[SPOILERS] Dawntrail should get an ARR-style retcon in the post-MSQ

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Originally Posted by OMGJesuis66

Please do tell me where I am wrong, because the conception of Ashkins is something that I often read plenty and I would love to know more.

You are right that the Endless do not try to hurt us, and I am not saying they are mindless monsters. Just that they are Ghosts and we stepped into their artificial mausoleum/fish tank.

Their souls deserve to be freed and return to the Sea, the entirety of it, much as likely any tragic existence of Ashkins.

Necromancy is not cool, be it made by magic or tech, and I am pretty sure all the concepts I spoke are very solid.

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Hildibrand storyline has Ashkins -- in this case they're zombies. We later learn zombies are capable of sentient thought and can respond and even help people in the realm in the later parts of the story, not only bound by who they were in the past.

The Quest - Of Wolves and Gentlemen - pretty much show how Ashkin are capable of thought. Even the NPC goes "Ah.. Truly? Well, that would explain why the myriad skeletons we found were devoid of unlife, as it were. That said, even if they were as disagreeable a lot as you claim, I should thank you to stop killing every last undead you encounter in your travels..." In case there's any misunderstanding, the journal clarifies that he gently chided you in your propensity for violence against the undead. Even better, he was dressed up as a werewolf costume. He was out here trying to be a gentlemen of light and uphold the teachings of Hildibrand (which he only encounters after death) but in this case, he was looking for Hildibrand.

When you talk about "none of them are alive", are you referring to being able to 'live' as in experience life, sorrows, and joys? Or are you referring to the state of death? Because from what I've seen, FFXIV classifies 'being able to live' and 'a state of death' as two separate concepts, where being "alive" can apply to anyone and everyone, not just for people who are 'living'.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

You forget Otis is also the exception where he had Experiments done in his memory. Other Endless simply die and have their memory uploaded to the Cloud, creating a continued existence in their life.

Otis, along with Sphene, are more or less the rare exceptions because they don't follow the normal procedure to having their memories uploaded after death without any tampering. Otis was still alive when his memory was uploaded (hence he does not have any shared memories of robot Otis), but the same cannot be said for other Endless. Besides, what constitutes as a fake? For the Endless, they are effectively copied over. It's more akin to a clone.

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If I kill the human Otis, then I murder a human.

If I kill the mechanical Otis who actually contain the original soul, in extension it can be also a murder of a unique soul/being.

The problem with the S9 Otis is its existence is a proof that it's not a unique entity. So if the S9 Otis can be create without the original soul but with just mere data, if a 2nd copy can be created, why not 3, why not 10, why not 100? So if I delete the S9 data and the system had created 100 copies of him, am I guilty of murdering 100 Otis?

I said this in a similar thread before, the concept of the Endless (digitalize consciousness) is not news, it has been done many times before. And every time, for this concept to hold water they all have to follow one cardinal rule: there is only one existence to a life. It is the absolutely rule that must be follow for the story of a digital being to have the same impact as a real person. In Zegapain, each individual is a unique quantum package. In Ghost of the Shell or Tokyo Necro, even when an individual has multiple "backup" version of themselves, only one can be active as a time when it host the original consciousness.

By having 2 Otis exist as the time time, the writer of the Endless violated the core principal for this concept to work which make everything that follow to be meaningless garbage. No matter how hard they try to insert the moral or emotional triggers into it, it doesn't change the fact that all I did was shut down a program with no unique individuality.

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And Clones already have established in-lore reasons for being "alive" through ARR to Endwalker even if they aren't the originals. Even if you don't see the Endless as the same person, they are still "alive" in another sense.

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No, this is not cloning. Cloning is a technology we already have in the 20th century. Cloning doesn't copy a person, nor the memory. You have someone with the exact same DNA but that clone will have to grow up, lead a different life, and experience different thing. The fact the Endless is an exact copy of "memory" without the original soul means if anything, it's about as far away from an actual clone would be.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

If I kill the human Otis, then I murder a human.

If I kill the mechanical Otis who actually contain the original soul, in extension it can be also a murder of a unique soul/being.

The problem with the S9 Otis is its existence is a proof that it's not a unique entity. So if the S9 Otis can be create without the original soul but with just mere data, if a 2nd copy can be created, why not 3, why not 10, why not 100? So if I delete the S9 data and the system had created 100 copies of him, am I guilty of murdering 100 Otis?

I said this in a similar thread before, the concept of the Endless (digitalize consciousness) is not news, it has been done many times before. And every time, for this concept to hold water they all have to follow one cardinal rule: there is only one existence to a life. It is the absolutely rule that must be follow for the story of a digital being to have the same impact as a real person. In Zegapain, each individual is a unique quantum package. In Ghost of the Shell or Tokyo Necro, even when an individual has multiple "backup" version of themselves, only one can be active as a time when it host the original consciousness.

By having 2 Otis exist as the time time, the writer of the Endless violated the core principal for this concept to work which make everything that follow to be meaningless garbage. No matter how hard they try to insert the moral or emotional triggers into it, it doesn't change the fact that all I did was shut down a program with no unique individuality.




No, this is not cloning. Cloning is a technology we already have in the 20th century. Cloning doesn't copy a person, nor the memory. You have someone with the exact same DNA but that clone will have to grow up, lead a different life, and experience different thing. The fact the Endless is an exact copy of "memory" without the original soul means if anything, it's about as far away from an actual clone would be.

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Yes because endless Otis is not the same “being” as original Otis but is still a being worthy of consideration of life because he has sapience

This is what I think people miss about moral discussions about the endless. The endless are not the people whose memories were used to create them, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t beings in their own right, almost all of the endless who speak show an ability to evolve and grow beyond the temporal lock the system spits them out into so they show sapience

By “killing” endless Otis you aren’t killing Otis, you are killing endless Otis who is a different unique entity and there is no suggestion that the system can create two endless of one person at the same time, so you are killing the unique entity “endless Otis” who ISNT Otis

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

The endless are not the people whose memories were used to create them,

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Yes, they're program.

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but that doesn’t mean they aren’t beings in their own right, almost all of the endless who speak show an ability to evolve and grow beyond the temporal lock the system spits them out into so they show sapience

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Self-learning AI is a technology we already have today. And what do you think the purpose of self-learning AI? If evolving is your ONLY requirement to define sapience living, than a lot of programer/scientist should go to jail whenever a sim or server is shut down.

And ... that is if there is any kind of evolving to begin with. Like ... show me an example of what is this "evolve" that you keep bringing up because I went through the MSQ 4 times, and I don't remember seeing any that will fit the word.

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By “killing” endless Otis you aren’t killing Otis, you are killing endless Otis who is a different unique entity and there is no suggestion that the system can create two endless of one person at the same time, so you are killing the unique entity “endless Otis” who ISNT Otis

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And ... you missed ... or more probably ... avoided the most important bit.

The point wasn't how unique the two Otis are. The point is ... there are two COPIES of one person. Either you are one individual, or you are not. Once you cross that threshold allow the existence of a 2nd copy, the writing fall apart. Like I said, if the system can just create a 2nd copy of Otis without the soul of the original, what about a 3rd, a 4th, or a 100th? Without that addressed, it makes every copies of Otis a meaningless existence.

Like I said, look back at the last 30-40 years of media, this is not a new concept. But the "unique consciousness" has always been the requirement to connect the "living" aspect to "digitalize" being. That's what make when a digitalize person die, the players can feel as if it's a real human. Without that connection/requirement, then it's just a program.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

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I would be reluctant to use Hildebrand questlines as my baseline for canon. While it does, yes, have canon information and degrees of worldbuilding, the questlines are meant to be humoristic in nature and most of the appearances are also meant to be non-sensical. If we are to utilize the plenty of interesting worldbuilding that exists in those quests, it requires a very critical eye to discern what is meant to be non-sensical humor or an actual plot point we can utilize. To that statement, I can say that a Zombie in a Werewolf costume, ain't one of those.

In those same questlines, the Zombies seek to devour brains (As a humoristic representation of what a zombie is in the universe since we have no other display of zombies showing they want to eat brains), and all of them are non-sentient and just acting under the instinct of feed on brains until Zombiebrand 'enlightens' them. Again, this is humor, therefore it is problematic to make the assumption that such a thing is the norm.

But utilizing that principle, for Ashkins, we have two separate categories:

1 - Zombies/Skeletons/Gravekeepers. Those are Ashkins's which possess Corporeal Aether (Body), but do not possess Incorporeal Aether (Souls).
2 - Ghosts/Wraiths/Bhoots. Those are Ashkin's which possess Incorporeal Aether (Soul), but do not possess Corporeal Aether (Body).

As we are aware, the composition of a Living Being, so, a Hyur in this case. Lies of the combination of Corporeal Aether, Incorporeal Aether. Lifeforce and Mnemonic Energy.
Each one of those aspects we have seen has been touched and harnessed with foul intent in many narratives over the story.

(1/3)

"Ashkin represent beings which, at one time, were full to bursting with vigor, but, for some reason (most commonly death), have that life energy drained of them leaving naught but a shell—a shell that is then reanimated by some outside means, denying the creature's thoroughgoing return, be it either physical or spiritual, to the Lifestream." - Encyclopedia Eorzea vol.01 and 02

"Ashkin are united by the characteristic that they cannot die in the conventional sense of the word. While the precise origins of many beings in this class are shrouded in mystery, naturalists theorize that many ashkin are created when souls are prevented from rejoining the Lifestream, causing them to take on grotesque forms and haunt the material plane in search of peace that never comes." - Encyclopedia Eorzea vol.03

It is stated that the existence of an Ashkin is nothing but pain and torment to its forms. Where the body is reanimated by foul magics or the soul is twisted by magics and absorbs ambient Aether to get a new form. Which is why there is hostility. They were robbed of their future, unable to ever retrieve it, so they turn their anguish upon the living who walk so with all they cannot obtain. So, the actual difference between our Ashkins and the Endless, lies in the method of "manufactory", if we can put it in this way.
Unlike dark magics being utilized to *force* their will upon a body or soul, what happens is that Origenics replicate the process of the Aetherial Sea, separating the Soul to be used as fuel, from its Memory, which is sent towards Living Memory.
As it is stated by the Endless, they cannot be formed until they have enough Aether for such, thus they replicate the process of a Ghost in the sense of composition. Incorporeal Aethar. Mnemonic Energy. Life Force. And this form also runs out as the Aether runs out, Endless repeatedly says they often fade and are reformed based on the algorithm that the Terminals process.

(2/3)

The speculation lies based on the entry of those who recently joined Living Memory, memories of those who existed prior and have an attachment to the recently joined, to give them closure and no more sense of loss. If there's one thing that has ALWAYS been denied by this entire system, is to allow people to feel and deal with loss, as also stated in the MSQ. Mnemonic Energy can perhaps, remain storing data from their events once formed before they are brought to the Terminal again due to the lack of supply of Aether and the need for the cycle to repeat itself. It is not sustainable by any means.

But there lies the interesting bit, where this whole conception brings what would be considered an Ashkin in the Material Plane, to a moment of peace. It does not change that by all criteria they wouldn't be equivalent to Ghosts, no. But they are less prone to hostility and instead, they live their undeath as wandering spirits that are limited to this new universe they found. It is also stated plenty that Endless cannot leave Living Memory, the exception lay upon Cahciua and Sphene who found ways to transfer their data to a physical mechanical body, until the gate atop Everkeep was closed and the connection severed. Without knowing loss, without knowing torment, in a perfect paradise, in its technicalities, a Ghost could thrive.

It still lies massively upon the unnatural, and perhaps if their own method of surviving wasn't going to rejoin and kill every single world there was, perhaps there would be conversations about not shutting the terminals down. It was a person. Acting, talking, right in front of you. But it is not real, and by shutting the terminals you allow those energies to be put to rest and rejoin the Aetherial Sea, as intended, before they can participate once more in the cycle of rebirth. It is important to remember that nothing, to the living, has sensation. We cannot eat, we cannot feel the water, the warmth of fire. In a sense, for them in Living Memory, WE are the Ashkins. But the only way they are able to feel and have this 'normal' life is because of the Mnemonic data stored in the Terminals that recreate what they feel and even build their forms based on the happiest moment of their lives. The machine is always running, always adapting to perpetuate a 'paradise' for the dead, in a very unnerving simulacrum of life.

In my morality, the most kind gesture one can make to those is to set them free to rejoin the cycle of rebirth. To live a false life, adapted and twisted to look perfect without any possible flaws or misery, while consuming the souls of those who ARE really alive, is incredibly dark and cruel in all senses. Those who are in peace once the terminals are shut down, fade. Those who aren't, with unfinished business much likely any Ghost, remain behind. Each side-quest in the place brings closure to each individual so they can pass in peace.

They deserve their rest.

At this point, I have actually come to loathe the "discourse" around the status of the Endless, because almost every thread with valid concerns gets bogged down and buried under endless back and forth between on one side people who feel dirty about what the story forced the Warrior of Light to do and more particularly, how it was done, and on the other side denialists who trample over the feelings of the people that were made uncomfortable by bluntly insisting the Endless are just ChatGPT and it was no big deal.

I have said it before, way back on this forum -- you can not in good faith continue to claim there is no ambiguity or moral argument in this matter, in the face of no end of people who clearly interpreted the whole thing differently than you (which automatically implies there must have been room for ambiguity) and when we are having the moral argument even right now, and have been having it and arguing it over and over countless threads here since roughly three days after Dawntrail released and counting!

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

At this point, I have actually come to loathe the "discourse" around the status of the Endless, because almost every thread with valid concerns gets bogged down and buried under endless back and forth between on one side people who feel dirty about what the story forced the Warrior of Light to do and more particularly, how it was done, and on the other side denialists who trample over the feelings of the people that were made uncomfortable by bluntly insisting the Endless are just ChatGPT and it was no big deal.

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I'm going to be devil's advocate and say this is clearly what the writers intended to do with the Endless.

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Originally Posted by ExESGO

I'm going to be devil's advocate and say this is clearly what the writers intended to do with the Endless.

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This was the intent? To create a massively divisive issue that splits the community into two halves that feel alienated by the other?

It completely messed with my headcanon even outside of my actual opinion of the endless

Long before the endless I created a headcanon for my WOL that due to traumatic events in their past they absolutely refuse to be the one to declare another “being” as worthy or unworthy of life

I thought this was pretty safe as a headcanon because the WOL is designed to be good

It’s hilarious how badly the endless ripped my headcanon to shreds and that was built on existing logic from the previous expansions

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

It completely messed with my headcanon even outside of my actual opinion of the endless

Long before the endless I created a headcanon for my WOL that due to traumatic events in their past they absolutely refuse to be the one to declare another “being” as worthy or unworthy of life

I thought this was pretty safe as a headcanon because the WOL is designed to be good

It’s hilarious how badly the endless ripped my headcanon to shreds and that was built on existing logic from the previous expansions

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Considering that the Endless cannot ever be alive again and instead gets a new soul to act as a battery, while using all the fundaments that existed in previous expansions and twisting it to a very nefarious end, I personally think it's exciting to put yourself in your WoL perspective once more and work on the headcannon of having something that struck directly to his moralities and why that was the case.

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Originally Posted by OMGJesuis66

Considering that the Endless cannot ever be alive again and instead gets a new soul to act as a battery, while using all the fundaments that existed in previous expansions and twisting it to a very nefarious end, I personally think it's exciting to put yourself in your WoL perspective once more and work on the headcannon of having something that struck directly to his moralities and why that was the case.

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That only works if the reason wasn't "because the writers of the msq took over control of my character, and of all my formerly trusted friends, sidelined any agency I thought I'd have, and made us all do something I hated without even allowing our character to question it, and then immediately after went of to have a big happy celebration set to some upbeat song from Disney", which is the case here. You *can't* rework your headcanon around that because you have to either accept that your character never was or no longer is the person you want to play as, or you reject the canonicity of what happened in the game and hope that the devs will never refer back to it as a thing that happened ever again.

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

I have said it before, way back on this forum -- you can not in good faith continue to claim there is no ambiguity or moral argument in this matter,

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Then I think you missed the point of the discussion. There is no debate about what the writer want to do or what they us to feel. It's so obvious that it'll be harder to miss than a bus coming at you at full speed. That's not what we're arguing about. What we argue about is the writing is so shit that it pretty much negate any kind of emotional impact intended for it.


A good way to exemplify this is the use of deaths:

- A good writer will build a character up, have the players invested. Then set the appropriate stage for the character to die on. And because all of that, the death create an emotional impact.

- A bad writer will just take the impact of death for granted and think "no matter what I write, as long as someone die on the screen it'll magically make my writing good and people emotional". In the case of DT it wasn't just bad, it's also so stupid that it did get some of us emotional ... but not for the reason the writer wanted.


Remember this is a player base that for the most part adored Moenbryda and in love with Haurchefant. Do you think the difference in how we react to their death and the erasure of the Endless has something to do with ... humanity value? No, it's nothing that deep really. It's just the difference made between good writing and shit writing. Like I said, transcended human and machine is not exactly a new topic, and media is full of instance where people have no problem empathize and adore digital beings when the story is good. It's just rarely, and I daresay it's actually the first time for me to see this theme explored in such an incompetent way.

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

That only works if the reason wasn't "because the writers of the msq took over control of my character, and of all my formerly trusted friends, sidelined any agency I thought I'd have, and made us all do something I hated without even allowing our character to question it, and then immediately after went of to have a big happy celebration set to some upbeat song from Disney", which is the case here. You *can't* rework your headcanon around that because you have to either accept that your character never was or no longer is the person you want to play as, or you reject the canonicity of what happened in the game and hope that the devs will never refer back to it as a thing that happened ever again.

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Which is a good explanation of what I ended up doing

The endless conflicted so so badly with my players headcanon that I just ended up rewriting the endless to fit my headcanon because there is no way what my WOL did in DT’s story could ever match who I write them as as a person. My WOL is dogged in his beliefs that he doesn’t have a right to assign humanity or lack thereof to another, it’s literally his entire guiding principle in life, how do I reconcile that with the endless

Does that make me sorta narrow and uncreative, I guess you could say it does but the conflict is so great that it just……….is impossible for me to reconcile

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Then I think you missed the point of the discussion. There is no debate about what the writer want to do or what they us to feel. It's so obvious that it'll be harder to miss than a bus coming at you at full speed. That's not what we're arguing about. What we argue about is the writing is so shit that it pretty much negate any kind of emotional impact intended for it.


A good way to exemplify this is the use of deaths:

- A good writer will build a character up, have the players invested. Then set the appropriate stage for the character to die on. And because all of that, the death create an emotional impact.

- A bad writer will just take the impact of death for granted and think "no matter what I write, as long as someone die on the screen it'll magically make my writing good and people emotional". In the case of DT it wasn't just bad, it's also so stupid that it did get some of us emotional ... but not for the reason the writer wanted.


Remember this is a player base that for the most part adored Moenbryda and in love with Haurchefant. Do you think the difference in how we react to their death and the erasure of the Endless has something to do with ... humanity value? No, it's nothing that deep really. It's just the difference made between good writing and shit writing. Like I said, transcended human and machine is not exactly a new topic, and media is full of instance where people have no problem empathize and adore digital beings when the story is good. It's just rarely, and I daresay it's actually the first time for me to see this theme explored in such an incompetent way.

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I agree with what you say about the scope of the argument. However, I fundamentally disagree with the assertion that the intent couldn't be clearer -- the last zone makes me question if the writing team was even of one mind on the issue, because where some say "it is obvious what the writers intended", I would actually argue sooner that they keep swinging one way, then the other. Every time they want us to be emotionally invested, they go hard on making our characters interact with the Endless as if they are alive, showing them have emotions of their own, goals and desires, hope for the future even. Then whenever the plot to shut them all down comes, they tell us that we're not really killing the already dead and that all the Endless who are clued in on what we are doing are for some reason all fine with it. What they SHOW us is entirely opposite to what they TELL us, and because some people's mind are wired to shape reality from what they are told and others put more value on what they see happen in front of them, we now have a community divided.

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

I agree with what you say about the scope of the argument. However, I fundamentally disagree with the assertion that the intent couldn't be clearer -- the last zone makes me question if the writing team was even of one mind on the issue, because where some say "it is obvious what the writers intended", I would actually argue sooner that they keep swinging one way, then the other. Every time they want us to be emotionally invested, they go hard on making our characters interact with the Endless as if they are alive, showing them have emotions of their own, goals and desires, hope for the future even. Then whenever the plot to shut them all down comes, they tell us that we're not really killing the already dead and that all the Endless who are clued in on what we are doing are for some reason all fine with it. What they SHOW us is entirely opposite to what they TELL us, and because some people's mind are wired to shape reality from what they are told and others put more value on what they see happen in front of them, we now have a community divided.

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Which still come down to just the quality writing. Because a good writing would still make it work, because funny enough that's exactly what happened in EndWalker. It clearly present a moral dilemma on Venat decision. In "that" cutsceens:

- Before the sundering she said: I choose to believe in mankind's potential. In his ability to find the way forward.
- After the sundering she said: All is excruciating pain. I breath fire and torment. I birth a world of suffering to mire and plague.

There is no sugar coating. Just because it's the right decision, doesn't make it a good decision or vice versa. Alise told Emet flat out that "yeah, his people maybe more qualified to rule the stars than them, but she gonna still choose themselves!" And that was cool, because it shows you don't need wishwashing hypocrisy.

That debate also split the community on whether we believe Venat did the right thing or she unjustly genocide the Ancient. But it was a good split because each side can come with full presentation and material to make their case. As oppose to here, the myriad of ambiguity and inconsistency plotholes( a lot of us note as if Zone 6 was written by someone who seem disconnected with the story up till then), what you have is one side trying to make a flaw logic whole by pulling at straw (clonning? Evolving? Seriously?) and the other side is simply pissed of at the overall shit writing.

I do think the split in intentional so it can be present as another dilemma, that's why I said I think writer's intention is very obvious. But of course the debate would naturally be toxic, because the topic was introduced in the most haphazard way possible.

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

That only works if the reason wasn't "because the writers of the msq took over control of my character, and of all my formerly trusted friends, sidelined any agency I thought I'd have, and made us all do something I hated without even allowing our character to question it, and then immediately after went of to have a big happy celebration set to some upbeat song from Disney", which is the case here. You *can't* rework your headcanon around that because you have to either accept that your character never was or no longer is the person you want to play as, or you reject the canonicity of what happened in the game and hope that the devs will never refer back to it as a thing that happened ever again.

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Suspension of disbelief is a wonderful thing, but I know how that feels. I loathed every second Shadowbringers forced my WoL to be emphatic towards Emet and the Ancients, saying he had a promise to keep to him, missing him, and that he was going to understand him and all of the villains in a cuddly fashion way that has been simply imposed on my character over the narrative. It's a "single player" narrative. And the truth is, this is scripted. There's no actual player agency. There will be moments when you will be yanked of seeing your WoL as your WoL. I had those moments aplenty in Shadowbringers and Endwalker. You had now in Dawntrail. It's individual stuff, everyone can find a way to handle it because it will hit them one day or the other.

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Originally Posted by OMGJesuis66

Suspension of disbelief is a wonderful thing, but I know how that feels. I loathed every second Shadowbringers forced my WoL to be emphatic towards Emet and the Ancients, saying he had a promise to keep to him, missing him, and that he was going to understand him and all of the villains in a cuddly fashion way that has been simply imposed on my character over the narrative. It's a "single player" narrative. And the truth is, this is scripted. There's no actual player agency. There will be moments when you will be yanked of seeing your WoL as your WoL. I had those moments aplenty in Shadowbringers and Endwalker. You had now in Dawntrail. It's individual stuff, everyone can find a way to handle it because it will hit them one day or the other.

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Even when disagreeing with the sentiment of ShB though, at least that expansion got points for style. Which is a lot harder to say about Dawntrail, which violates so many conventions of good writing that it would still be rough to get through even if you did agree with the subject matter, never mind if you don't...

The difference with ShB was that ShB presented the unsundered’s opinions as incredibly wrong and flawed but understandable why they hold them. It never tried to make you feel good about what you did to them

Meanwhile DT can’t figure out if turning off the endless is a moral dilemma or something that should be accompanied by playing smile

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

Even when disagreeing with the sentiment of ShB though, at least that expansion got points for style. Which is a lot harder to say about Dawntrail, which violates so many conventions of good writing that it would still be rough to get through even if you did agreed with the subject matter, never mind if you don't...

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We can agree to disagree, to me, the WoL being Azem was the lowest point of the whole narrative. I never fancied "Chosen One" tropes and the more I had to be emphatic towards Emet and appreciate Elpis in Endwalker, I felt completely disconnected from my character. Elpis salvation was that I related more to Hermes out of everyone, and as funny as it may be, I never felt so immersed in my character than when he got into Heritage Found, for in my headcannon, he would abhor everything in there and feel a solemn duty to put those matters to rest. Each character is an individual at the end of the day, mine would set Living Memory to rest with sadness, pride, and obstinate to make it right to bring their memories to those who had forgotten them, which was all of Solution 9. Or at least carry the burden forward.

Dawntrail narrative suffered from pacing, it was not a bad narrative, the problem was the delivery. It was too short and too long at the same time, was unable to properly put everything in perspective with the time necessary, it was an expansion meant to be BIG, and they had to fit a whole buffet inside a meal box. It wasn't going to work. I blame the fact they were conservative and too afraid to break from their formula of expansions made since Stormblood, truth be told. We needed more time, more zones, a proper explanation of events in each zone without making it feel forced, absence of Wuk Lamat after her coronation. But the story really ain't bad, at all. For FFXIV standards maybe, but, eh.

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Originally Posted by OMGJesuis66

We can agree to disagree, to me, the WoL being Azem was the lowest point of the whole narrative. I never fancied "Chosen One" tropes and the more I had to be emphatic towards Emet and appreciate Elpis in Endwalker, I felt completely disconnected from my character. Elpis salvation was that I related more to Hermes out of everyone, and as funny as it may be, I never felt so immersed in my character than when he got into Heritage Found, for in my headcannon, he would abhor everything in there and feel a solemn duty to put those matters to rest. Each character is an individual at the end of the day, mine would set Living Memory to rest with sadness, pride, and obstinate to make it right to bring their memories to those who had forgotten them, which was all of Solution 9. Or at least carry the burden forward.

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I think that our WoL's soul being a sundered fragment of that of Azem was fine, but it should only have been used as a device to explain why those of the Ancients/Ascians that were close to Azem would have felt differently about us than about any other sundered mortal. I don't really care for this whole baggage where we are now more or less guided towards trying to re-tread Azem's steps as if we are under some obligation now to pick up where they left off and continue a legacy or something. We already have an abundance of legacy of our own as heroes in our own right, we didn't need some outside source to give us something to live up to for the next ten years.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

The difference with ShB was that ShB presented the unsundered’s opinions as incredibly wrong and flawed but understandable why they hold them. It never tried to make you feel good about what you did to them

Meanwhile DT can’t figure out if turning off the endless is a moral dilemma or something that should be accompanied by playing smile

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I still hate that they made us go on a forced sightseeing tour even though we knew the shut down was inevitable. It just felt super inappropriate and disconnected from the player's desires. But the disconnect is felt during many instances of the Dawntrail MSQ, which I can't say from any other expansion. And once again I'm left wondering what the heck happened in the writing department.

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Originally Posted by Mondschnee

I still hate that they made us go on a forced sightseeing tour even though we knew the shut down was inevitable. It just felt super inappropriate and disconnected from the player's desires. But the disconnect is felt during many instances of the Dawntrail MSQ, which I can't say from any other expansion. And once again I'm left wondering what the heck happened in the writing department.

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Agreed. Whilst not doing so would've made the story much shorter I didn't enjoy the silly "hey, nice to meet you before I pull the plug on this place!" tour we had to undertake.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

The difference with ShB was that ShB presented the unsundered’s opinions as incredibly wrong and flawed but understandable why they hold them. It never tried to make you feel good about what you did to them

Meanwhile DT can’t figure out if turning off the endless is a moral dilemma or something that should be accompanied by playing smile

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This. You summed up so succinctly what my problem with all of Living Memory and Sphene is and why that whole section was just insulting to pay through.

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

This. You summed up so succinctly what my problem with all of Living Memory and Sphene is and why that whole section was just insulting to pay through.

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I got the impression we were supposed to care, but our characters sure AF didn't act like it.

But ultimately, that ambiguity definitely does exist and leads to other problems with taking away any kind of character agency. If we were supposed to care, then we should've been trying to find a solution (even if we ultimately failed) while Wuk and Co. talked to the locals before deleting them. Let's be honest, our presence in that final zone didn't change anything until the end.

If we weren't supposed to care then we shouldn't have bothered even talking to them and just flipped the switches. Hiroi was just trying to have his cake and eat it too.

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Originally Posted by OMGJesuis66

We can agree to disagree, to me, the WoL being Azem was the lowest point of the whole narrative. I never fancied "Chosen One" tropes ...

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Then I'm not sure why you stick to the game that long tbh. The WoL has been the chosen one since day one, you didn't have to wait until ShB to become one. I don't think the relevation of the WoL being Azem make us any more of a chosen one than we already are from the beginning. All it does is establish a connection between our character and the past, and that rarely is a bad thing.

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....I felt completely disconnected from my character.

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I don't think this is a game where you're supposed to self-insert as the WoL, unlike say ... Mass Effect where you can self-insert as Shepard and role play the good cop/bad cop action. The personality and narrative for the WoL is set in stone. If anything, I feel the connection to Azem flesh out the personality of the the WoL a lot more. Up until the relevation, I sometime get annoyed with the WoL's terminal case of selflessness like ... no one can be that much of a goodies two shoes who keep throwing their life away and jumping into fire to save others. But when it's revealed that how Azem is, both as a personality and the responsibility of their office. If we assume all Azem office holders carry the same zeal (Emet implied as much), that means our WoL would love the world as much as Venat do. As such, it helps justify the hopelessly good personality the WoL has.

Again, I don't think the Azem connection is intended for you to be relatable to the WoL, but rather to flesh out the WoL as a character, and it does a very good job at that.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Again, I don't think the Azem connection is intended for you to be relatable to the WoL, but rather to flesh out the WoL as a character, and it does a very good job at that.

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Agreed. Since we're a mostly silent protagonist in a rigid story where motivations are pretty much required, this helps give us some backstory and canon. You glean little bits of insight with some of the dialog too, and all the answers are meant to be partially Azem, and partially WoL. The only time I can really think of a self-insert being possible is during the small 4th wall breaks in Endwalker. That I can't deny.

Well if we are rigidly supposed to be following azem’s legacy that just makes the whole endless problem worse

Like ignoring the Azem that was sundered into us venat was also Azem and her actions are shown to be something that she struggled over and pondered for a long time and she still never fully came to the conclusion of if she truly did the right thing or not and we don’t have to agree with what she did even if we were the catalyst for it (you can say that you disagree with venat in the omega follow up)

Meanwhile we go around and genocide the endless then smile plays in the background while we celebrate saving everything never having stopped once to consider if we were doing the right thing

So if you have a sort of headcanon like mine it’s bad and if you want the WOL to follow the benevolence of Azem it’s also terrible

Personally, I really love the concept of Azem in connection to our WoL. Inspired me to write my own lore for my WoL, too.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

Agreed. Whilst not doing so would've made the story much shorter I didn't enjoy the silly "hey, nice to meet you before I pull the plug on this place!" tour we had to undertake.

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In my opinion, they had much better ways to fill the MSQ. They could have used the time more effectively by looking for alternative ways, or *some* of the endless could have tried to stop them and challenge their perspective at least. That would have made it more interesting, and it would have explored the moral ambiguity more. But no, nothing.

Instead, they kept stalling Krile's and Erenville's chapters until the final zone so they could at last get their five minutes of spotlight (despite being teased as the expansion's focus *sigh*). I just think they didn't do themselves a favor with the overall story structure.

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

This was the intent? To create a massively divisive issue that splits the community into two halves that feel alienated by the other?

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I don't think the devs expected people to be radically toxic about it since it's fiction, but here we are with people taking fiction too seriously.

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Originally Posted by ExESGO

I don't think the devs expected people to be radically toxic about it since it's fiction, but here we are with people taking fiction too seriously.

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The fundamental problem with that attitude, is that you are promoting that people shouldn't care or be emotionally be invested in the game. In an RPGMMO. Whose main and pretty much only selling point is that it does make you feel things.

When you boil the whole thing down, this is essentially a variation of the trolley problem.

For those unfamiliar, at it's base you have a trolley going down a track about to run over several people, you notice a lever that can change the track to a separate one, saving all those people, however, this other track has a single person on it. Do you pull the lever or not?

To make the comparison, us shutting down the terminals is equivalent to us flipping the lever. This means, on the 2 tracks, the main track is all of life, the second track is the Endless. In this case, the trolley is essentially the passage of time.

You now have the choice. Do you do nothing and end all life as we know it, or, flip the switch and kill off the Endless and save everyone else. Whether you consider the Endless alive or not doesn't matter in this scenario, this is the choice you have to make in a limited time. You don't have enough time to try and find an alternate energy source (where are you even going to find a Source sized battery from anyway), you have to make this decision, what are you choosing?

Note that this does not excuse the bad writing, however, with what we have, this is the choice that is being made. Now, this isn't an easy choice and there is a reason the trolley problem creates philosophical discussions but that is also the reason why this variant is so extreme. You can either kill a few to save everyone, or, do nothing and everyone dies. It's meant to make this an easier choice for people to come to terms with but, as with everything, there is always a conflicting viewpoint, which, to be clear, isn't a bad thing, as long as you can reasonably justify why you made the decision you did.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

When you boil the whole thing down, this is essentially a variation of the trolley problem. (...) Note that this does not excuse the bad writing, however, with what we have, this is the choice that is being made. Now, this isn't an easy choice and there is a reason the trolley problem creates philosophical discussions but that is also the reason why this variant is so extreme. You can either kill a few to save everyone, or, do nothing and everyone dies. It's meant to make this an easier choice for people to come to terms with but, as with everything, there is always a conflicting viewpoint, which, to be clear, isn't a bad thing, as long as you can reasonably justify why you made the decision you did.

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Indeed, and what most people are falling over is not the inevitability of having to put a stop to the systems running Living Memory. Rather, it is the poor writing which shows complete lack of consideration how our characters feel troubled by having to do this, consider alternatives, etc. Every other time a dilemma like this has emerged in the game, whether that was putting an end to the Ascians' desire to save their world at the expense of ours, or Venat sundering the world, we at least see the characters involved appreciate the gravity of what they do. In Dawntrail, the whole shutting down of the Endless was just done so.. callous, self-centered on what Wuk and Cahciua want and no thought spared for anything else.

Worst yet -- the writers could also have SO easily given themselves an 'out' because the lore we are given for the Endless is that living aether is only needed to give them bodies again in order to incarnate/manifest them in Living Memory, so that an entirely obvious solution would have been to shut down their ability to re-instantiate, leaving all of them in cold storage stasis on the 'hard drive' as it were.

Just the stakes alone that it was now on our WoL to find a solution for thousands upon thousands of dormant virtual people, some of who we may have come to care about, would have done so much for an expansion that already gave us a continent almost devoid of any stakes for our character and too few real cliffhanger plot elements.

But no, like Supersnow845 said, instead what we get is lazy writing completely ignoring gravitas, then lazily( apparently wanting to fully wrap up this whole plot point on the spot and be done with it) going straight to full erasure instead of just switching the system off leaving them as data to be restored in some potential future, and then... we play Smile, as if we should be happy about all this. It is just so tone deaf on the part of the writing room, when it had SO much potential to actually be good, if only a little extra thought and effort had been put into it, it is just almost unbelievable how they didn't see this.

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

and then... we play Smile

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cue bomb-making montage
cue instating a puppet king (after genociding a foreign civilization and killing their ruler)

You can not convince me it isn't a massive parody at this point, you just can't. It's too perfectly written. They even had the "two heads is better than one!" thing, that was so painfully obvious from square one that it hurt to see fulfilled.

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

Snip...

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What sucks is they could've made either option (kill or save) make sense with the Endless and fit within the story without stealing our characters agency.

As we progress and Bun Mom gives her recommendation we kill the Endless, the WoL and Scions refuse. Instead we decide there must be another way. Since we have some time before Sphene finishes her calculations, we use the opportunity to contact Cid/Nero and the Omicrons.

After getting in touch with both, they confer with one another using the Loporrits as communication intermediaries. They decide they don't have enough information and need us to run some scans. The Omicrons give Cid & Nero some designs for a scanner we need to use on some Endless and a terminal (Now we have a reason to explore the zone that's better than "let's talk to them before we kill them.")

Endless Must Die.
We speak to the Endless and quickly find out they're sentient, living beings. We start to run our scans and send data back to Cid, while we talk to the Endless. At first everything seems idyllic, then we're given the task of finding a early generation Endless and to scan them to check their data. We scan them and find out that all the data is inherently corrupted. The copy process isn't perfect; which is why the Aether is required to keep them alive and as the data corruption gets worse, the Aether requirements will grow. The Omicrons state their earliest attempts at becoming machine life were similar and took a long time to improve upon, and they were never able to find a solution to the data corruption. More worrisome though, is after talking to the older Endless we find out that they're no longer happy. There's nothing new or interesting for them, and over the centuries living in Temu Disneyland has become hell for them. Sphene will not let their consciousness or memories fade away so they're stuck there, essentially being force fed souls doing the same thing over and over. The Omicrons suspect Sphene's programming requires her to keep the Endless existing, no matter what so this is why she'll let them suffer and is willing to kill everyone in order to continue feeding them souls. The worst part is, She's aware of everything. The Endless being tortured by their existence, the near infinite requirement of souls, the corruption, etc... but she's unable to go against her flawed base programming.

At this point after talking everything over with the Omicrons, Cid, Bun Mom, and Krile's parents, we come to the painful conclusion to flip the switches and turn off the Endless, giving us access to Sphene for the final fight. This way we at least have a clear villain who is still tragic to some degree, and there's absolutely no question about the Endless having to go. But it also gives the emotional impact of having to kill people, even if their existence inevitably becomes torturous.

1/2

Endless Survive -- Sort of.
When we enter the zone with our scanner we talk to the endless and find out they're living beings but have become despondent with their relatively monotonous existence. They don't want to die, but they do want something new. As we progress through the zone with our scans, the Omicrons realize that while the Endless do take up a fair bit of souls and is still unsustainable in the long run, the math doesn't add up and the consumption rate is much higher than what it should be.

While we progress, the time crunch becomes more apparent as Sphene gets closer to finishing her calculations, and it looks like we're going to be forced to kill the Endless to reach Sphene and stop her -- a prospect nobody is onboard with. Finally the Omicrons and Cid are able to solve for the missing variable in regards to the soul consumption. It's Sphene. Keeping her massive program running, which is not just her, but is the OS that Runs everything; Solution 9, Living Memory, and almost all the Tech. The Omicrons and Cid agree they can come up with a new distributed OS which will have lower energy requirements but not have nearly as much functionality, meaning Living Memory would be deactivated and all the memories would go into cold storage. If Sphene were to deactivate herself, the new OS could be installed. Unfortunately because Sphene is tied into every system and is part of the OS kernel, she cannot be saved. The small upside is that the memories of the Endless can be implanted into mechanical bodies. They won't have a nearly infinite lifespan like Otto because the souls powering them aren't "theirs", but each personality can be linked to enough souls to give them another 30-50 years in the mechanical body if they want.

We get Sphene's attention and try to convince her of our solution. She's intrigued and sees the benefits to our solution, but ultimately she can't agree to it because the endless would still inevitably die and allowing that goes against her programming. As we reach an impasse, Sphene disappears once again and the Terminal states the final calculations are starting. As we're about to go and turn off all the terminals, a small rift appears, allowing us to go through. During the final fight, we find that the rift was created by Sphene. It was her (the person) giving us her blessing to end her program and give the people of Alexandria, including the Endless a new path forward.

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Personally I like the "Kill the Endless" option more between the two.

What sucks is I'm not a writer by any stretch and threw this together between Zoom calls, but I think both are better than what we got and still fit in-line with the ultimate path of the story while providing the possibility for an emotionally satisfying ending.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Then I'm not sure why you stick to the game that long tbh. The WoL has been the chosen one since day one, you didn't have to wait until ShB to become one. I don't think the relevation of the WoL being Azem make us any more of a chosen one than we already are from the beginning. All it does is establish a connection between our character and the past, and that rarely is a bad thing.



I don't think this is a game where you're supposed to self-insert as the WoL, unlike say ... Mass Effect where you can self-insert as Shepard and role play the good cop/bad cop action. The personality and narrative for the WoL is set in stone. If anything, I feel the connection to Azem flesh out the personality of the the WoL a lot more. Up until the relevation, I sometime get annoyed with the WoL's terminal case of selflessness like ... no one can be that much of a goodies two shoes who keep throwing their life away and jumping into fire to save others. But when it's revealed that how Azem is, both as a personality and the responsibility of their office. If we assume all Azem office holders carry the same zeal (Emet implied as much), that means our WoL would love the world as much as Venat do. As such, it helps justify the hopelessly good personality the WoL has.

Again, I don't think the Azem connection is intended for you to be relatable to the WoL, but rather to flesh out the WoL as a character, and it does a very good job at that.

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My friends play this game, I play with them. FFXIV universe is fun and I have been playing since ARR, where you are A Warrior of Light, not THE.

Shadowbringers was the expansion that set your character as protagonist and chosen one more than anything else, completely yanking the character from the world itself and making it special.

There were better ideas to flesh out the WoL than make him one of the older Convocation, aka. The 13 more important people of the world.

In terms of "self insert", well. A lot if the community does that. That's the principle of a role playing game with customizable avatar. For you to build your identity and see "yourself" in the game. Else people in this community would not be so obsessed with their WoL, but they are. So, it comes of personal approachment and enjoyment.

Thats also how people build perceptions of what the silent protagonist would do or not do, and feel upset that the writing takes them to a path they never believed the WoL would do. Thus, creating this whole genocide talk, since being the player, it made people uncomfortable with what shouldn't even be questioned, tbh.

No thats not what she is doing. She calls out people that cannot accepte that the story goes how it goes, dont like it and getting too emotional about it. And she calls out people that cannot accepte that others have another pov and opinion about it.
Its ok to be emotional invested in a story, its ok to say you dont like it. But its not ok to go on an endless rage about it and hold onto this emotions. At some point you have to take a step back, take a breath and accepte that it is how it is.