notes on the lore overhaul:
taking inspo from ff3 and skyward sword: elpis still exists in the source post-sundering and has its own cluster communities of people that have lived on the floating islands ever since, completely isolated from the surface of etheirys.
to avoid confusion: elpis did not avoid the sundering, the people there are all sundered. it did, however, mostly avoid any damage from calamities. however, although elpis wasn't directly affected by any of the calamities, it was witness to themβincluding bahamut breaking out of dalamud.
the people who live there repurposed the facilities for their own needs. pre-sundering, there were plenty of researchers who lived on-site and many of the environments needed food sources for herbivore concepts, so there were plenty of sources of edible flora. combined with the wide variety of concepts that were there and the environments that were simulated to house those concepts, the people had all they need to not only survive, but thrive.
they still use the proto-eorzean alphabet and speak the ancient language. modern day weewoon. this is largely negated for v'senah because of the echo; no need to worry about cross-language barriers. bonus: she can translate ancient texts!
they have all of the research conducted in elpis at their fingertips and know and understand the technology the ancients used. they've had 12k years to figure it out, after all. v'senah has had access to a lot of this research. she can offer valuable insight into certain things (creature concepts, knowledge of the convocation and unsundered world, an understanding of creation magic.... possibly also zodiark, but not hydaelyn). consequently it also makes her an excellent hunter.
naming conventions in elpis carried on from ancient times based off of names written in various research papers left in the facilities post-sundering. "v'senah tayuun" is an alias; her real name is orpheia. she took up a new name when she arrived on the surface so as to not draw undue attention to herself/stand out in especially Weird ways.
or rather, to not stand out more. it's not too hard to figure out she's not eorzean fairly quickly because she'll refer to the creatures of etheirys by the names she knows them from elpis's archives. (ex. morpho -> petalouda; morbol -> adonis; spriggan -> oreias, etc.)
her motive for leaving elpis is mostly because of her own desire to see the world (think rapunzel "i want to see the floating lights and not just from my window" but like... "i want to see the world and not just from up here"). the prophetic dreams she has (courtesy of her ability as an oneiromancer, inherited from asteria), as well as bahamut's appearance from within dalamud, were other major factors.
she flew from elpis on a [undecided flying mount], but when i think about the imagery of her descent, i think about her like a falling star. :) a meteor, if you will. :) direct reference to a) asteria, her ancient, the titan goddess of shooting stars, and b) meteor as the wol.
on the extremely self-indulgent side of things, her real name being orpheia is, obviously, a nod to the orpheus/eurydice myth, in which eurydice's death is caused by a snake bite (in reference to hermes/asteria and ultimately fandaniel/v'senah), but also a play on the myth in that she effectively takes on the role of orpheus herself, venturing into the aetherial sea (or underworld), from which she retrieves him.
the new url, katabaseios, comes from the word katabasis, based off the spelling used for anabasis in the pandaemonium raids (anabaseios). a katabasis is defined as a journey to the underworld, whereas an anabasis is defined as the journey back from the underworld. thus, the url is a direct reference to two things: first, her descent from elpis to etheirys, and second: her literal journey into the aetherial sea.
