Summoners without a fayth?

[Little Blue]

I've long held the theory that Zanarkand had many fayth and therefore summoners for a long time before the machina war. Sin then destroyed most of them. The survivors of Zanarkand (before sin appeared though) formed the Fayth on Gagazet which Dream Zanarkand was formed from and the pilgrimage fayth we know are a mixture of pre war (possibly scavenged from Zanarkand) and post war fayth (created by the Yevon clergy). This bit about pre and post war fayth is supported by the ultimania guides (last time I checked on the gamefaq's FFX forums at least ) as it states that Bahamut was the oldest from before the war and Valefor was the newest formed to extend the pilgrimage. I hope we all know the situations surrounding Anima's creation and why it shouldn't be considered one of the temple aeons like Bahamut and Valefor, even though the party uses her in much the same way.

The simple mechanics of the world however prevent summoning without a fayth. Hence why you can't summon Bahamut until after you meet it in X and also why you can't summon anything in X-2, since the fayth statues are gone.

Now for some semantics. By "Time of the Fayth" I could assume you mean under the Yevon faith? This would also seem to imply that Summoner's cannot exist pre Time of the Fayth. However, this would be Summoner's in the role we see them as in the game. In X-2, Lenne is reportedly a summoner, but does not fill the role of the Pilgrim Summoner (primarily a performer, whereas "True Summoners" would devote themselves to the pilgrimage) and thus may not be considered a true summoner, but that's semantics to the extent of cultural definition and significance

No, questions are good.

Thankfully, I am not on fire right now. I hope that does not change any time soon.

Edit:

Renmiri: Just because they're multiple entity fayth does not force them to be pre Sin.

And although I'm all for showing Bevelle as the bad guys, considering by the time they made the teachings, they had Spira pretty much under control, and this was the only known way to get rid of sin for a little bit, it makes sense for them not to belittle it by having legions of useless aeons. I believe Bevelle could make aeons, but knew they had to limit it in order for effective manipulation of the masses.

Psi: Fayth are needed for summons. The soul of the fayth provide the template, if you will, which the summoner builds on with pyreflies. They're effectively the architect with blueprints and summoners are mere builders.

You're right about the final aeon becoming sin, but as seen by the statue of Lord Zaon's fayth in Zanarkand, once the FA core of sin is destroyed, the statue is no longer useable, so the pilgrimage aeons could not possibly be successful final aeons. There are however theories that temple aeons were final aeons to someone, but the summoner then chickened out / died en route after getting the FA / died fighting sin before they could summon the FA / or the summoner final aeon combo was so pathetic that it couldn't kill sin. This would leave a fully useable fayth statue in Yunalesca's closet of fayth, which someone could just take out one day and install in a temple, like Seymour and Anima.