The Allagan Empire is crucial to the backstory of Final Fantasy 14, as it is a fallen civilization that once ruled all of Eorzea with unsurpassed technology. Some of their notable technologies include the Crystal Tower, Dalamud, Azys Lla, and Allagan Tomestones. Garlean magitek is described as being nothing compared to what the Allagan Empire had.
The empire was founded five millennia before the events of Final Fantasy 14. Despite their power, the whole empire fell in the Fourth Calamity. While the civilization exists only in history, their technology, experiments, and even characters like Amon remain relevant throughout the game until the conclusion of Endwalker.
Emperor Xande
To understand Allag, fans must first understand its founder, Emperor Xande. He is actually based on the main antagonist in Final Fantasy 3. The first time he appears in Final Fantasy 14 is in patch 2.3, and he is the last boss in the Syrcus Tower raid. Nothing is known about Xande prior to him creating the Allagan Empire, but much is known after. Under his rule, the empire conquered much of the world. His goal was to get the entire world under the heel of Allag before death, but he never realized that dream.
Death was not the end for him, though. He was later cloned by a scientist named Amon with the goal of restoring the empire to its glory days. Xande continued his conquest to rule the world and was succeeding with Amon's help. However, he eventually decided that existence was pointless and wanted to destroy the world as well. He made a pact with a voidsent called the Cloud of Darkness to wipe out life on Eorzea. However, the plan failed and the Fourth Calamity killed him and buried the Allagan Empire.
The Technology Of Allag
While it was Xande who founded the Allagan Empire, he was influenced by Ascians, particularly Emet-Selch. This is quite like how the Ascians influenced the founding of the Garlean Empire, and may explain part of why Allag was ahead of all other societies in terms of technology. The empire mastered the art of aetherochemistry, which allowed them to bioengineer creatures and biological such as chimeras. Additionally, their technology got to a point where they built vehicles fit for space travel.
Amon was a major figure in terms of Allag's technological marvels. He mastered the art of cloning, machines, and artificial creatures. When making a covenant with the Cloud of Darkness, Allag used a lot of human sacrifices, and many of those who were sacrificed were clones. A lot of experimentation went into chimeras, which fled into the wild after Allag fell to the Fourth Umbral Calamity. One of the empire's achievements that were taught by the Ascians was binding primals and using them as power sources. This is how the Warring Triad were sealed in Azys Lla and how Bahamut was sealed into Dalamund.
How The Empire Fell
The Empire fell to what is known as the Calamity of Earth, which came in the form of earthquakes. How this occurred was at the vault of Allag, as they tried to harness too much power. They build the Syrcus Tower as a portal to the Realm of Darkness, where the voidsent live. However, they needed to harness a ton of energy to allow the voidsent in to destroy the world. That's when they created Dalamund, the artificial moon, and bound the primal Bahamut inside it.
The plan was to use Dalamud as a satellite for the Syrcus Tower to draw power from to create a void gate. An important note is that the entirety of Allag's citizens did not agree with this plan, and fighting broke out everywhere to stop Dalamunds activation. Their resistance met with failure as Dalamund was activated and pressed power into the Syrcus Tower. However, while the tower itself was fortified to handle so much aether, the earth was not, and it broke. The tower sunk into the heart, Allag's power grids were destroyed, and the entire land was torn apart.
Final Fantasy 14 is available now on PC, PS4, and PS5.