The Ancients
The unsundered people who created Zodiark and Hydaelyn.
In Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, the Ancients are the people of the unsundered world who, facing the Final Days, begged their leaders, the Convocation of Fourteen, for salvation. Three-quarters of them willingly sacrificed themselves to create and empower Zodiark, which stopped the disaster and restored the world.
Lore & Background
The Convocation then planned to sacrifice later life to revive the lost Ancients. Dissident Ancients who wanted new life to grow on its own summoned Hydaelyn, which imprisoned Zodiark and sundered the world. Emet-Selch, a member of the Convocation, reveals that neither being was a god but a primal made by his people, and that the Echo is a trace of the Ancients' power rather than a gift from Hydaelyn.
In Final Fantasy VII the name is also used for the Cetra, a near-extinct human tribe with a strong connection to the Planet and its Lifestream.
More in Mythos & History
Elsewhere in Final Fantasy
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