On Elemental Affinities - A speculative lore thread

[Zyrusticae]

So this is something that I don't expect Sega to ever really expand on, besides touching on it in some NPC dialogue every now and then, so I think it'll be fun to fill in the blanks myself.

I speak, of course, of elemental affinities. More specifically, elemental techniques, and even more specifically, the characters who specialize, through skill trees, specifically in one or two elements at a time.

Let's start, for illumination, with the concept of photons. Photons in our universe are... well, I'll just quote Wikipedia for this:

A photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force, even when static via virtual photons. The effects of this force are easily observable at both the microscopic and macroscopic level, because the photon has no rest mass; this allows for interactions at long distances.

In the universe of Phantasy Star Online, photons are harnessed as a sort of power source. A common analogy I use is this: they're like the Force in Star Wars, or ki in Dragon Ball (or lots of different over-the-top martial arts movies) - a kind of energy that is pervasive and envelops all things. It is through photons that our characters are able to pull off the insane feats of strength and derring-do that go well beyond anything even the most well-trained baseline human can ever hope to accomplish.

More importantly for this topic, it's this that allows the use of techniques, PSO's analogue for magic. I posit that characters who specialize in certain elements exhibit certain qualities as a result of that specialization, because the very nature of photons means that trying to bend them to create a certain effect will have to have some sort of psychological feedback. To put it another way, in bending the photons to cast a spell, your character is also manipulating the photons of their own body in some way (hence the drainage of pp).

For most casters, this is immaterial; as generalists, they only put the barest minimum of personal investment in casting their techniques. It's when they start focusing on one or two elements (as in putting all their skill points into one side of the skill tree) that they start to change.

Edit: For clarity, these are more like trends and less like hard and fast rules. The reason I picked these particular traits is because they're what I imagine bending photons to that element would feed back into the user. These don't necessarily define their personality, but these parts would certainly be magnified. Their other personality traits would simply be downplayed at the expense of the ones that are emphasized.

Let's break it down, shall we?

Fire - Fire elementalists are people who operate on a hair-trigger. They're hot-tempered individuals with an exceptionally short fuse. If you're trying to interact with one of these people, it's very likely that you're having to walk on eggshells. The very nature of fire also means that these individuals are likely sadists on some level - after all, it takes a certain kind of mindset to set things on fire and watch them burn alive. Likely to also be arrogant and full of themselves, like Clarice Crais.

Ice - Ice elementalists, naturally being the polar opposite of fire, are also the polar opposite in temper. Highly patient individuals who are likely also emotionally distant. Breaking down their emotional walls can be a challenge in and of itself. Very likely to be deadpan snarkers. Slow-burning. Not much to say.

Wind - Wind elementalists are defined by a sort of clarity of thought. Wind is one of the most pure and most simple primal forces in nature - it's just the movement of air, as opposed to fire or ice, which require extreme temperatures to occur. As such, they're very much 'now', 'in-the-moment' types of people, leaving behind the baggage of the past or worries for the future, as they focus exclusively on what's in front of them. They are capable of multiple extremes, exhibiting both a soft and gentle side and a destructive, combative side. Likely good people to turn to for advice.

Lightning - Lightning elementalists are defined by one word: energy. They're chock-full of it. It is likely to be very tiring to simply be around one of these people as they simply cannot sit still for even a moment. They talk fast, act fast, and generally don't look ahead as much as they ought to. Highly excitable. Great people to have around if you run out of batteries.

Light - Light elementalists, predictably enough, are very kind, gentle people with loads of empathy. Many of them are simply not capable of negative emotions other than sadness. Anger, hatred, and even fear don't come naturally to them. Very pleasant people to be around... especially when you need a heal! Marlu is, naturally, a very good example of this.

Dark - Dark elementalists are, in a word, nasty. They are crazy, horrible, cruel, essentially evil people. They have to be. A megid is essentially the negative of light - a ball of pure hatred. The caster must pour their hatred into every cast to maximize their damage. They're even worse sadists than fire elementalists, as each megid damages their enemies with raw agony, their brains essentially shutting down their own bodies just to escape the pain, eventually resulting in death by excessive pain. They possess very little empathy, and are largely incapable of positive emotions. You can think of them as the equivalent of 'Sith' from Star Wars.

---

What do you think? Am I completely off-base? Did I miss or misinterpret anything? Lemme know what you think!

[BIG OLAF]

You must have been bored and/or really high recently. I don't think Photons "mean" anything. They're just future-y sounding things that SEGA decided to use to explain technics, etc.

[CelestialBlade]

I'm liking your theories; fun read.

[Bael]

AH, creativity at work. love it.

[Zyrusticae]

You must have been bored and/or really high recently. I don't think Photons "mean" anything. They're just future-y sounding things that SEGA decided to use to explain technics, etc.

Well, I disagree. The entire series is predicated on the battle between light (which all of our weapons are powered by, and also the only thing that can completely destroy Darkers) and darkness (hence the "Dark Force" being the big bad of every entry in the series).

Speaking of, I guess this makes all dark tech specialists either anti-heroes or anti-villains.

I should mention that I was inspired to make this thread once I created a dark-specializing skill tree for Aiza and made a bunch of auto words for her that are essentially "I hate you, and I'm gonna make you suffer!"

I'm liking your theories; fun read.

AH, creativity at work. love it.

Glad you liked it!

[Xaeris]

In general, I've never liked "elements as personalities" in fiction. Actually, I've never liked elements period, but that's a whole other story. My main problem with it is the boiling down of an entire personality to a few stock emotions. Humans couldn't possibly function if they were perpetually stuck in one portion of the emotional spectrum all the time. Even chronically depressed people can feel fleeting instances of joy and even the most hotheaded and reckless fool experiences moments of pensive doubt.

Another problem with it I have is the common element/emotion associations themselves. They're highly subject to and dependent on interpretation. For example, let's take your light interpretation: gentle and empathetic. Okay, that's one fair representation of light. But what about the kind of bright lights that are flashy and obnoxious as hell? Light could just as easily be the element of an attention whoring prima donna who wants all eyes on her all the time.

I like the idea of repeated and concentrated photon use changing a person, but not so much their personality.

[Omega-z]

Zyrusticae - could there be multiple of those emotion's. Say Like Raja in PSIV , He was electric for his fun loving go-hard prescriptive & self-dulgence , with the guidance of wind to go with the flow of battle. Light for an on going look toward's thing's in life like a child. And maybe a little ice at time's for being to himself. Thought's?

[Zyrusticae]

In general, I've never liked "elements as personalities" in fiction. My main problem with it is the boiling down of an entire personality to a few stock emotions. Humans couldn't possibly function if they were perpetually stuck in one portion of the emotional spectrum all the time. Even chronically depressed people can feel fleeting instances of joy and even the most hotheaded and reckless fool experiences moments of pensive doubt.

Well, yes. I should add that these (like anything else dealing with people, frankly) shouldn't be taken as hard and fast rules, but rather as trends. Keep in mind that people who decide to specialize in certain elements are also drawn to those elements in the first place because they see something that appeals to them in that element, so it makes a kind of sense that they exhibit certain qualities more often than not.

Another problem with it I have is the common element/emotion associations themselves. They're highly subject to and dependent on interpretation. For example, let's take your light interpretation: gentle and empathetic. Okay, that's one fair representation of light. But what about the kind of bright lights that are flashy and obnoxious as hell? Light could just as easily be the element of an attention whoring prima donna who wants all eyes on her all the time.

Naturally. That's why I ask for things that I miss.

However, with regards to light, I would argue that the way the element is presented in game represents a very 'pure' version of light, one that is always complete whiteness, with no variation of color. It's not very flashy, but always very effective. Takes a certain kind of mindset to really appreciate that (and I'm not one of those people, heh). Also, half of the element is dedicated to healing magic.

I like the idea of repeated and concentrated photon use changing a person, but not so much their personality.

Hmmm. Physical, outward appearance changes, then? I could work with that...

Zyrusticae - could there be multiple of those emotion's. Say Like Raja in PSIV , He was electric for his fun loving go-hard prescriptive & self-dulgence , with the guidance of wind to go with the flow of battle. Light for an on going look toward's thing's in life like a child. And maybe a little ice at time's for being to himself. Thought's?

Well, I should say that my ideas here are specifically for specialists, people who focus exclusively on one or two elements at a time. Most people are probably going to use a little bit of everything, like the character you're describing.

[Link1275]

So this is something that I don't expect Sega to ever really expand on, besides touching on it in some NPC dialogue every now and then, so I think it'll be fun to fill in the blanks myself.

I speak, of course, of elemental affinities. More specifically, elemental techniques, and even more specifically, the characters who specialize, through skill trees, specifically in one or two elements at a time.

Let's start, for illumination, with the concept of photons. Photons in our universe are... well, I'll just quote Wikipedia for this:


In the universe of Phantasy Star Online, photons are harnessed as a sort of power source. A common analogy I use is this: they're like the Force in Star Wars, or ki in Dragon Ball (or lots of different over-the-top martial arts movies) - a kind of energy that is pervasive and envelops all things. It is through photons that our characters are able to pull off the insane feats of strength and derring-do that go well beyond anything even the most well-trained baseline human can ever hope to accomplish.

More importantly for this topic, it's this that allows the use of techniques, PSO's analogue for magic. I posit that characters who specialize in certain elements exhibit certain qualities as a result of that specialization, because the very nature of photons means that trying to bend them to create a certain effect will have to have some sort of psychological feedback. To put it another way, in bending the photons to cast a spell, your character is also manipulating the photons of their own body in some way (hence the drainage of pp).

For most casters, this is immaterial; as generalists, they only put the barest minimum of personal investment in casting their techniques. It's when they start focusing on one or two elements (as in putting all their skill points into one side of the skill tree) that they start to change.

Let's break it down, shall we?

Fire - Fire elementalists are people who operate on a hair-trigger. They're hot-tempered individuals with an exceptionally short fuse. If you're trying to interact with one of these people, it's very likely that you're having to walk on eggshells. The very nature of fire also means that these individuals are likely sadists on some level - after all, it takes a certain kind of mindset to set things on fire and watch them burn alive. Likely to also be arrogant and full of themselves, like Clarice Crais.

Ice - Ice elementalists, naturally being the polar opposite of fire, are also the polar opposite in temper. Highly patient individuals who are likely also emotionally distant. Breaking down their emotional walls can be a challenge in and of itself. Very likely to be deadpan snarkers. Slow-burning. Not much to say.

Wind - Wind elementalists are defined by a sort of clarity of thought. Wind is one of the most pure and most simple primal forces in nature - it's just the movement of air, as opposed to fire or ice, which require extreme temperatures to occur. As such, their temper is likely unchanged from before they began specializing. Instead, they're very much 'now', 'in-the-moment' types of people, leaving behind the baggage of the past or worries for the future, as they focus exclusively on what's in front of them. Likely good people to turn to for advice.

Lightning - Lightning elementalists are defined by one word: energy. They're chock-full of it. It is likely to be very tiring to simply be around one of these people as they simply cannot sit still for even a moment. They talk fast, act fast, and generally don't look ahead as much as they ought to. Highly excitable. Great people to have around if you run out of batteries.

Light - Light elementalists, predictably enough, are very kind, gentle people with loads of empathy. Many of them are simply not capable of negative emotions other than sadness. Anger, hatred, and even fear don't come naturally to them. Very pleasant people to be around... especially when you need a heal! Marlu is, naturally, a very good example of this.

Dark - Dark elementalists are, in a word, nasty. They are crazy, horrible, cruel, essentially evil people. They have to be. A megid is essentially the negative of light - a ball of pure hatred. The caster must pour their hatred into every cast to maximize their damage. They're even worse sadists than fire elementalists, as each megid damages their enemies with raw agony, their brains essentially shutting down their own bodies just to escape the pain, eventually resulting in death by excessive pain. They possess very little empathy, and are largely incapable of positive emotions. You can think of them as the equivalent of 'Sith' from Star Wars.

---

What do you think? Am I completely off-base? Did I miss or misinterpret anything? Lemme know what you think!

I have to kind of disagree with you. I would have to say that the wikipedia description you quoted works for them too, only they can control them due to technology.

[Crimera]

I disagree, with your wind Element :3
IMO, wind has an effect on everything. I wouldn't say it is "pure" and that their temper is "unchanged" either.

Wind can be VERY dangerous.

What is always present during these scenarios/phenomenon?

1) Hurricane
2) Dust Devil
3) Tornado
4) Volcano ash
5) Firestorm
6) Sandstorm

Destruction.

I would say the Wind is the most dynamic element. Because for everything that it destroys, it also creates or "refreshes". Such as plant life with how it spreads seeds.

After all, there is a such thing as a light gust called a "breeze". : )



...or a fart. :C