could not be allowed to exist.
Future Food Is Artificial: The Global Community was able to end world hunger by synthetically mass-producing foodstuffs. But the replicated food paled in comparison to real food, and there weren't as many choices of what to eat from what was produced.
Gone Horribly Right: The 10,000 Peacekeeper machines were created to obliterate any and all threats to peace with extreme prejudice. Their programming swiftly identified not only the Freedom Fighters as a threat to peace, but the people who created them as well.
Human Aliens: We never get a look at their faces, but they're described by the Last Dreg's bartender's files as "Shar(ing) numerous characteristics with the people of the Meteia's home star, Etheirys". They also use the Hyur skeleton, making their silhouettes the most human-like of all the Last Dreg's patrons.
Ludd Was Right: A Freedom Fighter believes that they should have returned to old fashioned agriculture instead of synthetic foods. And the portion of Elysion formed by the Karellians as a whole downplays this; they grow and harvest crops using technology that, while still advanced, isn't on the same level as fully automated crop production.
Mirror Character: One member of each side of the conflict is simulated to patronize the Last Dregs. The two are Palette Swaps of each other, though this doesn't stop them from calling each other's helmet ugly.
Nuke 'em: The war between the Global Community and the Freedom Fighters ends for good when one Global Citizen unleashes an arsenal of ballistic missiles aimed at every peacekeeper, given that the peacekeepers would have been located in every remaining habitation area this ends up engulfing the distant cityscape and those around the world in nuclear hellfire and leaving them as the sole survivor of the final world war.
Global Citizen: I did it! I killed them all! I... killed them all...
Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Averted. Unlike the atheistic Garleans, the Karellians are quite spiritual. Their traditional crop circles are less efficient than other patterns, but the Karellians use them anyway because they are said to bring good fortune. Even after automating food production, the Global Community saw Meteion's arrival as a divine sign that their cause was noble.
Palette Swap: Both factions use identical models for their footsoldiers, with the only difference being the Global Citizens' silver and red coloration to the Freedom Fighters' gold and blue.
People's Republic of Tyranny: They (barely) hide their oppressiveness behind a humble-sounding name.
Principles Zealot: The Freedom Fighters were really no better than The Global Community, seeking uncompromising freedom safeguarded by military means and a willingness to annihilate anyone and everyone who posed a threat to said freedom.
Robot War: The Global Community utilized advanced battle machines to crush the Freedom Fighters' rebellion.
Scenery Gorn: From the scattered bodies of soldiers to the ruined cities and mechanical wrecks to the continuously overcast, lightning-strewn skies, the Global Citizens' world looks not dissimilar to the Bad Future from Terminator.
Shadow Archetype: Of Ishgard. The Karellians were embroiled in an all-consuming war that threatened to annihilate both sides. The major difference between them and Ishgard is that they did not find peace before their "ultimate solution" (the Peacekeepers and King Thordan, respectively) destroyed them all.
Sole Survivor: A single Global Citizen managed to wipe out every last Peacekeeper with a coordinated nuclear strike; unfortunately, the machines' dispersal across the star meant that the explosion took out every last Karellian as well.
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The restored Karellians still retain their memories of being on opposing sides of the conflict and are constantly at odds with one another. The first thing they do after the Omicrons remake them from dynamis is point their guns at one another. The Global Citizens and the Freedom Fighters continue to verbally snipe at each other even after they're convinced to lay down their arms and work together as part of their second chance at life. Though, inklings of camaraderie and genuine concern for one another can be read in their dialogue as the quests go on.
Totalitarian Utilitarian: The Global Community believed that true peace and prosperity could only come through complete unification. While it succeeded in eliminating disease and world hunger, this came at the cost of the complete suppression of self-expression, rigorous policing, and the automation of all food production. The resulting frustration with these stale, mechanical living conditions led to the forming of the Freedom Fighters in a war that would annihilate all life on the star.
Utopia Justifies the Means: As Meteion noted, the government wanted peace through any means necessary and were pushing very hard for peace through tyranny.
Vitriolic Best Buds: What the Citizens and Freedom Fighters grow into: while each group still claims to hate the other, they also work well together and begin to subtly show that because the toxic politics of their world are long gone, they actually have much more in common than they thought. Two of the opposing soldiers even are seen at the Last Dregs enjoying each others' company.
We Will Have Perfect Health in the Future: They were a futuristic society who had eliminated disease. The Omicron quests also reveal that the Global Community ended world hunger, but the Freedom Fighters point out that this was done via mass-produced, bland-tasting food.
Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: The Freedom Fighters fighting for absolute freedom were the Global Community's terrorists.

The Nibirun

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nibirun_ff14.png

One race had discarded all things that gave rise to sorrow, hoping to have only joy. They found joy lost its savor in the absence of sorrow, and lost their will to live.

—Meteion

The denizens of "Ostrakon Deka-hepta", the 17th world where Meteion witnessed an apocalypse. A race that managed to remove all ills and injustices from society and achieve perfection. With all possible problems solved and no further goals to strive for, the people no longer saw meaning in their lives and sought release from the overwhelming sense of ennui.

Beast with a Human Face: Ra-la has a reptilian body and an almost elven face, making her resemble a draconic lamassu or sphinx with enormous Ear Wings.
Boss Subtitles: When you finally confront Ra-la at the end of the Dead Ends, it is dubbed "The Last Mercy".
Commonality Connection: In the completed Elysion, one of the Ea finds a meditation/debate partner in a similarly immortal Nibirun.
Crapsaccharine World: Alphinaud and Estinien will note how strangely cold and lifeless the Plenty feels despite its apparent beauty. And that's before getting into its suicidal denizens.
Death Seeker:
- They have nothing left to live for and just want to die. The ones killed by Ra-la are content if not ecstatic when the beast kills them, while the ones it doesn't kill are distraught at being spared, begging it to come back and release them from life.
- The two Nibirun that appear in the Omicron quests continue to seek death despite the cafe's progress. But they (and the others) finally snap out of it after seeing how Elysion has grown.
Don't Fear the Reaper: Deconstructed with Ra-La: it was quite literally designed to play to this trope — a kind, beautiful, serene creature that brings with it painless death — the only problem being that it doesn't seem to discriminate who receives its "blessing".
The Eeyore: The Nibiruns are so depressing that merely speaking to one triggered a suicidal shutdown sequence in an Omicron out of overwhelming nihilism. Said Omicron is only saved by N-7000's immediate and timely intervention to restore the barista's self-determination protocols. The Nibiruns are baffled as to why anyone would try to save someone from the "finite" nature of existence.
The Faceless: Like the ancients of Etheirys, the Nibirun all hide their faces behind masks and conceal their figures in all-encompassing robes, preventing others from seeing what they actually look like underneath aside from being vaguely humanoid.
Foil:
- To the unsundered ancients. While the ancients did live good long lives, they were far from perfect and they constantly strived to be so. The Nibirun wear robes and masks similar to the Ancients and are a possibility of what the Ancients could have become if they had achieved their perfect paradise.
- Ra-la also serves as one to Zodiark since both are beings created to be the ultimate saviors of their people. While Zodiark required sacrifice to function, Ra-la's role was to carry out sacrifices. Ra-la is a being of dynamis associated with the sun and light, contrasting with Zodiark's aetherial nature and associations with the moon and darkness. But their biggest difference lies in the end goals these beings were used for: while the ancients wanted to save their world from destruction, the Nibirun sought their own extinction to liberate themselves from the shackles of life.
Foreshadowing: Hermes poses the question of what the ancients will do if they ever attain their sought-after perfection, concluding that they would likely all happily embrace death given how their culture was already leaning in that direction. The Nibirun are very similar to the ancients, and they indeed did just that, showing one of many possible futures for the ancient mankind's civilization.
Go Mad from the Revelation: The Nibirun lived happy, endless, but empty lives free of worry after doing away with war, disease, and division as a global Hive Mind. But when Meteion arrived and asked what about their society made them happy, the Nibirun were soon at a loss as none of them could come up with an idea of what made life worth living to them. They were so unified in mind that the moment one of them thought that living is a pointless exercise, the rest agreed and conspired to off themselves via Ra-la.
Hive Mind: Encyclopedia Eorzea III reveals that the Nibirun eliminated all conflict by connecting their minds into a single hive mind. With all their opinions unified, there could be no conflict between people, allowing them to develop endlessly and come up with the secrets of immortality. However, this also meant that any opinion one person came up with would be instantly agreed upon by the others. This led to the Nibirun's destruction when the hive mind collectively agreed that continuing to live is worthless and offing themselves after failing to answer Meteion's question about what makes them happy.
I Cannot Self-Terminate: They apparently can't die by any normal means, so when they decide that their life no longer has meaning, they have to create Ra-la to end it for them. When it passes over some of them, they have no response but distress that their time hasn't come yet.
Is This What Anger Feels Like?: After the Warrior of Light barely eeks out a victory over the Nibirun in the Hyper Hustle organized by the Hippo Riders, Dreaming Ways, and Last Dregs, the Nibirun express frustration for the first time in millenia over their failure to claim victory despite having the fastest "vehicle" piloted with their flawless flying technique. This confuses them, as such vexing emotions seemed to have been long lost to them after they eliminated all conflict. Dreamingway suggests that the Nibirun could tap into this frustration to find something new to pursue, something the Nibirun seriously consider after being indolent in their nihilism until recently.
Meaningful Name: They're named after Nibiru, an ancient Babylonian/Sumerian word for objects intersecting that was hijacked by a Conspiracy-theorist Doomsayers as a cryptid "super planet" that would one day intersect the Earth's orbit, causing a life-ending impact. Given that they were Meteion's breaking point, and when reconstructed they themselves continue to preach just ending it all, the similarities are fitting.
Mercy Kill: They end up creating a primal-like being for the purpose of killing themselves as painlessly as possible. Said being has a whole host of glittering, damaging abilities with names like Pity and Loving Embrace to drive the point home.
Not the Intended Use: In-universe. In the Allied Tribe Quests, the Nibirun decide to participate in the Hyper Hustle organized by the Hippo Riders, the Last Dregs, and the Dreaming Ways despite initially declaring disinterest. The Nibirun compete by having one of their own transform into Ra-la, their artificial god of death that killed them off in the first place, in place of a vehicle. Due to the Nibirun's fixation on perfection, Ra-la proves to be the fastest competitor in the race, deftly dodging all obstacles before it while remaining comfortably ahead until the very last stretch.
Nothing Left to Do but Die: The Nibirun removed every hardship and sorrow from life and eventually found that their lives had no meaning or substance anymore. With nothing left to strive for, they decided that death was all that was left for them.
Now What?: The Nibirun succeeded in creating paradise: no war, no strife, no suffering...and nothing left to strive for, nothing left to accomplish. What is there left to do when there are no more problems to fix? For the Plenty, the answer is collectively "Guess I'll die."
Perfect Pacifist People: A disturbing deconstruction. Without any hint of strife or conflict in their society, peace eventually lost meaning to them.
Pre-Final Boss: Ra-la is the last obstacle before the final showdown with the Meteia.
Red Baron: Ra-la, the being summoned for their mass suicide and the final boss of the Dead Ends, plays around with this by having the epithet The Last Mercy.
Scenery Porn:
- In jarring contrast to the previous two worlds, the world of the Nibirun is idyllic and beautiful, with trees and fields in full bloom and people blissfully awaiting death on park benches as if it were just another day in their lives. Rather than killer robots and deathly ill people warped beyond recognition by a plague, you're waylaid by butterflies and other serene-looking creatures. Just don't think too hard about the pallid, crumbling world below. And once you defeat Ra-la, the world becomes cold, black, and lifeless just like the previous worlds.
- Once you reach Bloodsworn with the Omicrons, their crystalline forest is mixed with the native flora and architecture of the Nibiruns' world. It even gets its own world tree!
Utopia: This is what the people of the world managed to achieve. No conflict, no illnesses, and no problems at all. Unfortunately, this led to everyone asking themselves what else was there to do before deciding that killing themselves was the only viable solution since there wasn't anything to live for. According to the notes in the Dead Ends, they never actually bothered to worry about it and lived happy endless lives until Meteion asked her question, and then spiraled into despair searching for an answer to give her.
We Will Have Euthanasia in the Future: Much like the Ea, the Nibirun reached the point where they rejected continued existence. Unlike the Ea, who did so for intellectual reasons and hitting the Despair Event Horizon, they reached this point for philosophical and spiritual reasons combined with no longer finding any fulfillment or joy in life completely bereft of hardships or sorrow.
Who Wants to Live Forever?: They deeply regret unearthing the secrets of immortality.
World of Silence: They created a world free of sorrows, but also of any joys.
World Tree: The Plenty's landmark is a huge tree with brilliant turquoise leaves. After you complete the Omicron quests and return to a similar tree that was added to Elysion, a Nibirun explains that rather than having supernatural powers, the tree symbolizes how all their people are interconnected.

Characters / Final Fantasy XIV - Ultima Thule

Due to its being the final zone of Endwalker, and the myriad revelations that precedes players' arrival in this zone, all spoilers from this point forward will be unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

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