Bismarck

From FFXIclopedia, the free Final Fantasy XI encyclopedia

This is one of the many worlds of FFXI. It was activated to alleviate overcrowding on the other servers. Its original population consisted of players world shifted from Carbuncle, Valefor, Quetzalcoatl, and Unicorn Servers. On January 14, 2003, the populations of Ixion and Kirin Servers were merged with the population of Bismarck before being deactivated. Ixion was originally created with players world shifted from Phoenix, Sylph, Odin, and Ifrit Servers, and Kirin was originally created with players world shifted from Bahamut, Shiva, Siren, Ragnarok Servers.

ID Number: 24

Activation Date: December 19, 2002

History in the FF Series

Bismarck (FFVI [JP]), Bismark (FFVI [EN])

Bismarck's only appearance in the Final Fantasy series was in Final Fantasy VI as an alternate Water-Element Summon to replace Leviathan in the game. Bismarck resembles a giant, blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus). It attacked by flooding the battlefield and swimming by with great speed, generating many bubbles.

• In FFVI, it was one of the test tubes suspended in a water-filled tube in the Magitek Research Facility in Vector. Along with its fellow Espers, it chose to convert itself into Magicite so that its power may assist the heroes rather than be subjected to more experimentation by the Empire.

• In FF:Unlimited anime, Kaze summons Bismark using these 3 soils charges

1. Grinding and devouring rocks... Shark Gray
2. The soil that drinks thirst... Water Blue
3. That which can even feed on empty space... Crusher White

Moves:

"Sea Song"- deals Water-element damage to all enemies (FF6)

Attributes:

Final Fantasy VI

Offers Vigor+2 Level Up Bonus

Teaches Fire, Ice, Bolt, Life

Historical Background

While the most common association seen with the word Bismarck is that of 19th century Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck, who formed modern Germany (see [1] for comprehensive info), the creature Bismarck is probably named after one of the largest warships ever to sail the seas, the Bismarck (which in turn is named after Otto von Bismarck. Thus, Bismarck the whale is named indirectly after the Prussian politician). This German battleship ironically only sailed for one mission and was only operational during World War II for 10 days, May 18, 1941 to May 27, 1941. However, in that time it managed to sink the flagship of the British Royal Navy, the HMS Hood. The destruction of the Hood resulted in the British sending every available ship to take down the Bismarck, sinking it and its crew of 2200 roughly 650km west of the western shore of France in the Atlantic Ocean. It was not the largest warship ever though, that honor would fall to the 2 Yamato-class warships of Japan in WWII, the Yamato and the Musashi.