*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

I mean, if someone told me an apocalypse was coming, I'd want to know what caused it and how they know. I wouldn't have any reason to even believe them otherwise.

Also the issue isn't Fandaniel being suspected by others - it's him putting two and two together, figuring out that the universe is dead and empty outside of Etheriys, and that his beloved creation wants to bring sweet death to everyone and everything he knows.

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Yeah you have Hermes who basically needed to wipe his own memories so that he would stand and fight alongside his people for survival. A Fandaniel who somehow learns the truth could be a huge danger. Him finding out could in the worst case just destroy everything.

And for the rest of the people: We dont really know how many Ancients Venat even talked to. There is probably no reason to talk to every single one of them because how could she even prove something like that? And how would these people react to learning about the horrible future that could be in store for them. After all we see with the Ea how knowledge can destroy a race.

So she probably had to be really careful on whom to contact. And she did contact others. After all we know that she created the rabbits and the moon prison with them.

Its just that in the end we bascially are missing a lot of the stuff that happened between us leaving Elpis and Venat sundering the world. Heck we dont even know how long it took for the Final Days to arrive.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Yeah you have Hermes who basically needed to wipe his own memories so that he would stand and fight alongside his people for survival. A Fandaniel who somehow learns the truth could be a huge danger. Him finding out could in the worst case just destroy everything.

And for the rest of the people: We dont really know how many Ancients Venat even talked to. There is probably no reason to talk to every single one of them because how could she even prove something like that? And how would these people react to learning about the horrible future that could be in store for them. After all we see with the Ea how knowledge can destroy a race.

So she probably had to be really careful on whom to contact. And she did contact others. After all we know that she created the rabbits and the moon prison with them.

Its just that in the end we bascially are missing a lot of the stuff that happened between us leaving Elpis and Venat sundering the world. Heck we dont even know how long it took for the Final Days to arrive.

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As has been posted in here god knows how many times, the "how could she prove" argument is beyond watered down. The echo exists, she can show them that way or they can look into her memories.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Yeah you have Hermes who basically needed to wipe his own memories so that he would stand and fight alongside his people for survival. A Fandaniel who somehow learns the truth could be a huge danger. Him finding out could in the worst case just destroy everything.

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Yeah, we - and also Venat knows what happens when Fandaniel has an existensial crisis. He is willing to spend thousands of years pretending to be your ally, while working behind the scenes to make sure that when he gets the oppurtunity, he can hijack Zodiark and then kill and himself inside Zodiark, and jumpstart the Final Days all over again. This isn't speculation, it's what happened, and that was just from Xande telling him life is meaningless bro. Learning about Meteion would have been even worse for him.

Venat would have had to be incredibly careful to only let people know that a) would believe her b) wouldn't panic and c) wouldn't believe it's thier civic duty to immediately inform the convocation (and therefore Fandaniel) about the impending crisis. That probably ends up being a very small list of people.

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

This is an mmorpg, we are the WoL and therefore we decide who we are, the WoL is not some independent character so from my perspective it makes absolute sense to join Emet Selch.

Another thing people forget is that they keep talking about "genocide" while Emet Selch did say that by perpetuating this farce you are only causing more destruction and suffering overall than just one quick worldwide snap destruction and that is a fact, the overall suffering and destruction would be far less if the Ancients were able to return by causing those rejoinings and that says a lot.


And how about the Ancients? Seems to me that people have completely forgotten and chose to justify the genocide of the ancients at the hands of Hydaelin which destroyed their entire civilization which was objectively superior, immortality, ability to create concepts, those are objectively superior traits and you cant argue against that.
It is like being a god and then turned into a mere mortal without any special powers, that is literal degradation.

So what we have now is people defending the genocide of the ancients and perpetuating a far worse and inferior world that is filled with destruction and suffering.

It would be similar like real life, the planet and species are a disaster, yet people due to their attachment would be willing to protect this war ridden planet(and not referring to just the current popular one) that might soon be uninhabitable due to climate change rather than see it gone to bring back an objectively superior world, because again, the ancients are not some delusional people like some IRL people who obsess over "le good old days", the ancients were objectively superior so you would be arguing against a better world simply because you are used to this disaster of a world.

And let's be honest, it is illogical to assume that Ancients wouldnt have figured out the problem considering how research focused they were and how zodiarc protected the planet for literally thousands of years and would for many more.

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Rather late reply, but you control the Warrior of Light within the context of the story. You can RP personality to an extent, but ultimately you have no control over the major choices the Warrior of Light makes. The writers of the story have that. And in their story, the Warrior of Light doesn't stand for what Emet does and thus chooses to fight against him. You can RP perhaps specific reasons why, but you don't really have a say in the end over the action itself.

This isn't DnD where you can make any choice you want. Ultimately the Warrior of Light feels certain ways about things regardless of how you feel. They have personality traits that are clearly seen no matter who is playing (they are generally pretty stoic, they nod a lot, they are really kind of a giant push over when people ask them to do stuff, etc etc). Roleplay and headcanon only goes so far in this kinda of storytelling.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

As has been posted in here god knows how many times, the "how could she prove" argument is beyond watered down. The echo exists, she can show them that way or they can look into her memories.

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I watched the Venat cutscene again on youtube to make sure.

This is what she states about the echo we use to see Hermes and Meteion on that isle: "Process of piecing together an event from ripples left in the ambient aether [...] such memories are giving to fading however and can prove challenging to visit."

So that method could easily not be useable anymore simply because the memories faded away.

That leaves us with the looking into her memory echo. Maybe she even used that to get all those ancients who followed her on her side. But even if she could prove it that way, it would still leave the aspect of how people would react to it.

As we found out in Elpis, the Ancients are not that horrible different from us. They may have a different way to look at the world and their role in it but they still seem to have the same emotions. Even in Eorzea the common people are not told everything because it could lead to panic and more problems. Why should it be different with the Ancients, especially when they on top of having our emotions, have creation magic too?

Its also bad if these things would then reach the attention of the wrong people, including Fandaniel.

So she probably needed to make sure to only show it to people that she can trust AND that will be helpful for the plan. What good would it do to tell x amount of people about the coming doom, hoping that they dont panic or gossip, when they might not have any skills that will help in avoiding it?

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In the end we dont have all the informations. We dont know if those Ancients we saw in that one recording in shadowbringer were all those that were on her side or only those in the most inner circle..the ones that will die for her. Elidibus only came out of Zodiark because there were enough Ancients against their plan, so I doubt it would just have been those we see in that recording. Maybe she had more on her side that helped but were not willing to bascially became fuel for her.

How cute that it wouldn’t have worked because their memories faded meanwhile we’re out here passing out from glimpses of other people’s private lives from 200 years ago in the middle of battle. Seriously how is that supposed to make sense? They can’t view where they were then because they forgot? Meanwhile our minds get randomly assaulted with visions of stuff we weren’t there for?

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Originally Posted by Alleo

We dont know if those Ancients we saw in that one recording in shadowbringer were all those that were on her side or only those in the most inner circle..the ones that will die for her.

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We don't know this. The Anyder cutscene is at best inconclusive and at worst evidence she never told anyone the truth, including her own summoners who quite possibly ended up having their souls consumed without consent. It's basically another case of "just take Venat's word for it because there's literally nothing else in game that supports it (if not outright contradicts it)".

Especially given that by all appearances the 3rd sacrifice was a red herring, it would mean whatever followers she amassed were under false pretenses. Further adding to this is none of her actual minions know anything either, like the Watcher or the lopporits. It really does appear she never confided anything to anyone, even those there's no excuse to not tell the truth.

It's not surprising as I can't imagine she'd be able to convince any sane person that their single only option was omnicide, the result of which was not guaranteed success.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

I watched the Venat cutscene again on youtube to make sure.

This is what she states about the echo we use to see Hermes and Meteion on that isle: "Process of piecing together an event from ripples left in the ambient aether [...] such memories are giving to fading however and can prove challenging to visit."

So that method could easily not be useable anymore simply because the memories faded away.

That leaves us with the looking into her memory echo. Maybe she even used that to get all those ancients who followed her on her side. But even if she could prove it that way, it would still leave the aspect of how people would react to it.

As we found out in Elpis, the Ancients are not that horrible different from us. They may have a different way to look at the world and their role in it but they still seem to have the same emotions. Even in Eorzea the common people are not told everything because it could lead to panic and more problems. Why should it be different with the Ancients, especially when they on top of having our emotions, have creation magic too?

Its also bad if these things would then reach the attention of the wrong people, including Fandaniel.

So she probably needed to make sure to only show it to people that she can trust AND that will be helpful for the plan. What good would it do to tell x amount of people about the coming doom, hoping that they dont panic or gossip, when they might not have any skills that will help in avoiding it?

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In the end we dont have all the informations. We dont know if those Ancients we saw in that one recording in shadowbringer were all those that were on her side or only those in the most inner circle..the ones that will die for her. Elidibus only came out of Zodiark because there were enough Ancients against their plan, so I doubt it would just have been those we see in that recording. Maybe she had more on her side that helped but were not willing to bascially became fuel for her.

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Im not saying to tell every random joe whats going to happen. At the very least though, tell the convocation, seeing as theyre the higher ups and more powerful of people. She knows who is important, she has knowledge of it.I believe she even says at a specific point that the common people could indeed handle being told the truth.Also yes, the memory echo is specifcally what i was talking about, not whatever else you brought up.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Im not saying to tell every random joe whats going to happen. At the very least though, tell the convocation, seeing as theyre the higher ups and more powerful of people. She knows who is important, she has knowledge of it.I believe she even says at a specific point that the common people could indeed handle being told the truth.Also yes, the memory echo is specifcally what i was talking about, not whatever else you brought up.

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Exactly how easy the memory echo is to use is also an open ended question. We’re shown multiple examples of the Unsundered not using it when it’s to their own benefit, (Lahabrea and Thordan, Emet and the Crystal Exarch, Emet/Hyth and the WoL in Elpis) so exactly how useful it would be to verifying specific information remains unclear.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

Exactly how easy the memory echo is to use is also an open ended question. We’re shown multiple examples of the Unsundered not using it when it’s to their own benefit, (Lahabrea and Thordan, Emet and the Crystal Exarch, Emet/Hyth and the WoL in Elpis) so exactly how useful it would be to verifying specific information remains unclear.

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It's not like Venat's memories actually prove the Final Days are coming - she has memories of the WoL telling her about them, and Meteion's report, promise to kill us all and Hermes using Kairos.

None of that actually proves that the Final Days are coming to a skeptic. How do you know that Warrior of Light is telling the truth? How do you know this Meteion creature is even capable of what she says she's capable of? The two that could give corroborating testimony, Meteion and the WoL are long gone.

You could ask Fandaniel about the nature of Meteion, to understand if she could do what she says she can do, but now you're just back to the problem of letting Fandaniel know anything about the real causes of the Final Days.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

It's not like Venat's memories actually prove the Final Days are coming - she has memories of the WoL telling her about them, and Meteion's report, promise to kill us all and Hermes using Kairos.

None of that actually proves that the Final Days are coming to a skeptic. How do you know that Warrior of Light is telling the truth? How do you know this Meteion creature is even capable of what she says she's capable of? The two that could give corroborating testimony, Meteion and the WoL are long gone.

You could ask Fandaniel about the nature of Meteion, to understand if she could do what she says she can do, but now you're just back to the problem of letting Fandaniel know anything about the real causes of the Final Days.

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You act like the ancients are stupid. I don’t know if people are just willfully being obtuse or what but it has been stated many a time. Venat isn’t some random person. She is a highly respected ex-member of the convocation. We are shown in Elpis, the ancients are open to ideas and even skeptical Emet is shown to at the very least be forced to believe our story and investigate due to his duty to the star. The probability of the convocation hearing her story and looking into her memories and deducing “this is all fake” or “wow what a liar you are” is astronomically low. Also, Azem is a convocation member at this time are they not? If they look into her memories and see it’s Azem’s familiar that gives her this info, that adds even more credibility. Hell, if we actually had any agency, we could have Venat look into our memories, and then with those memories she now has of us showing her, she can then show that to the Convocation. It’s not exactly rocket science and it’s perfectly in line with how we have seen the echo used, especially with Bozja as an example of memory.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Venat isn’t some random person. She is a highly respected ex-member of the convocation.

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To be precise, Venat is respected as an ex-member of the Convocation. She is not respected as herself; the respect is all based on her former office. This would imply (and is shown) that Venat, as an ex-member of the Convocation, is not as respected as a current member of the Convocation, which would include Emet-Selch and Fandaniel.

Venat herself was seen as a very strange person, which is only adjacent to respect at best. This is because she refused to "return to the star" after her tenure on the Convocation, and this is against the "traditions" of the Ancients. For another similar case, consider how "respected" Matoya is to the Sharlayan Forum. There's no contempt as such, but rather a sort of avoidance and pretending that she is not relevant to anything, while possibly giving her bureaucratic makework just to fit her into the general org chart; in Venat's case as a sort of surrogate Azem when Azem isn't around, and in Matoya's case as the default caretaker of the Antitower after it was abandoned and superseded by the Aitiascope.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

To be precise, Venat is respected as an ex-member of the Convocation. She is not respected as herself; the respect is all based on her former office. This would imply (and is shown) that Venat, as an ex-member of the Convocation, is not as respected as a current member of the Convocation, which would include Emet-Selch and Fandaniel.

Venat herself was seen as a very strange person, which is only adjacent to respect at best. This is because she refused to "return to the star" after her tenure on the Convocation, and this is against the "traditions" of the Ancients. For another similar case, consider how "respected" Matoya is to the Sharlayan Forum. There's no contempt as such, but rather a sort of avoidance and pretending that she is not relevant to anything, while possibly giving her bureaucratic makework just to fit her into the general org chart; in Venat's case as a sort of surrogate Azem when Azem isn't around, and in Matoya's case as the default caretaker of the Antitower after it was abandoned and superseded by the Aitiascope.

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To be even more precise then, she was on friendly terms with Emet-Selch, who like you say, was a pretty influential figure. As was Hythlodaeus, who himself says he would like to look into the matter of his memory erasure. So please try to find some other excuse because this one just isnt working at all. Far too many plotholes so go on, ill be waiting.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

To be precise, Venat is respected as an ex-member of the Convocation. She is not respected as herself; the respect is all based on her former office. This would imply (and is shown) that Venat, as an ex-member of the Convocation, is not as respected as a current member of the Convocation, which would include Emet-Selch and Fandaniel.

Venat herself was seen as a very strange person, which is only adjacent to respect at best. This is because she refused to "return to the star" after her tenure on the Convocation, and this is against the "traditions" of the Ancients. For another similar case, consider how "respected" Matoya is to the Sharlayan Forum. There's no contempt as such, but rather a sort of avoidance and pretending that she is not relevant to anything, while possibly giving her bureaucratic makework just to fit her into the general org chart; in Venat's case as a sort of surrogate Azem when Azem isn't around, and in Matoya's case as the default caretaker of the Antitower after it was abandoned and superseded by the Aitiascope.

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There's also the fact that Fandaniel is also a highly respected member of the convocation, and any testimony Venat gives to the convocation is going to eventually lead to her accusing Fandaniel of some pretty serious offenses.

I don't think the convocation would just accept those accusations at face value, there'd be an investigation, Fandaniel would be given a chance to defend himself- and oh no, looks like Fandaniel summoned Kairos and activated it again, and this time made sure Venat got hit by it too.

And I don't think Emet-Selch would be on board with Venat trying to tell just him and keeping the truth away from Fandaniel and the rest of the convocation, I think he'd be pretty offended by the idea of lying to and keeping secrets from his fellow Convocation members.

Both Venat and Emet believed the word of a 'familiar' claiming to be from the future enough to investigate their claims, so it's hard to take these reasons why Venat would've been dismissed seriously.

Fact of the matter is, Elpis in and of itself was inconsistent. Emet expresses concerns about Kairos when it's first mentioned, but later after he's a victim of said device decides it's not important? The Echo scene with Venat probably shouldn't have happened at all because it throws a wrench into everything following it.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Both Venat and Emet believed the word of a 'familiar' claiming to be from the future enough to investigate their claims, so it's hard to take these reasons why Venat would've been dismissed seriously.

Fact of the matter is, Elpis in and of itself was inconsistent. Emet expresses concerns about Kairos when it's first mentioned, but later after he's a victim of said device decides it's not important? The Echo scene with Venat probably shouldn't have happened at all because it throws a wrench into everything following it.

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Emet was more than skeptical actually. While he does investigate the issue he states plainly that he doesn’t believe we were telling the truth even after Ktisis. On top of that, if disclosure was the plan then as was pointed out Venat would be having to convince the Convocation of Hermes actions as well, to which he would obviously argue against.

This leads to several problems. First this would sow discord in the Convocation at the worst possible time. Second it would deny the Ancients their foremost expert on celestial aether currents at a moment when that field is integral to survival, and third it could potentially sow panic as people find out about the fate of other stars and the threat of Meteion. The benefit of disclosure rapidly diminishes with each additional problem.

And one other small disagreement. Hades dismissed the importance of the lost memories, not the act of having Kairos used on him. He actually seemed quite angry about the latter, the former he doesn’t have any reason to think much of.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

To be even more precise then, she was on friendly terms with Emet-Selch, who like you say, was a pretty influential figure. As was Hythlodaeus, who himself says he would like to look into the matter of his memory erasure. So please try to find some other excuse because this one just isnt working at all. Far too many plotholes so go on, ill be waiting.

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Hythlodaeus said he was going to look into the memory erasure, but as we know based on how history proceeded, this resulted in no significant outcome. Emet-Selch himself said he did not care and did not see the value in looking into that memory erasure, and also given how history proceeded, we can assume that either he had no success, or he meant what he said and completely dismissed it.

Emet-Selch and Venat were on terms that could be considered "friendly", but Emet-Selch, as we see in Elpis, did not wish to engage further with Venat than he truly had to. He tolerates Venat's oddities, and apparently tolerates Azem's oddities just as much if not more, but without any prompting, he would just as well ignore Venat's existence. Consider that this is Emet-Selch's very first visit to Elpis, such that he required a guide in Hythlodaeus. Meanwhile, Venat is living in Elpis, even if she commutes to wherever she wants to go. This does not seem like enough of a link to the current Convocation to use as backing to accuse another member of the Convocation, especially given Emet-Selch was the one to recruit Hermes as Fandaniel in the first place, while ignoring his memory erasure.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

Hythlodaeus said he was going to look into the memory erasure, but as we know based on how history proceeded, this resulted in no significant outcome. Emet-Selch himself said he did not care and did not see the value in looking into that memory erasure, and also given how history proceeded, we can assume that either he had no success, or he meant what he said and completely dismissed it.

Emet-Selch and Venat were on terms that could be considered "friendly", but Emet-Selch, as we see in Elpis, did not wish to engage further with Venat than he truly had to. He tolerates Venat's oddities, and apparently tolerates Azem's oddities just as much if not more, but without any prompting, he would just as well ignore Venat's existence. Consider that this is Emet-Selch's very first visit to Elpis, such that he required a guide in Hythlodaeus. Meanwhile, Venat is living in Elpis, even if she commutes to wherever she wants to go. This does not seem like enough of a link to the current Convocation to use as backing to accuse another member of the Convocation, especially given Emet-Selch was the one to recruit Hermes as Fandaniel in the first place, while ignoring his memory erasure.

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My point about Hythlodaeus’ comment was that they knew they were mind wiped, so all it would take is her going hey, i have the memories of how you got mind wiped. They aren’t so stupid as to believe “oh yeah you’re lying even though that makes logical sense and we have the missing memories to prove it and connect it.” Idk if it’s people purposely trying to underplay the ancients and their smarts/knowledge or what but…geez.I mean theres literally ancients there that can attest to seeing us going inside Ktisis etc.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

My point about Hythlodaeus’ comment was that they knew they were mind wiped, so all it would take is her going hey, i have the memories of how you got mind wiped. They aren’t so stupid as to believe “oh yeah you’re lying even though that makes logical sense and we have the missing memories to prove it and connect it.” Idk if it’s people purposely trying to underplay the ancients and their smarts/knowledge or what but…geez.I mean theres literally ancients there that can attest to seeing us going inside Ktisis etc.

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The story does a piss poor job of framing ancients as a super intelligent race, if Emet's '' sundering also affected your intelligence '' is not a cope, but reality. But if the ancients are this super intelligent race of people as Emet claims they are, then the same can be said about Venat, and that the innate superb intelligence of ancients must've also affected Venat's decision in regards to how she treats the information she has.

I get the impression it's less the Sundered being less intelligent and more them having simply lost so much that tens of thousands of years hasn't been sufficient to rediscover the bulk of what the Ancients knew. We learned from Emet-Selch's reaction to the whole G'raha/Crystal Tower time travel debacle that, given time and effort, the Sundered were plenty capable of grasping things even their forebears hadn't yet figured out by the time their civilization ended. The raw intellectual capacity of modern Sundered appears to be close, if not equal, to what it once was.

The above said, it should be noted Emet-Selch saw the Sundered as they were immediately after they were split. They initially had very unstable forms, and their minds were diminished to the point they couldn't even form cogent thoughts, let alone utilize anything resembling language. Seeing what had once been his people like that probably colored his views, particularly once he started making liberal use of copium as the weight of what he had to do gradually crushed his spirit and will to continue.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

My point about Hythlodaeus’ comment was that they knew they were mind wiped, so all it would take is her going hey, i have the memories of how you got mind wiped. They aren’t so stupid as to believe “oh yeah you’re lying even though that makes logical sense and we have the missing memories to prove it and connect it.” Idk if it’s people purposely trying to underplay the ancients and their smarts/knowledge or what but…geez.I mean theres literally ancients there that can attest to seeing us going inside Ktisis etc.

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Hythlodaeus said he would possibly go ask Venat about the "strange person" who went in with them, while Emet-Selch is completely dismissive of the whole thing and refuses to even spend time thinking about it. And in that situation, Emet-Selch is the ranking Ancient, and Hermes would soon also be a Convocation member and thus outrank Hythlodaeus and Venat.

Note that at no point did Hythlodaeus even consider asking the Ancients on scene about our presence, or Meteion, or whatever might have caused the "malfunction" of Kairos. Which is understandable, because it's not his job to do so. It's Emet-Selch's job, and he clearly washed his hands of the matter. This seems like it would be a reinforcement of Venat's belief that Emet-Selch, and the Convocation, would not believe what she said. And given how the Hythlodaeus on the Moon did not recognize us (except for our soul resembling Azem), I would assume he never got around to asking Venat about us either.

I do actually think the Ancients have certain biases that hinder their intelligence. They're all portrayed quite consistently as being very smart, but only in their specific field of work. For everything else, they appear to be strangely incurious: I'm reminded of the "brain-attic" theory from the Sherlock Holmes stories, and I believe we all agree that Holmes is certainly very smart. But if it's not relevant to their work, they don't care enough to look into it. There may be exceptions to this lack of curiosity, but apart from characters like Venat and Themis, we don't meet them in our time in Elpis. (Maybe there's a FATE NPC in Elpis somewhere?)

I think that we're missing important pieces of the puzzle here from Pandaemonium/Myths. You can speculate as to why things played out the way that they did, but it may all change in the coming patches anyways.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Both Venat and Emet believed the word of a 'familiar' claiming to be from the future enough to investigate their claims, so it's hard to take these reasons why Venat would've been dismissed seriously.

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We never claimed to be from the future, at least voluntarily. Venat deduced that there was no other explanation for us having the mark of her magic upon us, and we accepted and agreed with her (correct) theory.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Both Venat and Emet believed the word of a 'familiar' claiming to be from the future enough to investigate their claims, so it's hard to take these reasons why Venat would've been dismissed seriously.

Fact of the matter is, Elpis in and of itself was inconsistent. Emet expresses concerns about Kairos when it's first mentioned, but later after he's a victim of said device decides it's not important? The Echo scene with Venat probably shouldn't have happened at all because it throws a wrench into everything following it.

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How do you know that he didn't?
The cutscene after we leave Elpis doesn't play out immediately after we leave, a lot of time passes between we leave and then.

Just because we don't see him deal with Kairos doesn't mean that he just dismissed it outright, for all we know it was destroyed soon after we left because of what happened.
And then they had more important matters to worry about.

I do agree that it's a really interesting situation where all sides are sort of both villainous and heroic not only depending on perspective, but also in that none of them KNEW their solution was actually the better one. However, we were only able to defeat Meteon BECAUSE The Warrior of Light and The Scions were born in the world full of suffering that Venat made, so I think that's why Emet Selch mentions that his plan wouldn't have worked, as he wanted you to become a rather mindless Light Warden, and the reason you and the scions were able to harness dynamis so well in order to win was BECAUSE you had a world of people to save. I think that's why Emet says his plan wouldn't have worked, as even if The Ascians have access to dynamis (we don't know to what extent as they barely knew about it), they did NOT have the tenacity and grit born from our brief lifespans of suffering described in Answers.

There's also the point that Venat did what she did, because she knew from our time travel that it would work to some extent. She probably also connected the dots and realized that it was a time loop, just as we could have at certain points. She heard our story and noticed all of the powers we overcame, all of the triumphs we shouldn't have had the strength to overcome (as almost every major villain ponders upon being defeated), and realizes that even over multiple millennium, with the core three restoring the memories of the rest of the 14 who could work on and ponder solutions, the Ascians STILL hadn't figured out Dynamis. She also knows that Aether and Dynamis don't interact, so winning with Aether would be quite impossible, which is a problem without The Source's creation as Ascians seem to be far too intertwined with aether (as Emet Selch seems to realize when he admits his plans wouldn't have worked). Sure, she may not have KNOWN that Ascians couldn't harness dynamis, but her people were sacrificing themselves at a rapid rate, so if she took the risk to keep the Ascians, they probably would've suffered the same fate as all the other stars, rather than sacrificing themselves to create an actual solution, which is what she forced them to do.

That's how I see it anyway. I also think Emet, in addition to many other plans, was gauging our strength to test if the people of the source were made whole enough, with the current number of rejoinings, to sacrifice to Zodiak in exchange for his people. Not that he was straight up planning on killing us and betraying us like that, but rather as an option, since that's what the Ascians were planning on doing until Venat intervened.

I was thinking Venat sort of jumped the gun, but now that I think about it, there was a lot of pressure to drastic action sooner than later. Even since the beginning with The Ultima Weapon, Hydaelyn exhausted all the strength she could to keep us alive, so had she waited ANY LONGER to do the Hydaelyn plan or something similar, then Hydaelyn wouldn't have been powerful enough to do the many life-saving, and therefore universe saving, things required to nurture The Warrior of Light into a strong enough weapon. MAYBE we could've won with Emet Selch, however she KNEW that going with the time loop would guarantee a force strong enough to defeat: 1v2 Igoram and Lahabrea (essentially in soul strength terms adding up it would be at most 1 Ascian worth of souls and aether), defeat Emet Selch WHILE ON THE VERGE OF DEATH, defeat Elidibus both as The Emissary holding the power of all of the souls of 75% of the Ascian race (or whatever power is left over from keeping the earth alive) and as Elidibus The Warrior of Light PRIMAL wielding the power OF THE PRAYERS of an army of Warrior of Lights, The Ultima Weapon whatever that means to her (I haven't done Endwalker patches or raids yet, so don't spoil Pandaemonium for me), and who knows what else she saw. It also doesn't seem to be an impulse reaction, since a lot of time, and a lot of sacrifices, took place between when she learns this and when she sunders everyone.
[2/3]... whoops

Had the 14 known, collectively they couldn't have justified or agreed on making the ultimate sacrifice of EVERYONE like she made, but had she not done that, The Ascians probably wouldn't have won considering all the pieces that line up for our Final Day fight (Zenos, fake echo, Ultima, Shinryu, all the present scions, including time-traveled apocalypse survivor G'raha and reformed Vengence addict Estinien, Omega, Alpha ... and so forth due to Zenos & Shinryu just about everything significant in history is tied into this moment), and it took all of our friend's VARIETY of experiences and DIFFERENCES that allowed us to Close in the Distance and win. We won because this world of suffering that Venat made gave us the variety of sufferings overcome and variety of strengths and experiences to overcome fallen worlds full of suffered souls and unending despair. Venats choice works BECAUSE Hermes wasn't just maliciously villainous, he was broken by the faults in Ascian society and culture, so if Venat HAD gambled into a new unknown timeline, then that wouldn't fix the fault Hermes broke over where The Ascians missed that the point of any individual life IS to find their own reason for living. With Emet's plan, they'd end up just like the other worlds who achieve whatever universal cultural goals their societies decide is most important, rather than ending up with a diverse world full of different goals and dreams. Just as Emet States, The Asians were more alike to one another than different (I couldn't find the exact quote, and have NO recollection of when he said it), and as The Traveler, Venat understood that BEFORE Hermes or the final days, so she had likely been thinking about it for a long time, and the time travel loop knowledge only confirmed the idea and the final days, slowly losing everyone, pushed her to realize that the fault was WITH The Ascians as they were, and if this UNIVERSE ENDING threat was to be vanquished, she had to act before it was too late.

WOW I REALLY wish I could find a writing job I'm interested in, as I just ADHD zoned out and typed this out for WAY too long.

I'm years late to the party but helping Emet would mean that you would die. And if you didn't die during the subsequent rejoinings he would have offered you up as a sacrifice to zodiark.