The History Of Spira (HUGE FREAKING SPOILERS!)
Okay, I've played X and X-2, and I'm just trying to sort through Spira's history, because it's a wee bit confusing and I would like to be corrected if I'm missing anything or mistaken...
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1000 years before the events of X, there was a war in Spira involving machina and summoners (anyone know why, or remember between whom?). A songstress named Lenne was among the summoners fighting against the machina. Her lover Shuyin refused to see her lay down her life, so he stole the biggest, baddest weapon from the other side called Vegnagun and used it against them.
That didn't turn out well.
Shuyin and Lenne were caught in Bevelle and executed. Shuyin's anger and hatred at their deaths were so great that they created a kind of ghost of himself that would languish in the Den of Woe for a thousand years.
In the meantime, in order to fend off the machina users, Sin either appeared or was created (have the origins been accurately documented in either game?). Sin got out of control and laid waste to Zanarkand, and would have destroyed all of Spira had it not been for the summoner Yunalesca and her lover Zaon.
Zaon became Yunalesca's Final Aeon, who joined with her to destroy Sin. Unbeknownst to them, however, any aeon who destroyed Sin would become Sin, reborn after a Calm of ten years, because Yu Yevon (the "God" of Spira) lurked inside Sin and would possess any aeon to enter its Sin-self. Also, the summoner of the Final Aeon would die as a result of the Final Summoning.
For a millennium, the people of Spira would be tormented by Sin, and summoners had to sacrifice themselves in a never-ending cycle of death and rebirth to temporarily remove Sin from the world.
The Fayth, the spirits behind the power of the aeons, were obviously not pleased by their senseless destruction. They needed a way to defeat Yu Yevon itself, not just its armor of Sin.
So they fell into a dream, and their dreams created a memory of Zanarkand that was nonetheless somewhat real. People lived and breathed and were born and died in this Dream-Zanarkand.
Ten years before the events of FFX, a blitzball star named Jecht was training off the coast of his Dream-Zanarkand and encountered Sin, who also existed from time to time in this dreamworld (NOTE: anyone know how that would be possible?). Instead of destroying this dream, which it could not do, Sin acted as kind of a gateway between Dream-Zanarkand and present-day Spira. Jecht was sucked into Spira and encountered the High Summoner Braska and his guardian Auron.
Jecht pilgrimaged to the ruins of Zanarkand with Auron and Braska, and became a better man along the way, quitting his drinking habit and learning to love his estranged son, Tidus, whom he had left behind in Dream-Zanarkand. This culminated in Jecht becoming Braska's Final Aeon, sacrificing himself to become the new Sin in ten years. First, however, he extracted a promise from Auron to go to Dream-Zanarkand and watch over Tidus for him. Eventually, Auron was to bring Tidus to Spira so Tidus could find a way to truly destroy Sin once and for all.
Auron agreed, but was so enraged by the loss of his friends that he went to exact revenge on the spirit of Yunalesca, who turns guardians into the Final Aeon. Auron didn't stand a chance, and Yunalesca killed him. Auron refused to go quietly into the Farplane, and his sense of duty to his friend Jecht kept him on Spira and then on Dream-Zanarkand, where he kept watch over Tidus until the time came to bring him to Spira, as promised...
That's where FFX begins, so I don't think I need to recap any further, but so far as everyone can tell, is that fairly accurate?
