Diquility

A Diquility crystal.

Diquility (ダイキリティ, daikiriti^?) is the official name given to the substance also known as the Life Extending Agent (延命剤, enmeizai^?), which, as the name indicates, is used with the purpose of prolonging a Reyvateil's life.

Nature

The Diquility is a Grathnode Crystal that also contains some bits of Parameno, which allows it to contain a clump of Static H-Waves that are completely flat across all frequency bands. The fact that it contains Grathnode in its composition allows it to react with the Install Port to be absorbed by it, and the H-Waves it contains are what allow it to act as the fuel for replenishing the Static H-Waves that Third Generation Reyvateils suffer a deficiency from as a consequence of not possessing a Triangular Nuclear Loop, which causes the Tattoolist Syndrome and leads them to an early death. Therefore, administering Diquility to these Reyvateils every three months is a necessity for them to be able to live long lives.

History

Several centuries went by between the birth of the first Third Generation Reyvateil in 3048 AD and the discovery of Diquility and its manufacturing process, so until that time, Reyvateils were doomed to have tragically short lives that reached at most 20 years old, with the consequence that most of them had to resort to teenage pregnancies in order to have children before succumbing to the Tattoolist Syndrome, as it can be seen for example in the list of Maidens that ruled the region of Metafalss.

This situation changed once one of the Maidens of Metafalss, and a young prodigy, Infel, discovered the essential theories behind the creation of Diquility in 3300 AD, when she was just nine years old. This discovery caused ripples throughout the whole region, and while no exact details are known about the reaction of the people to her discovery, it can be surmised this brought great joy to the Reyvateils from being spared the cruel fate of an early grave.

Afterward, Diquility made its way to the region of Sol Ciel, presumably through one of the airships that escaped from the Neo Elemia-Metafalss War that took place in 3421 AD, and which, by the whims of fate, ended up in the hands of a small shop called the Sakura Store. This shop, which at the time was having difficulties due to trying to branch out too much, ended up making a surprise comeback thanks to the Tattoolist Syndrome, which they discovered could be treated with the Diquility crystals. This allowed them to, in time, become the massive corporate conglomerate that is known nowadays as Tenba, and which ultimately led to the rediscovery of the Reyvateils in Sol Ciel.

It is also noted though, that the discovery for the creation procedure has also been stated to have been largely influenced by imitating research documents that were legacies from the First Era due to it involving advanced H-Wave interferences, though no exact details on this have been provided.

As for the region of Sol Cluster, this was the region that kept most of the technologies and knowledge of the First Era intact, so it is not unthinkable that they independently invented the method for creating Diquility due to how important the Third Generation Reyvateils would turn out to be for the plans of the Kurogane Laboratories, and their successor, the Archia Think Tank.

Nowadays, Diquility is still widely utilized in all three regions as the only method that allows Reyvateils to live past twenty years old, despite also being linked to a huge amount of suffering.

What Happens During a Diquility Install

When a Diquility crystal is put into contact with the Reyvateil's Install Port to perform the Install, the crystal itself is slowly disintegrated into its constituent waves until it has completely been absorbed by the Install Port, but the Static H-Waves contained in the crystal will be sent into the spiritual layer, or to put it into more technical terms, into the Static H-Wave address or Cosmosphere of the Reyvateil that is undergoing the Install. Once the crystal's Install has been completed, the LPM, or Reyvateil Engine will put one of its systems, the HD Conversion Ring, into operation to absorb the Static H-Waves from the Diquility crystal and prioritize them over the ones that form the Reyvateil's own being.

The HD Conversion Ring then distorts the absorbed Static H-Waves (reduces their amplitudes) to remove the flatness from all their frequency bands, which in turn destabilizes them and allows their conversion into Dynamic H-Waves. This conversion is carried out by frequency units, with the most important frequencies being the first to get distorted, rendering them unusable once they have been distorted beyond a certain point, although the speed at which this happens differs from one person to another. However, once this process is complete, the HD Conversion Ring will consume the resulting waves while leaving the Static H-Waves that form part of the Reyvateil herself intact, preventing the outbreak of any fevers or falling into comas, effectively nullifying the symptoms of the Tattoolist Syndrome.

However, a Diquility crystal can only provide enough Static H-Waves to cover the needs for a three-month period, after which the waves that were in the crystal will have been distorted irreparably and consumed, which means that the Reyvateil will need another dose afterward, all in all requiring a total of four doses per year.

As for the reason why no other methods have been discovered to replace the administering of Diquility, it is due to the Install Port linking together the H-Waves from the natural world contained in the crystal, and the Static H-Waves contained in the artificial plane constructed within the SH Server. Theoretically it should be possible to apply a similar treatment by directly sending the Static H-Waves into the Soulspace Address of the Reyvateil they are destined for, but in practice this is not possible due to the work logic of the SH Servers employing advanced quantum algorithms that would require the use of high-order imaginary numbers to calculate the server address that corresponds to the Reyvateil in question. The other reasons are that accessing the addresses through other means beside the Install Port was disabled in the First Era out of respect for the Reyvateils' privacy, and the impossibility of calculating the addresses through the D-Wave space due to the apparent usage of quantum teleportation between the Install Port and the Soulspace.

Manufacturing

The process for creating Diquility has been described as emitting multiple Dynamic H-Waves upon flat energy Static H-Waves located upon a fixed point, whose result is then bound to a Grathnode Crystal that contains a little bit of Parameno in its composition. However, in practice, the only process that has been shown in the Ar tonelico series itself for creating Diquility and its inferior version, Tranquility, is Grathmelding, which is a technique that only exists in Sol Ciel. Currently, it is unknown what methods are used in Metafalss and Sol Cluster to create it.

Additionally, the Static H-Waves in question could be said to be harvested from the natural world, which are linked to a physical object: the crystal containing them, thanks to the Parameno component it includes.

Effects on the World

While it is undeniable that Reyvateils have greatly benefitted from the existence of Diquility, and that its creation was for them first and foremost, the way the life-extending agent has been handled throughout Ar Ciel has greatly differed between the three regions, which has caused quite a lot of hardship to many Reyvateils.

Sol Ciel

Diquility is only produced by Tenba and the Church of El Elemia, and purchasing it is extremely prohibitive due to its high costs, so most Reyvateils join either of these organizations to secure a source of the agent for themselves. While some self-employed Reyvateils also exist, they are rare due to the aforementioned costs. Additionally, and before the Tenba President, Ayano Raizer Elduke decided to change the employment contracts for the Reyvateils hired by her company, the Reyvateils working for Tenba were paid solely in Diquility and had no wages or benefits to their name.

It can also be presumed that Platina produces its own supply of Diquility due to the existence of Third Generation Reyvateils among its population and the fact that they had no contact with the people of the Wings of Horus for 400 years, but no official confirmation of this has been stated anywhere.

Metafalss

This is the region where Reyvateils are respected the most, partly due to the fact that its most important political figure, the Maiden, is a Reyvateil herself and them having an important role to fulfill in the legend of Metafalica. Therefore, the government, the Grand Bell, is in charge of producing Diquility, and it also provides all Reyvateils in the region with free doses of it each three months. It's to the point that even if the supply lines for food fail, the Reyvateils will still receive their Diquility doses, although there may be rare cases where they don't receive any doses at all.

Sol Cluster

Sol Cluster is midway between the policies of Sol Ciel and Metafalss when it comes to how Diquility is handled. It is produced and sold solely by the Archia Think Tank, and while it does not go for as high a price as it does in Sol Ciel, it still is a significant expense for families that have Reyvateil members. It has been said that a single dose of Diquility costs the equivalent of 100,000 yen, and it could be considered similar in nature to the expenses from hospital visits of a patient suffering from an intractable disease.