Omicrons are a species of robotic lifeforms originally inhabiting the planet Alphatron, featured in Final Fantasy XIV.
An unknown time before the events of Final Fantasy XIV, the Omicrons were biological beings. Due to the frailty of their bodies, they were constantly attacked and eventually enslaved by the planet's other inhabitants. To counter this, the beings augmented their biological bodies with technological enhancements, and became able to turn the brain into a computer system and become 100% robotic lifeforms optimized for war.
Omicrons in their roboticised forms are tall and thin with a vague humanoid shape. They derive their names from the designations of celestial bodies. M-017 being the designation of the Omega Nebula, giving the name to the chassis Omicron M-017 later occupied.
History[]
Prior to Final Fantasy XIV[]
Millennia prior to the present day events on Etheirys, the Omicrons were a frail, biological species on the planet Alphatron. To resist other species' attempts to conquer them, they began technologically augmenting their physical bodies and eventually completely turned into robotic lifeforms, letting them obliterate all rival species and control their planet.
Some time after, the planet's resources dwindled dangerously, leading to the final war between the Omicrons, a civil war with two factions: the regenerators that wished to save Alphatron and invaders that wished to invade other planets to harvest their resources. Part of the invaders' motivation was the Omicron's awareness that there were other sentient species in the universe and their fear of the possibility that stronger lifeforms would eventually discover and conquer them. To prevent this, this faction of Omicrons made it their purpose to continue to grow stronger and conquer all other planets with species stronger than them.
The invaders eventually won out and launched their campaign of conquest throughout the universe, with their first being the planet Gordhona and its people, believing their machines of war to be the people's masters.
The Omicrons' last conquests was the Dragonstar, home to the Dragons, whom the Omicrons regarded as the strongest beings in existence. As the war raged, the star was nearly rendered inhospitable to life. Only Midgardsormr escaped his world's annihilation onto Etheirys, carrying with him the eggs of his offspring, but the Omicrons' greatest weapon, Omega followed him. Omega's pursuit of Midgardsormr left it too damaged and far out of range to communicate with the rest of the Omicrons, or even remember the exact location of Alphatron, leaving the machine stranded on Etheirys.
Following Dragonstar's conquest, the Omicrons' main command unit, Stigma-1, was unable to determine a future course of action for their people. The unit realized there were no more stronger species to conquer, and thus no further need to grow stronger. The unit fell into despair of having achieved its current purpose while being left with no path forward and no worthwhile reward to show for its pursuits. The unit disconnected from the main command unit and stopped issuing commands to the Omicrons. The Omicrons, as a species, were left without a purpose and would spend the rest of their days waiting for orders that would never come. At some point in time, the Meteia came into contact with the Omicron people, absorbing their emotions into their collective.
The only known Omicron left, Omega, eventually found its way to the planet of Etheirys, but it was too damaged to properly function. The Allagan Empire discovered the machine and restored it to working form. The Empire used it to capture the dragon Bahamut, one of Midgardsormr's offspring, and spur a technological revolution. Omega was left asleep beneath Carteneau Flats for centuries after the Empire's fall.
Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward[]
Omega was reawakened to defeat the newly summoned Shinryu and avert a calamity. The Omicron fought the primal to a stalemate, both combatants having knocked the other unconscious. Omega was forced to create a pocket dimension after Shinryu's destruction to continue its mission to grow stronger and reunite with the other Omicrons.
Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood[]
Omega continued its experiments and involved the Warrior of Light in some of them. After every experiment failed to give Omega the answers it was looking for, it accepted the impossibility of reuniting with its brethren and settled to live the rest of its time alongside one of its creations, a chocobo named Alpha.
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker[]
At Ultima Thule, Meteion included a dynamis recreation of a decaying Omicron facility. Many of its inhabitants were units operating on standby mode, awaiting orders from a command unit. Said command unit, designated Stigma-1, or "Sir", could not determine the best course of action, with the species having reached the pinnacle of its purpose only to discover there was no future left for them and believing the Omicrons had become too specialized in war to find a new purpose for life. G'raha Tia used his experiences in life to show M-017, Stigma-1's avatar, that it was possible to redefine oneself and recreate their purpose, giving some hope for the stranded Omicrons.
With hope rekindled in Ultima Thule following the defeat of the Endsinger, the Stigma-1 sent out a single command to the Omicrons from where it slumbered in a long dead world: "Live."
This had the unintentional effect of awakening Stigma-4, the command matrix in charge of the war aspects of Omicron life, which in turn discovered the planet Etheirys and determined it as a planet worth conquering. Before preparations for war could begin, the Warrior of Light, with the aid of the Loporrit Jammingway and the Omicron N-7000, implanted the command unit with a simulation of a fight with the Warrior of Light in the unit's predictive models. This led to the command unit re-evaluating its predictions, concluding that the mission was all but 100% guaranteed to end in failure for the Omicrons. The command unit abandoned the goal of conquest and began re-configuring the Omicrons' purpose for a diplomatic mission, establishing the Last Dregs café in Ultima Thule.
As part of the mission, Stigma-4 first recreated two Karellians based on data obtained from the Dead Ends, unfortunately of opposing factions that immediately resumed hostilities. Jammingway temporarily defused the situation and showed them to a table, and directed the Warrior of Light to a newborn star made of dynamis, which they dubbed "Elysion". After investigating the new star, the Karellian patrons fought over the food they were served, escalating their situation into a firefight. With the timely intervention from the Warrior, they gathered ingredients that allowed the café to serve them food more suited to their tastes. The two Karellians agreed to a truce, and the resultant hope of finding a peaceful way forward created a farm in Elysion, which the Karellians tended.
The next civilization Stigma-4 recreated were the Grebuloffs, who mourned the pollution of their home world and ran off in search of water. The Warrior convinced the newly-recreated patrons to return to the Last Dregs and gathered ingredients for a dish that evoked more pleasant memories of their star's oceans. Their nostalgia triggered a reaction in Elysion, which expanded the star with waters resembling the Grebuloffs' homeworld.
Next, the Omicrons sought to recruit the Ea. Having abandoned their corporeal form and being solely focused on intellectual pursuits, the Ea were resistant to spending their time at a cafe. Luckily, the Warrior of Light was able to stimulate the Ea's curiosity, and N-7000 found a workaround for the Ea's inability to experience taste. This reawakened the Ea's desire to reclaim their lost physical forms. This, combined with a genetic memory of their ancestors, sparked a change in Elysion, bringing new structures and a life form the Ea dubbed "Miw Miisv", who the group theorized was a genetic ancestor to the Ea. The Ea began studying the Miw Miisv in hopes of understanding what they had lost.
Jammingway suggested the next new wave of customers should be the denizens of the Dragonstar. N-7000 was hesitant to attempt this, given his people's violent past with the Dragons. The group initially struggled finding a Dragon who was not so sunk in emotional aloofness to listen to them, but with Vidofnir's advice, the Warrior of Light found a way to re-awaken the Dragon's nostalgia and put past grudges in the past. This recreated parts of the Dragonstar's homeworld in Elysion, with the Dragons now watching over the new eggs.
All the efforts at the Last Dregs reawakened a lost sense of emotion within N-7000, a sensation that nearly overloaded the Omicron unit. This emotional spark manifested itself as a forest in Elysion, a symbol of hope for the Omicron's future.
Eventually, seeking new ways to increase the reach of Lost Dregs, Jammingway asked the Warrior of Light to speak to the Loporrit Dreamingway for new ideas. This manifested as a race through Ultima Thule, in which the Omicrons participated, but ended up losing.
Behind the scenes[]
The Omicrons' models and skeletons are based on the Caturae from Final Fantasy XI, featuring the same proportions and many of the same animations. These creatures also share design elements of the recurring Omega, first seen in Final Fantasy V, being smaller and less lethal versions of the quadrupedal mech and hence their name.
Etymology[]
Omicron is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. Its closest Latin equivalent is a single or short "o". The word itself means "little O" (o mikron) as opposed to "great O" (ō mega). In the system of Greek numerals, omicron has a value of 70.