Foundations

While one shouldn’t expect to fully understand gods, or fiction for that matter, Xenoblade has detailed to some extent its twist on physics.  This aspect is ether, and it pours out of the Bionis, bubbling and shimmering in the air all around.  Every living thing, and just about every mechanical thing, is made of ether, and mastering it is the key to power in this world.

For the Nopon, and many natural races, ether is collected in pollen, and that is made into useful tools.  Pollen lamps are strewn about their Frontier Village like Christmas lights, and the side quests for Zazadan to turn a Red Pollen orb into a delicacy of food suggests more culinary uses for the pollen.

High Entia possess a rare and coveted ability to manipulate ether currents directly, as a mage would magic in another universe.  Ether sorcerers, or so I call them for their limited number even among High Entia, possess a connection with the currents of ether that is quite rare.  There are no “wizards,” though the universe is filled with scholars of every kind, ether manipulation is a talent that you either have or you don’t; it can’t be learned.  It can, however, be put into a tool.  Ether cylinders are the default power sources, the “tanks of gas” in this universe, and an entire trading vessel of High Entian origin crashed into the cliffs above Colony 9 in the undefined past, causing the Homs to standardize their machines to this power source every bit as the High Entia have done.

Speaking of the Homs, their technology is a hodge podge of original and copied designs; few homs care to remember where each successive good idea came from, but just to accept that they have them now.  Homs are carefree in this way, but also appear irreverent, even a little arrogant.  Where applied, their designs are much simpler, more direct and applied, than the subtle manipulations favored by other races.  Guns fire Thunder bullets, Heat applications raise the temperature, and ice ether cools food stores.

The Machina are possibly the oldest extant civilization, and many living Machina have lived and practices their arts for centuries, some millennia.  Their access, and affinity, for ether controlling machines leads them to develop tools smaller and more portable than other races, consuming less power, and delivering more kick.  All the same, when Egil was outfitting his Face Mechon for an assault on the peoples of the Bionis, he found it more efficient to build ether cannons and radios big, and build the large Face mech frames around them.  I might yet have fun creating a racial variant of the Machina artificer who casts spells as easily as a Wizard.  A spare few may survive with the ability to manipulate ether directly, but the Machina philosophy of machines supporting, and become integral to, every part of a person means that all such sorcerers would focus on artificer studies.

How the gods themselves set to controlling ether is unknown, except in the example of the Monado.  The Blade is essentially a one of a kind masterwork tool for channeling and manipulating ether flows, and thus, all of reality.  There are now 6 prototypes, each doing the same job, but none able to do it as well as the masterwork Monado.  There may be reasons for this, as two Monados are somehow connected with both Zansa and Meyneth; as though the word Monado at once means the physical object found with Shulk and the intangible divine will of the gods.  It is a pretty significant plot point (spoiler alert) that Shulk needs to channel the “third Monado” to defeat Zansa, and a blade of ether takes shape in his hands for the purpose.

The Machina have a belief that machines become a part of a person’s soul, extensions of their will.  It is a perfectly reasonable believe for a race of cyborgs.  If the Monado is an extension of Zansa’s will, as Shulk’s “true Monado” is of his will, then the physical device is merely an antenna, or channeling rod, for projecting that will.

 I just stepped way into this world’s theology didn’t I?  Perhaps a little too deep, eh?