Sphene

Sphene is a character in Final Fantasy XIV. She is the Queen of Reason of Alexandria. Sphene serves as one of the main antagonists of the expansion Dawntrail.
==History==
===Before Dawntrail===
Sphene was a princess of the kingdom of Alexandria located in another reflection of the Source, which Hydaelyn split from Etheirys. She was loved by her people even after she became the queen; her people's happiness became her happiness. Alexandria eventually became embroiled in a war with the neighboring kingdom of Lindblum after the discovery of electrope, a material able to absorb lightning-aspected aether and change that aether's elemental affinity. This war became known as the Storm Surge, as it revolved around securing access to electrope as its use in society became more common. Sphene's life came to an end due to levin sickness, induced by a lightning aether-based superweapon built by Lindblum to end the Storm Surge, and the commander of the Knights of Alexandria, Otis Velona, held her as she died.
When the kingdom of Lindblum activated their lightning aether-based superweapon, an Alexandrian group known as the Preservation saved Alexandria by covering it in a dome of electrope. They sought to bring Queen Sphene back, and through the study of electrope, learned how to separate and store a deceased being's soul and memory. This knowledge was used to preserve Sphene's memories and implement them into machinery, creating an artificial simulacrum of the original. Instead of keeping her as she was, she was reprogrammed with a desire of maintaining her people's happiness no matter the cost. Sphene was "reborn" as an entity called an Endless, and reinstated as the queen of Alexandria. The same procedure was done to many other deceased Alexandrians; they, too, were brought back as Endless. They lived in eternal bliss within Living Memory, a physical realm reserved exclusively for them, with Sphene keeping them happy.
However, despite their supposed utopia and whether or not the Preservation and Sphene were aware of it, their method of using souls ultimately cut themselves off from the Lifestream, breaking the cycle of life, death and rebirth. In this, the amount of birthrates within Alexandria began to decrease. In contrast, the Preservation understood very well that the aetheric cost to maintain Living Memory began to outstrip their ability to meet the demand. The Endless required a constant supply of aether from souls to continue existing, and when her world started to run out of souls to source from, Sphene sought new sources of aether. A gateway to the Source was constructed, with the intention of killing its denizens and harvesting their souls. The other side of this gateway wound up in Tural, inside the Skydeep Cenote in the forests of Yak T'el. Two Preservation scientists, objecting to this plan, defected from their group and transported both the key required to open the gate and their infant daughter to the Source. They were received by Dawnservant Gulool Ja Ja and Galuf Baldesion, with the latter adopting and raising the child as his own. Bereft of the key, Sphene could no longer open the gate once it closed, and the plan was put on hiatus.
===Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail===
The nation of Tural held a rite of succession to determine its next Dawnservant, who would succeed Gulool Ja Ja as its leader. Each participant's final challenge was to find the fabled "golden city", which, in reality, was the gateway to Alexandria. One such participant, Zoraal Ja, was disqualified during the rite of succession, but nonetheless conspired with his assistant, a seer named Sareel Ja, to steal the key and gain access to the gate. After reaching the gate, the two heard Sphene speaking from the other side, promising them power in exchange for opening it. Desiring to keep this power for himself, Zoraal Ja killed Sareel Ja before fulfilling Sphene's request and traveling through the gate alone.
Zoraal Ja was eventually crowned King of Resolve of Alexandria, with Sphene becoming his Queen of Reason. Using interdimensional fusion they took two parts of Alexandria—the Everkeep metropolitan area, and the region of Heritage Found—and moved them directly onto the Source, on top of the region of Yyasulani in Xak Tural. The electrope dome was transported with them, and the existing residents of Yyasulani assimilated into Alexandrian society. Zoraal Ja launched an invasion to Tuliyollal, killing his father alongside many civilians, all the while Sphene watched over the carnage with apprehension. When newly-appointed Dawnservant Wuk Lamat decided to strike back, she, the Warrior of Light, Alisaie Leveilleur, G'raha Tia, Erenville, and a now-grown Krile Baldesion broke into the dome. Only three days passed in the Source between when the dome appeared and when it was breached, but due to time discrepancy between the Source and its reflections, this was equivalent to thirty years within Alexandria. After the barrier was broken, the flow of time stabilized between the two regions.
While traversing through the now-lightning-filled atmosphere of Heritage Found, the aforementioned party met Sphene, who took them to the Outskirts to learn about her people, their use of electrope, and the role of soul regulators in their day-to-day lives. While not revealing her true intentions, she was civil and courteous to the group despite their wariness of her. Sphene requested their assistance in overthrowing Zoraal Ja; she had come to see him as a threat due to his desire for personal power over the happiness of the Alexandrian people. She granted them passage to Solution Nine, the ninth level of Everkeep that acted as a residential zone. In Solution Nine, Sphene served as a guide to the Warrior and Wuk Lamat, and they got to know Sphene better as she told them about the story of her world, the Storm Surge in particular which the Warrior compared to an Umbral Calamity.
When word reached out that Zoraal Ja was about to continue the invasion of Tuliyollal, Wuk Lamat, the Warrior of Light, and Alisaie proceeded to Vanguard to face him. Zoraal Ja revealed Sphene's true identity as an Endless, and that she desired the invasion of Tuliyollal as much as he did, as it would supply Alexandria with more souls to maintain their way of life. He ordered for the invasion to continue, but this time Tuliyollal fought back with the help of Dawnservant Koana, the (publicly disbanded) Scions of the Seventh Dawn, the residents of neighboring Shaaloani, and dragons Vrtra and Azdaja from Radz-at-Han, ultimately routing the Alexandrian forces. This drew Zoraal Ja over the edge, and he ordered the people of Alexandria be slaughtered and their souls extracted, hoping to attain further power by absorbing them himself. Sphene became outraged and desperate, but the adventuring party decided to save her people, as even though Sphene's crimes were unforgivable, her people were innocent. They fought their way through Solution Nine while saving those they could. Sphene was reunited with Otis, whose soul had been transferred into a mechanical body centuries ago. He protected Sphene from a wild fiend, but the strain was too much for his old mechanical body. After quelling the carnage for the time being, Sphene stayed behind to look after her people, while others prepared to pursue and challenge Zoraal Ja.
At the top of Everkeep and engaging in a fierce battle with the mad King of Resolve, Zoraal Ja was killed ending his reign of tyranny. He dropped the key only for Sphene to appear behind the party and seize it. She redeclared her intention of using lives from the Source to sustain the Endless in Alexandria, and used the key to open another dimensional gateway to Living Memory. She took to the key with her, closing the gate behind her to prevent anyone from following. After the Scions determined where she had gone, they returned to the original gateway in Yak T'el and used Krile's clover-shaped earring—in reality a data storage device of Alexandrian design, which contained a code for the gate—to open the gate to Living Memory.
Once they arrived, the party proceeded to the central Meso Terminal, where Sphene was preparing for her ultimatum. Wuk Lamat tried one last time to get through to her, believing that in her heart Sphene did not want to massacre the people of the Source. She admitted that she did not, but saw no other recourse, and intended to erase the original Sphene's memories so that her kind personality would not serve as a hindrance to do what she felt must be done to maintain the Endless. She refused to reevaluate this stance even after G'raha Tia pointed out that this course of action would be merely delaying the inevitable: should she succeed and continue, there would come a time when there would be no more souls to harvest, and then the Endless would cease to exist no matter what. Sphene retreated to the Meso Terminal to enact this plan; in the meantime, the party began shutting down the other terminals in Living Memory used to keep the Endless active, essentially "killing" them (though the people whose memories were used to create them had already passed long ago).
The party proceeded into the Meso Terminal, and fought their way through its defense systems before reaching Sphene, whose original personality was now almost fully erased. She kicked out all party members save for the Warrior of Light, whom she engaged directly due to their higher perceived threat level based on the Elminator's assessment. They, in turn, summoned reinforcements using the crystal of Azem. Partway through this battle, Wuk Lamat reentered the battlefield, reaching out to Sphene one last time and causing her rewritten personality to be partially restored long enough to reaffirm that this plan was what she wanted, unable to bear losing her people again. 
After being defeated, Sphene reappeared, glitching as the Meso Terminal could not maintain her for long. In her last words she admitted that she was only delaying the inevitable, and that despite her aims, she enjoyed her time with the adventuring party and admitted that under different circumstances they would have been able to live on in happiness and harmony. Sphene gave the key to the Warrior, believing they would keep it safe. Sphene accepted her death and left her people's future into the hands of Tuliyollal, bidding farewell to her kingdom she loved so much.
==Characteristics==
===Appearance===
Sphene takes the appearance of a young Hyune woman with olive eyes and medium-length gray hair that curves when it reaches her shoulders. The tips of her hair are dyed yellow. She wears a brightly-colored yellow and teal dress and long stockings. As to be expected of royalty, she wears a small teal-colored crown.
When forced into a final confrontation with the Warrior of Light within the Unlost World, Sphene takes on the form of a giant mechanical chimeric machine that possess impressive reality warping abilities and drone weaponry within the Meso Terminal. 
===Personality===
Sphene appears as gentle and kind, and has a lighthearted and easygoing disposition. She deeply cares about the people of Alexandria, and is always ready to help anyone in need. In a similar vein to Wuk Lamat, Sphene endeavors to interact and know the people under her rule, making her easy to approach and speak with towards the Alexandrian citizens. Alisaie noted that Sphene reminded her of Wuk Lamat, as she expected a queen to be colder. However, her lighthearted disposition is a facade, as she is anguished and troubled by her people's suffering and of the means she has to employ to maintain their happiness. When Wuk Lamat takes notice of her troubles, Sphene quickly changes the subject while trying to act cheerful again.
After her true goal of massacring and plundering other worlds of aether is revealed, Sphene is shown to be unyielding and determined in her objective, willing to go to extreme lengths to protect and preserve Alexandria and its people, especially the immortal Endless, refusing to allow them to fade. Nevertheless, she does so with guilt and reluctance, believing she has no alternative option, so much that she needed to suppress her gentle nature via reprogramming to confront the Warrior of Light, accepting to be "history's most brutal queen" if it means to protect her people. 
Sphene abhors Zoraal Ja, trying her best to mitigate the negative effects that his cruelty and greed have on the Alexandrian people. She only suffers his presence as the King of Resolve because of their covenant, which allowed Alexandria to invade and draw aether from the Source to begin with. Though she attempted to reason with the King of Resolve for a peaceable solution to his feud with Wuk Lamat and the heroes, when Zoraal Ja's cruelty extends towards the Alexandrians she deems it goes too far and Sphene forms a truce with Wuk Lamat and the Warrior of Light to stop him. Sphene was mystified by the Scions' willingness to help her protect the Alexandrians from Zoraal Ja's massacre despite knowing she had deceived them. 
It is noted by other characters that Sphene, upon her revival as an Endless, was modified by Preservation to prioritize the well-being of the Alexandrian people above all else, regardless of how the Preservation's intended methods affected others. This programming is likely the root of her inner turmoil, as her gentle nature conflicts with the lengths she has to go to fulfill this prime directive. In truth, the Preservation's programming makes it impossible for Sphene to accept any alternative to the Preservation's plan of plundering the aether of other worlds to sustain the Endless, despite knowing that maintaining the Endless is unsustainable and is only delaying the inevitable.
Sphene has deep empathy for the suffering of others and does want to minimize pain and death, at least within her domain. She shows compassion to the people of Xak Tural who became trapped within Heritage Found, helping find ways to preserve their culture and way of life as best she can. When the Warrior of Light defeats her, she forgives them and entrusts them with the well-being of her people, believing them to be in good hands.
==Gameplay==
Sphene appears as an ally NPC in the duty instance The Protector and the Destroyer, initially removing an obstacle in the way but otherwise is a non-combatant interacting with other NPCs. In her stunned state during the final battle, she is protected by Otis.
Sphene is later fought as the Queen Eternal in .
==Etymology==
Sphene, better known as titanite, is a green and brown neosilicate mineral. Garnets are also neosilicates, making Sphene's name parallel Garnet Til Alexandros XVII, the princess of Alexandria from Final Fantasy IX. The writing on Sphene's clothing gives her full name as "Sphene Alexandros XIV", further alluding to Garnet. The "XIV" is allusion to number 14, as per the game being the 14th main series entry to the series.
Category:Characters in Final Fantasy XIV
Category:Endless
Category:Antagonists
Category:Hyur