User:Seancdaug/Spira (Final Fantasy X)
Spira is the world in which the role-playing games Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2 are based. During Final Fantasy X, one enters a world characterized by death and destruction wrought by the fearsome beast, Sin. The name Spira was based either on the spiral of death that the world suffers, or from the many spheres found in Spira such as the Blitzball Sphere, the Prayer to Yevon, and the Sphere Grid.
Pyreflies
An ambiguous, naturally occurring phenomenon, Pyreflies have exerted a long influenced the history of Spira. Heavily prevalent throughout Spira, these "bundles of life energy" (as they're referred to by the Final Fantasy X Ultimania Omega Guide) are closely associated with death and other spiritual matters.
Though they have been harnessed to many uses, both good and ill, in their inert form, they appear to lack self-awareness and any identifiable agenda. As such, they are nothing more than an aspect of nature, permeating everything and everyone in Spira in low-to-high concentrations. Pyreflies are usually invisible, but when a Fiend is killed or a Summoner performs a Sending, the pyreflies give off light as they rise into the air, due to them being more highly concentrated in those situations. Despite their rare appearances elsewhere, they're regularly seen around the Moonflow area of Spira, owing to the ease with which pyreflies and water harmonize with one another.
Pyreflies serve as the raw material for the manifestation of Aeons, Fiends, and Unsent, and can be easily connected to any and all paranormal phenomena that occur in Spira. In addition to their spiritual affiliations, they're also associated with many commonplace technological innovations. Such innovations include sphere-shaped recording devices formed of the crystalized mixture of pyreflies and water (simply called "Spheres"), and large, suspended spherical conglomerations of congealed water (called "Sphere Pools") that serve as the playing field for Blitzball games.
The fall of Zanarkand and the birth of Sin
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One thousand years before the events of Final Fantasy X, Spira was a prosperous land, with many large and technologically advanced cities, filled with machina. The foremost of these cities were Zanarkand and Bevelle. Zanarkand was the largest and most advanced city in all of Spira, and eventually this sparked a war from Bevelle. Zanarkand, while highly advanced, relied on summoners instead of machina to protect themselves from aggressors. Bevelle, on the other hand, had poured all of its resources into building highly advanced military machina, and hence, Zanarkand stood no chance. They met for battle on what is now called the Calm Lands, and Zanarkand's army was decimated.
Spurred on by their effortless victory, Bevelle prepared to attack Zanarkand directly. Yevon, the ruler of Zanarkand, could not bear to lose his city, and in an act of desperation, gathered his people on the summit of Mount Gagazet and took the souls from all the remaining summoners and other citizens and transformed them into Fayth for a summoning. Using the power of the Fayth, he summoned into existence a dream reality of Zanarkand; a Zanarkand that never sleeps, to preserve Zanarkand in its prime for all eternity. In order to protect the Fayth and the reality that he had created, Yevon cast powerful gravity spells, drawing in pyreflies from all over Spira and forming them into a massive armor around himself. This armor was Sin. Unfortunately, because Sin itself was the very incarnation of violence and destruction, Zanarkand was destroyed in the process.
The army of Bevelle, unaware of what had transpired at Zanarkand, began their march up the slopes of Mount Gagazet. Near the summit, they began to hear a song resounding across the mountain, the Hymn of the Fayth. "It is a song from an otherworld!", they exclaimed, and fled in terror. Sin rose up over the mountain in pursuit, and assaulted Bevelle's army, leaving no survivors. Some time later, a scouting party from Bevelle braved the mountain and ascended to the summit. From there, they could see the lifeless ruins of the once great Zanarkand. Also found were the Fayth that had been gathered there. This information was relayed back to Bevelle, and immediately rumors and speculation arose about what had happened. It was thought that Yevon himself was the cause of Zanarkand's destruction. It was also surmised that he was also responsible for transforming the people into fayth, and for creating the monster, Sin.
Lady Yunalesca, the daughter of Yevon, had escaped from Zanarkand on the eve of its destruction. In order to further punish Bevelle and to honor the memory of her father, she created the technique known as the Final Summoning, in which a person with a very close bond to a summoner gives up his or her soul to become a Fayth for the summoning. In the case of Lady Yunalesca, it was her husband, Lord Zaon, who became the Fayth. Using the Final Summoning, Yu Yevon's armor, Sin, can be destroyed. However Yu Yevon, who resides within Sin, lives on, and merges with the new aeon, and after a time, Sin is born anew. Because of this, Sin never truly dies, and the people of Spira, and Bevelle specifically, will be punished for all time, and the Dream Zanarkand will remain unhindered by the outside world. Using this technique, Lady Yunalesca was able to destroy Sin. But, because of the trauma caused by the sudden severing of the bond with her husband and Final Aeon when Yu Yevon possessed it, she was killed as well. However, she chose to remain in the world of the living as an unsent in order to help perpetuate the cycle of the Final Summoning.
With the knowledge of the existence of Sin, Bevelle began to fear Yu Yevon's wrath. They created the teachings of Yevon, and in order to appease him, they began to spread these teachings all throughout Spira.
Yuna's pilgrimage and the Eternal Calm
In the one thousand years since the creation of Sin and the destruction of Zanarkand, Spira had became a rustic land, almost completely devoid of large cities and higher civilization. Due to the actions of Sin, and the Yevon ban on machina, few territories reach larger than hamlet size, as they are destroyed by Sin and their populations decimated before they can develop. The only cities left that are larger than small villages are Luca, which houses the only Blitzball stadium, and Bevelle, center of the religion of Yevon. The people of Spira live in constant fear of Sin, and yearn for the Calm, the short period after destruction of Sin in which Yu Yevon creates a new Sin from the aeon of the Final Summoning used to defeat the previous Sin. Every time a new Sin emerges, summoners make a pilgrimage to all of the temples of Yevon, praying to the Fayth at each temple and gaining a new aeon. Eventually, they reach the ruins of Zanarkand, where the shade of Lady Yunalesca resides. If they have trained their summoning abilities to a high enough degree, she will bestow upon them the Final Summoning, which they then use to defeat Sin. Unfortunately, the trauma of the Final Summoning kills them as well, and the spiral of death continues.
But the pilgrimage of Summoner Yuna brought this cycle to an end. She and her guardians managed to enter Sin's body and defeat Yu Yevon directly. As a result, the start of the Eternal Calm occurred. During the Eternal Calm, many groups began to appear: The Youth League, the New Yevon Party, and the Machine Faction. The coming of the Eternal Calm also brought the discovery of ancient ruins on top of Mt. Gagazet, as well as a civilization of cactuar called the Cactuar Nation.