Fal'Cie

The fal'Cie (ファルシ) [fæl'siː] are supernatural beings in Final Fantasy XIII. They are responsible for the creation and maintenance of the land where humans dwell, and indirectly govern their lives.

Datalog


''Fal'Cie are an existence beyond human comprehension, possessed of incredible magic power. The ones responsible for Cocoon's construction are protectors of humanity, but there are others of their kind as well: the fal'Cie who dwell on Pulse and name themselves enemies of Cocoon.''

''Humans who encounter Pulse fal'Cie are cursed being turned to l'Cie and ordered to destroy Cocoon. It is for this reason that most ordinary citizens support the Purge—anyone who may have come into contact with one of these fal'Cie represents a dire threat.''

''The Sanctum fal'Cie are the unfathomable entities that constructed the floating shell of Cocoon in ages past, and even now watch over the world's human inhabitants. Each is assigned a specific task that supports the existence of Cocoon's grateful populace, such as generating energy or manufacturing food. The fal'Cie rarely intervene directly in the governing of society, leaving that responsibility to appointed human representatives.''

One theory states that, including the lower hierarchy, the total number of Sanctum fal'Cie exceeds eight million.

Profile
In the Famitsu magazine in June 2009, the fal'Cie were revealed to be formed from the crystals residing inside of them, acting as their energy sources. The director of the game, Motomu Toriyama, described the fal'Cie as "god machines surrounding the crystals". The fal'Cie are thus immortal and do not age. In the interview with the Official PlayStation Magazine in August 2009, producer Yoshinori Kitase revealed there are various types of fal'Cie, their actual number being incalculable, although only a handful appears in Final Fantasy XIII.

In the official mythology the fal'Cie are said to be of divine origin. The god Buniberzei, in his attempt to reach the world of the dead, created Pulse, Lindzei and Etro. The mythology calls these three also as fal'Cie, but in the game the humankind calls Pulse, Lindzei and Etro as gods and goddesses. After creating the three the god Buniberzei turned into a crystal and entered eternal sleep.

Pulse and Lindzei were given powers to create and, according to the mythology, created many fal'Cie of their own: the Pulse fal'Cie and the fal'Cie that would create Cocoon. Etro, on the other hand, was discarded and created humanity in an act of self-loathing suicide. In time, humanity came to treat the fal'Cie as gods because of the variety of their actions: The Pulse fal'Cie terraforming the land while the Cocoon fal'Cie offer to improve humans' lives.

Both types of fal'Cie have the power to brand people with the power of the crystals in order to make them fulfill special missions called Focus for them. These people, called the l'Cie, can be identified by a symbol somewhere on their bodies. The appearance of the brand depends on the fal'Cie that chooses the l'Cie. The Pulse brands are an overlapping sequence of black arrows while the Cocoon Brands are the crest of Lindzei.

As Final Fantasy XIII detailed, Pulse and Lindzei left the world at some point, leaving their fal'Cie orphaned. As a result, the Lindzei fal'Cie seek to summon back the Maker by isolating most of humanity into the newly created Cocoon, ruling it through the Sanctum while demonizing the Pulse fal'Cie who are too preoccupied with their directives.

Sanctum fal'Cie

 * Orphan: The fal'Cie responsible for powering Cocoon over the world of Gran Pulse. Orphan represents the power of sunlight.
 * Eden: The trinity fal'Cie responsible for monitoring all functions of Cocoon, who siphons its power from Orphan. Eden communicates with the human Sanctum representative. Cocoon's capital is named after this fal'Cie.
 * Phoenix: The fal'Cie in charge of Cocoon's weather, shining like a sun in the middle of Cocoon. It oversees numerous fal'Cie managing wind and rain.
 * Carbuncle: Responsible for the production of food in Cocoon.
 * Kujata: Provides Cocoon with power. Located at Euride Gorge, which is visited as a tourist attraction. This fal'Cie turns Dajh Katzroy into a l'Cie.
 * Barthandelus: A fal'Cie assuming the guise of the human Galenth Dysley as Cocoon's Primarch. It seeks to bring back the gods through Cocoon's destruction.
 * Menrva: Barthandelus's familiar and a living construct holding his power while he is in human form.

Pulse fal'Cie

 * Anima: Originally located in Oerba. This fal'Cie turns Serah, Lightning, Vanille, Fang, Snow, Hope, and Sazh into l'Cie.
 * Atomos: A spherical fal'Cie who digs underground passages in Mah'habara.
 * Bismarck: Responsible for protecting the Sulyya Springs. Anyone who tries to trespass into the waters is mercilessly eliminated.
 * Titan: Forces an artificial selection process to produce more powerful species on Pulse.
 * Dahaka: The boss at Taejin's Tower. Its purpose is unclear, as, unlike other fal'Cie, it seems to roam about Gran Pulse without a task.
 * Fenrir: The largest of Pulse fal'Cie, it exists to cause century long eclipses whenever active. However, during Final Fantasy XIII-2, a Paradox in Oerba -200 AF- made Fenir active early in the year -010AF-.

Proto fal'Cie
In Final Fantasy XIII-2, to save Cocoon from its' predestined collapse, the Academy devised the Proto fal'Cie Project in 13 AF to relevitate the structure. However, the Proto fal'Cie known as Adam was a paradox within itself by traveling through time to the Augusta Tower and program the AI to slaughter every one and cover up the deaths with holograms and kill anyone who learns the truth while ensuring its creation. Soon after, by 400 AF, Adam repeated the actions of the Cocoon fal'Cie and ruled over the humans using the Academy's resources.

However, when Noel and Serah arrived to its time, Adam recognized them from its past and their future, using a Caius hologram and Cie'th to try and kill them. But when they arrive to Augusta Tower -200 AF- to uncover the truth, the two find themselves fighting Adam in an endless battle due to the Proto fal'Cie using Augusta Tower's time travel chamber to negate its demise and become stronger. Luckily, in a gambit, Serah's fight with Adam was upon the Oracle Drive's archive and Hope cancelled the project upon seeing it.

Other appearances
Beside crystals, the fal'Cie are a central part of the story in the Fabula Nova Crystallis series. Due to this, they also appear in Final Fantasy Versus XIII.

While this has not been directly confirmed by the developers, recent concept art for Versus revealed fal'Cie to appear in the game. The Goddess Etro was speculated to be one of them, although in Final Fantasy Versus XIII the fal'Cie and the gods/goddesses are not the same thing. In Final Fantasy Type-0, the Milites Empire's army consists of l'Cie, with the other countries of Rubrum and Lorican having turned a portion of their members into l'Cie as well. There are, however, no fal'Cie present and l'Cie are instead marked by the four crystals themselves.

Etymology
"l'Cie" appears as an anagram of "Ciel" (which is derived from the Latin "caelum", the same as Noctis Lucis Caelum), but "fa" in this context is derived from the Latin "famulus," which literally means "servant". When combined in this context, the new name ("famulus caelum") can literally mean "Sky's Servant".

This is visually represented as a pun: the fal'Cie are servants to the majority of the civilians within the worlds, which can range from doing mundane tasks (such as opening doors) to taking care of entire cities (such as Eden). This is the reason why there are uncountable amounts of fal'Cie (see the Trivia below).

Trivia

 * The datalog entry mentions "the total number of Sanctum fal'Cie exceeds eight million". However, this most likely means "countless" instead of literally "eight million" because the number eight often signifies large quantities in Japanese culture. In addition, Yoshinori Kitase said in an interview that the number of fal'Cie is "incalculable".
 * Apart from Barthandelus, Dahaka, Orphan, and Adam, each of the fal'Cie are named after summons from previous Final Fantasy games. Dahaka's Japanese name has been used on multiple occasions for common enemies, as has Barthandelus's. In retrospect, Adam and Eden are also names from the Book of Genesis.
 * In Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, there is a battlegen in Orphan's Cradle called Fal'Cie Husk.
 * Four other fal'Cie were designed during development, but were ultimately scrapped:
 * Nemesis: Appears as a purple-hued Anima. Nemesis would have been a dungeon guardian that fought along with its swords.
 * Ramuh: A Pulse fal'Cie towering over the landscape, portrayed as an old man smoking a pipe.
 * Gilgamesh: Wields swords of various sizes that dwarf large buildings.
 * Squid fal'Cie: Planned to dwell in the Sulyya Springs.