Finished the MSQ - Feels bad, pushed to do evil [Spoilers inside]

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

actually almost every scene with us discussing the future of her people was us literally going *there is another way* sphene herself decided death was the only option not us.

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I would dispute this. We never offered anything nor revealed our hand that we actually had the means to make it work, all we had was a Wuk Lamat screaming ad nauseam that another way had to be possible if only we believed in the power of wishful thinking. I believe that Sphene would have actually listened if we'd talked about practical technological solutions to her problems that would give her everything she wanted at a much lower cost.

But even if Sphene would never have agreed, I do not recall us having to murder our friends Estinien and Aymeric and all the citizens of Ishgard in order to get to the archbishop. It's almost as if we were able to take out an individual uncooperative leader without committing genocide on their entire people.

Our choice to just go for erasing the Endless was minimal effort, uncaring laziness on our part. (And forcing us into it, was minimal effort, uncaring laziness on the part of the writing team).

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Originally Posted by Kaecilius

This is honestly my hope for the patches: That we shut down the system, but that the storage devices still hold the memories, and we can help them have another shot at an actual life outside of the Living Memory system. Bring in Garlean cloning to create FFIX Genomes if we must.

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I would really like that because technically we didn't wipe any of that data storage, did we? So in theory they can be revived at any point if we solve that problem later.
Though I don't think the writers would do it unfortunately. If we brought the very people back to life they spent a fair amount of time telling us are just facsimiles and should not exist after their natural death, then they'd immediately undermine their whole message of "moving on, letting go, it's only natural". It would be like an admission of how wrong they were just one/a few patches ago.

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Originally Posted by Kaecilius

This is honestly my hope for the patches: That we shut down the system, but that the storage devices still hold the memories, and we can help them have another shot at an actual life outside of the Living Memory system. Bring in Garlean cloning to create FFIX Genomes if we must.

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I also hope for that, but at the same time that'd only somewhat help with the issue. It'd solve the part where we actually did a genocide (which, from an in-universe morality standpoint, is of course the most important part) but it wouldn't solve the part where we were willing to do it in the first place without questioning it and without feeling wretched about doing it (which is the most important part when it comes to this as a fictional story). That part is unfortunately set in stone unless they want to actually change the past story and that's the part that makes me sickest.

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Originally Posted by Galvuu

Do you know what sucks about all of this?
Wouldn't it be great if this intricate, philosophical discussion we're having in the forums had happened ingame?
Maybe if some highly intelligent scholars were there to offer different views and discuss a plan or the meaning of their existence, facing our previous knowledge and experiences, and this was exposed through msq :)
I find the themes that are supposedly tackled in this narrative to be more openly discussed in the forums than in the game. Great story :)

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That's also one of the major issues I have with DT.

They offer this philosophical dilemma and just DON'T do anything with it. There is no time to think about it or interact with other characters who aren't immediately in the "yeah, sounds good kill them" camp. We get a ton of time in the EW base MSQ to consider the questions posed by Venat and Hermes and get a total of maybe one hour for the Endless.

It feels like extremely juvenile writing where they heard a deep question from someone else and wrote about it without thinking for themselves.

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Originally Posted by Kaecilius

This is honestly my hope for the patches: That we shut down the system, but that the storage devices still hold the memories, and we can help them have another shot at an actual life outside of the Living Memory system. Bring in Garlean cloning to create FFIX Genomes if we must.

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I will hope this together with you. Yet, even if they do salvage thing that way, that will be months away. Leaving a lot of players feeling down about this would still be a choice of narrative delivery deserving of criticism.

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Originally Posted by Tsumdere

That's also one of the major issues I have with DT.

They offer this philosophical dilemma and just DON'T do anything with it. There is no time to think about it or interact with other characters who aren't immediately in the "yeah, sounds good kill them" camp. We get a ton of time in the EW base MSQ to consider the questions posed by Venat and Hermes and get a total of maybe one hour for the Endless.

It feels like extremely juvenile writing where they heard a deep question from someone else and wrote about it without thinking for themselves.

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This expac honestly gave me the feeling that they were desperately trying to be philosophical for philosophy's sake. That they thought "we need to make some deep comments about the meaning of life and death to be relevant". But that also meant they are not really committed to it. It was a "chore" or a means to an end, leading to them never really understanding and exploring their own message with honestly. I really get the impression they just stiched together some platitudes that "seem deep" at first glance if you don't give it much thought, and believed that made it profound.

I wish they understood that you don't always need to tackle big philosophical questions to tell a good story. Often it's the characters themselves that make a story good. If you have psychologically convincing people with relatable problems and relationships it will often feel "deeper" and more real than forcefully trying to recite Philosophy 101.

Despite their whole "I must move on" shtick the last scene with Erenville and his mom felt a lot more touching than pretty much anything else in DT. Their feelings and relationship in that moment were believable. Yes, the reason that she "had to move on" is questionable but the sadness itself created a convincing moment, so despite the silly context you still connected with them and felt meaningful emotions of grief were conveyed.

I just hope that we can restore the zone later on (even if it's an on/off switch that can be optional for those who want it). If they keep it dead forever over stubbornness of "but you gotta let gooo that was the point of the story", then I feel like it's a disservice to the game as an MMO, not even considering how the story reactions are clearly mixed.

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Originally Posted by Galvuu

Do you know what sucks about all of this?
Wouldn't it be great if this intricate, philosophical discussion we're having in the forums had happened ingame?
Maybe if some highly intelligent scholars were there to offer different views and discuss a plan or the meaning of their existence, facing our previous knowledge and experiences, and this was exposed through msq :)
I find the themes that are supposedly tackled in this narrative to be more openly discussed in the forums than in the game. Great story :)

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In addition to a better discussion you also have many people who are very invested and well-versed in the lore, so a lot more people will remember potential solutions from past storylines. I don't know how intrinsically interested in the lore the writers are. If there are not enough people who have a very good understanding of all the details of their world-building and magical concepts, who can catch inconsistencies, then I guess a lot can fall through the cracks.
I'd be really interested to know who's involved in their proof-reading and revision processes.

I feel like the DT authors lean towards being the type of writers, who want to paint a colourful picture of their vision and put their chosen "theme" above everything else even if it clashes with established lore (and if it clashes they'd rather change the lore than their theme). As opposed to lore enthusiasts who are deeply committed to telling an accurate story even if it means adjusting an initial vision if it contradicts the world building or can't be written around in a clever and convincing way.

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Originally Posted by Kaecilius

This is true, and I agree this was her plan. But the Scions are an element that can alter the plan, that's the frustrating part.

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But she did not want that. She wanted to help her people RIGHT THEN RIGHT THERE.

How does almost no one understand this? Did it look to you that she was willing to listen to the WoL about some maybes?

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Originally Posted by Galvuu

They absolutely had to be stopped- it was a "us or them" situation, and killing them all to save the Source is justified.
The problem is how this is presented ingame, and you actually touch on the dissonance yourself with your post.
These entities are shown to be sapient and feeling and creative. They do things spontaneously, they love, they have regrets and dreams, they're very much self-aware. You explore this in the quests in the area and the game seems to be showing me that while the circumstances of their creation and the medium that holds their minds/selves is different from mine, they are capable of thought and feeling all the same.
It's therefore tragic that their survival requires my death. I wanted to see more conflict about this, more despair, more vainly trying to attempt ten things to avoid this outcome before finally bringing the axe over their napes down. I wanted to see the WoL and the scions feeling conflicted and heartbroken over this- and maybe this is a thread that can be followed up on in later patches. In that moment, the WoL could maybe really feel like they were wearing Emet's skin, and understand the gravity of the action. But this is merely brushed aside.

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This is right on point. The main problem isn't that we deleted every Endless, but that we didn't even try to find a solution where both worlds can coexist. If we had tried every reasonable approach and nothing worked, it would be still sad, but a more reasonable thing to do. But no, only option was to delete everyone! Not just switching it offline, to come back later.

The game tries to tell us that's okay, because they are only facsimilies restored from the memories of the death. But right next to us stands G'raha Tia who is basically restored memory backup of the Crystal Exarch...
All the sundered Ascians where restored from memory crystals, were they also not alive?

The whole thing could have worked out, if more MSQ time was spent on this part and less on babysitting Wuk Lamat. When we had to kill Emet-Selch and Elidbus in Shadowbringers it too felt sad, but we understood what was at stake and that there was no other option, because we had enough build up before the final showdown. This build up is missing here.


Christ, this whole things makes me more upset than it has any right to be.

Okay but wasn't the whole point that the dead residents of Living Memory didn't want to sustain their lives at the cost of ours? Some endless were directly at odds with their existence. An ongoing theme in Dawntrail is leaders who don't necessarily understand the goals for their people and can no longer effectively represent them. We see this once with the Mamool Ja, and then again here.

Additionally, the question being posed by comparing Tural and Wuk Lamat to Sphene and Living Memory is this: Can a nation that only cares about its own citizens thrive? Does a ruler who only cares about their own people make a thriving nation?

Wuk Lamat's position at the end of the day, is to extend the same courtesy to innocents of another nation as she would her own. Seeking understanding and acceptance so that they may help one another to flourish. Sphene on the other hand, who's kingdom is represented as existing in a bubble, has no obligation to the other innocents outside of her bubble and will not extend that courtesy to explore other options. Because of this, Sphene's self-serving kingdom will run out of resources, as they on their own can not sustain their own existence and they will not compromise.

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Originally Posted by Sephi_Ravour

but that we didn't even try to find a solution where both worlds can coexist. If we had tried every reasonable approach and nothing worked, it would be still sad, but a more reasonable thing to do.

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Who would we find this solution for? Have not played the same story? Sphene did not want to find any other solution. She was so far gone in her own world that she could not see any other way out.

It feels as if a lot of people never met people who do not want to listen to your help. Who only see their way.

Pushed to do evil? The last zone is pretty much a computer running on human lives.

And hadn't waifu Hal 2000 tried to rush a mass genocide to fuel itself we might have had time to make something more sustainable, least for those already added to the cloud.

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Originally Posted by Galvuu

Wouldn't it be great if this intricate, philosophical discussion we're having in the forums had happened ingame?
I find the themes that are supposedly tackled in this narrative to be more openly discussed in the forums than in the game. Great story :)

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Originally Posted by Galvuu

Wouldn't it be great if this intricate, philosophical discussion we're having in the forums had happened ingame?
I find the themes that are supposedly tackled in this narrative to be more openly discussed in the forums than in the game. Great story :)

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Originally Posted by Galvuu

Wouldn't it be great if this intricate, philosophical discussion we're having in the forums had happened ingame?
I find the themes that are supposedly tackled in this narrative to be more openly discussed in the forums than in the game. Great story :)

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Originally Posted by Galvuu

Wouldn't it be great if this intricate, philosophical discussion we're having in the forums had happened ingame?
I find the themes that are supposedly tackled in this narrative to be more openly discussed in the forums than in the game. Great story :)

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Say it louder for the people at the back!!

Can you imagine spending 2.5 years working on this script so shallow that forum users can have a far deeper discussion on in just a few hours.

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Originally Posted by Shialan

But she did not want that. She wanted to help her people RIGHT THEN RIGHT THERE.

How does almost no one understand this? Did it look to you that she was willing to listen to the WoL about some maybes?

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She wasn't ever going to listen, no. We needed a final boss.

But my issue is with the characterization of the Scions, scholars and sages, that don't even stop to ponder and wrestle with the implications of what they're doing. They are just told these are copies and run with it, despite one of the copies clearly displaying emotions, sentience, learning capabilities and enough autonomy to operate outside of the system in the Source itself. There is even a child in one of the yellow quests that says he is inspired by the WoL to learn more and see the world... and then is summarily erased.

The party only struggles with shutting off the servers, so to speak, when the NPC involved is personally related to them. Sphene was never going to listen, but the Scions didn't even *try* to consider an alternative.

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Originally Posted by Kaecilius

She wasn't ever going to listen, no. We needed a final boss.

But my issue is with the characterization of the Scions, scholars and sages, that don't even stop to ponder and wrestle with the implications of what they're doing. They are just told these are copies and run with it, despite one of the copies clearly displaying emotions, sentience, learning capabilities and enough autonomy to operate outside of the system in the Source itself. There is even a child in one of the yellow quests that says he is inspired by the WoL to learn more and see the world... and then is summarily erased.

The party only struggles with shutting off the servers, so to speak, when the NPC involved is personally related to them. Sphene was never going to listen, but the Scions didn't even *try* to consider an alternative.

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Because there was unfortunately no time to wrestle with the implications since given enough time. Schene would have become a umbral calamity in itself, eating away at the other shards til there was nothing left. Which would also have resulted in her own death unless she did like in the Matrix, which she would be against doing since even those humanoid battery husks would have to be uploaded to the cloud.

Schene by the point we meet her, is a black hole.

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Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

Because there was unfortunately no time to wrestle with the implications since given enough time. Schene would have become a umbral calamity in itself, eating away at the other shards til there was nothing left. Which would also have resulted in her own death unless she did like in the Matrix, which she would be against doing since even those humanoid battery husks would have to be uploaded to the cloud.

Schene by the point we meet her, is a black hole.

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The thing is that we did have enough time to go on flying capybara rides and put on a theater play with Otis. We could have had a conversation about trying to save the Alexandrians, and decide we had to do something terrible for the greater good.

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Originally Posted by Shialan

Who would we find this solution for? Have not played the same story? Sphene did not want to find any other solution. She was so far gone in her own world that she could not see any other way out.

It feels as if a lot of people never met people who do not want to listen to your help. Who only see their way.

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At no point did any of the Scions or the WoL push forward a genuine solution. It was all a bunch of:
"Is there no other way...? I know you're a good person, but I love my people too...!"
Never was an actual solution proposed.
We see from Ottis being alive in his robot body for centuries that something clearly might be done. We have the knowledge of Sharlayan, of Allag, of Garlemald.
The Garleans had their mind upload thing when they were researching the Echo in Stormblood, the Allagans can do something similar and pseudo-revive people with stable clones that do not necessitate an aether drain (as seen with Xande), Sharlayans have God knows what else, the Exarch had his mind from the First transplanted to the Source using knowledge that only Allag and the First alchemists have.
We have gathered a titanic wealth of knowledge across civilizations, dimensions and time itself that Sphene cannot even imagine.
And some of our greatest scholars are present right there. And none of them bring any of these up- hell, Krle was involved in the Echo incident in Stormblood.
Much like the scions never bother bringing up they can cure the paralyzed boy's sickness, caused by an aetheric imbalance that sounds suspiciously like tempering.

Sphene was set on her ways and might have never been convinced, and maybe none of this technology would've worked, but we'll never know because we didn't freaking try.

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Originally Posted by Sephi_Ravour

But right next to us stands G'raha Tia who is basically restored memory backup of the Crystal Exarch...

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I don't disagree with your post but isn't G'raha techically different because his body has a soul (to which the exarch's memories have been added)?
I know this goes back to the whole "soul" vs. "self" problem in FF14. They are kind of inconsistent on that because Meteion doesn't have a soul iirc and she is obviously recognised as someone with a "self". So I think the writers' issue with the endless is them "not having a soul (anymore)/being extracted from a person's soul (= their true "core" as a person) + already being dead". Somebody else already said it but facsimile seems to be a synonym for "spirit", a lingering residual of a dead person that needs to move on.
(I don't agree with that, I'm just trying to understand their logic.)
But according to those rules G'raha would be a person whereas the endless wouldn't be.

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Originally Posted by Kaecilius

The thing is that we did have enough time to go on flying capybara rides and put on a theater play with Otis. We could have had a conversation about trying to save the Alexandrians, and decide we had to do something terrible for the greater good.

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This. We are told two conflicting things -- that there is not even time to consider alternatives, but also that there is no sense of actual urgency at all. We have over five minutes and two cutscenes about eating actual literal popcorn in the middle of this segment!

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Originally Posted by DaveFishnomer

So I finished the msq, The story was lackluster throughout the xPac but the ending just felt evil to me, the writers try and push their point of view that life should end no matter what, that the endless are not really alive, even though we see that they are, they can hear, feel and think, express emotion, be happy and sad, the WOL just committed a mass murder and we are suppose to feel ok with that?

This has forever tainted my view of the wol, my character is now evil.

From EW where we forgave a genocidal bird girl who killed who knows how many planets to DT where we become the mass murderer yourself what up square enix?

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The thing was, the evil bird girl didn't need to kill others to sustain herself.
So it was either to sacrifice "them" to let others live, or sacrifice ourselves and also all other life down the road to let "them" "live", untill all life is gone and they no longer can sustain themselves and in the end vanish.
I look at it as a "Lesser of two evils" situation.

To be fair, the WoL isn't the one committing genocide. The proverbial blood is on Wuk Lamat's hands as she's the one that turns off the terminals.

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Originally Posted by DaveFishnomer

So I finished the msq, The story was lackluster throughout the xPac but the ending just felt evil to me, the writers try and push their point of view that life should end no matter what, that the endless are not really alive, even though we see that they are, they can hear, feel and think, express emotion, be happy and sad, the WOL just committed a mass murder and we are suppose to feel ok with that?

This has forever tainted my view of the wol, my character is now evil.

From EW where we forgave a genocidal bird girl who killed who knows how many planets to DT where we become the mass murderer yourself what up square enix?

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We would've been at odds with them either way. The story memories into something is one thing, gathering souls into a quantifiable and usable thing is a whole different story. Delaying their end with the tradeoff being having to end a different life-form's and extracting their soul for consumption. Not only were souls being made into a commodity that could be exchanged with currency, but also it would become a finite resource. They would either turn on themselves, or their paranoia for death would push them to invade other shards and the source to steal their souls.
We would've had to make this decision in the future anyways.

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Originally Posted by Loggos

I would really like that because technically we didn't wipe any of that data storage, did we? So in theory they can be revived at any point if we solve that problem later.
Though I don't think the writers would do it unfortunately. If we brought the very people back to life they spent a fair amount of time telling us are just facsimiles and should not exist after their natural death, then they'd immediately undermine their whole message of "moving on, letting go, it's only natural". It would be like an admission of how wrong they were just one/a few patches ago.

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Depends if the storage is short or long term. But even then, if it's long term storage, there is the philosopical question if each iteration of a memory can be deemed as the same person or someone else. So even shutting it down temporarily would condemn every active iteration.

Though judging by the urgency from Schene, it was foolishly stored as short term meaning the memories were lost when the bank got shut down.

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Originally Posted by Galvuu

We see from Ottis being alive in his robot body for centuries that something clearly might be done.

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I think the problem with Otis is that he still has his original soul, i.e. the core of his "true self" to which his memories belong.

For some reason it seems like your memories need to belong to the right "core"/soul to be indefinitely powered by it.

If you could use any soul then the endless wouldn't have an energy problem because then you would just need as many souls as you have endless, tack their memories onto that soul and they'd be good forever.

But it seems like this is not possible. Instead they need to extract some special life force, that is not aether, from souls and only that life force can be used to sustain the endless, but also it is not enough to power them forever even though a single soul can power the existence of its person (and their memories) forever, as long as their body lives forever in the mortal realm (see Otis whose soul still seems to be fine and dandy after centuries thanks to his immortal robo vessel).

(I hate this whole concept so much. Make it make sense.)

Otis' existence is really annoying because Alexandrians had basically figured out a near perfect solution but went for the unsustainable one instead.

Transplanting souls into immortal bodies that seem to have reasonable and solvable energy demands, and that can live forever with good care (and might also be immune to thunder aether disease)? No, let's use the cloud that is an energy black hole....

Yes, the scions are idiots for not even considering any other solution. But the OG Alexandrians are at least equally as stupid.

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Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

Pushed to do evil? The last zone is pretty much a computer running on human lives.

And hadn't waifu Hal 2000 tried to rush a mass genocide to fuel itself we might have had time to make something more sustainable, least for those already added to the cloud.

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It was funny how she said Robot Otis wasn't Endless because he was a human soul in a robot and the robot could break and he'd be dead and that can't happen to the Endless.

And then we turned off her computer.

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Originally Posted by Evergrey

The thing was, the evil bird girl didn't need to kill others to sustain herself.
So it was either to sacrifice "them" to let others live, or sacrifice ourselves and also all other life down the road to let "them" "live", untill all life is gone and they no longer can sustain themselves and in the end vanish.
I look at it as a "Lesser of two evils" situation.

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I do notice that all defenders of this course of events do so by taking the non-existence of alternatives for granted because Sphene and Cahciua say so. It should not have been. Omicron technology could have helped here. So many resources that our character should have at least been aware of that would have created options that neither Sphene nor Cahciua would even have known about. Tempering was incurable until we brought a way to do it back with us from the First. There was no permanent way to kill a Lightwarden on the First until we arrived bringing the Blessing of Light with us from the Source. Orthodox thought held that there was no hope in Ishgard to ever end the thousand-year Dragonsong War, until we came from the outside and tried something so outside the Ishgardian way of thinking that nobody had dared try it.

Our coming has always opened up new paths to better futures because ours has been the power to introduce new variables to stale equations.

Why is this suddenly the expansion in which we don't at least try to do what people claim can't be done, even though we know we have several pieces of quite relevant knowledge from outside the Sphene's little bubble?

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

It was funny how she said Robot Otis wasn't Endless because he was a human soul in a robot and the robot could break and he'd be dead and that can't happen to the Endless.

And then we turned off her computer.

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Should have developed some long term memory!

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Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

Depends if the storage is ram or ssd. But even then, if it's long term storage, there is the philosopical question if each iteration of a memory can be deemed as the same person or someone else. So even shutting it down temporarily would condemn every active iteration.

Though judging by the urgency from Schene, it was foolishly stored as ram meaning the memories were lost when the bank got shut down.

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Funnily enough, the endless are occasionally "turned off" inside the unlost world and they still consider themselves to be the same person (that doesn't mean they are right, but their perception is interesting).
They can get destroyed and have to be recreated. The guy with the ring tells us he has already been "reincarnated" (recreated by the system) 3 times but can't risk getting destroyed by the monster, that stole his ring, another time because recently there is so little energy that fewer and fewer endless get restored. That sounds to me as if they are stored long-term. So if we were to turn the power on again they would probably perceive themselves as the same person even though you could argue they are not.

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Originally Posted by Loggos

Funnily enough, the endless are occasionally "turned off" inside the unlost world and they still consider themselves to be the same person (that doesn't mean they are right, but their perception is interesting).
They can get destroyed and have to be recreated. The guy with the ring tells us he has already been "reincarnated" (recreated by the system) 3 times but can't risk getting destroyed by the monster that stole his ring because recently there is so little energy that fewer and fewer endless get restored. That sounds to me as if they are stored long-term. So if we were to turn the power on again they would probably perceive themselves as the same person even though you could argue they are not.

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What i got from that conversation was that everyone are effectively stored in the ram, and that there were only power enough to project some of those same memories. Like how the computer can load an entire program into ram, but only really just uses a sliver of it for operations.

Yeah in the end I don't know if it's long or short term storage but what I wanted to get at is that they seem to perceive themselves as one stable, continuous self even if they get shut down and recreated from time to time.

The comparison to a life support device is inaccurate. A Life support doesn't require attaching itself to a perfectly healthy individual and slowly killing them to sustain someone. The Endless are a parasite, much like ticks or fleas and while technically living beings, their way of life is deemed as problematic due to their requirement of needing a living host to survive. It's not that much different from Parasitic Twin Syndrome, where the only treatment for it is to extract the parasitic twin from the dominant twin in order to ensure survival of the dominant twin. It's not a happy situation but a necessity to ensure survival and little more.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

The comparison to a life support device is inaccurate. A Life support doesn't require attaching itself to a perfectly healthy individual and slowly killing them to sustain someone. The Endless are a parasite, much like ticks or fleas and while technically living beings, their way of life is deemed as problematic due to their requirement of needing a living host to survive. It's not that much different from Parasitic Twin Syndrome, where the only treatment for it is to extract the parasitic twin from the dominant twin in order to ensure survival of the dominant twin. It's not a happy situation but a necessity to ensure survival and little more.

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Or you could like... get rid of the parasitism, since in this case that is merely a consequence of Sphene having a very inefficient method of keeping the Endless going. Their dependence on outside energy and living aether is only something they are afflicted with due to one particular technological paradigm. We know the Omicrons did storing minds as data better, and we still have access to their civilization in Ultima Thule.

Your argument that what the game made us do was the only solution under those circumstances, is conceptually no different from saying that the only way to rid us of a curable affliction is to kill all the patients.

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Originally Posted by Shialan

Who would we find this solution for? Have not played the same story? Sphene did not want to find any other solution. She was so far gone in her own world that she could not see any other way out.

It feels as if a lot of people never met people who do not want to listen to your help. Who only see their way.

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The kids. We should have found another solution for the themepark kids. Otis. We should have found another solution for Otis. The parents of half the people we're with. We should have found another solution for those people. The man who has been waiting centuries to finally marry the woman he loves. We should have found another solution for him. All those feeling, thinking people with dreams and ambitions. We should have found another solution for all of them. The 90% of them saved on the server carrying the culture and history of an entire world. We should have found another solution for them. Just because a little girl whose will is being influenced by a program couldn't find a better way forward didn't mean we shouldn't have at least tried. But instead we hung around, saw a few sights and then deleted innocent people. When the issue wasn't their memories being preserved, but the method by which they were given bodies. We could have saved the data and then had all the time in the world to figure out a way for them to have bodies that didn't require the souls of other living beings.

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Originally Posted by Manamaru

We would've been at odds with them either way. The story memories into something is one thing, gathering souls into a quantifiable and usable thing is a whole different story. Delaying their end with the tradeoff being having to end a different life-form's and extracting their soul for consumption. Not only were souls being made into a commodity that could be exchanged with currency, but also it would become a finite resource. They would either turn on themselves, or their paranoia for death would push them to invade other shards and the source to steal their souls.
We would've had to make this decision in the future anyways.

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I haven't finished because after I killed the kids I needed a break. But from my understanding we did nothing to destroy their soul cleansing machine and therefore the people of Everkeep are still functioning off the same currency they always have which means that no, Erenville won't find his mother in the aetherial sea as her memories have already been extracted and now deleted and her soul is a token in someone's headpiece.

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Originally Posted by weebtext

Don't worry, since we don't consider them to be alive we're not guilty of murder for killing the-- hey wait a goddamn minute

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https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...960&height=540

I never posted here or on any MMO forum, but after finishing the MSQ this evening...this expansion's MSQ was just painful. Bad dialogue, too much Wuk, too much cringe moments, I have never skipped more cutscenes than in any other story. A lot filler/errand missions. The story just didn't hit at all for me and I think whoever wrote it is mentally ill, I honestly could not understand half of it.

Boss fights absolutely sucked for normal content and those kind of fights should reserved for the last fight in the MSQ, or Extreme or higher. Every dungeon boss fight was misery.

And to amplify my pain, I am BLM main. This was pure hell. I glad this MSQ is over. I usually take my time to savor the story, but no, not this time. I felt compelled to just grind through it, and be done with it. Good riddance.

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Originally Posted by DaveFishnomer

AI is not real ? you and all humans are AI, our brain is just a computer running on electricity that is powered by a biological engine, it is not a matter of if AI is alive it a matter of at what point is becomes alive, I dont know where the line IS but I do think that having feelings, memories, senses, self awareness and agency is well above what you would consider most "real" animals to be.
The "AI" that are the endless are very much real.

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Seeing how potent the latest "AI" models have become. I'm firm believer that ourselves are nothing more than biological analogous computers, specialized in pattern recognition (give or take other services). The question is how far away we are from a model that contains self-preservation and better long-term memory to make them more comparable to existing life.

And inb4 "Humans have to learn from experiences and whatnot". Humans and other biological life-forms comes "pre-compiled" with a bunch complicated algorithms that it took billions of years to develop through evolution. We are and will never be a clean slate, much like the currently developed AI aren't.

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Originally Posted by Lady_Silvermoon

Otis. We should have found another solution for Otis.

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You mean the guy who we saw DYING after he sacrificed himself? They made it so clear that the Otis in the Living Memories was not the same Otis we met in Heritage Found.

And for the rest, you clearly didn't understand what the story was trying to tell.

There was NO TIME for us to try and find any other way. Have you not played the story? After we beat Zoraal Ja, Sphene told us what she is going to do and vanished. Only after we traveled through the gate did we get told by Cahciua what we even could do to stop that plan.

We even stood in front of Meso Terminal, trying to reason with Sphene, but she just told it us that it is too late and she sees no otther way. Who do you think would we try to reason with to find another way? All while the computer was calculating the fusion stuff.

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Originally Posted by Shialan

You mean the guy who we saw DYING after he sacrificed himself? They made it so clear that the Otis in the Living Memories was not the same Otis we met in Heritage Found.

And for the rest, you clearly didn't understand what the story was trying to tell.

There was NO TIME for us to try and find any other way. Have you not played the story? After we beat Zoraal Ja, Sphene told us what she is going to do and vanished. Only after we traveled through the gate did we get told by Cahciua what we even could do to stop that plan.

We even stood in front of Meso Terminal, trying to reason with Sphene, but she just told it us that it is too late and she sees no otther way. Who do you think would we try to reason with to find another way? All while the computer was calculating the fusion stuff.

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And us walking through parks giving people their last send off as we headed for the consoles took at most a few hours. Compared to finding working solutions to the problem which would have taken months to years to make functional. Sphene gave us no time. It was either now or another calamity.

Not to mention that the endless are also fairly accepting to the predicament they were in. Even Outis understood that Espene wasn't the queen he swore to protect.

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Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

Not to mention that the endless are also fairly accepting to the predicament they were in. Even Outis understood that Espene wasn't the queen he swore to protect.

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There is a reasonable problem with this this though -- all those people agreeing with the need for their own destruction, are written in by the devs that themselves believe they are right about their story being good, so we know they are crafted to loyally to the intent of the writers defend the indefensible. There is no independent source of fact there.

The way the MSQ story goes is true and good, because the way the MSQ story goes teaches us so. It is totally circular, and building an argument on that will never be able to convince someone who is already outside the circle looking at it from the outside. Our characters are inside the story nodding it along, but we players exist outside the game, and are capable of looking at it from the outside by definition.